DM: It takes some effort to get "Tom" out of the building, and then…
Discord: Well well well. Look what we have here. The Elements of Harmony. I'm positively terrified!
Rainbow Dash: Uh… You don't sound terrified.
Twilight Sparkle: You can drop the act, Discord. Two-thirds of us are still cursed and we're all angry at each other. If we show you a solid pratfall, will you leave us alone?
Applejack: Uh… speak for yerself? <roll> Sure, Rainbow ticked me off a little bit, but... Ah'm kinda over it?
Pinkie Pie: No matter what, we're still comrades on the battlefield.
Discord: I see you're using Fluttershy's playbook with the "suck all the fun out of it" pages. Well, if I've miscalculated, running would be pointless anyway. Might as well get the field test confirmation. Fire when ready, girls. It's been an honor taking over your world.
Time to fill up on decidedly non-turkey food, fall into a coma, dread working retail on Black Friday, and already be hearing Christmas music on every conceivable radio system.
Okay, so DiscordDM's comment in panel 5 was definitely a slight against Andrea, not Fluttershy. As far as the other players are concerned, Fluttershy has not been doing anything to "suck all the fun" out of the game (if anything, they blame Tara/Twilight for that).
Seems more like a callback to his and Fluttershy's one-on-one earlier: on 1101 she flat-out states that she's trying to take the fun out of Discord's plan, which is definitely something Discord would be bitter about.
Interesting. So aj can claim she's pretty much uncursed at this point, since she's being honest. Rd can also claim to be at full strength. Fluttershy, rarity, and pinkie pie definitely don't have their elements working anymore, and twilight is on the verge of losing hers.
I'm a bit curious to see where you go here. Watching twilight freak out is going to be interesting. Twilight is noy a terrible person or rper as many people are pointing out here, but she does remind me a bit of someone I rp with a lot who can have similar emotional outbursts and get frustrated by the way the game is going at times.
This likely ends with a friendship lesson for everyone, even as getting to this point is going to be a challenge. Discord is going to need to learn to check in with the group and realize that he needs to take in to account player emotions when designing and running a game. Rarity will need to understand when her rping is good in character and when it just annoys others around her. Twilight will need to learn how to trust her friends and recognize why sometimes rping is more than just a game where you solve problems, and getting in to a characters darker sides can be really important character development as well.
Not only is Twilight not a terrible person, she's in the right when it comes to the RP. Many people will use RP as an excuse to act up and passive-aggressively dominate the other players by hogging the spotlight and opposing anything they want to do. The only solution to that is to tell them to stop being a jerk OoC.
You can still use your brain and stay IC. There is not only one thing a character "would do". Characters make decisions just like real people, and thus are just as culpable as a real person if their decision is harmful to others.
As much as I agree that "Twilight['s player] is not a terrible person," I have to observe that if you replace "RP" with "The DM's plot hook," you've very neatly described exactly what Twi's player is doing, right this very moment!
If anything, I've known far more players over my years of gaming who are perfectly willing to get snippy and domineering over "stick to the quest, guys!" than over "it's what my character would do!" stuff. Which still doesn't make them bad people! But it also doesn't make for a great gaming environment, in my experience.
@Chris, I think you may have found the heart of the problem: there’s mutual opposition. Twilight (who’s gone from passive to active-aggressive as she’s gotten more frustrated) and the cursed players are all unwilling to do anything except their thing.
Twilight is following the plot to the exclusion of all else, taking it personally that the rest of the group won’t help, and the cursed players are being extremely stubborn about making any kind of progress, and would rather play their curses to the exclusion of all else. It’s hard to place Dash in this, because she’s not talking very much, but she seems a bit annoyed with everyone.
So there’s a battle for control of what kind of session this is, happening inside the fiction, and that’s a problem. And we have two GM’s with two agendas, making it hard to break up the fight. I am very surprised that nobody has taken a moment yet to go OOC and talk about this.
There’s certainly a friendship lesson coming for the group. I hope the Main GM gets one as well, because they’ve made a lot of bad calls with this session.
Well, it's nice that Twilight's player acknowledges the anger issues. And at least Pinkie still feels they could work together yet (I'd say AJ too, but considering the lying curse, can't be too sure).
I’m wondering what con Discord is running now. His whole thing is pulling the rug out from under people, and Twilight seems to have anticipated his canon move. Does that mean he’ll pretend to be defeated? Shapeshifting to stone must be easy for the god of chaos.
I feel like I can’t take AJ at her word right now. We don’t know anything about the results of her rolls or how she’s responding to them.
It's possible Discord will trick Twi with a fake victory... but Twi might also be savvy to think "ok that was too easy, what's the deal?" I'm quite interested on how this'll play out. Spud did a job job keeping some guesswork here.
Yeah, @Digo. Much though it might frustrate the GM at times, savvy is what Twilight’s payer is good at. What do you think will happen next? I ask because I’m having a hard time staying optimistic.
Cue the party fighting over shooting the BBEG with the old "it's obviously a trap, he wants us to shoot him!" vs "he's just making it look like a trap so we don't shoot, so shoot!" debate.
Well, it's pretty obvious to both the party and discord that the elements won't work right now, so Discords logic is, "if it works im dead, if it doesn't I'm invincible"
...You know, this is actually reminding me of an old animated movie from when I was a little kid. "G.I. Joe: the Movie." (which was SOOO much better than the live action crap from a few years ago)
There's a part at the very beginning where Cobra Commander responds to Serpentor chewing out all his officers and blaming them for all of Cobra's failures. Cobra Commander (rightly) points out that the final responsibility lays with the Cobra Emperor, and expects his comrades to support him.
Fluttershy = Andrea
Pinkie Pie = Libby
Rainbow Dash = Ash
Applejack = Leigh
I'm a bit curious to see where you go here. Watching twilight freak out is going to be interesting. Twilight is noy a terrible person or rper as many people are pointing out here, but she does remind me a bit of someone I rp with a lot who can have similar emotional outbursts and get frustrated by the way the game is going at times.
This likely ends with a friendship lesson for everyone, even as getting to this point is going to be a challenge. Discord is going to need to learn to check in with the group and realize that he needs to take in to account player emotions when designing and running a game. Rarity will need to understand when her rping is good in character and when it just annoys others around her. Twilight will need to learn how to trust her friends and recognize why sometimes rping is more than just a game where you solve problems, and getting in to a characters darker sides can be really important character development as well.
You can still use your brain and stay IC. There is not only one thing a character "would do". Characters make decisions just like real people, and thus are just as culpable as a real person if their decision is harmful to others.
If anything, I've known far more players over my years of gaming who are perfectly willing to get snippy and domineering over "stick to the quest, guys!" than over "it's what my character would do!" stuff. Which still doesn't make them bad people! But it also doesn't make for a great gaming environment, in my experience.
Twilight is following the plot to the exclusion of all else, taking it personally that the rest of the group won’t help, and the cursed players are being extremely stubborn about making any kind of progress, and would rather play their curses to the exclusion of all else. It’s hard to place Dash in this, because she’s not talking very much, but she seems a bit annoyed with everyone.
So there’s a battle for control of what kind of session this is, happening inside the fiction, and that’s a problem. And we have two GM’s with two agendas, making it hard to break up the fight. I am very surprised that nobody has taken a moment yet to go OOC and talk about this.
There’s certainly a friendship lesson coming for the group. I hope the Main GM gets one as well, because they’ve made a lot of bad calls with this session.
I feel like I can’t take AJ at her word right now. We don’t know anything about the results of her rolls or how she’s responding to them.
Agree on AJ.
Seems like pretty good logic to me.
Any story of the villain just sitting?
...You know, this is actually reminding me of an old animated movie from when I was a little kid. "G.I. Joe: the Movie." (which was SOOO much better than the live action crap from a few years ago)
There's a part at the very beginning where Cobra Commander responds to Serpentor chewing out all his officers and blaming them for all of Cobra's failures. Cobra Commander (rightly) points out that the final responsibility lays with the Cobra Emperor, and expects his comrades to support him.
...It doesn't work out that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LXlpxCwBjJ8