Just for your information, Daylight Savings Time is going to start before the next update. For the past few months, the Friendship is Dragons site time has been an hour ahead of actual Pacific Standard Time. As of tomorrow, the times will be synced once more.
For everyone else who doesn't care about Daylight Savings Time, this means the comic will be updating one hour later for the next few months.
Thank you. It'll be nice to have the comic post at 8AM again.
Also, Poor AJ. She's the apple pony, and everybody loves apples, but Mr. and Mrs. Cake are the professional bakers and makers of delightful sugary treats.
Oh! AJ could have some kind of OOC existential crisis after learning that she's not the sole source of food in town! And then she begins to plot their downfall! MWAHAHAHAHA!
Drama is amusing when nobody else takes it seriously!
... Story time today is about existential crises. Tell me about a time a character has had an existential crisis.
I was rolling a new character and the dice hated me for some reason. A majority of my rolls were giving me really low stats. So, naturally, I kept re-rolling. The others told me to just accept my rolls.
Unfortunately, because I already have a bit of low self esteem in my D&D group, I had a minor outburst about how if I did that my character would be completely useless (and it's possible I threw in something about how I already felt like I was most of the time). There was a brief moment of awkward silence before they just let me re-roll >_>
I remember one time I threw an existential crisis at my entire group.
I was the DM. The group's quest was to stop the BBEG who was - apparently - trying to destroy the entire world. They genuinely believed they were doing the right thing.
However, no matter how many times they clashed with the BBEG - it was several - the battle always came out a draw, and the populace seemed to prefer the bad guy to the adventurers. Also, at one point, the BBEG asked why his 'friends' were trying to kill him.
We then got to the major climactic battle where the adventurers faced off against BBEG in a defensive stance, preventing him from reaching the Temple that would allow him to wake the beast that would destroy the world.
In the middle of the battle, one of the players rolled a knowledge check as far as what the creature was called. He passed.
I told them the creature was known as the Wind Fish.
The really fun part of this event, though, is what happened next.
See, we were all Zelda fans, so out of character we all knew the reference. In character, however, there was no way to know this, so they had to continue to act out the roles and defend the temple. However, they wound up not really trying as hard as they would have normally, and the BBEG broke through and woke the Wind Fish.
I then tell them all that the Wind Fish has awoken and the power of his mind is slowly tearing the world apart. Their only shot at survival is to kill the Wind Fish.
Deciding to enjoy the end of the campaign, they go all out trying to kill the world destroying god monster, despite several comments about how that will probably cause the world to end anyways. They succeed.
The world stabalizes, and everything is normal. I then present the drop in for their next major quest.
WHen they demand explanations, I tell them that the BBEG was actually just a very high level bard with extremely high scores in persuassion and very low scores in will save. He was beloved by the people, but in practicing one story performance in front of a mirror, he convinced himself it was actually true, and set out to resolve it by waking the Wind Fish - which, by the way, was actually an ancient god of destruction, called the Wind Fish because it had the shape of a fish that swam in the sky instead of the sea.
...does that make this story a treatise on anti-metagaming as well?
Does my existential crisis a few pages back count?
I was really questioning the point of playing my character when all my choice amounted to was dictating my character's actions in combat.
Other than that, we have a fifth character who sort of just shows up somehow whenever his player can join us (having a son to look after, making him "be there every game or not at all" wouldn't be fair). For some reason, due to how his beard is described, the act of his departure has been dubbed "beardcoptering".
I call you Wind Fish and raise you the TV Show Kamen Rider Decade.
The series opens with our hero having amnesia and just trying to take a good phot but as we soon learn he cant take a godo photo because REALITY ITSELF rejects him and he finds this out as basicly the world is suddenly invaded by mosters and starts to implode. He is then told he needs to trave to the other rider worlds and destroy them to save everything. And as he travels to the world there another guy going ahead of him telling the riders Decade is the destroyer of world. Now eventually Decade straigthens things out and actually befriends the Riders and eventually finds his home dimension the one where reality isnt rejecting him. But it's the Negaworld, the world of Evil riders and the normal peopl live under their tyrinical thumb. And that's only the lead up for the final power up not the actual final arc....
So...one time our entire group had woken up in the middle of a town we had not seen before. After a little while, we found we were invisible and intangible to everyone around us. So we went to the tavern to listen to see if there was anything nearby that sounded like it pertained to our predicament. Sure enough, after some time another group of adventurers talked to the bartender and both our groups heard about a nearby cave said to be filled with evil spirits. So we both went together towards the cave, them not noticing us. One of our party members just started holding his sword in the wizard's head. It didn't seem to hurt him. We tried talking to the group and making any kind of connection, but nothing worked. But as we got further towards the cave, some of the other group started hearing voices. The wizard (who still had the intangible sword in his head), got more and more twitchy. Two of our characters started talking to the other group. They tried to get the paladin to do stuff, but he made his will saves. The cleric almost succeeded in convincing himself we were evil spirits and not to be rusted, but cracked when one of our group said that he was the cleric's God and didn't like the cleric anymore. The cleric broke down, sobbing, and ran. Our rogue had been playfully sexually harassing their rogue while intangible, but when we got more presence this shook the other rogue up and she went crying into the cave of evil spirits. I being the only LG character at the time decided enough was enough and went to console the rogue. Of course, the nearer the cave the bigger physical presence we had... But it was still not enough. My attempt at consoling the rogue backfired as she now had voices trying to console her from ethereal sexual harassment. And then she committed suicide despite my protests... :( Anyway, back with the rest of the group, the two ones who had been talking to the cleric and stabbing the wizard had no luck with breaking the paladin. So instead they convinced the barbarian that the paladin was out to get him, and got the barbarian to kill the paladin. The barbarian later joined our party.
Alas, poor Applejack! I knew her, Big Macintosh; a pony of infinite dependability, of most excellent honesty; she hath borne me on her back a thousand time; and now, how abhorred in my imagination it is! My gorge rises at it. Here hung those lips that I have kissed I know not how oft. Hmm... *smek* No, it's just not quite the same. Where be your gibs now? Your super bowls? Your song? Your flashes of merriment, that were wont to set the barnyard on a roar? Not one now to poke fun at your own grinning? Quite manefallen? Now get you to Scootaloo's chamber and tell her, let her tart herself up with gallons of eyeshadow and mascara, to this favor she must come. Make her laugh at that.
I put all of eight minutes of work into that. Part of it from memory. Part with updated and ponified phrases. And part of it was screwing around.
But not with AJ's skull.
...And now I'm tempted to ponify Hamlet. I'm sure it's been done before, though. In fact, I would not be surprised of the entire works of Shakespeare have been ponified alrready. If you look around, you might find Celest Tzu's The Art of War soon. It's been a backburner project of mine for a while now.
From someone who as actually read the art of war and feels like it is a great piece of literature and one of the most influential pieces of all time short of the holy writings of every religion out there I would have to say this.
Damn, I should have never read that post at 530 in the morning. I thought Raxon's post was the making of a cheep romance novel. Now when I'm actually awake I just realize it is a reference to Romeo and Juliet.
...Huh. Despite the fact I have to rewrite and update a ton of archaic words and syntax, add clarifications where modern statements are poorly translated or confusing for my sleep depraved mind, modify nouns and verbs to fit Equestria, and apparently reinterpret some parts as they apply to a sugar bowl world like Equestria, I'd say that getting through two chapters already is half decent, considering how dense I am right now.
Celes Tsu's Art of War Chapter 1 will be put on google docs as soon as I can figure out how google docs works. And I may update it to be more happy and sugary.
{EDIT}: The syntax! Dear Celestia, the syntax! Why can't these ancient chinese strategists learn to speak proper modern english!? And I still have to go back and cover everything in diabeetus!
When I perfect chapter one, I'll post it here in comments as a teaser.
Please be warned in advance that I am in no sense a professional writer. As such, I have very little experience in editing. I know you're all decent folks, so any constructive criticism involving things such as font and formatting would be nice. Also, criticism of the actual writing is also welcome. I always take criticism and advice to heart.
...You're the real Deadpool, ain't ya? You were secretly sent here via teleportation accident from whatever effed-up superhero universe and now you're just screwing with us in between frantic murder sprees at behest of the federal government?
Seal Team 6 didn't kill Bin Laden, it was you, wasn't it? WASN'T IT?!
THE CAKE IS A PIE! ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
*Descends into madness*
Why would she need to taste Mr and Mrs. Cake's cakes. She's a baker herself, she got her own samples to taste. Though I did laugh at roll a bluff check.
I may have to start making my players roll Bluff checks for blatant lies OOC. Of course, then I'd have to decide the DC of my own gullibility, and at that point things get so meta that I can feel my eyes cross.
Neither of you understand the sheer ramifications of your statements.
Despite those two being good acquaintances of a dear friend of mine, I have observed them for an extended period recently and I can tell you that they are not suited to the responsibility. As it is, they already have a shared responsibility of their own, and their time is better spent tending towards it.
The original poster, meanwhile, was quite flattering, even if only in an indirect fashion.
Since I don't tend to read these right after gaming sessions, I always picture the same voice as whatever Let's Play I have running in the background. Pewdiepie vs. Pinkie, fight!
I'm either spoiling the fun or actually answering the question here; in the show that's just his "ohmygoodnessPANIC" face, it's supposed to look weird because it's a negative emotion and cartoons like exaggeration. So, freaking the smeg out, yeah.
Not that it isn't hilarious to watch you guys look for these little details, but he's holding a tray. At this particular instant when I took the screencap, it's mostly hidden by Mrs. Cake, and what little of the gray tray you can see is kind of blending in with the wall color.
Just finished the comic before my brother took me to the hospital on Saturday. Just finished the comments after returning from the hospital. No cause for alarm, but it's been a very painful few days.
You folks have no idea how comforting it is to read both comic and commentary. Thank you very much.
I havent had a character that has had an existential crisis, However I have had existential crisises about my character.
For instance, in a Sumercamp campaign I was in the main mooks we fought had DR 10. My 1d8 bow/sword lvl 10 ranger (before I discovered the joy of magic weapons)Could only deal at max 1 damage. this got me thinking, Why the heck was my human ranger doing in a party of changelings, half phase spiders, orange elves, giants and necromancers?
The answer: I'm their tour guide.
Also, Poor AJ. She's the apple pony, and everybody loves apples, but Mr. and Mrs. Cake are the professional bakers and makers of delightful sugary treats.
Oh! AJ could have some kind of OOC existential crisis after learning that she's not the sole source of food in town! And then she begins to plot their downfall! MWAHAHAHAHA!
Drama is amusing when nobody else takes it seriously!
... Story time today is about existential crises. Tell me about a time a character has had an existential crisis.
I was rolling a new character and the dice hated me for some reason. A majority of my rolls were giving me really low stats. So, naturally, I kept re-rolling. The others told me to just accept my rolls.
Unfortunately, because I already have a bit of low self esteem in my D&D group, I had a minor outburst about how if I did that my character would be completely useless (and it's possible I threw in something about how I already felt like I was most of the time). There was a brief moment of awkward silence before they just let me re-roll >_>
Show how much Daylight Savings throws thing off.
I was the DM. The group's quest was to stop the BBEG who was - apparently - trying to destroy the entire world. They genuinely believed they were doing the right thing.
However, no matter how many times they clashed with the BBEG - it was several - the battle always came out a draw, and the populace seemed to prefer the bad guy to the adventurers. Also, at one point, the BBEG asked why his 'friends' were trying to kill him.
We then got to the major climactic battle where the adventurers faced off against BBEG in a defensive stance, preventing him from reaching the Temple that would allow him to wake the beast that would destroy the world.
In the middle of the battle, one of the players rolled a knowledge check as far as what the creature was called. He passed.
I told them the creature was known as the Wind Fish.
Time to steal.
See, we were all Zelda fans, so out of character we all knew the reference. In character, however, there was no way to know this, so they had to continue to act out the roles and defend the temple. However, they wound up not really trying as hard as they would have normally, and the BBEG broke through and woke the Wind Fish.
I then tell them all that the Wind Fish has awoken and the power of his mind is slowly tearing the world apart. Their only shot at survival is to kill the Wind Fish.
Deciding to enjoy the end of the campaign, they go all out trying to kill the world destroying god monster, despite several comments about how that will probably cause the world to end anyways. They succeed.
The world stabalizes, and everything is normal. I then present the drop in for their next major quest.
WHen they demand explanations, I tell them that the BBEG was actually just a very high level bard with extremely high scores in persuassion and very low scores in will save. He was beloved by the people, but in practicing one story performance in front of a mirror, he convinced himself it was actually true, and set out to resolve it by waking the Wind Fish - which, by the way, was actually an ancient god of destruction, called the Wind Fish because it had the shape of a fish that swam in the sky instead of the sea.
...does that make this story a treatise on anti-metagaming as well?
I was really questioning the point of playing my character when all my choice amounted to was dictating my character's actions in combat.
Other than that, we have a fifth character who sort of just shows up somehow whenever his player can join us (having a son to look after, making him "be there every game or not at all" wouldn't be fair). For some reason, due to how his beard is described, the act of his departure has been dubbed "beardcoptering".
The series opens with our hero having amnesia and just trying to take a good phot but as we soon learn he cant take a godo photo because REALITY ITSELF rejects him and he finds this out as basicly the world is suddenly invaded by mosters and starts to implode. He is then told he needs to trave to the other rider worlds and destroy them to save everything. And as he travels to the world there another guy going ahead of him telling the riders Decade is the destroyer of world. Now eventually Decade straigthens things out and actually befriends the Riders and eventually finds his home dimension the one where reality isnt rejecting him. But it's the Negaworld, the world of Evil riders and the normal peopl live under their tyrinical thumb. And that's only the lead up for the final power up not the actual final arc....
We don't have existential crises- we cause them.
But not with AJ's skull.
...And now I'm tempted to ponify Hamlet. I'm sure it's been done before, though. In fact, I would not be surprised of the entire works of Shakespeare have been ponified alrready. If you look around, you might find Celest Tzu's The Art of War soon. It's been a backburner project of mine for a while now.
Do art of war. It be funny.
...Huh. Despite the fact I have to rewrite and update a ton of archaic words and syntax, add clarifications where modern statements are poorly translated or confusing for my sleep depraved mind, modify nouns and verbs to fit Equestria, and apparently reinterpret some parts as they apply to a sugar bowl world like Equestria, I'd say that getting through two chapters already is half decent, considering how dense I am right now.
Celes Tsu's Art of War Chapter 1 will be put on google docs as soon as I can figure out how google docs works. And I may update it to be more happy and sugary.
{EDIT}: The syntax! Dear Celestia, the syntax! Why can't these ancient chinese strategists learn to speak proper modern english!? And I still have to go back and cover everything in diabeetus!
Please be warned in advance that I am in no sense a professional writer. As such, I have very little experience in editing. I know you're all decent folks, so any constructive criticism involving things such as font and formatting would be nice. Also, criticism of the actual writing is also welcome. I always take criticism and advice to heart.
Well, one of them, anyway.
Seal Team 6 didn't kill Bin Laden, it was you, wasn't it? WASN'T IT?!
THE CAKE IS A PIE! ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US! SPOOOOOOOOOOOOOOON!
*Descends into madness*
What makes you think I wouldn't screw with you during my frantic murder sprees?
I got the idea from Red Mage of 8 bit theater, so you know it's a great idea!
Happened once. We were stunned.
Still screwed if you roll a 1, though.
While reading this, I suddenly had the urge to read the GM in Christopher Lee's voice. Go ahead and try it.
"Meanwhile, at sugar cube corner, trouble is brewing!"
Oh, and welcome. It's always good to meet a fellow sta- er, romance hunter.
Despite those two being good acquaintances of a dear friend of mine, I have observed them for an extended period recently and I can tell you that they are not suited to the responsibility. As it is, they already have a shared responsibility of their own, and their time is better spent tending towards it.
The original poster, meanwhile, was quite flattering, even if only in an indirect fashion.
Of course, by default I read the narrator's segments in a neutral male voice.
On the other hand, that'd actually be a good argument for having the DM be George Burns, as that was his role for quite a number of years.
Of course, Newbiespud could also mess with us by having the DM deliver the line that brings its own voice:
"Good news, everyone!"
("...I've invented a machine that makes you read this in my voice!")
"Goodnight, Pinkie."
You folks have no idea how comforting it is to read both comic and commentary. Thank you very much.
For instance, in a Sumercamp campaign I was in the main mooks we fought had DR 10. My 1d8 bow/sword lvl 10 ranger (before I discovered the joy of magic weapons)Could only deal at max 1 damage. this got me thinking, Why the heck was my human ranger doing in a party of changelings, half phase spiders, orange elves, giants and necromancers?
The answer: I'm their tour guide.