TAZmaniac: Graduation, Episode 3 Recap
It’s what dreams are made of.
(New here? Start with a recap of episode 1.)
Another episode, another morning.
We start episode three with a trip into the psyche. The boys are waking up, and Travis wants to know what they dreamed. This gives me the perfect opportunity to talk about this campaign’s prompts. Namely, Travis has been giving the boys lots of opportunities to talk about what their characters dream and eat. These are not traditionally interesting topics, but I’d like to make the case for their merit.
I’m a sucker for lack of plot. Sure, fights and mysteries are exciting, but there’s something to be said for the depth of the everyday experience. After all, it’s often the small things that give our own lives meaning. To this end, I’m enjoying this campaign’s elements of realism, which make for a richer fantasy world. And along with describing the characters’ everyday experiences, these prompts also provide new opportunities for character growth.
When Travis asks what Sir Fitzroy dreams, Griffin gives a serviceable answer: Sir Fitzroy half-meditates with his eyes open and sees what’s in front of him, embellished with some fantastical details. But Travis doesn’t leave it at that.
Travis: “Is that a scary experience?”
Griffin: “I think it…was? Before this — I don’t think he had dreams before this.”
The dreams appeared with Sir Fitzroy’s powers, Griffin explains. This detail suggests a lot about Sir Fitzroy, and it helps to illuminate a portion of the character that even Griffin might not have known about. This DMing strategy reminds me more of an interview technique than an improv prompt. The interviewee doesn’t always know where the interesting bits of their own stories will be, but when pressed, something appears.
What woke our adventurers was a tiny tap-tap-tap on the door. Sir Fitzroy attempts to sic his crab, Snippers, on the supposed intruder (Pokémon-style). Snippers can’t attack, however, so Argo opens the door to find one of Rainer’s sentient squirrel skeletons, with an envelope in hand. The envelope contains a very formal invitation for our sidekicks to breakfast with Ranier (here comes another meal scene!). Sir Fitzroy attempts to dictate a message back to Rainer, but that’s beyond the crab’s capabilities, so the three (and Snippers) head to the dining hall.
On their way, they discuss their classes so far. Sir Fitzroy shows off some of his new crab-based magic, making Snippers disappear and reappear at will. The firbolg is remarkably impressed by this for someone who can do magic himself. The firbolg shares that haccounting continues to befuddle him. Justin tries to introduce the dunce cap into this school’s educational system, but Travis shuts down that idea. Argo expresses his wonder and confusion at how the grading system works. They arrive at the dining hall to find that Rainer has saved three seats for them and has ordered a special breakfast treat for Sir Fitzroy: a crepe!
While Sir Fitzroy yummies down, we learn some concerning details about his backstory. He’s not just a knight-in-training — he’s already been offered a knighthood. But the circumstances of this particular development are, as Argo puts it, “shady.” According to Sir Fitzroy, the kingdom of Goodcastle sent him a letter granting him knighthood in exchange for “a customary filing fee of 200 gold pieces.” The firbolg pulls Argo under the table to ask the worth of this particular sum, and Argo assures him it’s a lot. Rainer tries to convince Sir Fitzroy that neither Goodcastle nor Clyde Nite’s Night Knight School have his best interests at heart, but Sir Fitzroy is quite insistent: upon completing his tutelage at Hieronymous Wiggenstaff’s School for Heroism and Villainy, he will return to his previous path.
After breakfast, the boys head to the test tavern, where they’re set up with a training hero (Rhodes) and are given three tasks: get a map to a treasure-filled cave, find a fence for stolen goods, and secure access to a castle. The tavern is populated with a collection of identical holographic NPCs, and the boys have to figure out who can help them and who’s a cop.
Argo stealths around and eavesdrops upon a conversation with a cleaner in the castle. His first play is to compliment the cleaner, saying that he had visited the castle and was so impressed. He bounces from one lie to the next, with some good rolls and some padding (+4 to deception checks??). In the end, he says he’s from Castle Quarterly magazine and wants to write about the castle-cleaner’s work. With this, he gains access.
The firbolg sets off to find the fence, but, ever the literalist, believes he’s looking for a structure, not a criminal. He approaches one NPC after another and asks if they are the fence. After a few failed attempts, Argo clarifies the assignment.
Then, the firbolg gets it — sort of: “Entrepreneur. Small business owner […] This is noble. Is very difficult. 80% of small businesses fall within the first year. This is a noble thing.” Clearly, the firbolg is learning something from accounting, but I’m not sure he’s applying his terms correctly. Either way, he achieves his task.
Sir Fitzroy tries a few tacks to secure the map to the treasure-filled cage: first, he dons all his finest jewelry and adopts the character of a braggadocios adventurer, complete with character voice. He claims to have gotten his jewels from the cave in question, which gets the attention of the map-holder. Sir Fitzroy tries to trade the now-supposedly useless map for a beer, but that’s a no-go, so he challenges the map-holder to an arm wrestling contest. He loses the contest and all his brooches with it. The map-holder feels bad and gives him the map. Sir Fitzroy achieves his task (and gets his brooches back at the game’s end).
Rhodes does little to help the boys in their endeavors aside from pointing out potential leads. I could read a few things into this: Rhodes might be a shitty hero, Travis might have put him there in case the boys needed help but decided they didn’t, or Travis might have forgotten about him. Based on what we’ve seen of Rhodes so far, I’m going to give Travis the benefit of the doubt and guess Rhodes is a shitty hero.
In the afternoon, there’s another battle, this time in the test dungeon. Their practice hero for this lesson is Rolandis, who proves to be more helpful than Rhodes. (Although now that I’ve seen Rhodes and Rolandis back-to-back, I realize that I can’t tell the difference between them.)
They start off fighting the three skeletons, Germaine, Victoria, and Rattles (who appear to be based off of The Lion King hyenas.) They manage to fight them off pretty easily, but the teacher, Jimson, has another trick up his sleeve. When they announce their boredom, he brings out an eternal, unharmable bear named Susan. Susan puts up more of a fight and deals some damage, but they best her without too much trouble.
Whats that you say? That went pretty well for a level one fight? I couldn’t agree more: our sidekicks are way overpowered. Argo has +8 to stealth checks??? What is leveling up even going to do, give him an automatic 20 on all rolls?! I know I’ve complained about backseat DMing, but this is one moment when I wish the other boys had stepped in. I resent them all for allowing this to happen. I can’t see how Travis will scale these powers back, and I worry these bonuses will throw off the balance for the whole campaign.
During the bear fight, we see Sir Fitzroy’s barbarian class in action for the first time. After Susan the bear gets him with a nasty bite, he starts raging. This has repercussions both personality-wise and game mechanics-wise — he makes different choices (like throwing his magic crab at the bear instead of, say, his weapon), and he has better defense and attacks. Although the barbarian is a superpowered class, I’d say that he, too, is overpowered. Even Griffin thinks so: when Travis informs him that a thrown Snippers does 1 D6 + 6, griffin tells him “I’m going to abuse this mechanic, Travis. Just so you know.”
Bonuses aside, I will say that the barbarian rage makes Sir Fitzroy a doubly interesting character. Again, I’d like to see if Travis can force him to rage (more interesting) or if this is all up to Griffin (less interesting). But either way, he’s essentially two characters in one.
The fight, combined with the two weeks of class experience, levels the boys up. They’re all now level three! We’ll find out what that means for them next episode. At the end of class, Hirronomius Wiggenstaff, headmaster of the school, visits on what’s apparently a routine classroom visit. I’m guessing this foreshadows something.
And then! We have a coda! So easy to miss! In fact, I did miss it the first time I listened. In this final scene, Argo sneaks his way up to meet the sneakery teacher, Jackle, who threatened Argo in the test tavern in episode 2. Offscreen, Jackle has sent Argo to procure something for him, and now, Argo is delivering it. The package is palm-sized and wrapped in leather, and that’s all we learn of it. This whole scenario — both the on- and off-scene elements — is a little scripted for my taste, and I’m still not a fan of sending each character down his own plotline so early in the narrative, but alas. Onto episode four we go.
Favorite goof:
Sir Fitzroy: Does anyone have a dry nap now? I hate to be a bother. A dry towel. Some sort of dry — Can you cast a spell that will make dry things happen?
