The Adventure Zone

Are these comics any good? I just want a silly fun fantasy book, but I think these are based on some web show. So maybe they are just cheap cash grabs.

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Yeah, they are adaptations of a DnD podcast. I listen to a few episodes. Ot is just that, silly fantasy adventures, but by what i understand it gets really personal and emotional late. on so i dont think it's just a cash grab. Not my cup of tea but maybe you will like it. It stayed in the Best Seller list for a long time.

Also wanted to get into it

They're okay. They are straight up adaptations of the campaigns they did on the podcast. If you don't like podcasts this is a good alternative. If you want silly and fun than this should appeal to you.

Havent found the comics but the podcast is great.

They're straight up adaptations of the podcast, but well-done. Make a few tweaks for better flow. Make a few cuts because there's only so many pages. Beautiful art.

I'd say the podcast is better but these are a wonderful companion piece.

I felt like the humor didn't translate from the podcast to the comic. The art is solid though.

I'd recommend just listening to it. And then drop it after they stop playing D&D. Even the last few arcs aren't great.

I loved the podcast they're based on, and these comics are great adaptations of the main story, while cutting out some of the back-and-forth between the IRL people. The most recent volume cut and changed some stuff, but the biggest change was really just implementing a later retcon much earlier into the story arc it changed. It works surprisingly well.

Fuck off, it didn't really go wrong until Graduation.
Amnesty was fun, Commitment was gloriously retarded (why yes, I WOULD like to see superheroes fighting a bunch of Christian Theme Park animatronics!), and even Dust had its moments.
There's no defending Graduation though. Travis has become the worst DM I've ever seen, and I have seen gross assholes show up to conventions without bothering to read the module beforehand.

>Anything by the McUckelroy brothers

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No if only they would make a Rude Tales of Magic comics.

>Not just any picture from modern DC, something with Cyborg shoved into the Justice League because they don't have enough black characters for two teams

You're the second person I've heard bring up Rude Tales recently. Sell an Adventure Zone fan on it. I've been burned by a few "no it's great, they have comedians play D&D" podcasts that ended up utterly lacking in charm.

Quick name someone with a more faggoty voice than those poz'd brothers on this show.

What exactly does Travis do wrong? He's always been the worst out of the three and I've been putting off listening to AZ and I'm curious to hear how he ruins it.

Branson Reese is the creator and he also does comics.

Clint > Justin > Griffin Lin>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>POWERGAP>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>Travis

He railroads hard and has too much special shit for every single PC and NPC. I have no idea why they didn't just pick up Dust and keep going with that. He's just not a great storyteller in general, everything he does is forcibly punctuated with some 2deep5me emotional stuff that isn't earned.

Balance and later on Amnesty felt like the big moments it had were earned, so far Graduation has just been a lot of boring railroading with a lot of forced feelings.

>Justin and Griffin are OG Polygon writers
>somehow they're still not the worst McElroys
why is Travis so shit

I've seen some railroading in my day, but Jesus Fucking Christ he takes it to the next level. Pretty much the only thing the boys had control over storywise was revealing their characters' backgrounds in little droplets, and then two weeks ago he did an episode where a god just spouts their secrets as exposition. Fuuuuucking hell, Travis. Just fuck you.
Way way way too many NPCs.
Railroading to a ludicrous degree.
No chances for them to actually roll and do anything - it's basically him narrating a story he came up with, giving the others some chances to add dialogue.
I will say that the latest ep was apparently him going "okay I've finished setting up the story, now do what you want. Seriously anything." Considering it's 20 eps in, kinda fucking late.

I will say that Bear was good, and (K)Nights and Dust were fairly enjoyable. So apparently it's that you can't give the guy too much rope or he'll hang himself.

Middle sibling.

Middle sibling and he's drank too deep of the tumblr koolaid. As I understand it he was pretty "problematic" early on and his persona going forward has seemed to be a kneejerk ever since.

I think it's worthwhile, the art looks pretty good, and if you're an autistic pleb like me who can't listen to podcasts (I read the transcripts, my auditory processing is absolute shit). Some of the pages are gorgeous in composition. They change some things like the names of DND book NPC's to avoid copywrite, and cut some goofs out to make the flow a lot more focused. Consider the podcast similar to a rough draft and this a polished and focused thing (with the tradeoff that you miss out on some of the podcast specific stuff)

>Ignoring Justin and Griffin both used to write for Joystiq

Dust was perfect for him. He's a micromanager which actually works well for that kind mystery where there's explicitly information that different characters have in different places and a strict timeframe to get the info. They should've had him do the occasional Dust arc whenever he came up with a decent "we can do this in 4 eps or so" mystery.
Clint's underrated as far as I'm concerned. Okay a bunch of his NPCs were him doing impressions of celebrities and Presidents... but he did great impressions, so the characters were memorable. And he had some quirky ideas. I would love to sit in on a session with him as DM, even if he was clearly tripping over the rules (and at least he knows he's not great at them, nothing sucks more than a DM that's bad with rules but thinks he's good).

>the tumblr coolaid
Naw, that's not an actual problem. He showed up with 50 NPCs he really wanted to show off, it doesn't matter if some are gay/nonbinary/disabled.

What kills me is that the premise isn't bad either. "There's a demon Prince that took over the levels of power in this world, and he's fucked up morality to the point where 'heroes' and 'villains' fighting is just large scale pro-wrestling (oh and there's no pro-bono heroics). But now he's bored and itching for a REAL fight." You can work with that. But you've gotta let your players have agency.

As someone that doesn't put Matt Mercer on a pedestal, it was satisfying watching Travis and Matt talk.
Matt said something like "The most important thing is making your players always feel in control. You can have the same information come from any NPC, but let them think they picked just the right NPC. If they pull the rug out from under your plans, roll with it," and Griffin was just frantically nodding like he was trying to psychically force his brother to listen.

This.

Clint's real good with character building/long-term improv.
The reveal at the end of Lords of Crunch was quite good.

The greenish elf chick is cute.

The flashback arc with the bonds is just awful.

Redpill me on Graduation. Travis is the worst Brother so that sounds like a nightmare

They're okay

Not even debatable.

>As I understand it he was pretty "problematic" early on and his persona going forward has seemed to be a kneejerk ever since.

Interesting. Source?

The podcast is boring garbo, the comics are funso.


and they change some character dynamics to make it less cringy which is good.

I only know of a Handful of good Tabletop Streams/Podcasts.

This isn't one of them

The most "The Adventure Zone" thing to ever happen was having Clint end up "the other bard" after Lin-Manuel Miranda joined the party as a bard. That's his gaming experience, right there.

Lord of Crunch was a fucking bright spot in my week (three fucking people on my shift tested positive. I fucking needed that laughter).

Also don't forget that he doesn't do anything in terms of voices and every character has a similar personality so it's kinda confusing if you don't pay attention.