Cirrus@Austlit

'The Dungeons & Dragons-inspired podcast, The Adventure Zone (TAZ) (2014-present), which is run by the McElroy family, is an ongoing narrative about three adventurers who work to find and destroy seven powerful Grand Relics. The narrative incorporates several different genres, themes, and both player and non-player characters. During the podcast, the youngest brother, Griffin, explains settings and story elements so that his two brothers, Justin and Travis, and his father, Clint, can react to them while playing characters that they have created. This paper argues that TAZ models a storytelling approach that incorporates and streamlines radio drama storytelling, chance, and roleplay into an organic, collaborative narrative. I examine TAZ’s audio gameplay, the discussions amongst the players between scenes (metagaming), and the metatextual discussions in the Lunar Interludes and other metaepisodes, in order to track the progression of the story and explore how the storytelling methods contribute to an engaging narrative.' (Publication abstract)