Friendship is Dragons
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Page 1634 - Dungeons & Ponies, Part 9
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16 Comments:
To be fair, five people each having some element of a greater power is an easy trope to fall into in a Magic: the Gathering-based setting. Heck, that's basically a plot point in War of the Spark (only with ten people because, you know, Ravnica. Color pairs are kind of a big deal there.)
My references either fly completely under the radar or get spotted immediately. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground. Granted, the suspiciously generous merchant and his art-smuggling rival were a bit on the nose. Especially since the merchant had two identical-twin nephews working for him.
My references either fly completely under the radar or get spotted immediately. There doesn't seem to be any middle ground. Granted, the suspiciously generous merchant and his art-smuggling rival were a bit on the nose. Especially since the merchant had two identical-twin nephews working for him.
Given that literally 95% of my exposure to MtG comes from your stories, I'm generally happy if I can recognize terms like "Ravnica" or color theory stuff. Honestly, my eyes tended to glaze over whenever one of the Oversaturated World characters explained that stuff. Though, to be fair, I know some people would feel similarly about my science rants.
Wait, so is this the Friendship is Magic cast playing a roleplaying game or is this the Friendship is Dragons cast roleplaying their characters playing a roleplaying game?
I originally had things written out as the latter, but in the end, I decided that having this be the genuine Friendship is Magic characters as the ones playing would be more interesting.
I think all my references were deliberate; the one Shadowrun adventure that turned into a game of Clue, the Star Wars one shot that became the plot to Firefly, the D&D campaign that ended up mimicking the major plot points of Final Fantasy Unlimited... it's just easier to steal ideas. XD
Sooooo much easier. I cribbed Stargate once. The party figured most of it out when I did it (swirly gate things and dudes in serpent head armor were a dead giveaway), but were satisfyingly surprised when the Goauld polymorphed into a Dragon in their first encounter
It is funny when the players think it's A but you actually are doing B.
On my list of "I want to run this sometime" is the following: The players have to make characters from an isolated rural community with a 'late medieval but no gunpowder' level of technology and a theocratic government that literally has their god backing them up. Early conflict would lead them into a forbidden cave that turns out to have a magic door that leads to strange metal-lined tunnels.
Canadians of a certain age might correctly be going "that's starting to sound like The Starlost." Yes, it does turn out that they are from just one of many isolated communities on a massive generation ship that has suffered a serious control failure.
Canadians of a certain age might correctly be going "that's starting to sound like The Starlost." Yes, it does turn out that they are from just one of many isolated communities on a massive generation ship that has suffered a serious control failure.
Nothing from the Game Master (that wasn't on purpose), but once a friend was regaling me with stories of his Modern Adventures character. He was a big, brawny demolitionist whose signature move was blowing up a wall, charging in, and yelling, "OH YEAH!"
I replied, "You're playing the Kool-Aid man?"
His eyes went wide with horror. The reference had not been deliberate!
I replied, "You're playing the Kool-Aid man?"
His eyes went wide with horror. The reference had not been deliberate!
Like I said, it took me on a nostalgia trip. Power Rangers and Captain Planet both fit a particular era of my television consumption (as do things like Transformers, Darkwing Duck, Johnny Quest, Looney Tunes, and The Quick Draw McGraw Show.) So one idea leaped extremely quickly to the other.
Campaign I'm in at the moment is a sort of investigator's agency/murder mystery noir type deal set on Eberron, and we're investigating the case of a musician who died in a pyrotechnics incident during a show that apparently incinerated his entire body except for one hand. We read one of the groupies' minds and found out that he was pretty much a cult leader, and that he'd told them ahead of time that he was going to die, then come back to life several days later.
We've taken to saying that he "pulled a Peter Pettigrew so that he could pull a Jesus"
incidentally, in what I am sure was a completely intentional reference, the guy's name is Orpheus
We've taken to saying that he "pulled a Peter Pettigrew so that he could pull a Jesus"
incidentally, in what I am sure was a completely intentional reference, the guy's name is Orpheus
I once accidentally lifted a plot point from Transformers Prime. I *KNEW* the idea of the realm being the dormant husk of the settings' God of Evil seemed familiar, but I couldn't place it until, purely by coincidence our Scholar-Turned-Paladin got amnesia and regressed to their scholar days and got picked up by some cultists under the guise of research.
Guest Author's Note: "So, yes, some changes to Uni's character, to make her a bit more proactive/involved in the overarching story of D&D. (Not that I'm planning on turning the whole series into a comic, but still!) And with them, a topic of conversation!
We TTRPG types love ourselves some references. But like any creative work, sometimes we make references that we don't fully intend until someone points them out at a later date. One of the archetypical examples is the accidental 'Jojo' campaign story that goes around our circle every now and again. But lots of folk have their own story of something similar happening to them.
My own version of this was a minor one, but in building a campaign in the Ravnica setting, I unknowingly created a situation where the players were looking for five other characters so that by their power combined, they could summon the soul of the plane to stop a disaster. The only reason I even noticed that I'd basically made a Captain Planet campaign is because one of my players made a joke about looking for 'A group of teenagers with attitude' which sent my brain on a journey of nostalgia. Unfortunately, the campaign didn't make it to the point of that final reveal, but I still got a really good laugh out of that.
Any stories of unknowingly putting in references, or of pointing out references in your DM's story they didn't catch before?"