I think one of my absolute favourite things about TAZ is that Griffin got to write a campaign in which the three free agents, the three moving parts that he relied on to make his story work, were the three people he knows best in the whole universe. People talk about Griffin’s story being ‘on rails’ but it’s not. It’s just that - unlike most DMs - Griffin can predict his family’s behaviour in advance in a way most people couldn’t hope to do. If he were playing with a different group, the story never would have turned out the way it did, but because he knows his family, he could fairly accurately predict the big decisions.
He writes a voidfish into the story, because he knows his brother is kind to animals, knows he’d never leave a sentient baby jellyfish on a planet about to get eaten, not even narratively. He’s not writing Travis into a corner, Travis would never consider doing anything else. He writes Taako a sister - a best friend, a twin, a soul mate - because he knows that Justin is a big brother to his very core, knows that his instincts will always fall in line with sibling loyalty and devotion, even when he’s playing an aloof elf who doesn’t care about anyone. He writes his dad into the trickiest position of them all - facing true horror, sitting across the table from the end of the world - and he knows that his father will respond with compromise and understanding, with love and joy and compassion, because he’s seen that grace in his father his whole life. Griffin was betting on those qualities that he already knew his family possessed, and it was the safest bet he ever made! Because they were amazing, and he always knew they would be.
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