7. RPG Item: Player's Handbook (Pony Tales: Aspirations of Harmony) [Average Rating:0.00 Unranked]

Shanya Almafeta
(Almafeta)
flag	msg	tools
designer
 Avatar
 mbmbmbmbmb
The Gist
This 30-page RPG (with additional design notes in non-paginated callouts) combines My Little Pony with elements of console-style roleplaying, especially japanese console roleplaying game. Filly Fantasy, perhaps?

This RPG was originally loosely based on the webcomic Friendship is Dragons. [http://friendshipisdragons.thecomicseries.com/]

Character Creation
Character creation is simple, based on spending points. Despite the influences, there are no hardset classes per se.

There are four attributes, based on the classic four-stat split; Athletics, Body, Knowledge, and Horse Sense. (The latter is a combination of perception and social skills, and is the 'soul' stat of the classic four-stat split.) Each stat starts at 5, and you can divide 8 points any way you like among the four stats, to a maximum of 10.

Each attribute is tied into two or three Skills: Athletics to Stunts and Endurance; Precision to Stealth, Mechanics, and Acrobatics; Knowledge to Arcana, History, and Heal; and Horse Sense to Perception, Persuasion, and Streetwise. You may choose two of these to be considered trained; you get a +3 bonus to use these skills.

After your skills, you choose a Cutie Mark, and one skill related to your cutie mark. This skill receives an additional +5 (which can stack with the bonus from training), and also upgrades criticals; normal critical successes are upgraded to Cutie Mark Criticals, which "makes normal Critical Successes look tame by comparison."

Now, you choose your race. The classic three races are the three races present. Earth Ponies get Naturally Skilled (granting two specialization bonuses of +5 to two different areas of interest), Friend In Deed (able to provide greater bonuses when aiding another), and Epic Pwny (criticals on 19 and 20). Pegasi gain Flight and Weather-Crafting. Unicorns gain Ponykinesis and - in an unusual turn, not magic (since the game's other influence means that 'wizards and sorcerers' are possible) - but Finishing School (granting one free utility talent later in chargen).

Two 'advanced' races are included: Griffon and Changeling. Instead of gaining cutie marks, non-pony races gain a third skill. Griffons are Sisters of the Sky (they can fly and take non-weather-shaping pegasi talents), are Half Lion (gain bonsues to Persuastion to intimidate), and are - as Gilda might say - All Awesome (and can turn one critical failure per day into a critical success). Changelings can shapeshift and can - at increased cost - take utility talents from any race.

Next, you can choose up to five Utility Talents, whether from the generic pool or from the pool of traits unique to your race. Some of these traits are positive and negative ('Derp' increases the critical failure range to 1-3 instead of just 1, but provides a bonus Magic Point per day), some are outright magical (The Stare, which allows you to spend a Magic point to buff a Persuasion check after you have rolled it), and some are outright silly ('Fracture The Fourth Wall' means that for the next ten minutes of real time, the GM cannot bug you for using playing knowledge as character knowledge).

A pony's Element comes next. (No word on whether or not griffons or changelings get elements.) Each of the main six elements gets one special talent that can be used once per session at the cost of a Magic point. Ponies with the Generosity talent 'A Beautiful Heart', for example, can provide +15 to an ally's skill check; the Kindness talent 'Sharing Kindness' can immediately make one hostile creature non-hostile; the Laughter talent 'Tons of Fun' allows you one roll on the Tons of Fun table (directly inspried by AD&D's Rod of Wonder); et al.

Now, you get to choose eight Combat Talents; each talent is rated in terms of power points it provides or costs. Mundane attacks (such as Stab) grant power points, while incredible abilities (such as Chain Lightning) cost power points. (The mechanism is obviously inspired by the Planeswalker cards of Magic: The Gathering.) Upon looking at the categories, the inspiration is obvious: all combat talents are categorized as Ardent, Cleric, Paladin, Psion, Rogue, Sorcerer, Warlock, Warlord, or Wizard. And there's an expansion out there offering even more combat talents.

Finally, first-level ponies go to the Combat chapter to choose one Special Move from a limited list.

All ponies start with 30 hit points and 1 magic point.

Resolution
Being based on classic fantasy, it's no surprise that resolution is based on classic fantasy roleplaying; here, the d20 System. Resolution is attribute + training or Cutie Mark bonuses + 1d20 versus a secret target number, with the target numbers also being similar to the d20 System's benchmarks.

Combat is a curious mix of classic consoles and Dungeons & Dragons; as a stated goal is "to be able to be able to be played over Skype voice-chatting without confusion," it eschews many of the things that require physical collocation (tactical battle maps, range). These people should get together with the designers of Super Console.

As such, this is an extremely minimalist system. That's not to say it's simple; the complexity in combat comes from the dozens of combat talents and the many ways they can interact. Many abilities include special tags such as 'weakened', 'resist X', 'X ongoing damage', and other such Your 'stance' can only include 5 of your learned 8 abilities each battle. Theoretically, choosing a 'stance' before each battle could add a tactical element to each fight - but from the descriptions of the various combat talents, I get the feeling it'll just slow down the rate your ponies turn their foes into non-ponylike sashimi.

There is no rolling to hit - only rolling to damage. Critical hits happen whenever you roll the higest number on a d8, d10, or d12 for damage; the larger the die, the better the critical hit. Critical hits are rated as special effects; players of Jadeclaw will be slightly familiar with the effects; however, instead of each ability having its own critical hit, all players choose one 'Special Ability' in character creation. For example, a character who chooses Knight's Justice as their critical path will be able to taunt monsters when they critically hit on a d8, prevent two allies from being attacked when they critically hit on a d10, and halve all damage one ally takes on a critical hit on a d12.

A system for levelling up is mentioned as something "to be implemented in next edition."

Theme Support
The weakest part of this game is its theme support. I'm not talking in the mechanics; the mechanics have interesting ways to implement details about both Equestria and Coneria alike. The problem is that although you can see how the game supports the themes in a superficial level, this mixture is such an eclectic mix that it's hard to follow along with the GMs and see how the game is to be played.

The Ponyhandler's Guide - ugh, sorry, time out. Really, 'Ponyhandler'. I swear, sooner or later some pony RPG is going to refer to their GM as the Horse Whisperer. Moving on...

Although the mechanics in the Player's Handbook are obviously suited for both the primary influences on this game, The Ponyhandler's Guide is where the bulk of the genre support comes from. Unfortunately, it's fairly weak. When it comes to combat, the support is plentiful; a small selection of monsters and guidelines for properly pacing combat are included. So that covers the fantasy side of our Filly Fantasy roleplaying game.

On the filly side, though... the game is fairly lacking. There's a few pages on how to expand 'normal' roleplaying adventure hooks into more postive and Saturday-morning-friendly equestrian adventures, but the book spends too much time on worked examples and not nearly enough time on how-tos. (This is the reason I haven't volunteered to GM in my PnP game, incidentally.)

It's incomplete - but I'm rating it as such. Mechanically, they have the bones of a good RPG; with their light heart and their active development community, they have the heart. Let's hope they finish fleshing it out.

Curiously
The layout of the document - with frequent callouts 'hovering' over the text, something you can only see when viewing this doucment in Google Docs - make this hard to submit. Do the design notes count as part of the pagecount, or not? (I'm assuming not, for now.)

Rating: With notable influences from D&D 4th edition, Jadeclaw, Final Fantasy, and My Little Pony, I can only describe this gaming gumbo as - Discord.

Link (forumotion.com) [http://ponytales.forumotion.com/]
3  Thumb up tip Hide
Edited Sat Aug 4, 2012 8:00 pm
Posted Sat Aug 4, 2012 7:31 pm
