DM: You leave the boutique and head for the outskirts of Ponyville.
Spike: <sigh> Wasn’t she wonderful?
Twilight Sparkle: Spike? You heard her backstory. She’s a thief.
Spike: That doesn’t matter to me. She’s… stolen my heart.
Twilight Sparkle: Rrrgh, for the love of… All I want to know is if she stole our freaking checklist!
Spike: No, but… If she wanted to…
Twilight Sparkle: SPIKE!!
Spike: Oh, right, uh, music! It’s the last one!
DM: In the distance, you see a yellow pegasus pony leading a choir of birds in beautiful singing.
Fluttershy: Eep!
Twilight Sparkle: Yay! I finally get to meet the other new player! So, what’s your character like?
Fluttershy: Oh. M-My character? Um… Hold on…
(awkward silence)
There always seems to be at least one awfully quiet player, doesn't there? Especially if there's a large group or if there are completely new players. Unfortunately for Fluttershy, she's in both situations.
Funny, I'm the same. In a local game I'll happily play the face of the group, hamming up my part and having fun. But as soon as I'm put into a chat with strangers, I clam up and start second-guessing everything I do.
I would be surprised if the author didn't continue through the ENTIRE series. That would definitely be a mistake if the author did not do that. We would all be sad.
Aaaanyways, not sure what a 'watcher' is in gaming terms. But Fluttershy's player reminds me of me in some ways here, still pretty new to roleplaying of this genre and while I love roleplaying and invest as much as I can in the game, if you aked me to make a character on my own? I'd be cowering under the bed.
The watcher title is a quip that you attach to a specific play style such as power gamer or role-player. Watcher means that they're, more or less, along for the ride.
Well, actually, pegasus is NOT angel. It's a horse with wings on its spine(which, actually, are additional pair of limbs). So,... pegasus is beast, in some way... Especially CHAOTIC EVIL BARBARIAN Pegasus with "RAGE" PERK ACTIVATED!
Druids haven't received an Essentials build yet. Beast Mastery Rangers can gain a companion, though, so Wiona will at least be canon and legal. Though with her Nature score, Fluttershy could just as easily passed a Handle Cute Rabbits check in character building.
I do find it slightly humorous, though, that our resident "Watcher" has taken a class that I call one of the quintessential "Roleplaying" classes of 4e. Wizards and Druids have enough "tricks," through Cantrips, Rituals, and access to ridiculous Diplomacy checks (crit 20 Diplomacy vs Dragon Fluttershy?), to allow for creative roleplaying opportunities. Though I have another random thought now...
Can Fluttershy use Wild Shape to turn into a Tree? Or an Ent at least?
Druids have an Essentials build since Heroes of The Forgotten Kingdoms (the second Essentials core book), they are called Sentinels and are based on the four seasons. And they get an animal companion based off of the season: Wolf (Spring) and Bear (Summer). The other two seasons have yet to be revealed.
And as far as I know, Wild Shape in 4e doesn't allow you to turn into plants. However, you can rp your transformation as anything beastial (quote from Wild Shape: "Your beast form might also be an indistinct shape of shadowy fur and claws, an incarnation of the Primal Beast of which all earthly beasts are fractured images.") So, theoretically, you could be Ent-like (by becoming a hazy shape of twisting vines).
For those needing the references of player types that we bandy about here, the Dungeon Master's Guide for Dungeons & Dragons Fourth Edition identifies eight player types:
* The Actor, who has fun by developing and acting out a fictional character.
* The Explorer, who has fun by immersing in a large and detailed fictional world.
* The Instigator, who has fun by making something happen, regardless of if it would be logical or in-character.
* The Power Gamer, who has fun by Min-Maxing a powerful character.
* The Slayer, who has fun by killing things in combat encounters.
* The Storyteller, who has fun when the game sessions tell a continuous and engaging story.
* The Thinker, who has fun by solving challenges through strategy and planning.
* The Watcher, who doesn't care so much about the game itself but about having fun hanging out with his/her friends.
I identify most with The Explorer archetype. Unfortunately, I am also one of those people who needs to know all the rules and ins-and-outs of the world in order to play it. So I do get rules-lawyery from time to time. Though that might be because I like to DM and weave things in from others' stories so I need to know how it all works.
one time I was the evil kobold warlock in the group and vaporized a peasant, a couple hours later, the town is flooded several feet by the druid so that we can escape the town guard
I am an instigator, watcher, power gamer, and actor. In that order. I love to minmax a bizarre character for something nonessential, like cooking, and then have him turn out to be hilariously powerful in combat, due to the wording of of his skills and feats.
I am evil incarnate when it comes to character creation.
I'm a mix of Actor, Storyteller, and Thinker. I love getting into the story, especially when it is complex, and I LOVE coming up with crazy puzzle solutions. *nostalgic sigh* I can't count the number of times I made my DMs twitch and foam when I found inventive solutions to crazy complex puzzles in moments when the puzzles were supposed to take hours to properly solve. Usually when the puzzle was to give the DM time to retcon the big bad's escape after I'd broken their empowering ritual in similar fashion. *nostalgic sigh* good times...I can still remember them pulling out their hair...
Nevermind, I figured it out by the comment post time :) This comic rocks faces and it makes me really wanna try table topping! I wish I could give it a shot! Keep it coming!
Let's see... I live in Bratsk, so my time zone is... hmmm... roughly GMT+8. The time is 19:07, so GMT is 11:07. All I need is to know time of the site and...
Poor Fluttershy's player (whom I'm going to call Andrea until we know the players' actual names). I hope the others can help her get into the flow of the game - I don't see Twilight's player being especially helpful. Rarity and Applejack, now, they seem to be on the ball when it comes to roleplaying.
If nothing else, Andrea does appear to have a firm grasp on the difference between IC knowledge and OOC knowledge. This is a good sign, even if she is (I speculate) not very organized.
Also if you don't make comics to atleast Dragonshy im simply going to have to love and tolerate you like a bomb.
Aaaanyways, not sure what a 'watcher' is in gaming terms. But Fluttershy's player reminds me of me in some ways here, still pretty new to roleplaying of this genre and while I love roleplaying and invest as much as I can in the game, if you aked me to make a character on my own? I'd be cowering under the bed.
"That's no ordinary rabbit! It can leap about...It has teeth like...look at the bones!"
They do (potentially) get lots of summoned critters at least.
I do find it slightly humorous, though, that our resident "Watcher" has taken a class that I call one of the quintessential "Roleplaying" classes of 4e. Wizards and Druids have enough "tricks," through Cantrips, Rituals, and access to ridiculous Diplomacy checks (crit 20 Diplomacy vs Dragon Fluttershy?), to allow for creative roleplaying opportunities. Though I have another random thought now...
Can Fluttershy use Wild Shape to turn into a Tree? Or an Ent at least?
And as far as I know, Wild Shape in 4e doesn't allow you to turn into plants. However, you can rp your transformation as anything beastial (quote from Wild Shape: "Your beast form might also be an indistinct shape of shadowy fur and claws, an incarnation of the Primal Beast of which all earthly beasts are fractured images.") So, theoretically, you could be Ent-like (by becoming a hazy shape of twisting vines).
GET OUT
* The Actor, who has fun by developing and acting out a fictional character.
* The Explorer, who has fun by immersing in a large and detailed fictional world.
* The Instigator, who has fun by making something happen, regardless of if it would be logical or in-character.
* The Power Gamer, who has fun by Min-Maxing a powerful character.
* The Slayer, who has fun by killing things in combat encounters.
* The Storyteller, who has fun when the game sessions tell a continuous and engaging story.
* The Thinker, who has fun by solving challenges through strategy and planning.
* The Watcher, who doesn't care so much about the game itself but about having fun hanging out with his/her friends.
I identify most with The Explorer archetype. Unfortunately, I am also one of those people who needs to know all the rules and ins-and-outs of the world in order to play it. So I do get rules-lawyery from time to time. Though that might be because I like to DM and weave things in from others' stories so I need to know how it all works.
one time I was the evil kobold warlock in the group and vaporized a peasant, a couple hours later, the town is flooded several feet by the druid so that we can escape the town guard
I am evil incarnate when it comes to character creation.
And all lawful good.
I'm really not a role-player.
I'm EST, so I get a tinge of the WTF's when I see this comic isn't up at the 6:00 am it says it is.
Hear that, spud? Through Dragonshy at the very least! :D