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** [[spoiler: Other epilogues include Lucas founding the Academy of Arcane Sciences, the people of Refuge hitting another diamond vein, Sloane and Hurley returning to a life of racing, and the world banding together to rebuild anew.]]
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** [[spoiler: Other epilogues include Lucas founding the Academy of Arcane Sciences, the people of Refuge hitting another diamond vein, Sloane and Hurley returning to a life of racing, and the people of the world [[FireForgedFriends banding together to rebuild anew.anew]].]]
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* WhereAreTheyNowEpilogue: The very end of ''Story and Song'' details what each of the heroes have done in the year since the titular Day of Story and Song.
** [[spoiler: Taako teamed up with Ren to found a WizardingSchool named [[{{Callback}} Taako's Amazing School of Magic]].]]
** [[spoiler: Merle founded Merle's Extreme Teen Adventures, and AdventureGuild for teens, in hopes to train them to be the next generation of adventurers, and also to spend more time with his children. He's also made governer ([[InsistentTerminology or, rather, earl]]) of the beach town of Bottlenose Cove by Lord Artemis Sterling.]]
** [[spoiler: Magnus sets up a dog training school called Hammer and Tails: A Dog's School in the ruins of Ravensroost. He also gets a DistantFinale where he [[DiedHappilyEverAfter dies of old age]] surrounded by his friends, and is [[TogetherInDeath reunited with Julia in the Astral Plane]].]]
** [[spoiler: Barry and Lup strike a deal with the Raven Queen to avoid being hunted for being liches, and become [[{{Psychopomp}} reapers]].]]
** [[spoiler: Lucretia renames the Bureau of Balance to the Bureau of Benevolence, and changes its goal to helping those ravaged by The Hunger's attack to recover.]]
** [[spoiler: Davenport, not content to stay in one place, [[WalkingTheEarth sails the world]], reveling in the existence of the world they saved.]]
** [[spoiler: Other epilogues include Lucas founding the Academy of Arcane Sciences, the people of Refuge hitting another diamond vein, Sloane and Hurley returning to a life of racing, and the world banding together to rebuild anew.]]
** [[spoiler: Taako teamed up with Ren to found a WizardingSchool named [[{{Callback}} Taako's Amazing School of Magic]].]]
** [[spoiler: Merle founded Merle's Extreme Teen Adventures, and AdventureGuild for teens, in hopes to train them to be the next generation of adventurers, and also to spend more time with his children. He's also made governer ([[InsistentTerminology or, rather, earl]]) of the beach town of Bottlenose Cove by Lord Artemis Sterling.]]
** [[spoiler: Magnus sets up a dog training school called Hammer and Tails: A Dog's School in the ruins of Ravensroost. He also gets a DistantFinale where he [[DiedHappilyEverAfter dies of old age]] surrounded by his friends, and is [[TogetherInDeath reunited with Julia in the Astral Plane]].]]
** [[spoiler: Barry and Lup strike a deal with the Raven Queen to avoid being hunted for being liches, and become [[{{Psychopomp}} reapers]].]]
** [[spoiler: Lucretia renames the Bureau of Balance to the Bureau of Benevolence, and changes its goal to helping those ravaged by The Hunger's attack to recover.]]
** [[spoiler: Davenport, not content to stay in one place, [[WalkingTheEarth sails the world]], reveling in the existence of the world they saved.]]
** [[spoiler: Other epilogues include Lucas founding the Academy of Arcane Sciences, the people of Refuge hitting another diamond vein, Sloane and Hurley returning to a life of racing, and the world banding together to rebuild anew.]]
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* FranchiseDrivenRetitling: The story was originally known as just ''The Adventure Zone'', since it was the only story arc in the series. As the story's end came into view, they realized that it needed a title to differentiate it from later stories, and named it ''Balance'' in ''TTAZZ 2''.
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*** UpToEleven in the ''Live in San Diego!'' show, which takes place in a simulated replica of the Tomb, said to be [[ShowWithinAShow based on an old game that Lucas played]].
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*** UpToEleven in the ''Live in San Diego!'' show, which takes place in a simulated replica of the Tomb, said to be [[ShowWithinAShow based on an old game that Lucas played]].
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* RPGMechanicsVerse: Generally {{Averted}}, however [[VancianMagic spell slots]] have been mentioned by name by the characters several times.
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*** UpToEleven in the ''Live in San Diego!'' show, which takes place in a simulated replica of the Tomb, said to be [[ShowWithinAShow based on an old game that Lucas played]].
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* SuddenGameInterface: In the ''Live in San Diego!'' show, the Tres Horny Boys suddenly see a LifeMeter with three hearts and a [[VideoGameLives life counter]] in the top right corner of their vision, as well as a chat feed in the bottom left. {{Justified}}, as they were inside of a simulation.
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** There have also been ''four'' Jerrys over the course of the show. A gerblin in ''Here There Be Gerblins'', two Hammerhead ruffians named Jerry ("Regular Jerry" and "Lil' Jerry") and [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Jerreeeeee]] in ''Petals to the Metal'', and a bank guard in ''The Eleventh Hour''. Guest host Stuart Wellington added a fifth one in tribute to the Hammerheads with Goldcliff's Councillor Jerry, who also had the Hammerheads' distinctive "Joe Pesci" accent.
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** There have also been ''four'' Jerrys over the course of the show. A gerblin in ''Here There Be Gerblins'', two Hammerhead ruffians named Jerry ("Regular Jerry" and "Lil' Jerry") and "Regular [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Jerreeeeee]] Jerreeeeee]]" and "Lil' Jerry" in ''Petals to the Metal'', and a bank guard in ''The Eleventh Hour''. Guest host Stuart Wellington added a fifth one in tribute to the Hammerheads with Goldcliff's Councillor Jerry, who also had the Hammerheads' distinctive "Joe Pesci" accent.
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** There have also been ''four'' Jerrys over the course of the show. A gerblin in ''Here There Be Gerblins'', two Hammerhead ruffians named Little Jerry and [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Jerreeeeee]] in ''Petals to the Metal'', and a bank guard in ''The Eleventh Hour''. Guest host Stuart Wellington added a fifth one in tribute to the Hammerheads with Goldcliff's Councillor Jerry, who also had the Hammerheads' distinctive "Joe Pesci" accent.
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** There have also been ''four'' Jerrys over the course of the show. A gerblin in ''Here There Be Gerblins'', two Hammerhead ruffians named Little Jerry ("Regular Jerry" and "Lil' Jerry") and [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Jerreeeeee]] in ''Petals to the Metal'', and a bank guard in ''The Eleventh Hour''. Guest host Stuart Wellington added a fifth one in tribute to the Hammerheads with Goldcliff's Councillor Jerry, who also had the Hammerheads' distinctive "Joe Pesci" accent.
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* SillyRabbitCynicismIsForLosers: Merle's interactions with John in ''The Stolen Century'' are built on this trope.
-->'''Merle:''' You can continue wallowing in your sadness and your oblivion and seeing nothing but the negative, and I'm gonna go on my way. And I'll tell you what—if we ever meet each other somewhere in infinity, you can apologize to me and tell me you were wrong.
-->'''Merle:''' You can continue wallowing in your sadness and your oblivion and seeing nothing but the negative, and I'm gonna go on my way. And I'll tell you what—if we ever meet each other somewhere in infinity, you can apologize to me and tell me you were wrong.
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** The ''Live in San Diego!'' show is difficult to determine. The explanation with the least amount of PlotHoles is that it takes place between ''The Eleventh Hour'' and ''The Suffering Game''.
** The ''Live in San Diego!'' show's place in the timeline is difficult to determine. The explanation with the least amount of PlotHoles is that it takes place after ''Story and Song''.
*** To explain, Taako and Magnus possess the Umbra Staff and the Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom respectively. In the main story, Magnus didn't receive the sword until ''Reunion Tour'', and Taako [[spoiler: broke the Umbra Staff to free Lup]] the same day during ''Story and Song''. Additionally, [[spoiler: Magnus loses the sword during ''Story and Song''.]] This inconsistency, however, can be explained by them being inside of a simulation during the episode, and thus any equipment they possessed was simply the result of the simulation.
*** To explain, Taako and Magnus possess the Umbra Staff and the Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom respectively. In the main story, Magnus didn't receive the sword until ''Reunion Tour'', and Taako [[spoiler: broke the Umbra Staff to free Lup]] the same day during ''Story and Song''. Additionally, [[spoiler: Magnus loses the sword during ''Story and Song''.]] This inconsistency, however, can be explained by them being inside of a simulation during the episode, and thus any equipment they possessed was simply the result of the simulation.
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* PlotHole:
** In ''Here There Be Gerblins'', Tres Horny Boys and Killian hide in the well at the center of town to avoid Gundren's glassing of Phandalin. Come ''Story and Song'', [[spoiler: Taako turns the obsidian circle into sapphire to create a portal to the Astral Plane. However, for gemstone portals to work, they must be perfectly circular, with no imperfections.]] The well should've still been there, but was nowhere to be found.
** The ''Live in San Diego!'' show introduces a few.
*** Taako and Magnus simultaneously have the Umbra Staff and the Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom respectively. However, in the main story, Magnus does not get the sword until ''Reunion Tour'', and Taako [[spoiler: breaks the Umbra Staff to free Lup]] the same day in ''Story and Song''.
*** The episode takes place in Lucas' laboratory, as a training exercise for the Bureau. However, Lucas is FakingTheDead between ''The Crystal Kingdom'' and ''Story and Song''.
** In ''Here There Be Gerblins'', Tres Horny Boys and Killian hide in the well at the center of town to avoid Gundren's glassing of Phandalin. Come ''Story and Song'', [[spoiler: Taako turns the obsidian circle into sapphire to create a portal to the Astral Plane. However, for gemstone portals to work, they must be perfectly circular, with no imperfections.]] The well should've still been there, but was nowhere to be found.
** The ''Live in San Diego!'' show introduces a few.
*** Taako and Magnus simultaneously have the Umbra Staff and the Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom respectively. However, in the main story, Magnus does not get the sword until ''Reunion Tour'', and Taako [[spoiler: breaks the Umbra Staff to free Lup]] the same day in ''Story and Song''.
*** The episode takes place in Lucas' laboratory, as a training exercise for the Bureau. However, Lucas is FakingTheDead between ''The Crystal Kingdom'' and ''Story and Song''.
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* PlotHole:
**PlotHole: In ''Here There Be Gerblins'', Tres Horny Boys and Killian hide in the well at the center of town to avoid Gundren's glassing of Phandalin. Come ''Story and Song'', [[spoiler: Taako turns the obsidian circle into sapphire to create a portal to the Astral Plane. However, for gemstone portals to work, they must be perfectly circular, with no imperfections.]] The well should've still been there, but was nowhere to be found. \n** The ''Live in San Diego!'' show introduces a few.\n*** Taako and Magnus simultaneously have the Umbra Staff and the Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom respectively. However, in the main story, Magnus does not get the sword until ''Reunion Tour'', and Taako [[spoiler: breaks the Umbra Staff to free Lup]] the same day in ''Story and Song''.\n*** The episode takes place in Lucas' laboratory, as a training exercise for the Bureau. However, Lucas is FakingTheDead between ''The Crystal Kingdom'' and ''Story and Song''.
**
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** The ''Live in San Diego!'' show is difficult to determine. The explanation with the least amount of PlotHoles is that it takes place between ''The Eleventh Hour'' and ''The Suffering Game''.
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* LooseCanon: The live shows are subject to this, taking place during ambiguous times between main story arcs.
** The exceptions to this are the ''Live Boston Stunt Spectacular'' and ''LA Podfest'' shows, which have been referenced in the main story.
** The exceptions to this are the ''Live Boston Stunt Spectacular'' and ''LA Podfest'' shows, which have been referenced in the main story.
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* PlotHole:
** In ''Here There Be Gerblins'', Tres Horny Boys and Killian hide in the well at the center of town to avoid Gundren's glassing of Phandalin. Come ''Story and Song'', [[spoiler: Taako turns the obsidian circle into sapphire to create a portal to the Astral Plane. However, for gemstone portals to work, they must be perfectly circular, with no imperfections.]] The well should've still been there, but was nowhere to be found.
** The ''Live in San Diego!'' show introduces a few.
*** Taako and Magnus simultaneously have the Umbra Staff and the Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom respectively. However, in the main story, Magnus does not get the sword until ''Reunion Tour'', and Taako [[spoiler: breaks the Umbra Staff to free Lup]] the same day in ''Story and Song''.
*** The episode takes place in Lucas' laboratory, as a training exercise for the Bureau. However, Lucas is FakingTheDead between ''The Crystal Kingdom'' and ''Story and Song''.
** In ''Here There Be Gerblins'', Tres Horny Boys and Killian hide in the well at the center of town to avoid Gundren's glassing of Phandalin. Come ''Story and Song'', [[spoiler: Taako turns the obsidian circle into sapphire to create a portal to the Astral Plane. However, for gemstone portals to work, they must be perfectly circular, with no imperfections.]] The well should've still been there, but was nowhere to be found.
** The ''Live in San Diego!'' show introduces a few.
*** Taako and Magnus simultaneously have the Umbra Staff and the Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom respectively. However, in the main story, Magnus does not get the sword until ''Reunion Tour'', and Taako [[spoiler: breaks the Umbra Staff to free Lup]] the same day in ''Story and Song''.
*** The episode takes place in Lucas' laboratory, as a training exercise for the Bureau. However, Lucas is FakingTheDead between ''The Crystal Kingdom'' and ''Story and Song''.
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** Yeemick the Gerblin "looks like Common and sounds like Creator/KelseyGrammer."
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--> '''Griffin:''' And Merle, you crack open the chest and retrieve the clothes within. A white cotton shirt, a studded leather belt, and a pair of pants... [[spoiler:Sturdy. Denim. And blue.]]
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--> '''Griffin:''' And Merle, you crack open the chest and retrieve the clothes within. A white cotton shirt, a studded leather belt, and a pair of pants... [[spoiler:Sturdy. Denim. And blue.[[IconicOutfit blue]].]]
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* BackgroundMagicField: In addition to the standard DungeonsAndDragons magic field, there also exist Bonds, the invisible force that connect all things in existence together, ranging from physical, to emotional. Bonds extend between planes of existence, and when a plane is severed from those Bonds, it begins to decay. Magic users that rely on a divine source, such as clerics, lose their power, and the world begins to fade to grayscale. If starved of bonds for too long, the plane degenerates into ash.
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* BackgroundMagicField: In addition to the standard DungeonsAndDragons TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons magic field, there also exist Bonds, the invisible force that connect all things in existence together, ranging from physical, to emotional. Bonds extend between planes of existence, and when a plane is severed from those Bonds, it begins to decay. Magic users that rely on a divine source, such as clerics, lose their power, and the world begins to fade to grayscale. If starved of bonds for too long, the plane degenerates into ash.
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* RedHerring: In ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'', the victim has been beheaded and be-handed in a locked train car on a train where all passengers are required to surrender their weapons upon boarding. Jess, a powerful warrior with no alibi and a super-sharp, summonable soulbound ax that ''can't'' be separated from her would seem to be a prime suspect, but it turns out the decapitation was accomplished by PortalCut by another character.
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* RedHerring: In ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'', the victim has been beheaded and be-handed in a locked train car on a train where all passengers are required to surrender their weapons upon boarding. Jess, a powerful warrior with no alibi and a super-sharp, summonable soulbound ax that ''can't'' be separated from her would seem to be a prime suspect, but suspect. There was also Graham the Juicy Wizard, who was found at the scene of the crime and had a possible motivation, with Jenkins haven taken the job Graham tried out for. In the end, it turns out the decapitation was accomplished by PortalCut by another character.
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angus was never in any danger in Murder on the Rockport Limited
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* InfantImmortality: Angus [=McDonald=] is spared when Jenkins is horrifically murdered. Potentially [[JustifiedTrope justified]] as he may have been out of the room at the time.
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** Taken to its extreme with there being two bugbears named Jamie Green. One is Klarg's mother and Lucas' gardener, and the other is a reporter on the IPRE's homeworld.
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* HideYourLesbians: Hurley and Sloane's romance is limited to subtext in the actual story, even though WordOfGay confirms that they're a couple. Averted with later same-gender couples like Carey and Killian, who are explicitly shown to be dating. [[spoiler: Further averted when the Balance storyline later ends with Carey and Killian's wedding.]]
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* HideYourLesbians: Hurley and Sloane's romance is limited to subtext in the actual story, even though WordOfGay confirms that they're a couple. Averted with later same-gender couples like Carey and Killian, who are explicitly shown to be dating. [[spoiler: Further averted when the Balance storyline later story ends with Carey and Killian's wedding.]]
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* HaveYouSeenMyGod: Toward the end of ''The Suffering Game'', Pan stops responding to Merle's prayers, and shortly after that Kravitz loses contact with the Raven Queen. [[spoiler:It seems that The Hunger is either devouring or driving away the deities of this world.]]
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* HaveYouSeenMyGod: Toward the end of ''The Suffering Game'', Pan stops responding to Merle's prayers, and shortly after that Kravitz loses contact with the Raven Queen. [[spoiler:It seems that [[spoiler: This is because when The Hunger is either devouring or driving away invades a planar system, it severs the deities of this world.metaphysical Bonds connecting the planes together.]]
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* GreatOffscreenWar: A war fought over immensely powerful magical artifacts called the Grand Relics nearly destroyed the world some years back, but nobody remembers it, thanks to LaserGuidedAmnesia.
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* GreatOffscreenWar: A war The Relic Wars, a global conflict fought over immensely powerful magical artifacts called the Grand Relics nearly destroyed the world some years a decade back, but nobody remembers it, thanks to LaserGuidedAmnesia.
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* GoodCopBadCop: Magnus and Taako slip into this routine while interrogating Graham (aka The Juicy Wizard)...with Merle as a bonus Maternal Cop.
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* GoodCopBadCop: Magnus and Taako slip into this routine while interrogating Graham (aka The Juicy Wizard)...with Merle as a bonus Maternal Cop."Maternal Cop".
**Later, Merle and Magnus go into this when interrogating Lucas, with Taako acting as "Guy who's here to pay a parking ticket".
**Later, Merle and Magnus go into this when interrogating Lucas, with Taako acting as "Guy who's here to pay a parking ticket".
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* ChekhovsBoomerang: ''Petals to the Metal'' introduces silverpoint, a plant with a deadly untreatable venom. While it is first introduced as the Gaia Sash's final self defense, silverpoint venom appears later in the same arc when [[spoiler: Capt. Captain Bane]] attempts to poison the protagonists. Much, much later, it is revealed that (much earlier) [[spoiler: Lup]] was stabbed with a weapon covered in silverpoint venom so that there would be no chance to heal the wound.
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* ChekhovsBoomerang: ''Petals to the Metal'' introduces silverpoint, a plant with a deadly untreatable venom. poison. While it is first introduced as the Gaia Sash's final self defense, silverpoint venom poison appears later in the same arc when [[spoiler: Capt. Captain Bane]] attempts to poison the protagonists. Much, much later, it is revealed that (much earlier) [[spoiler: Lup]] was stabbed with a weapon covered in silverpoint venom poison so that there would be no chance to heal the wound.
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** Saying "Hail and well met!" when greeting someone.
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** "Uh, I'm Taako? Like, [[AnachronismStew from [=TV=]]]?"
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** "Uh, I'm Taako? Like, Y'know, [[AnachronismStew from [=TV=]]]?"
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* AnotherDimension: All of known reality is a seemingly infinite series of planar systems of twelve planes of existence. They are arranged in an orbit consisting of three concentric rings, six planes on the outside, four planes on the inside, and two stacked planes in the middle. Going outside-in, we have:
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* AnotherDimension: All of known reality existence is a seemingly infinite series of planar systems systems, each consisting of twelve distinct planes of existence. They are arranged in an orbit consisting of three concentric rings, six planes on the outside, four planes on the inside, and two stacked planes in the middle. Going outside-in, we have:
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** The ''Live in Austin!'' show takes place some time after ''The Eleventh Hour'', given references to the Chance Lance. [[spoiler: [[{{Subverted}} Though it could possibly take place after ''Story and Song'']], which would explain how the mind flayer who kidnapped them would know who they were, since their story was broadcast to everyone in the planar system.]]
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** The ''Live in Austin!'' show takes place some time after ''The Eleventh Hour'', given references to the Chance Lance. [[spoiler: [[{{Subverted}} Though it could possibly take place after after]] ''Story and Song'']], Song'', which would explain how the mind flayer who kidnapped them would know who they were, since their story was broadcast to everyone in the planar system.]]
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[[Podcast/TheAdventureZone Story Index]]
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[[Podcast/TheAdventureZone Main Page]]
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[[Podcast/TheAdventureZone Main Page]]
Story Index]]
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%% ZeroContextExample entries are not allowed on wiki pages. All such entries have been commented out. Add context to the entries before uncommenting them.
[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_adventure_zone.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''The stage is set, our heroes ready; so steel your nerves and keep them steady. And do not fear this path unknown... enter [[TitleDrop The Adventure Zone!]]'']]
->''“I wanna tell you a story about the time there were three ogres, right? And then one of ‘em hit me so hard I almost died. You were sitting up in some sort of weird laser just shooting flasks willy-nilly, Travis was ripping the arms off a robot, and I got punched so hard I almost died! I’m not gonna go toe-to-toe with a crab while you’re armed with a terrible Scottish accent, and Travis doesn’t even have his shield! I’m out!”''
-->-- '''Taako'''/'''Justin'''
''The Adventure Zone: Balance'' is an arc of ''Podcast/TheAdventureZone'' podcast featuring the Creator/McElroyBrothers (Justin, Griffin, and Travis) playing TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons with their father Clint. Griffin is the DungeonMaster, Travis plays a human fighter named Magnus "the Hammer" Burnsides, Justin a high elf wizard named Taako, and Clint a dwarven cleric named Merle Highchurch.
In this same continuity is the adventures of the Hogsbottom Three, a D&D campaign played by the cast of ''Podcast/TheFlophouse''. Stuart Wellington is the DM, with Elliot Kalan playing Scales the Dragonborn bard, Dan [=McCoy=] playing Lucian Buttwatcher the high elf druid, and special guest Zhubin Parang playing Tanzer Silverview the human ranger.
'''Spoilers for the most recent plot arc (currently ''Story and Song'') should be spoiler-tagged. Everything else is fair game. Reader beware: you're about to enter... the Spoiler Zone!'''
----
!!This podcast contains these tropes:
* AbstractEater: [[spoiler: After being unable to find The Light Of Creation for ten years, The Hunger [[MotiveDecay loses its desire to]] [[AssimilationPlot grow beyond death]], seeking only to consume other planes of existence.]]
* ActionGirl: At least one major example every plot arc, with the exception of ''The Eleventh Hour'' (which is a more exploration-heavy arc). The first has Killian, a crossbow-wielding orc packing the ability to animate {{golem}}s. The second has Jess, a pit fighter with AnAxeToGrind. The third has two: Hurley, a constabulary lieutenant with a black belt in ass-kicking, and Sloane, the apparent villain of the arc who Curb-Stomps our heroes in her first appearance. The fourth arc has Killian return with her teammate, Carey Fangbattle, a Dragonborn Rogue and sister of Jeremy "Scales" Fangbattle. The sixth has Antonia, an elven mercenary, and the seventh has [[spoiler: Lup, and Lucretia [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming ascends to this]] after episode 65.]]
** Taako lampshades this when he says "There must be a competent woman who can bail us out".
* AerithAndBob: Character names include Magnus, Gundren, Yeemick, Klarg, Brian, and Barry [[AnachronismStew Bluejeans]]. The spectrum is weighted towards Bob, since [=NPCs=] are for the most part named after real people.
** {{Lampshaded}} when Justin mocks Griffin for naming the party's new Halfling roommate "Robbie."
* AffablyEvil: John, [[spoiler: the source and avatar of the Hunger, which consumes entire realities]] is pleasant and polite, even playing chess with Merle, and enjoying their conversations. [[spoiler: He also kills Merle repeatedly, and his goal is to eat all of reality so he can undo the laws of the universe.]]
* AIIsACrapshoot: One of Lucas's abandoned inventions is an educational toy robot named Hodge-Podge which...um, malfunctioned during stress testing...
* AlasPoorVillain: At the end of ''The Suffering Game,'' Lydia dies of despair when Edward is killed; in her final moments, she drops her illusory form in favor of her true black robes, and, at a loss for words, simply screams.
** [[spoiler: John might be the source and avatar of the Hunger, but watching him get subsumed by it is more than a little tragic. His actual death, watching the sunset with Merle before fading away, only makes him more sympathetic. ]]
* TheAllSolvingHammer: Merle gets a ''lot'' of mileage out of the Zone of Truth spell.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Hurley and Sloane. Nothing is directly said, but they care about each other a great deal and end up joined together forever in a magical tree.
** [[WordOfGay Confirmed by Word Of God.]]
* AnachronicOrder: The ''Live Boston Stunt Spectacular'' and ''[=MaxFunCon=] East Live'' shows take place sometime after ''The Crystal Kingdom'', and before ''The Suffering Game'', but were released to the public during the latter.
** The ''Live in Austin!'' show takes place some time after ''The Eleventh Hour'', given references to the Chance Lance. [[spoiler: [[{{Subverted}} Though it could possibly take place after ''Story and Song'']], which would explain how the mind flayer who kidnapped them would know who they were, since their story was broadcast to everyone in the planar system.]]
* AnachronismStew: A story about magic, swords, and dwarves wielding giant hammers includes [[RunningGag elevators]], Epcot-style buildings on the Moon, [[TakeThatCritics elevators]], train stations, [[RuleofThree elevators]], ''space'' stations, automobile-like "battle wagons," and industrial mining equipment.
** As the nature of the podcasting style, it is often difficult to separate the pop culture references made in-game and made out of character.
** An entire town is populated by animatronic Tom Bodetts, who all have a friendly, open attitude.
** Taako is dedicated to discover the Eldritch Mystery of [=TexMex=] food.
** Merle the Dwarf's favorite musician is Kenny Chesney, Johann the Bard plays elevator jazz, and the gang shops at Fantasy Costco.
* AnAdventurerIsYou: Magnus, with his heavy armor and shield, acts as the Tank and consistently puts himself in the front of the formation. Merle is [[TheMedic the Healer]] as well as casting defensive buffs. Taako is the DPS caster in addition to support magic.
* AnAsskickingChristmas: All of ''The Crystal Kingdom'' takes place on [[YouMeanXmas Candlenights]]. The first episode starts off with a Candlenights party, but by the second episode Candlenights is more or less forgotten. Only until the last episode of the arc (which was in May) are the characters reminded that [[WebcomicTime it's still Candlenights]].
* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: Every arc more or less follows a unique set of circumstances and characters with new uses of 5e D&D mechanics with the overarching Grand Relics plot holding everything together. [[spoiler: ''The Stolen Century'' goes even further into this trope, completely eschewing D&D's ruleset and instead using a simplified homebrew of Griffin's own design.]]
* AnotherDimension: All of known reality is a seemingly infinite series of planar systems of twelve planes of existence. They are arranged in an orbit consisting of three concentric rings, six planes on the outside, four planes on the inside, and two stacked planes in the middle. Going outside-in, we have:
** The Outer [[ElementalPlane Elemental Planes]] of Water, Earth, Fire, Air, Light, and Darkness.
** The Intermediate Planes: the [[PhysicalHeaven Celestial Plane]], the [[TheUnderworld Astral Plane]], the [[MadeOfMagic Plane of Magic]], and the [[RealLife Plane of Thought]].
** The Inner Planes: the [[SpiritWorld Ethereal Plane]], and the Prime Material Plane.
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Merle's final question to [[spoiler: John, the avatar of the Hunger.]]
-->'''Merle:''' Are you my friend?
-->'''Griffin:''' Hmm.
-->'''Travis:''' Not what I was expecting.
-->'''Griffin:''' But very fucking good. Give me a minute, I'm reeling a little bit.
* ArmorPiercingResponse: Magnus delivers one at the end of ''The Suffering Game'' that cuts off the Animus Bell's WeCanRuleTogether speech almost as soon as it starts.
-->'''Animus Bell:''' How would you like to live forever?
-->'''Magnus:''' [[WhoWantsToLiveForever I'd hate it.]] [[ShutUpHannibal Shut the fuck up.]]
* ArtifactCollectionAgency: The Bureau of Balance combines this with a side of medieval [[TheMenInBlack Men in Black]]. They collect and (ostensibly) dispose of magical artifacts too powerful to be allowed to exist.
* ArtifactOfDoom: The Grand Relics, seven artifacts so powerful that they once threatened to destroy the world. They double as an ArtifactOfAttraction, as they seem at least semi-sentient and try to tempt anyone who picks one up to use them, eventually corrupting them through MoreThanMindControl if they don't resist. Seen so far:
** The Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, which grants powerful fire magic with a side helping of [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity madness]]. [[spoiler: Made by Lup]]
** The Oculus Lens, which claims to grant TrueSight and ultimate knowledge. In actuality it allows the user to render anything they can think of or create with illusiory magic into reality. [[spoiler: Made by Davenport]]
** The Gaia Sash, an enchanted belt that grants the wielder power over nature. It attempts to tempt Merle with the ability to [[{{Squick}} fuck any vine he wants]]. Merle resists, saying he doesn't need anyone's help to do that. [[invoked]] [[spoiler: Made by Merle]]
** The PhilosophersStone, which can transmute any material into anything else. [[GreyGoo Stopping the process is another matter entirely]]. [[spoiler: Made by Taako]]
** The Temporal Chalice, which can manipulate the flow of time and even create barriers out of time. Instead of an outright villainous [[TheFinalTemptation Final Temptation]], it speaks directly to the heroes about undoing their [[{{MyGreatestFailure}} Greatest Failures]]. [[spoiler: Made by Magnus]]
** The Animus Bell, which has the ability to knock an affected listener's soul out of their body and allow another to take it over. This imitates death, meaning that the soul affected by it will get pulled away to the Astral Plane. [[spoiler: Made by Barry]]
** The seventh and final one is [[spoiler: The Bulwark Staff, aka, Lucretia's staff.]]
* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: A total solar eclipse occurs every midsummer solstice over Faerûn. The annual eclipse is somewhat [[JustifiedTrope justified]], since it's a ConstructedWorld.
* AscendedExtra:
** Angus [=McDonald=] is introduced as a bit player in the second arc; he proved popular enough with the players and the audience to be brought back in the fourth arc as the team's VoiceWithAnInternetConnection.
** At the end of ''The Suffering Game'', [[spoiler: the red robe who has been stalking (and, throughout much of ''The Suffering Game'', supporting) the party for almost thirty episodes is revealed to Barry Bluejeans, a character who seemingly died in the destruction of the town of Phandalin in the podcast's very first arc some fifty episodes earlier.]]
* AssimilationPlot: [[spoiler: The Hunger's original goal was to absorb planes of existence into itself, in order to combat the [[StrawNihilist crushing weight of eternity]].]]
* AssistCharacter: [[spoiler: In the FinalBoss fight with John in ''Story and Song'', the Tres Horny Boys are able to summon allies to help them using the Bond Engine on the back of the Starblaster as a portal.]]
* BackForTheFinale: [[spoiler: A whole cavalcade of characters return to help battle the hunger, from [[SubvertedTrope Hurly and ]][[BuryYourGays Sloane]] to the entire town of Refuge to Lucas to freaking Upsy Your Lifting Friend. Too many to list here. All of whom get badass moments befitting the end to a years-long campaign.]]
* BackFromTheDead: Brian, Jenkins, and Marvey (the last member of the Hammerheads) return for a rematch in ''The Crystal Kingdom'' as ghost-possessed robots.
* BackgroundMagicField: In addition to the standard DungeonsAndDragons magic field, there also exist Bonds, the invisible force that connect all things in existence together, ranging from physical, to emotional. Bonds extend between planes of existence, and when a plane is severed from those Bonds, it begins to decay. Magic users that rely on a divine source, such as clerics, lose their power, and the world begins to fade to grayscale. If starved of bonds for too long, the plane degenerates into ash.
* BadBoss: Klarg the bugbear, according to underling Yeemick the goblin. It's hard to tell if this is accurate, considering that for most of the time we see him he's under the influence of a CharmPerson spell that makes him relentlessly friendly. ...That is, until he brutally kills Yeemick with a single blow.
* BeachEpisode: Episode 62 has them spending some well earned time off at the beach.
* BewareTheSillyOnes: Taako is a CloudCuckooLander with a short attention span and a completely skewed view of reality. He's also an immensely powerful wizard with an extensive arsenal of spells and an artifact that magnifies his powers to godlike levels. Underestimate him at your own peril.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: Well, ''relatively,'' anyway -- during ''The Crystal Kingdom'', Magnus and Merle end up fighting a cockroach while shrunk. It was originally going to be ''three'' cockroaches, but two of them were serendipitously stomped on beforehand.
** PlayedStraight later in the arc, when they fight giant [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade tardigrades]] in the lab's anti-gravity chamber.
--> '''Lucas''': We call them [[UltimateLifeform unkillable]] waterbears! You gotta get the fuck out of there!
* TheBigDamnKiss: In Episode 68, [[spoiler: after rescuing him from being trapped in the Astral Plane and reuniting with him for the first time in "way too long," during the Balance Arc's finale, Taako kisses Kravitz.]]
--> [[spoiler: '''Kravitz:''' How...how did you do that?]]
--> [[spoiler: '''Justin:''' I run up to him and kiss him - I'm already kissing him. This is ridiculous, it's been way too long.]]
* BigGood: Lucretia, The Director of the Bureau of Balance. Well, more of a Big Neutral, but in a setting with {{Fantastic Nuke}}s that could allow any faction that gets the upper hand to trigger an ApocalypseHow, neutrality starts looking pretty good.
** [[spoiler: PlayedStraight when it's revealed that she's collecting the Grand Relics to oppose [[EldritchAbomination The Hunger]], the force that's been [[OmnicidalManiac destroying planes of existence]] for over one hundred years.]]
* TheBigRace: Magnus, Taako, and Merle take part in one in the ''Petals to Metal'' arc.
* BittersweetEnding: Most arcs end with the party recovering whatever Grand Relic they were after, but at a great cost.
* BodyOfBodies: The larger enemies in the BossRush mentioned below are constructed of many mannequins clumped together.
* BossRush: Called out by name in the fifth episode of ''The Suffering Game'', where the party is forced to fight mannequin-construct duplicates of major fights from every arc thus far. It gets cut off early when the Red Robe manages to summon a door, allowing the boys to escape.
* BrainBleach: During the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, Merle attempts a CharmPerson spell on some monstrous vines by dirty-talking them...which completely freaks Justin out. Mainly because, you know, it's ''his Dad'' doing it. By the end of it all of Clint's sons want to kill themselves after Merle basically makes the vines suffer TheImmodestOrgasm.
-->'''Justin''': Statistically speaking, at least one of our listeners has just discovered that they are in possession of the ''world's worst fetish''.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: It's a frequent feature, with characters constantly mentioning the format. During the PreviouslyOn segment for the finale of ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'':
--> '''Narrator:''' If our heroes can't stop this runaway train, then [[SkewedPriorities I'm going to have to find a new podcast to introduce!]]
* BreatherEpisode:
** Episode 7, taking place immediately after the party's final confrontation with the [[ArtifactOfDoom Phoenix Fire Gauntlet]], is largely exposition and comic relief with no combat or conflict to speak of.
** All the Lunar Interludes serve as one, providing light-hearted moonbase hijinks in between plot arcs.
*** [[spoiler:Heavily inverted in ''Reunion Tour''.]]
** ''The Stolen Century'' - Chapter Three also qualifies seeing as it's a BeachEpisode where the crew spends the whole year hanging out in a tropical paradise and enjoying each other's company without the looming threat of an apocalypse.
* BuryYourGays: Sadly invoked in the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc with [[spoiler:Hurley and Sloane.]] It should be noted that DungeonMaster Griffin genuinely wasn't aware that this trope was a thing, and promised to do better about it in the future [[https://twitter.com/griffinmcelroy/status/710566880486895616?s=09when he was informed about it.]] To Griffin's credit, his example of the trope resulted in one of the more genuinely heartfelt and touching moments in what is a ''very'' irreverent podcast at times, thereby averting the common usage of this trope as a means of providing unnecessary {{Wangst}} for one half of the doomed pair or their friends/companions.
** [[spoiler: Subverted in part two of ''Story and Song'', where it's revealed that they didn't actually die, but were turned into dryads.]]
* CallForward: ''The Stolen Century'', being a [[WholeEpisodeFlashback Whole Session Flashback]], is chock full of these, such as:
** [[spoiler: In Episode 64, Merle invents and masters the art of "Interpretative Jazz Dancing". All the way back in Episode ''1'', Clint makes an offhanded joke that Merle is a great dancer.]]
** [[spoiler: Magnus's first woodcarving is done with the old knife that he got from his grandfather, the knife being a starter trinket mentioned in Episode 1.]]
* CaptivityHarmonica: When the Boys are put in jail in Refuge, Magnus pulls out and starts playing a harmonica that Travis says he didn't have before.
* CatchPhrase: Griffin: "You've solved my [blank] puzzle!" Typically said at the end of a plot arc ("You've solved my train puzzle!"), or sarcastically when the players use brute force to solve a problem or expend a lot of podcast time goofing on something that's not meant to be an obstacle at all.
** "Magnus rushes in" and "Taako's good out here" serve as in-character examples.
** "Uh, I'm Taako? Like, [[AnachronismStew from [=TV=]]]?"
** "I cast Zone of Truth!"
* CerebusRetcon: There's a brief moment where Davenport is handed a Grand Relic, and there's some tension over whether it'll affect him. Fortunately, he just says "Davenport!" and hands the relic over to be destroyed. [[spoiler: The only people who can resist the thrall of the Grand Relics are the ones who created them.]]
* CerebusRollercoaster: The series goes through a sort of ''fractal'' CerebusSyndrome, with each individual arc starting out extremely light and only getting into the darker or more dramatic stuff as time goes by, until...
* CerebusSyndrome: The series gradually begins getting darker and more serious as it progresses, putting more emphasis on the plot and less on goofing around. While the jokes never go away completely, the series remains lighthearted overall, and [[spoiler:it has an almost-entirely happy ending]], it's very noticeable how much sillier the early arcs could be compared to the later ones.
* ChangedMyMindKid: In the final battle of ''The Suffering Game,'' Cam returns to sacrifice his life in order to heal Merle.
* CharacterAlignment: The three player characters represent the Good spectrum; Taako is ChaoticGood, Merle is NeutralGood, and Magnus is LawfulGood. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation Supposedly.]] In practice, they all skew pretty chaotic, and "good" in their goals and general intentions but not always their methods.
* CharmPerson: Taako uses this to turn a hostile bugbear named Klarg to the party's side. Klarg turns incredibly friendly and offers them a valuable hostage, a gift of gold, and ASpotOfTea.
* ChekhovsBoomerang: ''Petals to the Metal'' introduces silverpoint, a plant with a deadly untreatable venom. While it is first introduced as the Gaia Sash's final self defense, silverpoint venom appears later in the same arc when [[spoiler: Capt. Captain Bane]] attempts to poison the protagonists. Much, much later, it is revealed that (much earlier) [[spoiler: Lup]] was stabbed with a weapon covered in silverpoint venom so that there would be no chance to heal the wound.
* ChekhovsGun:
** In ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'', the "pleasure chamber" that offers a limited form of recreational teleportation not only figures into the murder mystery, it also comes in very handy later on when the boys need to find a way to divert a runaway train from crashing to a populated area.
** In ''The Crystal Kingdom'', Kravitz accuses the boys of dying several times each but never properly passing on; he's there to take them in. [[spoiler:This is from dying and being resurrected by the white ring core that powered the IPRE's interplanar ship; events that were mind-wiped using the Voidfish's offspring]]
** In ''The Suffering Game'', Magnus landing on "skull" during the third roulette round. Later, when confronting the elves, he's forcibly removed from his body which Edward takes control over.
* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler:Barry Bluejeans, after being presumed dead since episode 4, is revealed in episode 58 to have been the Red Robe who's been following the party around the whole time.]]
* ChekhovsSkill: In the first episode, Travis kept trying to find a use for his Vehicle Handling proficiency, but the task at hand (driving a one-horse cart down a smooth path at a reasonable pace in broad daylight) was easy enough that no proficiency was needed. 22 episodes later, he finally uses it to impress a group of motorhead gangsters by helping them soup up their battlewagon. And a full 67 episodes after it was established, [[spoiler:Travis pulls this off again by using his unused Animal Handling proficiency to ride a Hunger-infused rhino.]]
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: The party cuts a deal with a hostile goblin to murder his BadBoss in exchange for a hostage. As soon as they're out of the goblin's earshot, they resolve to see if they can cut a better deal with his boss. Magnus and Taako also aren't above surreptitiously looting the corpses of Merle's family members behind his back.
* TheClan: The Rockseekers are a large and prosperous dwarven family, giving Merle New Cousins as the Plot Demands in early episodes.
* CliffHanger: Episodes like to end on these. For example, at the end of Episode 20, Merle and Taako are near-death, and Magnus has no healing abilities.
* CoolHorse: Taako can summon a glorious talking, spectral, possibly unkillable unicorn named Garyl.
* CoolStarship: The Starblaster, a silver ship designed by the IPRE to [[InterdimensionalTravelDevice travel between planes of existence]], powered by the Bond Engine, which creates power from the emotional connections of the people around it.
* CommonTongue: [[JustifiedTrope A literal example]], as TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons uses "Common" as the basic language for all characters to use. {{Subverted}} as the few times non-Common languages are used, someone in the party knows that language.
* ContinuityCavalcade: Episode 68, ''Story and Song - Finale, Part Two'' was full of [[ContinuityNod Continuity Nods]], [[BrickJoke Brick Jokes]], [[RunningGag Running Gags]], and [[TheBusCameBack returning characters]].
* ConvectionShmonvection: The party survives a fireball powerful enough to reduce a few square miles to ''glass'' by hiding in a well a few dozen feet deep.
* CowboyCop: It's unlikely that [[DaChief Captain Captain Bane]] would approve of Lieutenant Hurley getting some out-of-town rubes to steal [[ItMakesSenseInContext an important engine part]] as part of a convoluted plan to bring down The Raven. She's a loose cannon, but dammit, she gets results.
* CrisisCrossover: Normally very few characters transition between arcs, with only the main cast and Bureau members being recurring. [[spoiler: ''Story and Song'' sees the return of nearly every named character from every arc thus far as they defend their Planar System from the Hunger, including; Lucas Miller, Upsy (Your Lifting Friend), Merle's family, Klaarg, Graham the Juicy Wizard, Jess the Beheader, Hurley and Sloane (as dryads), Kravitz, Legion, Ren, Paloma, Luca and Redmond, June, Roswell (the bird), and Cassidy. A few characters from ''The Stolen Century'' also return as the Hunger's thralls, including the Royal Beasts and the Stone Judges.]]
* {{Crossover}}: There's a handful of jokes and references that originate from ''MBMBAM'', such as Garfield the Deals Warlock and Candlenights.
* CurbStompBattle: The trio's first encounter with the Raven. She [=KOs=] two of our heroes in one attack, and it doesn't get any better from there.
* DaChief:
** The Director of the Bureau of Balance. She has very little patience for the adventurers' antics, constantly just trying to get them to stay on point and booting them out of her office immediately after giving them their assignment.
** Captain Captain[[note]]his first name[[/note]] Bane is this for the city of Goldcliff, heading up the [[strike: police]] constabulary response to the Raven's assault on the city bank.
* DamagerHealerTank: The players consciously base the party on this structure, with Taako the Damager, Merle the Healer, and Magnus the Tank. Not that they always play exactly to type. In fact, it's a minor running joke that Merle neglects his healing duties, and his signature spell ends up being "[[TruthSerums Zone of Truth]]".
* DarkerAndEdgier: ''The Suffering Game'' is far harsher than the previous arcs. The arcs afterward continue the theme.
* TheDarknessGazesBack: In ''Carnival Chaos'', for the first time in the story, the boys see eyes in the sky staring down at the world.[[spoiler: This is the first hint at the existence of The Hunger.]]
* DeathByDespair: Lydia, after her brother Edward is killed.
* DeusExMachina: In Episode 20, the party is saved from a potential TotalPartyKill by a halfling in a karate gi busting in through a window.
** Later [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] by Taako during the fight against Lydia and Edward in ''The Suffering Game'', during which both Merle and Taako are put into a near-death state, mentioning that normally when things get this dire a very competent woman busts through to bail them out.
* DiabolusExMachina: In Episode 6, seconds before Gundren was going to take off the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, Kurtze the orc boy shoots him with an arrow to enact revenge. This [[{{pun}} reignites]] his rage, and ultimately destroys Phandalin.
* DirtyCop: Lieutenant Hurley is not above indulging in illegal {{Blood Sport}}s after hours. She's also remarkably blasé about the amount of murder the party commits while working for her.
* DistaffCounterpart: Subverted with [[spoiler: Taako and Lup]]. Despite being [[spoiler: twins]] who both have pragmatic trickster tendencies, they are by no means interchangeable. [[spoiler: Lup]] eventually proves to be the more confrontational and empathetic of the two. They are also [[spoiler: accused of almost completely different sins by the judges in The Stolen Century. Both are charged with Pride, but Lup is uniquely charged with Lust, Gluttony, and Wrath. Taako gets none of those three, instead being accused of Envy and Greed]].
** Justin has admitted to initially fearing that [[spoiler: Lup's introduction would just mean that there were now two Taakos running around, but thankfully Lup ended up setting herself apart as her own character]].
* DownerEnding: The first plot arc ends with an entire city being wiped out by an ArtifactOfDoom.
* DueToTheDead: Merle is staunchly against looting the corpses of his cousins. Magnus and Taako aren't nearly so fastidious.
* DungeonPunk: A fairly light-hearted take. {{Magitek}} is everywhere and the FantasyKitchenSink is in full effect.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The first arc loosely follows an adventure from the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' 5e starter kit and takes place in a fairly StandardFantasySetting with a pretty straight medieval level of technology and references to classic ''D&D'' locales like the city of [[VideoGame/NeverwinterNights Neverwinter]]. Once Griffin starts inventing more of the world, the plot becomes completely original, and all kinds of [[SchizoTech Schizo-]]{{Magitek}} (flying saucers, secret moon bases, luxury passenger trains with resident wizards who can whisk you off to remote pleasure chambers to pass the time on your journey) and general weirdness (a city full of Tom Bodetts) starts cropping up.
** The episode summaries tend to follow a format of a brief description of the episode, followed by specific highlights of what Merle, Taako and Magnus did in said episode - often in a way that's misleading or not immediately obvious. This is only the case for the first Lunar Interlude onwards; in ''Here There Be Gerblins'', a different format is followed.
** Background music and sound effects didn't begin appearing until over twenty episodes in, a little over halfway through Petals to the Medal. Up until then, it was just the group talking with the theme music playing at the beginning, end, and interlude.
** It takes several arcs for the players to really solidify their characters' personalities, which results in occasional weirdness like [[LovableCoward Taako]] being labeled the bravest one of the group in ''Moonlighting''.
* EatDirtCheap: Magnus swallows the Philosopher's Stone. It seemed like a good idea (to him, and no one else) at the time.
* EdibleThemeNaming: Implied with regards to Taako's family — his grandfather's name is "Tostada," [[spoiler:and his twin sister, "Lup," was originally intended to have the full name "Chalupa." This has since been retconned due to problematic implications for anyone imagining the twins as Latinx.]]
* EldritchAbomination: What the Red Robe showed the three, and what Maureen saw beyond the cosmoscope, destroying her mind and killing her: a vast black cloud seemingly consuming the universe.
* EmotionEater: Whatever sustains Wonderland in ''The Suffering Game,'' Magnus and Taako quickly hypothesize that it feeds off negativity expressed by the "contestants." It helps sustain the "Vogue Elves'" lichdom, allowing them to stay sane at the expense of everyone who visits.
* EurekaMoment: The primary way Taako gets ideas that will eventually result in the taco.
* EvilIsPetty: The "Evil" part may be ambiguous, but when Our Heroes reject the Temporal Chalice's offer, it/she decides to show them the horrible consequences of their actions at Phandalin, for no real reason other than to rub it in just how sideways their first encounter with a Grand Relic went.
* FakingTheDead: Jenkins, specifically by killing the Engineer and switching clothes with him.
* FamousFamousFictional: When the laws that govern reality are brought up, expect three to be listed: The Laws of Physics, Thermodynamics, and [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic Arcane Interactions]].
* FantasticDrug: Halfling roommate Robbie stocks the "dankest" potions, including one that resembles Orbitz and which has an effect like a cross between alcohol and salvia.
* FauxAffablyEvil / BaitTheDog: Unlike the somewhat goofy methods of persuasion the other [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts Of Doom]] employ and incredibly destructive nature, the Temporal Chalice is polite and even sympathetic to the trauma of the heroes, presenting itself as just a tool who wants a master who will do good for once. Then she spitefully taunts them with the consequences of Phandalin.
* FluffyTheTerrible: Glovey the ArtifactOfDoom. [[JustifiedTrope Though its real name is far more imposing.]]
* {{Gamebreaker}}: [[invoked]] In-universe. Whomever came up with the rules of [[WackyRacing battlewagons]] clearly failed to take into account the amount of damage a wizard with the right spells could do to the opposition. Taako takes down [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome three rival wagons]] with [[OneHitPolyKill only two spells]].
* FullBoarAction: One of the Battlewagon racers was a chariot pulled by an armored boar larger than Hurley's Battlewagon.
* FungusHumongous: [[spoiler: The second world we see the Starblaster crew visit is blanketed with a [[BioluminescenceIsCool glowing]], toxic, mushroom forest, inhabited by [[MushroomMan fungus people]].]]
* GameplayAndStorySegregation:
** Justin for a while decided to play Taako as humorously thick, even describing himself to [=NPCs=] as a "simple idiot wizard." He has above-average scores in both Wisdom and Intelligence, ultimately maxing out the latter at 20. [[CharacterDevelopment As the campaign went on]], he gradually transitioned to more of a GeniusDitz and finally a genuinely cunning and intelligent person.
** Robbie's "dank" Orbitz-looking potion is supposedly similar to salvia, but in gameplay it seems much closer to a strong dose of alcohol.
** The party are all supposedly [[CharacterAlignment Good-aligned]], but some of the shenanigans they get up to, like copious amounts of [[HeroicComedicSociopath murder and theft]], would make even the most Chaotic of {{Chaotic Good}}niks think twice.
* GenderBlenderName: The gate guard for the Hammerheads's base was a man named Barbara.
* GenreSavvy: When they Boys are debriefing with Captain Bane in his office, he pours them all a drink. None of them drink it, suspecting him of [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink trying to poison them]] so he could take the Gaia Sash for himself, much to Bane's annoyance. They were right.
* GetYourMindOutOfTheGutter: Merle mostly, but they all experience it at least once an episode. Usually due to DungeonMaster Griffin's AccidentalInnuendo.
* GottaKillEmAll: The party has to find and destroy all seven [[ArtifactOfDoom Grand Relics]].
* GoodCopBadCop: Magnus and Taako slip into this routine while interrogating Graham (aka The Juicy Wizard)...with Merle as a bonus Maternal Cop.
* GreatOffscreenWar: A war fought over immensely powerful magical artifacts called the Grand Relics nearly destroyed the world some years back, but nobody remembers it, thanks to LaserGuidedAmnesia.
* GroundhogDayLoop: The central conceit of ''The Eleventh Hour,'' evidently induced by the Grand Relic of the arc. The party "arrives" each morning; at high noon, ''something'' tears the town apart, killing everyone; then they end up back in a white void for a short while before starting the morning from scratch.
* HaveYouSeenMyGod: Toward the end of ''The Suffering Game'', Pan stops responding to Merle's prayers, and shortly after that Kravitz loses contact with the Raven Queen. [[spoiler:It seems that The Hunger is either devouring or driving away the deities of this world.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: ''The Great Switcheroo!'' cross-promotion with the Flophouse podcast features the hosts of the Flophouse as another party of adventurers in the same universe. They somehow manage to be more bumbling and more competent than our regular heroes at the same time.
* HeroicBSOD: In the ''Petals To The Metal'' arc, after losing the battlewagon race against Hurley and the boys, [[spoiler: The Raven has a mental breakdown and drives herself off a cliff. From then on, the Gaia Sash takes complete control over her.]]
* HeroicComedicSociopath: Our [[InformedAttribute good-aligned]] [[SarcasmMode Paragons of Justice]] murder a low-level gangster who [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything commits no serious crimes that the audience is privy to]] and then throw his body off a cliff rather than use up a healing spell to avoid, y'know. [[MurderIsTheBestSolution Murder.]]
** In their defense, they did want to heal him, but since Travis described Magnus' attack as "bisecting" the gangster, Griffin made them deal with the consequences.
* HeroicSacrifice: The name of ''The Suffering Game'', where the [=PCs=] have to sacrifice things at every turn to either progress or keep each other alive. Ultimately, Cam does this as well, sacrificing his life in order to heal Merle.
* HideYourLesbians: Hurley and Sloane's romance is limited to subtext in the actual story, even though WordOfGay confirms that they're a couple. Averted with later same-gender couples like Carey and Killian, who are explicitly shown to be dating. [[spoiler: Further averted when the Balance storyline later ends with Carey and Killian's wedding.]]
* HighSchoolAU: An extremely rare ''canon'' example! The ''Live in Austin!'' show takes Tres Horny Boys into a collective DreamLand where they and their friends are students at Neverwinter High.
* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: The captain of the Goldcliff Militia is named "Captain Bane".
-->'''Captain Captain Bane''': "Please, call me Captain. Just one. If you just call me one, I assume you're just using my first name."
* HonoraryUncle: [[spoiler: How Merle's kids, Mavis and Mookie, come to see the rest of the IPRE in the epilogue.]]
-->[[spoiler: '''Mavis''': You’re his hero, you know. When we heard the story of what you did when you travelled with Uncle Magnus and Uncle Taako and Aunt Lup and Aunt Lucretia and Uncle Barry [[AndZoidberg and Dav]], it’s all he talked about for weeks.]]
* HypocriticalHumor: In episode 5, Justin complains that no one else does character voices. As soon as Clint obliges, he complains about that until Clint stops. (Justin's Taako voice sounds like an exaggerated Creator/EmoPhillips.)
* ICallItVera: Merle has named his warhammer "Smusher", and his hand-axe "Lil' Choppy".
* IdenticalStranger: PlayedForLaughs when the party meets Brian, the Black Spider, who is an elf wizard that has Taako's bizarre faux German/Creator/EmoPhillips inflection. He even counters Taako's Magic Missile attack with a more powerful Magic Missile attack. This voice leads to Brian's quick death when he tries to pull a SpotTheImposter later on.
* IconicItem: The Tres Horny Boys each have one:
** Magnus has Railsplitter, a battleaxe shaped like a lumber-axe, with the ability to fell a tree with a single swing.
** Merle has the Extreme Teen Bible, his holy symbol, used to preach the good word of Pan to the youth of Faerûn.
*** He also gains the Soulwood Arm, a prosthetic arm made of living wood to replace the one he lost in ''The Crystal Kingdom''.
** Taako has the Umbra Staff, a wand disguised as an umbrella, with the ability to absorb the magical power of defeated wizards.
* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: Taako tries to bluff his way past Sheriff Isaak in ''The Eleventh Hour'' by showing him a fake police badge he picked up at the Fantasy Costco. Needless to say, it doesn't work.
* IncredibleShrinkingMan: One of Lucas's elevators does this, allowing those who enter to view a diorama as if it were actual size.
* InfantImmortality: Angus [=McDonald=] is spared when Jenkins is horrifically murdered. Potentially [[JustifiedTrope justified]] as he may have been out of the room at the time.
* InfinityPlusOneSword: The [[FlamingSword Flaming]] [[PoisonedWeapons Poisoning]] [[ImpossiblyCoolWeapon Raging Sword]] [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom of Doom]], dealing an extra 20 damage per swing, and costs a whopping 60,000Gp.[[note]]According to the Player's Handbook, you could buy two whole ''taverns'' for that much money.[[/note]] [[spoiler: Taako ends up conning Garfield out of it for only 2,400Gp on his part.]]
* InNameOnly: Usage of the continent of Faerûn, the planet of Abeir-Toril, and characters like Gundren Rockseeker would point to the podcast taking place in ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' canon, but an ''[[{{Understatement}} incredibly]]'' customized version of it. By the events of the ''Moonlighting'' interlude all pretenses have been dropped to this taking place anywhere in established D&D lore or canon, which is probably for the best.
* KarmicDeath: After the "Vogue Elves" have sustained their undeath for untold years by feeding off the pain and misery of others, Lydia dies of despair when Edward is defeated.
* {{Kaiju}}: The Purple Worm from ''The Eleventh Hour'' is far, far, [[UpToEleven far]] larger than a normal purple worm found in dungeons and dragons. This worm was described has having a mouth ''200'' feet in diameter! If scaled proportionally, this worm is ''3,200 feet'' long, ''40 times'' larger than a standard purple worm!
** [[spoiler: The Four Judges of Cycle 65, giant, 20-story-tall statues, have been corrupted by The Hunger, [[OhCrap and are now walking across Faerûn towards the BoB Moon Base.]] ]]
* KidDetective: Angus [=McDonald=], the self-described "world's greatest detective," is a pre-pubescent boy.
* KillerCop: At the end of the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, Captain Captain Bane attempts to poison the party, presumably to steal the Gaia Sash.
** Sherrif Isaak [[spoiler:killed Jack]] for the Temporal Chalice in ''The Eleventh Hour''. However, his daughter June got to it before he could, and formed the bubble around Refuge.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The specialty of the Voidfish, who erases people's memories of everything it eats to CosmicRetcon levels. Those memories can be restored by drinking its... [[ToiletHumor fluids]].
* LaughablyEvil: Quite a few of the villains, but especially Magic Brian, the villain of the ''Here There Be Gerblins'' arc, who has a ridiculous accent (similar to Taako's) and is ultimately disposed of by [[spoiler:Magnus simply kicking him off of a ledge after he utterly fails to disguise his voice when he tries to pull a SpotTheImposter with Gundren.]]
* LeeroyJenkins: Justin jokes that the show should be renamed "Magnus Rushes In."
* LifeOrLimbDecision: In ''The Crystal Kingdom'', Merle gets exposed to rapidly-growing crystal, forcing Magnus to chop off his arm to save him. Fortunately, he quickly gets a magical wooden replacement that he can control independently of his body.
* LockedRoomMystery: The centerpiece of the ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'' arc, in which the victim is beheaded and be-handed in a locked train car aboard a train which requires all passengers to surrender their weapons upon boarding.
* LogicBomb: The end goal of the "Stump Hodge Podge" round in ''The Crystal Kingdom''. Paradoxes don't work; what does work is Taako asking him who the party works for. Since the Voidfish denies Hodge Podge knowledge of the Bureau of Balance, he quickly overheats and explodes trying to work it out.
* TheLoonie: Justin has decided that Taako's mission in life is to invent the taco and name it after himself. Considering that the setting of the game has yet to discover concepts such as grinding meat, processing dairy into cheese, or growing corn for food, it looks to be a significant challenge.
** This gets especially hilarious once you consider that the taco quest was set up at the beginning when they were still attempting to make the setting full HighFantasy, at which point having no concept of cultured dairy products or ground meat would have been a big stretch but not entirely impossible, but the campaign pretty quickly diverges from that once things like the moon base and Fantasy Costco start showing up. Hell, Taako even [[spoiler:had his own cooking show]] for a while.
** [[spoiler: Somewhat subverted when he finally learns how to make a taco, and it ends up giving him the ability to reconnect the broken bonds between planes, liberating the gods and his boyfriend from purgatory and basically saving the world. Not so loony after all.]]
* TheMagnificent: Magnus is occasionally called "the Hammer," [[NonIndicativeName despite wielding a battleaxe]]. It actually comes from his former profession as one half of a carpenter and blacksmith duo with his mentor Steven. Their shop was called "The Hammer and Tongs", with Magnus as the Hammer and Steven as the Tongs.
* TheMainCharactersDoEverything: {{Lampshaded}}. There are [[MacGuffin seven ancient artifacts]] that must be collected and destroyed for the safety of the world. Secret society of powerful wizards organized for that exact purpose who live in a secret base on the moon: 0. Three jokers: 6. The Director of the Bureau of Balance notes this in-universe after the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc and decides to dismiss all other reclaimers and put the Bureau's full resources behind supporting the party.
** Somewhat justified in that the Director notes that [[spoiler: because they made them]], the main party are the only people who can resist the thrall of the Grand Relics. Anyone else gets tempted to use it and inevitably corrupted by its power if they do.
* MicDrop: [[spoiler: Lup]] does this during [[spoiler: the IPRE press conference]] in Episode 60.
* MontyHaul:
** In the first arc, Griffin leaves a small fortune in {{Gold Piece}}s and a useful pair of magical boots lying on conveniently pre-dead dwarves, just waiting to be picked up. If only [[HonorBeforeReason Merle]] weren't such a prude about looting the dead....
** Between the Bureau of Balance' magic gatchapon machine that awards a random magical item to each party member after each arc, and their [[AnachronismStew Fantasy Costco]] that stocks a plethora more goodies for the right price, the boys have amassed a very impressive magical arsenal for adventurers of their level.
* TheMunchkin: While Justin and Clint play preconstructed characters included in the 5th Edition starter kit, Travis decided to roll his own. His starting ability scores were suspiciously high.
* MythologyGag:
** Candlenights, which is the most prominent winter holiday in the ''TAZ Balance'' setting, originated as a joke from ''My Brother, My Brother and Me'', wherein it's the brothers' own pan-religious winter holiday.
** Garfield the Deals Warlock was a one-off goof in ''MBMBAM'' that developed into a full-fledged character in ''TAZ Balance''.
** The ''Caleb Cleveland: Kid Cop'' series of novels Angus is mentioned liking originate from literary masterpiece ''Grant Andrews - Kid Cop'' that Griffin wrote in elementary school, which he has talked about on [[https://griffinriffs.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/grant-andrews-kid-cop-part-one/ his old blog]] and discussed a few times on ''MBMBAM''.
* NamesakeGag: Taako's quest to invent the taco.
* {{Nerf}}: DungeonMaster Griffin quietly lowered Magnus' ability scores between episodes to bring him in line with the other two party members.
* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: DM Griffin suspects Clint of making up new powers for his cleric when they're convenient. He's occasionally right.
* NinjaLooting: Near-literal example: Taako rolls a Stealth check to see if he can get the magical boots off of Merle's dead cousin on the sly. Later, Magnus distracts Merle so that Taako can lift a small fortune in {{Gold Piece}}s off another dead cousin, which he pockets rather than share it with the party.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: In the ''Live Boston Stunt Spectacular'', we have an event which is basically Fantasy Wrestlemania, and several participants who are knockoffs of real-life pro wrestlers:
** Jeff Angel is a perfect copy of Wrestling/JohnCena, from his attire to his entrance theme, except that he's an [[BirdPeople aarakocra]].
** Death Man is a Goth-themed fighter with a black trenchcoat, a rocking entrance theme, and "massive guns," a bit past his prime but still formidable. [[Wrestling/TheUndertaker Hmmm...]]
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: The party goes out of their way to rescue an enslaved orc boy named Kurtze. Guess who shows up at exactly the wrong moment and shoots a crossbow at the PersonOfMassDestruction the party had just about talked down?
* NominalHero: The "heroes" are in the business of tracking down [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]] for two reasons: because they don't want the planet destroyed ([[WesternAnimation/TheTick it's where they keep all their stuff]]) and because the pay is pretty good. [[HeroicComedicSociopath They'll gleefully lie, cheat, steal, and murder]] along their way toward saving the world from the latest threat, and everyone else has to put up with it, because [[UltimateJobSecurity their track record at world-saving can't be beat]].
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Ninja Looter Taako actually objects to stealing some gold they find in a lockbox in a ruined bank. Apparently he makes a distinction between looting a fallen enemy (or unsuspecting ally) and straight-up bank robbery. Merle only responds with a DeathGlare.
* OnceMoreWithClarity:
** Or rather, Once More With Particular Attention To The Actual Cost Of Your Actions; in the penultimate episode of ''The Eleventh Hour'', the Temporal Chalice, in a bid to get them to use it, offers them the chance to prevent their destruction of Phandalin by not letting Kurtze the Orc Boy out of his cage. When they refuse, probably out of spite, the Chalice then shows them exactly what the citizens of Phandalin were doing right as the town got immolated and glassed; a hedge wizard was practicing his spells, bar patrons (and the girl who we now know as the robot Noelle) were hiding from the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet-consumed Gundren, Barry Bluejeans was trying to talk his former partner down, etc., all of which was followed by a blinding flash of fire.
** In the finale of ''The Stolen Century'', certain clips of Lucretia interacting with the boys (welcoming them to the Bureau, eating Taako's macaroon, and at the spa day with Merle) are replayed. They serve as exposition or are PlayedForLaughs the first time around; after the reveal that [[spoiler:she's been friends with them for decades, and erased their memories of her in order to preserve their happiness and try to rectify what they'd done to the world]], it's rather heartbreaking.
* OneSteveLimit:
** {{Averted}} with Brian and his pet spider Bryan. Since they still ''sound'' identical, Brian winds up going by "Magic Brian" to avoid confusing the players.
** There have also been ''four'' Jerrys over the course of the show. A gerblin in ''Here There Be Gerblins'', two Hammerhead ruffians named Little Jerry and [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Jerreeeeee]] in ''Petals to the Metal'', and a bank guard in ''The Eleventh Hour''. Guest host Stuart Wellington added a fifth one in tribute to the Hammerheads with Goldcliff's Councillor Jerry, who also had the Hammerheads' distinctive "Joe Pesci" accent.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: The Tres Horny Boys start out like this.
* OrganicTechnology: The Millers created a mascot for their line of elevators called Upsy, Your Lifting Friend. [[{{Squick}} Horrifyingly]], despite being an elevator, his inside is fleshy, not unlike a [[SwallowedWhole mouth or stomach]].
* OrnamentalWeapon: [[spoiler: This is how Taako intends to use the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom]] after swindling it away from Garfield.]]
* OurLichesAreDifferent: Rather than a phylactery, liches bind their souls to their magical essence, however most of the time, they go insane. Liches can be stabilized by rooting themselves with emotions they feel for others, such as [[ThePowerOfLove people they love]]. The liches in Wonderland learned how to [[EmotionEater feed off of other people's emotions]], namely misery.
* OutOfCharacterMoment: In the second episode of ''The Suffering Game'', due in part to the specific losses the boys had to accept to continue without penalty, ''Taako'' leads the way into the next room, Magnus follows behind him, and Merle says he's "good out here."
* PersonOfMassDestruction: ''Everyone'' who gets their hands on a Grand Relic. Episode 39 features Lucretia giving the party a montage of towns and cities just totally annihilated by them, with a combined death toll in the tens of thousands.
* PhysicalGod: Our heroes have met several:
** [[{{Greyhawk}} Istus]], the lady of fate, is met in one of her churches in ''The Eleventh Hour''.
** The Four Judges are godlike entities in the form of giant statues, who rule the world of Cycle 65 in ''The Stolen Century''. [[spoiler: They appear again, corrupted by The Hunger, in ''Story and Song''.]]
** In the ''Live Boston Stunt Spectacular'' show, They prevent [[ForgottenRealms Garagos]], the forgotten god of war, from being summoned from his imprisonment, but not before his 5 hands appear, and destroy the arena.
** [[spoiler: Merle finally meets Pan face-to-face in episode two of ''Story and Song''.]]
* PlanetOfSteves: Apparently the town of Rockport is populated exclusively by Tom Bodetts. And they do leave the light on for ya...
* [[ComicBookFantasyCasting Podcast Fantasy Casting]]: Barry Bluejeans is described as looking like Tom Arnold.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: The first episode was released as part of ''Podcast/MyBrotherMyBrotherAndMe'', but there was already plenty of talk about making it an ongoing spinoff if it worked out.
* ThePowerOfLove:
** How Hurley manages to [[spoiler:save Sloane. They end up [[TogetherInDeath turning themselves into a tree]] together.]]
** Taako [[LampshadedTrope lampshades]] this by asking up front if the seventh Grand Relic was love the whole time. [[spoiler: As it turns out, the power of strong emotions (including love) does exist. Certain unexplainable magical phenomena that the party has witnessed like Hurley healing Sloane of an incurable poison are due to the fact that strong emotion is an energy unto itself like light, heat, and magic that can affect the physical and arcane worlds. The lich elves that run Wonderland are using this to sustain themselves and keep from descending into insanity by siphoning off the misery and suffering of those around them. Barry and Lup's love for each other and the rest of the IPRE sustains their lich forms. And the Starblaster's bond engine allows Tres Horny Boys to summon loved ones to help defeat The Final John in their [[FinalBoss final battle]] against the Hunger.]]
* PowerupLetdown: Magnus decides to buy a Mystery Bag at the local Fantasy Costco. Instead of a useful magical item, it contains an ordinary goldfish.
* PreMortemOneLiner: Edward ''intends'' to give one of these during ''The Suffering Game'', with "bad luck" just before expelling Magnus's soul from his body with the Animus Bell. But thanks to Merle and Taako, the "mortem" part doesn't quite take.
* PrisonersDilemma: Each team that enters Wonderland during ''The Suffering Game'' is faced with a series of these, where they're paired off with another team and the challenge they'll face in the next room is scaled accordingly (with "cooperate while the other team forsakes" resulting in an extremely tough challenge, while "forsake while the other team cooperates" results in a free pass).
* RedHerring: In ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'', the victim has been beheaded and be-handed in a locked train car on a train where all passengers are required to surrender their weapons upon boarding. Jess, a powerful warrior with no alibi and a super-sharp, summonable soulbound ax that ''can't'' be separated from her would seem to be a prime suspect, but it turns out the decapitation was accomplished by PortalCut by another character.
* RedOniBlueOni: Magnus and Taako, respectively. From the beginning, Magnus's motto is "Magnus rushes in," and Travis consistently plays him as someone who prefers prompt action to careful planning. Taako, on the other hand, later establishes that his motto is "Taako's good out here," and many of his most effective moments are due to action that is clever and not very risky.
* ReferenceOverdosed: Both the players and the characters make constant pop culture references. Whether or not the references the characters make are understood in-universe varies according to RuleOfFunny.
* {{Retcon}}:
** Griffin sneaks a few into his series recap in ''The The Adventure Zone Zone'', making it official continuity that Davenport can only say his own name and Garfield is the only employee of Fantasy Costco.
** The players also have this as their now-developed back stories occasionally conflict with things they've said in the past.
* RiddleForTheAges: There is in fact a reason [[spoiler: Garfield was growing a new Magnus body]], but Griffin has decided that it's way more hilarious and creepy to never have it explained and has vowed to take it to his grave.
* TheRolePlayer: All three players are pretty good about this, attempting to negotiate with enemies whenever possible and occasionally making suboptimal decisions that are in line with their characters. For example, Travis plays Magnus as an impulsive man of action who will leap into situations without thinking, Clint plays Merle as a bit irreverent, usually trying to keep up with Magus as he rushes in, and Justin plays Taako as disinterested in combat, usually hanging back and waiting for things to play out, or be dragged in by the other two.
* RollercoasterMine: The climax of ''The Eleventh Hour'' has Tres Horny Boys and Roswell racing down mineshafts while pursued by a colossal purple worm.
* RunawayTrain: The climax to the ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'' arc has the boys trying to stop an out-of-control locomotive before it can collide with a populated city and cause massive destruction. They actually fail to stop it; massive destruction is only avoided by teleporting the speeding train elsewhere.
* RunningGag:
** Magnus removing arms from the robots he fights and collecting them.
** Merle casting Zone of Truth.
** Elevators have appeared in almost every one of their adventures to date.
*** And nearly every time they enter one, [[TheElevatorFromIpanema Travis starts humming "The Girl from Ipanema".]]
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Coming face to face with a crab monster on the Rockport Limited while they're all unarmed, Taako decides to run for it. When Clint protests, Justin launches into a hilarious rant:
-->"Let me tell you a story about the time we fought three ogres, and I got punched so hard I almost died. You remember? You were up in some kind of weird laser firing potions willy-nilly, Magnus was pulling the arms off a robot, and ''I got punched so hard I almost died!'' I'm not about to throw down with a giant crab while you're armed with just a terrible Scottish accent, and Travis doesn't even have his shield! ''I'm out!''"
* ScienceFantasy: Magic, wizards, [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]], liches, robots, aliens, interdimensional space travel, and [[AnachronismStew Costco]].
* SequenceBreaking: Griffin references a long-sounding sequence in a castle that the party manages to skip by figuring out how to use an enchanted map and getting pointed straight to Wave Echo Cave. Unlike many instances of this trope, it is ''not'' advantageous, since it puts them in an area recommended for characters of level 4-5 at level 2.
* ShaggyDogStory: In the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, Lt. Hurley of the Goldcliff constabulary instructs the boys to steal an important MacGuffin from a gang of street toughs ''without'' [[MurderIsTheBestSolution killing anyone, as is their usual habit]]. They spend the better part of a few episodes attempting various harebrained schemes to surreptitiously gain entrance to the gang's hideout, at one point actually killing someone and furtively disposing of the body so that Hurley won't find out and turn against them, finally infiltrating the gang through various [[HijinxEnsue wacky disguises and bald-faced bluffs]]. Then their cover gets blown, they wind up [[ViolenceReallyIsTheAnswer killing just about everyone anyway]], and Hurley... [[AntiClimax is very disappointed in them. And gives them a bunch of sweet loot anyway.]]
* SharedUniverse: [[spoiler: Because of the nature of the IPRE traveling between realities in ''The Stolen Century'', they come across a version of the ''TAZ Nights'' universe, [[AfterTheEnd set in the far future]], after [[ThePlague a plague]] wiped out most people living there.]]
* ShmuckBait: Subverted during ''The Crystal Kingdom''. The room with the suspiciously sounding name 'Hugbears' that Lucas doesn't want you to go into? Actually full of nice bugbears that just happened to be created unethically using brain altering chips. (It probably doesn't hurt that Merle healed one of them before they woke up).
* {{Shoutout}}:
** Wonderland as a whole is very similar to The TabletopGame/TombOfHorrors campaign by Creator/GaryGygax, even being referenced by name. Adventurers are lured into a dungeon with promises of riches, only to find that it's a trap made to sustain the lich(es) that reside there.
-->'''Lucretia''': Their accounts of what is inside Wonderland never matched up. [...] One person told of a maze full of undead killers, another told of a '''Tomb of Horrors'''.
** Justin named a character Sazed as a shout out to the character of the same name from [[Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy Mistborn]].
** Griffin says that the ''Live in Austin!'' episode was basically intended as one long shout-out to [[Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona Persona]].
* TheSoCalledCoward: In a sense; the party (especially Taako) relentlessly mock Jenkins for conserving spell slots instead of expending them to [[MundaneUtility make his job easier.]] He turns out to be the villain of the arc, not that it stops them from making fun of him.
* SpellBook: Taako's is apparently an Literature/UncleJohnsBathroomReader with notes on spells and ideas for the taco scribbled in the margins.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: 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.
** Clint likes to turn real-life things into fantasy things by just changing up the spelling.
--> '''Clint (as an NPC asking the IPRE a question):''' "Uh, Captain Davenport? Rex Reed, Hollywudd Reporter— that’s H-O-L-L-Y-W-U-D-D—"
--> '''Davenport:''' "Oh, good."
--> '''Clint:''' "Um, it's a town near Neverwinter."
* SpotTheImposter: After being defeated, Brian disguises himself as Gundren Rockseeker. The party figures it out easily, since [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent he does nothing to disguise his voice.]] After five seconds of trying to {{Handwave}} the vocal confusion, Magnus kicks him off a ledge.
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: During the epilogue to ''The Eleventh Hour'', stars are beginning to blink out of existence. [[spoiler: This is due to the thirteenth plane of existence consuming them as it makes for the planar system of the campaign.]]
* TheStarscream: Yeemick the goblin has a vendetta against Klarg the bugbear, who he claims is a BadBoss, and blackmails the party into trying to kill him. His plan lasts exactly long enough for the party to tell Klarg, who kills him in a spectacular fashion.
* StarterVillain: The Black Spider, aka Magic Brian, is a low-level wizard who initially seems to be an overarching villain, but who turns out to be a ''really'' small fry in the grand scheme of things.
* StoneWall: Magnus has the Guardian Fighter specialty, which trades some offensive capability for the ability to better defend adjacent party members. This is only relative, though, and reversible depending on the circumstances; if he decides to cast aside his shield and wield his battleaxe two-handed, he is fully capable of laying down the hurt.
* StrawNihilist: [[spoiler:According to John, its avatar, the Hunger believes that all life is pointless and horrible, and that as a result it must be destroyed.]]
* SuddenDownerEnding: ''Here There Be Gerblins'' is lighthearted and silly right up until Phandalin is destroyed, killing countless innocent people.
* SummonToHand:
** Jess the Beheader possesses a "soulbound" axe that can be summoned to her location, similar to the "Weapon Bond" ability of the Eldritch Knight sub-class.
** In ''The Eleventh Hour'', Magnus is given a spear called the [[NonIndicativeName Chance Lance]] by the goddess Istus. When he throws and recalls it, it reverses its path in time back to his hand.
* SurpriseCreepy: ''Carnival Chaos'' features Tres Horny Boys having fun at the Midsummer Solstice festival during the first part. Then comes the Eclipse watching and, though we don't know it at the time, [[spoiler: The first appearance of ''[[EldritchAbomination The Hunger]]'']].
* ThatsNoMoon: The headquarters for the Bureau of Balance is disguised from the underside to look like a second moon.
** [[spoiler: The BigBad of the campaign initially seemed to be a massless void of eyes in the sky, only for it to turn out to be a ''very'' sentient and ''very'' hungry plane of existence.]]
* TogetherInDeath: [[spoiler: Magnus and Julia]] in the DistantFinale.
* TokenMinority: ZigZagged. The [=McElroys=] encourage the audience to depict the characters however we want, but that leaves only one character with a ''canon'' race, and that's the dark-skinned Lucretia.
* TongueTied: A variant: those who aren't in tune with the Voidfish hear nothing but static when certain concepts, like the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet a.k.a. Glovey, are mentioned.
* TooDumbToFool:
** Invoked in-universe with Taako. Apparently the reason he was able to resist the temptation to claim and use the ArtifactOfDoom is because he's simply too stupid to be tempted.
** It happens again with the artifact from the second arc; it tries to tempt him with "anything he can imagine," but his imagination is so bad it doesn't make a difference.
** [[spoiler: Ultimately subverted when the real reason the boys can resist the Relics--the fact that they made them--is revealed.]]
* TooDumbToLive: Okay, Kurtze, this horrifically racist dwarf wreathed in unholy flames is on a rampage through the countryside, but the nice guys who rescued you from slavery seem to be talking him down. Do you, A.) get away from all this madness as fast as orcishly possible, or B.) shoot a crossbow at it?
* TotalEclipseOfThePlot: In ''Carnival Chaos'' The Boys partake in a carnival in celebration of the [[ArtisticLicenseAstronomy annual midsummer solstice eclipse]]. During the eclipse though, [[spoiler: [[EldritchAbomination The Hunger]] makes its first appearance, foreshadowing the overarching plot to come.]]
* TotallyRadical: The ''Live in Austin!'' show brings us Brody, who wears [[TheNineties obnoxious neon clothing]] and is never seen without his skateboard. [[spoiler: He turns out to be the avatar of the mind flayer who captured them and put them in the [[HighSchoolAU high school dreamscape]].]]
* TriggerPhrase: In ''The Eleventh Hour'', Roswell is revealed to have one - namely, "Junebug."
* TruthSerum: Merle gets a lot of mileage out of the Zone of Truth spell, which makes it difficult for anyone affected to lie.
* UltimateJobSecurity: The party gets up to antics that would get anyone else tossed out on their rear, being rude to [=VIPs=] and superiors, [[HeroicComedicSociopath trigger-happy to the point of murderousness]], and liable to [[KleptomaniacHero loot anything that isn't nailed down]]. The thing is, their track record when it comes to hunting down and safely disposing of [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]] is six to everyone else's zilcho.
** [[spoiler: It helps that they've been friends with the boss for a century, and they're the only living beings capable of resisting the thrall of the Grand Relics.]]
* UselessUsefulNonCombatSkill: Magnus keeps trying to find a use for his Vehicle and Animal Handling proficiencies in the first couple episodes, but finds himself in situations that are either too easy (driving an ox-drawn cart down a safe, level road, which doesn't require a proficiency check) or too hard (trying to calm a hostile wolf after he's already picked it up and thrown it into a fire) for them to do much good.
** The vehicle proficiency does end up coming in handy during the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, which is basically fantasy Mad Max, and Rustic Hospitality gets a lot of use during ''The Eleventh Hour''. Still not a lot of use for the Animal Handling proficiency though.
** Averted as of ''Story And Song'', where Magnus's animal handling proficiency [[spoiler:lets him ride an evil Hunger rhino, and use it to attack other Hunger creatures.]]
* VerbalTic:
** Originally, Davenport said "Davenport" quite a lot. It was later changed into PokemonSpeak, with it being the only thing he says.
** Magnus has a strong tendency to cut off a description of events or list of options by saying "Magnus does X" and proceeds to do exactly that.
* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Well, Voice with Access to the Combined Knowledge of Bureau of Balance, anyway. After the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, KidDetective Angus [=McDonald=] joins the Bureau to feed the boys intel through their Stones of Farspeech (basically fantasy Bluetooth headsets).
* WackyRacing: "Battlewagons," an illegal BloodSport involving heavily-armed [[strike: cars]] wagons powered by {{Magitek}}.
* WhamEpisode: The end of ''The Suffering Game.'' [[spoiler:Magnus loses his body, it's revealed that he (and possibly Taako and Merle by extension) is ''originally from another planet'' if not another universe, the party cuts off contact with the Bureau of Balance to join up with the Red Robe that's been helping them... and said Red Robe is revealed to be none other than Barry Bluejeans from the first arc.]]
** The end of ''Petals To The Metal'' also counts. The deaths of Hurley and Sloane really signify a change in the tone of the show, and the reveal of the red robe kicks off the main plot in a big way.
* WhamLine:
** In the "epilogue" to ''The Eleventh Hour.''
--> '''Griffin:''' [[spoiler:And in this sketch, this earlier sketch, Jack and June look exactly the same. But the Red Robe's hood is pulled down. And you can see his face. And it's an incredibly familiar face, Magnus... because it's your face.]]
** "There's no healing in Wonderland!" which came as such a shock to the players that Clint thought Griffin was lying.
** ''The Suffering Game'' has one that doubles as a serious [[TheReveal revelation]] and a joke.
--> '''Griffin:''' And Merle, you crack open the chest and retrieve the clothes within. A white cotton shirt, a studded leather belt, and a pair of pants... [[spoiler:Sturdy. Denim. And blue.]]
** Griffin drops one nonchalantly near the end of Episode 59:
--> '''Griffin:''' [[spoiler: Lucretia's kneeling over her white oak staff, and she's channeling some sort of energy from the orb into the staff, which, of course, is the grand relic she made when the seven of you first came to this world.]]
** From the end of Episode 61: "[[spoiler:She thinks of her friends, and prays for sunrise.]]" It confirms that [[spoiler:the guardian robot was, in fact, Troth, Justin's character from ''The Adventure Zone: Nights''.]]
** Despite the event in question being a ForegoneConclusion, this line from Episode 66 definitely qualifies:
--->'''[[spoiler:Barry]]''': [[spoiler:Taako, what if she's really gone?]]
--->'''Taako''': [[spoiler:...who?]]
** The end of Episode 66, as the final arc begins:
--->'''Griffin''': [[spoiler: The Hunger is here again. You've escaped it a hundred times, but no more. This is it. THIS IS IT!]]
** Even after the big final battle, one is dropped in the winding down finale.
---> '''Griffin:''' [[spoiler:Tell me how Magnus dies.]]
* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent:
** Basically Jenkins's entire character revolves around being self-aware of this trope, to the point of having a mental breakdown (both in and out of character).
** DungeonMaster Griffin calls this trope out by name a few times, as he struggles to make different [=NPCs=] sound unique.
** Merle in disguise on the Rockport Limited. His attempts at a Scottish brogue slides wildly between OohMeAccentsSlipping and incomprehensible mush.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Magnus is afraid of spiders; the StarterVillain is spider-themed.
* WritersCannotDoMath: ''The Eleventh Hour'' is full of this:
** Griffin states that Refuge is 7 years out of step with the rest of the world, but Ren said that she moved to Refuge about 2 years after seeing a showing of Sizzle It Up With Taako, which was only 6 years ago, thus Refuge should only be 4 years out of step.
*** She also says that she feels like she recognizes Magnus, [[spoiler: which implies she lived in Refuge when he brought Jack, June, and the Temporal Chalice to town.]] This however is impossible, as that was 10 or so years ago,and she would still be living in The Underdark.
* YourMindMakesItReal: In the climax of the ''Live in Austin!'' show, [[spoiler: Taako [[ItMakesSenseInContext dunks a basketball into the hoop at the center of Brody's final form]], releasing them from the DreamLand they were trapped in. They all wake up in a chamber in The Underdark, where their captor, a mind flayer, proclaims "If you get dunked on in the dream, you get dunked on in real life!", and dies on the spot.]]
[[quoteright:350:http://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/the_adventure_zone.jpg]]
[[caption-width-right:350:''The stage is set, our heroes ready; so steel your nerves and keep them steady. And do not fear this path unknown... enter [[TitleDrop The Adventure Zone!]]'']]
->''“I wanna tell you a story about the time there were three ogres, right? And then one of ‘em hit me so hard I almost died. You were sitting up in some sort of weird laser just shooting flasks willy-nilly, Travis was ripping the arms off a robot, and I got punched so hard I almost died! I’m not gonna go toe-to-toe with a crab while you’re armed with a terrible Scottish accent, and Travis doesn’t even have his shield! I’m out!”''
-->-- '''Taako'''/'''Justin'''
''The Adventure Zone: Balance'' is an arc of ''Podcast/TheAdventureZone'' podcast featuring the Creator/McElroyBrothers (Justin, Griffin, and Travis) playing TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons with their father Clint. Griffin is the DungeonMaster, Travis plays a human fighter named Magnus "the Hammer" Burnsides, Justin a high elf wizard named Taako, and Clint a dwarven cleric named Merle Highchurch.
In this same continuity is the adventures of the Hogsbottom Three, a D&D campaign played by the cast of ''Podcast/TheFlophouse''. Stuart Wellington is the DM, with Elliot Kalan playing Scales the Dragonborn bard, Dan [=McCoy=] playing Lucian Buttwatcher the high elf druid, and special guest Zhubin Parang playing Tanzer Silverview the human ranger.
'''Spoilers for the most recent plot arc (currently ''Story and Song'') should be spoiler-tagged. Everything else is fair game. Reader beware: you're about to enter... the Spoiler Zone!'''
----
!!This podcast contains these tropes:
* AbstractEater: [[spoiler: After being unable to find The Light Of Creation for ten years, The Hunger [[MotiveDecay loses its desire to]] [[AssimilationPlot grow beyond death]], seeking only to consume other planes of existence.]]
* ActionGirl: At least one major example every plot arc, with the exception of ''The Eleventh Hour'' (which is a more exploration-heavy arc). The first has Killian, a crossbow-wielding orc packing the ability to animate {{golem}}s. The second has Jess, a pit fighter with AnAxeToGrind. The third has two: Hurley, a constabulary lieutenant with a black belt in ass-kicking, and Sloane, the apparent villain of the arc who Curb-Stomps our heroes in her first appearance. The fourth arc has Killian return with her teammate, Carey Fangbattle, a Dragonborn Rogue and sister of Jeremy "Scales" Fangbattle. The sixth has Antonia, an elven mercenary, and the seventh has [[spoiler: Lup, and Lucretia [[CrowningMomentOfHeartwarming ascends to this]] after episode 65.]]
** Taako lampshades this when he says "There must be a competent woman who can bail us out".
* AerithAndBob: Character names include Magnus, Gundren, Yeemick, Klarg, Brian, and Barry [[AnachronismStew Bluejeans]]. The spectrum is weighted towards Bob, since [=NPCs=] are for the most part named after real people.
** {{Lampshaded}} when Justin mocks Griffin for naming the party's new Halfling roommate "Robbie."
* AffablyEvil: John, [[spoiler: the source and avatar of the Hunger, which consumes entire realities]] is pleasant and polite, even playing chess with Merle, and enjoying their conversations. [[spoiler: He also kills Merle repeatedly, and his goal is to eat all of reality so he can undo the laws of the universe.]]
* AIIsACrapshoot: One of Lucas's abandoned inventions is an educational toy robot named Hodge-Podge which...um, malfunctioned during stress testing...
* AlasPoorVillain: At the end of ''The Suffering Game,'' Lydia dies of despair when Edward is killed; in her final moments, she drops her illusory form in favor of her true black robes, and, at a loss for words, simply screams.
** [[spoiler: John might be the source and avatar of the Hunger, but watching him get subsumed by it is more than a little tragic. His actual death, watching the sunset with Merle before fading away, only makes him more sympathetic. ]]
* TheAllSolvingHammer: Merle gets a ''lot'' of mileage out of the Zone of Truth spell.
* AmbiguouslyGay: Hurley and Sloane. Nothing is directly said, but they care about each other a great deal and end up joined together forever in a magical tree.
** [[WordOfGay Confirmed by Word Of God.]]
* AnachronicOrder: The ''Live Boston Stunt Spectacular'' and ''[=MaxFunCon=] East Live'' shows take place sometime after ''The Crystal Kingdom'', and before ''The Suffering Game'', but were released to the public during the latter.
** The ''Live in Austin!'' show takes place some time after ''The Eleventh Hour'', given references to the Chance Lance. [[spoiler: [[{{Subverted}} Though it could possibly take place after ''Story and Song'']], which would explain how the mind flayer who kidnapped them would know who they were, since their story was broadcast to everyone in the planar system.]]
* AnachronismStew: A story about magic, swords, and dwarves wielding giant hammers includes [[RunningGag elevators]], Epcot-style buildings on the Moon, [[TakeThatCritics elevators]], train stations, [[RuleofThree elevators]], ''space'' stations, automobile-like "battle wagons," and industrial mining equipment.
** As the nature of the podcasting style, it is often difficult to separate the pop culture references made in-game and made out of character.
** An entire town is populated by animatronic Tom Bodetts, who all have a friendly, open attitude.
** Taako is dedicated to discover the Eldritch Mystery of [=TexMex=] food.
** Merle the Dwarf's favorite musician is Kenny Chesney, Johann the Bard plays elevator jazz, and the gang shops at Fantasy Costco.
* AnAdventurerIsYou: Magnus, with his heavy armor and shield, acts as the Tank and consistently puts himself in the front of the formation. Merle is [[TheMedic the Healer]] as well as casting defensive buffs. Taako is the DPS caster in addition to support magic.
* AnAsskickingChristmas: All of ''The Crystal Kingdom'' takes place on [[YouMeanXmas Candlenights]]. The first episode starts off with a Candlenights party, but by the second episode Candlenights is more or less forgotten. Only until the last episode of the arc (which was in May) are the characters reminded that [[WebcomicTime it's still Candlenights]].
* AndNowForSomethingCompletelyDifferent: Every arc more or less follows a unique set of circumstances and characters with new uses of 5e D&D mechanics with the overarching Grand Relics plot holding everything together. [[spoiler: ''The Stolen Century'' goes even further into this trope, completely eschewing D&D's ruleset and instead using a simplified homebrew of Griffin's own design.]]
* AnotherDimension: All of known reality is a seemingly infinite series of planar systems of twelve planes of existence. They are arranged in an orbit consisting of three concentric rings, six planes on the outside, four planes on the inside, and two stacked planes in the middle. Going outside-in, we have:
** The Outer [[ElementalPlane Elemental Planes]] of Water, Earth, Fire, Air, Light, and Darkness.
** The Intermediate Planes: the [[PhysicalHeaven Celestial Plane]], the [[TheUnderworld Astral Plane]], the [[MadeOfMagic Plane of Magic]], and the [[RealLife Plane of Thought]].
** The Inner Planes: the [[SpiritWorld Ethereal Plane]], and the Prime Material Plane.
* ArmorPiercingQuestion: Merle's final question to [[spoiler: John, the avatar of the Hunger.]]
-->'''Merle:''' Are you my friend?
-->'''Griffin:''' Hmm.
-->'''Travis:''' Not what I was expecting.
-->'''Griffin:''' But very fucking good. Give me a minute, I'm reeling a little bit.
* ArmorPiercingResponse: Magnus delivers one at the end of ''The Suffering Game'' that cuts off the Animus Bell's WeCanRuleTogether speech almost as soon as it starts.
-->'''Animus Bell:''' How would you like to live forever?
-->'''Magnus:''' [[WhoWantsToLiveForever I'd hate it.]] [[ShutUpHannibal Shut the fuck up.]]
* ArtifactCollectionAgency: The Bureau of Balance combines this with a side of medieval [[TheMenInBlack Men in Black]]. They collect and (ostensibly) dispose of magical artifacts too powerful to be allowed to exist.
* ArtifactOfDoom: The Grand Relics, seven artifacts so powerful that they once threatened to destroy the world. They double as an ArtifactOfAttraction, as they seem at least semi-sentient and try to tempt anyone who picks one up to use them, eventually corrupting them through MoreThanMindControl if they don't resist. Seen so far:
** The Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, which grants powerful fire magic with a side helping of [[WithGreatPowerComesGreatInsanity madness]]. [[spoiler: Made by Lup]]
** The Oculus Lens, which claims to grant TrueSight and ultimate knowledge. In actuality it allows the user to render anything they can think of or create with illusiory magic into reality. [[spoiler: Made by Davenport]]
** The Gaia Sash, an enchanted belt that grants the wielder power over nature. It attempts to tempt Merle with the ability to [[{{Squick}} fuck any vine he wants]]. Merle resists, saying he doesn't need anyone's help to do that. [[invoked]] [[spoiler: Made by Merle]]
** The PhilosophersStone, which can transmute any material into anything else. [[GreyGoo Stopping the process is another matter entirely]]. [[spoiler: Made by Taako]]
** The Temporal Chalice, which can manipulate the flow of time and even create barriers out of time. Instead of an outright villainous [[TheFinalTemptation Final Temptation]], it speaks directly to the heroes about undoing their [[{{MyGreatestFailure}} Greatest Failures]]. [[spoiler: Made by Magnus]]
** The Animus Bell, which has the ability to knock an affected listener's soul out of their body and allow another to take it over. This imitates death, meaning that the soul affected by it will get pulled away to the Astral Plane. [[spoiler: Made by Barry]]
** The seventh and final one is [[spoiler: The Bulwark Staff, aka, Lucretia's staff.]]
* ArtisticLicenseAstronomy: A total solar eclipse occurs every midsummer solstice over Faerûn. The annual eclipse is somewhat [[JustifiedTrope justified]], since it's a ConstructedWorld.
* AscendedExtra:
** Angus [=McDonald=] is introduced as a bit player in the second arc; he proved popular enough with the players and the audience to be brought back in the fourth arc as the team's VoiceWithAnInternetConnection.
** At the end of ''The Suffering Game'', [[spoiler: the red robe who has been stalking (and, throughout much of ''The Suffering Game'', supporting) the party for almost thirty episodes is revealed to Barry Bluejeans, a character who seemingly died in the destruction of the town of Phandalin in the podcast's very first arc some fifty episodes earlier.]]
* AssimilationPlot: [[spoiler: The Hunger's original goal was to absorb planes of existence into itself, in order to combat the [[StrawNihilist crushing weight of eternity]].]]
* AssistCharacter: [[spoiler: In the FinalBoss fight with John in ''Story and Song'', the Tres Horny Boys are able to summon allies to help them using the Bond Engine on the back of the Starblaster as a portal.]]
* BackForTheFinale: [[spoiler: A whole cavalcade of characters return to help battle the hunger, from [[SubvertedTrope Hurly and ]][[BuryYourGays Sloane]] to the entire town of Refuge to Lucas to freaking Upsy Your Lifting Friend. Too many to list here. All of whom get badass moments befitting the end to a years-long campaign.]]
* BackFromTheDead: Brian, Jenkins, and Marvey (the last member of the Hammerheads) return for a rematch in ''The Crystal Kingdom'' as ghost-possessed robots.
* BackgroundMagicField: In addition to the standard DungeonsAndDragons magic field, there also exist Bonds, the invisible force that connect all things in existence together, ranging from physical, to emotional. Bonds extend between planes of existence, and when a plane is severed from those Bonds, it begins to decay. Magic users that rely on a divine source, such as clerics, lose their power, and the world begins to fade to grayscale. If starved of bonds for too long, the plane degenerates into ash.
* BadBoss: Klarg the bugbear, according to underling Yeemick the goblin. It's hard to tell if this is accurate, considering that for most of the time we see him he's under the influence of a CharmPerson spell that makes him relentlessly friendly. ...That is, until he brutally kills Yeemick with a single blow.
* BeachEpisode: Episode 62 has them spending some well earned time off at the beach.
* BewareTheSillyOnes: Taako is a CloudCuckooLander with a short attention span and a completely skewed view of reality. He's also an immensely powerful wizard with an extensive arsenal of spells and an artifact that magnifies his powers to godlike levels. Underestimate him at your own peril.
* BigCreepyCrawlies: Well, ''relatively,'' anyway -- during ''The Crystal Kingdom'', Magnus and Merle end up fighting a cockroach while shrunk. It was originally going to be ''three'' cockroaches, but two of them were serendipitously stomped on beforehand.
** PlayedStraight later in the arc, when they fight giant [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tardigrade tardigrades]] in the lab's anti-gravity chamber.
--> '''Lucas''': We call them [[UltimateLifeform unkillable]] waterbears! You gotta get the fuck out of there!
* TheBigDamnKiss: In Episode 68, [[spoiler: after rescuing him from being trapped in the Astral Plane and reuniting with him for the first time in "way too long," during the Balance Arc's finale, Taako kisses Kravitz.]]
--> [[spoiler: '''Kravitz:''' How...how did you do that?]]
--> [[spoiler: '''Justin:''' I run up to him and kiss him - I'm already kissing him. This is ridiculous, it's been way too long.]]
* BigGood: Lucretia, The Director of the Bureau of Balance. Well, more of a Big Neutral, but in a setting with {{Fantastic Nuke}}s that could allow any faction that gets the upper hand to trigger an ApocalypseHow, neutrality starts looking pretty good.
** [[spoiler: PlayedStraight when it's revealed that she's collecting the Grand Relics to oppose [[EldritchAbomination The Hunger]], the force that's been [[OmnicidalManiac destroying planes of existence]] for over one hundred years.]]
* TheBigRace: Magnus, Taako, and Merle take part in one in the ''Petals to Metal'' arc.
* BittersweetEnding: Most arcs end with the party recovering whatever Grand Relic they were after, but at a great cost.
* BodyOfBodies: The larger enemies in the BossRush mentioned below are constructed of many mannequins clumped together.
* BossRush: Called out by name in the fifth episode of ''The Suffering Game'', where the party is forced to fight mannequin-construct duplicates of major fights from every arc thus far. It gets cut off early when the Red Robe manages to summon a door, allowing the boys to escape.
* BrainBleach: During the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, Merle attempts a CharmPerson spell on some monstrous vines by dirty-talking them...which completely freaks Justin out. Mainly because, you know, it's ''his Dad'' doing it. By the end of it all of Clint's sons want to kill themselves after Merle basically makes the vines suffer TheImmodestOrgasm.
-->'''Justin''': Statistically speaking, at least one of our listeners has just discovered that they are in possession of the ''world's worst fetish''.
* BreakingTheFourthWall: It's a frequent feature, with characters constantly mentioning the format. During the PreviouslyOn segment for the finale of ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'':
--> '''Narrator:''' If our heroes can't stop this runaway train, then [[SkewedPriorities I'm going to have to find a new podcast to introduce!]]
* BreatherEpisode:
** Episode 7, taking place immediately after the party's final confrontation with the [[ArtifactOfDoom Phoenix Fire Gauntlet]], is largely exposition and comic relief with no combat or conflict to speak of.
** All the Lunar Interludes serve as one, providing light-hearted moonbase hijinks in between plot arcs.
*** [[spoiler:Heavily inverted in ''Reunion Tour''.]]
** ''The Stolen Century'' - Chapter Three also qualifies seeing as it's a BeachEpisode where the crew spends the whole year hanging out in a tropical paradise and enjoying each other's company without the looming threat of an apocalypse.
* BuryYourGays: Sadly invoked in the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc with [[spoiler:Hurley and Sloane.]] It should be noted that DungeonMaster Griffin genuinely wasn't aware that this trope was a thing, and promised to do better about it in the future [[https://twitter.com/griffinmcelroy/status/710566880486895616?s=09when he was informed about it.]] To Griffin's credit, his example of the trope resulted in one of the more genuinely heartfelt and touching moments in what is a ''very'' irreverent podcast at times, thereby averting the common usage of this trope as a means of providing unnecessary {{Wangst}} for one half of the doomed pair or their friends/companions.
** [[spoiler: Subverted in part two of ''Story and Song'', where it's revealed that they didn't actually die, but were turned into dryads.]]
* CallForward: ''The Stolen Century'', being a [[WholeEpisodeFlashback Whole Session Flashback]], is chock full of these, such as:
** [[spoiler: In Episode 64, Merle invents and masters the art of "Interpretative Jazz Dancing". All the way back in Episode ''1'', Clint makes an offhanded joke that Merle is a great dancer.]]
** [[spoiler: Magnus's first woodcarving is done with the old knife that he got from his grandfather, the knife being a starter trinket mentioned in Episode 1.]]
* CaptivityHarmonica: When the Boys are put in jail in Refuge, Magnus pulls out and starts playing a harmonica that Travis says he didn't have before.
* CatchPhrase: Griffin: "You've solved my [blank] puzzle!" Typically said at the end of a plot arc ("You've solved my train puzzle!"), or sarcastically when the players use brute force to solve a problem or expend a lot of podcast time goofing on something that's not meant to be an obstacle at all.
** "Magnus rushes in" and "Taako's good out here" serve as in-character examples.
** "Uh, I'm Taako? Like, [[AnachronismStew from [=TV=]]]?"
** "I cast Zone of Truth!"
* CerebusRetcon: There's a brief moment where Davenport is handed a Grand Relic, and there's some tension over whether it'll affect him. Fortunately, he just says "Davenport!" and hands the relic over to be destroyed. [[spoiler: The only people who can resist the thrall of the Grand Relics are the ones who created them.]]
* CerebusRollercoaster: The series goes through a sort of ''fractal'' CerebusSyndrome, with each individual arc starting out extremely light and only getting into the darker or more dramatic stuff as time goes by, until...
* CerebusSyndrome: The series gradually begins getting darker and more serious as it progresses, putting more emphasis on the plot and less on goofing around. While the jokes never go away completely, the series remains lighthearted overall, and [[spoiler:it has an almost-entirely happy ending]], it's very noticeable how much sillier the early arcs could be compared to the later ones.
* ChangedMyMindKid: In the final battle of ''The Suffering Game,'' Cam returns to sacrifice his life in order to heal Merle.
* CharacterAlignment: The three player characters represent the Good spectrum; Taako is ChaoticGood, Merle is NeutralGood, and Magnus is LawfulGood. [[GameplayAndStorySegregation Supposedly.]] In practice, they all skew pretty chaotic, and "good" in their goals and general intentions but not always their methods.
* CharmPerson: Taako uses this to turn a hostile bugbear named Klarg to the party's side. Klarg turns incredibly friendly and offers them a valuable hostage, a gift of gold, and ASpotOfTea.
* ChekhovsBoomerang: ''Petals to the Metal'' introduces silverpoint, a plant with a deadly untreatable venom. While it is first introduced as the Gaia Sash's final self defense, silverpoint venom appears later in the same arc when [[spoiler: Capt. Captain Bane]] attempts to poison the protagonists. Much, much later, it is revealed that (much earlier) [[spoiler: Lup]] was stabbed with a weapon covered in silverpoint venom so that there would be no chance to heal the wound.
* ChekhovsGun:
** In ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'', the "pleasure chamber" that offers a limited form of recreational teleportation not only figures into the murder mystery, it also comes in very handy later on when the boys need to find a way to divert a runaway train from crashing to a populated area.
** In ''The Crystal Kingdom'', Kravitz accuses the boys of dying several times each but never properly passing on; he's there to take them in. [[spoiler:This is from dying and being resurrected by the white ring core that powered the IPRE's interplanar ship; events that were mind-wiped using the Voidfish's offspring]]
** In ''The Suffering Game'', Magnus landing on "skull" during the third roulette round. Later, when confronting the elves, he's forcibly removed from his body which Edward takes control over.
* ChekhovsGunman: [[spoiler:Barry Bluejeans, after being presumed dead since episode 4, is revealed in episode 58 to have been the Red Robe who's been following the party around the whole time.]]
* ChekhovsSkill: In the first episode, Travis kept trying to find a use for his Vehicle Handling proficiency, but the task at hand (driving a one-horse cart down a smooth path at a reasonable pace in broad daylight) was easy enough that no proficiency was needed. 22 episodes later, he finally uses it to impress a group of motorhead gangsters by helping them soup up their battlewagon. And a full 67 episodes after it was established, [[spoiler:Travis pulls this off again by using his unused Animal Handling proficiency to ride a Hunger-infused rhino.]]
* ChronicBackstabbingDisorder: The party cuts a deal with a hostile goblin to murder his BadBoss in exchange for a hostage. As soon as they're out of the goblin's earshot, they resolve to see if they can cut a better deal with his boss. Magnus and Taako also aren't above surreptitiously looting the corpses of Merle's family members behind his back.
* TheClan: The Rockseekers are a large and prosperous dwarven family, giving Merle New Cousins as the Plot Demands in early episodes.
* CliffHanger: Episodes like to end on these. For example, at the end of Episode 20, Merle and Taako are near-death, and Magnus has no healing abilities.
* CoolHorse: Taako can summon a glorious talking, spectral, possibly unkillable unicorn named Garyl.
* CoolStarship: The Starblaster, a silver ship designed by the IPRE to [[InterdimensionalTravelDevice travel between planes of existence]], powered by the Bond Engine, which creates power from the emotional connections of the people around it.
* CommonTongue: [[JustifiedTrope A literal example]], as TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons uses "Common" as the basic language for all characters to use. {{Subverted}} as the few times non-Common languages are used, someone in the party knows that language.
* ContinuityCavalcade: Episode 68, ''Story and Song - Finale, Part Two'' was full of [[ContinuityNod Continuity Nods]], [[BrickJoke Brick Jokes]], [[RunningGag Running Gags]], and [[TheBusCameBack returning characters]].
* ConvectionShmonvection: The party survives a fireball powerful enough to reduce a few square miles to ''glass'' by hiding in a well a few dozen feet deep.
* CowboyCop: It's unlikely that [[DaChief Captain Captain Bane]] would approve of Lieutenant Hurley getting some out-of-town rubes to steal [[ItMakesSenseInContext an important engine part]] as part of a convoluted plan to bring down The Raven. She's a loose cannon, but dammit, she gets results.
* CrisisCrossover: Normally very few characters transition between arcs, with only the main cast and Bureau members being recurring. [[spoiler: ''Story and Song'' sees the return of nearly every named character from every arc thus far as they defend their Planar System from the Hunger, including; Lucas Miller, Upsy (Your Lifting Friend), Merle's family, Klaarg, Graham the Juicy Wizard, Jess the Beheader, Hurley and Sloane (as dryads), Kravitz, Legion, Ren, Paloma, Luca and Redmond, June, Roswell (the bird), and Cassidy. A few characters from ''The Stolen Century'' also return as the Hunger's thralls, including the Royal Beasts and the Stone Judges.]]
* {{Crossover}}: There's a handful of jokes and references that originate from ''MBMBAM'', such as Garfield the Deals Warlock and Candlenights.
* CurbStompBattle: The trio's first encounter with the Raven. She [=KOs=] two of our heroes in one attack, and it doesn't get any better from there.
* DaChief:
** The Director of the Bureau of Balance. She has very little patience for the adventurers' antics, constantly just trying to get them to stay on point and booting them out of her office immediately after giving them their assignment.
** Captain Captain[[note]]his first name[[/note]] Bane is this for the city of Goldcliff, heading up the [[strike: police]] constabulary response to the Raven's assault on the city bank.
* DamagerHealerTank: The players consciously base the party on this structure, with Taako the Damager, Merle the Healer, and Magnus the Tank. Not that they always play exactly to type. In fact, it's a minor running joke that Merle neglects his healing duties, and his signature spell ends up being "[[TruthSerums Zone of Truth]]".
* DarkerAndEdgier: ''The Suffering Game'' is far harsher than the previous arcs. The arcs afterward continue the theme.
* TheDarknessGazesBack: In ''Carnival Chaos'', for the first time in the story, the boys see eyes in the sky staring down at the world.[[spoiler: This is the first hint at the existence of The Hunger.]]
* DeathByDespair: Lydia, after her brother Edward is killed.
* DeusExMachina: In Episode 20, the party is saved from a potential TotalPartyKill by a halfling in a karate gi busting in through a window.
** Later [[DiscussedTrope discussed]] by Taako during the fight against Lydia and Edward in ''The Suffering Game'', during which both Merle and Taako are put into a near-death state, mentioning that normally when things get this dire a very competent woman busts through to bail them out.
* DiabolusExMachina: In Episode 6, seconds before Gundren was going to take off the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet, Kurtze the orc boy shoots him with an arrow to enact revenge. This [[{{pun}} reignites]] his rage, and ultimately destroys Phandalin.
* DirtyCop: Lieutenant Hurley is not above indulging in illegal {{Blood Sport}}s after hours. She's also remarkably blasé about the amount of murder the party commits while working for her.
* DistaffCounterpart: Subverted with [[spoiler: Taako and Lup]]. Despite being [[spoiler: twins]] who both have pragmatic trickster tendencies, they are by no means interchangeable. [[spoiler: Lup]] eventually proves to be the more confrontational and empathetic of the two. They are also [[spoiler: accused of almost completely different sins by the judges in The Stolen Century. Both are charged with Pride, but Lup is uniquely charged with Lust, Gluttony, and Wrath. Taako gets none of those three, instead being accused of Envy and Greed]].
** Justin has admitted to initially fearing that [[spoiler: Lup's introduction would just mean that there were now two Taakos running around, but thankfully Lup ended up setting herself apart as her own character]].
* DownerEnding: The first plot arc ends with an entire city being wiped out by an ArtifactOfDoom.
* DueToTheDead: Merle is staunchly against looting the corpses of his cousins. Magnus and Taako aren't nearly so fastidious.
* DungeonPunk: A fairly light-hearted take. {{Magitek}} is everywhere and the FantasyKitchenSink is in full effect.
* EarlyInstallmentWeirdness:
** The first arc loosely follows an adventure from the ''Dungeons & Dragons'' 5e starter kit and takes place in a fairly StandardFantasySetting with a pretty straight medieval level of technology and references to classic ''D&D'' locales like the city of [[VideoGame/NeverwinterNights Neverwinter]]. Once Griffin starts inventing more of the world, the plot becomes completely original, and all kinds of [[SchizoTech Schizo-]]{{Magitek}} (flying saucers, secret moon bases, luxury passenger trains with resident wizards who can whisk you off to remote pleasure chambers to pass the time on your journey) and general weirdness (a city full of Tom Bodetts) starts cropping up.
** The episode summaries tend to follow a format of a brief description of the episode, followed by specific highlights of what Merle, Taako and Magnus did in said episode - often in a way that's misleading or not immediately obvious. This is only the case for the first Lunar Interlude onwards; in ''Here There Be Gerblins'', a different format is followed.
** Background music and sound effects didn't begin appearing until over twenty episodes in, a little over halfway through Petals to the Medal. Up until then, it was just the group talking with the theme music playing at the beginning, end, and interlude.
** It takes several arcs for the players to really solidify their characters' personalities, which results in occasional weirdness like [[LovableCoward Taako]] being labeled the bravest one of the group in ''Moonlighting''.
* EatDirtCheap: Magnus swallows the Philosopher's Stone. It seemed like a good idea (to him, and no one else) at the time.
* EdibleThemeNaming: Implied with regards to Taako's family — his grandfather's name is "Tostada," [[spoiler:and his twin sister, "Lup," was originally intended to have the full name "Chalupa." This has since been retconned due to problematic implications for anyone imagining the twins as Latinx.]]
* EldritchAbomination: What the Red Robe showed the three, and what Maureen saw beyond the cosmoscope, destroying her mind and killing her: a vast black cloud seemingly consuming the universe.
* EmotionEater: Whatever sustains Wonderland in ''The Suffering Game,'' Magnus and Taako quickly hypothesize that it feeds off negativity expressed by the "contestants." It helps sustain the "Vogue Elves'" lichdom, allowing them to stay sane at the expense of everyone who visits.
* EurekaMoment: The primary way Taako gets ideas that will eventually result in the taco.
* EvilIsPetty: The "Evil" part may be ambiguous, but when Our Heroes reject the Temporal Chalice's offer, it/she decides to show them the horrible consequences of their actions at Phandalin, for no real reason other than to rub it in just how sideways their first encounter with a Grand Relic went.
* FakingTheDead: Jenkins, specifically by killing the Engineer and switching clothes with him.
* FamousFamousFictional: When the laws that govern reality are brought up, expect three to be listed: The Laws of Physics, Thermodynamics, and [[SufficientlyAnalyzedMagic Arcane Interactions]].
* FantasticDrug: Halfling roommate Robbie stocks the "dankest" potions, including one that resembles Orbitz and which has an effect like a cross between alcohol and salvia.
* FauxAffablyEvil / BaitTheDog: Unlike the somewhat goofy methods of persuasion the other [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts Of Doom]] employ and incredibly destructive nature, the Temporal Chalice is polite and even sympathetic to the trauma of the heroes, presenting itself as just a tool who wants a master who will do good for once. Then she spitefully taunts them with the consequences of Phandalin.
* FluffyTheTerrible: Glovey the ArtifactOfDoom. [[JustifiedTrope Though its real name is far more imposing.]]
* {{Gamebreaker}}: [[invoked]] In-universe. Whomever came up with the rules of [[WackyRacing battlewagons]] clearly failed to take into account the amount of damage a wizard with the right spells could do to the opposition. Taako takes down [[CrowningMomentOfAwesome three rival wagons]] with [[OneHitPolyKill only two spells]].
* FullBoarAction: One of the Battlewagon racers was a chariot pulled by an armored boar larger than Hurley's Battlewagon.
* FungusHumongous: [[spoiler: The second world we see the Starblaster crew visit is blanketed with a [[BioluminescenceIsCool glowing]], toxic, mushroom forest, inhabited by [[MushroomMan fungus people]].]]
* GameplayAndStorySegregation:
** Justin for a while decided to play Taako as humorously thick, even describing himself to [=NPCs=] as a "simple idiot wizard." He has above-average scores in both Wisdom and Intelligence, ultimately maxing out the latter at 20. [[CharacterDevelopment As the campaign went on]], he gradually transitioned to more of a GeniusDitz and finally a genuinely cunning and intelligent person.
** Robbie's "dank" Orbitz-looking potion is supposedly similar to salvia, but in gameplay it seems much closer to a strong dose of alcohol.
** The party are all supposedly [[CharacterAlignment Good-aligned]], but some of the shenanigans they get up to, like copious amounts of [[HeroicComedicSociopath murder and theft]], would make even the most Chaotic of {{Chaotic Good}}niks think twice.
* GenderBlenderName: The gate guard for the Hammerheads's base was a man named Barbara.
* GenreSavvy: When they Boys are debriefing with Captain Bane in his office, he pours them all a drink. None of them drink it, suspecting him of [[TamperingWithFoodAndDrink trying to poison them]] so he could take the Gaia Sash for himself, much to Bane's annoyance. They were right.
* GetYourMindOutOfTheGutter: Merle mostly, but they all experience it at least once an episode. Usually due to DungeonMaster Griffin's AccidentalInnuendo.
* GottaKillEmAll: The party has to find and destroy all seven [[ArtifactOfDoom Grand Relics]].
* GoodCopBadCop: Magnus and Taako slip into this routine while interrogating Graham (aka The Juicy Wizard)...with Merle as a bonus Maternal Cop.
* GreatOffscreenWar: A war fought over immensely powerful magical artifacts called the Grand Relics nearly destroyed the world some years back, but nobody remembers it, thanks to LaserGuidedAmnesia.
* GroundhogDayLoop: The central conceit of ''The Eleventh Hour,'' evidently induced by the Grand Relic of the arc. The party "arrives" each morning; at high noon, ''something'' tears the town apart, killing everyone; then they end up back in a white void for a short while before starting the morning from scratch.
* HaveYouSeenMyGod: Toward the end of ''The Suffering Game'', Pan stops responding to Merle's prayers, and shortly after that Kravitz loses contact with the Raven Queen. [[spoiler:It seems that The Hunger is either devouring or driving away the deities of this world.]]
* HeroOfAnotherStory: ''The Great Switcheroo!'' cross-promotion with the Flophouse podcast features the hosts of the Flophouse as another party of adventurers in the same universe. They somehow manage to be more bumbling and more competent than our regular heroes at the same time.
* HeroicBSOD: In the ''Petals To The Metal'' arc, after losing the battlewagon race against Hurley and the boys, [[spoiler: The Raven has a mental breakdown and drives herself off a cliff. From then on, the Gaia Sash takes complete control over her.]]
* HeroicComedicSociopath: Our [[InformedAttribute good-aligned]] [[SarcasmMode Paragons of Justice]] murder a low-level gangster who [[ThePiratesWhoDontDoAnything commits no serious crimes that the audience is privy to]] and then throw his body off a cliff rather than use up a healing spell to avoid, y'know. [[MurderIsTheBestSolution Murder.]]
** In their defense, they did want to heal him, but since Travis described Magnus' attack as "bisecting" the gangster, Griffin made them deal with the consequences.
* HeroicSacrifice: The name of ''The Suffering Game'', where the [=PCs=] have to sacrifice things at every turn to either progress or keep each other alive. Ultimately, Cam does this as well, sacrificing his life in order to heal Merle.
* HideYourLesbians: Hurley and Sloane's romance is limited to subtext in the actual story, even though WordOfGay confirms that they're a couple. Averted with later same-gender couples like Carey and Killian, who are explicitly shown to be dating. [[spoiler: Further averted when the Balance storyline later ends with Carey and Killian's wedding.]]
* HighSchoolAU: An extremely rare ''canon'' example! The ''Live in Austin!'' show takes Tres Horny Boys into a collective DreamLand where they and their friends are students at Neverwinter High.
* HisNameReallyIsBarkeep: The captain of the Goldcliff Militia is named "Captain Bane".
-->'''Captain Captain Bane''': "Please, call me Captain. Just one. If you just call me one, I assume you're just using my first name."
* HonoraryUncle: [[spoiler: How Merle's kids, Mavis and Mookie, come to see the rest of the IPRE in the epilogue.]]
-->[[spoiler: '''Mavis''': You’re his hero, you know. When we heard the story of what you did when you travelled with Uncle Magnus and Uncle Taako and Aunt Lup and Aunt Lucretia and Uncle Barry [[AndZoidberg and Dav]], it’s all he talked about for weeks.]]
* HypocriticalHumor: In episode 5, Justin complains that no one else does character voices. As soon as Clint obliges, he complains about that until Clint stops. (Justin's Taako voice sounds like an exaggerated Creator/EmoPhillips.)
* ICallItVera: Merle has named his warhammer "Smusher", and his hand-axe "Lil' Choppy".
* IdenticalStranger: PlayedForLaughs when the party meets Brian, the Black Spider, who is an elf wizard that has Taako's bizarre faux German/Creator/EmoPhillips inflection. He even counters Taako's Magic Missile attack with a more powerful Magic Missile attack. This voice leads to Brian's quick death when he tries to pull a SpotTheImposter later on.
* IconicItem: The Tres Horny Boys each have one:
** Magnus has Railsplitter, a battleaxe shaped like a lumber-axe, with the ability to fell a tree with a single swing.
** Merle has the Extreme Teen Bible, his holy symbol, used to preach the good word of Pan to the youth of Faerûn.
*** He also gains the Soulwood Arm, a prosthetic arm made of living wood to replace the one he lost in ''The Crystal Kingdom''.
** Taako has the Umbra Staff, a wand disguised as an umbrella, with the ability to absorb the magical power of defeated wizards.
* ImpersonatingAnOfficer: Taako tries to bluff his way past Sheriff Isaak in ''The Eleventh Hour'' by showing him a fake police badge he picked up at the Fantasy Costco. Needless to say, it doesn't work.
* IncredibleShrinkingMan: One of Lucas's elevators does this, allowing those who enter to view a diorama as if it were actual size.
* InfantImmortality: Angus [=McDonald=] is spared when Jenkins is horrifically murdered. Potentially [[JustifiedTrope justified]] as he may have been out of the room at the time.
* InfinityPlusOneSword: The [[FlamingSword Flaming]] [[PoisonedWeapons Poisoning]] [[ImpossiblyCoolWeapon Raging Sword]] [[DoomyDoomsOfDoom of Doom]], dealing an extra 20 damage per swing, and costs a whopping 60,000Gp.[[note]]According to the Player's Handbook, you could buy two whole ''taverns'' for that much money.[[/note]] [[spoiler: Taako ends up conning Garfield out of it for only 2,400Gp on his part.]]
* InNameOnly: Usage of the continent of Faerûn, the planet of Abeir-Toril, and characters like Gundren Rockseeker would point to the podcast taking place in ''TabletopGame/ForgottenRealms'' canon, but an ''[[{{Understatement}} incredibly]]'' customized version of it. By the events of the ''Moonlighting'' interlude all pretenses have been dropped to this taking place anywhere in established D&D lore or canon, which is probably for the best.
* KarmicDeath: After the "Vogue Elves" have sustained their undeath for untold years by feeding off the pain and misery of others, Lydia dies of despair when Edward is defeated.
* {{Kaiju}}: The Purple Worm from ''The Eleventh Hour'' is far, far, [[UpToEleven far]] larger than a normal purple worm found in dungeons and dragons. This worm was described has having a mouth ''200'' feet in diameter! If scaled proportionally, this worm is ''3,200 feet'' long, ''40 times'' larger than a standard purple worm!
** [[spoiler: The Four Judges of Cycle 65, giant, 20-story-tall statues, have been corrupted by The Hunger, [[OhCrap and are now walking across Faerûn towards the BoB Moon Base.]] ]]
* KidDetective: Angus [=McDonald=], the self-described "world's greatest detective," is a pre-pubescent boy.
* KillerCop: At the end of the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, Captain Captain Bane attempts to poison the party, presumably to steal the Gaia Sash.
** Sherrif Isaak [[spoiler:killed Jack]] for the Temporal Chalice in ''The Eleventh Hour''. However, his daughter June got to it before he could, and formed the bubble around Refuge.
* LaserGuidedAmnesia: The specialty of the Voidfish, who erases people's memories of everything it eats to CosmicRetcon levels. Those memories can be restored by drinking its... [[ToiletHumor fluids]].
* LaughablyEvil: Quite a few of the villains, but especially Magic Brian, the villain of the ''Here There Be Gerblins'' arc, who has a ridiculous accent (similar to Taako's) and is ultimately disposed of by [[spoiler:Magnus simply kicking him off of a ledge after he utterly fails to disguise his voice when he tries to pull a SpotTheImposter with Gundren.]]
* LeeroyJenkins: Justin jokes that the show should be renamed "Magnus Rushes In."
* LifeOrLimbDecision: In ''The Crystal Kingdom'', Merle gets exposed to rapidly-growing crystal, forcing Magnus to chop off his arm to save him. Fortunately, he quickly gets a magical wooden replacement that he can control independently of his body.
* LockedRoomMystery: The centerpiece of the ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'' arc, in which the victim is beheaded and be-handed in a locked train car aboard a train which requires all passengers to surrender their weapons upon boarding.
* LogicBomb: The end goal of the "Stump Hodge Podge" round in ''The Crystal Kingdom''. Paradoxes don't work; what does work is Taako asking him who the party works for. Since the Voidfish denies Hodge Podge knowledge of the Bureau of Balance, he quickly overheats and explodes trying to work it out.
* TheLoonie: Justin has decided that Taako's mission in life is to invent the taco and name it after himself. Considering that the setting of the game has yet to discover concepts such as grinding meat, processing dairy into cheese, or growing corn for food, it looks to be a significant challenge.
** This gets especially hilarious once you consider that the taco quest was set up at the beginning when they were still attempting to make the setting full HighFantasy, at which point having no concept of cultured dairy products or ground meat would have been a big stretch but not entirely impossible, but the campaign pretty quickly diverges from that once things like the moon base and Fantasy Costco start showing up. Hell, Taako even [[spoiler:had his own cooking show]] for a while.
** [[spoiler: Somewhat subverted when he finally learns how to make a taco, and it ends up giving him the ability to reconnect the broken bonds between planes, liberating the gods and his boyfriend from purgatory and basically saving the world. Not so loony after all.]]
* TheMagnificent: Magnus is occasionally called "the Hammer," [[NonIndicativeName despite wielding a battleaxe]]. It actually comes from his former profession as one half of a carpenter and blacksmith duo with his mentor Steven. Their shop was called "The Hammer and Tongs", with Magnus as the Hammer and Steven as the Tongs.
* TheMainCharactersDoEverything: {{Lampshaded}}. There are [[MacGuffin seven ancient artifacts]] that must be collected and destroyed for the safety of the world. Secret society of powerful wizards organized for that exact purpose who live in a secret base on the moon: 0. Three jokers: 6. The Director of the Bureau of Balance notes this in-universe after the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc and decides to dismiss all other reclaimers and put the Bureau's full resources behind supporting the party.
** Somewhat justified in that the Director notes that [[spoiler: because they made them]], the main party are the only people who can resist the thrall of the Grand Relics. Anyone else gets tempted to use it and inevitably corrupted by its power if they do.
* MicDrop: [[spoiler: Lup]] does this during [[spoiler: the IPRE press conference]] in Episode 60.
* MontyHaul:
** In the first arc, Griffin leaves a small fortune in {{Gold Piece}}s and a useful pair of magical boots lying on conveniently pre-dead dwarves, just waiting to be picked up. If only [[HonorBeforeReason Merle]] weren't such a prude about looting the dead....
** Between the Bureau of Balance' magic gatchapon machine that awards a random magical item to each party member after each arc, and their [[AnachronismStew Fantasy Costco]] that stocks a plethora more goodies for the right price, the boys have amassed a very impressive magical arsenal for adventurers of their level.
* TheMunchkin: While Justin and Clint play preconstructed characters included in the 5th Edition starter kit, Travis decided to roll his own. His starting ability scores were suspiciously high.
* MythologyGag:
** Candlenights, which is the most prominent winter holiday in the ''TAZ Balance'' setting, originated as a joke from ''My Brother, My Brother and Me'', wherein it's the brothers' own pan-religious winter holiday.
** Garfield the Deals Warlock was a one-off goof in ''MBMBAM'' that developed into a full-fledged character in ''TAZ Balance''.
** The ''Caleb Cleveland: Kid Cop'' series of novels Angus is mentioned liking originate from literary masterpiece ''Grant Andrews - Kid Cop'' that Griffin wrote in elementary school, which he has talked about on [[https://griffinriffs.wordpress.com/2009/07/26/grant-andrews-kid-cop-part-one/ his old blog]] and discussed a few times on ''MBMBAM''.
* NamesakeGag: Taako's quest to invent the taco.
* {{Nerf}}: DungeonMaster Griffin quietly lowered Magnus' ability scores between episodes to bring him in line with the other two party members.
* NewPowersAsThePlotDemands: DM Griffin suspects Clint of making up new powers for his cleric when they're convenient. He's occasionally right.
* NinjaLooting: Near-literal example: Taako rolls a Stealth check to see if he can get the magical boots off of Merle's dead cousin on the sly. Later, Magnus distracts Merle so that Taako can lift a small fortune in {{Gold Piece}}s off another dead cousin, which he pockets rather than share it with the party.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: In the ''Live Boston Stunt Spectacular'', we have an event which is basically Fantasy Wrestlemania, and several participants who are knockoffs of real-life pro wrestlers:
** Jeff Angel is a perfect copy of Wrestling/JohnCena, from his attire to his entrance theme, except that he's an [[BirdPeople aarakocra]].
** Death Man is a Goth-themed fighter with a black trenchcoat, a rocking entrance theme, and "massive guns," a bit past his prime but still formidable. [[Wrestling/TheUndertaker Hmmm...]]
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: The party goes out of their way to rescue an enslaved orc boy named Kurtze. Guess who shows up at exactly the wrong moment and shoots a crossbow at the PersonOfMassDestruction the party had just about talked down?
* NominalHero: The "heroes" are in the business of tracking down [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]] for two reasons: because they don't want the planet destroyed ([[WesternAnimation/TheTick it's where they keep all their stuff]]) and because the pay is pretty good. [[HeroicComedicSociopath They'll gleefully lie, cheat, steal, and murder]] along their way toward saving the world from the latest threat, and everyone else has to put up with it, because [[UltimateJobSecurity their track record at world-saving can't be beat]].
* OOCIsSeriousBusiness: Ninja Looter Taako actually objects to stealing some gold they find in a lockbox in a ruined bank. Apparently he makes a distinction between looting a fallen enemy (or unsuspecting ally) and straight-up bank robbery. Merle only responds with a DeathGlare.
* OnceMoreWithClarity:
** Or rather, Once More With Particular Attention To The Actual Cost Of Your Actions; in the penultimate episode of ''The Eleventh Hour'', the Temporal Chalice, in a bid to get them to use it, offers them the chance to prevent their destruction of Phandalin by not letting Kurtze the Orc Boy out of his cage. When they refuse, probably out of spite, the Chalice then shows them exactly what the citizens of Phandalin were doing right as the town got immolated and glassed; a hedge wizard was practicing his spells, bar patrons (and the girl who we now know as the robot Noelle) were hiding from the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet-consumed Gundren, Barry Bluejeans was trying to talk his former partner down, etc., all of which was followed by a blinding flash of fire.
** In the finale of ''The Stolen Century'', certain clips of Lucretia interacting with the boys (welcoming them to the Bureau, eating Taako's macaroon, and at the spa day with Merle) are replayed. They serve as exposition or are PlayedForLaughs the first time around; after the reveal that [[spoiler:she's been friends with them for decades, and erased their memories of her in order to preserve their happiness and try to rectify what they'd done to the world]], it's rather heartbreaking.
* OneSteveLimit:
** {{Averted}} with Brian and his pet spider Bryan. Since they still ''sound'' identical, Brian winds up going by "Magic Brian" to avoid confusing the players.
** There have also been ''four'' Jerrys over the course of the show. A gerblin in ''Here There Be Gerblins'', two Hammerhead ruffians named Little Jerry and [[SpellMyNameWithAnS Jerreeeeee]] in ''Petals to the Metal'', and a bank guard in ''The Eleventh Hour''. Guest host Stuart Wellington added a fifth one in tribute to the Hammerheads with Goldcliff's Councillor Jerry, who also had the Hammerheads' distinctive "Joe Pesci" accent.
* OnlyInItForTheMoney: The Tres Horny Boys start out like this.
* OrganicTechnology: The Millers created a mascot for their line of elevators called Upsy, Your Lifting Friend. [[{{Squick}} Horrifyingly]], despite being an elevator, his inside is fleshy, not unlike a [[SwallowedWhole mouth or stomach]].
* OrnamentalWeapon: [[spoiler: This is how Taako intends to use the [[InfinityPlusOneSword Flaming Poisoning Raging Sword of Doom]] after swindling it away from Garfield.]]
* OurLichesAreDifferent: Rather than a phylactery, liches bind their souls to their magical essence, however most of the time, they go insane. Liches can be stabilized by rooting themselves with emotions they feel for others, such as [[ThePowerOfLove people they love]]. The liches in Wonderland learned how to [[EmotionEater feed off of other people's emotions]], namely misery.
* OutOfCharacterMoment: In the second episode of ''The Suffering Game'', due in part to the specific losses the boys had to accept to continue without penalty, ''Taako'' leads the way into the next room, Magnus follows behind him, and Merle says he's "good out here."
* PersonOfMassDestruction: ''Everyone'' who gets their hands on a Grand Relic. Episode 39 features Lucretia giving the party a montage of towns and cities just totally annihilated by them, with a combined death toll in the tens of thousands.
* PhysicalGod: Our heroes have met several:
** [[{{Greyhawk}} Istus]], the lady of fate, is met in one of her churches in ''The Eleventh Hour''.
** The Four Judges are godlike entities in the form of giant statues, who rule the world of Cycle 65 in ''The Stolen Century''. [[spoiler: They appear again, corrupted by The Hunger, in ''Story and Song''.]]
** In the ''Live Boston Stunt Spectacular'' show, They prevent [[ForgottenRealms Garagos]], the forgotten god of war, from being summoned from his imprisonment, but not before his 5 hands appear, and destroy the arena.
** [[spoiler: Merle finally meets Pan face-to-face in episode two of ''Story and Song''.]]
* PlanetOfSteves: Apparently the town of Rockport is populated exclusively by Tom Bodetts. And they do leave the light on for ya...
* [[ComicBookFantasyCasting Podcast Fantasy Casting]]: Barry Bluejeans is described as looking like Tom Arnold.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: The first episode was released as part of ''Podcast/MyBrotherMyBrotherAndMe'', but there was already plenty of talk about making it an ongoing spinoff if it worked out.
* ThePowerOfLove:
** How Hurley manages to [[spoiler:save Sloane. They end up [[TogetherInDeath turning themselves into a tree]] together.]]
** Taako [[LampshadedTrope lampshades]] this by asking up front if the seventh Grand Relic was love the whole time. [[spoiler: As it turns out, the power of strong emotions (including love) does exist. Certain unexplainable magical phenomena that the party has witnessed like Hurley healing Sloane of an incurable poison are due to the fact that strong emotion is an energy unto itself like light, heat, and magic that can affect the physical and arcane worlds. The lich elves that run Wonderland are using this to sustain themselves and keep from descending into insanity by siphoning off the misery and suffering of those around them. Barry and Lup's love for each other and the rest of the IPRE sustains their lich forms. And the Starblaster's bond engine allows Tres Horny Boys to summon loved ones to help defeat The Final John in their [[FinalBoss final battle]] against the Hunger.]]
* PowerupLetdown: Magnus decides to buy a Mystery Bag at the local Fantasy Costco. Instead of a useful magical item, it contains an ordinary goldfish.
* PreMortemOneLiner: Edward ''intends'' to give one of these during ''The Suffering Game'', with "bad luck" just before expelling Magnus's soul from his body with the Animus Bell. But thanks to Merle and Taako, the "mortem" part doesn't quite take.
* PrisonersDilemma: Each team that enters Wonderland during ''The Suffering Game'' is faced with a series of these, where they're paired off with another team and the challenge they'll face in the next room is scaled accordingly (with "cooperate while the other team forsakes" resulting in an extremely tough challenge, while "forsake while the other team cooperates" results in a free pass).
* RedHerring: In ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'', the victim has been beheaded and be-handed in a locked train car on a train where all passengers are required to surrender their weapons upon boarding. Jess, a powerful warrior with no alibi and a super-sharp, summonable soulbound ax that ''can't'' be separated from her would seem to be a prime suspect, but it turns out the decapitation was accomplished by PortalCut by another character.
* RedOniBlueOni: Magnus and Taako, respectively. From the beginning, Magnus's motto is "Magnus rushes in," and Travis consistently plays him as someone who prefers prompt action to careful planning. Taako, on the other hand, later establishes that his motto is "Taako's good out here," and many of his most effective moments are due to action that is clever and not very risky.
* ReferenceOverdosed: Both the players and the characters make constant pop culture references. Whether or not the references the characters make are understood in-universe varies according to RuleOfFunny.
* {{Retcon}}:
** Griffin sneaks a few into his series recap in ''The The Adventure Zone Zone'', making it official continuity that Davenport can only say his own name and Garfield is the only employee of Fantasy Costco.
** The players also have this as their now-developed back stories occasionally conflict with things they've said in the past.
* RiddleForTheAges: There is in fact a reason [[spoiler: Garfield was growing a new Magnus body]], but Griffin has decided that it's way more hilarious and creepy to never have it explained and has vowed to take it to his grave.
* TheRolePlayer: All three players are pretty good about this, attempting to negotiate with enemies whenever possible and occasionally making suboptimal decisions that are in line with their characters. For example, Travis plays Magnus as an impulsive man of action who will leap into situations without thinking, Clint plays Merle as a bit irreverent, usually trying to keep up with Magus as he rushes in, and Justin plays Taako as disinterested in combat, usually hanging back and waiting for things to play out, or be dragged in by the other two.
* RollercoasterMine: The climax of ''The Eleventh Hour'' has Tres Horny Boys and Roswell racing down mineshafts while pursued by a colossal purple worm.
* RunawayTrain: The climax to the ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'' arc has the boys trying to stop an out-of-control locomotive before it can collide with a populated city and cause massive destruction. They actually fail to stop it; massive destruction is only avoided by teleporting the speeding train elsewhere.
* RunningGag:
** Magnus removing arms from the robots he fights and collecting them.
** Merle casting Zone of Truth.
** Elevators have appeared in almost every one of their adventures to date.
*** And nearly every time they enter one, [[TheElevatorFromIpanema Travis starts humming "The Girl from Ipanema".]]
* ScrewThisImOuttaHere: Coming face to face with a crab monster on the Rockport Limited while they're all unarmed, Taako decides to run for it. When Clint protests, Justin launches into a hilarious rant:
-->"Let me tell you a story about the time we fought three ogres, and I got punched so hard I almost died. You remember? You were up in some kind of weird laser firing potions willy-nilly, Magnus was pulling the arms off a robot, and ''I got punched so hard I almost died!'' I'm not about to throw down with a giant crab while you're armed with just a terrible Scottish accent, and Travis doesn't even have his shield! ''I'm out!''"
* ScienceFantasy: Magic, wizards, [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]], liches, robots, aliens, interdimensional space travel, and [[AnachronismStew Costco]].
* SequenceBreaking: Griffin references a long-sounding sequence in a castle that the party manages to skip by figuring out how to use an enchanted map and getting pointed straight to Wave Echo Cave. Unlike many instances of this trope, it is ''not'' advantageous, since it puts them in an area recommended for characters of level 4-5 at level 2.
* ShaggyDogStory: In the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, Lt. Hurley of the Goldcliff constabulary instructs the boys to steal an important MacGuffin from a gang of street toughs ''without'' [[MurderIsTheBestSolution killing anyone, as is their usual habit]]. They spend the better part of a few episodes attempting various harebrained schemes to surreptitiously gain entrance to the gang's hideout, at one point actually killing someone and furtively disposing of the body so that Hurley won't find out and turn against them, finally infiltrating the gang through various [[HijinxEnsue wacky disguises and bald-faced bluffs]]. Then their cover gets blown, they wind up [[ViolenceReallyIsTheAnswer killing just about everyone anyway]], and Hurley... [[AntiClimax is very disappointed in them. And gives them a bunch of sweet loot anyway.]]
* SharedUniverse: [[spoiler: Because of the nature of the IPRE traveling between realities in ''The Stolen Century'', they come across a version of the ''TAZ Nights'' universe, [[AfterTheEnd set in the far future]], after [[ThePlague a plague]] wiped out most people living there.]]
* ShmuckBait: Subverted during ''The Crystal Kingdom''. The room with the suspiciously sounding name 'Hugbears' that Lucas doesn't want you to go into? Actually full of nice bugbears that just happened to be created unethically using brain altering chips. (It probably doesn't hurt that Merle healed one of them before they woke up).
* {{Shoutout}}:
** Wonderland as a whole is very similar to The TabletopGame/TombOfHorrors campaign by Creator/GaryGygax, even being referenced by name. Adventurers are lured into a dungeon with promises of riches, only to find that it's a trap made to sustain the lich(es) that reside there.
-->'''Lucretia''': Their accounts of what is inside Wonderland never matched up. [...] One person told of a maze full of undead killers, another told of a '''Tomb of Horrors'''.
** Justin named a character Sazed as a shout out to the character of the same name from [[Literature/MistbornTheOriginalTrilogy Mistborn]].
** Griffin says that the ''Live in Austin!'' episode was basically intended as one long shout-out to [[Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona Persona]].
* TheSoCalledCoward: In a sense; the party (especially Taako) relentlessly mock Jenkins for conserving spell slots instead of expending them to [[MundaneUtility make his job easier.]] He turns out to be the villain of the arc, not that it stops them from making fun of him.
* SpellBook: Taako's is apparently an Literature/UncleJohnsBathroomReader with notes on spells and ideas for the taco scribbled in the margins.
* SpellMyNameWithAnS: 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.
** Clint likes to turn real-life things into fantasy things by just changing up the spelling.
--> '''Clint (as an NPC asking the IPRE a question):''' "Uh, Captain Davenport? Rex Reed, Hollywudd Reporter— that’s H-O-L-L-Y-W-U-D-D—"
--> '''Davenport:''' "Oh, good."
--> '''Clint:''' "Um, it's a town near Neverwinter."
* SpotTheImposter: After being defeated, Brian disguises himself as Gundren Rockseeker. The party figures it out easily, since [[NotEvenBotheringWithTheAccent he does nothing to disguise his voice.]] After five seconds of trying to {{Handwave}} the vocal confusion, Magnus kicks him off a ledge.
* TheStarsAreGoingOut: During the epilogue to ''The Eleventh Hour'', stars are beginning to blink out of existence. [[spoiler: This is due to the thirteenth plane of existence consuming them as it makes for the planar system of the campaign.]]
* TheStarscream: Yeemick the goblin has a vendetta against Klarg the bugbear, who he claims is a BadBoss, and blackmails the party into trying to kill him. His plan lasts exactly long enough for the party to tell Klarg, who kills him in a spectacular fashion.
* StarterVillain: The Black Spider, aka Magic Brian, is a low-level wizard who initially seems to be an overarching villain, but who turns out to be a ''really'' small fry in the grand scheme of things.
* StoneWall: Magnus has the Guardian Fighter specialty, which trades some offensive capability for the ability to better defend adjacent party members. This is only relative, though, and reversible depending on the circumstances; if he decides to cast aside his shield and wield his battleaxe two-handed, he is fully capable of laying down the hurt.
* StrawNihilist: [[spoiler:According to John, its avatar, the Hunger believes that all life is pointless and horrible, and that as a result it must be destroyed.]]
* SuddenDownerEnding: ''Here There Be Gerblins'' is lighthearted and silly right up until Phandalin is destroyed, killing countless innocent people.
* SummonToHand:
** Jess the Beheader possesses a "soulbound" axe that can be summoned to her location, similar to the "Weapon Bond" ability of the Eldritch Knight sub-class.
** In ''The Eleventh Hour'', Magnus is given a spear called the [[NonIndicativeName Chance Lance]] by the goddess Istus. When he throws and recalls it, it reverses its path in time back to his hand.
* SurpriseCreepy: ''Carnival Chaos'' features Tres Horny Boys having fun at the Midsummer Solstice festival during the first part. Then comes the Eclipse watching and, though we don't know it at the time, [[spoiler: The first appearance of ''[[EldritchAbomination The Hunger]]'']].
* ThatsNoMoon: The headquarters for the Bureau of Balance is disguised from the underside to look like a second moon.
** [[spoiler: The BigBad of the campaign initially seemed to be a massless void of eyes in the sky, only for it to turn out to be a ''very'' sentient and ''very'' hungry plane of existence.]]
* TogetherInDeath: [[spoiler: Magnus and Julia]] in the DistantFinale.
* TokenMinority: ZigZagged. The [=McElroys=] encourage the audience to depict the characters however we want, but that leaves only one character with a ''canon'' race, and that's the dark-skinned Lucretia.
* TongueTied: A variant: those who aren't in tune with the Voidfish hear nothing but static when certain concepts, like the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet a.k.a. Glovey, are mentioned.
* TooDumbToFool:
** Invoked in-universe with Taako. Apparently the reason he was able to resist the temptation to claim and use the ArtifactOfDoom is because he's simply too stupid to be tempted.
** It happens again with the artifact from the second arc; it tries to tempt him with "anything he can imagine," but his imagination is so bad it doesn't make a difference.
** [[spoiler: Ultimately subverted when the real reason the boys can resist the Relics--the fact that they made them--is revealed.]]
* TooDumbToLive: Okay, Kurtze, this horrifically racist dwarf wreathed in unholy flames is on a rampage through the countryside, but the nice guys who rescued you from slavery seem to be talking him down. Do you, A.) get away from all this madness as fast as orcishly possible, or B.) shoot a crossbow at it?
* TotalEclipseOfThePlot: In ''Carnival Chaos'' The Boys partake in a carnival in celebration of the [[ArtisticLicenseAstronomy annual midsummer solstice eclipse]]. During the eclipse though, [[spoiler: [[EldritchAbomination The Hunger]] makes its first appearance, foreshadowing the overarching plot to come.]]
* TotallyRadical: The ''Live in Austin!'' show brings us Brody, who wears [[TheNineties obnoxious neon clothing]] and is never seen without his skateboard. [[spoiler: He turns out to be the avatar of the mind flayer who captured them and put them in the [[HighSchoolAU high school dreamscape]].]]
* TriggerPhrase: In ''The Eleventh Hour'', Roswell is revealed to have one - namely, "Junebug."
* TruthSerum: Merle gets a lot of mileage out of the Zone of Truth spell, which makes it difficult for anyone affected to lie.
* UltimateJobSecurity: The party gets up to antics that would get anyone else tossed out on their rear, being rude to [=VIPs=] and superiors, [[HeroicComedicSociopath trigger-happy to the point of murderousness]], and liable to [[KleptomaniacHero loot anything that isn't nailed down]]. The thing is, their track record when it comes to hunting down and safely disposing of [[ArtifactOfDoom Artifacts of Doom]] is six to everyone else's zilcho.
** [[spoiler: It helps that they've been friends with the boss for a century, and they're the only living beings capable of resisting the thrall of the Grand Relics.]]
* UselessUsefulNonCombatSkill: Magnus keeps trying to find a use for his Vehicle and Animal Handling proficiencies in the first couple episodes, but finds himself in situations that are either too easy (driving an ox-drawn cart down a safe, level road, which doesn't require a proficiency check) or too hard (trying to calm a hostile wolf after he's already picked it up and thrown it into a fire) for them to do much good.
** The vehicle proficiency does end up coming in handy during the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, which is basically fantasy Mad Max, and Rustic Hospitality gets a lot of use during ''The Eleventh Hour''. Still not a lot of use for the Animal Handling proficiency though.
** Averted as of ''Story And Song'', where Magnus's animal handling proficiency [[spoiler:lets him ride an evil Hunger rhino, and use it to attack other Hunger creatures.]]
* VerbalTic:
** Originally, Davenport said "Davenport" quite a lot. It was later changed into PokemonSpeak, with it being the only thing he says.
** Magnus has a strong tendency to cut off a description of events or list of options by saying "Magnus does X" and proceeds to do exactly that.
* VoiceWithAnInternetConnection: Well, Voice with Access to the Combined Knowledge of Bureau of Balance, anyway. After the ''Petals to the Metal'' arc, KidDetective Angus [=McDonald=] joins the Bureau to feed the boys intel through their Stones of Farspeech (basically fantasy Bluetooth headsets).
* WackyRacing: "Battlewagons," an illegal BloodSport involving heavily-armed [[strike: cars]] wagons powered by {{Magitek}}.
* WhamEpisode: The end of ''The Suffering Game.'' [[spoiler:Magnus loses his body, it's revealed that he (and possibly Taako and Merle by extension) is ''originally from another planet'' if not another universe, the party cuts off contact with the Bureau of Balance to join up with the Red Robe that's been helping them... and said Red Robe is revealed to be none other than Barry Bluejeans from the first arc.]]
** The end of ''Petals To The Metal'' also counts. The deaths of Hurley and Sloane really signify a change in the tone of the show, and the reveal of the red robe kicks off the main plot in a big way.
* WhamLine:
** In the "epilogue" to ''The Eleventh Hour.''
--> '''Griffin:''' [[spoiler:And in this sketch, this earlier sketch, Jack and June look exactly the same. But the Red Robe's hood is pulled down. And you can see his face. And it's an incredibly familiar face, Magnus... because it's your face.]]
** "There's no healing in Wonderland!" which came as such a shock to the players that Clint thought Griffin was lying.
** ''The Suffering Game'' has one that doubles as a serious [[TheReveal revelation]] and a joke.
--> '''Griffin:''' And Merle, you crack open the chest and retrieve the clothes within. A white cotton shirt, a studded leather belt, and a pair of pants... [[spoiler:Sturdy. Denim. And blue.]]
** Griffin drops one nonchalantly near the end of Episode 59:
--> '''Griffin:''' [[spoiler: Lucretia's kneeling over her white oak staff, and she's channeling some sort of energy from the orb into the staff, which, of course, is the grand relic she made when the seven of you first came to this world.]]
** From the end of Episode 61: "[[spoiler:She thinks of her friends, and prays for sunrise.]]" It confirms that [[spoiler:the guardian robot was, in fact, Troth, Justin's character from ''The Adventure Zone: Nights''.]]
** Despite the event in question being a ForegoneConclusion, this line from Episode 66 definitely qualifies:
--->'''[[spoiler:Barry]]''': [[spoiler:Taako, what if she's really gone?]]
--->'''Taako''': [[spoiler:...who?]]
** The end of Episode 66, as the final arc begins:
--->'''Griffin''': [[spoiler: The Hunger is here again. You've escaped it a hundred times, but no more. This is it. THIS IS IT!]]
** Even after the big final battle, one is dropped in the winding down finale.
---> '''Griffin:''' [[spoiler:Tell me how Magnus dies.]]
* WhatTheHellIsThatAccent:
** Basically Jenkins's entire character revolves around being self-aware of this trope, to the point of having a mental breakdown (both in and out of character).
** DungeonMaster Griffin calls this trope out by name a few times, as he struggles to make different [=NPCs=] sound unique.
** Merle in disguise on the Rockport Limited. His attempts at a Scottish brogue slides wildly between OohMeAccentsSlipping and incomprehensible mush.
* WhyDidItHaveToBeSnakes: Magnus is afraid of spiders; the StarterVillain is spider-themed.
* WritersCannotDoMath: ''The Eleventh Hour'' is full of this:
** Griffin states that Refuge is 7 years out of step with the rest of the world, but Ren said that she moved to Refuge about 2 years after seeing a showing of Sizzle It Up With Taako, which was only 6 years ago, thus Refuge should only be 4 years out of step.
*** She also says that she feels like she recognizes Magnus, [[spoiler: which implies she lived in Refuge when he brought Jack, June, and the Temporal Chalice to town.]] This however is impossible, as that was 10 or so years ago,and she would still be living in The Underdark.
* YourMindMakesItReal: In the climax of the ''Live in Austin!'' show, [[spoiler: Taako [[ItMakesSenseInContext dunks a basketball into the hoop at the center of Brody's final form]], releasing them from the DreamLand they were trapped in. They all wake up in a chamber in The Underdark, where their captor, a mind flayer, proclaims "If you get dunked on in the dream, you get dunked on in real life!", and dies on the spot.]]
