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A Riveting (If Abridged) Tale of Galactic Conquest
Rainbow Dash’s friends stared at her, as well as the massive, coffin-like box and mountain of cardboard and plastic she’d piled on top of the Cutie Map. The pegasus grinned, holding out her hooves like she was presenting some grand treasure.
“Darling,” Rarity started, breaking the silence as she levitated several hexagons and some cards towards herself, “You said you wanted to play a game. What is all this?”
“It’s Twilight Imperium! Only the biggest, coolest, awesomest board game ever! You play as all kinds of aliens and try to conquer the galaxy and stuff.”
“Lookit all the pieces!” Pinkie said, bouncing around the table, her hooves snapping up a plastic ship. “What’s this one?”
“That’s a Dreadnought. It—”
“And this one?”
“That’s a PDS—”
“And this one?”
Shaking her head, Twilight picked up the rulebook. “That’s not the right way to learn the rules, Pinkie. You have to go in order. Let’s see, ‘Welcome to a galaxy of epic conquest…”
Fluttershy peeked over the table, raising her hoof. “Um… I’m not really sure I like the sound of ‘epic conquest.’”
“You can be totally peaceful and make friends, Flutters!” Rooting around the pile of stuff, she pulled a sheet free. “Check it out! Peaceful space turtles! Or, uh… right! They were in one of the expansions! You can be space plants!”
“I do like trees...”
Hopping into her seat, Applejack snorted. “Well I dunno ‘bout all this space stuff, but I reckon I can kick your flank all the same. How long does this game take? Granny’s going to want my help baking later!”
Rainbow Dash coughed. “Probably like 8 hours.”
Silence filled the room again.
“How long was that, darling?” Rarity asked.
“We don’t have to play it all today. We can just do a couple turns today and come back later.”
The other ponies exchanged glances – or at least Rarity and Applejack did. Pinkie was still vibrating as she dug through the components, Fluttershy kept asking herself whether she wanted to be a turtle or a tree, and Twilight couldn’t be bothered to pull her muzzle out of the rulebook.
“I have a lot of dresses to mend…”
“Granny is gonna be needing help with the pies…”
Rainbow Dash clapped her hooves together and bowed her head. “Come on. This game is best with a whole bunch of players! Trust me, it is super awesome! Way better than dresses or pies!”
The two ponies looked back at the pleading pegasus.
“Well…” Rarity started.
“...I guess it’ll be okay if we can stop in the middle,” Applejack finished.
“Awesome! Gimme the rules, Twilight! I’ll explain them!” Without waiting for a response, Rainbow Dash pulled the book away from Twilight. “Okay, so to win, you just need to get 10 victory points—”
“Wait! Let me finish reading how you create the galaxy!”
The setting sun reflected throughout the crystal castle, the fading light still strong enough that the six ponies in the map room hadn’t had to resort to lanterns yet.
“Oooooooooh!” Pinkie exclaimed, “Boom! My War Suns wipe out all your Ground Forces, Flutteryshy!”
The pegasus stared at the dice, her mouth agape. “My turtles…”
“Oh! Oh! And then the round ends, so I’ll reveal my Secret Objective to take over somepony else’s home system, so I get two points and win, right Dashie?”
Twilight leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. “How? I did the math. My strategy was perfect...”
Rarity swooned into Applejack. “But I had the most beautiful systems!”
“Dagnabbit, Rarity!” Applejack swore, poking the unicorn with her hoof. “I told you we should’ve been stopping Pinkie, not Dash!”
Fluttershy’s hooves slammed into the table. “I will destroy you, Pinkie!” she snarled, her wings flaring. “My turtles will be avenged! You will fear me!”
The five ponies turned to Rainbow Dash as one. “We want to play again!”
Rainbow Dash grinned.
“Darling,” Rarity started, breaking the silence as she levitated several hexagons and some cards towards herself, “You said you wanted to play a game. What is all this?”
“It’s Twilight Imperium! Only the biggest, coolest, awesomest board game ever! You play as all kinds of aliens and try to conquer the galaxy and stuff.”
“Lookit all the pieces!” Pinkie said, bouncing around the table, her hooves snapping up a plastic ship. “What’s this one?”
“That’s a Dreadnought. It—”
“And this one?”
“That’s a PDS—”
“And this one?”
Shaking her head, Twilight picked up the rulebook. “That’s not the right way to learn the rules, Pinkie. You have to go in order. Let’s see, ‘Welcome to a galaxy of epic conquest…”
Fluttershy peeked over the table, raising her hoof. “Um… I’m not really sure I like the sound of ‘epic conquest.’”
“You can be totally peaceful and make friends, Flutters!” Rooting around the pile of stuff, she pulled a sheet free. “Check it out! Peaceful space turtles! Or, uh… right! They were in one of the expansions! You can be space plants!”
“I do like trees...”
Hopping into her seat, Applejack snorted. “Well I dunno ‘bout all this space stuff, but I reckon I can kick your flank all the same. How long does this game take? Granny’s going to want my help baking later!”
Rainbow Dash coughed. “Probably like 8 hours.”
Silence filled the room again.
“How long was that, darling?” Rarity asked.
“We don’t have to play it all today. We can just do a couple turns today and come back later.”
The other ponies exchanged glances – or at least Rarity and Applejack did. Pinkie was still vibrating as she dug through the components, Fluttershy kept asking herself whether she wanted to be a turtle or a tree, and Twilight couldn’t be bothered to pull her muzzle out of the rulebook.
“I have a lot of dresses to mend…”
“Granny is gonna be needing help with the pies…”
Rainbow Dash clapped her hooves together and bowed her head. “Come on. This game is best with a whole bunch of players! Trust me, it is super awesome! Way better than dresses or pies!”
The two ponies looked back at the pleading pegasus.
“Well…” Rarity started.
“...I guess it’ll be okay if we can stop in the middle,” Applejack finished.
“Awesome! Gimme the rules, Twilight! I’ll explain them!” Without waiting for a response, Rainbow Dash pulled the book away from Twilight. “Okay, so to win, you just need to get 10 victory points—”
“Wait! Let me finish reading how you create the galaxy!”
The setting sun reflected throughout the crystal castle, the fading light still strong enough that the six ponies in the map room hadn’t had to resort to lanterns yet.
“Oooooooooh!” Pinkie exclaimed, “Boom! My War Suns wipe out all your Ground Forces, Flutteryshy!”
The pegasus stared at the dice, her mouth agape. “My turtles…”
“Oh! Oh! And then the round ends, so I’ll reveal my Secret Objective to take over somepony else’s home system, so I get two points and win, right Dashie?”
Twilight leaned back, staring up at the ceiling. “How? I did the math. My strategy was perfect...”
Rarity swooned into Applejack. “But I had the most beautiful systems!”
“Dagnabbit, Rarity!” Applejack swore, poking the unicorn with her hoof. “I told you we should’ve been stopping Pinkie, not Dash!”
Fluttershy’s hooves slammed into the table. “I will destroy you, Pinkie!” she snarled, her wings flaring. “My turtles will be avenged! You will fear me!”
The five ponies turned to Rainbow Dash as one. “We want to play again!”
Rainbow Dash grinned.
A slice of life gaming story. Not medal material, but pleasant to read. Decent job, Author.
Twilight Imperium, nice one you chose there.
A relaxing Slice of Life about friends just having fun.
I smiled a lot through this one, but I fear that anybody not familiar with the game will be left scratching their head. It also doesn't really go anywhere, which is a bit of a waste considering the setup.
This is a bit of nitpicking on my part, but I got the impression that there were too many darlings. Re-reading it I counted only two of them, but considering the word-count you may want to remove one of them.
As a tangent observation, eight hours for the first game seems overly optimistic. And Turtles are OP.
A relaxing Slice of Life about friends just having fun.
I smiled a lot through this one, but I fear that anybody not familiar with the game will be left scratching their head. It also doesn't really go anywhere, which is a bit of a waste considering the setup.
This is a bit of nitpicking on my part, but I got the impression that there were too many darlings. Re-reading it I counted only two of them, but considering the word-count you may want to remove one of them.
As a tangent observation, eight hours for the first game seems overly optimistic. And Turtles are OP.
I won't add much more than the others, it was a nice Slice of Life story, very enjoyable and I smiled a few times with Twilight nerdiness.
There's still a few points which need to be mention:
First, there are some of the characters that are a bit cliché, especially Fluttershy and Rarity. The mention of trees by Fluttershy is a heavy wink and made me rolled my eyes (same level of annoyance than the 'Scootaloo's a chicken' joke and very subjective). For Rarity, I was seeing her like she was portrayed in the 4th Equestria Girls movie, especially with the line “But I had the most beautiful systems!”. I would have write her with the desire to have an elegant strategy, not beautiful systems. However, it's obviously hard to make six characters interact with each other without simplifying their peronnality and you did pretty good with the others. That's why it is NOT a major flaw, just a little thing.
The second point, and the last, is that I don't really see how this story is connected to the Twilight Zone. If anyone see how it is, I would like to know.
There's still a few points which need to be mention:
First, there are some of the characters that are a bit cliché, especially Fluttershy and Rarity. The mention of trees by Fluttershy is a heavy wink and made me rolled my eyes (same level of annoyance than the 'Scootaloo's a chicken' joke and very subjective). For Rarity, I was seeing her like she was portrayed in the 4th Equestria Girls movie, especially with the line “But I had the most beautiful systems!”. I would have write her with the desire to have an elegant strategy, not beautiful systems. However, it's obviously hard to make six characters interact with each other without simplifying their peronnality and you did pretty good with the others. That's why it is NOT a major flaw, just a little thing.
The second point, and the last, is that I don't really see how this story is connected to the Twilight Zone. If anyone see how it is, I would like to know.
Ah Fantasy Flight, your games filled with hundreds of tokens and cards, your average game length being at least four hours, Twilight Imperium averaging three times that, you have snared more into your clutches.
I like the slice-of-lifeness of the story, but I do agree that anyone not familiar with the game is not going to know what to think of this.
Anyways, since I'm a total nerd for TI: IMO, Rarity should have been going for the political win, Twilight for the financial, and Fluttershy for the win by conquest, Flutterrage ftw. Her playing cautiously sounds appropriate until one turtle ship gets destroyed, then she goes on a berserk rampage.
Oh, I am rambling now.
TL;DR: This story was fun and had lots of nostalgia value for me and brought back memories of days long games into my brain but needs character work.
I like the slice-of-lifeness of the story, but I do agree that anyone not familiar with the game is not going to know what to think of this.
Anyways, since I'm a total nerd for TI: IMO, Rarity should have been going for the political win, Twilight for the financial, and Fluttershy for the win by conquest, Flutterrage ftw. Her playing cautiously sounds appropriate until one turtle ship gets destroyed, then she goes on a berserk rampage.
Oh, I am rambling now.
TL;DR: This story was fun and had lots of nostalgia value for me and brought back memories of days long games into my brain but needs character work.
This is definitely a Fantasy Flight Game at core here. And the ending got a giggle out of me. More than anything else, like the fabled Cones of Dunshire, I want to play this game.
Alas! I cannot. But it was a funny mini-romp
Alas! I cannot. But it was a funny mini-romp
It's a cute little slice of life. I feel like the connection to the prompt is preeeeeeeeeeetty tenuous here, since it's the made up name of a made up game, but hey, at least it's not another fic centering entirely on Twilight Sparkle for its connection to the prompt, so good for that.
nothing too surprising, but it does a good job showing how people start out reluctant but get hooked on boardgames. with minific limitations, it's understandable that it cuts straight to the ending, showing before and after. but at the end I don't feel like there was a long epic game full of twists and turns, because the characters seem to act about the same as when it started.
heh. in my experience, Fantasy Flight Games have confusing rulebooks where everything seems to be out of order. they make so much more sense by having an experienced player teach the rules. probably not an intended joke in this story, but it made me think of that.
missing an important detail: the sun is setting when they finish the game, but there's nothing indicating what time of day they started! was it a quick 4 hour game? they started in the morning and played 12 hours straight? this isn't trivial, we need to know this because two characters were considering leaving early.
“Awesome! Gimme the rules, Twilight! I’ll explain them!” Without waiting for a response, Rainbow Dash pulled the book away from Twilight. “Okay, so to win, you just need to get 10 victory points—”
“Wait! Let me finish reading how you create the galaxy!”
heh. in my experience, Fantasy Flight Games have confusing rulebooks where everything seems to be out of order. they make so much more sense by having an experienced player teach the rules. probably not an intended joke in this story, but it made me think of that.
missing an important detail: the sun is setting when they finish the game, but there's nothing indicating what time of day they started! was it a quick 4 hour game? they started in the morning and played 12 hours straight? this isn't trivial, we need to know this because two characters were considering leaving early.
Well, that’s definitely a title that makes a strong first impression.
Unlike apparently everyone else, I’ve never played the game in question or any of its ilk, so this one went over my head. And by that I mean there was a hyperspace transit somewhere else in this solar system. Sorry, but without that emotional connection, this one didn’t leave an impact on me.
Unlike apparently everyone else, I’ve never played the game in question or any of its ilk, so this one went over my head. And by that I mean there was a hyperspace transit somewhere else in this solar system. Sorry, but without that emotional connection, this one didn’t leave an impact on me.
I agree with FoME here (and with Fenton for the use of clichés). Board games have never been my cup of tea, so I can't claim groking what happens exactly here. Besides, the "twist" left me more or less unconcerned, so at the end, well, it was cute but lackadaisical.
So, I didn't see the "Twilight Imperium" thing coming until it happened. And I have no excuse, I run a weekly board game meetup with 700 members. But while this hits a few "sentimental" notes for me, I'm afraid it falls flat as a story. Yes, all the characters are mostly correct, and react as new gamers do, but the narrative lacks focus.
Pick a character and focus on their viewpoint. If it's Twilight, work in some rules-lawyering gag. If it's Fluttershy, then show us the "passive until raging" (aka "Ghandi Gets Nukes") arc. Or show us details of how Rarity made something "Elegant" of her moves/strategy, or even just layout. If you can somehow squeeze a twist or some humorous punchline in there, that'd be even better.
Unfortunately, this story tries to hit the whole gamut. We see believable reactions, but with no depth into any of them, and that brings this down to a mediocre rank for me. Sorry!
Pick a character and focus on their viewpoint. If it's Twilight, work in some rules-lawyering gag. If it's Fluttershy, then show us the "passive until raging" (aka "Ghandi Gets Nukes") arc. Or show us details of how Rarity made something "Elegant" of her moves/strategy, or even just layout. If you can somehow squeeze a twist or some humorous punchline in there, that'd be even better.
Unfortunately, this story tries to hit the whole gamut. We see believable reactions, but with no depth into any of them, and that brings this down to a mediocre rank for me. Sorry!
"Flutteryshy" - Minor typo. Maybe? Never can tell with Pinkie. Always nice to see a bit of FlutterHulk pop out, too.
I have a bit of experience with long ass, turn based table top games (Warmachine hype) so I can appreciate the premise. But, and this may be all but impossible in the mini-fic limit, I feel like more meat could have been had with the cast turning toward the game rather than jumping straight to the "damnit, let's do it again" phase.
I have a bit of experience with long ass, turn based table top games (Warmachine hype) so I can appreciate the premise. But, and this may be all but impossible in the mini-fic limit, I feel like more meat could have been had with the cast turning toward the game rather than jumping straight to the "damnit, let's do it again" phase.
I've never heard of this game, but on the other hand I'm not entirely unfamiliar with that kind of board games, so maybe that's why I didn't have a problem fully getting into the story.
Anyway, even though it's a small and humble story, I really love this. It's a nice slice-of-life piece where each of our favorite six characters gets to show off her personality, and pretty much every line of dialogue is delightful.
Anyway, even though it's a small and humble story, I really love this. It's a nice slice-of-life piece where each of our favorite six characters gets to show off her personality, and pretty much every line of dialogue is delightful.
Relies upon a pretty straightforward interpretation of the five characters, besides Dashie herself. Which isn't really bad, since I think the focus is supposed to be on her anyway.
So it's not really the story of them playing the game, but rather, the story of Rainbow Dash tricking them into trying the game, and them getting sucked into playing it. Nice, but I wish we'd had her do more to swing Applejack and Rarity into playing than just wringing her hooves and saying "this is way more cool than that other stuff you wanna do."
Like, Pinkie was already down with it, because she's Pinkie and easily entertained. Twilight gets suckered in by the presence of books and math. And Fluttershy, she woos by appealing to her fondness for animals and treesmanship. So... why couldn't she have appealed to Applejack and Rarity in the same way? Could she have? Definitely.
I liked it. But I wish Dashie'd had more to work with, with respect to the other members of the cast.
So it's not really the story of them playing the game, but rather, the story of Rainbow Dash tricking them into trying the game, and them getting sucked into playing it. Nice, but I wish we'd had her do more to swing Applejack and Rarity into playing than just wringing her hooves and saying "this is way more cool than that other stuff you wanna do."
Like, Pinkie was already down with it, because she's Pinkie and easily entertained. Twilight gets suckered in by the presence of books and math. And Fluttershy, she woos by appealing to her fondness for animals and treesmanship. So... why couldn't she have appealed to Applejack and Rarity in the same way? Could she have? Definitely.
I liked it. But I wish Dashie'd had more to work with, with respect to the other members of the cast.
Hmm, all six characters in a minific? Bold move, Author. You've pulled it off tolerably well, too; this is quite pleasant.
I do think you're hampered a bit, however; by going for breadth, it becomes difficult to add depth. I thought this was pretty good, but not really amazing in any one way.
I do think you're hampered a bit, however; by going for breadth, it becomes difficult to add depth. I thought this was pretty good, but not really amazing in any one way.
Cute, but lacking much in the way of substance. Sorta like many FFG games.
</shots fired> </I kid, I love you FFG>
</shots fired> </I kid, I love you FFG>
Rainbow Dash coughed. “Probably like 8 hours.”
Silence filled the room again.
Extremely accurate summary of Twilight Imperium.
As most others have said, though, there's not much to bite into here that doesn't boil down to "the Mane Six interact with their standard personality traits." You could cut everything in the first half except that quote and maybe a couple other sentences, show just the aftermath scene and have more or less the same story.
Alternatively, cut some of the characters and focus on two to four interacting instead of all six. Just not enough space for six ponies to bounce around in a mini. For character pieces like this, I want to see how they break their usual molds rather than conform. Rarity and Fluttershy sooort of do, at the end, but I didn't get enough depth or explanation to understand or be satisfied with their reactions, respectively.
I'm just blazing through reading the last few finalists and not planning to review any more, but I wanted to give this one a special shout out for nailing the Mane 6's character voices. The only suspect line is Fluttershy's near the end, and it's probably more a matter of taste than plausibility.
I was entertained.
(Edit: nvm, there's more finalists than I realized. Losing consciousness. Go medalists go!)
I was entertained.
(Edit: nvm, there's more finalists than I realized. Losing consciousness. Go medalists go!)
So this happened.
Honestly, at a lot of levels this was a writing exercise for me with two goals.
1. Write the Mane 6 (with an emphasis on someone not Twilight)
2. Write more than two characters.
Basically, neither are things I do much. If you look at everything I've written for Pony, it's mostly side and background characters. And even in longer formats, I tend to favor two character interaction scenes. So yeah, I'd decided before the round started that I was gonna rectify both those things. I also write a lot of third person limited, free indirect speech, so I opted against that this go round too.
I actually didn't care for the prompt much, and I didn't want to do what I figured would the the obvious gags (direct TZ parody, AU story, Twilight centric story), which left me kind lacking ideas. Then I looked left at my game shelf, saw TI sitting right above my Vinyl and Tavi plushes and was like: "Hey, that'll work." The rest is approximately 600 and some change words.
I didn't want Twilight to be the "feature" pony, so I considered matters and decided Rainbow Dash has already been shown to like board games, so might as well use her. Twilight was an easy sell, as was Pinkie. AJ could be baited with a challenge, and I'd sort of intended (because I'm a dirty rotten shipper) to imply Rarity/AJ as a couple of sorts (admittedly did not succeed so much), so Rarity tries because AJ does.
Then it turns out everyone loves the game because tabletop games are awesome.
And that's all really. I really did expect this to wash out in prelims (or barely squeak in) because, all told (and as many comments agree) it was kind of a nothing story. Just a cute bit of slice of life with no real depth or twist.
>>GroaningGreyAgony
I feel this review more than anything kinda sums up this story. "Decent job, author" indeed.
>>Orbiting_kettle
I was kinda curious. I thought that I could maaaaybe get gamers who might understand the concept if not TI itself, but yeah, this was dead against non-gamers. You are probably right re: darling. Honestly I was using as a character indicator to avoid dialogue tags in a spot or two. And yeah, 8 hours is optimistic but isn't that an important part of the game too? Lying about how incredibly long it will ACTUALLY be? :p
>>Fenton
Yeah. For better and worse, I purposefully boiled the characters down aggressively (including the tree wink, wink, nod, nod) for simplicity is working on voice and fitting in the word count. As far as prompt connection, it is tenuous as all hell, but it was mostly that playing TI puts you in a little zone when you get into it as your who world revolves around the cardboard and plastic and friends for a lot of hours. A Twilight (Imperium) zone, one might say. Ha ha.
>>Moosetasm
See above. I don't disagree. Also about this comment I was starting to wonder how many other board gamers were part of this group.
>>Morning Sun
Thank you kindly.
>>SPark
As has been pointed out, Twilight Imperium (3rd Edition) is actually a real game and everything written in this story is true. Prompt connection is still hella tenuous.
>>Haze
Yeah, in retrospect you are right and I needed to have a time indicator in the first scene. I also would've loved to work in a couple cracks at FFG's expense, but just didn't end up feeling the space (you are indeed correct that it wasn't an actual joke about FFG rulebooks from that era being absolute dumpster fires, it was more gamer personality: RD would want to just tell people how to play and deal with things as they came up while Twi would want to read the rules). And yeah, you're also right, I ended up with a smaller journey than I wanted when it turned out half the cast was ready to play from the get go.
>>FanOfMostEverything
I think this is probably one my best titles. And finally, someone who hasn't played TI. And is possibly not a board gamer, which would send this story falling flat on its face.
>>Monokeras
I'm starting to think I write stories with the active goal of landing near the bottom of your slate, Mono. Between being a fantasy writer and a gamer who likes writing about games, I think I'll have to work very hard to avoid that sort of comment. :p
>>Xepher
No apologies needed! For better and worse, not doing a deep dive (while worse for the story) was my actual goal here. So, one could say I succeeded at failing, as it were.
>>Rao
Typo. Embarrassing, because I actually proofed this story a couple times. And agreed re: adding a bit more meat. Honestly, somebody brings it up a few comments down I think, but doing 6 characters in a mini is a silly, silly idea. There just isn't room to do a lot.
>>JudgeDeadd
I expected a little more of this, honestly. Some tabletop familiarity but not TI specifically. Also glad to see that it does seeeeem to work at that level? Thank you for the kind words.
>>Posh
No argument. I should've made Dashie work more for the win there.
>>Not_A_Hat
Yep.
>>AndrewRogue
Honestly, many FFG do have a lot of depth and making this comment while thinking about playing some Chaos in the Old World or something hurt me. =(
>>Ranmilia
Stop telling me to cut the entire first half of every scene I write, Ran. =(
>>CoffeeMinion
Thank you kindly.
Honestly, at a lot of levels this was a writing exercise for me with two goals.
1. Write the Mane 6 (with an emphasis on someone not Twilight)
2. Write more than two characters.
Basically, neither are things I do much. If you look at everything I've written for Pony, it's mostly side and background characters. And even in longer formats, I tend to favor two character interaction scenes. So yeah, I'd decided before the round started that I was gonna rectify both those things. I also write a lot of third person limited, free indirect speech, so I opted against that this go round too.
I actually didn't care for the prompt much, and I didn't want to do what I figured would the the obvious gags (direct TZ parody, AU story, Twilight centric story), which left me kind lacking ideas. Then I looked left at my game shelf, saw TI sitting right above my Vinyl and Tavi plushes and was like: "Hey, that'll work." The rest is approximately 600 and some change words.
I didn't want Twilight to be the "feature" pony, so I considered matters and decided Rainbow Dash has already been shown to like board games, so might as well use her. Twilight was an easy sell, as was Pinkie. AJ could be baited with a challenge, and I'd sort of intended (because I'm a dirty rotten shipper) to imply Rarity/AJ as a couple of sorts (admittedly did not succeed so much), so Rarity tries because AJ does.
Then it turns out everyone loves the game because tabletop games are awesome.
And that's all really. I really did expect this to wash out in prelims (or barely squeak in) because, all told (and as many comments agree) it was kind of a nothing story. Just a cute bit of slice of life with no real depth or twist.
>>GroaningGreyAgony
I feel this review more than anything kinda sums up this story. "Decent job, author" indeed.
>>Orbiting_kettle
I was kinda curious. I thought that I could maaaaybe get gamers who might understand the concept if not TI itself, but yeah, this was dead against non-gamers. You are probably right re: darling. Honestly I was using as a character indicator to avoid dialogue tags in a spot or two. And yeah, 8 hours is optimistic but isn't that an important part of the game too? Lying about how incredibly long it will ACTUALLY be? :p
>>Fenton
Yeah. For better and worse, I purposefully boiled the characters down aggressively (including the tree wink, wink, nod, nod) for simplicity is working on voice and fitting in the word count. As far as prompt connection, it is tenuous as all hell, but it was mostly that playing TI puts you in a little zone when you get into it as your who world revolves around the cardboard and plastic and friends for a lot of hours. A Twilight (Imperium) zone, one might say. Ha ha.
>>Moosetasm
See above. I don't disagree. Also about this comment I was starting to wonder how many other board gamers were part of this group.
>>Morning Sun
Thank you kindly.
>>SPark
As has been pointed out, Twilight Imperium (3rd Edition) is actually a real game and everything written in this story is true. Prompt connection is still hella tenuous.
>>Haze
Yeah, in retrospect you are right and I needed to have a time indicator in the first scene. I also would've loved to work in a couple cracks at FFG's expense, but just didn't end up feeling the space (you are indeed correct that it wasn't an actual joke about FFG rulebooks from that era being absolute dumpster fires, it was more gamer personality: RD would want to just tell people how to play and deal with things as they came up while Twi would want to read the rules). And yeah, you're also right, I ended up with a smaller journey than I wanted when it turned out half the cast was ready to play from the get go.
>>FanOfMostEverything
I think this is probably one my best titles. And finally, someone who hasn't played TI. And is possibly not a board gamer, which would send this story falling flat on its face.
>>Monokeras
I'm starting to think I write stories with the active goal of landing near the bottom of your slate, Mono. Between being a fantasy writer and a gamer who likes writing about games, I think I'll have to work very hard to avoid that sort of comment. :p
>>Xepher
No apologies needed! For better and worse, not doing a deep dive (while worse for the story) was my actual goal here. So, one could say I succeeded at failing, as it were.
>>Rao
Typo. Embarrassing, because I actually proofed this story a couple times. And agreed re: adding a bit more meat. Honestly, somebody brings it up a few comments down I think, but doing 6 characters in a mini is a silly, silly idea. There just isn't room to do a lot.
>>JudgeDeadd
I expected a little more of this, honestly. Some tabletop familiarity but not TI specifically. Also glad to see that it does seeeeem to work at that level? Thank you for the kind words.
>>Posh
No argument. I should've made Dashie work more for the win there.
>>Not_A_Hat
Yep.
>>AndrewRogue
Honestly, many FFG do have a lot of depth and making this comment while thinking about playing some Chaos in the Old World or something hurt me. =(
>>Ranmilia
Stop telling me to cut the entire first half of every scene I write, Ran. =(
>>CoffeeMinion
Thank you kindly.
>>AndrewRogue
When I honestly can hear the characters' voices in my head as I read it means you've done a great job.
oh no story is ruined forever ;/
No but seriously, this is kinda surprising--I can assure you that there isn't even the slightest hint of anything unwholesome going on between Rarity and AJ. Even when I re-reread the story purposefully looking for it.
Also glad to see that it does seeeeem to work at that level? Thank you for the kind words.
When I honestly can hear the characters' voices in my head as I read it means you've done a great job.
I'd sort of intended (because I'm a dirty rotten shipper) to imply Rarity/AJ as a couple of sorts (admittedly did not succeed so much)
oh no story is ruined forever ;/
No but seriously, this is kinda surprising--I can assure you that there isn't even the slightest hint of anything unwholesome going on between Rarity and AJ. Even when I re-reread the story purposefully looking for it.