Discord's Game Signup/OOC

Doc pseudopolis wrote:I say we bludgeon Nightmare moon halfway to unconciousness, smash the statues and if Busy Bee still has a magic point loyalty bomb her.
At the very least this gives us a chance to get killed and let other players join.
...

Spoiler:

aye, there's the rub.
I only got the one

It's the fact that WoMF admited that he did this because he wanted to fight us with this combat build that makes it such a dick move. Sure it IS in character for Discord to make such stuff all for nothing. But it more felt like that GM WAS TO BLAME then the villain of this campaign... And that was what I took offence to, I should be blaming discord, and totally want too, but he feels mostly blameless in this event to me. Unlike the GM, he totally is to blame because he pulled this out from the players just because he was being a dick and wanted to fight with this monster. Also the fact that he had the rehypnotizing just happen without anyone trying to STOP IT that also felt just plain wrong for a GM to do after everything that went on beforehand. That's the misstep here that I'm complaining about, I think it should've just been a super-high DC skill check to try to fight against the rehypo event, but that wasn't offered at all. It was just "nope, I don't like it that you were doing good so I'm just making all your hard work be for nothing, cause I'm a liked my monster build, so you fighting this monster like it or not. Roll now for combat or die!" the GM was staying without any shame to the players. That's what I felt just happened.

Sure earlier with link was more an event that I could easily blame on Discord's failt, but this time... Not so... It felt too much like just WoMF wanted to do stuff just to make it more fun for him and make it less fun for the players.

A good story makes you hate the villain, but a bad story makes you hate the writer... And right now my dislike is being more sent at the writer aka the GM of the campaign. I just hope somebody can make sense of this rambling madness I made.

Xel The Medic wrote:It's the fact that WoMF admited that he did this because he wanted to fight us with this combat build that makes it such a dick move. Sure it IS in character for Discord to make such stuff all for nothing. But it more felt like that GM WAS TO BLAME then the villain of this campaign... And that was what I took offence to, I should be blaming discord, and totally want too, but he feels mostly blameless in this event to me. Unlike the GM, he totally is to blame because he pulled this out from the players just because he was being a dick and wanted to fight with this monster. Also the fact that he had the rehypnotizing just happen without anyone trying to STOP IT that also felt just plain wrong for a GM to do after everything that went on beforehand. That's the misstep here that I'm complaining about, I think it should've just been a super-high DC skill check to try to fight against the rehypo event, but that wasn't offered at all. It was just "nope, I don't like it that you were doing good so I'm just making all your hard work be for nothing, cause I'm a liked my monster build, so you fighting this monster like it or not. Roll now for combat or die!" the GM was staying without any shame to the players. That's what I felt just happened.

Sure earlier with link was more an event that I could easily blame on Discord's failt, but this time... Not so... It felt too much like just WoMF wanted to do stuff just to make it more fun for him and make it less fun for the players.

A good story makes you hate the villain, but a bad story makes you hate the writer... And right now my dislike is being more sent at the writer aka the GM of the campaign. I just hope somebody can make sense of this rambling madness I made.

There was a really high DC: knocking away the "shadowbolt". I realized it was Discord after I shut down my PC, but restarting it took long enough for time to run out.
We knew going in that this campaign wasn't going to be 'fair' in the combat sense: I would expect that to carry over to Discord messing with us every step of the way. Just because we used a lot of resources to prevent combat does not mean WoMF has to have Discord hold back. The fact that he likes this boss fight and wants it to happen enters into it, but as long as it's something you'd expect Discord to do that doesn't matter to me.
Which is also the reason why we should get really creative. If we want to win this we pretty much have to start playing Xanatos Speed Chess.
I've found two ways to defeat her without combat so far, besides the ones that failed. I'm using one now, the other requires two utility talents I don't have access to.

I understand it's not meant to be "fair" but there's only so far the "unfairness" can go before it hits "unfun" levels like it seemed to go here. And I'm not even in the game yet... I think the point more it didn't feel like Discord was to blame so much as the GM was. Something I think I shouldn't EVER feel when playing an "unfair" campaign such as this. It's bad for everyone if you ever start to feel you put more blame on the GM then the characters in the campaign.

Okay, I've been following this argument, but I'm withholding my opinion until everypony else weighs in on the issue.

Xel feels that it's not fun when the GM becomes the enemy.

Tyger feels that it's unfair for all their hard work to be whisked away.

Kal was expecting it and doesn't care.

Kajisora feels like it's perfectly in-character so he's fine with it.

What're everypony else's thoughts? Thus far I've only seen a few opinions. Elfy, 7 of 9, Doc? Grey, Aproc, Logan? If you would?

Xel The Medic wrote:I understand it's not meant to be "fair" but there's only so far the "unfairness" can go before it hits "unfun" levels like it seemed to go here. And I'm not even in the game yet... I think the point more it didn't feel like Discord was to blame so much as the GM was. Something I think I shouldn't EVER feel when playing an "unfair" campaign such as this. It's bad for everyone if you ever start to feel you put more blame on the GM then the characters in the campaign.

Agreed.
Just hasn't hit that level for me I guess. Then again, I was expecting Dark Souls Difficulty: instant-kill traps for stuff like carelessly walking through a doorway, unbeatable enemies that have to be killed via environment or just plain avoided at all costs, etc.

Well, like was mentioned earlier, we knew what we were getting into when we signed up - a campaign of mostly combat. I burned my Magic Point on Link because, honestly, I didn't see the Element of Laughter helping very much against Discord. I'm not sure why everypony's trying their best to avoid combat, except that it's in character, but I do kind of feel cheated that numerous high rolls and burned magic points mean absolutely nothing.

So all in all I'm kind of a mixture of Tyger and Kal.

I'm not too fussed either way, though I've specced my character to jump into combat when I get the chance so I don't really fell like I've put enough effort into getting through without fighting to feel bad when it is undone.
and like Kajisora I was expecting things like having a room swallow the first person who enters and stick them much deeper in the maze facing an entire SWAT team of hostiles so there is that too.

I also am feeling the same as Tyger. But an "Enemy GM" as you call it only leads to no fun for everyone. If the GM isn't on some level trying to be a friend with the party they'll stop caring about the fun the party has and just do it's own thing to torment the players as best they can. My two bits.

And I do agree this game should have "Dark Souls Difficulty" just what had happened was like. The party did EVERYTHING right to avoid combat, but then the GM laughs and said. "NOPE I wanta this bossie to killa you all!" Then it did... That's my take on events. Sure the "then it did" hasn't happened yet, but still that's what the twist felt like to me.

I find myself agreeing with 7/9. It wouldn't be a huge deal if so much effort had gone into the act of purifying the Princess that, for all we know, could be used later. Otherwise, I wouldn't care.

I don't like it when the DM shuts down the players, especially when they have a shit-ton of effort put into the thing and then goes 'lol noep' just because they wanted something to happen.

correct me if I am wrong that makes it 3 highly against, 2 sorta against, 2 neutral, 1 supporting, and 2 undecided

The Warrior of Many Faces wrote:Okay, I've been following this argument, but I'm withholding my opinion until everypony else weighs in on the issue.

Xel feels that it's not fun when the GM becomes the enemy.

Tyger feels that it's unfair for all their hard work to be whisked away.

Kal was expecting it and doesn't care.

Kajisora feels like it's perfectly in-character so he's fine with it.

What're everypony else's thoughts? Thus far I've only seen a few opinions. Elfy, 7 of 9, Doc? Grey, Aproc, Logan? If you would?

Here's my opinion...

<rant>

Yes, yes, the whole point of this campaign out-of-character (for us and you) is to see what we can do against a Killer GM.

HOWEVER. If you think about this in-character, the whole point of this campaign (for Discord, and for me at least, Abomitall, don't know about the rest of you) is to produce chaos. Chance, risk. Discord strikes me as the kind of guy who worships the Random Numbers God; or heck, maybe he IS the Random Numbers God. if he re-possesses anyone we manage to convert to our cause, that makes him that much less random and chaotic.

BUT. On the other hoof, I know exactly how it feels to go to so much effort to make A happen, and then B happens instead. I raise show-quality dairy goats for a living, and believe me, it is MUCH more irritating when you're paying 100-500 dollars for a championship-grade breeding, wait five months, hoping to get a spectacular show animal... and then you get three little buck kids that aren't worth a bowl of oatmeal.

So what do you do when you're looking forward to a spectacular combat, and the party RPs their way out of it? Cut your losses, and re-purpose. Those three buck kids may have been worthless as show animals, but hot-damn they were delicious in the frying pan.

A better example? Nightmare Moon, just now. Instead of having Discord re-possess her, have the Celestia statue pop to life and ATTACK!. Judging by the effort it took to calm NMM, there's no way they'd pull it off twice in a row (I think). That way, you get to try out your Nightmare Moon build, the players still have to fight their way out, and nobody feels like their efforts have been (totally) wasted.

</rant>

That being said, I also would like to voice that while I understand that combat is to be the primary purpose of this campaign, it should not be the only one. Nor should that combat be limited in basic structure. I'd like to see my Munchkin-y skill checks applied to a puzzle of some kind, maybe with an impressive battle for failure to solve it. I'd also like to see some fights that are lots of small things as opposed to one big thing; a Parasprite Horde, maybe? Or perhaps another party not unlike ours?

That's my two bits. Take it or leave it. And BTW, I added a wishlist to my character sheet.

I've only been attempting to avoid combat become it's what Cloud would do. I also knew that my attempts would end in vain, as we're going against someone with an ungodly Persuasion modifier, but it's fun to try.
Since the beginning it's been clear this was a hack-and-slash campaign, and I haven't been surprised by the fact that the two npc's we've befriended have been turned unfriendly by Discord. Especially since if we befriended Nightmare Moon we'd have an ally who seems to be the bearer of all of the elements, where after we'd just have to find Discord and the game would end and Discord would become a statue again, and he's not about to let that happen.
Also it'd be weak to end the campaign after one fight.

Personally I don't think that getting a Nightmare Moon ally would really help much of ANYTHING to helping get to the end of this campaign. But if non-combat is going to overall POINTLESS in this campaign... I'm not sure how anyone's going to have much fun there.

My opinion? My opinion's a doozy, and due to my computer treating my backspace button oddly, I have to retype it out, so it may not be as eloquent the second time. Either way, get some nachos, because we're in this for the long haul.

Even before we started playing this game, it was well established that Discord does not play fair. Ever. Even when Fluttershy managed to "roleplay" her way out of her situation, she didn't win. Discord got angry and forced the issue. When he was accused of cheating in the game he had thrust upon the Mane Six, he did not deny it. Instead, he merely pointed to what he believed to be his nature: "Perhaps we haven't met? The name's Discord, Spirit of Chaos and Disharmony? Hellooooo!"

Discord's acts just now were perfectly in character. After all, he may be the most powerful character in all of fiction, and he knows it, because what he wants to happen, happens. Period. Oh, there are people more powerful than him, and there may be other, similar trickster characters about as powerful as he is, but here's the rub: all those powers, whether by physics, science, magic, will, or something else, run on something logical. Discord runs on the power of illogic. If there ever comes a day when he's not the most powerful person in the room, a mere snap of the fingers later and with absolutely nothing having changed including how powerful any of them are including himself, and he is. No, it doesn't make sense. It doesn't have to! Discord is Chaos incarnate. What fun is there in making sense?

That's what Discord is. He is a force (and a very bored force) with power beyond reason, literally, and he is also childish. He hates to lose. He will toy with you, purposefully limiting a power that can only be overcome by the Power of Harmony so it seems like you can beat him, because he is so smugly confident that you will not, cannot, rise to the challenge. Then, when it turns out you can, he gets angry, and he "cheats", revealing the rest of the omnipotent power he has hidden, as much as needed, in order to win. Because he is childish and hates losing.

So we can't argue that Discord was out-of-character or that things were unfair. Oh, of course things were unfair! But that's the problem: of course it was unfair, because Discord was acting in-character, and everyone knew ahead of time that it was going to be unfair. I knew Discord was going to rebrainwash LuNightmare even as I suggested unbrainwashing her. Heck, I fully expect that if and when we actually manage to revive the Elements and confront Discord on his throne made of popcorn, oil, and the laughter of snakes, he will go back on his words in one last battle that we probably won't have a chance in Tartarus of winning.

Let us look at a hypothetical situation involving the increasingly relevant Demon's Souls series. Let us say, in this hypothetical situation, that there is a fiendishly difficult...boss, trap, evil thing that the player must encounter, and when you do so you do so with great difficulty. Then a clever or imaginative or just plain lucky player discovers a loophole or bug or just unintentional side effect in the game's programming that makes that bosstrapthing...let's settle on it being a boss...a cakewalk.

The developers eventually catch wind of this and release a patch that, among other things, fixes this loophole or bug. A bit annoying for the players, but they have no right to be angry: if the game world had been the real world, the trick would not have existed. It was completely illogical.

But let's change up the variables a bit. Let's say that instead of a programming quirk, the trick was merely a difficult-to-reach vantage spot a good ways away from the arena in which they fought that the boss's attacks could not reach. However, from that vantage spot, you can see the boss quite clearly. It is thus an easy task - albeit a long and boring one - to pump the boss full of arrows until they fall dead, posing no threat to you.

The developers eventually catch wind of this and release a patch that, among other things, fixes this exploit, placing a barrel somewhere in between you and the boss that cannot be shot around to reach the boss - or even simply removing him from the battlefield until you enter it bodily and the gate closes behind you. Now the players have the right to be really annoyed, even angry...but they have no right to complain. The game was advertised as an extremely difficult hack-and-slash, and the rest of the game does not allow such cheap tricks, and it was not the developer's intention to give you such an easy way past the boss.

So Warrior shouldn't have to apologize for his actions either as Discord or as a game designer. He does not need to make things right, because things never went wrong. If he had allowed such a thing as what we attempted, that would be neat! But he didn't, and there's nothing wrong with that. And of course it's in-character for Discord to force the issue after we roleplay out of things - again, just ask Fluttershy.

But that all being said...

Let us continue the Demon's Souls analogy just a little longer. Let us say that one of the head programmers went upon an official blog for Demon's Souls and explained everything I just did, if only the stuff relevant to his situation. He spoke more vibrantly and eloquently than I jsut did, and he spoke for his team as well, careful to use neutral language and all that jazz. That is also fine!

But let's say that at the end of this blog post, he put in one final paragraph that read like this: "Besides, even if none of that was true, we worked really hard on that boss. You're going to fight it whether you like it or not."

See, NOW people have the right to complain. Because what he's saying is this: "I care less about what you as a player want than what we want you to do." What he's saying is: "If you figure out a clever and logical way around one of my challenges, I will not let you take that alternate path, not ever, and I will always force the issue. Because I don't like to lose. Because I have all the power here. Because I am Discord, childish and impatient and having all power over you."

Warrior...you didn't say anything nearly as mean-spirited as this hypothetical designer. You are not Discord, and you do care about what we as players want. But citing "I want this to happen" as a primary reason for a boss-fight occurring rates on the same scale as the designer's words do, albeit much lower. Yeah, we know the situation's hopeless. We're fighting both Discord and a Killer Gamemaster and now Nightmare Moon, and we knew that things were gonna hurt A LOT, and we accepted that.

But, harsh as this sounds, I didn't sign up for this game to have those wounds salted.

After reading your post Aproc... I realized something. I signed up for a game set in a Discord Ruled Equestria. NOT a game where "Discord is the GM" which was how that line: "But I really wanted to play this boss build" felt like to me then twisting everything like that. I didn't sign up for a "Killer GM" run game too. I signed up for a game where the setting would feel alive and to blame for random tricks and prials we'd be faced with... Not for a game where the GM could at a whim just force a boss fight because they wanted to do that fight.

so whats it going to be warrior?

tygerburningbright wrote:so whats it going to be warrior?

One would suppose we'd have to wait to see until he's actually online again.

There's no need to rush him.

I shall counter your rant with a rant of my own! ^^
There are two things that have to be considered here, I think:
First, how much did wanting to keep the boss fight result in the hypnosis, and how much of it was Discord being in character.
Second, was it actually possible to avoid it, even if WoMF wanted it to happen.

The first doesn't matter much to me: I believe it was in character, whether or not it was motivated reasoning that led to Discord doing that.
For me, both played a part in how much effort I had Busy put into avoiding combat. I enjoy solving the situation more than combat, and I like this game because that approach is much more difficult here than in a regular campaign. At the same time, Busy wants to avoid combat at any cost, because any fight she takes part in kills more bees. This is not something I thought of at character creation, or even before the end of the last fight, but it is one of the reasons I enjoy playing her.

The second is what I do find important, and I still believe that the fight can/could have been avoided by clever roleplay. The signs were there to be seen beforehand, small as they were, and I think that successfully using Maddening Mockery on the shadowbolt (though suicidal), bodily wrenching him away from NMM (difficult), covering his eyes or blinding Nightmare, etc. could have led to a different outcome. Same for what Busy is doing at the moment, same for killing NMM out of combat or any other methods we haven't thought of yet.
Discord does have weaknesses:Going by show canon, he is immensely powerful, equaling or surpassing (probably the second), the combined powers of Luna and Celestia.He is smart,unpredictable, sneaky and doesn't play by the rules.
He is also impatient, arrogant and panics easily, each of which can be used to bring him down or outwit him. It should still be very difficult to do so.
If the fight could have been avoided, I can't find any fault with the current situation.
If it was completely inevitable, no matter the actions of the party, I think it was a bad move, but I don't think that is the case here. Initiatives were rolled long before negotiations failed, and combat still hasn't actually started now that they have.

I think you missed the point of my rant.

Not even once in the entirety of it did I say that the actions were unjustified.

I am in fact quite in support of the decisions Warrior decided to make.

All that I am against is what he said.

It is, of course, possible that I missed the counterpoint of your rant.






...as a side note, can we stop calling them "rants"? That implies that everything we've said so far is motivated by anger and is pointless, when neither are true.

AProcrastinatingWriter wrote:I think you missed the point of my rant.
Not even once in the entirety of it did I say that the actions were unjustified.
I am in fact quite in support of the decisions Warrior decided to make.
All that I am against is what he said.
It is, of course, possible that I missed the counterpoint of your rant.

That is pretty much what I meant with the motivated reasoning bit:
Having worked hard on a boss/wanting it to happen for other reasons are valid reasons to me, as long as they can be justified in character, and as long as they have enough foreshadowing to be possible to predict.
Actually saying that doesn't change this for me, as long as wanting to keep the boss fight doesn't make preventing it impossible by default.
It's a bit like me saying I like playing Busy, so I'm going to do everything I can justify in character to keep her alive. Which includes not fighting a goddess.
It's part of the reason, not the whole or probably even the largest part of it.

And yeah, lettuce not rant. We shall discuss this amicably.

Okay, so from what I've gathered, people are more annoyed at the fact that I said that you were gonna fight it whether you liked it or not more than the action itself. I apologize for that: on reflection, that was out of line. Both because of what Aproc said, about it indicating that I care more about the campaign than about you, and what Xel says, that it kinda sets me up as the villain rather than the actual villain. So for that, I apologize.

It also seems that people are annoyed about the wasted efforts. I'm not sure what you want me to have done differently here, though. That is kind of Discord's style. Furthermore, there were clues as to how it could have been prevented. So I don't think it'd fix anything to retcon that away.

So I think that the best thing we can do is just move on. We go through the campaign, but I'll do better at making spent magic points and such mean something out of combat, do better at not stifling creativity. (Just keep in mind that trying to out-persuade Discord is still extremely difficult.)

Now, if you disagree with this course of action, speak up. It won't help to move on if there's something I've failed to address.

As for complaints about there being puzzles and whatnot, you just haven't gotten there yet. Similarly the non-solo fights.

Also, Aproc, I hear your complaints about the backspace button. It's a freaking pain.

kajisora wrote:
And yeah, lettuce not rant. We shall discuss this amicably.

Lettuce also not Bee punning. Lest the Many-Faced one pun-ishes us with bigger gods to fight.

Grey Pen wrote:

kajisora wrote:
And yeah, lettuce not rant. We shall discuss this amicably.

Lettuce also not Bee punning. Lest the Many-Faced one pun-ishes us with bigger gods to fight.

Or I'll just send you to a punitentiary to do time for your pungent crimes.