Ponies, Drinking and Roleplaying

[drexer]

Strangely enough I thought I'd just found an webcomic that most people here might enjoy quite a bit.




I have to admit I haven't quite gotten the willpower and time yet to start watching My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, but finding this webcomic certainly has increased the first of those.

Much in the vein of DM of the Rings and Darths & Droids, Friendship is Dragons is a webcomic which works the premise of a video series as a D&D or similar roleplaying campaign with the characters either following the careful and obsessive railroad of the DM or tearing it to shreds. I haven't understood at which point this one lands yet.

In this world MLP:FiM does not exist and the six women who make the playerbase have just embarked upon a game in a magical land of ponies, magic and saving rolls under the watch of their GM. The cast page is a nice place to get a first feel for their personalities.

As a flavour, one more bit of the ponies/players discussing alcohol consumption along with their roleplay:



And the introduction of a character I've heard is quite a fan favourite:



If you liked this, then jump right over to the first page of Friendship is Dragons. Tuesday/Thursdays/Saturdays updates.

PS: One question, as this webcomic is made from a series of captions from the show, is there any need to add a legality scan?

Comments

[crinos]

Technically speaking, Ponies can get drunk... on Salt water.

[viridian5]

My mother once had to deal with horses drunk on fermented apples.

[crinos]

And suddenly Applejack's name makes SO much more sense.

[salinea]

why is it always D&D? Why can't we have a My Little Pony envisioned as an Exalted campaign? WHY!

[q99]

Everyone knows D&D.

There was cool Exalted webcomic, Keychain of Creation, but it ended.

[salinea]

I was reading that. It didn't so much "end" as got permanently on hiatus :/

and I meant for the "reimagine a story as a game" thing, not rpg inspired webcomics in general :) Since this is... well, not even the third, there was also an Avatar one, so at least the fourth, it'd be nice to have some variety. I want to read the webcomic where Black Lagoon is reimagined as a Shadowrun campaign!! okay, probably the audience might not make it worthwhile :p but I'd appreciate the obscure rules jokes more.

[drexer]

Even so, I don't know about Exalted, but Shadowrun's flavour comes quite a lot from its settings of the world and plot around it. Most of those webcomics are mainly pulling the mechanics as a recognizable element and getting them from something which has a tighter lore might be complicated in that regard. Would it really gain that much while at the same time perhaps annoying certain fans?

[salinea]

I didn't pick up Black Lagoon at random in this example. What I find interesting in those is pairing a story with a specific mood & themes to a game system which also has a specific mood & themes which mesh well with it, and see the sparks flying from that alchemy. If you always go to the same game system which, despite being the most well know and having a variety of declination also does have its own specific mood & themes, I think you lose some opportunities. IMHO.

[darkblade]

Generally I think it's because D&D still has things like classes and alignments. The really silly stuff that is easy to make jokes around when forcing narratives into it's confines.

[salinea]

yes, but so do other games!!

[q99]

I think a large part is the familiarity factor- most other systems and you end up with an even more niche audience.

Though something like White Wolf's system is probably well-known enough.

[salinea]

I know :/


Yeaaah, at least good old WoD. Lots of potential there.

[q99]

In which Absurd Notions plays Vampire, the game about Vampires

[nursewretched]

Cyberpunk 2020 would be a good fit for Black Lagoon as well, now that I think about it.

[biod]

I would give anything for a group to play Exalted with, but my understanding is that the system is broken.
That said, Exalted's system is based around narrative (and completely insane acts of epic proportion), so I'm a little surprised there aren't more. A comic with Gurren Lagann as played by Exalted roleplayers would be something worth reading.

[salinea]

Well, I stopped playing with the 2nd edition, so I'm not a strong believer in the system either, but I played a lot of the 1st ed, and there are a lot of concepts that are fun to play with for reinterpreting stuff. I was using it as a sort of random example in this case though :)

Gurren Lagann definitly has the right atmosphere of OVER THE TOP EPIC to work with Exalted yeaaaaaaah :D

[crinos]

http://rhanite.deviantart.com/gallery/32771266?offset=24

Like that?

[salinea]

ILU!!

except now I need to watch MLP to appreciate it in context...

[nezchan]

Okay, now I want to see Fluttershy as Dawn Caste.

[salinea]

Have you seen crinos' link above?

[icon_uk]

Brand recognition, even if you've never played D&D chances are if you're even a low level geek you'll already know the basic concepts; magic as a fact of life, alignments, rolling dice for feats, etc. Not true of Exalted, or other more specific games (I'd never even heard of Exalted)

[crinos]

I was marginally aware of Exalted before, which from what I understood was "DnD meets DBZ). And I picked up a free PDF copy of the core rules when they released it as a promotion after WOTC forbade the sale of PDF's of their books.

Now, in my current mutants and masterminds setting, one of my PC's plays a solar exalted who came to earth as a teen to attend a super school, and is currently a member of my worlds version of the Avengers. So I've been motivated to learn more about the setting to provide him with appropriate challenges (IE: Abyssals.)

Once I get a little more throwing around money, I mean to buy the rest of the splatbooks (I have the core, which covers solars, the Lunars book, and the Abyssals book.)

[salinea]

Now, in my current mutants and masterminds setting, one of my PC's plays a solar exalted who came to earth as a teen to attend a super school, and is currently a member of my worlds version of the Avengers. So I've been motivated to learn more about the setting to provide him with appropriate challenges (IE: Abyssals.)
Ooooh, that's a pretty damn nifty concept.

[crinos]

Indeed. I mentioned some Exalted students at the super school offhandedly in the setting thread for the game (Which I worked on for a long time before actually running a game for it.) And one of My PC's took it and RAN with it.

Basically the student count was two solars, two lunars (their counterparts), five dragonblooded, and one Abyssal (Secret from the keychain of creation webcomic.) The NPC Solar ended up converting to Christianity and becoming a wandering preacher, with her lunar as her bodyguard.

Also, the PC's Lunar? Turns into a vorpal rabbit.

[darkblade]

My biggest problem with this comic is the author's interpretation of Rarity. I won't get into why for spoiler's sake but Rarity as a social rouge just does not work.

[lissa_quon]

Rarity is the pony who went to go help with the dragon problem to TRY TO TALK THE DRAGON OUT OF HIS TREASURE.

I'll buy her as a social rogue.

[darkblade]

I just don't buy the idea of a character who's primary objective in life is to manipulate her way into royalty as the Element of Generosity,

[biod]

I recommend Darths and Droids. The prequels make so much more sense when viewed as a tabletop RPG.

[lissa_quon]

Jar Jar makes so much more sense when you claim he is created and played by a little girl with a short attention span.

[abriel]

Strangely enough the classes actually fit the cast...with the exception of Applejack. She needs to be another tank/fighter type, like maybe a paladin. She throws herself into combat way too much to be a ranger.

Or maybe it's just me, having played with lousy rangers :P

[arilou_skiff]

"Magic is impressive but now Minsc leads! SWORDS FOR EVERYONE!"

[endis_ni]

"Go for the eyes, Boo! Go for the eyes!"