The Adventure Zone: Balance / YMMV

Your Mileage May Vary Index

Arc Fatigue: The Suffering Game. Several episodes can be succinctly summarized as "Tres Horny Boys experience suffering", to the point where some listeners have difficulty staying engaged, and during publishing the arc dragged on even longer due to Griffin and Travis going on paternity leave.
Base-Breaking Character:
- Lucas Miller. Some people love him for being an Adorkable nerd who, in addition to wanting to make the world a better place, hopes to use the Philsopher's Stone to bring his mother back from the dead. Other people hate him for his willingness to hurt others for what he considers to be the "greater good," and point out that his treatment of the Hugbears seems like slavery, which Clint lampshades and Lucas himself doesn't deny.
- Lucretia. To many, including the McElroys she's a good person, put in an impossible situation where she saw her friends torn up by the effects of what they had done to the world, and did something she knew was wrong for their benefit, and only until she could fix the mistake and keep the world safe. To others, she may have been aiming to do good, but she still took the choice of that decision out of her friends' hands, separated them from each other and reduced her captain to a babbling fool before endangering everything in existence. Even in-universe Taako isn't sure he'll ever be able to fully forgive Lucretia for wiping his sister from his memory.
Broken Base: There is a sharp divide between fans of the show which prefer the earlier arcs' emphasis on comedy and those who prefer the later arcs for emphasized storytelling. The fans of the former argue that the show not only stopped being as funny but also stopped being an actual play D&D podcast. While the latter prefer the seriousness and lack of comedy.
Ensemble Dark Horse: So many. But to start with a few...
- Magic Brian, for his hilariously high-pitched and vaguely German voice and Affably Evil nature.
- Jenkins, for being a beleaguered train attendant with a voice like Droopy the Dog.
- Angus Mcdonald, for being generally adorable. He was so well-liked, the fandom went nuts when he became a Bureau member.
- Carey and Killian, for being badass action girls and a really cute couple.
- Barry Bluejeans, largely for just his bizarre name. And then he became an Ascended Extra.
- Lup, for being a sneaky Deadpan Snarker on a level to rival her twin brother Taako.
Fanon:
- The fandom's more or less universally agreed that Taako's last name is Taaco. By extension, Lup's full name is "Lup Taaco."
- The only thing confirmed about Kravitz's appearance is that he's handsome, but most of the fandom portrays him as black. This became Ascended Fanon when the official comic released and depicts Kravitz as black.
Fan Nickname: The 3-woman team of Regulators complementary to the Tres Horny Boys is "Team Sweet Flips", composed of Killian, Carey, and No-3113 (Noelle). Which is canon now.
First Installment Wins: To many, The Adventure Zone will always by synonymous with Balance. It was helped in part by the series exploding after it had already grown its beard in the first 9 or so episodes, and while subsequent campaigns like Amnesty and Graduation had their merits they never really reached the same highs. It's often suggested that one of the shows biggest struggles post-Balance has been trying to both start from scratch and live up to the incredibly high expectations set by first campaign.
Friendly Fandoms: Since both series are Actual Plays of D&D, focus a lot on both comedy and storytelling, and are very LGBT-friendly, there's quite a bit of overlap between fans of The Adventure Zone and Critical Role. It helps that the first arcs of both shows featured positive LGBT rep, leading to quite an LGBT Fanbase developing for both shows simultaneously.
- For much the same reasons, there is a lot of cross pollination with the Dimension 20 Fandom. The McElroys played a mini-campaign in Dimension 20, and Brennan Lee Mulligan hosted a special Adventure Zone one-shot "The Dadlands".
Genius Bonus: Early on, the Voidfish appears to be trying to communicate with its keeper Johann by singing musical notes at him. Intrepid fans on the series' Reddit determined that the musical notes are, in order: E, G, G, and then B, A, B, E. This was later confirmed in The Calm Before The Storm.
Growing the Beard: Due to Clint being new to D&D and Griffin as a new Game Master, the first half of Here There Be Gerblins involved more explaining the mechanics and asking questions about following the pre-set campaign. Once they caught on, their creativity shows through and they get a better handle on playing their characters.
- Griffin personally points to the renaming of Sildar Hallwinter to Barry Bluejeans as the point where he really embraced altering the story into his own homebrew narratives.
- The end of Murder on the Rockport Limited was a turning point for how they played their characters, with Justin playing Taako as less of an idiot and more smart but aloof, as well as Travis and Clint developing character voices for Magnus and Merle.
- The last two episodes of Petals to the Metal mark the podcast's shift into a more serious and mythology-heavy tone, featuring the first original music, first romance, first genuinely emotional moment that isn't made into a joke (like the destruction of Phandalin), and first appearance of the Red Robe.
- Griffin also remarked in the second episode of The The Adventure Zone Zone that The Crystal Kingdom was where he fully shifted the story to a mythos-heavy and character driven story as well as laying the bedrock for all of the revelations to come in the podcast about our heroes, the nature of the Relics, and their true enemy.
Harsher in Hindsight:
- There's a moment in The Suffering Game where Cam and Merle are commiserating the lost of Cam's body (except for his head) and Merle's arm and eye. Magnus puts in that he's lost a pinkie before realizing that's not as bad and saying "I can check my privilege." Fast forward a few episodes and Magnus has lost his body completely.
- Earlier in Here There be Gerblins there is a point were Merle reaches out to pet a dog and Griffin jokes that the dog bites Merle's hand off. Come The Crystal Kingdom this is a little less funny.
- At the beginning of Murder on the Rockport Limited, Merle misremembers Barry Bluejeans as Billy Bluejeans, leading Taako to comment: "How quickly you forget, huh? Boy, Barry must have made a real impact on you." Lucretia is present for the entire thing.
- Davenport's Pokémon Speak after Reunion Tour.
- Lup trying to get her $15 back from Greg Grimaldis isn't quite as funny after Live in Nashville! reveals that said money was an infinitely-replicating $15 bill that Lup had accidentally created, which Greg used to become a powerful tyrant. Though compared to the destruction wrought by her other creation, the Phoenixfire Gauntlet, Greg's casino seems like pretty low-grade damage, so the Running Gag isn't completely soured.
- Travis jokes about Magnus turning evil and having Redemption Arc in an early episode. Then it turns out Magnus may have been a Red Robe and he attacks two Bureau guards in his desperate search for information.
- Several moments with Lucretia — hell, the boys' entire relationship with her — takes on a whole new weight after The Reveal that Lucretia wiped the party's memories of being Red Robes, and more specifically of being her colleagues and friends, in particular her telling Merle about having to make a terrible decision about the course of her life, one which caused her to lose several people close to her. This is hammered home near the end of Episode 66, with a brief montage of such clips from earlier in the show.
- Taako's speech about mongooses in Petals to the Metal becomes this— he mentions that mongooses have specialized acetylcholine receptors that make them immune to poison. Turns out that in The Eleventh Hour Taako's backstory involves him being framed for poisoning a town during his Sizzle it Up with Taako show. Not only this, but his sister Lup was also killed by being stabbed by a knife covered in silverpoint poison.
Hilarious in Hindsight:
- In the very first episode, before they begin playing, Travis claims that he honestly believes Clint will be the best at the game. It ends up being, almost to the level of a Running Gag, that Clint is actually very bad at the game.
- During the intro of Moonlighting, the announcer states that he's afraid of aliens and hopes they won't be on the moon. After it's revealed that Director Lucretia, Davenport, Barry Bluejeans and Tres Horny Boys are from Another Dimension it turns out there were aliens on the moon all along.
  - In the same interlude, Taako asks if the final Grand Relic is love because he doesn't want to waste any time looking for it if that is the case. Lucretia deadpans that she "cannot confirm or deny that the magic was inside of them the whole time". Said relic is Lucretia's staff, meaning that in a way it was with them all along.
- In episode 97 of My Brother, My Brother and Me, two years before TAZ began, they're asked for advice on how to leave a D&D party, and they suggest having the character retire and die of old age. Griffin takes a moment to point out that playing out a natural death is something that people have probably done without joking. Five years later, at the end of Story and Song, Magnus dies of old age, surrounded by his friends in the Distant Finale.
Idiosyncratic Ship Naming: Killian/Carey is "Sweet Flips", named from Taako commenting on their acrobatic battle skills while fighting a room full of ice robots.
I Knew It!: Lup being Taako's twin sister was a popular theory before it was confirmed.
- Travis was shocked that one fan successfully predicted that Garfield was growing a spare body of Magnus.
It Was His Sled: The fact that Taako has a twin sister whom he forgot about via Laser-Guided Amnesia, due to her immense popularity as a character despite not being introduced until the penultimate arc.
LGBT Fanbase: The series has a massive LGBT following thanks to its many canonically LGBT characters: Taako is gay and in a very happy relationship with Kravitz, Killian and Carey are a lesbian couple who get married in the finale, the lesbian romance between Sloane and Hurley is the driving force behind "Petal to the Metal," Lup is confirmed to be a transgender woman, etc. All of these depictions are done without the negative stereotypes usually expected, with every character and relationship being treated as completely normal.
Nightmare Fuel: Has its own page.
Paranoia Fuel: Our Heroes work for a secret organization that uses a creature called the Voidfish to inflict Laser-Guided Amnesia on a global scale... and they're supposedly the good guys. During a carnival, everyone except for the main characters suddenly falls unconscious without warning or explanation and thousands of eyes momentarily open up all across the sky, and the ostensible Big Good seems remarkably blasé about it when they report the phenomenon. At one point when Taako slips into the ethereal realm he catches a glimpse of shadowy figures watching him, who promptly disappear before he can tell anything about who they are or what they want. The characters are too happy-go-lucky and, let's face it, dumb to have caught on, but it's pretty clear that something very very strange is going on.
Portmanteau Couple Name:
- When Kravitz was first introduced, Clint joked that the possible ship name for Taako and Kravitz would be "Taakitz". The name stuck.
- Hurley/Sloane is either "Hurloane" or "Ramraven" from their respective battlewagon racing animal masks.
- From The Stolen Century: Merle/Davenport is "Highport or Davenchurch", Lup/Barry Bluejeans is Lupjeans or Blupjeans, and Lup/Lucretia is Lupcretia.
- Merle/John is "Johnchurch."
The Scrappy: Sazed, with the whole killing everyone at Glamor Springs, which is forty people including elderly, single mothers, and even teenagers attending Sizzle It Up With Taako by poisoning them with arsenic in a botched attempt to murder Taako, all for not letting him be featured in the show more, then bailing two days later which causes Taako to carry the blame and guilt. Just to fully understand how much the fandom seems to hate this man, there is a tag on Archive of Our Own called Fuck Sazed! This man is really not loved by the fans.
They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character
- Sazed plays a critical role in Taako's backstory as a starstruck apprentice (not unlike Angus) who, after being pushed away from the spotlight one too many times by Taako, takes revenge by poisoning the food that Taako serves to the audience at one of his shows, killing several innocents. Despite causing one of the most traumatic events in Taako's life, he never appears outside of the flashback during "The Eleventh Hour."
- Similarly, Governor Kalen is a huge part of Magnus' story, the dictator of Raven's Roost who razed it to the ground (killing Magnus' wife Julia and father-in-law Steven) in petty revenge for Magnus and other rebels defeating him. Magnus strives to take revenge on him, but come "The Suffering Game," Edward and Lydia make him choose between forgetting Kalen and or taking a punishment, he chooses the former. The quest for revenge ends thusly, with Magnus making Taako and Merle promise that should they ever encounter Kalen, they will kill him on the spot. Such a scene never occurs, and Kalen is not mentioned after the "Suffering Game" arc.
Signature Song: "Wonderland: Round Three" is the song used the most in fan works, and was even used in the official trailer for the podcast.
Shocking Moments: The Reveal in episode 7 of The Suffering Game of who the Red Robe actually is manages to be a Heartwarming Moment, Funny Moment, and Moment of Awesome all balled up into one because it's Barry Bluejeans. Originally just a one-off mercenary who got unceremoniously killed in the first arc, he is now probably the most important NPC in the campaign despite Griffin's insistence that he wasn't coming back.
Squick: In The The Adventure Zone Zone, Justin and Griffin explain that roleplaying the relationship between Kravitz and Taako can be kind of weird; not because either is uncomfortable with playing gay characters, but because they're effectively roleplaying a romantic relationship with their brothers. Griffin confirmed that this is why Taako and Kravitz don't have more scenes together in the series proper—for as sweet as their date in the Lunar Interlude was, it was incredibly uncomfortable for Griffin and Justin both.
Too Bleak, Stopped Caring:
- While The Suffering Game was coming out, some fans complained that the show was getting boring because every episode was just about the characters getting hurt and being put into miserable situations over and over with no chance for levity. It didn't help that the arc ran for more episodes than intended and had much longer waits between episodes than usual due to Travis and Griffin going on paternity leave. Discussed by Griffin in this Tumblr post. Opinion seems to have softened now that the arc is over, with fans generally appreciating the numerous Awesome Moments, Plot Twists, and great songs it provided in the last couple of episodes.
- Discussed in-show during The Stolen Century when Griffin notes that the past few episodes have gotten pretty dark and apocalyptic, and makes an effort to keep the show from getting monotonously depressing by including more lighthearted elements like a Beach Episode and greater focus on the characters' friendships.
Viewer Name Confusion: The two weeks between the introduction of Garyl the Spectral Binicorn and the clarification of the spelling of his name saw a lot of fanart with a lot of confusion about how many Rs and Ls are in his name, whether the final syllable is spelled with a Y or an E, etc.

YMMV / The Adventure Zone: Balance

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