Ten years ago this month, when The Adventure Zone started as a unique and real gaming experience on the My brother, my brother and me Two of the podcast’s four hosts have worked here at Polygon. In fact, Justin and Griffin McElroy helped found the place, having previously worked together on another gaming site (RIP Joystiq) back in 2007. I mention this for the sake of transparency, as I’m not biased when it comes to all things McElroy.
It's been 10 years since the show began and has grown rapidly over several seasons and hundreds of episodes, through a series of bestselling graphic novels and countless live-action shows. I can measure my life by its evolutions.
When I listened to the first episode of The Adventure Zone —this would be the introductory arc of Balance, which would go live on its own podcast feed later in 2014—I did this while I was building shelves in the basement, partly to store excess baby stuff for a 9-month-old upstairs. The most recent episode I listened to was the pilot episode of TAZThe new season, Abnimals (this is not a typo), on a recent family walk to the beach, with a 10 year old listening. The theme song is still stuck in his head (more on that later).
“Imagine a world where all the anthropomorphic animal heroes of the ’90s and early 2000s lived together,” explains this season’s Dungeon Master Travis McElroy (or “zookeeper,” as the team referred to him in an early episode I shared with me). “And in that world, there were three members of the team who had been removed from their previous teams for various reasons and were now trying to form their own ragtag group trying to exist in this world of heroic teenagers. And this time, no swearing.”
Those three team members include Roger Mooer, a Charolais cow—well, technically a bull—with a knack for espionage and a knack for ballroom dancing, played by Clint McElroy, their father; Navy Seal, a water commando who is also a burly anthropomorphic Ross seal and is not and has never been, it should be noted, a member of the armed forces, played by Griffin McElroy; and Axe-O-Lyle, an extreme firefighting axolotl who can regrow his limbs…but it's a bit embarrassing, played by Justin McElroy.
Why did you decide to go with a family-friendly format? “What made me change my mind was how important it was for me to find interesting stuff that I enjoy listening to with my kids,” Justin says. “We have a few podcasts that they’re interested in, and it’s nice to find some that I enjoy as well. So creating something that could serve that purpose was also, I felt, a kind of public service, or at least a service to our audience.”
“Lately, as I’ve been doing meetups and we’ve been at conventions and stuff, there’s been a lot more kids coming in,” Travis agrees. “Twelve-year-olds with their graphic novels to sign, and a lot more people talking about their kids being interested in the book.” The Adventure Zone.”
Besides the lack of swearing, I asked how they chose to tailor their improvised narration to younger listeners. Should we expect anything resembling a G rating?
“I don’t know, nobody said ‘PG-13,’ Chris,” Travis said. “PG-13, maybe…”
“I like TV-Y,” Griffin adds.
Travis continues: “I've been rewatching and watching a lot of the source cartoons and thinking about them within that framework, what those setups are, what they're doing and what the stakes are, because, for example, with the 1987 original Ninja TurtlesThey created the Foot Clan robots. So we can just kick his face all day long. They're robots, man! Don't even worry about it.
The pilot episode I watched had goons who were knocked out but never killed; environmental attacks instead of weapon-based attacks; a Big Bad who pulled off a (greedy!) heist; and a longer story arc with a surprise, cliffhanger ending. Meanwhile, the game system Travis designed for the show—which relies on rolling two to three d8 dice—allows plenty of room for the flexibility and improvisation that defined the show’s last decade while emphasizing dynamics.
So we can kick them in the face all day long. They're robots, man!
“I try to keep the action and the momentum in mind,” Justin explains. “When we were doing previous seasons, humor was almost always the focal point. So if something is funny but not necessarily propulsive, we’ll sit with it and tweak it until it’s not funny anymore, and then we’ll move on. But I’ve always been cautious in my head that this wouldn’t be interesting if you’re younger; you just want something to happen. Let’s make something happen. And if something hasn’t happened in a while, I’ll make something else happen.”
For kids curious about tabletop role-playing games in your home, this may help whet their appetite for their own place at the table, but it won't give them a framework for planning their own adventures.
“When I was designing the rules system, I wanted something that wasn’t cumbersome, that wasn’t complicated, so that we wouldn’t have to spend a lot of time explaining or adding up various dice. I wanted it to be like this: You roll, good, go ahead“We were able to focus more on the story and the action,” Travis says. “There are wonderful versions of real games that you can watch or listen to and learn how to play the game. I mean, it’s wonderful, but it’s not what I envisioned for this season and so I didn’t want it to be school. I didn’t want it to feel like school.”
What's going on in Abnimals is family-oriented, says Clint McElroy — in a role that is fitting for the family patriarch. “One thing that runs through everything we do in TAZ This is also applicable here, and it was a constant in (Teenage Mutant Ninja) Turtles and a lot of these other shows were family-oriented. I don't think there's a way to do something that doesn't have anything to do with family, whether it's a found family or a real family coming together. We're going to explore that in Abnimals Also.”
You can listen (with or without your family) to the first episode of Adventure Zone: Animals when it first aired on September 19, but until then, I encourage you to indulge in the season's theme song, featuring music by Eric Near, lyrics by Near, Justin McElroy and The Internet's Jonathan Coulton, and performed by Coulton.
Despite what you have heard
We are at the peak of our abilities
At the top of the tallest tower we stand
(They will never stop us again)So take my hand if you trust
That we will do what we must
Until everything goes as planned
(We'll find a way somehow)Yeah, the road is long
But our mojo is strong
And unless I'm mistaken (and I'm not)
We are at the peak of our abilities
