Hey guys! Thanks for watching! If you've got any suggestions for future videos, let me know here :)

"Your father left you when you were young, right?" "yeah but...I like to be the one to, to share that."

this story element is exactly what drew me into the game, and into critical role as well

I love the analysis, but also consider: there are simply RPG players that play like that. The desire to develop your character is often the whole motivation behind playing, just as for others its the power trip and for others still its the sheer escapism. I know plenty players who would run in that situation, both because "it's what my character would do" and to just see what happens. There are whole systems where flaws are a central part of the mechanic to encourage just that behavior.

Human existence is a story by nature. Some are able to bring this into stories that they create beautifully, which is why I appreciate Harmon's work so much. Not just "haha pickle rick xd" but all of the content he creates is inspiring for story tellers

I hate it when D&D is mischaracterised as pure power fantasy. It's all based on how you roleplay. Some people roleplay more and some less, it's all about how the individual wants to play. Many times, a player in my current campaign has pondered the "best" thing they could do, but ultimately didn't do it because it would be out of character.

It's like when you make a pacifist character for a D&D session and you don't tell anyone, you just see how long you can get away with it before someone notices.

His writing is in complete HARMONy

As a big Harmontown listener, I'm surprised you didn't mention the story circle. If you've ever heard Harmon improvise or craft a story from nothing you'd see him outline his simplified version of the hero's journey that just about every episode of his shows follow.

Great DnD players will always play to their characters first. It's awesome! When people start playing they do try and min/max everything, or they play to their character's too much, a good GM will do their best to balance RP and combat. Harmon mixes both.

Well.... Now I'm gonna watch HarmonQuest!

I've discovered this channel recently and i want to thank the creator of it. You put so much in such simple words. It's amazing. Even though I'm a drawing instructor I use many of your observations during my explanations. It's amazing how much drawing, creating music and storytelling have in common. So thank you so much for doing this!

I just starred watching Community and i love every second of it. Honestly one of my favorite shows

i think playing a lot of table-top games like D&D actually help you become a better writer (and improviser probably). it's just kind of built that way.

I love that people can record themselves playing DnD and it becomes a popular thing now. Harmonquest, The Adventure Zone, Heroes and Halfwits; all great times to be had.

Wow. Dan Harmon is a genius because he decided to play a role in a role playing game. Many D&D games are narratively focused, and the people who run them purposefully structure their games to mirror a three act structure. You can praise Harmon for writing capabilities, but what is being praised here is a combination of basic writing skills and modern D&D.

I'm glad you're featuring Harmonquest. I listen to Dan Harmon's podcast and he didn't even promote season 1 properly. I'm enjoying season two on VRV. Giving Harmon all of the credit when Spencer writes the story, and citing an author instead of Harmon's own talks on the subject is a bit of a tangled web, but somehow it didn't feel cheated. Thanks!

Great video, but damn the streaming ('online tv') market is becoming saturated as hell. How many $10 video subscriptions can we be expected to have?

There’s a pretty big misconception here. Spencer wrote harmonquest. Dan has said several times that he had no creative control.

Not sure if this has been said before, but the game they play in HarmonQuest (and on the podcast Harmontown) is Pathfinder. It's not a knock off of D&D, it's an entirely different game that branched out when players didn't like 4th ed.

Harmonquest looks awesome. Love your analysis on Harmon’s understanding of a character!

I think what you miss is that modern TTRPGs aren't power fantasy. Maybe AD&D was just focused on slaying some orcs and getting through the barebones adventure, but now people want characters to have depth. They want to feel like they're creating a story. Even the ones that still have a strong focus on combat like D&D or Shadowrun have changed to support advanced storytelling. If you want to play some more story-focused RPGs, try a Powered by the Apocalypse RPG or the GM-less Fiasco.

Your narrowing down of RPGs to just power fantasies is, well, very narrowing. I've been a player and DM for about two decades, playing campaigns spanning over multiple years of very regular sessions and character arcs were always the thing that made us want to continue. Emerging character developpment and relations both within and outside the party are just priceless. But anyway, thanks a lot for introducing me to Harmon Quest, I'll definitely dig into it :)

Awesome video, man. Seriously. It touched a lot of topics that are "sensitve" for writers, like being overwhelmed by aaaaaaall the information that there is out there.

Number one writing lesson: WRITE

Sooooo pretty much all of Harmon Quest is actually written by Spencer. Maybe revisit this to address that.

I found this when playing Edge of The Empire, the Star Wars RPG. When you're creating the character you can take on additional abilities/XP but get a randomly assigned "flaw" in exchange. Almost every player does this, because you want a stronger character, in fact I did it twice. My second flaw was that my character had a need to betray, the first flaw was that a had a large debt to pay off. You don't have to share these flaws with the other characters. Those two things combined to allow me to come up a "unique" backstory for my character, let me give him a bit more life and importantly completely changed how I played the game. I was now not really in the same party as everyone else, I was out for myself with my own goals. I made decisions not based on "how do we progress" but "what would my character do". For example, in the first "mission" this meant that while everyone else explored the map fully and got into lots of fights, I just went where the safe probably was, spent every round cracking it until I got in, took all the money and ran. The GM only told me how much money was in the safe. So I payed off the boss who'd sent us, gave the players a token reward that let them think I was sharing, and spent the rest of the ridiculously large some on getting a cybernetic implant that made me like a living wireless R2 unit which I then had disguised so I could keep it a secret from everyone else. I hacked everything from that point onwards. I would never have done that without those pre-assigned flaws that I had to role play. It's quite an easy thing to bodge to any pen & paper RPG system, so I definitely recommend it.

I'm from Mexico, and there's no information and videos like this in spanish. Thank you! Very good work!

Hi man! Thank you soooo much for this video. I have discovered this writer (know his shows but not the guy) and i immediatly research his storytelling advice. And hid adaptation of a Hero's journey helped me a lot to modify and have a better story for my final project of my bachelor's degree in 3D Graphics. So thanks a lot man you inderectly save my life! I learn lots of things with you so keep going you doing great :D

Think I've seen like half a dozen videos on KZfaq about Harmon's obsession with the hero's journey so was a bit suspicious of clicking this video, but wasn't disappointed. Thank you Just Write for consistently adding nuance to your content!

"Demonic version of Chelsea Peretti." Isn't that redundant?

"What is entertaining for a creator may not be entertaining for an audience" - my issue with improv.

Also a thing Writers should learn from Dan Harmon is his simplified version of the hero's journey known as the Harmon Story Circle.

That last line really spoke to me. No wonder I dig Harmon's work so much

Hi, I'm a huge fan of your videos, I've seen them since last year and I love them. Thanks to you I can improve better my writing and work out my storytelling. Thank you so much and I wish you good luck from Chile❤

D&D is only a power fantasy if you make it that way. I mean, I've only ever played one campaign of D&D and I did plenty of things to weaken my character because it made narrative sense. I am not alone in this.

Some of the genius of Dan and Justins' writing can be seen in Rick and Morty. For brief moments in some episodes there will be these fleshed out characters, organizations, or situations that are so intriguing. They make you think, "Oh yeah. I want to see how they/this develops" and then they'll be killed seconds to minutes later. They write better settings and characters than Hollywood or I could could write as a center piece for a whole story... then discard them immediately. It's a huge flex.

Great insight! Harmon is an amazing storyteller, as he completely gets the structure and needs within story, but also subverts them for effect.

The weakness of creators is we almost always inherently love our creations, and when our creations face criticism it can feel like our baby is getting punched by the real world. Personally I think the best thing to do as a writer is learn about three things. Story Structure, Character Arc, and Theme. Story Structure basically keeps things evenly paced, Character Arc helps us to invest in the story by making us empathize with a character learning to search for what he needs rather than what he wants, and Theme gives a purpose or 'truth(s)' to take from the story.

Thanks for introducing me to this show. I've watched every available episode in the last two days.

This is a great Channel, I don't know anything about this writer and you still made it interesting

I actually just came across a tabletop game that makes you include a character flaw in your character creation. On the one hand, it can give you a negative effect on certain rolls, but now I can see it also helps create a more compelling story for the players, and gives the GM more to work with. The games called Lancer btw, I think the creator also does Kill Six Billion Demons. Put that here because I think it's pretty good, but it's still being developed, and it could probably use some support.

Thanks for bringing to light other works of Dan Harmon instead of riding on Rick and Morty. I honestly didn't know of Harmon Quest so thanks for that too.

YES! Someone finally acknowledges my favorite show! (Harmonquest) good to see it getting more attention

I started watching Harmonquest because of this video, I was not disappointed

When I clicked on this video I really thought you were going to talk about Harmon's take on the Hero's Journey and his "Story Circle" as it relates to Rick and Morty, Community and other stories.

Maybe you could do a video on how to do a proper homage to a genre? If an 'homage' goes too far it becomes a parody, yet to subtle it becomes unnoticed or doesn't feel like it's meant to. Directors like Matthew Vaughn can do it expertly, in his films Kick-Ass and Kingsman: The Secret Service homage their genres perfectly during the first to acts by referencing and subverting classic tropes, but by the last act fully embrace them and become legitimate superhero and spy movies respectively. They move the genre forward but honoured what came before.

Thanks a lot for connecting this to advice for all creative practices.

Aubrey Plaza looks better every time I see her.

Whenever you have one player who is roleplaying way more than anyone else, the story tends to bend around them, with the rest of the party almost acting merely to further their story. I'm in a campaign where I'm actively trying to roleplay my heart out (it's the first campaign I've been able to play in a while where things other than combat are emphasized), while the other players are: Someone who's new to RPGs and still learning the ropes, someone who doesn't think of roleplaying a character, someone who doesn't want to roleplay character traits other than "badass," and someone who _can_ roleplay but is currently roleplaying half of a bumbling, comic-relief ettin. (It doesn't help that my character's backstory and other characters' factions just about automatically make me the party leader.)

Fuck, that was an absolutely amazing video. I've been in the film industry for a couple years now, making a name for myself as a sound person, but ever since about 3rd year of University I realized it was my true passion to write for comedy. I really think I can do it, it might take me a while but I think I'll get there. I can tell you must be one hell of a creator, and I hope that whatever you're aspiring for beyond KZfaq works out for you man, you deserve it.

Dan Harmon is my biggest inspiration, he is a creative genius. Also I'm glad you have cupofste's animation in this video. It's absolutely perfect and I hope he/she makes some more of them eventually.

Because of this video I started watching Harmonquest and damn I'm loving it. Thanks.

Community is my all time favourite show. I love this

I so needed this video today. Thank you. Can't wait for the next one.

My husband almost got to be an art director on this show. We were so disappointed when his friend's studio didn't get the show, lol

So, great video. Question. Do you play D&D or any other tabletop RPG? Because respectful disagreement. It's not power fantasy if you play it by the design of the books themselves -- it can be, and often is, but is not meant to be. Weakness is what keeps people playing, not strength. The Critical Role DM makes really good points on how playing weak characters is the most fun. And, interestingly, the acquiring of power doesn't erase weakness, it more often than not reinforces weakness.

Thank you for your phenomenal videos. They are truly incredible. Also thanks for turning me on to another Harmon TV show that I didn't know about! Very excited!

Ok so your idea about how D&D is a power fantasy and how Dan plays it differently from others on the show is total bullshit. I don't think I've ever played D&D as a flawless character who does everything right because it's boring as shit otherwise, the characters are what makes it compelling. Tbf our DM is an English lit student so I guess that helps.

This resonated so much with me, I feel bubbly inside now, thank you.

Yo! I think I had a mini breakthrough watching this 6:10-6:30. This is exactly how I feel around studying and creating things in general. I feel overwhelmed and snowed under by the endless amounts of information and creative opportunities. It causes me great anxiety and depression. But anything that is purely manual I can do without fear. I was a pretty big jock in high school because of it. Anyway, Imma try to chunk things from now on so I don't feel so DAMN overwhelmed. Thanks again for this vid.

Writers can learn that no matter what success they find through their efforts everything can be undone if you clung to crude shock early on.

really nice video. lately I've been trying to write more often but, like you described at the end, I often feel overwhelmed. this definitely gave me a boost. I'll definitely check out both community and harmon quest, because I love rick and morty

Finally making it instinct. So happy.

Thanks for the VRV link

Well made videos I'll definitely have to give this show a watch

I was very confused for a moment when Spencer Crittenden was in the thumbnail.

The new d&d has elements of this baked into the base rules when you make characters. Each charcter has role play beats, a main trait, ideal, bond, and flaw. Players playing to these and making sub-optimal decisions can get favors in form of inspiration dice by the GM by being interesting storybuilders rather than playing to win.

Isn't D&D suppose to be you telling a story and not playing a game? For some reason everyone makes it out to be that D&D is suppose to be leveling up and looking to find more dungeons. When most of the time it's you making your own character in order to insert yourself into the world and make a story out of it. Projared's D&D videos have sorta taught me that when it comes to playing D&D. So when Dan Harmon does it, I don't really find it innovative for what he is doing. but he sure can make interesting stories out of a D&D session.

Humans are a narrative species by nature. We live and learn by stories. You don't even know it until you stop to realize it, but you know thousands of stories. Some may be movies and books. Others may be mythologies or religious or secular histories. Or they can just be what happened to you on the way to your friend's house. Of course, everyone has varying degrees of talent, but everybody is a natural storyteller. Stories are as fundamental to who we are, both individually and collectively as a species, as any aspect of human nature you can imagine. I feel like great storytellers are great because they practice and have passion for the stories they want to tell. Therefore, anyone can be a great storyteller. You have thousands of examples of stories you yourself know to learn and improve from as you write. That is the first case of how storytelling becomes instinctive.

Hey man, love these videos - really helpful, will be sharing with our writers. Can I offer a criticism? Sometimes when you cut-away to an interview or audio that isn't your voiceover, (noticed this in your Game of Thrones vid as well as this one), the volumes vary quite a lot. Enough to adjust my speaker volume, but then be deafened when your voice comes back in. Consider using something like a limiter on the master audio which will bring the lowest audio up, or a compressor which will bring the highest volumes down... Or you could spend ages staring at an audio level meter I guess. Hope that's helpful and not intrusive or unwelcome!

Community's first season was so good, but I didn't feel the same fire after that.

Harmontown is the greatest podcast of all time, I implore you to listen/watch. It’s on everything, has a documentary, full segments and episodes free on KZfaq live in front of an audience.

I truly do want to understand why anyone would thumbs down this video? Not that I'm some sort of fanboy but what's wrong with this message or the overall content? There's so much bad in KZfaq if you want to be critical it's very easy to do so here, but why spread negativity around where there doesn't need to be any?

i dont really comment on any videos, but this was so interesting to watch, thanks for posting, i always find great content when i load your channel, good day and keep on keepin on.

When it comes to personality I find Dan Harmon to be extremely eccentric, but damn he knows how to put a compelling story together on the spot

having never seen Rick and Morty to this point. and seeing community a few times. Dan Harmon is on his own level. and I respect that. now I will watch Rick and Morty because I got dialed in. and have been watching his D & D show I am sooo curious.

I find Jeff Davis is always the one that gets the crew back on track when they get carried away improving. He's really good at keeping the story going forward.

Harmon talks about one of his main influences, Joseph Campbell, and his theory of the monomyth or "heroes journey" a lot on harmontown. That's the origin of the clip at 1:15 and harmon's "refusal of the call" character development

I loved Harmon's Quest! But I must say that you're not completely right about roleplaying games tending to be power fantasies, because, yes, the most marketable aspect of it it is (D&D focuses A LOT in the combat and dungeoneering aspects), but there's a great deal of us who focus more in the storytelling :)

By far my favorite writer!

I mean, you say that DnD is played for the power trip, but it really isn't, or at least it shouldn't be. Playing that way is boring. I know whenever I roll up a character, I give him all kinds of weird flaws, because otherwise, even from a player's point of view, the core gameplay loop of slowly getting stronger becomes really dull. You have no motivation for doing anything, and at that point, you might as well go play final fantasy or morrowind instead. There are people who play it for the power trip, and they always give their characters ridiculous stats, and it always becomes boring as sin. If you think that the game is played that way, it might just mean that you've found a shitty group, and if that's the case, or you just don't have any experience with it, I'd suggest giving it a try with people you trust to be creative. It's great practice for writing, albeit somewhat boring. (otherwise, good video. Hope non of that sounded like hate.)

As someone who has been both seasons of harmonquest I agree that fondue is the most interesting character. My biggest problem with the show after Season 2 though is that there isn't any possibility of death for the 3 main characters. The basic rule of dnd is death a thing but a new character can be re-rolled and add new story line to the adventure. But in my opinion Dan has Spencer by his balls when it comes to trying to kill off Fondue. Watch Season 2 and you'll understand. I want a season 3 but if Fondue is still around still ill be throwing in the towel on this show.

Dan Harmon is certainly one of the best storytellers out there. There are certainly some better, and I know writers of TV shows don't tend to receive as much notoriety or respect as novelists or playwrights which is a shame, but the amount of thought and creativity he puts into his narratives always comes through and generates greatness. I'm not just saying this because Rick and Morty is my favorite show (though I will admit that's a part of it.) When you listen to Dan talk about storytelling or listen to him explain his thought process with writing you can tell that he's both passionate and very knowledgeable in his work and it shows, even if you're not personally a fan of his type of humor. I mean he does primarily work with comedy and comedy is very much an "eye of the beholder" genre.

Hi'a Sage! I love your video essay I'm always really stoked when you when I see you have a new upload. You inspire me. You mention of if a storyteller tried to keep in mind all the nuances of storytelling they'd never get a word written. I feel like this is so true and I've lost time to it. The idea that holding on to all these tools can become instinctual is really comforting. Thank-you! That's really cool you like Rick and Morty. I really dig it myself. It's so irreverent that I feel like it would offend a lot of people, so I can never guess at who might like it. If you haven't done an video on Rick and Morty it might be a real treasure trove of stuff. The way, on first glance it looks like a hot mess, but it's used to explore some really heartfelt stuff and super interesting Science fiction concepts in a way that's relentless and a riot of color. The Unity episode, or the the Toxic Rick and Morty, or even just having a character whose an asshole, but you root for him anyway. Just little suggestions, I will watch all the videos to you post. Hayley ^_^

Calling Pathfinder an off-brand version of Dungeons and Dragons isn't entirely incorrect but it still hurts.

I really want them to do a second season. The show was how I got my casual friends into playing D&D

You're wrong about RPGs. Players give their characters flaws and weaknesses ALL THE TIME. For example, I have a Warlock who's no more than a dirty half starved kid from a foreign land who's extremely superstitious because he _personally_ knows a dead god: his patron, manifests its will upon the world through him. "If one that is literally _dead_ can do that, imagine the ones who're alive" he figures. A character without weaknesses is not a character. All the players would be playing the same archetype of perfection. He recently had a development arc when he grew to accept a Paladin's presence in the group and consequentially became more open to new ideas and ended up recruited by a guy to commit assassination, only to be stopped by the party who began in turn to regard him as more than an annoying pest, but instead as someone with whom they have shared so much to let him get lost to such a fate, and they all realised they would miss him, and they liked him. He reciprocated the feeling, and now I'm working on his new arc.

I feel that the claim that a story is about a "character over-coming weakness" and "D and D is a power fantasy" is incredibly two dimensional and cliche. These kinds of statements don't reflect my personal tabletop experiences with friends, and honestly turn me off to HarmonQuest if it's that predictable.

"it's really a difference of degrees." I like how you take care to cater for nuance

Strengths make plot interesting. Weaknesses make characters interesting.

Man I love your Videos I can learn so much from them, thank you for making these. btw I would like to see you making an What Writers Should Learn From Naoki Urasawa, since he one one the best in his genre

My friends and I personally try to make whichever decision suits our characters best, but I get that some people just play for power increase.

Thanks for this man.

Have you considered looking at the McElroy Brothers' Adventure Zone? Specifically, the ability of Griffin McElroy's overarching plot and things that lead his players into a more interesting show, ultimately making it a rare success for D&D podcasts.

Community is great

The story of Spencer is so heartwarming

Good work bro!!! Very useful..

Role playing games are not about power fantasies. Traditional role playing games are about playing roles. I remember some Star Trek table top system that allowed you to play any role on a star fleet ship. One of those roles is the bartender. If RPG were all about power fantasies, then everyone would want to be the captain, and no one would want to be the bartender.

Shadowrun is really good for this, with its "negative qualities" things that force your character to act a certain way, at the benefit of additional experience points at the start of the game.