Friendship is Dragons
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Page 596 - Dungeon Fearing
Author Notes:
Newbiespud
19th May 2015, 6:00 AM
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That moment when you realize a seemingly nonsensical roll several sessions ago was actually really important to your health.
Reminds me of a time in a Star Tek RP. The helmsman attempted to jump to warp speed without a working nav computer because we were boarded by space pirates. He had mad skills that could do it and the GM asked for a roll that didn't come with context. Once the ship was at warp the rest of the crew took up arms to fight off the boarding party.
We won and then the helmsman dropped out of warp... and realized that roll at the beginning of the session was to see how close he hit his target. He was off by a mile.
Now multiply that by traveling 30 minutes at Warp factor 6.
Reminds me of a time in a Star Tek RP. The helmsman attempted to jump to warp speed without a working nav computer because we were boarded by space pirates. He had mad skills that could do it and the GM asked for a roll that didn't come with context. Once the ship was at warp the rest of the crew took up arms to fight off the boarding party.
We won and then the helmsman dropped out of warp... and realized that roll at the beginning of the session was to see how close he hit his target. He was off by a mile.
Now multiply that by traveling 30 minutes at Warp factor 6.
Assuming you somehow managed to be off by 180 degrees, you'd still only be an hour away from where you meant to go. How is that a problem?
In terms of interstellar distances, being off by as little as a mile is pretty much a perfect shot. So I'm guessing you meant that as a figure of speech rather than a literal mile? :P
He means, that he was targetting a spot that was at an angle to where he ACTUALLY wanted to go. And this angle mean that whilst travelling at such high speeds, distance between the intended spot and were they actually were grew rather... large.
If that makes sense.
If that makes sense.
Something like that, yeah. I probably should have used angle, but you got the jist.
In Next Gen terms, Warp 6 is about 392 times the speed of light. In a time interval of 30 minutes the ship moved about 211,880,942,875 kilometers. I think (based on what I found online).
In Next Gen terms, Warp 6 is about 392 times the speed of light. In a time interval of 30 minutes the ship moved about 211,880,942,875 kilometers. I think (based on what I found online).
How "off" can you possibly be? In terms of travel time, you're only 30 minutes at Warp 6 from where you wanted to go, plus or minus the difference between your starting point and intended destination. Barring negative space wedgies or technobabble, it should at most take you an extra 30 minutes to get to your intended destination.
And Warp 6 is perfectly doable in TOS; it's the top speed of the TOS Enterprise (anything faster is for short sprints). In TNG, Warp 6 is SLOW given ships that can cruise at Warp 9.
And Warp 6 is perfectly doable in TOS; it's the top speed of the TOS Enterprise (anything faster is for short sprints). In TNG, Warp 6 is SLOW given ships that can cruise at Warp 9.
It would only take your ship 30 minutes at Warp 6 to get there, or an hour at the very most, if you had a working nav computer.
Yeah, the busted navigational computer was what made getting anywhere like pulling teeth.
Did you forget about the Warp 5 speed limit except in emergencies?
That was some shoehorned environmental message BS and they sort of walked it back as the series went on.
Plus being attacked by space pirates seemed like a legit emergency to us.
A story were an early meaningless roll had a big impact?
Mine would be with warhammer 40k with the "false success" as I call it.
Our team was waiting on talking to some duke. My paranoia trait let me roll checking my surrounding out of long standing paranoia. My "pass" let me notice the painting in the room had cameras in them.
So we made a few fake conversations. Story went on. Dealt with the duke... and then when about to leave all of our characters start breaking down as we were poisoned. Turn's out I missed the fact the statues were releasing poison into the room.
Apparently our duke was also a paranoid nut job like me and would give the cure to the guest only AFTER they left the building and DIDN'T kill him.
So we ended up having to race out of the building with the guards trying to capture us just in hopes of getting to the ship to whip up an antidote.
We survived, but it was a close shave. More importantly it made us wary of any future "false success" that my character may get through paranoia... which funny enough earned roleplaying experience in the next session.
Mine would be with warhammer 40k with the "false success" as I call it.
Our team was waiting on talking to some duke. My paranoia trait let me roll checking my surrounding out of long standing paranoia. My "pass" let me notice the painting in the room had cameras in them.
So we made a few fake conversations. Story went on. Dealt with the duke... and then when about to leave all of our characters start breaking down as we were poisoned. Turn's out I missed the fact the statues were releasing poison into the room.
Apparently our duke was also a paranoid nut job like me and would give the cure to the guest only AFTER they left the building and DIDN'T kill him.
So we ended up having to race out of the building with the guards trying to capture us just in hopes of getting to the ship to whip up an antidote.
We survived, but it was a close shave. More importantly it made us wary of any future "false success" that my character may get through paranoia... which funny enough earned roleplaying experience in the next session.
The worst weather I've ever had the 'pleasure' of fighting in was an acid rain storm. It's wet, cold, stinky, burning, melty fun for all.
...not.
...not.
A sentient cloud that was an ancient entity we had (mostly my PC had) awakened, which was devouring Zebrica and everypony (and everyzebra, etc.) upon it, and had possessed one of the party (with said PC's semi-cooperation) to try to talk the others into leaving, empowering said unicorn to make the local terrain non-Euclidean (even the open air, to thwart our pegasi).
Suffice it to say, we did something about the weather.
Suffice it to say, we did something about the weather.
I seem to remember <a href=http://spoonyexperiment.com/counter-monkey/counter-monkey-swimming-in-diarrhea-is-bad>someone</a> making a big deal about how in 4th Ed those cost you healing surges and make you tired and weak.
See, I have a terrible poker face, so if I were the GM the players would have noticed this and made the checks much sooner. :3
Isn't it that Dash is getting advantage by being a pegasus? Since nobody did a check to even things Dash ended up with an unfair advantage.
I looked at her character sheet, but unfortunately I'm not versed in 4e, so I couldn't tell if maybe an ability the character had would be an accomplice in doing this.
I know this is far fetched, but maybe they'll find out that the AJ here is actually a changeling in disguise. Then the DM will make AJ roleplay it as the rest of the party questions it, passing notes over for details that the changeling would know about. That would make for an interesting turn of events. Oh well, guess we'll find out on Thursday.
Oh, and one more thing:
"And today, that joke is for the person who loves to pay extra attention to the details and theorize their hearts out.
And also for the people who easily remember a joke from two and a half weeks ago."
Thank you for that Spud, it certainly put a smile on my face today.
Or they're doing so just for the sake of chaos or fun or something.
Making players roll perception/trapfinding/sense motive/etc purely to make them paranoid is a time-honoured DM trick, though. Even when the players know you're doing it to mess with them, it still gets people on their toes - what if that time it WASN'T a trick? :)
Eeyup! I got real good at that, and with my seasoned ability to improv situations, I could flip a random paranoia roll into something concrete or vise-versa.
But I'm also a pretty nice GM and didn't do that kind of trolling very often at all. :3
But I'm also a pretty nice GM and didn't do that kind of trolling very often at all. :3
As for magically draining AJ, you don't think they unknowingly decided to setup their little contest over an ancient pony burial ground and AJ somehow ticked off the spirits of that place? Again, far fetched but it would be interesting nevertheless.
Well, thing is some DMs do actually throw out pointless checks, specifically to stifle metagaming. OH CRAP I ROLLED DICE THERE IS SOMETHING HERE! EVERYONE SEARCH EVERYTHING! Whereas randomly making you roll checks that might be appropriate will allay suspicion. Occasional perception/listen checks that result in your eagle-eyed elf hearing some mice or a conversation about someone's smelly discharge means that when I have you roll for the ambush later you might not act as if you actually know it's coming.
Same thing with room descriptions actually. Most of the time that statue is actually pointing at nothing.
Same thing with room descriptions actually. Most of the time that statue is actually pointing at nothing.
I also agree it isn't strictly limited to dice. Heck, one time my cleric found a floating obsidian stone that was in a large ominous chamber. Everyone thought it was cursed and our barbarian even tried to destroy it. But my cleric decided to take it for himself, thinking it would be important later on in the dungeon they were in. It wasn't, but I still keep it as a nifty little trinket to remind me of the non-sense that happened there.
Make new friends but keep Discord
So much to like about this episode I'm expanding my usual 3 things I liked to 6
1) Discord episode
2) the pop culture refrences (oh sooooo many of them ... I think when the writers hear John Delancie is coming in to do Discord they come up with as many things for him to say and do as they can)
3) New charecter's and new fannon ships
4) surprise return charecter nopony expected
5) they took something familiar to the fans and still made it feel new
6) (minor spoiler) confirmation that trollestia is cannon
So yeah I will be doing my review discussion thread on tuesdays to avoid episode spoilers on Saturday from now on.
I love Celestia a lot more now than I did in the past. They should spend more time developing her character when she's not "being princess."
Also... When Discord has Treehugger midair in front of the portal, does he refer to Fluttershy as "Sluttershy"? I've replayed that several times, and I do think that's what he called her...
Also... When Discord has Treehugger midair in front of the portal, does he refer to Fluttershy as "Sluttershy"? I've replayed that several times, and I do think that's what he called her...
... Seriously? That's what he says? Now I'm going to have head cannons going off because of you guys.
This references #589 if anybody was curious. It doesn't actually answer any questions, although I'd have thrown something at the GM for being a dick at this point. (And my group does occasionally smuggle nerf blasters into the sessions for just such an occasion)
Heh, see I ban weaponry at my games as a safety precaution. I had players get an eye poked out from those Nerf guns! O.o
Since players couldn't throw anything, they only had words and that's about when the catchphrase 'Damn you, Digo.' came into being. I loved hearing it, cause it meant my fiendish machinations were working. But to be fair, the players did enjoy getting the boat rocked on occasion.
Since players couldn't throw anything, they only had words and that's about when the catchphrase 'Damn you, Digo.' came into being. I loved hearing it, cause it meant my fiendish machinations were working. But to be fair, the players did enjoy getting the boat rocked on occasion.
hmm..
if I had to guesss...
the barrel Aj clipped had poison or something on it.
if I had to guesss...
the barrel Aj clipped had poison or something on it.
Crazy theory:
in Friendship is Dragons Changelings count as aberrations and so a dungeoneering check would reveal RD as replaced by a changeling who wanted to get into Canterlot for a Canterlot wedding / Best Night Ever inspired story arc.
in Friendship is Dragons Changelings count as aberrations and so a dungeoneering check would reveal RD as replaced by a changeling who wanted to get into Canterlot for a Canterlot wedding / Best Night Ever inspired story arc.
Not so crazy, or at least I think it's plausible.
Cursed sports equipment would be Arcana.
Haunted arena would be History or Religion.
Cursed sports equipment would be Arcana.
Haunted arena would be History or Religion.
Or AJ just nocked on a dangerous plant (which Dungeoneering would also detect) but that wouldn't explain why RD is getting stronger.
Requesting random rolls from your party is a good way to spread paranoia and to bring up something to hit them with fifty minutes later.
Just be careful about how much you do it and exactly what conditions you do it under, otherwise you might find your players stealth-revolting by slowing down the game with rolls for EVERYTHING.
Just be careful about how much you do it and exactly what conditions you do it under, otherwise you might find your players stealth-revolting by slowing down the game with rolls for EVERYTHING.
My gaming group -twitches- when the DM says the phrase "Roll Mental Defense." What follows is never, ever good.
There's always the *reverse* of paranoia. My DM never got to use this in-game, but we always hoped that we'd get new players to fall for it:
We came across a black stone path with a sign that said "Beware." The guy who went first just crossed the street and nothing happened so everyone else in the party at the time just crossed the street with no problems. After crossing the street again later on, the DM informed us of what the trap really was:
If anyone tried to stealth their way across the street, they'd be hit by an ethereal car. Because the driver couldn't see the person crossing the street.
We came across a black stone path with a sign that said "Beware." The guy who went first just crossed the street and nothing happened so everyone else in the party at the time just crossed the street with no problems. After crossing the street again later on, the DM informed us of what the trap really was:
If anyone tried to stealth their way across the street, they'd be hit by an ethereal car. Because the driver couldn't see the person crossing the street.
Wow, that is so Celestia damn awesome I must steal the idea. :D