Twilight Sparkle: <sigh> Okay, so based on what we learned before, Discord's maze is constantly shifting behind the scenes, but he's only minimally actively controlling it. It's kind of an entity all its own, with the only rule being "be a chaotic hedge maze."
DM: That's what you learned from your encounter with the stranded royal guardsponies.
Twilight Sparkle: Alright. So then my theory is, the best way to navigate it is with pure chaos. Picking random directions purely on a whim. Pushing or cutting through walls. Going backwards sometimes, especially when it wouldn't make sense. If we do those kinds of things, the maze should either get confused or, perhaps, respond positively and reward us with progress. Either way, playing it straight would just be wasting our time.
DM: That's… Yeah. I think he would agree. I'd just need to confirm how long it takes to get to the center that way. Especially with you carrying a big "diamond."
Twilight Sparkle: Well, right now we're trying to find Rainbow Dash before she gets cursed.
Applejack: Too late; she's already flyin' away.
Twilight Sparkle: Well, I know that's a lie. …Right?
DM: Erm, to my knowledge, the sky is clear of retreating blue pegasi.
Twilight Sparkle: "To your knowledge?"
DM: To be honest, it's really about time I checked in with the other DM. Whether something happens on my end or his, I feel like we're on the cusp of something significant.
Twilight Sparkle: So why'd you say that, AJ? Trying to jinx it into being false?
Applejack: …Y'ever feel like ya gotta make do with what ya got?
Twilight Sparkle: Fair enough.
Rainbow Dash: HEYYY! I'M BACK!
Mane 5: Huh?!?
Rainbow Dash: What's with all the weird looks?
Twilight Sparkle: Y-You're here?!
Rainbow Dash: Yeah, I just said that.
Fluttershy: And… your character's here?
Rainbow Dash: Yeah. Why wouldn't I be? And I've got great news. I decapitated Discord!
Mane 5: WHAT?!
Rainbow Dash: Welllll, more like I punched him in the face, which burst into whipped cream, then he grew a new head… But still, it was kinda awesome!
Maybe Rainbowdash now thinks she is Sunbutt. The delusion is completely imperceptible to anyone except supernatural beings beyond mere ponies unless she tells someone about it.
Kind of like the following clip...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PiD2imqGMlU
Except everyone else sees Rainbow as a more three dimensional, yet somehow much sillier character...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NzblgyVwgCs
New prediction- "so heads up, everyone has a curse of opposing their elements." "Not me, I kicked his ass" "that's also what a cursed RD would say." "Not fair, guys! I won!"
Meanwhile gm and dgm have a talk, dgm learns about Fluttershy ooc triggers, and resolves to apologise after the session.
Eh Fluttershy rather clearly pushed his triggers, just as much as he pushed hers, from how that scene turned out, it's rather clear to me that Discord GM have a trigger, that's called being accused of railroading, probably because he has been accused of it many times before, when the truth is he don't rail road, he's just good enough at predicting his players, that they rarely go massively outside the rails.
Discord might have pushed Fluttershy's buttons a bit initially, but then Fluttershy pushed back at least as much, with her little speech about what she do not mattering, after all that was insulting his pride as a DM, he's a good DM he always give you a choice, he also try to predict what you will choose, but in the end it's because you choose it, he don't railroad and make your choices not matter.
That seems very unlikely to me, because GM's that are good at predicting their players don't feel remotely like railroading. The players actions aren't arbitrarily stumied and forced into certain outcomes you see.
The only exception is when the predictive GM uses their predictions to place insurmountable walls in the way they are likely to take, but that only feel like railroading because it is railroading.
Might also be that he don't let them rage quit the plot, outsmarting the plot or otherwise beating it in unexpected way are fine, but deciding to planeshift to the the Plane of Earth, the first time complications show up in their Underdark adventure is not.
Ok, so that begs the question: What is Discord up to? He's already shown that he can and will curse the PCs no matter what they do, so why didn't he just hit RD with a Dominate, force her to fly away, and declare that the PCs had lost their game? Even if RD later broke the Dominate, she'd have a hard time convincing the others. He must be up to something a little more roundabout, but what?
Best guess, he's playing to RD's impatience. He's just going to keep them in the maze, running around in circles, until RD gets bored and asks for her wings back. Either that or he's planning on hinting to them that he left the Elements outside the maze, and then as soon as they leave the maze he calls it a forfeit.
He's not shown that he will curse PCs no matter what they do, he's shown that refusing to play the game and insulting him will get you cursed, that's not all the same.
Fluttershy could probably have avoided the curse, but that would have involved playing though the session, and resisting whatever temptation he came up with, not surrendering, insulting him, by saying he's not letting their choices matter.¨
And yes I get that Fluttershy was triggered due to prior experiences, and that's why she did it, but that's the same for Discord, she hit a sore spot with him when she gave her little defeatist speech, and he got angry and did what she accused him off.
So, just a guess, but he cursed her to have wings again. Maybe there's a detail where she can't use them, but either way, the wings make it look like she lost and is trying to hide it, thus being disloyal. Maybe as an extra twist he's going to trick her into flying over the wall, forfeiting the game.
"There was really only one way this was gonna go."
Yep. And I'm still grinning like an idiot even though I was expecting as much from RD. Wasn't expecting the whole "I punched him and his head exploded" bit but it's all good.
Reminder: DGM was invited to liven the game up and make it more interesting. He's there so they can all have FUN. He's been targeting their "weak spots," not in terms of how to reduce them to blubbering messes but in terms of what will enable the most fun and/or personal growth. Rarity is all about the roleplay, Twilight loves a good problem to solve, Pinky just wants to be silly (even now she's not so much playing it serious as hamming it up and chewing the scenery), Fluttershy was ordered to voice her inner thoughts and be heard by the group...
Oooooh dear. RD, when you fight the GMPC and you totally kick his butt, be wary. Be very, very wary. There's a good chance he wanted you to do just that... and it's about to bite you in the tail in a way you didn't expect.
Yaknow, if I was Discord, and if I trusted RD's player to pull it off, this'd be a good time for some 'Doubleganger' shenanigans; Beat the real RD, tie her up somewhere, and have the player take over Discord in RD-form to go mess with the others.
But she said he grew a new head, so my ammendium to your prediction; Discord actually IS a Chaos God/really powerful chaos thingie OOCWhich is how he can pull all the shenanigans he's pulled so far in the OOC (and why Fluttershy is afraid of him).
The BIG twist though, is it's not just him and the whole thing is a bunch of wacky toon-characters playing D&D rather than the humans we assumed.
It was never specified that the head grew attatched to the body. Therfore we might have a discord head crawling around on spider legs in the ducts like the Thing now.
Seriously, how is that no one managed to see this... What is the opposite of Loyalty? sure, in the show Dashie and Dissy played a big show as she leave, but there is more ways to show it
Ah, and my faith in Discord DM is rewarded. I'm sure there will be consequences for abandoning Cloudsdale to its fate, but he let her make her choice, didn't invalidate it, and even gave her the enjoyment of a fight, knowing that it couldn't seriously harm Discord.
There is the theory that just like Rainbow say, Cloudsdale was not important for her, there is also the theory that she think it was a bluff or that Discord could not do it, or there is the theory that Dashie is under Discord spell and we don't know yet and what she told the others is a lie to later betray them.
If she actually escaped getting cursed, that'd be pretty cool. I'd feel bad for Fluttershy though, since she also wasn't falling for his trap and he cursed her anyway.
Kinda strange that DiscordDM would happen to let Rainbow Dash return to the group not only without him.. but at the exact same time that the DM leaves the table to go check in? I get the feeling her Curse is already in play and it specifically involves her betraying the party while the DM's aren't looking.