TAZmaniac: Graduation, Episode 2 Recap
No accounting for taste, or no taste for accounting?
(New here? Start with a recap of episode 1.)
The second episode of The Adventure Zone: Graduation opens with a re-introduction to every character we met last episode, and holy buckets, it’s a lot — 16 to be exact. I have a decent memory of most of them (Rainer the kind villain, Rhodes the self-important hero, Higgelmiss the mysterious headmaster), but I’m looking forward to learning more about the many the NPCs who populate this world. For now, though, we have our three heroes, who awaken on the first morning of class to find one of the school’s spectral cats in their dorm room.
Each of the three has his own reaction to the cat: Argo has apparently never seen a cat, and he’s terrified, but thanks to a remarkably good stealth check (+8 to stealth as a level one?!), he avoids any spectral maiming. Sir Fitzroy announces he’s (predictably) allergic to “quantumly entangled animals.” The firbolg is nonplussed (“It is…cat”). The firbolg tries to commune with it (his third animal communion of the campaign) but doesn’t make much progress, so Gary teaches them to shoo it away. In this exchange, we learn that although the Garys all share information instantaneously, each Gary supposedly has its own personality. I’m skeptical about whether Travis can keep that up.
Travis prompts Argo to visit the dining hall before class, but Griffin has another idea. He suggests the three roommates all have breakfast together — and thus begins Griffin’s backseat DMing. On their way down, Sir Fitzroy apologizes for his rude first impression, and we learn more about the others’ backstories: Argo wants to be a sidekick to “the great naval hero the Commodore” and firbolg “[is] nothing and [he] must serve.” All signs point to the firbolg having somehow dishonored himself/his clan, but we don’t yet know how. They arrive at breakfast, which is exceedingly fancy (although lacking a crepe master). Argo’s seafaring past presents in the form of scurvy goofs.
It’s the first day of class, and the boys start off their school year with electives. For Argo, this means Blame Taking. The class starts with a pop quiz of sorts: each student has to convince the professor that they stole a gold coin off his desk. Clint both rolls well on his performance check and performs well. He tells a story about being hard up for cash and then awkwardly asks if he can keep the gold at the end of the class (he can’t).
The firbolg has chosen to take Accounting, which Travis called an elective but which the professor (an owl aarakocra named Bartholomeus) says is absolutely required. This is the best scene of the episode for a few reasons. First, it’s great world building. Bartholomeus opens the class with a lecture on the importance of accounting, and through this lecture, we learn about the system of heroes and villains. One challenge of the story’s school setting is that our protagonists already know the answers to questions like, Why is there a school for heroes and villains? but we, the audience, don’t. This lecture delivers in-world history in a way that makes sense for the characters and the listeners.
Second, it’s hilarious. The firbolg’s people don’t have the concept of individual ownership — “Why would one have more than the others?” — and thus knows nothing at all about accounting. Unfortunately for him, Bartholomeus singles him out and attempts to design a word problem that’s easy enough for even the firbolg to solve. The firbolg alternates between screaming in pain from his accounting-induced headache and yes-anding the teacher:
Bartholomeus: It’s worth 25.
Bud: What is 25 of?
Bartholomeus: Doesn’t— doesn’t matter. It’s worth 25.
Bud: Acorn.
Bartholomeus: Sure. It’s worth 25 acorns.
The live studio audience (i.e. Griffin and Clint) can barely keep it together. Justin himself almost breaks character (“The squirrel has money?”). The firbolg even makes a joke of his own (“He may stay in the tree with me … upstairs.”) while Bartholomeus remains the stoic straight man. And then, just when it seems like they’re both on the same page:
Bartholomeus: So, 25 acorns.
Bud: I have this?
It’s all a very who’s-on-first situation.
(Many thanks to TAZscripts for the transcriptions. You can find links to all Graduation transcripts in the TAZscripts Tracking Document.)
The last reason I love this scene is that one of Travis’s biggest strengths is his earnestness, and this scene is earnest as heck. He’s not playing it for the goofs — at least not the moment-to-moment goofs. Instead, he’s delivering meta-humor: It’s funny because the most revered subject in their world is the most stereotypically boring subject in ours. His meta humor provides the perfect bedrock on which Justin can build his castle of goofs.
From accounting, we jump to the battlefield. It’s fun to see how battles work in such a safe, contained arena as a school. In this case, the battle is human shield training (according to Professor Crushman), aka cooperative defense (according to Professor Jimson), aka dodgeball (according to the rest of us). For added flavor, Travis has home-brewed some supplementary skill checks, like encouragement, which the boys use to boost their hero’s/villain’s attacks, or blame taking, which Argo used in class. These campaign-specific checks makes this feel like a different game than the D&D they played in Balance.
What I’m not wild about is Griffin throwing a wrench in his own plan by having Sir Fitzroy cast Thunderwave when he meant to cast Magehand. D&d is a power exchange game as much as it is a rollplaying game, and, as Griffin pointed out in The The Adventure Zone Zone “MaxFun Drive 2019 Special”, the storytelling power shifts based on the roll: “When you guys roll well, you’re in charge of where the story goes. When you roll poorly, I’m in charge.” If Sir Fitzroy can’t entirely control his power, then I’d argue that Griffin shouldn’t be able to control it either. Again, this feels a bit like backseat DMing to me.
But regardless, Sir Fitzroy accidentally Thunderwaves all his classmates and is sent to see Festo, the Elmo-voiced magic teacher. Here, we learn more about Sir Fitzroy’s backstory: he wanted to be a knight for his entire life, went to Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School, and then was expelled when he suddenly developed magic powers and turned his teacher into a catfish. So, basically he’s in magic puberty, and he desperately wants his magic to go away.
Festo does some tests and diagnoses the problem: his magic is sad. So Festo manifest(o)s a familiar, which takes the form of a crab. Sir Fitzroy is not happy about this new responsibility, but he doesn’t abandon it, either. (“Do you need me to take care of you?” he asks the crab. Is this his chivalrous side showing?)
He takes his crab buddy to the tavern and arrives just as the group has elected that Argo buy the next round. Argo is extremely anxious about paying for the drinks despite having a line of credit from the school. Perhaps his performance in Blame Taking wasn’t such a performance after all. (Speaking of credit: Travis is establishing up front the in-game answers to a lot of issues that went generally unresolved in past campaigns, like, When do the characters eat? and, Why don’t they ever use money outside of the Fantasy Costco?)
While the bartender is off searching for a drink, Jackle, the sneakery teacher, appears next to Argo. Instead of introducing himself or otherwise entering into an ordinary conversation, he indicates that he’s been stalking his future student, saying, “I know about you, Argonaut Keene“ and “You are not exactly what you seem.” Creepy, much? Argo asks to continue this conversation later, in private, and Jackle continues the cryptic messages: “Perhaps we will discuss Mariah.”
After this unsettling encounter, the episode takes one last turn for the funny. Argo returns to the table to find Sir Fitzroy attempting to name his crab buddy.
Fitzroy: I’m thinking about Snippy! Snippy or Clippy? Or Gurgles? He makes a gurgle noise.
…
The Firbolg: [clears throat] When have I made a gurgle noise?
A few other notes from this episode: 1. I’m noticing a theme of partners/siblings being each other’s side kick or henchperson. So far, we have the Wiggenstaff brothers, husbands Jimson and Crushman, and twins Pip and Dip. I’m interested to see how this theme evolves. 2. Harry Potter appears to exist in this world. Gary announces that if you shit on the floor, it won’t magically disappear, and that students really need to stop looking for secret passageways. Meanwhile, Sir Fitzroy asks if the staircases move. (They don’t.) 3. It’s really fucking me up that there’s a Leon here and there was a Leon in Balance.
(Read the recap of episode 3 here.)
Favorite goof:
Clint: Is there an omelet bar?
Travis: [laughing] Hell yeah, there’s an omelet bar! There’s three!
Griffin: Is there… is there a crepe master?
Travis: [forcefully] No.
Fitzroy: God… Does this school have anything?!
