History Podcast / TheAdventureZoneBalance

** The ''Live in San Diego!'' show's place in the timeline is difficult to determine. The explanation with the fewest PlotHoles is that it takes place after ''Story and Song''.

** Taken UpToEleven with the sandworms in The Eleventh Hour, where the babies are the side of the tardigrades and the adults are tens of miles long.

** Griffin says that the ''Live in Austin!'' episode was basically intended as one long shout-out to ''[[Franchise/ShinMegamiTenseiPersona Persona]]''.

In January 2020 it was announced that the series would receive an animated adaptation on the Creator/NBC streaming service Peacock.

** "Here There Be Gerblins", the first arc, basically just sets up the story going forward, as Magnus, Merle, and Taako join the B.O.B. and accept the quest to regain the Relics. Unfortunately, their encounter with the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet resulted in [[spoiler:the absolute devastation of Phandolin, killing hundreds of residents, including their partners Barry Bluejeans and Gundren Rockseeker. The severity of this would be emphasized later.]]

** "Here There Be Gerblins", the first arc, basically just sets up the story going forward, as Magnus, Merle, and Taako join the B.O.B. and accept the quest to regain the Relics. Unfortunately, their encounter with the Phoenix Fire Gauntlet resulted in [[spoiler:the absolute devastation of Neverwinter, killing hundreds of residents, including their partners Barry Bluejeans and Gundren Rockseeker. The severity of this would be emphasized later.]]

* 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.

* AcePilot: [[spoiler: Davenport.]]
* 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 [[spoiler: Lup, who manages to kill 50% of the big bad duo despite being stuck in an umbrella for the whole arc.]] The seventh has [[spoiler: Lup, and Lucretia 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."
** Invoked when Griffin changed several of the "Aeriths" to "Bobs" during the first arc, which drew heavily from Lost Mine of Phandelver: Sildar Hallwinter became Barry Bluejeans; BigBad Nezznar was renamed Magic Brian.

* 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.

* AllJustADream: Averted. In [[spoiler: ''Story and Song'', the boys wake up onboard the Rockport Limited following their final battle with John.]] Griffin states that he hadn't realized that it would sound like he was invoking this trope until it was too late.
* 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 This would later be confirmed]].
* 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.

* 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. At least some of this is justified in-universe by the influence of the Miller family, who had looked into the Plane of Thought where advanced technology is commonplace.

* AndMissionControlRejoiced: Apparently the Bureau of Balance had all gotten together to watch the Battle Wagon Race in ''Petals to the Metal''.

* BadassCrew: [[spoiler: The crew of the ''Starblaster''.]]

* BattleCouple: Carey and Killian.
** Towards the end of the story, [[spoiler: Barry and Lup]].
* BeachEpisode: Episode 62 has them spending some well earned time off at the beach.
* BeautyBrainsAndBrawn: Taako, Merle, and Magnus respectively. Especially true for the first arc or so, when Justin was still playing Taako as a complete idiot.

* 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.

* 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.

** While the grand finale is undeniably a happy ending, Magnus's epilogue was nonetheless a huge tearjerker.

* 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.]]
* TheBusCameBack: nearly every live show features the return of fan-favorite [=NPCs=], much to the crowd's pleasure and often the boys' (slight) annoyance.[[note]]For instance, in one show the crowd erupted into cheers just at the ''mention'' of Angus, and Travis shouted "That motherfucker's more popular than we are!"[[/note]] While some, namely Angus, Lucretia, Kravitz, [[spoiler:Barry and Lup]], Carey, Killian, and Davenport have been around for the whole series, others come back after very long breaks.

* 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.]]

** 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.]]

* 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.

--> '''[[spoiler:Davenport]]:''' [[spoiler:[[SuddenlyVoiced L...Lucretia, what have you DONE?]]]]

In January 2020 it was announced that the series would receive an animated adaptation on the Creator/NBC streaming service '''Peacock'''.

The series also has an ongoing [[ComicBook/TheAdventureZone graphic novel adaptation]]. The first book, ''Here There Be Gerblins'', was released in July 2018, and the second, ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'', was released in July 2019.

* 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.

A [[ComicBook/TheAdventureZone graphic novel adaptation]] of ''Balance'' has begun production. The first book, ''Here There Be Gerblins'', was released in July 2018, and the second, ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'', was released in July 2019.

* AbsurdlySharpBlade: The Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom is hilariously OP, to the point that in one of the live shows, [[spoiler: Davenport]] manages to cleave through multiple Kraken tentacles just by holding it still while they sail past.

** In ''Live in San Diego!'', members of the Bureau are watching the boys complete Lucas' simulation and commenting on it through a group chat. Given how badly they were doing at the simulation, however, it was less "And Mission Control Rejoiced" and more [[BizarroEpisode "And Mission Control Made Fun of Magnus For Getting Eaten by a Fish"]]

* {{Foreshadowing}}: [[spoiler: An accidental, in-character one. The nullsuit colors that Magnus, Taako, and Merle pick out near the beginning of the Crystal Kingdom arc were Burgundy, Burnt Umber, and Cinnamon, in an attempt to be amusingly difficult. All of these are [[TheReveal Shades of red]].]]

* 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]].]]
* {{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 three rival wagons with [[OneHitPolyKill only two spells]].

* 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.

* 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 "cleft him in twain", Griffin made them deal with the consequences.

* 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.

* 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.

** [[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.]] ]]

** 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''.

** 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.

* {{Nerf}}: DungeonMaster Griffin quietly lowered Magnus' ability scores between episodes to bring him in line with the other two party members.

* 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]].

* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Griffin occasionally (ok, frequently) has trouble keeping his character voices straight. Especially notable with Kravitz, whose British accent was so inconsistent Griffin decided it was just his work accent, and that off-the-clock he spoke basically like Griffin.

** 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.

** 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.

* TheOnlyOne: The boys are the only reclaimers who have actually ever managed to...reclaim anything. Which makes sense, once you learn that [[spoiler: they were 3 of the 7 people that created the relics.]]

* PlotArmor: In nearly every live episode, Magnus does incredibly dangerous and nigh-suicidal things to accomplish the task at hand [[spoiler: because since his death has a canonical explanation, he cannot die before it happens]] much to Griffin the Game Master's annoyance.

* PosthumousCharacter: Julia qualifies for this, as we only learn about her in Magnus' flashback. [[spoiler: Before the events of ''Story and Song'', Lup qualifies for this, as ''The Stolen Century'' is a flashback arc, and she's dead at the start of canon.]]

** 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.]]

-->'''Griffin''': But it still looks fucking, over-the-top radical, much more than my 29 year old mind could possibly devise.

** In General

** All three sons suffer from anxiety to some degree, so they're pushing themselves to the brink at live events. Many live shows feature the boys having the house lights up to greet the audience, then quickly requesting the lights go down in a joking panic so they can pretend they're not on stage being watched by thousands of people.

* SchizoTech: Magic can explain it to some extent, but the setting is ''somewhat'' medieval but includes elevators, steam trains, spacecraft, powerful computers and [[ArsonMurderAndJaywalking styrofoam]]. And despite all that, apparently a safe method of curdling milk to make cheese hasn't been discovered at the beginning of the game.

* 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.
* SeriesContinuityError: While earlier bonus episodes taking place outside the story make sense, as back then there were less characters and events to keep straight, later ones sometimes create some serious plot holes. For example, in the San Diego Live Show, Lucas, who disappeared after the end of the Crystal Kingdom, creates a virtual reality dungeon for the Bureau of Balance members to play through. The episode clearly takes place after The Crystal Kingdom, with references to the Chance Lance and even the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom, but also before [[spoiler: Story and Song when Lucas comes back, because of the fact the Bureau of Balance still exists.]] How could Lucas have done this whole training thing without the Director knowing? Magnus, Taako, and Merle would've been caught in their lie, since they told the Director that Lucas was dead. The answer is Griffin just forgot.

** 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.

** 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]].

** All in all, Griffin's not shy about drawing inspiration from other sources. Arcs have included [[Film/TheFastAndTheFurious The Fast and the Furious]] -esque racing sequences, a [[Film/GroundhogDay Groundhog Day]]/[[Main/TheWestern Western]] mash up, and a [[Literature/MurderOnTheOrientExpress murder mystery set on a train]].

* SpacetimeEater: [[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.]]

* 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.

* SupernaturalTeam: The Red Robes
* 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]]'']].

* ThemeNaming: When Lucas "took in" the bugbear family, he gave them names based on their jobs. Klarg was "Daniel Butler" (Butler), his father is "Aaron Styles" (Stylist/Barber), his mother is "Jamie Green" (Gardener), his grandfather is "John Cook" (Chef), and his Sister is "[[OddNameOut Christie Killgore]]", since they couldn't think of a good name for Maintenance.

* 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.]]

* 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.
* TwoGirlsToATeam: The seven member IPRE crew consisted of five men, [[spoiler: Magnus, Merle, Taako, Barry, and Davenport,]] and two women, [[spoiler: Lucretia and Lup]].

* {{Unperson}}: The Voidfish is a being that subsists by eating information. This can be done by simply tossing it a piece of paper with writing on it, and afterward whatever was written will be removed from the collective memory of most planes of reality, with its name and any relevant details being impossible to understand--speakers will simply sound like static. This power of the Voidfish's isn't perfect--for example, there will still be physical signs of an erased person's existence, which allowed Angus to piece together the Bureau's existence. Anyone who drinks the Voidfish's ichor also becomes immune to the erasure.

* VoicesAreMental: Averted. When Magnus's body is possessed by the lich Edward, he speaks with his normal voice (as imitated by Griffin). And when the trio have their bodies swapped in the [=MaxFunCon=] East show, they attempt to imitate each others' character voices.

** 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.

** "Because in Wonderland, there is no healing." which came as such a shock to the players, as Clint thought Griffin was lying.

--->'''Griffin''': [[spoiler:Nobody hears you say that, Magnus, [[OurSoulsAreDifferent because you’ve just had the singular sensation of having your soul knocked out of your still-living body.]]]]

** A more comedic, but no less shocking one, and one that hit Griffin as hard as it hit the audience, as he realizes that [[spoiler: Justin is about to swindle the Flaming Raging Poisoning Sword of Doom right out from under him.]]

** [[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.]]

* 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.]]

A [[ComicBook/TheAdventureZone graphic novel adaptation]] of ''Balance'' has begun production. The first book, ''Here There Be Gerblins'', was released in July 2018, and the second, ''Murder on the Rockport Limited'', will be released in July 2019.