Sol 268
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 271
ARES III SOL 268
TRANSCRIPT – WATER TELEGRAPH EXCHANGE, ESA BALTIMARE and ESA SHIP AMICITAS
AMICITAS: Amicitas calling Baltimare, use suit FB for response, over.
ESA: Baltimare calling Amicitas, hello, Fireball, not used to your sending messages, over.
AMICITAS: Mark’s people have gone too far. They sent their universe’s version of Ogres and Oubliettes and ordered us to play it. Over.
ESA: That’s interesting. Why do they want you to play it, over?
AMICITAS: Restricted EVA to absolute minimum for trip to cave farm each day, plus cabin-fever issue. Mark’s people say this game helps with morale. Over.
ESA: Good idea! Sharing experiences is a good tool for building friendships! Over.
AMICITAS: Ugh. Can I talk to Chrysalis, please?
ESA: Suck it up and enjoy your nerd game, Fireball. And stop whining. It’s twice as annoying when you have to decode it, over.
AMICITAS: I appeal to the Dragonlord! Over.
ESA: Ember’s been joining Spike’s game once per month. Sorry, over.
AMICITAS: Please tell me you’re going to rescue us in the next twelve hours, over.
ESA: Not likely. Play nice! Baltimare out.
“So,” Mark said, “since there’s a version of D&D in your universe, who here has played?”
Cherry Berry wasn’t at all surprised when Starlight Glimmer raised her hoof. O&O was a geek hobby, and Starlight lived in Geek Castle Central.
But Spitfire’s hoof came up as well, and that did surprise her. “Huh?” she asked. “You played… um… D&D?”
Spitfire nodded to Cherry before turning to Mark. “Pony named Surprise is… is… master of game. I not play regular. Now and then. Commander does not… does not… get too close to ponies under her.”
“But you’ve played more than once,” Mark asked.
Spitfire nodded.
“Okay. For the rest of you, you’re all going to pretend to be characters in a fantasy realm full of swords and monsters and magic.”
“Oh,” Cherry Berry said, a little too brightly, “just like home.”
“Ignoring that,” Mark said. “NASA sent a lot of prefabricated- that is, already-made- characters for you to choose from. A balanced five-person party should include two fighting classes, a magic user, a healer, and a rogue. A class is sort of like a job. The characters are in the directory D&D slash characters slash prefab. Go ahead and look through them.”
A bit of key-tapping later, Cherry asked, ‘What does alignment mean?”
“Alignment means how a thing is pointed in relation to something else,” Mark said. “In this case, it means how the character’s morals are pointed in relation to both lawful versus chaotic and good versus evil.”
“Examples?”
“Hmmmm,” Mark thought. “Well, Boss Hogg and Roscoe P. Coltrane are lawful evil. They believe rules are important, but mainly because the rules help themselves. The Duke family are all chaotic good. They don’t have much use for other people’s rules, but they believe it’s important to do the right thing. Starsky and Hutch are lawful good, mostly, but Huggy Bear is true neutral. He’s out for himself, but believes doing the right thing is also important, and he both breaks the law and upholds it.”
“Huh. So who would be chaotic evil?”
“Hm… hard to say,” Mark said. “Some of the monsters Kolchak encounters? Chaotic evil characters didn’t get many recurring roles in seventies television.”
“I don’t get this,” Cherry said, tapping the screen in front of her with a hoof. “One part of alignment is choosing good or evil.”
“That’s right,” Mark said. “Or choosing to not choose. That’s what ‘neutral’ is for.”
“But the other part is choosing between following laws and not following laws,” Cherry said. “Isn’t following laws always good?”
“Not when the laws unfairly favor one person at the cost of others,” Mark said. “Or when the laws unintentionally have a bad result, like if a person goes to jail for five years because he stole food to eat.”
Cherry Berry shook her head. “You humans are strange,” she said. “You need more princesses. Their wisdom makes sure all the laws are good ones.”
“You wouldn’t say that,” Spitfire muttered in Equestrian, not quite under her breath, “if you spent some more time in Canterlot.”
Fireball looked at the screen, tapping his chin. “So,” he said at last, “what alignment is Letterman?”
Time passed.
“Grizzly Adams is not neutral good!” Cherry insisted. “He’s chaotic good! He moved to the mountains to escape laws!”
“But he’s a druid!” Starlight Glimmer insisted. “Druids have to be some kind of neutral! That’s a rule in our game back home, anyway, and I’m sure it’s the same here!”
“So make him chaotic neutral! It’s not like he goes out of his way to rescue people!”
More time passed.
“Fred Sanford is not evil! He’s greedy, but there has to be something more to being evil than wanting money! And he tries to take care of his son!”
“Speaking of Lamont,” Spitfire said, “is there ‘lawful stupid’ alignment?”
Mark chuckled. “Some people have a theory about that…”
Much more time passed.
“Cletus Hogg?”
“Evil stupid.”
“Danny Partridge?”
“Chaotic stupid.”
“Richie Cunningham?”
“Lawful stupid.”
“Mr. Furley?”
“True stupid,” all agreed.
They never got around to playing that night.
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Feeling real early
You call this crap? This is gold!
Hmm...
Cherry Berry: Chaotic Neutral
Starlight Glimmer: Neutral Good
Spitfire: Lawful Good
Fireball: Chaotic Neutral
Dragonfly: True Neutral (?)
Mark Whatney: Chaotic Good
...
Mars: Evil Stupid
I eagerly await for Starlight to "correct" the manual on "misconceptions" about magical creatures and magic itself.
And Fireball's reaction to Dragons in general.
Every time you make a comment denigrating your work or calling it filler, it's always one of the best chapters in the story.
If someone would have said Fonzie is lawful stupid... They deserve to die via air leak
8973021
Considering the shenanigans that they get up to, I must insist that all ponies are chaotic. No exceptions.
Ember joins Spike, Big Mac, and Discord?
8973023 "Houston, we've got a transmission queued for you. Starlight has some 'corrections' to your material, and a few dozen suggested additions to the Monster Manual. Don't look at #14 on a full stomach."
Hon, we tried that. Way too often. It didn't end well, partly because our good leaders had that annoying tendency to drop dead every few decades.
4e base only has lawful good, good, neutral, evil, and chaotic evil. I'm assuming this is a heavily errata'd version from the future?
That said, loving this. Particularly interested in how they view the arcane/divine divide and the divine powersource in general.
8973031
I’m pretty sure his alignment is Fonz.
“You seem a bit disappointed,” remarked Cherry to Starlight as the crew’s first session of actually playing D&D wrapped up. “Didn’t care for Mark’s adventure?”
“No… It’s just…” Starlight took a moment to organize her thoughts. “After you’ve sat in on a few sessions of Ogres & Oubliettes with Discord, you start to expect a certain level of immersion…” She gestured at the whiteboards and laptops that served in lieu of the more traditional pencils and paper and shook her head in an equine shrug.
=====
Having Discord help with the visual aids and ambiance tends to raise expectations for your gaming experience.
The Partridge Family *shudder*
8973023
I imagine he'll like them well enough. In general, D&D dragons are powerful creatures with a similar greed to Equestrian dragons ,and are capable of many great feats, both good and evil.
8973049
Clearly they weren't real Princesses if they were dropping dead after a few decades.
8973035
Alas, alignment is not defined by circumstance, but by intent. Causing chaos doesn't make one chaotic...or at least, not necessarily.
8973021
I argue that Mars is probably Lawful Evil: It must be beholden to physics (even magical physics—thank you, ponies), but it also clearly wants them all dead.
And Arty-Gee, by Dragonfly's reaction, can only be Neutral Evil.
8973037
To be fair, the game becomes a lot more attractive when it's a Chaos Spirit fueled LARP instead of just pen and paper.
8973100
The RTG would be True Neutral, I think. It doesn't want them dead, it is simply death incarnate.
As for Mars...thinking on it, I might actually call Mars the GM. An adversarial GM, true, but it has all the maps, and it's clearly fudging the dice...
Do swords have any popularity among ponies?
8973021
how would you judge Chrysalis?
Alignment chart. (which i found by sheer luck the way the achieves work)
http://www.rhjunior.com/goblin-hollow-0058/
that said, yeah a lot of TV charaters fall under the Stupid alignment. Some more then others, depends on writer and how Aesop heavy the show is.
Doug for example is Neutral Stupid.
8973035
Miss Harshwinny is clearly Lawful.
8973021
I have a slightly different take:
Cherry Berry: Neutral Overwhelmed
Starlight Glimmer: Chaotic Trying-To-Be-Good
Spitfire: Lawful Grumpy
Fireball: Lithovorous Good
Dragonfly: Lawful Trying-Not-To-Act-Too-Evil
Mark Whatney: Lawful Good-At-Surviving
8973166
I'd probabyl call CSP Chrysalis Chaotic Evil.
She's a dictator, which would pull her a bit towards the lawful side, but her authoritarian stance is driven more by narcissism than any broader belief structure. She also has no respect for honor or fairness, which kind of excludes her from the lawful-side. Depending on what happens in the later chapters of CSP, she might shift towards Neutral Evil.
8973172
In THIS world I'd call her True Neutral. Chris pointed out earlier that she doesn't respect laws, she respects HER laws and laws that benefit her. For the show I'd put her at Neutral Evil, since she is clearly malevolent with no particular affinity to order or chaos, just what benefits her.
What I find funny is that a lot of lawful types don't understand, or know the laws themselves.
The Chaotic tend to learn the laws of the land ahead of time so they know what to break.
Most City Officials are trained to act lawful Evil.
Dragons tend toward Neutral Greedy (evil tendencies?)
Changelings should be considered Lawful neutral. They have a deep respect for rules, so they know how, and when to break them.
8973039
What is #14?
8973212
People tend to take the 'law' in 'lawful' a bit too literally at times.
In reality, the alignment for 'Lawful' is more about Order.
Darth Vader, for example, is pretty much Lawful Evil.
"Together, we can END this destructive conflict, and bring ORDER to the GALAXY!"
The nature of it, I 'd put Chrysalis more towards a Neutral Evil in CSP, trending towards Lawful Neutral as time progresses. Her classical early depiction as a would-be selfish, conquering dictator makes her very clearly Evil at first. And her whimsy crossed frequently with her scheming.
But as CSP progresses, she's shifted more towards Order, or Lawful. Because being orderly and organized keeps changelings from having Bad Days in giant cans of kaboom.
And I say she's sliding towards Neutral in the 'good/evil' part because while she is still a Tyrant Queen, her goals look to be subtly changing away from purely evil intent. Even if she tells herself 'I'm doing this for the POWER', she's working hard and getting rewarded with prestige and respect in ways she never got before.
That was hilarious. XD I think we readers needed this silly catharsis as much as the characters; I was starting to get empathetically depressed for them, so it's a great writing tactic to give the characters, and by relations, us readers, a break like this. Nicely done! And I cracked up several times reading this.
8973049
Yeah. That tends to happen with the American presidents. They get an actual good one, and they end up assassinated. While the dick ones somehow get through their whole term and sometimes their second.
8973049
The sad truth is, good laws can hurt innocent people too even when is not the intend. It is impossible to legislate for everyone and every single circunstance.
8973302
I think they were referring to normal human lifespans, rather than the thousand plus year rule of Sunbutt. Also, super harsh burn on Canterlot unicorn nobility Spitfire.
8973035
Chancellor Neighsay is another Lawful pony.
other games they could play with text or board games? like say candy land
8973051
Alright, since no one else has responded...
4e is actually the edition in which about half the alignment chart was cut out, in the name of making the game more accessible to new players. The preceding editions (from the OG to 3.5 and arguably also Pathfinder) all used the same 2-axis grid for character alignment, traditionally with Lawful/Chaotic running the X-axis, and Good/Evil on the Y-axis. Depending on your interpretation of the edition/rules, this could be either a sliding scale or a 3x3 grid of options (the later of which has been a meme for ages).
Honestly, Know Your Meme and/or any RPG wiki are your best sources for this stuff.
I usually play Chaotic Stupid
I have no idea whats going on.
.
Taking all day to create charcters? Didnt they only put 6 hours for teh slot and theres 5 plus players?
Theyre going to be making characters up all week.
And then Starlight will have learnt the rules and want to start helping out in Munchkin land.
As long as 14 isnt a codename for 683? (That Damned Lizert) They should be ok?
8973400
My favorite take was actually from d20 modern- you had three ranked slots for "allegiances". So you might have two paladinoid good guys, one with law, their order, good, and the other with good, law, their country arguing over a course of action.
Also had the best money system.
8973166 10/10 would bug again.
8973051 My only experiences with D&D4 are Friendship is Dragons and a ton of gamers whining about "they turned D&D into MMO crap!" at conventions.
From all reviews, though. D&D4 is a stripped-down, easier-to-learn version than any of the other incarnations. Hasbro weren't being just plain dicks when they sent this version; someone made the deliberate decision to send the easy thing here...
... with a few edits to fix the "features" that made the fans whine loudest twenty-five years before.
8973333 I think there might be a rule somewhere that says male Lawful Evil characters must wear a tiny black goatee.
8973405 It's worse than that. They spent all day just talking about alignments and bad TV.
8973509
It's always fun to keep in mind they've been watching bad TV all the time. I know your dirty little secret; your goal with this thing was to make a pony version of Mystery Science Theater 3000, with them making cracks whenever they watch anything.
Hmm... Glimglam is totally lawful evil.
Chryssie is chaotic snarky.
You're not a true playgroup until you've had at least one argument about the alignments of fictional characters. Also, now I want to sit in on one of Surprise's sessions, to say nothing of getting a look at Ember's character sheet. And maybe homebrew a "paladin of wisdom" with smite stupid.
8973231 Urlocks. TPK monster, like a bulette, only worse.
8973590
*shudders
8973516 It's shame no one sent them some of the classics: "The Bob Newhart Show", "Taxi", "The Odd Couple", "Bosom Buddies"... and of course, "Small Wonder".
8973509
8973023
8973037
I'd love it if Twilight told Ember or Shining Armor* that humans have their own version of O&O, prompting academics to write papers** about "convergent cultural development" like how in "Babylon Five" every spacefaring race has a food identical to Swedish meatballs.
Link: http://babylon5.wikia.com/wiki/Swedish_meatballs
*I assume Twilight and Chrysalis are keeping Equestria's leaders up to date with Amicitas news, although I don't remember if they informed the general public or not.
**I'd like to see what various non-Mars ponies think of mankind. It can be amusing when an outsider tries to analyze another culture/species without any context, often leaping to the wrong conclusion due to their own biases and social preconceptions.