I must admit, I'm slowly realizing that an aspect of my writing in this arc is about catharsis as a GM, too. Who doesn't want to confront their players with their flaws (in an educational way) and knock them down a peg from time to time?
Oooh... Rarity is my least favourite of the Mane Six in the show mainly because about 80% of her "generous" deeds are for her own benefit in the end. [Making new dresses for her friends...so that she can put on a fashion show and increase her personal fame, for instance.]
This shall be quite fun to watch. Mwahaha and so on. ;p
See, she's one of my faves. She's got this whole Noblesse Oblige thing going on- sure, she's working for her own benefit, but it's not purely so that she, alone, can have nice things and be comfortable. It's so that nice things and comfort can exist and be given to _everybody_. Now, she runs into trouble sometimes, when what others believe to be nice things and comfort differs from hers, but her whole being is about making everything, for everybody, better.
It's a more subtle expression of her Element than most others, which is what I like.
That's really just good business sense though, isn't it? Giving so that you can give more, then give more, then give more. It's a never-ending feedback loop of generosity.
Generosity, if raw, just leaves you destitute. Generosity, if tempered and refined, benefits everyone.
Tabitha St. Germain really is a treasure, isn't she. And remember, she also voices Luna, Granny Smith, Muffins, Aloe, Photo Finish, Mrs. Cake, and Flurry Heart, and that's just the recurring characters.
Yeah, we could have a spa day episode starring nothing but Tabitha in the booth, but on the screen we have A Living Goddess, The Town Elder, The Hostess With the Mostess, The Baby, The Spa Owner, Snacks Ordered and Delivered, and Souvenir Photos.
No. Twilight wanted her to fix her dress. Rarity refused, insisting she must replace it, and then decided to make Applejack a dress too, when she showed up.
Then she decided to do a dress for all of them and have a fashion show to show them off.
At which point the stress she put on herself to make the deadline for her own fashion show as put on her friends being too picky. It was an...odd episode. Though I did like the music in it.
And??? Pinkie Pie only throws parties because she likes doing it, Fluttershy is only nice to animals because they help her with her chores, Applejack is only honest because she's bad at lying. See? You can twist almost any of the Mane Six to make their element seem selfish and bad.
Go sit on a tack, Rarity is awesome and she's absolutely a good representation of generosity.
I'm reminded of the days when I ran Hackmaster, when I tried to create a party of evil counterparts to my players' characters, designed to play off the players' flaws and quirks (this is long before the Order of the Stick and the Linear Guild existed).
For instance: One player had kind of a man-whore paladin, and took advantage to the class' immunity to disease if you get my drift. So I created a female villain who was also a lycanthrope (which is a curse, so not subject to paladin immunities) to try and infect him.
Unfortunately, not all of the players took the bait, the group never fully fell for the machinations of their evil counterparts, and player drama ended that group before I could steer them back.
That's a whole lot more clever than I thought it'd be. Technically, if she was playing true to her element, she'd be okay with giving the big horking diamond to her enemies.
If she's not okay with giving the diamond away to anyone who needed it - anyone at all - then she has no right to her element. Turning her own roleplaying against her.
That is CLEVER. I like. Well, from an outside perspective, at least.
If an enemy would use it to hurt someone, that's not generosity.
I see it as more of a meta-meta-gaming thing. Her character/element would take it and give half to the poor (after reasonable expenses) (2 Oots references in the same thread!), but she knows it's a trap... actually her character should also know it's a trap, come to think of it.
Anyway, consequently there's now a meta-game manipulation of the diplomancer's role. It's clever.
So one of my players in Genius absolutely NEVER listens when people point out his character's flaws. Basically, his character straight up betrayed the party. The bad guy had created an evil dystopia on Mars, and everyone in the party consciously chose to fight against it because it was wrong even though the bad guy was an old friend. All except one. This guy walks right into the bad guy's office, gets a textbook "this is my evil plan, come join me and together we can rule this puny world" speech, and then goes "yeah okay." (To be clear, this evil plan was to create a society where all Geniuses were first-class citizens and everyone else was second-class and basically slaves. It was NOT a controversial, nuanced goal that should have divided the party.) He eventually turned around and came back to the good guys, but not because he thought the bad guy was evil. No no, he explicitly still liked the bad guy better, wanted that plan to succeed, but just threw a tantrum because the bad guy's bodyguards hadn't gotten the memo that he was on their side now and demanded to know who he was.
Whenever the other players point out that he's a serial betrayer who can be trusted about as far as he can be thrown, he instantly shoots back that "the villain was right and you all should've joined US."
I can't count how many Rogues I've played with who think they're duty-bound as a Rogue to steal from, lie to, and betray their own party. When you say anything to their players, they say "But my character is a Rogue - it's what s/he would do!" And there's no convincing them otherwise. Sigh.
I think some people confuse generosity with selflessness, generosity means the willingness to give things of value to others, selflessness is doing so with no expectations. Rarity shows to be very willing to give to others, yes it is usually accompanied with some benefits for her, but that is the difference between being generous and being selfless.
The same applies in actual friendships, yes, it’s nice if a friend is willing to give you something without expectations, but that is not a requirement, friends ask each other for favors, sometimes in return for something they have done in the past, or multiple favors done over a period of time. Being generous is the willingness to give, which is also give and take, and a friendship can be damaged if one person gives then is turned down when asking for a favor in return, as they can feel taken advantage of.
I think Discord's curse for Rarity will be no more complicated than her not being allowed to tell the others why she's desperately guarding a rock and refusing to be separated from it.
And the reason she's doing that is because he said he'll give it away to her enemies if she doesn't keep it with her, because that would show she didn't want it.
... If he even needs to go for the curse. Assuming he doesn't just go full RP mastermind and engineer a situation where she voluntarily doesn't tell anyone about why she's trying to keep the rock, with it being perfectly in-character.
Or maybe Tom really *is* a giant diamond this time, but has a glammer cast on so he *looks* like a rock. Her curse could be that she can't tell anyone what he actually is.
I think there'd have to be more to it, because well Rarity carrying around a giant rock for reasons she won't explain really isn't the sort of thing that would be annoying or divide the characters.
It's the sort of thing that would make them go "huh, weird" and before ignoring it and possibly even forgetting it simply because it wouldn't get mentioned a lot
Confronting a player with their flaws should be done with a warning first. What Discord did to AJ was not ok in my book. I dont like being forced to roleplay my character in a certain way. At least for Pinkie, he convinced her to play along.
Personnaly, my most deranging flaw depend of how invested I am in my character. Thats also why I always roleplay the same things too. Some players see it as a fklaw so I have to explain to them that if I use old build, Im less invested and I can accept a character death or something bad happening more easily.
I have also a hard time to not be vindicative against NPCs who screw us over. Not the players as a good talk can solve the issue, Im talking about deliberatly evil/annoying and untouchable NPCs. Im not enjoying myself when the GM throw this at us...
Applejack cheats, openly and brazenly, and then acts like it's how the game is supposed to be played and then marginalizes those without enough genre/game skill as if they're playing wrong. She deserves a lot more correction than the slap on the wrist she's getting here.
Yeah, our two main GMs are not afraid to call us out at the table and make us take actions back if they're based on knowledge our characters couldn't reasonably have. It's annoying sometimes, but overall we know it's better for us as players and it forces us to think more about our characters and become more creative.
So, this might be just me not remembering examples over the course of the entirety of Friendship is Dragons, but... When exactly has Applejack cheated brazenly and acted like it's how the game is supposed to be played? Personally, I only remember her relying on her ability to read people more often than not - sketchy, but not technically wrong (and as I understand it, backed up mechanically - hence Element of Honesty).
I find it kinda concerning when I read the comment section for the last dozen or so pages and see commenters saying the Friendship is Dragons players "deserve" the stuff they're going through somehow... when as far as I'm aware, they've largely been really damn good players and, when they screw up, they've been reprimanded for it in the past or felt guilty enough about it to want to make up for it (ex: the Party of One arc + the Zecora arc - though the latter is moreso a gming issue iirc). In addition, I find the blind faith in Discord!GM to be... odd, given how ambiguously I feel it's been played so far (cause right now he seems like he could either end up being a Trickster Mentor to the group, a Malicious DM, a Troll, some combination of the above, or something in between, and it hasn't quite been properly elaborated on/revealed yet).
Granted, I might be biased in favor of the players here due to my... previous experiences with dms who pull these kinds of stunts, but I still find that mindset - that the FiD players "deserve" everything and have reaped what they sowed - worrying. Little too close to blaming the victim here for comfort (partly because I don't really understand how they're being problems here and can't think of evidence off the top of my head - can someone explain this too me please?).
I can't speak for everyone, but as a DM the FiD players have a lot of traits that would annoy me if I were running a game with them.
Applejack metagames constantly and undermines the immersion you're trying to build as a DM. I wouldn't call it cheating, but it is a bad habit and seeing it come back to bite her with Discord's is cathartic.
Pinkie Pie is a bit too wacky and I'd like to think that Discord is teaching her restraint rather punishing her.
Rarity thinks very highly of herself and forcing her to be a bit ridiculous is good for her. Nobody should take themselves *too* seriously.
Fluttershy needs to be more assertive as a player, and though we haven't seen the curse in this comic it will likely be along those lines given the episode content.
Rainbow Dash needs to learn ways to approach a problem other than mindless aggression. I have no idea what her curse will be, though.
Twilight is too used to getting her own way and easily wrecking plots. I leave my players room to approach a problem, but I don't let them get away with much of the stuff Twilight does. Either their regular DM doesn't make contingency plans or needs to develop a spine. Twilight needs to learn that she isn't always right; for example the opening of this arc where is convinced that the Elements have been hidden in the Castle of the Two Sisters and acts offended when the real answer is pointed out.
Nobody wants to see them hurt, but as a DM it would be very nice to see them learn a lesson and become better players.
All the time.
Unfortunately, one of my players is too self-absorbed to ever listen to the lesson.
A matter of fact, I think I did that joke in the real show a season or two back.
What a twist !
This shall be quite fun to watch. Mwahaha and so on. ;p
It's a more subtle expression of her Element than most others, which is what I like.
Do you tend to drop Anvils, Anildude?
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/Anvilicious
I suppose she is getting a bit better at realizing that Generosity can extend past physical things. At least in some of the newer episodes.
Generosity, if raw, just leaves you destitute. Generosity, if tempered and refined, benefits everyone.
Yeah, we could have a spa day episode starring nothing but Tabitha in the booth, but on the screen we have A Living Goddess, The Town Elder, The Hostess With the Mostess, The Baby, The Spa Owner, Snacks Ordered and Delivered, and Souvenir Photos.
Then she decided to do a dress for all of them and have a fashion show to show them off.
At which point the stress she put on herself to make the deadline for her own fashion show as put on her friends being too picky. It was an...odd episode. Though I did like the music in it.
Go sit on a tack, Rarity is awesome and she's absolutely a good representation of generosity.
For instance: One player had kind of a man-whore paladin, and took advantage to the class' immunity to disease if you get my drift. So I created a female villain who was also a lycanthrope (which is a curse, so not subject to paladin immunities) to try and infect him.
Unfortunately, not all of the players took the bait, the group never fully fell for the machinations of their evil counterparts, and player drama ended that group before I could steer them back.
If she's not okay with giving the diamond away to anyone who needed it - anyone at all - then she has no right to her element. Turning her own roleplaying against her.
That is CLEVER. I like. Well, from an outside perspective, at least.
I see it as more of a meta-meta-gaming thing. Her character/element would take it and give half to the poor (after reasonable expenses) (2 Oots references in the same thread!), but she knows it's a trap... actually her character should also know it's a trap, come to think of it.
Anyway, consequently there's now a meta-game manipulation of the diplomancer's role. It's clever.
Whenever the other players point out that he's a serial betrayer who can be trusted about as far as he can be thrown, he instantly shoots back that "the villain was right and you all should've joined US."
The same applies in actual friendships, yes, it’s nice if a friend is willing to give you something without expectations, but that is not a requirement, friends ask each other for favors, sometimes in return for something they have done in the past, or multiple favors done over a period of time. Being generous is the willingness to give, which is also give and take, and a friendship can be damaged if one person gives then is turned down when asking for a favor in return, as they can feel taken advantage of.
I think Discord's curse for Rarity will be no more complicated than her not being allowed to tell the others why she's desperately guarding a rock and refusing to be separated from it.
And the reason she's doing that is because he said he'll give it away to her enemies if she doesn't keep it with her, because that would show she didn't want it.
... If he even needs to go for the curse. Assuming he doesn't just go full RP mastermind and engineer a situation where she voluntarily doesn't tell anyone about why she's trying to keep the rock, with it being perfectly in-character.
It's the sort of thing that would make them go "huh, weird" and before ignoring it and possibly even forgetting it simply because it wouldn't get mentioned a lot
Personnaly, my most deranging flaw depend of how invested I am in my character. Thats also why I always roleplay the same things too. Some players see it as a fklaw so I have to explain to them that if I use old build, Im less invested and I can accept a character death or something bad happening more easily.
I have also a hard time to not be vindicative against NPCs who screw us over. Not the players as a good talk can solve the issue, Im talking about deliberatly evil/annoying and untouchable NPCs. Im not enjoying myself when the GM throw this at us...
I find it kinda concerning when I read the comment section for the last dozen or so pages and see commenters saying the Friendship is Dragons players "deserve" the stuff they're going through somehow... when as far as I'm aware, they've largely been really damn good players and, when they screw up, they've been reprimanded for it in the past or felt guilty enough about it to want to make up for it (ex: the Party of One arc + the Zecora arc - though the latter is moreso a gming issue iirc). In addition, I find the blind faith in Discord!GM to be... odd, given how ambiguously I feel it's been played so far (cause right now he seems like he could either end up being a Trickster Mentor to the group, a Malicious DM, a Troll, some combination of the above, or something in between, and it hasn't quite been properly elaborated on/revealed yet).
Granted, I might be biased in favor of the players here due to my... previous experiences with dms who pull these kinds of stunts, but I still find that mindset - that the FiD players "deserve" everything and have reaped what they sowed - worrying. Little too close to blaming the victim here for comfort (partly because I don't really understand how they're being problems here and can't think of evidence off the top of my head - can someone explain this too me please?).
Applejack metagames constantly and undermines the immersion you're trying to build as a DM. I wouldn't call it cheating, but it is a bad habit and seeing it come back to bite her with Discord's is cathartic.
Pinkie Pie is a bit too wacky and I'd like to think that Discord is teaching her restraint rather punishing her.
Rarity thinks very highly of herself and forcing her to be a bit ridiculous is good for her. Nobody should take themselves *too* seriously.
Fluttershy needs to be more assertive as a player, and though we haven't seen the curse in this comic it will likely be along those lines given the episode content.
Rainbow Dash needs to learn ways to approach a problem other than mindless aggression. I have no idea what her curse will be, though.
Twilight is too used to getting her own way and easily wrecking plots. I leave my players room to approach a problem, but I don't let them get away with much of the stuff Twilight does. Either their regular DM doesn't make contingency plans or needs to develop a spine. Twilight needs to learn that she isn't always right; for example the opening of this arc where is convinced that the Elements have been hidden in the Castle of the Two Sisters and acts offended when the real answer is pointed out.
Nobody wants to see them hurt, but as a DM it would be very nice to see them learn a lesson and become better players.