The Adventure Zone: Amnesty - Episode 2

January 18, 2018 11:50 AM

Our heroes take one step closer toward their joined destinies, and learn the truth about the woods outside Kepler in their own ways. Aubrey visits the Lodge. Ned shoots a fan film. Duck gets a visit from an old friend.
posted by Tevin (9 comments total)

All the characters in this round match up with looks from their tv show, this is how I'm picturing them. Duck is Justin's Safety Town outfit, Aubrey is Travis in his "Illuminati 2, vaudeville usher looking for a management position" outfit, Clint's character is, I'm gonna say, his tuexedo outfit cause that amuses me.
posted by bleep at 4:54 PM on January 18, 2018 [2 favorites]

Also any adventure time fans picture Jake's bio dad when Griffin mentioned eyes that aren't where eyes should be.
posted by bleep at 4:55 PM on January 18, 2018

"And did you master this crossed-fit martial art, Duck Newton?"

"Well, the first session was free..."
posted by nubs at 9:16 PM on January 18, 2018 [9 favorites]

I choose to believe that Ned's story is partially inspired by "Pottersville."
posted by drezdn at 5:14 AM on January 19, 2018

1) A network needs to option this story like, yesterday. It'll never actually get made, but somebody needs to gobble up the rights to adapt it.

2) People have been pointing it out and now I can't unsee it, but Griffin needs to lay off a bit. At one point he described Duck approaching something with trepidation and I thought, "Hey! You have the entire rest of the world. Let Justin decide how his character feels about what's going on." Especially so since PbtA has specific rules for when the GM steps in to take control of the action.

3) This is so good I want more.
posted by Mr.Encyclopedia at 12:51 PM on January 19, 2018 [6 favorites]

Yes Griffin is really doing too much describing how the player characters feel about stuff. It's reminding me a lot of how the Balance finale felt to me like a short story Griffin wrote and cast the family in to read some of the lines. Or like how when I was little and playing pretend with my friends we would do stuff like "Ok now you say ..." if one of us had a strong idea of where the story needed to go.
posted by bleep at 12:55 PM on January 19, 2018 [3 favorites]

I agree that Griffin can have a tendency to be controlling sometimes--I've noticed this in particular during Awful Squad. I think I've enjoyed TAZ most when Griffin doesn't try to control the little details of the player characters' personalities and what decisions they'd make in a given situation, but instead interacts with them through the world and his NPCs. Sometimes unexpected moments initiated by the players can be the most delightful moments (especially with Justin's characters, IMO)--like the scene with Taako and the FPRSoD or Duck's interactions with the spectral figure in this episode. That said, I really enjoyed the development in this episode and I'm looking forward to next week!
posted by Lurch at 1:39 PM on January 19, 2018

I feel like there’s a bit of time pressure to get the boys into the same place and it’s a limited arc, so Griffin pushing things along makes sense to me. He best bits in TAZ was always the interactions between the gang and them bouncing off each other.

Needless to say I’m loving this arc. Eerie Indiana meets X-Files via definitely-not-Buffy.
posted by slimepuppy at 2:01 AM on January 20, 2018 [1 favorite]

I really like the opportunity to give each of them a chance to show not tell with their character before we get some interactions; it's a technique I hope they use if/when they do another long arc.
posted by tchemgrrl at 8:19 AM on January 26, 2018