• Member Since 27th Apr, 2013
  • offline last seen Yesterday

Prak


Writer. Editor. Reader. Reviewer. Gamer. Armchair mafia kingpin. Trans-dimensional yodeler. Cthulhu's unplanned 667th son. Grand High Muckymuck of the Mystic Order of the Defanged Gerbil.

T
Source

Equestria stands on the brink of ruin. A necromancer has raised an army of the dead and is poised to plunge the world into darkness. Monsters and brigands roam freely across the land, preying upon the innocent.

Only one hope remains. Armed with swords, spells, snacks, and a bag of dice, five heroes band together to defeat the forces of evil… if their rolls are good enough.

Welcome to gaming night in Ponyville.

Dramatic reading by Goombasa.

Cover image by Elosande used with permission.

Chapters (5)
Comments ( 677 )

A very nice, quick read. The humor was solid, and I found myself laughing on more than one occasion. I saw two instances of repeated words in back-to-back sentences, but nothing serious. The only thing I found wanting was the pacing. It felt a tad fast and off-kilter. We never really got a pay-off for the Bard's lute-playing, and Pinkie's sorceress didn't really get to shine.

Oh, and it's always refreshing to find a writer with a solid sense of grammar. Good job, Mr. Mook. I look forward to reading more of your work.

3413371
Thanks for the feedback. I normally do a lot more editing than I did this time, so it isn't a surprise that some repeating words could have slipped through. I'll go through and do some edits later, but if you could send me a PM pointing out exactly where that happened, I'd appreciate it.

And there were the obligatory half-rotted corpses laying around the room, of course.

Those are important. Imperative, in fact.

‘Whap’ and ‘Pow’ and ‘Zowie’ until we beat them all. Oh wait, we don’t have any batponies in the party.

I lost it, :rainbowlaugh:

:rainbowlaugh: I laughed, I cried, I learned how to love again. :trollestia:
tinyurl.com/mbho6go

This, this I like. I wish to see more, and I will favorite to ensure so.

3413371
I just figured the bard was using bard song for a party buff of some sort. +1 to attack rolls or somesuch. Not something that we would see on our end, though if I am right might I suggest that to Mook that it be added that the bards song raised the party's spirits or similar. Though yeah, the sorcerer didn't get to do near enough bending of reality to her whims(i see why Pinkie is the sorcerer.)

Ha! Dash is terrible at D&D or whatever the equestrian equivalent is called.

3413488

Regardless of what we assume, it isn't mentioned at all in the text. In fact, he makes a point of pointing out how much not-fighting she does, and it has no real pay-off beyond a weak-as-water rebuke by the villain in the final scene.

So is Rainbow/Daring going to be one of those accident prone characters who keeps getting killed and coming back to life just to die all over again? Because that would be pretty cool.

That moment when you have the exact same dice as are in the story cover image O.O

Rule number one of GMing. The rolls are only as good as you want them to be. MUHAHHAHAAHA!
Rule number two: If what the player proposes sounds crazy/stupid/fun, what the hell, let them try it.

This was awesome!:pinkiehappy: Big ol' fave and like from me.

3413454
Of course. Any room in a dungeon which is of sufficient size to host a battle must do so. And if the room is a torture chamber, it must be undead.

3413459
I hoped someone was gonna get that one.

3413478
I'll consider continuing it if I'm so inspired.

3413488
You're right about that. I really should have given Pinkie more to do. The lack of bard activity was mostly a subtle commentary on how useless they tend to be unless played by an absolute master. Alas, the lack of a payoff is an issue, in retrospect. Perhaps I'll fix it in a revision.

3413638
I was drawn to them because I have that set also.

3413676
Gotta be careful with that concept. I've let my group go too far before, which culminated in one of my end-game bosses being eaten by the party's mascot. Long and hilarious story. Maybe I'll tell it someday.

3413694
Thanks for that.

3413476
Wow. Didn't even have to ask this time. Thanks, amigo.

It has been way too long since I've sat down and played a tabletop RPG.:raritydespair:

That aside great story, definitely adding this to my favorites.

3413770

Mostly my group did epic things or got themselves maimed/killed. There wasn't an inbetween.

3413772
Thanks. If you're interested in discussing tabletop games and/or helping organize an online group, you should consider joining the Tabletop Gaming group.

3413781
I know that feeling. My group tend to be geniuses most of the time, but when they screw up, it's cataclysmic.

3413770
it comes with being an admin; I see something I like, I add it to Twilight's Library. But if it doesn't get noticed by someone like me right away, that's what the submission process is for. :twilightsmile:

ten ill-fated Daring Dos later

Good lord, Rainbow Dash goes through characters faster than the people at my D&D group. I thought going through three characters was a lot but jesus...

Oh your fic? I liked it. Very good. :twilightsheepish: /10

Continuation man you just gotta

3414504
That's why writing/reading about cartoon characters is so much fun. You can exaggerate past the bounds of what reality would allow. I've personally only seen someone die twice in a single session.

3414580
I figure I will add in new stories from time to time, but the majority of my attention will be on There Goes the Neighborhood.

Damn it Rainbow, you keep failing your saving throws.

Ah the curse that is running in thoughtlessly, Dash would be dead that often. I had an Elven ranger never died doing that. I really didn't roll good HP, so I spent a lot of time unconscious.

Hey Mook, is it ok if I link a similar story in the comments? It's pretty much more of the same, it's just that Anon is involved as the DM instead.

3415669
Knock yourself out.

Alright. If you guys want to read a similar story, please check this bunch of one-shots out. They're pretty hilarious: http://pastebin.com/i3Bg2kiQ

God damn Dashie, I don't even know the basic rules and I know you either suck at this game, have the worst luck of all time, or most likely both.

This... Is... Wow. I can be that cruel to my players? :pinkiecrazy:

3415782
There's a player like that in just about every group; the one who thinks they can do everything all on their own and be the center of attention. The consequences may be a bit exaggerated here, but I always try to deter that behavior in my own games.

3415917
You can literally get away with (in-game) murder if everyone's still having fun. This isn't really a relevant example, but it's funny, so I'll tell it.

My group, as I've mentioned, are geniuses. They can find a way to do just about anything. When a new evil-centric game was started, the guy DM'ing took that into account and threw a spanner in the works by having one player be a virtually unkillable paladin. The evil characters had to give him the slip anytime they wanted to misbehave.

Eventually, they got tired of that and came up with a plan to turn the paladin evil. Using a convoluted combination of spells and artifacts, he was changed from Lawful Good to Neutral Evil and his paladin levels were converted to Blackguard. That gave them free reign to run amok... for a few minutes.

The blackguard promptly sold the entire party to a pit fiend. Game over. I don't think we've ever laughed quite so hard as we did that night.

Gods I love it! So much like my old group.

Also, because obvious reference is obvious.... "Hide behind the mound of dead rogues!"

3416659
Everyone should post a scene from that movie in their comments.

It might surprise you to hear that I didn't really reference that character directly. Dash's behavior was more closely based on some people I've actually gamed with. I blew it way out of proportion, of course, and I did have that movie in mind, so it obviously influenced me.

3416743

I think every group has a person like that in it. Back when we were still playing 2nd ed. we had a guy who just put Roman Numerals after his name and kept playing, until the DM kicked him out of the group.

The most recent guy in our group kept a stack of pre-rolled characters so he wouldn't have to keep delaying the game everytime he died. Our DM had to be very creative to keep introducing them in the middle of our questing.

Futtershy as the psychotic barbarian.... and Twily really rubbing it in Dash's face how often she died, I like

Very nice read, especially with the multiple zombie daring doos.

Poor Rainbow Dash XD

Also proposed next game for the group to play, SHADOWRUN!

Pfffftttt.

Why did I wait so long to read this?

This is bloody brilliant!

~Skeeter The Lurker

3419567
Shadowrun might happen eventually, but I'll have to reacquaint myself with it first.

3421183
Always happy to entertain. I already have some ideas formed for a follow-up, so keep an eye out for it in a couple weeks or so. It'll probably take me that long to finish the new update for There Goes the Neighborhood and touch up (possibly rewrite) its prologue.

I love it! That part at the end with Dash's past characters was perfect. Great humor and character portrayal. :pinkiehappy:

MORE! FLUTTERSHY DEMANDS IT! :flutterrage:

Still needs another chapter.

World of Warcraft or Star Wars: The Old Republic. Maybe EVE Online?

3466233
I'm sorry to disappoint you, but I won't be doing any updates based on video games. There's enough possibilities in the realm of tabletop gaming to keep this going a good while, and I think it makes for better stories because the interactions between players can be shown.

If I ever decide to do something similar for video games, I'll post it as a separate story.

Dear Celestia, Rainbow just can't win.

EDIT: Well, apparently I'm first. You know I really don't see why everybody always seems to get so worked up about it.

:rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh::rainbowlaugh:

Can't stop laughing! If Trixie hears about this, I picture her taking martial arts classes from Iron Will or someone like that.

Great story there! Loved seeing Rainbow's luck come when she hated it.

I've had that happen to me. Still, what kind of string of 20s did Rainbow get as Trixie to solo a Taurrasque?

3512958
In this case, it's more that she couldn't help but win. It's RD's usual MO, after all.

3512987
Probably a completely impossible string of twenties for Rainbow and a string of ones for the taurrusque. However, I figure the rule of funny trumps the laws of probability.

Glorious. Precisely the kind of luck I have playing... well, anything, really.

Another home run, Mook!

3512999
I'm just picturing after the third or fourth Nat 20, Dash just grabs a hoof-ful of dice and goes "Lowest one wins!"

All come up 20. Twice.

Awesome this chapter was!:pinkiehappy:

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