Why Discord is a game break.

Hello my precious little students, Your Dark Lord has risen from his grave once again to teach you mongrels once again! Tonight’s lecture is about Discord and why he can be a game breaker for new and old writers alike.

Before we begin lets define a game breaker, Tvtropes describes a game breaker as. “An often controversial element of gameplay that unexpectedly trumps all others. Depending upon who you ask, it isn't cheating. A Game Breaker is a legitimate element of the game used in an unintended way. The Meta Game ends up revolving around who can get the Game Breaker (or use it on the other) first, resulting in Gameplay Derailment.”

A gamebreaker is something that completely destroys the immersion and fun a player has when they are playing a game, when you play a fighting game and a character has an infinite juggle combo, or someone is abusing a weapon that has no counter play in Dark Souls that is a gamebreaker. The quote on the gamebreaker page is another perfect way to sum this up. "The Assyrians were the first people to start using iron weapons instead of bronze which, to put into a modern perspective, is sort of like showing up for a knife fight with the Death Star. Using iron made the Assyrians so near-invincible that, really, the other guys might as well have been swinging around bananas."
— Cracked article .

Discord while not being a video game character is a game breaker for most fanfiction writers who don’t understand three key things.

He’s not a god no matter how much you want him to be (see god lecture linked above)

While he may ignore Sanderson’s Laws for magic in the show he damn well has to follow them in the realm of fanfiction.

And he’s not a walking Deus Ex Machina.

The first point is simple, he isn’t a god or at least he isn’t like the Christian God. He isn’t all knowing and all powerful or any of that garbage. He has flaws and can be defeated by pastel colored horses for Christ (pun intended) sake! He is obviously one of the most powerful characters in the show but he doesn’t do stuff like make new laws of physics or create worlds. Can you write him like this? Of course, but it’s hard to do without breaking immersion or making Discord out preform the other characters of you story.

The second point is a bit longer to explain, Sanderson’s laws of magic are three laws made by Brandon Sanderson and they are as followed.

"An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic."
"Limitations are more important than powers."
"Expand what you already have before you add something new."
— Brandon Sanderson's Laws of Magic

Writers who try to write Discord normally give him a plethora of powers but give him little to no limitations with those powers. Ignoring the second law tends to cause a Discord to become way too powerful in the stories that they are in and it ends up making problems that should be challenging for any other character to be considered a joke. The third law is just as important, remember when you write Discord to have your Magic system in the story laid down and set before adding him in, and then mold Discord to the magic in your world rather than have the world change to accommodate Discord. The first law is something that focuses more on world building than characters but it still applies. Remember when making your world to lay down the laws of magic for said world somewhere in the story early on that way the reader understands how the magic works and then you can tweak the rules a bit as you write.

The final one is never use Discord to solve unsolvable problems, using him to create a problem that may SEEM unsolvable is alright, since it allows you to show your characters overcoming something through thought and makes the readers think as well, but never ever use him to solve a problem that you wrote yourself into. One of a writers many goals is to avoid the dreaded Deus Ex Machina as much as possible, Discord may seem like a perfect way to solve that unsolvable problem and wrap the story up neat and tidy, but you can’t do that. One because as we said above you should be following Sanderson’s laws when writing any form of Magic and if the problem is magic related then you already have the tools necessary to solve it, since as he said above with the first law “An author's ability to solve conflict with magic is DIRECTLY PROPORTIONAL to how well the reader understands said magic.”

In other words make sure the readers understand your magic and you shouldn’t have a Deus Ex Machina.

Overall Discord is a character that causes problems for writers, he can be funny and serious and can be interpreted in many ways but the success on the interpretation relies on the interpreter taking the time to write out the character and really invest thought and ideas into the character.

Here is my assignment for you guys, I want you to write me a story with Discord in it, It can be a one chapter story or a many chapter story I don’t care, I won’t give you a prompt because this is supposed to make you THINK of one yourself. I want you to submit it to Fimfiction and once it has been submitted I want you guy’s to add it to this thread. I will read them and send you all a critique on how you all did and if you want I will do the same so you guys can Critique how I do. If you have any comment’s or question’s leave them down below!

Link to other Lectures and Resources.
Sanderson's Law.
Tvtropes on Gamebreaker
Lecture: How to Write a God/Goddess.
Sub Lecture/Faux Paus: How to Pinkie Pie
Teacher's Lounge: Episode 1

One of the most important parts of my fic is that Discord is one of the few surviving beings who knows all about Equestrian history. The justification is that he ate a lot of textbooks when he was younger.

4730302 see now that's fine,

4730272
I view Discord as the quintessential Chaotic Neutral.

In my fic, Equestria is engaged in a multi-decade international war. Why hasn't Discord intervened? Early after things got bloody, he departed permanently. The reason? It just wasn't fun anymore. I tie Discord's willingness to use his power to whether or not he's having fun with it. If he's feeling deflated, don't expect any tricks. And a key aspect to what Discord considers "fun" is that he is generally not malicious. He has the ability to wreak bloodshed en masse upon ponies, but the worst he ever did was turn their world into a chaotic mess for laughs.

Though he did leave a "parting gift" to a researcher friend of Fluttershy's which will be a key to solving the problem of magical amplification without draining the surrounding environment of energy. So his contribution to my overall plot is not zero.

What I've found is that balancing the magical capabilities of alicorns is every bit as challenging as Discord. Interestingly, this would be because in my fic, both draw their energy from the same source.

Would it be okay to have him banned from using his magic for the purposes of our story, or are you specifically trying to see how we handle his powers in our fics?
The situation I have in mind is that he has been ordered not to use his magic, it is against the rules. I'm curious as to how he, with his chaotic and mischievous nature being opposed to order and rules, would cope with those constraints and the temptation to 'bend' them.

4730395

I'm curious as to how he, with his chaotic and mischievous nature being opposed to order and rules, would cope with those constraints

If you want to see how Discord would cope with being unable to use his magic, look no further than here.

4730396

Oh yes, I remember that episode, it was fun :) Who knew that buried deep, deep, within Q, beneath so many layers and strata of mischief, arrogance, selfishness and boredom, was the capacity for empathy and self sacrifice?

Indeed in many occasions during the show, and in the books written alongside, he has shown a certain abstract willingness to comply, assist, even teach the crew lessons about themselves (for example when he dropped them in a Robin Hood fantasy so Picard would understand his feelings towards that fascinating thief chick, forgotten her name...).

My scenario though shows him not deprived of his powers, but rather simply not allowed to use them. He could still snap his fingers and chaos it up if he wanted, but that would break the rules, and then he would have to answer for that. At what point does his nature out weigh his desire to comply?

4730420
Rules?? Well, that's actually likely more difficult for Discord/Q than simply having his powers forcibly removed. Why? Look at the tenets of the Chaotic Neutral alignment. Rules are anathema. He'd be looking for ways to bend/break them first chance he got.

However... Darklordcomp's challenge is for the writer to give Discord some rules (limits) essentially. It is the solution to the overpowered character. Looking at the "ten commandments" of Chaotic Neutral, there are some very interesting 'rules'.

1. You shall lie to promote your freedom.
2. You shall not kill the innocent.
3. You shall not murder. [which is essentially the same thing]
4. You shall help the needy if such action promotes your freedom.
5. You shall honor no authority above yourself.
6. You shall break the law whenever convenient.
7. You shall not betray others unless your life is in jeopardy.
8. You shall not aid enemies of freedom or those who promote law.
9. You shall pursue pleasure.
10. You shall promote unlimited freedom for yourself.

I find #7 interesting because Discord actually did betray everypony when he sided with Tirek. So perhaps that's a good example of taking Discord too far out of character.

4730272
This is rather helpful, since it provides suggestions on how to write Discord. One of the biggest problems with the guy is that he seems so very powerful. Quite a lot of problems could be solved in a moment. Same thing for various plans the bad guys might have. A single snap of his talons and everything goes up in flames.

One way to write around this problem is to have a villain who is stronger than Discord, but that somehow feels like taking the easy way out.

4730432

That's exactly the thoughts in my head :) It would be far more difficult for Discord to obey the rules than to have them forcibly stamped upon him, that's the challenge he has to over come. So in this case, the limit to his powers is his own desire to participate in the games with his friends, which wars against his own nature to disregard rules and controls.

Like Red B writes,

One way to write around this problem is to have a villain who is stronger than Discord, but that somehow feels like taking the easy way out.

which personally I agree with, that's the dark, dark road of power creep which slowly killed Dragonball Z, Bleach, Superman and The Incredible Hulk for me. The characters became so powerful that the writers ran out of ideas for a good villain, so instead all they had was a more powerful one. So the hero had to become more powerful. So the next villain had to be more powerful still. Then the hero had to become more powerful in turn. Wash, rinse, repeat...

So I figured, in the absence of an external force and as the full extent of Discords powers are only very loosely defined in the series, the best limits on them would be his own choices and attitudes. Like in your story, he left when it simply wasn't fun anymore.

But that's just my own thoughts, and I've been told I over think things...

4730395 I just want to see how well you guy's can write Discord as a character, use him how ever you will but avoid the pit falls i talked about in my lecture.

4730432 My challenge is mostly to see how well you write Discord, I don't care how you do it as long as you avoid the pit falls i talk about in the lecture.

Wish they'd sticky this.

4730537
>Implying Dragon Ball died, or is dead.

Power creep has its uses, and is a popular plot device. That said, when it comes to Discord, I think he's pretty near the top of the food chain in the MLP:FiM setting, but there definitely are villains more powerful than him. We had one in the show, even. Tirek wrecked Discord after he had absorbed enough power. He wasn't naturally that powerful, but he got there. That's the power creep I enjoy, the kind where a character keeps getting more powerful.

As for this thread's original intent, I already write Discord in my main long fic, but the idea here is intriguing enough that I may just write a short Discord fic and see how the folks in here feel about my style with him. (Since I automatically assume no one anywhere I post reads my main fic, anyway :P )

4730964 Power creep is defined as "A term used in any kind of multi-player game (including Video Games, Collectible Card Game, and Tabletop Games) to describe the process in which newly-added-content can be played along with the old-content, but with the new content being far more powerful/useful in every sense. This process leaves old-content completely worthless, save for a few exceptions and for Cherry Tappin"

Tirek didn't suffer power creep, he was a villain who made use of a weakness that he spotted in Discord and bides his time until he caught discord off guard. a better example of villain power creep would be Chrysalis, who used a power up that had never been explained in the show before to defeat Celestia. She was thrown into the show at the end of season 2 and had no build up to who she was, unlike Discord who was built up as more powerful than Celestia and Luna naturally. Tierk is another example, He was built up throughout his episodes and was shown to be weaker than discord until later on when he had absorbed almost all magic in equestria.

4730307 Another victory for Pat!

Here's a tip! Have Discord make a funny entrance and an even funnier exit.

like in Princess Twilight sparkle part 1 Discord appears referencing Mary Poppins!

Why not have the being of chaos zip open an inter-dimensional path instead of a door?