Author's Note
Ever have a game that you all know how to play but everyone has slightly different methods of playing it?
Who Goes First?
“Alright, sit in a circle and let the game begin!” Rainbow Dash said, finally having gotten everyone to agree to a game of Truth or Dare.
“I still think this is going to end horribly.” Rarity groaned. While she could pretend she didn’t want to play this game for Fluttershy’s sake, she really just didn’t want to do anything humiliating herself. But of course at the same time she still felt like knocking Rainbow Dash down a peg for having come up with the idea in the first place.
“Isn’t that half the fun though?” Pinkie asked. “I can’t wait to have to do something totally silly that no one would ever do normally.”
“Isn’t something silly that no one would ever do normally exactly what you usually do?” Applejack asked. She was onboard with the idea, though still a tad nervous herself.
“As long as we’re all having fun that’s all that matters.” Fluttershy said. She may have wanted to play this game a little more than she let on. Probably more than Rainbow Dash in fact.
“Alright… so who goes first?” Twilight Sparkle asked.
“That will be decided by the wheel of awsum!” Dash announced by spinning a bottle of Applejack Daniels.
“Oh wonderful, she even managed to incorporate spin the bottle into this.” Rarity said before the bottle landed on her. “Me? I, uh, didn't have anything prepared. So... “ she looked around at who to ask. She couldn’t ask Rainbow Dash, not right away, save something for later, and she didn’t want to ask Fluttershy either. Pinkie Pie. She was the easiest and least lightly to offend. “Ok. Pinkie Pie. Truth or Dare?”
“Dar-” Pinkie started but was cut off by Rainbow Dash.
“Hold on. That’s not how you play this game.”
“It’s not?” Rarity asked. “Am I… meant to…?” she hesitated, pointing out a hoof as she panned across the circle of girls.
“You’re meant to spin the bottle so it’s random and that person gets to go next.”
“Now hold on just a minute.” Applejack chimed in. “That ain’t how you play this here game. You do just as Rarity did and choose someone.”
“I always thought you asked the person directly across from you.” Twilight spoke up with.
“But that would… make it so you can only ever ask one person.” Fluttershy countered. “Unless, maybe, you change places after every round. But that just seems like a lot of hassle.”
“I like Rarity’s way but what happens if the person you ask then just asks you right back and then you ask them and then they ask you and you ask them and they ask you and you ask them and then they ask you and you ask them and they ask you and you ask you and them ask you and you ask them and you and you and them and then them and then you you gi oh they ask you and then they ask…” she didn’t stop.
“Well I suppose we could just use the butcher rule.” Rarity stated as Pinkie continued before coming to an abrupt halt and asking…
“What’s the butcher rule?”
Rarity answered with “It’s where you can’t tag the person who just tagged you. Though I guess in this case it would be ask not tag.”
“Oh, like ‘no backsies’.”
“Well how about we just go to the next person in the circle gets to go next regardless of who was asked?” suggested Twilight.
“But… but what if the same person is picked by two different people in a row?” Fluttershy asked.
“Well, yeah, that’s why you spin the bottle so it’s random and you can’t do that intentionally.” Dash answered as if it was obvious.
“Yeah, but it can still happen.” Applejack pointed out. “And what if it lands on yourself? Do you have to ask yourself?”
“Well that’s just silly.” Rarity scoffed. “Obviously you spin again. And as for landing on the same person multiple times in concession, well, ‘them’s the breaks’.” she finished making quotation marks with her fingers. She wasn’t quoting anything in particular, she just wanted to use that phrase but needed a way to make it seem sophisticated.
“Alright. how about this…”Twilight began. “We restart, spin the bottle to see who goes first. We then let the person choose who they want to ask. After that the person to their left, clockwise, gets to ask anyone but the person just asked. And then it goes on from there. Sound good.”
“But what if you have a really good follow up?” Rainbow Dash asked.
Applejack answered that with another question. “But what if you then have a follow up to a follow up. It just goes down a path if you let that happen. Besides, they might not choose the same option twice in a row anyway.”
“Well, maybe we could do a tally system.” recommended Fluttershy.
“Oh, like, everyone keeps track of how many times they’ve been chosen and if they’ve been chosen too many times more than everyone else they can decline.” Pinkie spouted.
“Well, no. Actually I meant the person asking has to choose everyone else at least once before they can ask the same person again. But, your idea works too I suppose.” Fluttershy finished.
“Maybe we could do both o’ those. Though it does seem like an awful lot of stuff to keep track of.”
“Not necessarily.” Twilight spoke up. “If we got some popsicle sticks…” she turned to Pinkie.
“Oh. On it!” Pinkie said as she reached into her mane and pulled out a box of one hundred.
“And some coloured markers.” Pinkie already had them before she’d finished the words. “Then we give everyone five with a colour on them to represent each of us, flip them upside down once we ask that person, and give them a few more blank sticks to use as counters for how many times they’ve been asked.”
“That could work…” Rainbow Dash thought aloud. “But who's going to be represented by which colours?” she asked. They all just stared blankly “Right, right…”
“So, um...are we all ready to play?” Fluttershy asked as Pinkie hastily placed the coloured and uncoloured popsicle sticks in front of everyone in a perfectly laid out neat pile despite having thrown half of them. Everyone nodded and looked at one another before all eyes fell back onto Rarity.
“Oh, right.” she said and cleared her throat. “Eh-hem… Pinkie Pie. Truth or Dare?”
The end.
