My Little Dungeon, My Little Dragon · 4:57pm Aug 11th, 2013
Last night I finished running a D&D4e campaign based on My Little Pony.
Only, it was very non-obvious that it was so. It was a mini-campaign set in the world of The Tiding, a Waterworld-style existence where 200 years since the rising of the seas had given D&D-style medieval fantasy society a chance to rebuild.
The current situation is a state of war between the Navy-aligned islands and raft towns, and the forces of the Pirate Lords. Each of our group tends to trade off DM role from campaign to campaign, not bothering to count XP but instead just leveling the whole group whenever someone finishes their mini-campaign. We've gotten from level 1 to level 14 this way (well, my latest campaign had everyone at 13, so now they're 14).
We also have a tendency to put themes and references into our mini-campaigns. One had guardians of a lost treasure themed on Power Rangers; another had a pre-Tiding technological ruin based on Sonic the Hedgehog. Another keeps injecting Game of Thrones references that only one other of us gets (and it's not me). So naturally I thought the time had come for me to see if I could make a mini-campaign styled around My Little Pony, and here's the interesting part: make it so non-obvious that most of the players don't guess until the end.
The only other brony in the group guessed in the first session, of course... but I slipped him a note saying to avoid spoiling the Surprise. The setup was that they would enter a library on an island and find a large book sealed to a pedestal, and touching the picture on the last page of that book transported them to another plane. (Myst) The magical land of Draconia.
Once on this plane, everyone took strange, half-dragon forms... somewhat like 4th edition Dragonborn, but more primal... Int and Wis-based classes would find themselves with a larger pair of horns on the back of their heads (unicorn), Dex and Cha-based classes would get wings (pegasus), and Str and Con-based classes would get bulkier bodies with larger muscles (earth). One of our number was a fighter-cleric, so I told him to pick Str or Wis before the session based on what abilities he used more. The reason is that, to balance the fact that Winged Draconians could fly, I gave a small bonus to the primary stat of Horned and Stout Draconians.
Along the way, I had them fight a wounded hippogryph (manticore), use newfound flying ability to repair a cut rope bridge (like in S1E2, but without the Shadowbolts), and meet a Stout Draconian bard who used a song to magically let the party speak and understand Draconic (a few could, but I didn't want to get into a pattern of translating through middlemen). A bard who, when the question was asked, turned out to be "pale reddish" in color. Whereupon we began quoting the argument Private Donut has in Red vs. Blue about whether that color should be called "pink" or not.
Dactylus the bard then brought the party to the town of Draketon, where the following introductions were made... not rapid-fire quick succession, but gradually as the story rolled along.
Chromatius the Sentinel (Rainbow Dash)
Adamantus the Blacksmith (Rarity)
Ethylius the Bartender (Applejack)
Lepidoptus the Druid (Fluttershy)
Crepusculus the Scholar (Twilight Sparkle) (pre-alicorn because that would've been a dead giveaway)
After meeting up in Ethylius's tavern and finding out more about the Boring Forest ("If we called it something like the Spooky Forest or the Mysterious Forest or the Forbidden Forest, every hatchling would be out exploring it as soon as they could walk! And it's DANGEROUS there. So we call it the Boring Forest to discourage youngsters from exploring there until they properly understand the danger.") a swarm of monsters attacked the town. This was a perfectly normal and expected thing, as the monsters that attack towns in Draconia tend to be weak and nutritious, which is why they don't bother keeping livestock.
Thus it was the party found themselves fighting a swarm of Peanut Butter Jellies (modified Ochre Jellies). Shortly after this was realized, someone put on "Peanut Butter Jelly Time" for battle music. Shortly after this, we turned it off in favor of something from a console JRPG I can't remember. (We have a tradition of putting on looping music to fit the mood of what's going on.)
Afterwards, they went to the wizard tower in the center of town, which was Crepusculus's home and library, to learn more about the ruins in the Boring Forest. Apparently, if the Mask of the Sun, the Mask of the Moon, and the Mask of Stars are brought together in the ruins, outside power can be infused into the entire plane of Draconia. Could that be what the Pirate Lords were planning?
(Answer: Yes, only the masks are three masks in one. Professor Layton and the Miracle Mask. The Pirate Lords seek the Mask of Stars without realizing that when they acquired the Mask of the Sun and the Mask of the Moon, the Mask of Stars was still attached to the Mask of the Sun.)
On their way out, they meet a Celestial Pegasus named Set (volleyball pun for Spike), who delivers the news that Adamantus has finished adjusting their armor for their slightly differently-shaped bodies, and they can now drop by the smithy to collect it. After doing so, they drop by Flutt...Lepidoptus's hut, and receive Restoration Seeds, observing Lepidoptus healing a Quartz Qat named Silica belonging to Adamantus(Quartz Qats = Diamond Dogs, but Silica = Opalescence).
After that the pony connection kinda petered out, except for Set the Celestial Pegasus coming with the party and being described with the color scheme of Surprise. They went in, handled some puzzles and some combat, and ultimately fought the Pirate Lord Foushen, an Arcane Archer (stats and attacks based off a Beholder Eye of Shadow, flavor text heavily modified, health boosted) along with a gift from one of the other Pirate Lords, a pack of Explosive Elementals (Minecraft Creepers). I did my homework on those: I described them as having a charcoal-gray core with yellow and white crystals--indicating the sulfur, saltpeter, and charcoal ingredients for black gunpowder.
They won and manacled Foushen to bring him back for a Navy trial, and when they returned to Draketon to deliver the news about what they'd figured out with the masks, Dactylus called for a celebration. After they made their way back to their own world, I revealed the theme. Some of them saw it coming a little bit, but most had thought I couldn't possibly have made a My Little Pony campaign without it being much more obvious. They seemed impressed with my subtlety and the general consensus was that my efforts to not be blatant with the references had ultimately made it a much stronger campaign and much more fun than it would have been otherwise.
I also brought a prop for the reveal--the Elements of Harmony book, but I kept it hidden while saying that the book that took them to Draconia looked "a lot like this... but with a dragon on the front instead of this. *turn around and show book*"
[P.S. Forgot to mention: After the first session, one of the non-bronies had partially guessed, and said it wouldn't be as good a campaign if I really went overboard with blatant pony references. I threw him off the scent by saying "I promise you that Set the Celestial Pegasus is not based on any pony from My Little Pony." Turns out, he was the only Draconian who WASN'T! And he was still based on a character from MLP. 
]
HAH! Niiiiiiice work there!
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Thank you! =^_^=
That sounded like a lot of fun! Huzzah!
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It was! The other players said my storytelling abilities had improved noticeably since my first DM attempt. I think it was in large part due to me putting way more effort into making the story and puzzles enjoyable rather than balancing the combat: I erred on the side of easy due to several combats in my previous minicampaign taking far too long... unfortunately the final boss ended up missing way too many of his attacks due to being based on a non-Solo monster one level below them; his attack bonuses probably should have been boosted up by +3 for an extra 15% hit chance. And the Peanut Butter Jellies had their attack bonus increased, but not their defenses or damage, so the party smashed them into delicious peanut butter quite easily.
The Draconians were aghast when one of the party actually wanted to try eating Peanut Butter Jelly remains raw. "It's got dirt from the road all over it! Don't you want us to wash it for you first?" (yes, magic food-cleaning that can remove dirt from peanut butter...)
Points for originality. I did not see the Boring Woods coming.
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Thanks!
I love you so much. Marry me?
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I'm sorry, but my heart belongs to another.
(Seriously, if we weren't both horrible procrastinators, my wuffie and I'd have done some ring shopping by now.
)