What a D&D Podcast Taught Me About Story Construction

JANUARY 9TH, 2016 — POST 005

The following contains spoilers for the Petals To The Metal story arc (episodes 18–27) of The Adventure Zone. If you aren’t yet up to speed, or haven’t jumped aboard at all, I would strongly recommend listening from the beginning. Seriously. It’s brilliant.

The list of other spoilers includes Breaking Bad (S01), House Of Cards (S01), and Boogie Nights.

I don’t know how I’d describe the feeling when I see a new The Adventure Zone episode pops up in my Overcast feed. With an episode every other week, it’s easy to forget if it’s an on or off week. With most podcasts favouring a weekly release, there’s a sense of expectation that each episode will be delivered on time. My Brother, My Brother, and Me (MBMBaM), the comedy advice podcast off from which The Adventure Zone is spun, occasionally has a few hiccups in their regular release cycle because of schedule and availability of the hosts, the McElroy Brothers. I admit, I get twinges of annoyance when a episode is delayed even if only by a day or so. The weekly release cycle breeds entitlement in the consumer, or at the very least in this consumer. I guess that feeling of seeing a fresh episode of The Adventure Zone episode just waiting to be enjoyed is genuine gratitude. These don’t come around every week. And this feeling is really what every piece of content without a price tag ought to strive for. The consumer has to feel grateful when their gifted content. But the content has to first be a gift worth getting.

For those unfamiliar with MBMBaM or the Maximum Fun podcast collective, The Adventure Zone is a family affair in Dungeons & Dragons. The brothers’ dad Clint McElroy is Merle Highchurch, the dwarven cleric. Your oldest brother Justin McElroy is Taako, your elf wizard. Your middlest brother Travis McElroy is Magnus Burnsides, your human fighter. And your babiest brother Griffin McElroy is the kind of dungeon master I wish my time playing Dungeons & Dragons had included. So far, with a few interlude episodes interspersed, the party has completed three quests to reclaim three Grand Relics: items reknown for their world-altering power. There’ve been plenty of goblins skewered, countless magic missles hurled, and hundreds of dice rolls. Just as importantly, a comic chemistry that only a literal lifetime together can breed makes for genuinely superb listening. I’ve been forced to develop a mask of my public laughter, especially when on transport, that I’m hoping is read as me merely grimacing against a headache. Because apparently public displays of solitary suffering are more acceptable than displays of solitary joy. And The Adventure Zone is a real joy. It wasn’t until the final episode of the third campaign that I realised the real reason for my love of this podcast.

The final chapter in the Petals To The Metal story arc sees the conclusion of the longest quest of the podcast so far. Consisting of nine episodes, the arc has spanned the last five months. Given this, it was perfectly understandable when Travis “pulled” the party aside to have an out-of-context, out-of-game, conversation about where they were. We all knew our heroes were moments away from another Grand Relic. We all knew that relic was worn by a villain who would have to be killed or at least incapacitated.

But then, remind me again why have we spent the last four episodes and last two months in a Mad Max-esque battlewagon race on the dustbowl outskirts of the city of Goldcliff?

In their own battlewagon, and with the assistance of Hurley the halfling monk, our party had been gaining on The Raven and the Grand Relic in her possession, the Gaia Sash. As Travis asked the question, I realised I wasn’t exactly sure of the answer either. Like, obviously we want to win the race, but how does that help us take down The Raven and secure the Grand Relic in her possession?

Each act needs its own engine

It was at this moment that the narrative of the entire arc came back into focus in a new light. It was now clear to me that this particular arc was an expertly crafted three act story. The craft is expert because we’re not watching a movie here. We’re listening hour-by-hour to a story that, by its conclusion, will have taken 5 months. We knew at the very beginning that we’d be coming home with the Gaia Sash in the end, but it isn’t even until half-way through the first act, an intervention of The Raven robbing a bank with the power of the sash, that we lose all sight of the McGuffin. Instead, it is the introduction of a NPC relationship, that between our party and Hurley, that is the engine that carries the story into the second act. We have some oblique sense that we still need to acquire the Gaia Sash, but what takes importance at this stage is seeing Hurley is able to reunite with The Raven, or Sloan as Hurley once knew her friend to be called. Where the first act was driven by acquisition, the second act is driven by reunion.

Chapter 2 artwork, by Leon Rozelaar — leon.pizza

Saying “Yes” is all the protagonist has to do

Dungeons & Dragons isn’t a whole lot of fun to play, and even less fun to listen to, if the players won’t let themselves be taken into the rabbit hole. When it comes down to it, this is all Magnus, Taako, and Merle have to do. If Hurley, a character who just saved their lives, says “jump”, our party shouldn’t even have time to say “how high?”: they should already be clambering to the top of the tallest nearby structure. Almost in the same breath as Hurley says she needs a crew for her battlewagon, our party is infiltrating the garage of a rival crew to steal the Arcane Core to power Hurley’s wagon.

There is a persistent thinking on the current state of TV that audiences crave conflicted protagonists, protagonists who aren’t entirely sure they’re doing the right thing. Take Walter White, take Frank Underwood. At the most basic mechanical level, however, these characters are compelling because they’re own conflict is post-hoc. In the moment, both these characters say “yes, yes, yes”. Walt sees the huge DEA haul from a drug bust. He says “yes” to going after something simliar. Frank meets in secret in a subway station, the arriving train and his knows-a-little-too-much contact standing on the platform’s edge is the only question he needs. And he says “yes”. The conflict from these decisions arrives after, once the dust has settled. A protagonist saying “yes” creates both a story that is conducive to a consistent raising of stakes and action as well as a character who’s complexity comes from the audience wondering “When are they going to say ‘no’?”

Taako and Klarg, by Natalie — gearfish.tumblr.com

Let your characters surprise you

This is rather straight-forward in Dungeous & Dragons: you literally have other people playing their roles and the story is built together. In particular, a moment in the third act, the arcane-fuelled battlewagon race, illustrates the molten gold than can spout forth when a character takes the reigns of a story. When one of the competing racers levels an attack at Merle that sends him flying from the wagon, it’s Taako that springs into action. Casting a spell no one had any idea he even knew, Taako conjures a spectral steed underneath Merle, just inches from falling to his death. This steed, a binicorn (think unicorn + another horn) named Garyl, not only pulls Merle back into the race, but adds an extra kinetic dimension in a scene that was hardly starved for action.

As a screenwriter, these moments take all the wind out of your sails to be replaced by a hurricane. Suddenly, all outlining goes out the window when you allow a character to act of their own accord. But what stands in its place is in almost every case better. Their voice through an action that was organically their own is distinct, is authentic, and ultimately anchors them as genuinely believable. Boogie Nights, a movie I’ve only recently got around to watching, ultimately falls over the further away from the midpoint we get. The midpoint turn is a true moment of letting a character act and, as a writer, dealing with the ramifications: a minor character shooting his promiscuous wife at a New Years Eve party. This almost immediately plunges the movie from the endless sunshine and suntans of the 70s into the seeminly endless nights and narcotics of the 80s. However, the final third act set piece, an attempt to rip off a drug kingpin by our protagonist and two accomplices, feels a contrivance in the service of what was hoped to be a dynamic climactic scene. Once the guns come out, I was shouting at the screen for our protagonist to make a break. Things turning south, there is no reason, given the character we’ve come to know over the last 100 minutes, to stay in that room, nor is there seemingly any real obstacles preventing his leave. Taking the complete other side of it, if he is going to stay, our Kung-Fu obsessed protagonist would surely feel his shot at redemption would be in the form of a three-inch punch to the sternum of the gun-toting kingpin. This contrivance doesn’t just hurt the movie in robbing it of believability, but arguably deprives a more compelling narrative from being told.

Taako, by Vaughn Pinpin — hatboy.tumblr.com

”Yes, and…”

All of this could be summarised by an approach that the McElroys, trained in improv, are well-versed in: “Yes, and…”. Obviously, for the functioning of a comedy D&D podcast, this is a good approach to have. But this approach ought to be taken up in a story’s structure: each act developing from but ultimately standing apart from the act that preceeded it. The protagonist that says “Yes, and…” is a protagonist we are compelled to stay with. Above all, though, a story’s author ought to embrace the possibility of the characters running off on their own.

Or at the very least this is what’s working for me.

All artwork used in this story is fan art posted to the The Adventure Zone tumblr.

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