Rainbow Dash: Great! Held up by a mustache. Did his boyfriend leave him too?
Rarity: Oh, please. A man is concerned with his looks, and you wheel out the stereotype. Typical.
Applejack: Uh-oh. You’re not gonna get upset over this, are ya?
Rarity: There’s absolutely nothing wrong with investing significant time and effort into one’s image.
Rainbow Dash: Since WHEN did we care about an NPC’s image?
Rarity: Can’t you sympathize in the slightest? Losing all that work in a blink of an eye can be just as traumatic as losing a limb!
Steven Magnet: <gasp> It’s so truuuue!
Rarity: Ah ah, you be quiet. Mommy’s still talking.
Speaking of pony D&D, Erin Palette - the primary inspiration for this comic - recently ran a pony campaign using the Unknown Armies system. Her write-up on the adventure is very interesting for those wondering how one goes about running and playing a tabletop pony RPG amongst fans. And the anecdotes are amusing as always. ("Ponykinesis" is a word I should use more often.)
Remember the comic depicts a roleplaying game.
The reason their manes are dry is that everypony has forgotten that they got wet by now and thus their minds eye readjust to the default.
I don't think the artist was trying to tie the Mane 6 to the various elements (do't know for certain because it's not my work). Instead, I think they were using re-skinned preproduction sketches for the various elements as ponies.
I smell the start of a potential running gag where RD stereotypes every NPC that comes along based on RPG or real-world preconceptions, and is wrong every time.
I could give a [CENSORED] about D&D. Wizards of the Coast and/or Hasbro decided it would be more profitable to alienate their old fanbase in an attempt to attract the attention of the MMO crowd with 4e. That 5e is coming out four years later -- whereas the average lifespan of previous editions has been a decade, give or take a few -- is a pretty solid indication that their strategy failed spectacularly.
Meanwhile, I and the rest of the 3.5e expatriates are quite happy over here with Paizo playing Pathfinder, thank you very much.
The funny thing being that 4th Edition wouldn't have been a bad game if they hadn't tried to insist it was D&D while simultaneously making it incompatible with their previously existing settings, characters, and cosmology. The fact it focuses a lot more on effects that move people a set number of squares on a board just after the company was bought by Hasbro is amusing, but unrelated.
I'll browse 5th Ed to see if it fixes that or not, but for now it is, indeed, Pathfinder all the way.
Love this, I love how Rarity handles the situation so far...also, am I the only one considering running Pony adventures in the Rifts Universe? I guess so...Got burned out on D&D after the last group I played with began to bicker, players acted outside alignment and some players had to have their characters audited.
People bickering can really suck the fun out of things. Acting out of alignment is something I reward with alignment change ("Congratulations, you are now evil!") but not everyone can accept that idea easily.
I'm in an interesting position here because while I have experience with D&D? It's not particularly my favorite system.
D&D has always had a strong emphasis on "kill things and take their stuff". Try to move it into different directions like, "Existential dilemas" or "16th century Spanish Politics" or "Misadventures at Goldman Sachs" and things don't work quite so well. "roll a d20 and add a skill and see what happens!" isn't always a particularly good mechanic.
But, it's nice to be able to have your guttersnipe start free running after you've stolen the crown jewels of the king and the city guard has something to say about that... yeah. Some of those books went a long way to making the game more interesting. (Scoundrels are fun!)
I had no particular interest in 4th edition. This is not to say tactical decisions hold no value to me... but if I want that kind of thing I'll just play a video game. The situation is likely to resolve itself much quicker anyways. While some (myself included) might point out D&Ds origins as a tactical wargame? Part of the point in these games is the ability to do the unexpected. Things people didn't see coming. Like shooting the bad guy in the middle of his monologue, or crashing the cave on top of the dragon and renting mining equipment to get the treasure out anyway (Scoundrels are fun!)
A good gaming session should end with people breaking out the calculators, determining the implications of what the players have done in terms of therapy bills, inflation, and property damage. A really good gaming session should end with a significant change to the gross national product.
I was a little worried (read: extremely worried) that it'll suck because I heard they were going to be taking community feedback during development, and as a veteran League of Legends player, I've seen far too many instances of community feedback going absolutely awful.
Then, last night I, for the millionth time, wound up insisting there wasn't a valid line of sight from a monster to a player when it turns out that there was, then vocally expressing my extreme hatred of the line of sight rules. My sister reminded me that I could give feedback about how awful their LoS system is and might actually get something changed. If only so I can make the next generation not have to deal with the intense stupid that is the LoS rules of 4e, I am on board with the community feedback angle for 5e.