DM: The six of you are trapped in a strange world, with no idea of how to return home. There's no sign of civilization for miles, the only thing in view the enormous chasm that-
Pinkie Pie: Hello! Hello! Hello!
DM: Huh?
Pinkie Pie: It's a big chasm, so it's gotta have a big echo!
DM: Oh, right! Okay, if you yell into the chasm, I'll echo it back.
Rainbow Dash: Cool!
DM: Cool! Cool!
Fluttershy: Um, Spike?
DM: Yes?
Fluttershy: I was wondering, when do I meet my animal friend?
DM: You can meet her right now!
Fluttershy: Really!?
DM: Yep! A small creature jumps right into your arms, scared out of her mind, running from
roll
DM: ...oh.
Rainbow Dash: Running from what? ...awesome
Guest Author's Note: "So, I'm not basing this comic on any particular version of D&D, because...well, the show didn't exactly do that either. Instead, I'm trying to get the vibe more of both the show Dungeons and Dragons itself, and of what we saw in the episode, Dungeons and Discords for Ogres and Oubliettes. And from what I saw in that episode, O&O has a lot of random tables, with a wild array of results.
Which, honestly, makes Tiamat showing up for a bunch of newbie adventurers make waaaay more sense.
(As an aside, for all the goofiness of the cartoon, this is honestly still a really cool and scary version of Tiamat.)"
Notice: Guest comic submissions are open! Guidelines here. Deadline: February 20th.
Also, this cartoon *STILL* remains in the subconscious of our culture-- I always see Dungeon Master costumes sold around Halloween, even this year I saw it for sale.
Or, to make readers shudder... o/~ Where there's a whip, there's a way o/~
< https://villainsong.fandom.com/wiki/Where_There%27s_a_Whip,_There%27s_a_Way?file=Where_there%2527s_a_whip%252C_there%2527s_a_way%2521 > (hope the direct link is valid (once unwrapped), if not, it can be reached from
https://villainsong.fandom.com/wiki/Where_There%27s_a_Whip,_There%27s_a_Way
Tiamat, whose plan to escape Hell was foiled when the party bribed a bunch of dragon children too small to take part in the mass battle to accompany them into the secret caves to help disrupt the ritual.
Fluttershy, as herself, is somewhat higher level than Bobby. I remember one D&D depiction where she was a mid-to-high level druid, as the low level Cutie Mark Crusaders found out when they angered her.
I'd like to see a campaign with Tiamat as a recurring character with dialogue, rather than just a boss monster. Because it seems like a 5-headed sentient creature that can speak would be a golden opportunity for some multiple-personality fun.
Red: "If you agree to be my slaves, I might consider spar-"
Black: "Kill 'em! Kill 'em all!"
White: "Hmph."
Green: *tries to pick their pockets*
etc
I think it's fine to have a more nebulous idea of the system in use when making a campaign comic; Darths & Droids explicitly doesn't use any real system, which allows them to make jokes about memetic aspects of various systems, like having "the grappling rules" being a terrifying entity that every one prefers to avoid if possible without calling out any game in particular. (This isn't to say that I think Newbiespud's use of a specific system for Friendship Is Dragons is a bad thing, mind you, it's just different ways of approaching the same thing.)
And now I'm wondering how the Mane 6 would handle the unicorn-centric episode with Kelek (the one where he's trying to steal unicorn horns and the group has to team up with Venger to stop him).
I notice that Spike refers to "a small creature". Is this a setup to never mention (at all, or until some dramatically or comedically convenient moment) that Fluttershy's companion is a unicorn?
And here we have the longest running impact of the D&D cartoon: It changed what Tiamat looked like.
Before the cartoon, she was described as having a striped body as the colours from her heads blended with each other until they became brown for her tail. That's not exactly easy to do with hand-painted cels so they made her body red and the change stuck.
Guest Author's Note: "So, I'm not basing this comic on any particular version of D&D, because...well, the show didn't exactly do that either. Instead, I'm trying to get the vibe more of both the show Dungeons and Dragons itself, and of what we saw in the episode, Dungeons and Discords for Ogres and Oubliettes. And from what I saw in that episode, O&O has a lot of random tables, with a wild array of results.
Which, honestly, makes Tiamat showing up for a bunch of newbie adventurers make waaaay more sense.
(As an aside, for all the goofiness of the cartoon, this is honestly still a really cool and scary version of Tiamat.)"