can someone with more Adventure Zone experience than I have explain what the appeal is of Taako (<-- this is not meant in a dismissive, rhetorical way, this is a genuine question)

In what capacity? Why do people like him, why is he a fan favorite...?

sort of like... why is this a character people feel so strongly about that taakokin are a thing. what is he about, and why does it work?

all i know of him is that he's a wizard with a ridiculous name, that's it

...you know, I didn't know we'd gone into kin territory, but somehow I'm not surprised

It's been a while since I've listened to the early episodes, so I might be misremembering things, but!

On an OOC level, he was the first one to have a character voice (as in, different from Justin's speaking voice). Justin also had a pretty good handle on D&D mechanics to begin with, so there was a lot less How Do I Shot Dice and a lot more Let's Be In Character, especially compared to Travis and Clint.

It helps that Justin is funny and can improvise like crazy, so a lot of the really great one-liners and memorable quotes are from Taako.

So an attention-getting voice in an audio-only medium, a great sense of humor, and a shitton of charisma made Taako an immediate draw from the beginning.

ICly - and I do think this is a huge factor in his popularity - he's the first out-and-out queer character on the show, and nobody makes a big deal of it.

It's not "Taako, the queer guy" it's "Taako, the wizard with a habit of pulling insane spells out of fuck-all nowhere, and also he's a goddamn amazing cook"

So we have very solid representation (in my opinion, at least) without him ever being a token anything

what's his specific queerness?

Gay

(Could be bi, because like I said, it's been a looooong time since the early episodes and I don't trust my memory in that area, but I'm p sure he's gay)

So yeah, I think people latched on at the beginning because he was the most fleshed out character of the three at the time and never really let go

And then we got what is (imo) better representation then we get in a lot of "mainstream" media, and that drew even more people in

Honestly, all of this. Taako is the most defined character set apart from the brothers, he's really funny, is as much a character for the serious as he is for the laughs

He's honestly the most popular because Magnus and Merle don't really appeal to the feminine/gay crowd

(i legit had to google merle's name and i was listening to the podcast this morning)

like

Well, and Clint's been having trouble with the game from the beginning, which makes it a bit harder to latch on to Merle as a character

yeah

TAZ Animatic: Taako Makes a Deal

this is why people like taako HAHA

(Honestly, listening to Clint play, it's p much exactly what would happen if I ever tried to convince my parents to play D&D, so I can't exactly blame him)