1682376

Totally agree. The adventures that the mane 6 go on--and survive--are right out of any RPG, for a large part. I've liked how, as the show has progressed, there's been more of a trend towards realism (well, as realistic as one can get in a magical ponyverse). Each pony has her own abilities, which might help the party . . . or might really cause issues.

1682468

Yeah, but so's the Tychonic. Fits perfectly with observations of the time . . . as long as you don't understand Gravity.

It does make one think, though . . . how many of our great scientific observations will be looked upon by future generations who shake their heads and wonder at how convoluted our explanation for the physical world was, because we'd failed to recognize a vital particle/force/element/whatever.

1682362>>1682449
Definitely - It's a fairy tale world, which means directly perceived mental objects are primary, and accurately represent the world. Which is a fancy way of saying things really are, at base, what your human-scale intuition suggests.
Here's an Equestria I drew along those lines, taking the slightly modified flat shape from a 19th century creationist poster:

The moon is down there in storage while it's daytime.

1682469
Yeah, for sure. I was going to mention that earlier in this topic, that the Mane 6 have had enough world-saving adventures that they're essentially a leveled-up RPG party, which is always the elite of the elite, and that's what I immediately thought during that hoof-fight against the changeling army, especially when Rarity threw a solid punch (not that she wasn't willing to fight dragons before...). Dude, they've saved the world twice. Of course they're strong.

1682021
Doesn't bother me if you show him what we talked about.

1682514

That drawing is fantastic.

I really need to write a flat-Equestria fic.

they're essentially a leveled-up RPG party, which is always the elite of the elite, and that's what I immediately thought during that hoof-fight against the changeling army, especially when Rarity threw a solid punch (not that she wasn't willing to fight dragons before...)

Yeah . . . Rarity's a badass: first response to the manticore? Boot hoof to the head. Diamond dogs? Take all their gems and walk out pulling six wagons. And don't get me started about Fluttershy out-staring a cockatrice while tuning to stone. I wish my Pathfinder monk was half the man any of the mane 6 are.

1682568

Haven't collated our discussions yet . . . should put that on my to-do list. Could put a link off my blog. Maybe I'll get to that next week; I have time off.

Dunno if you saw my latest blog post; gonna get me a Clydesdale stallion and re-do the experiment with my brushable Shining Armor.

1682568>>1682581
Thanks.

1682030
The original 1993 sci-fi horror-themed "shoot-em-up" MS-DOS game Doom—arguably the father of the modern first-person shooter game—was the initial first-person shooter game to display "telefragging", a necessity to prevent monsters and players from getting stuck inside of each other. However, this concept was first displayed in the 1985 heroic fantasy-themed "hack-n-slash" dungeon crawler arcade game Gauntlet—which is arguably one of the fathers of the modern dungeon crawler game.

USELESS FACT—In the original Doom engine, "actors" (players, monsters, obstacles, certain decorations, and projectiles) did not have a fully-defined height value, and thus were normally considered infinitely tall. A player could stand on a ledge of height 640, and an actor just in front of him/her on a floor of height 0 would completely block the player from moving forward—and in the case of monsters, would be able to successfully perform melee attack on the player.

Video games sure have come a long way since then, haven't they?

1682641
I never played Doom when I was a lad but I sure as shit remember Dark Forces.
...Dang, LucasArts, you really had a good thing going for a while. Sam & Max comics were actually something of an influence on me... I was just thinking about "The Dig" the other day, too...

And that fact's not useless at all - It situates modern games in a continuum, instead of their being a given, and primes you to find their "infinitely tall monsters," helping to enrich your appreciation of the medium on the level of its programming structure, or on the simple High Modernist level of revealing the choices made in creating the work.

1682630

Got a gDoc made with Permanent Temporary's approval. Going to go through and clean it up (since it was about 30 e-mails back and forth, picking and choosing topics kind of at random and going back and forth, and all of that). Will probably blog it at some point, and I'll be sure you get the link when I do.

EDIT: also PM'ed Humanist to see if he's cool with sharing our discussion about the Equestrian night sky. He probably will be, but one never knows. . . .

1682859
Thank you.

1682030>>1682105
Joined the group just because I wanted to participate in this thread.

Depending on the nature of the teleportation, it could just as easily be the ropes that get displaced and destroyed.

Of course, teleporting into, say, a solid mass of rock would probably still be really bad for them (no air).
Also, unicorns can telefrag others? Frightening.

1681656
I started pulling shit like this in a DnD game once. The rulebook restrictions for the various spells and artifacts that I was using weren't enough for more traditional conflicts/obstacles (Oh no, I'm trapped in an alley with a goblin bearing down on me. I'll just use my armor of breaching to teleport through this wall behind me. Oh no, I'm trapped with my back against a thick castle wall that is too thick to teleport through as four high-level undead bear down on me. I'll just use my magic boots to run up the wall. Then I'll make a magic bridge, run out until I'm over said undead, and dump this block of marble I've been carrying around in my Bag of Holding on the leader's head. Oh no, stuck out in the open as I'm getting charged by Owlbears... better use my gloves to make a hedge wall, and then use my Artificer powers to use them AGAIN. Hmm, I bet I could make a rift bomb with this bag of holding, portable hole, and these various parts I picked up from a clockmaker. Hmm, I wonder what happens if I create a statue of myself, animate it, then stone-to-flesh it?). DM had to start getting more creative and/or make use of Rule 0.

Something to remember: When dealing with magic systems like MLP or Harry Potter where much is left open as to the limitations of said magic system... it is a good idea to look at what the characters in the story have actually done with it. That is, if you hear about how the spells work and you think "why didn't they just do this and effortlessly beat every obstacle and/or outright ascend to godhood?", chances are there are unstated limitations to said magic. Well, either that or every character in the history of that setting was incredibly incompetent.
A sidenote: I see this a lot when people discuss the Harry Potter system, especially when a potential war between wizards and muggles is brought up. I see people go "well, wizards can just use *insert spell here* in this way in order to win instantly", nevermind that no wizard in the setting so far has ever used that that spell to that effect, and the wizards AREN'T shown to be COMPLETELY incompetent with their magic (and if they WERE, why would they suddenly become competent in the event of a war with muggles if they never were before?).
Basically, be careful when "filling in the blanks" of a magic system. Even if no restrictions for a particular spell are stated in-show that doesn't mean they exist. Actually, if the basic capabilities and restrictions of a spell ARE stated but we do NOT see characters (especially characters who have been known to be skilled with magic and creative in its uses) using it in gamebreaking ways then it can reasonably be assumed that there are unspoken restrictions to said spell (or magic system in general).

Also, recently gave Admiral Biscuit permission to post some of our discussions. There are likely still flaws with it, so I expect you people to call us out on them.

1685498

Funny you should mention that: have you read Whip and Wing, a Daring Do/Indiana Jones crossover?

EDIT: lol it didn't put in the quote about getting stuck in rock.

1685498>>1685575
On the subject of the limits of their magic system. When Shining Armor uses his shield we see that light can get through it. Does that mean that other forms of radiation could also penetrate it, like the after affects of a nuclear blast? It is kind of a funny purple color, possibly indicating some sort of filtering effect.

1692065

Well, I went with Asimov's explanation in The Billiard Ball: it's air molecules striking the energy field. It's one of the few magical effects (possibly the only one) not changed by the pony's casting color: Twilight, Shining, and Trixie all make pretty much identical spheres and hemispheres. Cadance's protection spell may have been different: it could have been a blue hemisphere that matched her aura, or it might have been a different type of spell entirely.

If it's totally impervious, it's kind of useless (at least in the long term), since eventually everypony inside would die when the oxygen ran out or the carbon dioxide levels got too high. We know light can get through it.

The most practical type would be impervious to magic alone--whether innate or a cast spell. I'd assume that most creatures in Equestria have some sort of connection to the magical fields (birds can land on clouds, cockatrices and timber wolves are essentially magical beings).

However, it would probably be wise to put a certain force limitation on the spell, as well, so that pegasi couldn't just fly above it and drop rocks. Maybe the spell normally comes with Achilles air vents and exhausts? It can apparently be damaged by repeated impacts, although the falling fragments don't appear to be lethal. It's also strong enough to cut off a unicorn's horn (again, Cadance's protection spell might have different properties). The (presumably) hemisphere form can be bypassed--to some extent--underground (however, in both those examples, the pony holding the shield was fatigued).

1695941
Lets say that a nuclear bomb goes of near the shield. Ignoring the blast wave, heat, any sort of undermining caused by the blast, etc. would the shield also protect against radiation?

That could make an interesting story. Shining Armor seems to have protected Canterlot from the humans and their terrifying weapons, yet ponies have begun to sicken and die from no know cause. I don't know where you would take it from there.

1696431

Personally, I don't think the shield would hold. If a gang of changelings can shoulder-check it enough times to break it, it would have no hope against a nuke.

If it did, though--maybe the nuke was farther away, or it was a really small dirty bomb--they'd probably assume that some kind of horrible spell or curse had somehow gotten through. They're probably not familiar with radiation sickness.

Of course, ponies could be immune to radiation, too. That would be an interesting premise to take.

1697025
It was intended as more of a thought experiment. Something similar is going to happen in my story, if I ever get around to writing that part.

1697368

I think you could play it however you wanted to. In Battlefield Earth (the book, not the crappy movie), the Psychlo's force-shields were strong enough that the nukes exploding within cracked the crust instead, and then the radiation ignited their atmosphere (if I'm remembering correctly). Since we know sunlight (and presumably air) can get into and out of the bubble, it's plausible that gamma rays and radiation can as well (if it's a close strike, wouldn't the gamma rays kill anyone who was exposed before the radiation had a chance to?). In superhero movies, there's a trend for such bubbles to protect from explosions (The Incredibles comes to mind).

1698600
The plan is more death by unknown disease they seem to contract when working with certain human devices.