THE REEDUCATION OF WEEDSHREK: EPISODE 4 (cont)

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Travis: As you walk over to the boss, you see that there is also someone sitting at the table behind him. They are sitting more or less back to back. This person is dressed as you might expect someone who works in a mine to be dressed. Uh, and the two of them clearly are pointedly ignoring each other.

these prewritten parts are so important because they give us an insight into what travis's actual intention and vision for this campaign was. he's like roger rabbit if instead of being unable to resist completing shave and a haircut, roger rabbit couldn't resist being combative and argumentative and trying to one up whoever is speaking. so we understand that the tone and the continuity and everything else remains fluid and changes to best suit his ability to one up someone in that moment, but these prewrites are what this campaign would be if he had self control. and this is....childish. like, for children. this feels like the visual of an argument you might find in something like recess, or caillou. its like he wanted to make harry potter for six year olds. deeply strange.

Jaryd: Excellent. Maybe you can talk some sense into Candice.

Candice: Now, don‘t go sayin‘ that.

Travis: Says the person sitting behind him.

Candice: I'm the one who‘s speakin‘ sense, and you're the one who ain't listenin‘!

Fitzroy: Candice.

Argo: Ahoy, Madame. My name is uh, Argo Keene. Uh, may I join you at your table?

Candice: I mean, I guess?

putting aside for one second how none of this makes sense with the other dumb bullshit he's established, why the fuck would his npc respond in this way? like ignoring the bigger picture of how wrestlers actually solving disputes (and again, the most obvious solution here would be to just have them each represent one party and fight, but that destroys both the kayfabe and the oh so whimsical heroes and villains thing), if we just zoom in, this is a woman who is waiting on some legal arbiters to help mediate a conflict. they show up, and ask to sit down to, you know, mediate. and her response is basically "that's fucking weird but i guess you can" like what's wrong with you actually

...okay counter: 17

argo offers to buy her a drink and now she's dismissing him outright which is just like crazy. like a, NOT THAT WEIRD to get a drink at a tavern, or to have a drink while presumably launching into a protracted mediation discussion, b, THEY NEED TO TALK TO THESE TWO SO WHY ARE YOU STONEWALLING THEM

Fitzroy: Yes, it‘s a nice cloak. So uh, what‘s the issue between the two of you?

Jaryd: Oh, I just assumed you would know.

why is travis like this counter: 3

...okay counter: 18

i gotta be honest i'm mostly tracking these multiple counters by doing ctrl+f in my drafts to see what the last one was. so the numbers might get wonky, i think my why is travis like this might be wonky. i think some of them i might have labeled why are you like this instead? hard to say, gotta be honest, do not care that much

the ok counter is accurate though. mostly. i'm actually giving him some grace here and i'm not counting every ok, just the ones that are clearly him not knowing how to respond or begin his sentence

Fitzroy: I mean, is it a, y'know, labor exploitation thing, or… are you—are you one of those one percenter types who is bleeding—

Jaryd: No! This is an insurance liability issue.

[...]

Jaryd: Okay, Candice… [clears throat] The mine was not producing as it once did. Uh, it is the problem with mining crystals, or any kind of ore, that once you read the end of the vein, that‘s it.

Travis: And Candice says…

Candice: And so, he told us to keep digging. Dig further than we‘d ever dug before.

Jaryd: Ah—whether I told you to dig further, or said dig more—that‘s— okay. So then, the miners dug… too deep, and seemed to… have unleashed something. Um… and now, we are unable to mine anymore… and we need to file an insurance claim. And… we are… if it is my fault, then I get paid nothing. And the mine workers get compensation.

Travis: And Candice says…

Candice: And if it‘s my fault, our fault, then the workers receive no compensation, and the insurance claim is paid out to Jaryd.

of course its not a labor issue, despite the long history of exploitation and labor battles that have centered around mining. you are from west virginia you should know about this. but he's just so quuuuuiiiiiiiirkkyyyy so its gonna be insurance. except this doesn't make any fucking sense either.

so to get this out of the way, he does look like he's ripping of tolkien's "the dwarves mined too deep" balrog set up, except, you know, bad. has travis read lotr? i'm guessing not. he's probably seen the movies though. actually confession time, despite being a lifelong fantasy head and knowing how much of the fantasy landscape is built on tolkien's work (including dnd!), i have not actually read lotr. i tried it when i was 15 after finishing and really liking the hobbit. i found fellowship interminably dull and slow moving and it felt like every other page was dedicated to jerking off how cool and scary the ring wraiths were. i have such a clear memory of being like "if this dude brings up the ring wraiths one more damn time i quit" and then the next page they were talking about the fucking ring wraiths again. i should probably try it again, i would probably like it more with a fully developed brain. but also i've seen the movies and fellowship is a slow story!! like 2/3 of it is frodo just on the road to rivendell. even eye of the world, which is such a fellowship rip-off that happens to also include the bene gesserit, at least had like a cool cursed city they visit. actually pacing is also why i never got into game of thrones. i read all of asoiaf as the first season was airing, and i went back to try and watch the season and i was just so bored, and because i had read the book i also happen to know the first book is pretty slow. so i checked out because it was too many white bearded dudes i couldn't keep track of all of them and i knew where it was going anyway. looks like that one worked out for the best.

wow SORRY i got totally sidetracked with way better stories than this dumb slop. ok so the rest of the reason this is stupid, this is not how insurance works. at all. travis is an adult man he should know this. first of all, insurance gets paid out to the claim holder. if this is insurance for the mine itself, the payment, if valid, would go to the owner, who pays to insure the mine. if this is an issue that a miner or miners were injured when the monster was provoked, then the affected miners could get paid out via their personal insurance policies that are offered by the mine owner. the issue could be "does unleashing a monster" count as a valid claim of inoperation for the mine, but it can't be "someone is definitely getting paid, we just aren't sure who" this is stupid. like let's take out the stupid xorn for a second and pretend this is a real mine in the real world. the miners hit a CO2 pocket and now the mine is inoperable because of the amount of CO2 inside of it. if someone told you "yeah they're working out an insurance dispute, if the miners are at fault for breaching that pocket the owner is going to get a big payout, but if the owner is at fault for telling them to mine there the miners are going to get a big pay day" you'd be like "i don't think you know how insurance works"

and then like why in the world would there be a third party arbitration the insurance company has an entire department for determining if something is a valid claim on the policy. it is truly insane to have an insurance conflict and the conflict isn't "if the insurance will pay out" but "the insurance will definitely pay out we just aren't sure who they'll pay it to and neither are they so you, someone totally unaffiliated with the insurance, will determine that instead of the insurance company". is travis stupid.

Argo: The monster. Seems to me like that‘s who‘s at fault here. I mean, listen – insurance companies, they‘re good people. They're in it to help. They're in it to make sure that when something bad happens to you, just like a good neighbor, they're there.

GOD clint is just running LAPS around this campaign its honestly fucked. i hope travis reads this and it fuels whatever weird inferiority complex he has against his dad because its deserved. he is better than you. he's so much better than you its embarrassing. coughing baby vs hydrogen bomb hours for real.

the problem with the mcelroys mentioning any form of bureaucracy is that none of them have real jobs so they always sound stupid as fuck. griffin says they'll serve the xorn a subpoena. wh.....what. for an insurance claim???? this makes no sense. this does not track. this is not a "creative solution" to the problem this is doing a totally unrelated action because you don't know what a subpoena is.

Argo: Dr. M—yes. Has um, has a wonderful affinity with living creatures, and uh, and a pair of glasses that takes pictures. Hey! There you go! Right? Right?

dude this is fucking crazy clint is truly at the height of his power, travis says they'll need proof the served the xorn and clint remembers firbolg has glasses that take fucking pictures. clint haters btfo

Travis: So, listen. Guys? I love this. Um, so I guess you need to stop by a local lawyer.

Judicial subpoenas are federal court or state court orders to produce records or testimony. They are usually issued by the clerk of the court in the name of the judge presiding over the case. Additionally, court rules may permit lawyers to issue subpoenas themselves in their capacity as officers of the court.[7] Typically subpoenas are issued "in blank" and it is the responsibility of the lawyer representing the party (plaintiff or defendant) on whose behalf the testimony is to be given to serve the subpoena on the witness. If a witness is reluctant to testify, then the personal service of subpoena is usually required with proof of service by non-party server.

these men are, how you say? stupid

transcriber somehow misheard prescient as pertinent, forming a sentence that makes no fucking sense.

Griffin: Can I roll a nature check to see if I know what that is?

Travis: Uh, you can. Are you best suited to do the nature check?

Griffin: Fuckin‘ no. I have a negative one.

Travis: Okay, well, Justin asked the question, so why wouldn‘t he do the nature check?

and here we butt into one of the many glaring design flaws of dnd 5e, namely, group checks. a lot of times an issue will come up and, without any pressing circumstances, ends up being either everyone rolling the check or else just repeating the check until they succeed. this is something travis has complained about and used to justify him lying about his rolls. the actual solution is to look at the many many many many other tabletop systems that have come up with ways to address this issue, in order to learn how to frame scenarios so that this issue does not happen. i will say in this specific instance, actually all three of them SHOULD make the nature check, since they should all be trying to think if they recognize this monster based on its description. it makes no sense why it would just be one, and if we're doing some sort of house rule, that should be uhhhhh established somewhere.

Travis: The Xorn are elemental creatures who travel through the earth, and they uh, they swim through the earth like a fish swims through water. They eat rocks and crystals, and they will become more and more violent the hungrier and hungrier they get.

sort of seeing an immediate problem here, which is that rocks are in plentiful supply so i don't understand why the xorn would be hostile.

and then griffin practices truly awful table etiquette by looking up the creature. i am 100% pro clint having accidentally used a homebrew subclass in royale because look at this shit dawg

i'm back i left to make a sandwich for lunch. its two slices of rosemary sourdough lightly toasted in olive oil, topped with colby cheese and a fried egg, with lunch meats (ham i think, but this could be turkey i bought a variety pack), honey, honey djion mustard, onion crisps, and lao gan ma chili flakes. shit is lit. unlike graduation.

Clint: So does Argo need to reiterate that, or can we just say that…

Travis: Yeah. You shared the information. Great job everybody. Good information sharing all around

talk to your therapist jesus

Travis: No. So, the governor of the district commissioned the job. Because right now, there‘s no, uh… there‘s no—no money is being produced from the mine. And Reginald Ore owns several mining properties, and while this is at a standstill, there is no mining profits being generated. So the governor wants this resolved, but wants it resolved in such a way that there is no more mine stoppage. Even if this mine is no longer usable, that the other mines will go back into production.

jesus the players are basically pinkertons? i had forgotten this is a federal job because that doesn't really make any sense. and now it makes even less sense since generally the reason government intercedes in private business is when the business in question is too significant a portion of the economy to allow a stoppage to continue (and generally on the side of the business owner). wanna remind everyone again that travis is from west virigina, the state with the legacy of the battle of blair mountain, the single largest armed labor uprising in the history of the united states. fuck it, let's talk about it. it is 1921. mining is, as everyone except i guess travis mcelroy knows, an exceptionally brutal and exploitative industry. workers are often confined to "company towns" and paid out in company scrip-- currency that is only valued by the mining company itself and can only be used within the company town. living in the company town (something you're required to do)? gonna take some out of your paycheck to cover lodging. take some more for your equipment. take some more for the food you eat. it isn't quite slavery but it gets pretty damn close.

the 1920s also saw a huge uptick in organized labor, as we are in the aftermath of the great war, which births socialist movements (the october revolution had just happened four years earlier in 1917) and the idea of self determination and sovereignty of colonized peoples. against this backdrop, there are several unions, such as the IWW and the united mine workers that are working on infiltrating and unionizing the miners of west virginia. a detective agency, similar to the pinkertons and also with experience brutally repressing labor movements, is hired by the mining companies to "keep the order". they end up in a gunfight in the town of matewan after trying to evict a family. involved in the shooting (on the side of the miners) is the local police chief, sid hatfield. finally, a good cop. tensions between the miners and the owners continue to escalate, including instances of the unionized miners attacking scabs, and sabotage, such as blowing up a coal tipple with dynamite. that last one is in fact, something chief hatfield is brought to trial over. the detective agency, still looking to get their lick back, ambush him outside the courthouse and execute him.

skirmishes continue, armed patrols are formed, eventually in august of 1921, armed miners gather in kanawha county and plan to march on mingo county, via blair mountain, to end martial law and free imprisoned union miners. this turns into a veritable army of 13,000 armed miners, against the mine owners own gathered private army of nearly 2000. if you took accounting like our best friend travis, you know that those numbers are not favorable to the capitalist, and indeed they are incapable of taking on the miners. the march is only stopped when the national guard is called in, and the miners voluntarily surrender, as they state their grievance is with the mine owners, not the united states government.

isn't that an interesting bit of US history? in travis's own back yard no less (i just looked this up, huntington straddles wayne/cabell counties and wayne county borders mingo county).

too bad none of that history is here, here the problem is somehow insurance payouts. not if there will be one, mind you, somehow who gets it. fucking insane. and none of the other mines are allowed to continue production while this one is down???? make it make sense.

Fitzroy: Now, of course, we will be risking our lives, and um, sitting through a meeting with a lawyer that will almost certainly be pretty bad radio. So uh, I expect some sort of compensation for, y'know, the two of you, for finding a nice solution to your quandary. Maybe 25% of the insurance payout, I think, would be fair?

Jaryd: Um, 25 seems a bit high. We‘re talking about an insurance payout of about ten thousand gold. So… 25% of that, uh, that‘s 2,500 gold. That‘s quite high. Um… I might be willing to do… 10%. A thousand gold?

Argo: Well, we have an accountant on our team. What do you think, Firbolg? Is that—

this is probably the part that makes me the most sad about grad, the way the players still try to like, engage with this absurd scenario. griffin is on the villain team. so sure, i guess the most "villain" thing you could do in this situation is try to extort more money. it seems sort of confusing because once again travis can't make up his mind on how publicized the kayfabe is, i feel like the guy whose problem is getting solved would be aware this is a government contract. and then honestly i think clint forgot that he's by himself (the ONE time i will not call out travis for being weird toward his dad as argo wants to be a sidekick, although as mentioned previously it would have been EXTREMELY easy to just not split the group) so he calls in firbolg to help and now they're all working together, and travis instead of stopping to remind them they're supposed to be at odds, just lets it play (why wouldn't he? he already stamped out the adversarial nature that is the entire foundation of his stupid fucking gimmick 10 minutes ago) which just totally ends any pretense this is about heroes and villains

also, sorry, this insurance claim is for ten thousand gold and this unnamed, unthought of insurance company is only not paying out because they're waiting to hear who they should pay it to?

Jaryd: Okay, well, while you figure this out, I'm going to go to the restroom.

fuck you travis

Jaryd: Oh good. So go stop by the local barrister, and have a subpoena for insurance liability for a monster drawn up. Pretty standard stuff. Uh, and you should be on your way to the mine!

also travis sucks at accent work so this guy's shitty british accent keeps fading in and out, but what really is making me inordinately annoyed is that he uses the extremely british term barrister here but just a line ago says restroom instead of the much more posh loo or water closet. toss it on the other million examples of travis being incapable of having consistency or any depth to his world building

oh i just hit the first of the many, i'm told, inexplicable long stretches of dead air in this campaign. i had kind of a similar emotional reaction when i finally finished breaking bad a couple years ago, and finally got to see all the memes in context. its like, oh wow, heard so much about you, big fan

this pause is legit 10 seconds long, long enough that even the transcript includes [long pause] here. and like none of the explanations for this are kind, right? either he meant to put interstitial music here and forgot, but then never went back and fixed it, or he meant to put a pause there to denote a new scene but is stupid, so he isn't aware that anything more than 3-4 seconds makes people think their podcast broke, and either way, did not perform any qc on the edit.

Fitzroy: Yeah, so, do you know what insurance liability means?

Jade: Yes, of course. I'm a… lawyer?

is travis aware that lawyers specialize in certain aspects of the law.

Fitzroy: And do you have any of them subpoenas lying around?

Jade: Uh… a subpoena for insurance liability?

i like this because written out and removed from context it looks like an actual normal reaction to this request, which is "what the fuck are you saying, a subpoena for insurance liability" but sadly we do not live in that world

god i hate travis's vaguely british woman voice, it is the most condescending thing you can imagine

Jade: Listen, I'm the only lawyer for about a hundred miles. I'm not worried about business.

the city of last hope, everyone

....okay counter: 19

....okay counter: 20

Travis: The four of you, the three of you and Leon, who has remained very silent, ‗cause he‘s so shy. Y'know? He‘s so shy and quiet. He likes to be seen and not heard. That‘s his role. He uh, accompanies the three of you. You catch a cart down to the mine, where you meet Rainer and Buckminster, who have kind of been scouting the area.

earlier:

Travis: The general, uh, rule, is that when it‘s in the beginning stages of a scouting trip or information gathering or anything like that, the sidekicks and henchpeople go first, so that if there is any issue, if there‘s any trouble with the locals, then the heroes and villains can step in and chastise their sidekicks and henchpeople and look like the good ones.

Justin: Wait, what was our part of the deal?

Travis: Uh, well—

Griffin: We have to turn it into our own personal gain.

Justin: Ah, okay.

Fitzroy: I figured that that would be sufficient for, I don't know, villainous deeds.

Rainer: Yes, I would say, in general, getting paid to do good… y'know, I guess that could qualify.

1. lol justin still has no idea what's going on, he's gone and he's not coming back folks
2. WHAT DO YOU MEAN GETTING PAID TO DO GOOD QUALIFIES AS VILLAINOUS BEHAVIOR GETTING PAID IS LITERALLY THE ENTIRE MODEL OF YOUR SYSTEM

Travis: And you hear a gigantic roar from deep within the cave. It‘s bone-shattering. It rattles your teeth in your skull, and you see glowing, red eyes in the entry. And it steps out of the shadows… and it‘s about, uh, two and a half feet tall. Looks to be made of flowing magma, and it kind of goes, ―Braaar!‖ at you.

now this is a classic kids movie gag, where something appears at first to be very big and scary but then, SUBVERSION! its actually quite small and cute. the thing though is that kids movies are written by adults with functioning brains, so if they, for example, have a big scary monster roar, and then it turns out to be just a lil guy, they have to somehow explain where the big scary monster roar came from. it can be the roar was amplified somehow or a double twist where lil guy's big mama is also here, but even kids will pick up that it doesn't make sense if the thing made one type of sound when you couldn't see it, and makes a totally different type of sound when you can see it, unless its explained. anyway.

Fitzroy: It‘s frickin‘ rude, whatever it is.

Argo: Well, it is rude. I mean, I have to admit, it has no sense of etiquette. But still, I…

Travis: And you can tell that it can hear you, and it‘s offended.

travis has exactly one improv move and its saying the opposite of what you just said

i will say i think griffin has dialed in his characterization of fitzroy a bit more this episode and its been a lot more enjoyable, can't wait to see this get beaten out of him by this campaign

the "cliff hanger" of this episode is launching into initiative and its kind of perfect that he fades in the theme music on top, which is a very whimsical cozy sort of vibe, because that juxtaposition perfectly sums up graduation and travis's dming in general. hooray the episode is over i can die n--there's another one? there's HOW MANY episodes of this????