2023 Day 14: Tails of Equestria
I bought this on a whim from the second hand section of my FLGS, after watching a John Wick review. For those who aren’t aware, Lauren Faust produced a version of My Little Pony in 2010 which redesigned the ponies to make them more expressive, deep and accessible to adults. Not quite as multi-layered as Toy Story and its successors, but less twee or shallow as many cartoons before and after. I haven’t watched that much, to be honest, but I did like what I saw.
The RPG continues along the same lines. It’s definitely written as an all ages RPG. You can tell by the large text, little-by-little writing and the simple rules. And for a reasonable sized book there really isn’t a lot of space to tell you about the world or antagonists or give you plot seeds (although there are some). You can get other books for that.
Cover of Tails of Equestria
Mechanical success is determined by rolling a single dice as marked against the stat or ability used. However, similar to the Winter of the World RPG, it has very powerful bennies.
The first of the two really cool things about the game are the Tokens of Friendship. Spend one to reroll, three to auto-succeed. And you are totally encouraged to succeed at impossible tasks. You can tell, because you can spend two tokens to roll 1d20. Considering you start by rolling d6s for most things, that’s a huge swing. There’s a reason why Rainbow Dash beat Starscream (look it up on YouTube).
The second really cool thing is that you don’t fight. You have scuffles. It’s so adorable but it totally sets the tone. And you don’t take damage, you just lose endurance until you are too tired to move. Or you can just surrender. The game totally seems fine with you being captured, because it creates drama. It doesn’t frame it quite like that .It totally expects you to find a way out of the situation.
I am not sure whether I could run a game set within Ponyville but I am tempted to run a game of Ponies against Smaug the dragon.
Considering my current writing trends, I felt I should take Laughter as my element of harmony but I wasn’t feeling a character until I spotted the Speak to Animals talent.
Cornstalk is just naturally funny. She’s not traumatised or stupid or crying for attention. She just likes being funny, probably because her mother was also funny. And having made all her friends laugh, she set out to make animals laugh too. It may be a strange life goal, but we all need them.
Pony type: Unicorn*
Level: 1
Element of Harmony: Laughter
Body: D4, Mind D6, Charm D6
Stamina: 10
Talents: Telekinesis D6, Speak with Animals (mammals for now)
Quirk: Bossy
Portrait: Yellow, with a blue and green mane that Cornstalk frequently shapes into silly forms.
Equipment: Grr.. bookkeeping in a game. But it’s only two pages. And optional.
Kit (Disguise), Kit (Art supplies), Kit (grooming), Kit (scroll), Ladder, Ponybalm, Rope, Clothes (simple). And that’s less than half spent which seems entirely reasonable. The rest can be spent on food etc.
* I think for this kind of character you could take an Earth Pony and they would be a bit more competent. I certainly don’t think I’ll be doing much of the magic that Unicorns can get. But the problem with a comedy character (especially a bossy one!) is that they steal the limelight so taking the less competent route should allow others to shine. That doesn’t mean that unicorns are generally poor choices, but they are (mechanically) for this character.
Ponysheet for Cornstalk