Magical ponies casting magical spells to solve their magical problems. It's magic! It's perfect fodder for tabletop RPG systems and other kinds of Saturday Night Fun. We've got a pair of such things sitting in our inbox right now and it's my job to share the gaming goodness with all of you (because Seth and Cereal don't "get" it), so let's not waste time.
These are rather wildly different games with totally different goals in mind, so I daresay if you are any kind of gamer you will find something for everypony below the page break. Today's page break sponsored by Princess Celestia. You've tried the Restia, now try the Bestia!
Our first offering is a traditional RPG system. The creator has an image and an advertisement all ready to go, so I'm just going to get out of is way and give those to you:
Pony Tales: A Role-Playing Game for Ages Twelve and Older
Pony Tales is a role-playing game for ages twelve and older based loosely on the Open D6 open-source rules set. Rewritten from the ground up in a straightforward conversational style, the rules have been streamlined for ease of play and heavily customized for a better fit to the unique characters and setting. A chief feature of the game is its differentiation between "literal" games, which take the show’s anachronisms and inconsistencies at face value, and "figurative" games, which assume those elements are exaggerations or simplifications for effect. Where possible the rules make allowances for both kinds of games, offering suggestions and alternatives to suit the different styles of play. Pony Tales is available as a free PDF file for download in two sizes, US letter and A4, and in two formats, twenty loose-leaf pages or a forty-page half-size booklet. A version formatted for tablet or e-reader also is available.
A companion booklet, The Magical Land, contains background information and educated guesses to suggest ways of filling in certain blanks. It explores pony physiology, useful historical parallels from the real world, and possible technological and societal connections that might not be obvious. The Magical Land is available as a free PDF file for download in two sizes, US letter and A4, and in two formats, twelve loose-leaf pages or a twenty-four-page half-size booklet. A version formatted for tablet or e-reader also is available.
An eight-panel narrator's (game-master's) screen also is available, containing quick-reference tables and a "Pony Form" (character sheet). It is designed to be printed on or glued to four sheets of card stock, then assembled into a foldable screen to shield the narrator's notes and story-spoilers from the view of the players. It too is a free PDF file for download in two sizes, US letter and A4.
Materials may be revised periodically as rules are updated or new information becomes available. All files now are available for download on DeviantART.
Our second offering is slightly less fancy, so let me be the one to talk it up a bit. It's a pony variant on Mafia (which is itself a Chicago variant on Werewolf; I don't quite know why the 'Mafia' name is so popular among bronies), meaning it's a game where a bunch of people try to figure out who the bad guys are before the whole town gets taken out. It tests your ability to bluff and perform deductive reasoning, and it's absurdly fun at parties or late night gatherings of friends. This version boasts a pony flavor, where shapeshifters from the Everfree Forest have come to abduct innocent ponies in the night! It's up to one player to take on the role of Twilight Sparkle and, with the help of the ponies of Ponyville, weed out the imposters before it's too late.
The document itself is written under the assumption that you're looking to play online but personally I find the live version is much more exhilarating. However you choose to play, I'm sure you'll have a blast!
Invasion of the Pony Snatchers
51 comments:
looks cool
ReplyDeletelooks inherently interesting, but not to me personally. D=
ReplyDeleteSo Awsome!
ReplyDelete(AKA MAFIA, BUT WITH PONIES)
ReplyDeleteOh.
*scans over rules*
Well...yup. It's basically mafia with ponies. No mind-blowing here.
Interesting.
ReplyDeleteI love Mafia, I only got to play it maybe 4 times ever, but its the most fun I've had in a card game.
ReplyDeleteOh sweet Celestia yes! This is most impressive. :D
ReplyDeleteThat RPG thingy sounds entirely way complex anyway, but super fun. I might have to download it and give it a look over.
ReplyDeleteAnd... yep, that's just a round of regular Werewolf. Twi's a Seer, the Guards are Defenders, it's missing a vigilante... your basic setup, really.
@S.Aura Knight
ReplyDeleteThe true differentiating factors in Werewolf are always in the setting. It's a totally different feeling being a pony deciding who to banish than it is trying to lynch werewolves. Your decision making process and defense change almost entirely.
That first one, that's called professionalism and dedication and those adjectives are why this community is an unstoppable force.
ReplyDelete2: I recently watched that cheezy film and now it's a ponified Whodunnit RPG.
Hmmm, all this tabletop rpg talk has raised a question in my mind. Has anyone made a ponyfied D20 yet? Or better yet, a whole set of pony dice!
ReplyDelete/ducks objects thrown by everyone without a nerd factor of 42.0 or higher
... that's probably gonna need a reflex save.
/ducks objects thrown by everyone without a nerd factor of 9001.0 or greater
The pony game system seems very similar to this game my friend has called Monsters, with a little bit of GURPS and World of Darkness thrown in. But it has PONIES!!! I am totally gonna need to read up on this. Just downloaded all the .pdfs :)
ReplyDeleteI used to run a pony based miniature game, using the toys as minis of course, a homebrew system based on GURPS and this stuffed animal war game I forget the name of. Pretty damn fun.
ReplyDeleteI was thinking of moderating a pony mafia game. Off the document I have (it hasn't been balanced yet) it's easily a 24+ player game. The game I'm playing right now is ground to a halt so I think I'll finish it up and announce it in a few days.
ReplyDelete@Phoe
ReplyDeleteOh, I totally agree on that. Setting is usually the key feature I look at when playing mafia (or designing a game) on a forum I go to. The setting can totally change the atmosphere of the game. It's why I prefer forum mafia over like EpicMafia; those are just bland with nothing to define them (even if it has a million plus roles that don't work as well on a forum).
But I will say that it's a great springboard if you want to design a more complex Werewolf/Mafia with a pony flavor.
Is it weird that I think the second one would be more fun if you replace "pony snatchers" with "Cupcakes!Pinkie"? XD
ReplyDelete@Dr. Henry Killinger '9001.0' '42.0' I see what you did there.
ReplyDelete... An armour save could also work, but only if you feel like tanking.
Also, anypony want to put up some thread links for that second one?
Also, I foresee many people griping about how they got Spike rather than Twilight.
ReplyDelete@Ace2401
ReplyDeleteAaaaand we have the third-party serial killer equivalent! XD
I've always wanted to do this stuff, but I have never gotten a chance.
ReplyDelete@S.Aura Knight
ReplyDeleteXD
After reading the rules, it would make the game unbalanced against Pinkie, but you could find a way around that, I'm sure.
@Ace2401
ReplyDeleteMafia/Werewolf tends to be imbal against Third Party anyway, since they (usually) are alone against both the mafia/werewolves, and the town.
...I play waaaay to much forum mafia...
If anyone starts a round of Pony Snatchers, hit me up.
ReplyDelete[email protected]
RPG Games + Ponies...
ReplyDeleteMe Gusta.
@S.Aura Knight
ReplyDeletelol, guess it doesn't matter than. yeah, I like my Cupcakes!Pinkie version better than. XD
Bonus points if the guy playing the role of Pinkie actually decides to use a number system to decide which pony to take.
I'm sure Twilight would love to play these. ^_^
ReplyDeleteAnd I was just looking for an RPG system for ponies.. thanks a lot for bringing that up Phoe!
ReplyDeleteThe first one is so incredibly well done. Even if you're not interested in the RPG, "The Magical Land" supplement is well worth reading on its own. It's a fascinating and multifaceted exploration of the show's setting from a real-world historical perspective. I couldn't put it down.
ReplyDeleteSomepony so needs to make a ponyfied dice set now, my level of want are off the charts.
ReplyDeleteOh hey, he put up "Invasion of the Pony Snatchers"! Hope you guys have fun with it - I wasn't looking to blow anyone's minds (yeah, it's just Mafia/Werewolf), but I wrote this up a while ago and thought I'd share it since Ponychan seemed to really enjoy playing.
ReplyDeleteBrony RPG night.
ReplyDeletei must make this happen now *nods*
@Dr. Henry Killinger Talking of D20, don't Hasbro actually own the D20 *system* via Wizards of the Coast? Or am I massively out of date, not being involved in RPG for several years...
ReplyDeleteIt's time for them to make for real that MLP RPG that they april fooled a few years ago. Oh yeah, here it is archived (for a previous Gen so it was a horrific idea then): <a href="http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060401a</a>
bah, I meant http://www.wizards.com/default.asp?x=dnd/dd/20060401a
ReplyDeleteSounds interesting, I'l have to give it a gander once I've gotten some shuteye.
ReplyDelete@ StrangeNoise
Ha! The Ol' April Fools Mlp RPG. Considering Hasbro owns WotC, I'd be surprised if they actually went through with it now that MLP has gotten such a massive fanbase.
@ultra8 I remember people at the time going, actually this could be cool. Clearly it could work now. Arguably it already is. And in fact because of having done the april fools, they actually own the idea already...
ReplyDeleteWell now, I have been thinking over a pony RPG for quite some time now. And what do I see? Someone else with one out. Now I need to work faster to get mine out.
ReplyDeleteNow to get the girls together so we can play games as ponies playing ponies in a world of ponies!
ReplyDeleteWait, they signed me up to sponsor a pagebreak? oh alright.
ReplyDeleteJust once i'd have liked to sponsor something exciting, like the games beneath the pagebreak for example.
@S.Aura Knight
ReplyDeleteI did my best to make the rules as simple as humanly possible—after all, I was aiming at ages twelve and older, particularly kids (or adults) who might never have seen a role-playing game before. It took some doing, mostly ruthlessly cutting anything not directly helpful to playing brightly-colored magical ponies undergoing an Industrial Revolution, but I managed to squeeze the whole rulebook into twenty US-letter or A4 pages. By all means, give it a whirl!
@Brian Johnson
ReplyDeleteThat first one, that's called professionalism and dedication and those adjectives are why this community is an unstoppable force.
Thanks very much! It comes of being a professional graphic designer since the late 1980s and being an RPG player since the late 1970s.
@Sirrus
ReplyDeleteThe pony game system seems very similar to this game my friend has called Monsters, with a little bit of GURPS and World of Darkness thrown in.
I haven’t played GURPS in a couple of decades, so my memory of it is hazy at best. I’ve never played World of Darkness at all, so I can’t say I know anything about it. The genesis of Open D6 is in games like the original Star Wars and Ghostbusters RPGs; there’s a history on Wikipedia if you’re interested in finding out more.
@Topsy Kretts
ReplyDeleteThanks very much! I hope you enjoy it.
@Carlos the Hedgehog
ReplyDeleteI'm sure Twilight would love to play these.
Yes, I can imagine Twilight Sparkle trying to interest her friends in a role-playing game—with, um, limited success.
@MarCelo
ReplyDeleteI was just looking for an RPG system for ponies.
I hope you enjoy it!
@CocoaFermi
ReplyDeleteThe first one is so incredibly well done. Even if you're not interested in the RPG, "The Magical Land" supplement is well worth reading on its own.
Thanks so much for the glowing praise! World-building—whether my own or the efforts of others—are a real love of mine, and I did my best to write The Magical Land to be of interest to any reader, not just a player of Pony Tales.
@Equestrian Knight
ReplyDeleteSomepony so needs to make a ponyfied dice set now, my level of want are off the charts.
I’ve thought about doing something like that, although it would be symbolic rather than numeric. I may try to work on that sometime in the future.
@allanime01
ReplyDeleteBrony RPG night.
i must make this happen now *nods*
I hope you find the rules useful and handy!
And thanks, Phoe, for posting it!
ReplyDeleteHelp! I don't understand the titles!
ReplyDelete@GalacticWar_Xavier
ReplyDeleteHelp! I don't understand the titles!
If you can be more specific—assuming you’re talking about Pony Tales—I’ll do my best to address your questions.
Interesting..... hell ill give it a whirle, i has ponys so its automaticaly good.
ReplyDelete