[OOC] STOMP Remembrance Project

[GodSentinelOmega]

He’s Armada Starscream?

 

[Destron D-69]

Maple might have come on too strong with her hero worship, but as she was meant to be the team healer from an ooc and ic perspective I kinda wanted her to counter all the jive-talking other ponies on the squad were giving him. organically working it in with her evil princess nightmares was easy enough, at first: I wanted to get fnu in a pm and draft up how the dream he saved her in went down... but then it hit me, if he's doing that job so much and so often that it takes This kinda toll on him and the rest of his life... it serves the narrative better if we don't call attention to it... Maple's encounter with the legendary hero might have been a lifesaver for her, but it was just tuesday 11:45 for him ... so that's another pm draft I n ever sent lol

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Now there's an interesting thought. Different parts of the brain are working when we're dreaming. Things that don't make sense feel like they do. Even some memories are available and others aren't. Emotions flow a little more easily. Instincts are a little closer to the surface.

I'm picturing Maple having a nightmare in her changeling form. The dream is just fuzzy enough that she never happens to see or notice that's what she looks like, and normally it wouldn't make a difference, but an outside observer would see it. Night Cap would never know that was Maple.

Now defending a changeling from an evil princess nightmare would be just amazingly blasphemous if not treasonous, but it's a job. Bigger fish come first.

 

[Destron D-69]

honestly, I never thought about her being in her original form in her nightmares... that would kinda give away the secret. I always assumed they were in a first-person perspective for her lol and yeah she just never looked at her hooves XD or if she did they'd be white pegasus shaped because that's 'who she was' - likely some weirdness we can blame on the zap of princess magic she got

 

[CoffeeHorse]

It survived!

 

[Zamuel]

Night Cap's reaction to "Surely we are hearty enough explorers that we would never dare take advantage of your hospitality." or something else?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

The whole post.

"Would you like for us to carry you?"

Night Cap opens his mouth to speak.

"Erm no. That won't be needed. Surely we are hearty enough explorers that we would never dare take advantage of your hospitality."

Night Cap closes his mouth.

 

[GodSentinelOmega]

Night Caps dreams of being carried like a King!

 

[CoffeeHorse]

It's one of my favorite moments. No dialog needed.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

"When this puzzle hunt is over, i am, sadly, going to check that the Liquid Comb is still there. If it isn't, i will look straight at Night Cap.

"But yeah, check the Liquid Comb after we're done here."

Turns out in the biggest twist of the campaign, Rhapsody's stole it for grooming purposes.

 

[Caldwin]

[I jumped out of a helicopter without a parachute. Do you reeeeally want to test what I would or would not dare?]

Hehehe!

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Considering she's totally not showing up again, I'll probably talk about Double Dusk later today.

Double Dusk went through some interesting development. She was always meant to be a rival for Light Fantastic but she started out more of an opposite. Instead of ballet, she was EXTREEEEME and was into extreme sports...like double dutch. But in fleshing her concept out she started to shift a bit. She wound up less of a complete opposite and more of a similar but different rival. So aside from a few phrases here and there, she became more classy. Had things gone better, it could have been a bit of a cont! rast between her demeanor and her sport in addition to the contrast with Light. She probably would have had some sort of generic spike cut in her original concept but the changes and Fnu needing art references led to her getting something more fancy for her hair. Though with how little actually got done with her, the former feels more fitting for the end result of the character.

Double Dusk picked up a lot of development and planning. She was the sole character from COIN's failed museum break in to have a proper escape plan (she had an air rescue ready) and then wound up with an alibi for her capture. Her getting caught broke multiple things with Splash Flaunt's team not showing up for a year and Anchors Away suffering a few ripple effects that tanked her character due to the loss of the chase scene. Dusk showing up at the dinner was part of the whole alibi acknowledgement. Grilling the others for details left her open for Light or Rhapsody to ask leading questions in return. Admitting her acting degree would have been evidence they could have used to figure out that she faked the mind control allegation. But...no questions were asked.

I think the kicker is that in the original brainstorms for the Petrichor Falls arc, Double Dusk had a much more front and center role. However, TAKE's creation and Light bowing out crushed a lot of that. At the end of the day, she turned into the poster child for wasted potential and unneeded planning. It's a problem GMs have to deal with but that doesn't mean it isn't frustrating. I will admit that I have altered some things with my planning over time. All antagonists I'm much more ready for situations where I have to simply throw them under the bus and cut my losses.

Also, I sorta feel like I need to apologize to Fnu. Double Dusk's mane is probably the bit of art I nitpicked the most and it wound up on a character who simply didn't deserve that much attention to detail.

 

[Destron D-69]

NPCs really often are the children of best intentions and timing. You can spend eons working the finest details of an npc that's going to have very specific interactions with characters and it's all very important to the campaign... and then 'poof' the dice role one way, the pcs do something unexpected and you're just standing there crunching up pages behind your dm screen.

Or you make a goofy throwaway npc that's meant to have a one-moment life span... and then 'boom' nope now they're suddenly a pc's love interest or the sidekick on a hastily thrown together sub-plot because the players get the idea that the npc must be important otherwise why would they exist?

 

[CoffeeHorse]

I don't think any GM anywhere has yet figured out the mystery of which npcs the players will latch onto. Players are just chaos.

 

[Caldwin]

I know I posted this on the old boards. Not sure if I ever posted it on the new ones.

 

[Zamuel]

Not here, but someone posted it in one of the RPG threads.

I don't think any GM anywhere has yet figured out the mystery of which npcs the players will latch onto. Players are just chaos.

I think a major factor that can mitigate things is communication. People on both sides understanding what the other brings to the table works for setting expectations. It certainly isn't a miracle cure (since people aren't robots) but it can do a lot.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Our character limit is smaller. I had to break the big post into two. I hate that. The spoiler did give me an okay breaking point, but it's not authentic.

 

[Zamuel]

A bit disappointing but probably for the best due to things like not bogging down threads with massive posts. It's interesting that I haven't needed a thread that long since the new forum. Alternately, I think the Wayback Machine managed to retain more of STOMP than Mey Hem due to the chapter links being in the OOC page instead of an off site document.

 

[CoffeeHorse]

Probably. When you manually save things to the Wayback Machine there is a button to save all outgoing links on the page.

 

[Destron D-69]

well it was fun reliving the maplemaggedon. lol. I think everyone did a great job helping me reveal the big secret. now she just needs to go home and face the fire'n line. XD