Twilight Gets a Puppy
Season 6
by TDR
Dungeons and Discords, and Dragons, and Daggers, and Diners, and Death Traps, and Dives, and Dice, and....
Prologue
[Seshat, three weeks after Winter Wrap up. Spring]
"Alright, glad everyone could make it." Spike offered as he opened the front door to greet the Crusaders.
The three fillies, plus Firefly stared at Spike.
“What? Is there something on my face?” Spike asked.
The drake was no longer purple and green, his scales were pure white with his spines having a multi colored arch like a sunrise.
Spike blinked.
The Crusaders blinked back.
Spike sighed.
"Princess Celestia changed all the soap, shampoo, dish soap, and laundry detergent in the house to change the colors of what it's used on. We have Celestia colored dishes, Celestia colored clothes, a Celestia colored Twilight, Starlight, Rahs, and myself." Spike sighed. "Tempest lucked out as she's been staying over in the Guard barracks and Celestia didn't hit them."
"Ooooooooh." the four of them nodded before trotting in.
“Wait I thought the prank war wasn't supposed to hit any one else?” Scootaloo asked.
“ It isn't but Starlight has been stealing Rahs' shampoo because she claimed it worked better for her mane. Rahs knew and was just going to leave a bottle with hair remover in it, but Celestia got to it first.” Spike explained.
"Was a little worried it was somethin in the air." Applebloom offered.
"Not yet, but ignore Twilight and Rahs they are already plotting and I've tossed out a few ideas but I'm focused on the game tonight. Luna's sadly got to miss this session, but we've got Starlight joining us as well as Discord and Sonata. So expect it to be weird."
"Isn't that gonna cause a issue with where we were?" Sweetiebelle asked setting her bag next to her seat at the large wooden table with a bunch of paper maps on it, Seshat had yet to let Spike use the map table. "We were about to start that big fight and Big Sis is our heaviest hitter."
"Nah I thought about that. The main campaigns gonna be put on pause for the night. With three new players and no Luna we're gonna roll up new characters and start with that Last Fantasy setting I was sent a while ago."
"Ain't that the one yah were complaining was a munchkins dream game setting with how much fan stuff was shoe horned in?" Applebloom asked.
"Yup. Discord 'and' Sonata." Spiked added.
"Fair 'nuff" Applebloom shrugged.
"What about the big pile of books Orbsah sent you for their new edition?" Firefly asked.
Spike frowned. "I sent them back."
"Really?" Scootaloo questioned, "Wasn't there a bunch of minis in the box too?"
"Yup. But I'm not doing anything made by Orbsah any time soon. That new policy they tried to implement has pissed me, and a lot of other people off." Spike growled.
"What policy?" Scootaloo blinked.
Applebloom, Firefly, and Sweetiebelle sighed.
Spike walked over to the other side of the room, picked up a large box with 'soap' printed on the side and walked back to set it down before hopping up on it.
"Okay years ago when O&O was getting popular, Orbsah made a license, that allowed any one to make content for their game, for free, this allowed them to have their core game and get other people to make content for their game. Smaller developers made money off supplements and adventure modules, Orbsah made money as everyone needed their books to play any of these add ons even if they didn't make money from them. So after a while it became popular and some groups like the Trailfinder system came about with games similar, but not exactly like Orbsah's system using the license as a base. All was well and good until the Crystal Empire showed up and I introduced them to gaming. So Orbsah sees this huge new market to exploit and decides that they want to cut everyone else out, so they brought up the idea of updating the original license. And they planned to do so in a way that meant that they had full say of what any one could and could not print for their system, thus taking out all the little developers and putting a hurt on any of the bigger ones that used the license. This is bad enough. But they also added in a clause that anything and the clause means ANYTHING developed using their game system was theirs to use as they saw fit. Any home brew creations, any campaigns, any characters that they found out about using their system were theirs to do with as they saw fit. So say they found out about my troll campaign a, if they liked it , they could legally have just claimed it as theirs without changing anything and then sold it without my getting anything out of it. Given Sunset's system is in it's infancy a lot of GMs , myself included, use a monthly group newsletter to pass info back and forth and tell stories about adventures and share ideas between cons. The idea was started in the old 'Dwarf' Magazine, and even though that's no longer in print after Orbsah bought it, the newsletter is reviewed by Orbsah still. Which means anything any one has ever sent in to be published would be their property too.”
"Sooooo greed." Scootaloo nodded.
"Yep and it's why I've been slowly switching us over to the Trailfinder system. And why I sent all those books and minis back, they were trying to bribe me, because all I have to do is say the word and most of the empire would switch to whatever I'm playing. I've been trying to stay out of it and hope they do the right thing, and cause I don't want to limit any one from enjoying whatever they want no matter who makes it. But if they implement the policy, a week later and I'll make sure all of the Crystal Empire knows I play their competitors system."
"Is that why you stopped collecting Battle Mallet?" Sweetiebelle asked.
"No I stopped collecting those because the models have gotten cheaper in make and more expensive in price. Look at that nonsense with the new tank they released, it doesn't even have a bottom, it looks like a bit store toy." Spike started to rant as Applebloom pushed him off the soap box before he could get started again.
“Enough, we got a game tah set up.” Applebloom huffed.
It wasn't that bad. Heck, check Youtube. There are lawyers weighing in on it
So what is the pony equivalent of Gunpla?
of course you arnt, oh Bunny...and rightly so. now that the original OGL for D&D is more or less safe, we as gamers can breathe a little easier. but make no mistake, Hasbro higher ups will try something sneaky again, and they will need to be reminded just how the Community remembers what happened this time...they have sided against us in battle, and this, we do not forgive...or forget!
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After what they did with MLP and what they did and are doing with GI Joe, not to mention all that crap with Transformers, I wonder if they are trying to go out of business.
The lawyers are hungry. They finally finished off cleaning up Commodore Buisiness Machines 30 years after its collapse, so now they need another Mega Business to, reenergise.
Id have thought Apple would be walking carefully as well given their lets stick a smartphone in a case with alrger screen and battery and call it a laptop for 4 times the price model?
Im old.
I want my 4 meg core system that can multitask with Fimfiction browsing, music playing, email, IRC, and torrenting at less than 30 Meg back. After all, modern CPUs have Lots of extensions that should make the code Smaller.
Never mind that 30 year old computer can fire up and run a Modern Radeon GPU for when it really wants to take the Pinkie.
Except the 16K resolution is still a bit glitchy.
I was about halfway through this story when I realized what you were setting Spike up to do and I completely laughed....kudos good sir
Damn straight Spike, our favorite little dragon laying out the truth.
We're watching you, WotC.
Orbsah made a big mistake trying to pull that BS on a community that enjoys looking for loopholes…
Yeah his brother’s been pulling a lot of horse apples lately. Also like I keep telling people there is more than DND out there like seriously
Just like Twilight, he always has a presentation prepared. Good thing Sunset hasn't yet introduced them to the Powerpoint, a man-made horror of boredom.
interesting spike chapter and good to see the prank war is still on it looks to get more crazy
It's sad how many great people and organisations now a day's get taken over by people that want to make a fast money scam in long running well known communities and leave nothing good behind because they only where in for a fast money grab.
Blizzard for video games and than also other game companies that used to make pure awe inspiration bringing art.
I have people around here in Germany that have for example 1-2 full armies for tabletop of warhammer40k.
Guys literally showed me the difference between good and bad quality physical figures and more.
We life in sad days for art...
Rainbowdash must have a blast with the Sparkles stealing her thing
Maybe Rainbowdash can beep some of the stuff for pranks?
Rainbowdash day: Many Ponyville and Canterlot citizens are Rainbow themed
The only good thing about this fiasco is that Paizo is setting up their own OGL for companies and is prepared to fight against WoTC and their overlords once again.
To be fair GW's products are the gold standard in quality for sculpts and they're doing wonders, the new Blood Knights are simply gorgeous for example. Hell, for model kits they're of better quality for price than pretty much anyone else. Unfortunately historic ones are woefully bad.
Mind you, I'm poor and 3D printing is my Lord so I've stopped buying even second hand from eBay, but can't argue against quality when comparing to other companies. Still expensive as fuck though.
Hasbro though is absolutely both stupid and assholes of the highest degree and deserve all the backlash they're getting. I hope ORC license becomes an outrageous success.
Gotta love when the community comes together from all over.
The time of the ORC license has come!
Rant(s) plural.
But no disagreeance from here.
#opend&d #orclicense #fuckhasbro
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I think legislative bodies should hire Gamers to look over their laws before implementation the same way companies hire hackers to test their security. We will root out every stupid exploit and bit of nonsense they... which might be why they aren't doing that.
Well now I know why I keep seeing D&D outcry videos on my YouTube feed. Surprised Spike didn't rant about the whole MtG debacle (or Equestria's version of it) too
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He was never a card flipper and has complained about it. Plus in equestria yugi ohs more popular
wait...which tank looks like it doesn't have a bottom? The only one I could think that fits the bill is the primaris marine super tank
Also still loving the fic.
edit: never mind. Looked it up...damn it, GW
Don't be sorry for the rants. They're spot on.
as someone who knows what that is about I'm also not sorry about your rant
Give 'em hell Spike
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I got burned by them in magic the gathering. I welcome more people to the fuck wizards of the coast club.
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Devin is a top bloke.
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And Blizzard. While they did get kind of screwed by Defense of the Ancients runaway success, there's no excuse for trying to claim ownership over all fanmods.
The Warcraft 3 Reforged debacle was just insult to injury.
That was a good chapter.
I sypathize with the rant. The WotC shitshow prompted me to go back to working on my own system i had brainstormed a couple of years ago with some friends.
At least they went back on it and reinstated the old OSG. Still pissed they tried, but now they have a chance to regain some of my trust.
Great chapter. I Always enjoy your work.
Yeah that deserve a rant. I don't know what Hasbro's is doing now but it seems like they trying to go out of business. Thankfully they did walk the new OGL back, and keep the original one, but I just can't trust his company no more.
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Oh, I can go off about people claiming shit they shouldn't, oh hi Nintendo and soudtracks
For anyone interested in systems other than D&D, there are the big ones like Pathfinder, GURPS, and Warhammer (if you don't already have a bone to pick with GW), but there are smaller or less known systems as well, such as Traveler, Mutants and Masterminds, the Whitewolf games, Hc Svnt Dracones, HERO, or Ironclaw.
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Ponies in very stylized Knight's armor??? I know they have canons, usually on a ship, but the smaller types such as the blunderbuss or muskets would be limited to other species that have digits; Gryphons, Minotaurs, etc. It does bring up the question why ponies don't just skip messy gunpowders and go directly to magic which can be substituted for the driving force of the ammo or just replace it altogether as the ammo itself-- little magic "phasers" or "disruptors" to copy an idea.
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The Rogal Dorn. The newest and most expensive one.
Just like Bungie not to long ago, they fired practically the core staff and replaced it all with yes saying idiots.
Music, design artist, story writers? All fired because they don't want a cheap game that destroyed their legacy.
We life in sad times
I appreciate the rant.