AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 277
ARES III SOL 274
[08:05] WATNEY: Forgive me, Father, for I have sinned, and come short of the grace of DM.
[08:32] JPL: Good morning, Mark. What did you do? I don’t think we included Tomb of Horrors in your adventure packs.
[09:03] WATNEY: I gave them the gazebo.
[09:32] JPL: I see. Maybe we did include Tomb of Horrors. You’d better email me a full report. For sociological studies, you understand.
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 276
ARES III SOL 273
(the night before)
“The courtyard is covered with green grass- the only live, growing thing you’ve seen so far since you entered. The walls enclose a square area about a hundred yards on a side, with nothing but a walkway from the gate to the building and a lone gazebo which stands about, oh, ten yards off the main walkway.”
There, thought Mark, let’s see what happens next.
“What is a gazebo?” three voices asked at once, Fireball’s the first and loudest.
“Wait a moment.” Starlight switched her computer over to dictionary mode and said, “G-A-Z-E-B-O,” typing the letters with her hooves as she did so. “Ah, here we are. Even has a picture. See?” She turned the screen so the others could see it. “An outdoor structure, usually in a lawn or garden, used for shade, shelter and rest.”
Darn, Mark thought.
And then he thought, Darn? I’ve been around these ponies too long.
“Uh-huh,” Fireball rumbled. “What does it look like, Mark?”
“Well,” Mark said, pretending to scroll through the adventure notes on his own computer, “considering the décor you’ve seen so far, it’s surprisingly ordinary. It appears to be made of wood. Hexagonal layout with steps up on the side facing the walkway and the opposite side. It’s painted mostly white, with brown wooden shingles on the roof, green handrails around the sides, and a bit of yellow trim up near the eaves. The shade underneath looks particularly attractive.”
“Uh-huh,” the dragon repeated. “And no skulls?”
“No skulls anywhere,” Mark agreed.
“Okay,” Fireball rumbled. “Schmaug asks Slash Magnus does he still has that firewood we got last camp.”
“What?” Cherry Berry, whose barbarian had been renamed ‘Slash Magnus’, asked. “What do you want that for?”
“Too much… describe,” Fireball finally said. “Too many little things. Mark had this ready. It’s a… a… it’s a trap,” Fireball finished in Equestrian, unable to find the right English word.
Starlight, of course, had the word. “A trap?” she asked. “It’s a pretty shed with open sides. It’s an inanimate object- it’s a thing! Just a thing! How could it be a trap?”
“Don’t know,” Fireball said, “and not gonna find out.” He looked back at Cherry. “Firewood.”
“This is a waste of time,” Cherry Berry groaned.
“I’m with Fire… um, with Schmaug,” Spitfire said. “I check for traps.”
“Okay, roll Thievery,” Mark said.
Spitfire clicked the appropriate button on her computer. “Twelve.”
“Plus your bonus!!” Starlight hissed in warning.
“Oh, right,” Spitfire said. “Um… twenty-one.”
“Okay,” Mark said. “You don’t see any traps, because it’s a gazebo.”
“Yep, trap for sure,” Fireball said. “I take the firewood, pile it up next to ga-zee-bo thing.”
“I haven’t gave you the firewood yet!” Cherry insisted.
“Did too,” Fireball said. “And I pour lamp oil on wood. Empty bottle. Maybe splash on gazebo too.” He leaned his head forward over his computer, stretching his long neck to smirk at Mark. “What does it think of that?”
“Roll for Perception,” Mark said.
Fireball looked back at his computer and frowned. “Where… where.”
“Per-kep-tee-on,” Starlight muttered.
“Oh, that,” Fireball said. “Why can’t you humans say words right?” He clicked a button and laughed. “Nineteen! Plus two is twenty-one!”
“Well,” Mark said, doing his best to sound judicious, “a person could say the gazebo looks a little apprehensive… if it wasn’t a building!”
“There, see?” Fireball gloated. Then, a moment later, he asked, “What is appre-what he said?”
“Apprehensive,” Starlight sighed. “It means the gazebo can see what’s coming and is afraid of it. Or would be, if-“
“I knew it!” Fireball’s head whipped back to face Mark. “Schmaug runs back out of… out of… runs to safe place and casts Scorching Burst on the firewood.”
Mark raised his eyebrows. “Just to be clear,” he said, “you are initiating combat- starting a fight- against a building.” Now came the words of doom, the words he’d heard in high school and college way too many times, the words that told you it was already far too late: “Are you sure you want to do this?”
Fireball didn’t flinch. “I cast Scorching Burst on the firewood.”
“Okay, then,” Mark said. “Roll your attack. You get first advantage; everyone else roll.”
Fireball clicked the button. “Ha! Natural 20!” He rolled again. “And seven! Thirty-two!”
“Roll damage!”
Click, different button. “Seven!”
“Okay, and since you’re targeting oil-soaked flammable materials, I’m ruling it does double damage.” Mark clicked his die-roll app a couple of times. “The good news is, you have successfully set the gazebo on fire. It’ll take fourteen points of damage every round. The bad news is, you have enraged it. The dread gazebo jumps from its foundations, lands next to Schmaug, and swallows him whole. The bite does…” Click. “Well, eighteen points of damage, so you’re not dead, but you are very definitely bloodied.” Mark could no longer keep the grin off his face as he added, “Oh, and all non-bite attacks the gazebo makes? Add fire damage to that.”
“OH, COME ON!” Starlight Glimmer shouted.
“I make Vengeful Attack,” Cherry said.
“Yep, you can do that,” Mark agreed. “Roll it.”
Cherry clicked the button, and groaned. “Twelve.”
“Add your bonus,” Starlight urged.
“I did.” She turned the computer to show the 3 on the dice app display.
“Yeah, that’s a miss,” Mark said. “Your greatsword bounces off the gazebo’s wooden hide leaving barely a nick.”
“Um… did you say it eat me?” Fireball asked. “Crunch crunch crunch?”
“More like crunch, gulp,” Mark said. “Also, don’t do that.”
“But it open, yeah? How it hold me?”
“Support beams in roof grabbing you,” Mark said.
“I try to get out.” Fireball made snake-wriggle motions with his claws.
“Not your turn,” Mark said. “The gazebo used its action point for the reaction attack, so next up is Pickflower.”
That was Spitfire’s thief. “I stab gazebo in back,” she said.
“Okay, you waste the round figuring out that the gazebo doesn’t have a back,” Mark said. “Cherry Berry is next.”
“I take sword and chop gazebo,” Cherry said. “Let my friend go!” She clicked the button, and this time she groaned even louder. “One.”
“Ooooh, yeah,” Mark said. “Slash Magnus tries to impale the gazebo with his greatsword. The sword goes in and gets stuck, and the gazebo spins around, yanking the sword out of Slash’s hands. I’ll rule that the sword did half damage, but now you have the gazebo’s-“
“Is it my turn now?” Starlight Glimmer interrupted.
Mark paused. “Um, in just a moment,” he said.
“I dump my water bottle on the flames and try to put them out!”
Everyone froze. “Um… okaaaaaaay…” He clicked a button, and his eyebrows rose from honest surprise this time. “The unexpected action stuns the gazebo with surprise…” He clicked again. “And since the gazebo jumped away from the firewood, you’re able to douse the flames enough that you can use your cape to swat out the remaining flames.”
“Okay,” Starlight continued. “I then apologize to the gazebo and ask it to release my ignorant friend. Talking’s a free action, right?”
“Um…” Mark looked at his notes. “This gazebo is a magically animated brute. It doesn’t think. You can’t parley with it.”
“Oh, yes I can,” Starlight insisted. “You said it was apprehensive when it saw Schmaug piling up firewood and dousing it with oil. That means it can think and anticipate the future. Only intelligent creatures can do that. And if it’s intelligent, that means I can parley with it.”
Damn, Mark thought, and also, Shit, and furthermore, Fuck.
I can’t argue with that.
“Fine,” he surrendered. “But the gazebo is really angry and not all that intelligent, and you only have a plus-one bonus for Diplomacy-“
“But this is a monster, right?” Starlight continued. “That means I use Dungeoneering, and I have a plus-nine for that!”
Okay, Mark thought. I should have known Starlight would be the rules lawyer. “Doesn’t matter,” he said. “Schmaug set a wooden creature on fire. For the gazebo, that’s glue-factory nightmare territory. Your target number to succeed is thirty, so nothing less than a natural twenty is going to succeed.”
“But it is possible, right?” Starlight asked.
Mark sighed. “Yes,” he admitted. “Just barely. Roll it.”
“So,” Spitfire said in Equestrian, “we need Daub Cake to roll twenty or we all die? Daub ‘Can’t Roll Don’t Make Me’ Cake? We’re doomed.”
Starlight looked at her computer, then looked at the dice she’d carved (which hadn’t been removed from the worktable since their first use), then at her computer. Then, taking a deep breath, she pushed the computer aside and reached for the red twenty-sided crystal. She balanced it carefully on the underside of her forehoof, tilted it to let it roll in a little circle around her frog, and then gently released it to tumble on the table.
The die rattled, rolled, and stopped.
“HOODY HOO!”
AMICITAS FLIGHT THREE – MISSION DAY 277
ARES III SOL 274
[15:18] JPL: Just finished reading your report. I can’t believe you let them charm the Dread Gazebo.
[15:39] WATNEY: I know. Thanks to their new friend they’re all up to level 4 already and preparing to go back into the dungeon tonight to finish off the lich king.
[16:11] JPL: But bribing the gazebo by giving it a granite flagstone floor??
[16:40] WATNEY: The dice backed Starlight up. And I checked- they’re not loaded or imbalanced. I think it just shows that, however much Mars hates the ponies, it hates me more.
[17:11] JPL: I think it shows it’s time you handed off your GM screen to Starlight. Don’t take it too hard. Some people just weren’t born to handle such responsibility.
[17:43] WATNEY: I’m not allowed to say what I’m thinking because you’re my boss, Venkat, but I’m thinking it as loud as I can.
Too bad none of them would fall for the Head of Vecna.
Ah, the dread gazebo... A classic
Ah, the dread gazebo. I love that story so much.
And what a twist on the story!
Why can’t I thumb up more then once? Laughed so hard got tears! 😅
I had a group parlay with some bandits in the middle of the desert. The bandit leader was sitting in a nice gazebo. It was supposed to be a surprise when the gazebo animated and started attacking them (but how ELSE would a gazebo have been there?).
...but the barbarian ruined it by attacking the bandit scouts before they even got within line of sight. Apparently they'd (also) agreed to the meeting in bad faith.
8979746
Yeah, you need to know the lore for that, and not be so experienced with cursed items.
However, even so, I can see our Dragon at least trying on the Alicorn Amulet if it appeared in the story, with that name, and clearly the same crazy curse.
So a little bit of wiggle room and you could set something up.
The Gazebo is a better tale though for newbies.
I love this chapter!!! I love this chapter so much!!!
In HackMaster's first edition I was going to have a monster known as a dopplemeister turn into a gazebo, but one of the guys I gamed with beat me to it.
8979746
Don't count their potential stupidity so short! The group that came up with the idea for The Head of Vecna forgot they made it and fell for their own trap cutting off each other's head trying to get it to work...
I cast Derp Lightning on the Dread Gazebo
(Yeah, I know it's the town hall, but the top looks vaguely gazebo-esque)
believe in the heart of the dice glim glam, avenge all of us players who were tortured by our DM's.
(I will never forgive you Andrew for what you did to my first ever drow thief, those horny spiders still haunt my memories.)
you cant charm the gazebo, its a gazebo. it catches you and eats you.
At least no one seduced it. That would have been awkward.
You actually did it... you bastard. You glorious bastard.
“HOODY HOO!”, indeed.
Fireball means never having to say you're sorry. Particularly if you repeat it as needed.
I was not expecting a Knights of the Dinner Table reference today.
8979820 I couldn't find a 4th Ed. pre-genned bard character sheet.
8979843 Fireball, apply directly to the forehead. (x3)
8979817 Mark slipped up with the "apprehensive" comment. Otherwise you'd be quite correct.
hahahaha! oh, man, that was hilarious!
it also reminded me of a funny comic, Goblin Hollow, on RHJunior.com.
sorry, that site doesn't have a Search function, so it would take too long to find the exact comic, so i'll try to make a Transcript:
-player: "ok, Trap-Spot check. (rolls dice) do i spot any traps?"
-DM: "no, you don't."
-player: (to teammates) "ok, i think it's clear."
DM: "now roll Reflex."
-Player: (rolls dice) "nuts, only five-wait, what?"
DM: "i only said you didn't SPOT any traps. fortunately your Studded Leather vest stops the poison darts."
and then there's this website:
http://www.wfrp.de/hosted/flw/en/flw0250.html
Classic players: tell them "There isn't really anything in this room" and they will spend hours searching for traps and loot. They will even bring picks and shovels to dig under the floor.
I would love to see them try bribing Mars with sculpted landscaping. Of course, they would need an expert...
Maud: Mars, you are a rock. I have brought you hand-farmed stone as tribute.
Mars:...
8979866
Here's the strip you mentioned:
rhjunior.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Goblin-Hollow-0075.gif
http://www.rhjunior.com/goblin-hollow-0075/
And here's a good start of an adventure:
rhjunior.com/eng/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/Goblin-Hollow-0063.gif
http://www.rhjunior.com/goblin-hollow-0063/
Don't worry, Mark, you'll get back on them.
I feeling like this should show how spiral into a cross over with Friendship is Dragons.
Now they need a "Character and adjacent target die" moment.
But they still haven't fought a thesaurus?
This was fantastic. The proper pony solution to things. If it's intelligent we can negotiate!
This distinctly reminds me of the time in one of my Shadowrun games, when one of the players, insisted on using diplomacy against a pack of ghouls, who had been explicitly written in the encounter to be hostile on sight... Took me a bit to figure out how to even manage that unexpected turn... and they pulled it off... the players then went on to completely mangle the rest of the run module... and turned what was supposed to be a sadistically clever ambush, into a total clusterfuck for the enemy.
8979843
"As the size of an explosion increases, the number of social situations it is incapable of resolving approaches zero."
*frantic whispering from Shoulder Twilight*
"And that would be wrong."
-Starlight Glimmer
8979964
Those are the best encounters...if the players go too long without throwing me a curve ball I get dangerously bored.
Oh. So he's one of THOSE DMs. I'd rather hang outside the airlock, personally.
Also... Magnus huh... Impressive facial hair, maybe? I mean, not a fighter, but...
8979964
I share your pain.
static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/OffTheRails_1891.jpg
8979927 Careful. Those can be deadly to the the unprepared (Bored of the Rings)
Goodgulf quickly scrambled down, and Arrowroot and Bromosel tugged the door open a few more inches. At that moment, a great gurgling and belching arose from the center of the pond, and a large corduroy monster slowly lifted itself above the surface with a loud hiccup.
The company stood rooted to the ground in terror. The creature was about fifty feet tall, with wide lapels, long dangling participles, and a pronounced gazetteer.
"Aiyee!" shouted Legolam. "A Thesaurus!"
"Maim!" roared the monster. "Mutilate, mangle, crush. See harm."
8979866
entire arc was awesome.
Pixie with a Vorpral Scythe (as per the Darn Good Reason rule)
'combat medic'
"I scream like a cheerleader on helium and run."
the xmas arc 'Joyous Roguery is also equaly hilarious.
'you encounter a Dire Pigeon.' COO
I learned something new today.
They think thats bad, the neext game, theyre going to have to deal with, The Shrubbery?
Sorry, just took an hour to recover from the hilarity.
I'm just curious is does anyone know is there an original Gazebo joke, that a lot of stories pay homage too.
Or do people just make Gazebo jokes because its such a fun word?
8980074
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_and_the_Dread_Gazebo
I’ve dabbled with paper and pencil RPGs for longer than I’d care to say. But I can honestly say that I’d never heard of the Dread Gazebo—until now. That being said, I’ve known people that would react in that exact same fashion.
I mean, I get what Fireball was thinking by setting the wooden structure that he has a feeling is a trap on fire, but really... I've never met a DM who WOULDN'T make it so that there was a way the most obvious solution would backfire spectacularly on the adventurers
gotta ask, is the monster gazebo a real thing?
I have never heard of the Dread Gazebo but that was quite entertaining. XD Also, "Hoody hoo?"
8980144
In Munchkin, yes.
memestatic3.fjcdn.com/comments/Blank+_e00891570e4ddb4c40d656d35a40cd72.jpg
In D&D it was an old joke https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_and_the_Dread_Gazebo now used to troll unsuspecting noobs.
"Genesis of the Daleks" is awesome. One of the first episodes I saw back when I was 4... in 1980... I'm so old.
8979866 I prefer the phrase: "You don't spot any of the traps."
Because the only thing better than a poisoned and dying adventurer, is one too paranoid to open a door.
8979951
Ok, feather this, I have to speak up again about negotiation and my personal unadulterated contempt towards changelings and other raping soul-sucking murderous inhuman monstrocities.
You see, I don't know if that's a true story or just an anecdote, but when filming the 'Alien' (the one with black goo-spitting bug things, yes, that one) Sigourney Weaver was objecting the script saying it's too violent and pacifism should always be concidered, and negotiations are always possible, so on and so forth.
So Riddley Scott (coincidentally, the guy that directhed 'The Martian') presented her the Xenomorph statue - very well made, by the way, with teeth, acidic saliva and everything - and told her that if she can persuasively negotiate with that, he will agree to rewrite some parts of the movie.
What I want to say is, maybe not every problem is solved with a bullet, but neither all conflicts can be resolved with a 'pony solution'.
I know I'm rumbling about a gazebo joke at this pont, I know.
And I can clearly see a former cult leader negotiating her way through any conflict.
But still.
Doesn't it feel empty when you know that in magical land of pastel-colored horses any conflict can be avoided or resolved through talking and feeling all emotional and stuff?
Any person there gets forgiven whether they deserve it or not, that's just how it works, but wouldn't it be more interesting if they've actually earned it?
I like this fic mostly because the Mars cannot be negotiated with and the conflicts withing the crew are solved not through compromise, but either through sacrifice or mutual respect earned through hard work. But the problem of the empty conflict and empty forgiveness remains when you concider Dragonfly. She's a changeling, a former infiltrator even. So yeah, kidnapping, emotion-draining, probably murder for what we know. And if I understand why Cherry respects her - colleague/ally in space race and all - all of the others always seemed to be TOO understanding and loving for former enemies, excluding Fireball - he never cared and good for him. And Mark is acting so inadequate after his... incident with Johannson-bug, I'm almost certain he has a Stockholm syndrom by now.
IDK guys. This feels both too far from the book and too close to the show, but humans are xenophobic by nature. And either Mark is still suffering from overfeeding or he's just underdevelopped as a character, I don't know. Maybe I'm wrong about all of the above and someone here can change my mind, but I really don't feel comfortable about this story anymore. Who knew the Dread Gazebo would be a tripping point.
UPD: Now I realise why the author got this characted stuck in a cocoon. Probably because it's too hard to write her in at this point.
8980299
Of course you can solve everything with friendship! If negotiations fail, there's always bombardment with the Orbital Friendship Cannon!
i-chzbgr-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w1000/s/i.chzbgr.com/full/6416498688/h09257C7F/
8980111
8980193
http://www.kodtweb.com/2011/05/20/lair-of-the-gazebo-3/
:)
8979853
Why did you decide on 4th Edition, if you don't mind me asking?
8980111 8980193 Look up "Knights of the Dinner Table". Or, for a musical explanation:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0MyEEUx6vj0
8980262 Sadly, the version shown tonight was the 90 minute one-shot edit, which is a butcher job. Disappointing.
8980299 Humans are not innately xenophobic. Some humans are xenophobic and some xenophilic. Thus dogs and cats. Thus the fact that some of us (particularly those of European descent) have genetic markers that come from Neanderthals. Thus the fact that most humans will feel sympathetic toward young not of our own species, even in some cases reptilian and avian babies. Thus the very existence of society itself above the family or clan level.
As for Dragonfly, she earned her trust before the incident. She's earned some mistrust since, of course, but that can be dealt with if and when she's revived.
8980419 Cheap gag, plus the fact that 4e is the most stranger-friendly edition of D&D to date. And I certainly wasn't going to inflict THAC0 on the ponies.
8980445
Ah, thanks.
[08:32] JPL:Good morning, Mark. What did you do? I don’t think we includedTomb of Horrorsin your adventure packs.
[09:03] WATNEY:I gave them the gazebo.
[09:32] JPL:I see. Maybe wedidincludeTomb of Horrors. You’d better email me a full report. For sociological studies, you understand.
I;e we'll post what you did on /tg/ and laugh about it
The real sinners are the Italian translators of Munchkin... they have TRANSLATED Gazebo into Padigliocchio [a portmanteau for Pavilion and Eye] -__-