Friendship is Dragons
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Page 798 - Twilight's Failsafe Power
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I look forward to the new RP shows. I don't have funds to steadily contribute, but maybe once in a while I can throw something in. That's doable, yes?
The campaign was a 'no magic' game, where magic was 'evil', so no one had any. But the GM said we could still harvest loot from 'evil mages' and magical beasts. ...So the players decided we would set up a farm, kidnap magical beasts, and harvest for parts. We would then turn the campaign into a farming game. Or animal raising + training (skill points in Handle Animal and Diplomacy become very useful). Once we got enough starting creatures, we would just stay at our town. Which we would be protectors of as well.
Boy. Early FID arcs stuck pretty closely to the episode plots, but now you're writing Discord out of his own debut.
I try to more or less follow the plots too. But NS has said Discord shall not emerge yet. That doesn't mean I can't write stuff that may or may not become canon later, at NS's whim. ;)
...that Twilight was Discord all along.
Either her or the dice. I'm right either way.
Either her or the dice. I'm right either way.
Looks like the forum ignored my "In before the reveal... title in my first post.
Oh, just wait for the end of the arc. I promise, the number of mentions of Discord is greater than zero. :3
"Mages who abused their magic" = "PCs being PCs". So what happens if the DM planned on something like this happening from the outset?
...you'll find out in a week. ;)
...you'll find out in a week. ;)
IIRC, I think it was reality itself punishing the mage in all sorts of weird ways, the demons being just the most prominent example for the less creative GMs.
Technically, Discord is ALWAYS the dice, since dice rolls are a chaotic and unpredictable thing.
Sometimes the chaos of the dice favor you, and sometimes the chaos seeks to destroy you.
Sometimes the chaos of the dice favor you, and sometimes the chaos seeks to destroy you.
Don't ya know all magic is chaos magic. Chaos magic or wild magic is magic in its purest form. It takes mages years to learn to make that chaos into something useful, much like a smelter does will raw ore.
Chaos is the heart of magic, for all magic is change. Even abjuration is a change made to prevent changes you don't want.
Friendship is magic. Friendship is rarely neat and orderly. Therefore...?
Though Pinkie is more chaotic than Twilight.
Though Pinkie is more chaotic than Twilight.
I hope you're happy. I'm sure Discord is.
Well, sounds legit to me.
For Christ's sake, if you have to be... Whatever this is, at least use correct grammar.
Just pretend the disappointed face is more in the center of the text box.
Okay, it's gotta be said... Twilight came up with that "second-biggest power" line way too fast. Just how many sessions has she been waiting for an opportunity to give that mini-speech?
The closest thing to it is trying more to bring back an empire from the brink of collapse, and finding an enemy army sieging the decayed capital after finding the artifact that caused it, (and cursed bearer) in question. So no go sadly.
You know? That drudgery associated with ownership? Maintenance, taxes, paperwork, etc.
It's kinda hard to go on years-long adventures when you have monthly, if not weekly or daily, responsibilities you have to take care of...
Granted, we're not paying taxes to own it or anything like that. But I didn't think the sessions involving our work on the HQ was really all that boring. Though it helped that we weren't forced to stay there and leaving it alone hasn't hurt us in the slightest yet.
Then again, we do have to deal with those raiders that are cutting a swath through a forest to get to it so... *shrug*
My impression is more that most parties prefer to travel around for adventure, rather than having most-to-all of a campaign in a single setting (like Ponyville).
But there are some campaigns which use a fixed base of operations. In fact, some of the splatbooks for the FFG Star Wars games have explicit mechanical treatment for this, if the party wants to do that instead of have a spaceship (PCs on a spaceship going from world to world being the default campaign).
Keep the paperwork and maintenance to offscreen downtime (save for the odd occasion where it generates drama, such as discovering that an important NPC's records were forged), but let the players design a setting too large to conveniently port around. For instance, if they expect raiders or other security breaches? Let them design - ICly and OOCly - defenses, then play out the breaches and see how well their designs work. Or perhaps they lead a settlement that must deal with increasingly dangerous problems, so it's not just the PCs that level up over time but their whole village/town/city/metropolis. (And what are those names except recognition of settlement level, much as certain RPGs attach titles to certain levels of PC classes?)
One of my characters did exactly that, with the other PCs, basically carving a supernatural nation out of uninhabited lands, and having to defend it and ensure its prosperity. (Fixed defenses that are awesome for covering a 9 mile radius circle, but are difficult to replicate, become less useful when towns much beyond 9 miles away pledge loyalty to you and expect defense.)
As a bonus, it becomes easier to excuse reusing many NPCs. That nurse that treated the party's wounds? She works at the clinic, which the PCs will return to after the next battle - and she may remember them. Have the PCs dealt with a fence with an accent and mannerisms? They'll probably deal with that fence again, the next time they get loot. And if the PCs have any school-age relatives in town, you don't need to arrange vacations or kidnappings for them to randomly show up. (Or if the PCs are school-age themselves - such as most blank flanks - and need to ICly arrange their shenanigans outside of school time and/or integrate them with classes.)
But there are some campaigns which use a fixed base of operations. In fact, some of the splatbooks for the FFG Star Wars games have explicit mechanical treatment for this, if the party wants to do that instead of have a spaceship (PCs on a spaceship going from world to world being the default campaign).
Keep the paperwork and maintenance to offscreen downtime (save for the odd occasion where it generates drama, such as discovering that an important NPC's records were forged), but let the players design a setting too large to conveniently port around. For instance, if they expect raiders or other security breaches? Let them design - ICly and OOCly - defenses, then play out the breaches and see how well their designs work. Or perhaps they lead a settlement that must deal with increasingly dangerous problems, so it's not just the PCs that level up over time but their whole village/town/city/metropolis. (And what are those names except recognition of settlement level, much as certain RPGs attach titles to certain levels of PC classes?)
One of my characters did exactly that, with the other PCs, basically carving a supernatural nation out of uninhabited lands, and having to defend it and ensure its prosperity. (Fixed defenses that are awesome for covering a 9 mile radius circle, but are difficult to replicate, become less useful when towns much beyond 9 miles away pledge loyalty to you and expect defense.)
As a bonus, it becomes easier to excuse reusing many NPCs. That nurse that treated the party's wounds? She works at the clinic, which the PCs will return to after the next battle - and she may remember them. Have the PCs dealt with a fence with an accent and mannerisms? They'll probably deal with that fence again, the next time they get loot. And if the PCs have any school-age relatives in town, you don't need to arrange vacations or kidnappings for them to randomly show up. (Or if the PCs are school-age themselves - such as most blank flanks - and need to ICly arrange their shenanigans outside of school time and/or integrate them with classes.)
There is the Kingmaker Adventure Path from Pathfinder that, if memory serves, involved building and running a town at one point.
Long story short, he bought a lake and told the other PC's they couldn't use it because of how they treated him. They decided to light it on fire and burn it down.
They succeeded. No magic was used.
Did they burn napalm or gallons upon gallons of oil on the lake, to make a lake burn/evaporate?
In a game of Ironclaw I played a donkey militiaman named Ned Builder who earned noble status for services to the crown. As a member of the peerage he turned right around and knighted or employed his fellow party members, making them his court, and then they travelled to his new land.
What followed was a bunch of spreadsheets and figuring by a fellow player and I as to what wealth could be extracted from the land while we chased off bandits and helped the population. Ned earned some instant brownie points by forgiving a whole years taxation in exchange for putting all the specialists to work building a motte and bailey castle to defend the region. Unfortunately, some players didn't like the idea of becoming petty nobility and just up and quit game on the premise it "wasn't their concept". We didn't know how to explain to them that characters grow and change over time, and the concept is just a starting place.
But for one shining moment, we were playing Castle Tycoon.
What followed was a bunch of spreadsheets and figuring by a fellow player and I as to what wealth could be extracted from the land while we chased off bandits and helped the population. Ned earned some instant brownie points by forgiving a whole years taxation in exchange for putting all the specialists to work building a motte and bailey castle to defend the region. Unfortunately, some players didn't like the idea of becoming petty nobility and just up and quit game on the premise it "wasn't their concept". We didn't know how to explain to them that characters grow and change over time, and the concept is just a starting place.
But for one shining moment, we were playing Castle Tycoon.
I once played a post-apocalypse pseudo-feudal games where all three players were the sons of a Duke. Most of our adventures were about trying to maintain order in our duchy and repulse the machinations of other lords. My character may not count since he was a bastard not in line for the title, but he still worked with his brothers and loved his family.
Combining it like this, would make me very impressed with the GM :P
Especially since a more literal reading of the above-level spells would probably be 'take a bunch of damage, you can't cast spells for a few days' or some such.
Though they might be running the Burning Wheel system, where trying to extinguish a fire can lead to creating a 'permanent' fire instead, or in the case of a podcast I listened to, some big spell got way out of control and made every person in the room (which just so happened to be a council of all the most powerful mages) lose their magic (specifically, they permanently counted as having cast more spells than they had any hopes of having in their 'magical pool' - in DND, it'd be like all their spell-slots were permanently expended)
It can make for some fun stories when it works RIGHT too; Before he lost his magic to his own spell, the guy in the podcast did a lot of cool stuff with stuff like starting with a 'Rip splinters from an object, then throw them at an enemy' spell, and turning it into a 'Rip the object into pieces' spell.
By canon, the group in this comic is playing D&D 4E. If you want to try to guess what specific spells Twilight was attempting, go for it.
More than once. It's a decent way to start a campaign, often by having someone from the PC's past show up for revenge.
Be warned though, the villain attacking the PC to start the plot can be overused easily. I recommend spacing it out and trying different kinds of attacks, like one event is an undead assault, another is a group of Drow thieves sneaking in for something etc.
Be warned though, the villain attacking the PC to start the plot can be overused easily. I recommend spacing it out and trying different kinds of attacks, like one event is an undead assault, another is a group of Drow thieves sneaking in for something etc.
Guest Author's Note: "Because friendship is magic, and a fellow player character tends to help more than a NPC minion granting feat.
"But has anyone been in Applejack's position, where your PC's land (not just the land your PC was on, or land belonging to your PC's lord, but land that your PC owned) was being directly attacked, intentionally or (as in this case) incidentally?"
Newbiespud's Note: Quick reminder that I've updated my Patreon so that there's new goals, new shows on the horizon, and actual rewards for keeping me financially afloat.