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Thread: [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

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    Glazius is offline Registered User Validated User
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    [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

    I was reading through my Burning Wheel Gold book today and realized what the rules for Grief and Laments mean: when Elves are sad, they can sing a song they have learned and they don't feel as sad anymore.

    And the final piece fell into place for the hack of Mouse Guard I've been churning around to run My Little Pony. I'd appreciate feedback.

    Character creation works pretty much like Mouse Guard, but a few things are different.

    Questions for Pony Nature:

    • Do you save for the future even if it means going without now? Or do you use what you have when you need it? If you save for the future, increase Nature by 1, but you may not take the Bold or Generous traits.
    • If you don't save for the future, do you like to buy or give gifts for yourself and your friends? If you do, increase your Nature by 1, but decrease your starting Resources by 1.
    • In a conflict, do you take a stand for yourself or do you seek common ground? If you seek common ground, increase your Nature by 1, but reduce your starting Fighter skill by 1, if you take it.
    • Do you fear griffons, manticores, and wolves? If you do, increase your Nature by 1, but you may not take the Fearless trait.

    Pony Nature covers: Running, Foraging, Befriending, and a fourth area dependent on the type of pony: Tenacity for earth ponies, Aerialist for pegasus ponies, and Magic for unicorn ponies.

    The skill you have a natural talent for and the trait you were born with together define your Cutie Mark. They also have special interactions with some of the aspects of Nature, so I’ll call them your "Cutie Mark skill" and "Cutie Mark trait".

    Befriending means that ponies can use Nature in an argument conflict to defend or maneuver. They can also use it to attack or feint, if their opponent's highest skill (or something in their opponent's Nature if they have no skills) would be helped by their Cutie Mark skills. Speech conflicts are too impersonal for this.

    Tenacity, Aerialist, and Magic are only within your Nature if you're tapping your Cutie Mark trait for the roll, or if you're doing something that fits under a skill that helps or is helped by your Cutie Mark skill.

    Sometimes you might try to use them for something there's no clear guide for, so consider these factors when generating an obstacle:

    Are you trying hard? Enough for one pony, enough for two ponies, enough for a patrol, enough for a family, enough for a settlement.
    How long can you keep this up? Just long enough, enough to buy time, as long as it takes.
    How are you bracing the load? ("with my legs" is free) With my wings, with magic.

    Time pressure can be a Factor, too (+1 Ob), if for example you're trying to catch a falling pony or reinforcing a dam that's about to burst.

    You can learn a skill called "Effort" that does this freeform thing, as your special talent, your mentor's training, or your experience in the Guard. It's rooted in Health for earth ponies and pegasus ponies, and in Will for unicorn ponies.

    Effort, by default, only helps itself! If you want to take it as your special talent and roll Nature for it all the time, that's fine, but that means you won't be able to use it to do anything covered by another skill!

    If your Nature is ever taxed to 0, the trait that flips over into a way-out weirdie is your Cutie Mark trait, if it hasn't flipped already.

    Harmony: Fate and Persona points have a few additional effects for ponies.

    Ponies can spend a Fate point to double all the dice they get from other ponies helping them.

    When ponies spend a Persona point to tap their Nature, they may at their option sing a song about what they're doing, perhaps related to their Cutie Mark skill and trait. This has the effect of wonderment - a pony singing can be an enthralling thing.

    Generally, wonderment has no game effect. However, if a pony is participating in a conflict, taps their Nature in the first action of a volley, and helps with the remaining two actions, they may at their option try to invoke wonderment in the next volley after actions have been declared. They make a versus test of their Nature or Cutie Mark skill, at their option, and the opposition's Will. If they succeed in the test, the opposition forfeits their action to stand and drool, or perhaps start singing along. If other ponies tapped their Nature in the remaining two actions, they may help with this action.

    If a pony tries to invoke wonderment in a kill conflict, they must roll their Nature and their Nature is taxed as if they tapped it to do something outside their Nature (1 point plus the margin of failure if any). Any ponies who help with this take the same penalty.

    During the Players' Turn, ponies can spend two checks to try and reduce the tax on another pony's Nature by 1. They roll their Nature or Cutie Mark skill for this, and the obstacle is the intended new (taxed) value of Nature. Other ponies can help with this task, if they could help with the Cutie Mark skill.

    If it is the first Players' Turn since a pony's Nature was taxed to 0 and their Cutie Mark trait changed, a pony can also spend two checks to try and increase the affected pony's maximum Nature. The obstacle is the intended new maximum value of Nature, +1 Ob because the new trait is a factor. If the test is successful, the old trait is also restored.

    And some ideas for additional traits:

    Jovial: Being around a jovial pony makes the little bumps and bruises life sends your way a little more bearable, but jovial ponies can find it hard to make a good impression on certain creatures, and other ponies tend not to take them too seriously.

    Idealistic: To an idealistic pony, there is no such thing as a hopeless cause. Every mystery has a solution, every obstacle has a way around, and there's always a safe way out. Idealistic ponies tend to overestimate their own abilities in finding these things, though.

    Sincere: Sincere ponies keep their word, and the weight of truth seems to lie just a bit more heavily behind the things they say. But they find it hard to say things they don't believe in, even when it would help, and they may go too far to keep promises.
    Last edited by Glazius; 11-25-2013 at 04:18 PM.

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    SeraphymC's Avatar
    SeraphymC is offline Self-Important Validated User
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    Re: [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

    Well, I'm not really familiar with the source material, but I love mousegard and burning wheel. This really reads like a labor of love as well, and that's always a good sign. I have to admit I have never thought about a MLP RPG, but this looks like a pretty stellar version.

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    Glazius is offline Registered User Validated User
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    Re: [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

    Also, wrapping up winter is a Conflict against Winter. Initial Disposition Will (fixed) + Administrator (roll) or Health (fixed) + Laborer (roll), Attack and Feint with Survivalist and Laborer, Defend and Maneuver with Weather Watched and Administrator.

    Twilight "Rational Archivist" Sparkle double-tapped her Nature for a freakin' massive Defend action, since Archivist helps Administrator.

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    3Jane is offline Devil's advocate Validated User
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    Re: [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

    From what Luke Crane wrote on BW forums, the conflict between Nature and the role PCs will have in your game is central. I'm not sure I can see that here. It looks like your game wants to center around Ponies that will stay/fight instead of running, and perhaps have to choose between making friends and doing the right thing or survival. ...Dungeon ponies?

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    Glazius is offline Registered User Validated User
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    Re: [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

    Quote Originally Posted by 3Jane View Post
    From what Luke Crane wrote on BW forums, the conflict between Nature and the role PCs will have in your game is central. I'm not sure I can see that here. It looks like your game wants to center around Ponies that will stay/fight instead of running, and perhaps have to choose between making friends and doing the right thing or survival. ...Dungeon ponies?
    Pony... guards? Ish? Maybe I should share the sample characters I was thinking of for this.

    Starswirl the Younger -- Skeptical Lorepony, Unicorn Pony
    Belief: Finding the truth is worth any cost
    Instinct: Always be ready to take notes
    Goal: Discover why the mages of the Tower of Four Winds have gone silent

    Gringolet -- Vicious (originally Defender) Fighter, Earth Pony
    Belief: If it's worth living for, it's worth dying for
    Instinct: Always level my lance at a threat
    Goal: Protect the patrol until the Astral Conclusions are returned safely to Canterlot

    Gerrymander -- Extrovert Scout, Pegasus Pony
    Belief: Anything might be over the next mountain
    Instinct: Always look for new herbs
    Goal: Find something to make Gringolet smile

    ...actually that was totally accidental but their Cutie Mark skill web all has common ground in Hunter. Huh.

    Anyway. A recurring theme to the show is that friendship isn't free. It changes you, as your friends pull you places you might not have thought to go. And not everybody you're friends with is friends with each other. I mean, if a guard patrol heads out into the wild, befriends a pack of Diamond Dogs, and then comes back home for a normal stint of watch duty, what happens when one of the dogs burrows up out of the ground all "PONY THE LAVA WORMS ARE EATING EVERYTHING YOU HAVE TO HELP US PONY"?

    I mean, yes, probably argument conflict and go from there.

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    Glazius is offline Registered User Validated User
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    Re: [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

    Here's the central conflict of the example scenario, by the way.

    The Tower of the Four Winds dates long before the mages set up there. It was built in the days long before by the djinni, and abandoned for unknown reasons. But it still is djinni architecture, and as such bears a resemblance to a playing piece in a game the djinni play called Wind Wars.

    An itinerant djinni (Might 4 Nature 6: Blustering, Bluffing, Controlling Winds) saw the place, and being a big fan of Wind Wars, decided to stop by for a game. It found the tower inhabited by strange little creatures who didn't play Wind Wars. They didn't even know what Wind Wars was. They didn't even want to learn it! Well, it didn't come all this way for nothing; it was going to teach them.

    The mages have fallen out of contact because, well, the djinni don't have a very good grasp of the idea of responsibility, at least not any more. (They also don't have a very good grasp of the ideas of exhaustion, thirst, or hunger, but even if this one won't let the mages leave the tower they're still resourceful enough to sleep in shifts and grab food from the stocks.)

    Starswirl rolls Lorepony to get an idea of the djinni's motivations, because finding the truth is worth any cost, even risking the mages' ire by just standing there and not rushing to help them. None of them really fancy trying to get in an argument with the thing after that.

    So! Conflict, right? Somewhere between Abjure and Drive Off? Starswirl's got Lorepony, Gringolet's got Fighter, they're good. What's Gerrymander got?

    Gerrymander's got Nature: Extrovert Aerialist. Gerrymander's going to fly right up to the djinni and be super-enthusiastic about discovering the game of Wind Wars. Gerrymander figures, hey, maybe the djinni just needs somebody to listen to it about how awesome Wind Wars is. Worth a shot, right? Anything might be over the next mountain.

    Gerrymander is going to get so many Persona points at the end of the session, you don't even KNOW.

    So, Gerrymander defends and maneuvers to keep the djinni entertained and grab its wavering attention, and Starswirl and Gringolet work on whittling down the djinni's disposition by breaking the wind-prisons it's put the mages in. (Starswirl's going to tap Nature: Magic Lorepony to make his attacks and feints, if you're curious.) And what do you know, it all works out, the mages are free, the djinni flies off, and Gerrymander looks like she's been through a tornado but is otherwise okay.

    Except the djinni got a compromise: it's going to come back soon to play another game of Wind Wars. And now the patrol have an even more insurmountable task ahead of them: convince the mages of the Tower of Four Winds that learning a board game is really the best use of their precious time.

    (Also, Gringolet is probably going to Have Words with Gerrymander about going off to have fun while other ponies are getting rattled around like a can of beans. It doesn't matter that it actually worked out, it's the principle of the thing. You know what Gerrymander is going to demand if she wins that argument, don't you? )
    Last edited by Glazius; 11-27-2013 at 07:43 AM.

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    Noclue is offline Registered User Validated User
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    Re: [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

    Saving for the future is central to mouse nature. Is it as important for determining the nature of the ponies?
    James R.
    --opus ergo lascivio venatus

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    Glazius is offline Registered User Validated User
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    Re: [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

    Quote Originally Posted by Noclue View Post
    Saving for the future is central to mouse nature. Is it as important for determining the nature of the ponies?
    If I'm being honest, the only reason that's in there is because getting a point of Nature back for giving gifts to your friends was just so perfect I had to keep the thing I clipped it on to.

    I mean, I could just do it directly.

    Do you regularly buy gifts for yourself and your friends? If so, increase starting Nature by 1. If not, increase starting Resources by 1, but you may not take the traits Generous or Bold. (It's always a little risky giving a gift, isn't it?)

    Then just ratchet down the starting Resources by 1 to compensate.

    Yes, I think that works.

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    Glazius is offline Registered User Validated User
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    Re: [Mouse Guard/BW/MLP] Litany of Responsibilities: o/` Winter Wrap-Up, Winter Wrap-Up! o/`

    And because I pretty much have to:

    Element of Harmony: This artifact from a time long before shines with a subtle light. When you wear an Element of Harmony, you gain the following three powers:

    Inner Light: You can tap your Cutie Mark Trait to help another pony; a level 1/2/3 Trait will let you pass them 2/3/4 dice. Traits tapped in this way must be available for use and are exhausted as normal; a level 2 Trait tapped this way is unusable for the rest of the session unless 3 checks are paid to recharge it.

    Burning Heart: When you help another pony with your Cutie Mark skill, pass them two dice instead of one.

    Circle of Friends: If another pony helped you with their Cutie Mark skill or through the Inner Light power, and any dice they passed you came up failures, you can reroll them once.

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