Fallout 4 came in an enormous box. It had cards, plastic tokens, glass tokens, wooden card holders, a map of the Commonwealth, figurines, dice, a spinner to determine hit location, and more. None of it was ever used per-se, since the enchantment on the game magically sucked the players into its fantastic fictional world, but the spell required the game to be set up first.
Twilight had purchased the game under the assumption that it was meant for four players, but upon opening it with three of her friends, discovered that it accommodated only one pony at a time. After a bit of back and forth, it was decided they’d play it one at a time. Rarity went first, then Twilight, then Rainbow Dash, then Pinkie Pie
After, they all had tea and cakes.
“Excellent game,” Twilight said, and they all agreed. “Normally I’m not into fantasy stories, but the world was so striking.”
“Indeed,” Rarity said. “The characters were so rich and developed. And their clothing! One can feel the attention paid to every detail.”
“Really? You played all that and you want to talk about the clothes?” Rainbow mouthed the words around three tea-cakes. “Did you not notice there’s a giant slingshot that shoots nuclear weapons? I was like, ‘this is awesome’ and the mutants were all ‘oh no!’”
“I liked the tunes!” Pinkie Pie bobbed her head from side to side. “Crawl out, through the fallout, pony!”
“Indeed. Tremendous all around.” Rarity smiled, dunking her cake ever so daintily into her teacup. “Though if I had to criticize it, I would have appreciated more variety in the factions. Oh, certainly, there were nominally four choices, but there was one that the player was clearly supposed to pick. I’d been hoping for something less one-sided. A true struggle of compelling ideologies in a desolate wasteland.”
“Agreed,” said Twilight. “Though, credit where it’s due, introducing the Institute as the antagonist faction only to let the player join them midway through the game was very creative. I really didn’t see that twist coming.”
Rarity paused, her teacup halfway to her lips. Rainbow and Pinkie Pie hesitated as well.
“You supported the Institute?” Rarity asked, ever so sweetly.
“Of course.” Twilight frowned, tilting her head to the side. “Who did you support?”
“The Sisterhood of Steel.”
“Hey!” Rainbow shot to her hooves. “Did you miss the part where those high-stepping fascists are going to round up all your synth friends and kill them? Huh?” With a buzz of her wings, she lifted off the floor. “Or do those ponies not deserve freedom? Railroad all the way.”
“I didn’t miss that,” Pinkie Pie snapped. “Did you miss the part where none of these factions have any right to rule the Commonwealth, and the Minutemares are the only group the common ponies asked to protect them? Three different flavors of invader is what you are!”
All four of them were on their hooves. All four were glaring. And at that exact moment, Spike entered the room, apron wrapped around his torso and a fresh tray of tea-cakes in hand.
“Uh…” He paused in the doorway. “What’s going—”
Then, Twilight summoned a shield between her and Rarity. Rarity kicked the table with the tea-cakes under Twilight’s shield, taking out her knees. As Rarity lunged for Twilight’s collapsing form, Rainbow delivered a swift kick to her exposed side. Moment later, Pinkie Pie grabbed her from behind, pulling them both down to the ground.
“Monster!”
“Facist!”
“Hippie!”
“Gutter trash!”
At some point, somepony broke a tray over somepony else’s head. There were lasers, kicking, biting, and somehow, a gun that shot trash.
“Ah,” Spike said. “Friendship problem. Right. Good luck with that.”
Slowly, he backed out of the room.