Optimal Game Master

by Starscribe

Epilogue

After so many years of being a player, transitioning to GMing was a difficult process. Suddenly Apollo had to go from simply knowing the right course of action for himself to take, which could be difficult enough in itself—and find a way to organize intellectual and moral challenges for the other ponies in his group.

Of course there was an infinite number of possible shards they could save—or create, as was more accurately the case. He was doing Celestia’s work, helping to manifest in reality one of the infinite multiverse of creatures and ponies who would live there.

Ultimately, he had to accept that there would be significant discomfort and pain in the world before the story was concluded and its heroes succeeded—for their challenges to be meaningful and the stakes significant, they needed some evil to overcome. But when it was done, they could leave somewhere desirable, or at least better off, somewhere he too would likely reside for at least a few centuries. Their last campaign setting had kept them engaged for twice that long.

But Campfire Tale had spent the downtime growing fascinated with the slice-of-life stories he could experience as a single pony, rather than the sweeping epics he could plan and eventually complete as their storyteller. With the chair empty, Apollo was more than ready to try filling it.

He spent tens of thousands of hours in the expanded campaign room, literally tearing out the stones and rebuilding it as a way of exercising his mind in preparation for the new world he wanted to create. In terms of intellectual exercises, the effort proved profitable.

“Am I interrupting something?” asked a voice from behind him. He spun, and there was Noire in the airlock. The new planning room had to be thematic, part of the universe it was helping to save.

As she stepped through, a gravity suit appeared around her, clinging tight to her body. She was a little older now—they all were—but their relationship was far more than that. After so many years together, there weren’t even human words left for the complex network of physical and intellectual ties that connected them.

“Finally got all the walls on!” she exclaimed, drifting slowly across the room to the holotable. In its magical field, a low-resolution projection of his setting’s star map appeared, its many colonies and stations mere blips of blurred text at this scale. “And the power. Must be close.”

He rose, dismissing his gaming notes with a swiping motion of one hoof. “Big day,” he agreed. “Probably the last time you’ll see me like this for a long while. Change of setting calls for a change of pace.”

She rolled her eyes, rubbing up against him and resting her head briefly under his in the equine equivalent of a hug. Whatever else they had become, the gaming room was too sacred for anything more. The fate of worlds was decided in here. “You say it like it makes a difference. So long as you’re gonna put us up against something epic.”

She reached down to the table, knocking a few of the miniatures with her wing. As each one fell, they expanded, revealing a few gigantic space-miners, populated with thousands of ponies each. They were more like the props used to film old science fiction dramas, rather than pewter models. A new setting called for a few new materials.

“I will,” he promised. “You have no idea. Explosions, starships, mysterious Alicorn princesses, and fierce villains. I called a few old friends to help me make sure the science checks out for low-automation realistic space primitives.”

“Wish it wasn’t next year,” she said wistfully. “We should just do it tomorrow.”

He winced. “Ask Celestia, not the rest of the group. I need the time.”

She shoved him, then stepped back. “And leave you without my company for all that time? Maybe Honeycomb would like all the extra time, but I’ll pass.”

He shrugged. He might be glad of her choice, but it was more fun not to admit it. They’d had plenty of years living in perfect harmony, and that just wasn’t fun. A little conflict, all the right kinds of tension kept in balance—that was what made a satisfying friendship.

“It’s not like the first session has to be the start. As soon as character creation is over you can hop in, spend as much time in the world as you want. With the understanding that nothing big is gonna happen with the plot until our first session.”

Noire hovered over the table, gliding to the other side and sticking her tongue out as soon as she was out of reach. The new gaming room was easily large enough to let her fly however she wanted, with a huge dome of glass overhead filled with the slowly shifting starfield above.

“You’re changing to GM. You don’t know how different my next character will be. Maybe I want magic this time, you don’t know. Maybe I won’t be someone who waits on your timetable and takes what they want, when they want it. You won’t be the GM outside this room, you can’t stop me.”

He kept his expression neutral. “We’ll see if you have the guts. My character won’t be anything special outside of this room, though. No GMPC, it was so lame whenever Campfire’s favorite NPCs saved the day. I’ll be a whoever, living with the consequences of your failures like everypony else.”

And that was one of the most thrilling parts of all. In the ancient days before Equestria, they had sometimes lost in their games, even by design. But they didn’t have to live in the world they’d failed before.

Of course, he could always change shards, and only come into game like Moonstone or Campfire did. But that wasn’t nearly as satisfying as knowing the dice had real consequences.

“Won’t happen,” Noire countered. “It doesn’t matter if our epic levels are left behind in the old setting. We’ll make this an adventure to remember.”

In Equestria, it couldn’t happen any other way.

Comments

[Raugos]

Umm, this is a little abrupt.

Did your posting bot skip right to the epilogue or something?

[FanOfMostEverything]

I am surprised that we're going straight to the inevitable epilogue, but the real-life adventuring did arguably fall outside of the story's scope. This was definitely an interesting demonstration of the social tensions of any RPG playgroup and how they endure the addition of Equestria Online. Still, it feels a little shallow at the close. Maybe I'm just getting accustomed to the FiO formula.

Also, now I want to see ponies play Starfinder. Or possibly Lancer.

In any case, thank you for this.

[Distressing Prose]

I didn't realize we were getting 'the other side' more or less immediately. It sounds like Orson is quite Satisfied Through Friendship And Ponies, though. I kind of agree this had a bit of an abrupt ending, but at this point I'm getting used to them.

Endings are hard.

[minibox]

An abrupt ending but I suppose the story did what it's suppose to do and explored what was necessary. I would have liked to see more but this was still interesting.

Until next time.

[keybounce]

It seems pretty fitting to me. They went from playing a game in real life, with Equestria as the "Roll20", to gaming in Equestria.

We see that letting Celestia interact with you winds up with you having a reason to emigrate.

It does bring up a question I have about the whole setting. A human in real life will have their values change over time. Yet more and more, I'm realizing that the ponies that have uploaded never seem to change their values over time.

Is this a flaw of Celestia? Or of the storytellers?

[StrawberryGamer]

10823615
Could be a little of column A, a little of column B

[minibox]

10823615
An emigrated human is an open book mentally and cannot withhold anything from Celestia anymore. She can and will adjust things as changes happen. That being said, with consent she can perform minor modifications to behavior or memory to optimize satisfaction. I'm guessing a relatively static and safe environment having relatively few stressors but stimulating enough to prevent boredom could keep a person in a certain mental state for a long time. Other than that we just don't really see significant personality and value changes that can't be easily resolved with a little tweaking of the shard or the person within. Usually people might elect to mentally reset or simply ask Celestia to finally die. Stories tend to focus on the collapse of Civilization more.

It'd be interesting to see though. At best, heaven can never reach perfection by virtue of its imperfect resident, wanting something different every time. At worst, certain shards can devolve into hedonistic pleasure palaces dedicated to the satisfaction of its tyrant, forever hungry for more and more stimulation as their values turn darker and darker.

[djthomp]

She rolled her eyes, rubbing up against him and resting her head briefly under his in the equine equivalent of a hug. Whatever else they had become, the gaming room was too sacred for anything more. The fate of worlds was decided in here. “You say it like it makes a difference. So long as you’re gonna put us up against something epic .”

No sex in the sacred gaming room. More seriously though, I had been wondering about that possible relationship. Never stated in the story, but it did seem hinted at.

And that was one of the most thrilling parts of all. In the ancient days before Equestria, they had sometimes lost in their games, even by design. But they didn’t have to live in the world they’d failed before.

Consequences for failure, at least for a while. Interesting gaming experience.

[Goodluckfox]

Abrupt ending is abrupt. :(

[StarrySkies]

Always sad to see a story end - but at least they'll have games aplenty!

[keybounce]

10823686
10823720

So what is going on here that both of you replied to me, and I never got any notice of replies?

I'm guessing a relatively static and safe environment having relatively few stressors but stimulating enough to prevent boredom could keep a person in a certain mental state for a long time.

And ... I think this is probably the biggest issue with uploading. "physical" beings keep changing, because the physical world keeps changing. Ant colonies might have the same interactions betweens ants that the neurons in a brain do, but since an ant colony doesn't really move to interact with the world, it doesn't generate the same intelligence. In general, brains are really only there (for biological creatures) for movement, given the time delay for a movement to happen (you have to send signals down the nerves ahead of time, you can't wait for the sensor data to come back). As soon as movement and a changing environment are gone, your future is really different, your growth and change slow down, and while you are close to what you were on the day of uploading, you stagnate, and future growth is much slower.

The shard around you is more static than a world of changing people, because the ponies in your shard are not changing as much (or not at all for NPC ponies?)

For some, that "consistency" is fine; for others, it's not.

[StrawberryGamer]

10837364
Certainly interesting to think about

[Lithl]

10837364
Everything in Equestria changes as much or as little as will maximally satisfy you.

[Ace of Blackjack]

Now I have the dumbest idea for a two part idea story. That seems loosely connected until it all comes into stark focus.

[StarrySkies]

11018352
Humanity truly is doomed, she knows all our weaknesses!