The Old King's News (Skype Campaign)

Also worth noting is the fact that despite much friendly ribbing and the fact that Silver is now semi-officially a hobo-pony; the party meshed well and managed some good teamwork soo~

Everypony's current harmony:
777/1000

Silver is best Mare and the Master of ducks.
Behold my Hobo kingdom with it's Duck Army! Behold and Fear!

Hayatecooper wrote:Silver is best Mare and the Master of ducks.
Behold my Hobo kingdom with it's Duck Army! Behold and Fear!

Silver Tongue, queen of the hobos! Followed by her faithful companions, a thousand trustworthy ducks.

Also, here's how Cameo used his coffee this session:
1 ) Waking up PCs
2 ) Combat item
3 ) Interrogation/torture tool (apply to mouth and/or face)
4 ) Snark/insult counter (apply directly to face)
5 ) Party buffing
6 ) Sobering-up tool
7 ) Resisting poison gas/toxins
8 ) Toxin purging (by overpowering the toxin)

On Flashpoint's end, nothing but disconnects the whole game (of the gameplay kind, not the internet connection kind.)
- The introductory battle was a good idea, but it wasn't really a "here I come to save the day" moment when I was blinded turn one and couldn't hit or roll a save for 5 turns. So from my perspective it went down like this:

• "Hey, diamond dogs, is that part of the play?" BANG "MY EYES!"
  "Hey you, just standing there come help!"
  "OK" Whiff* whiff* whiff* whiff* whiff* "Or not"
  "Hey, you're pretty good in a fight, come be our new bodyguard."
  "..?"

-On the boat, my attempts at cunning manipulation of the two interrogation subjects were overlooked and circumvented, so from anyone else's point of view, it looked like the heroic firefighter pony was trying to burn two drunk guys alive on their own boat. I also had to withold information during the trip in order to try to keep it interesting (shoo shoo be doo). And I had to break an enchantment, despite being the least magical pony in history.

-Flashpoint very quickly decided to abstain from involving himself with the clearly evil possessed duck toys, but then that turned into a major thing, and he was left silently waiting, pretending none of it was happening, for the last half hour of the session (he will continue to deny the existence of the ducks for the rest of the game, now, though."

-About the only things he did manage to do successfully were tease Silver endlessly about her boyfriend, smell, diseases etc., and not die from poison gas. Oh, and I caught that guy. I'm good at catching those guys.

And apparently Skype makes me sound like a Canadian, so that's unfortunate.

Bronymous wrote:

• "Hey, diamond dogs, is that part of the play?" BANG "MY EYES!"
  "Hey you, just standing there come help!"
  "OK" Whiff* whiff* whiff* whiff* whiff* "Or not"
  "Hey, you're pretty good in a fight, come be our new bodyguard."
  "..?"

To be honest, this is perfectly in character for Cameo to do. He's a bit like JJJ in personality. Especially considering you actually did fulfill the role of a bodyguard: None of the dogs actually attacked Cameo (whacking Flashpoint instead).

Bronymous wrote:-On the boat, my attempts at cunning manipulation of the two interrogation subjects were overlooked and circumvented, so from anyone else's point of view, it looked like the heroic firefighter pony was trying to burn two drunk guys alive on their own boat.

Yeah, we didn't really get what you were trying to do, plus were distracted by cool shiny magic stuff. There was also some miscommunication as to where who or what was, on what boat, and how long it took us to do stuff before the drunkards woke up again. In hindsight, you burning the boat earlier and transferring the drunks might have accidentally destroyed the magical stuff on board. You still pulled it off in the end though.

The whole sneaky manipulation / property arson though... it seems a bit out of character for him (we get that he didn't try to burn the drunkards, he's no psycho). Is he a corrupt fire-fighter? The kind that performs/assists arson insurance fraud for fun and/or profit? Or is he generally a scoundrel/opportunist of some sort?

But you're not the only one who was overlooked. My attempts to go implicate the port-master were kinda ignored in favor of quackery (which I regret not joining in as well, as was trying to get the portmaster stuff done). Pretty fun quackery though! Hope I can get the duck off my megaphone removed though...

Zarhon wrote:The whole sneaky manipulation / property arson though... it seems a bit out of character for him (we get that he didn't try to burn the drunkards, he's no psycho). Is he a corrupt fire-fighter? The kind that performs/assists arson insurance fraud for fun and/or profit? Or is he generally a scoundrel/opportunist of some sort?

Opportunist, I guess. In every game I've played with him, his established character rarely survives first contact. In this situation, he saw the objective of the group- interrogation- and recognized a means to better accomplish that goal, utilizing his own knowledge and potentially professional status to achieve it:

The drunks were drunk, get them to pass out, and then we light the boat. If they've blacked out, then they won't know what happened when they wake up. We then explain to them that we came across their boat which had caught fire, pulled them off of it, put out the fire as best we could, lecture them on safety regarding alcohol, fire and boating (of which I can claim to be at least a plausible authority), and then would be in a better position to extract information, either overtly, or under the guise of concerned Samaritans trying to help out.

But then they found the hats, and that plan was shot. Under normal, everyday circumstances, his actions would have been more in character and predictable. But these aren't normal, everyday circumstances for him, so exceptions will occur.

Water breathing Hats!
Which are best hats.

Sir Dapper Soliloquy, Gentlecolt Adventurer, has not been doing much of note, but is still the posessor of a Golden Hat O' Waterbreathing(tm).
Sadly no image of a duck on it.
Will certainly attempt to be fixing that.
By the way, has anyone been keeping track of my forced no's? By my count, I have a single use left, so I can't ask any questions if we still want to implicate the port master.

Bronymous wrote:
"Hey, diamond dogs, is that part of the play?" BANG "MY EYES!"
"Hey you, just standing there come help!"
"OK" Whiff* whiff* whiff* whiff* whiff* "Or not"
"Hey, you're pretty good in a fight, come be our new bodyguard."
"..?"

I laughed at this.

Old King's News Session 3 is up!

This session's highlights include tesla coils, Scooby Doo mansions, furniture theft, whining, wine romance, cheesy "attacks", terrible first aid, the terrible consequences of ducks, wizards with bathroom emergencies, defenestration, de-immolation, shopping and a beach party!

Old King's News Session 3: Explosive whining

And spleen-stabbings.
Mustn't forget those.

Severely belated summary:

Much of the campaign was spent inside the portmaster's mansion.

A few magical traps were handily dispatched, though it was slow going.

A monumentally awkward boss battle was had against the 'Wine Slime'
The party made it out with 3 members knocked out and 2 at 1 hp. (largely due to the Champagne slimes final attack)
The profit of the escapade was a strange ledger (that they had to leave behind), a silver book similar to the gold one from the boat, and a very nice bottle of wine handily snagged by Dapper.

The ducks were able to carry home the unconscious allies from the manor, but exacted a duck based penalty from them.
-One of Cameo's horns is now a duck head&neck.
-The cart the group has been traveling with is now a duck.
-Fust's waterbreathing hat is now duck shaped.
-Flashpoint got off relatively scot-free.

After the fact, the party tried to tie up some loose ends around town.
The bottle of wine was exchanged for 5555 bits and two waterbreathing hats.
The curse on Silver Tongue's sword was negated (via being stabbed with it, and having the curse absorbed by his spleen.)

The party is now considering whether to go south to the Roulette Raven casino, or north to investigate the beach.

Z2 wrote:-Flashpoint got off relatively scot-free.

No he didn't. Wait for it.

yay levelups!
The fun has been doubled!
(Was gonna wait for level 5 and take longrunner now. But I couldn't.)
Also, I demand a tribute of 4 bits!
just to bring the total up to 2345

Another exciting session for team MMM! Here's the recording, as usual!

Old King's News Session 4: The d20s know where we live.

Highlights of this session include:

- Being meta at the start and going for "Roulette Raven" instead of the beach party.
- The dice attempt to murder us via incredibly crappy rolls, or repeated nat1 rolls. This continues for the rest of the session.
- The MMM team carriage is stuck on a bridge. Cameo attempts to fix it, and is assaulted by mildly unhappy fish from the river, losing exactly 30 hp and getting KO'd.
- Fust suffers 29 damage before lifting the wagon and Cameo to safety.
- Laughter is used, summoning beets. They then explode the bridge and create fish & beet salads.
- The party feasts on salads. Fust is turned sad by the fish and their unhappyness. Cameo & Silver feast on their misery, and gain a free reroll from the beets.
- Silver breaking a wind-chime in a store. She argues that the door did it.
- The dice prove they are out to murder us by causing a Silver's reroll of a nat1 to result in another nat1.
- Silver is thrown into a statue. The statue is blamed.
- Cameo gets sprayed by a stinkbomb and losing his sense of smell inside said store.
- Entering a barn.
- Examining a barn. Noting the quaint house/stall of a cow family.
- Silver attempting to jump Flashpoint's bones and having a roll in the roll in the hay.
- The above succeeding, discovering a pit under a bundle of hay and sparking a love-hate romance.
- The party ventures into a corridor, finding a light-sensitive trap and a trio of passages (left, middle, right).
- Cameo unwisely takes a picture of the bickering Flashpoint and Silver, triggering the trap by accident.
- Trap triggers gas and closes off the rooms: FP goes into the not-right passage, Fust in the not-left, the rest in the middle one.
- Cameo tries to block the door with an immovable object but fails, getting trapped.
- Cameo quickly constructs a coffee-powered drill-mobile machine to annihilate the door instead, reuniting with the others. They all hitch a ride on the drill-mobile.
- Drill-mobile proceeds to drill into a pair of guards too stupid to run away, resulting in gruesome custard-smelling gore. Luckily, they appear to be only custard golems.
- Drill eventually explodes, which bypasses a few traps.
- Meanwhile, Fust deals with what is best described as a "bad trip" before solving a puzzle and escaping.
- Flashpoint ignores a statue puzzle and almost gets electrocuted. Later, he solves it in time to avoid getting gassed too much.
- He then enters a Dark Forest. After a hassle, he bypasses the challenge with destruction.
- The group reconvenes. Silver attempts to jump Flashpoint, but he steps out of the way.
- The group proceeds up a to a (literal) secret room and locates the final, copper book!
- The books turn out to be massive trolls, but provide the party with powerful boons (+2 attribute, a choice of a flaw, +5 talent specialization points)
- Silver convinces the party (and Flashpoint) that they are romantically involved. Foreveeeeer.
- Things get weird as the element of laughter is used (double laughter+everyone got their own rolls due to the result of a 69 roll): Muffins start falling from the sky and disappearing. Cameo becomes telepathic. The party suddenly finds itself unable to think rational thoughts. Everyone trades 1000 bits for +1 knowledge.
- Silver touches a muffin and vanishes into what can only be described as a good/bad duck trip.

But the most important thing is that Flashpoint is irresistible (he has a little black book now), and Silver is best molester/stalker.

I would really like some utilities that allow me to use the anywhere for item retrieval or travel now......
^^

Session 5 is up! Enjoy your links!

Old King's News Session 5: Magic MAAAAAAN-otaur

Session summary!

- Still in secret room. Cameo makes a party, while Pinkie Pie pulls Silver back from her dimension trip to let her join us.
- Four statues in room: One of fire, a snowflake, a lightning bolt, and pork pie.
- By sheer luck/skill, we choose precisely the skills/rolls we need to fulfill each one, bypassing what would have been a moon logic puzzle. Including street-smarts on the pork pie.
- We take off each of the statues heads, when SUDDENLY, COMBAT!
- We're assaulted by a casino gambler and his bodyguards.
- Bodyguards call in more bodyguards, everyone is hurt from previous events, meaning we are in a bad position.
- Everyone uses taunting strike to hurt everything, causing every enemy to attack Silver. Cameo reluctantly heals her.
- The casino gambler chants the numa numa song, but is interrupted quickly. He gets off one powerful attack that steals a lot of pips from everyone.
- Things seem grim as another bodyguard is summoned and Silver is knocked out, but the gambler is knocked out and the fight ends early.
- They all try to run. Steve Spielbird, the gambler, gets away with a bodyguard. The others try to kidnap Silver.
- Most of them are tackled down. Cameo tries to use immovable and witchcraft to stop a bodyguard. He gets a crit, and turns it into a cutie crit with his racial. Result: Bodyguard is paralyzed and his body shuts down as he dies horribly. Attempts to dispel the effect fail. Whoops.
- Fust brutally beats one of the bodyguards to death. On purpose.
- Silver is revived via Cameo's use of duck-horn, as opposed to coffee.
- The party finds itself in a kitchen. Heal checks are attempted on the bodyguard to revive him. Luckily, a critical heal check from Dapper, followed by another racial-induced cutie crit revives the pony with no lsting injuries (leaving him with horrifying mental trauma instead). Go team!
- Interrogations (which involve bringing the guard to tears by Silver and keeping Cameo away) lead to revelations of Steve being a big-shot gambler who acts like he owns the place, with exclusive access to the third level of the casino. The bodyguard (Dave Dupe-Doveny) doesn't know much else. He drinks down a bottle of vodka (provided by Dapper) and passes out.
- The party feasts within the kitchen restoring health from the supplies within. Fust eats the corpse of the bodyguard he brutalized.
- A glint of light resembling a camera is spotted. After some tinkering, it turns out to be a laser gun instead, and is abandoned after it damages a hat.
- The casino proper is entered. Cameo and Flashpoint get the urge to gamble, but FP is stopped by Silver's seductive ways. Cameo loses money, then is punched twice to stop, breaking his good horn a bit.
- The roulette raven card is utilized to enter the upper floors. An uninteresting roulette wheel is seen, as well as vending machines containing various stuff, among them, another book. The machines accept the card.
- Card is used to buy the book (it works like a credit card). The book then play another trolling tune, before granting everypony a spell of unknown use.
- The spell is used on a wooden duck. After five minutes of preparation time... A cliffhanger ending ensues!

Flashpoint continues his campaign for office of Best Background Pony, and shows a strong affinity for Harmony by doing nothing except what the rest of the party says. And he beats the living shit out of Jeff.

Bronymous wrote:Shows a strong affinity for Harmony by doing nothing except what the rest of the party says. And he beats the living shit out of Jeff.

I'm fairly certain beating the living shit out of Jeff is an act of harmony. Just like Fust's "technically it's not cannibalism" corpse meal.

After a few hiccups with our sessions, we finally have a new one!

Session 6: High rollers & out with a bang!

Session summary:
- Dapper vanishes to duck dimension, on account of the cliffhanger spell (absent for session).
- Fust, back in the roulette room (which has a giant roulette wheel as part of it), sits into it to be spun around by the others.
- A security system triggers, summoning a robot gambling machine golem.
- Cameo creates a distraction: An illusion of the seapony version of Danny Ocean (Derpy Ocean), which distracts the robot.
- They retreat into the vending machine room. Three guards go up stairs to them. As plans are being discussed, the guards overhear them and get angry.
- Flashpoint and Silver go into a conversation so utterly rancid, it paralyzes Cameo and the guards. Cameo snaps out of it quickly, though.
- Cameo leaves behind a immovable, scalding hot barricade of coffee for the guards to go through.
- Silver goes back to roulette room, finds the golem in a sad state, due to being unable to do its job (killing intruders) due to inability to leave room, despite the ultra-important thingy in the room above it.
- Silver offers to have cameo make it mobile if it leads them to it, but this quickly falls apart due to it not trusting wheels.
- Fust smashes through ceiling, somehow, makes a ruckus of room above, which contains the golem's control sections.
- Cameo and FP are knocked into room by guards, along with themselves.
- Guards are thrown into roulette table, which is then spun. Much damage is done to the wheel on a critical failure, whilst the golem suffers damage from Fust falling on it. Combat starts.
- Silver succeeds in doing three d8 specials in a single turn (each doing d8 damage), dealing over 30 damage.
- Golem gives off money on explosion, reveals staircase going up.
- Room above has a slime mural, a pixellated chest (painted) containing dirty underwear (which Flash Point's expertise reveals as being male), and a blue key, floating above a pedestal.
- Pedestal is knocked down to no effect. Cameo figures out key is magnetically linked to the whole building's magic/magnet field.
- Cameo holds the field in place (witchcraft) whilst fust places a empty glass bottle in its place, making the building smell of booze.
- The exit vanishes, forcing the party to leave via windows, by means of a rope with banners.
- FP flies out and sets fire to the rope. Cameo makes it immovable and lets the flames die out before traversing it.
- Fust melts the smile mural into soft goo with his caustic booze, then destroys the wall and jumps through. His landing is coushioned by the goo.
- Silver jumps, and grabs a hold of FP's back legs with her front hooves, and bites onto his tail.
- Defecation, groin attacks, and other horrible tactics which would result in mutually assured destruction are considered between Silver and FP. Both eventually agree to let Silver climb "onto" FP, and she surfs him down to the surface.
- At the windmill, the party encounters a female deer, "Doe Quixote", who assaults the windmill.
- FP immediately engages in flirtation and avoids getting stabbed. Silver attempts the same, which reveals her preferred gender.
- FP tries again, with Silver as his "wing-pony". He goes to help the mentally-unstable Doe Quixote destroy the windmill to earn her affection.
- Fust returns from shopping, with a shield and weapon.
- Cameo enters the windmill and makes the gears immovable, causing them to threaten destruction from the building pressure.
- FP breaks off a windmill blade, then spins it to cause the inside gears to completely be destroyed.
- After Doe gets hurt by the windmill and is healed by him, FP gets a CMC: He conjures a thunderous, fiery tornado that annihilates the windmill, knocking off into the sky with a lens flare effect.
- He then seizes the moment to kiss Doe (with appropriate fireworks/SFX from Cameo), then proceeds to end his involvement in the session with a (curtain-concealed) bang.
- The rest of the party investigate the ruins, and find a (now broken) force-field around a yellow key, which Cameo takes.
- A villainous, evil baron is crushed by the windmill as it lands. Munchkins sing and dance in praise.

The Old King's News has as many as 4 spots open, let the new players flow forth!

Not even going to explain to everyone how that happened? I guess not. I mean, I got kicked and I don't even get a courtesy explanation as to why.

Z2 wrote:The Old King's News has as many as 4 spots open, let the new players flow forth!

To clarify fully: Due to an personal conflict and non-obvious resentment towards them that was not apparent until now, Silver (Hayate) and Flashpoint (Bronymous) have been kicked out of the campaign, whilst I (Cameo) have left voluntarily as a result of this.

Doc Pseudopolis (Fust) and Kaji (Doc Pseudopolis) weren't online when this occurred, but I'll make sure to contact them when they are. They have a right to make their own decisions.

Been nice playing with the group up till now, so this is quite a bummer.

Bronymous, you were in fact given a reason.

Zarhon, I am not sure what you would be telling them, but I will inform them of the actual events. I am glad you enjoyed it, and note that you are not REQUIRED to leave.

I would note that 'accepting new players' is not something that needs clarification.

I would like to take an extra moment to note that there is NO REASON for anypony to be reluctant to joining this campaign, or advertising their characters. The inexperienced are especially welcome, as this is a learning experience for all of us.

I actually wasn't. No warnings given, no explanation, and I have the transcript to prove it. And I would love to have it all out for everyone to see, but I know the rules and I'll let it end here.

But I was made privy to some information about why this happened like it did, and I'm using that to offer this caveat to anyone who joins: There is no reason NOT to expect similar treatment. Not saying it will happen, but it definitely could.