Proposed Tails of Equestria Horse Rules · 9:48pm Apr 23rd, 2017
In my previous blog, I went over the Tails of Equestria RPG, its strengths and weaknesses. After doing some thinking, I've come up with a few... house rules that might help balance the system just a touch. Actually, let's call them horserules, just for pun.
Leveling Horserules:
One of the biggest issues I had was how some of the subsystems weren't really integrated well, and how some of the leveling was remarkably unclear. So, here I've made a couple of rules for what should happen when one levels.
Every time a pony levels, upgrade two used talents or one used talent twice and gain one new or upgrade one unused. OR Upgrade one used talent to 1d20; if you do this, you gain no new talents and upgrade no other talents.
This, I think, provides a decent "gradual growth" model to the system. Either the character gets three +2 benefits, spread out, gets a brand new talent at 1d4 and two +2s, or focuses on making a 1d12 to a 1d20, the biggest leap possible in this system. Starting a new talent is slightly more difficult then working on existing ones, and becoming a GRANDMASTER requires utmost focus. Either option is actually a +8 boost, in comparison to the +6 total boost of just working on what you got, but it's more directed.
For every talent, excluding the Cutie Mark talent, a pony must start out with a quirk. The pony can get rid of the quirk if they choose not to upgrade any used talents this level.
Now, mechanically, the quirks provide only one benefit: Friendship Tokens. If you can roleplay without them, okeydoke. These rules are pretty optional. But I tied the friendship tokens into the Elements of Harmony, below, so you may want to reconsider. And of course, getting rid of a quirk can't be easy; it requires serious self-exploration.
Element Horserules:
As it stands, the Elements of Harmony, ONE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL CORNERSTONES OF THE SHOW, are just fluff. Nnnnot in my ponygame! First, let's address the issue that the book had, allowing free change between Elements.
Changing elements of Harmony can only be done at leveling, and only if the player does not upgrade a stat in exchange.
Note: I said Stat, not Talent. Stats are cornerstones of your pony. So is their EoH. The change should be equally important. Now, what does each EoH grant a user?
Honesty: By spending a Friendship Token, you can upgrade your mind die for one roll. You can upgrade more then one level, but each level doubles in price.
Kindness: By spending a Friendship Token, you can upgrade your charm die for one roll. You can upgrade more then one level, but each level doubles in price.
Loyalty: By spending a Friendship Token, you can upgrade your body die for one roll. You can upgrade more then one level, but each level doubles in price.
Laughter: By spending a Friendship Token, you can upgrade one of your "special skill" dice for one roll. You can upgrade more then one level, but each level doubles in price.
Generosity: By spending a Friendship Token, you can upgrade one of your "creative flair" dice for one roll. You can upgrade more then one level, but each level doubles in price.
Magic: By spending a Friendship Token, you can upgrade one of your "keen knowledge" dice for one roll. You can upgrade more then one level, but each level doubles in price.
I only briefly covered talents in my review, so I figure I should clarify something here. Special Skill, Creative Flair, and Keen Knowledge are what I would call "specializing" talents. You don't just have Special Skill, you have Special Skill: Bucking or Special Skill: Sneaking or what have you. You could even have both, with each being at a different dice level.
I chose these three talents because they, like the basic stats, are fairly flexible. Each Element of Harmony is a token-powered shortcut; it's possible to spend one token to reroll or two to reroll with a d20 in the basic rules, but this set allows you to take a middling step with your own elemental power.
And speaking of talents...
Talent Horserules:
There are two small problems with the talents I have. One, the specialty talents could overlap in some cases, which would make the above EoH rules a bit... confusing. So, in order to keep it clear, I made the following rule:
Special Skills involve physical actions. Creative Flairs involve creating things. All Keen Knowledge involves knowing facts. If a specialty seems to overlap, refer to this distinction.
For instance, recognizing a tune would be Keen Knowledge. Writing music would be a Creative Flair. And playing an instrument would be a Special Skill. All different facets of the same sort of thing.
The second issue? Of the sixteen talents, two are earth pony exclusive, two are pegasus exclusive, and FIVE are unicorn exclusive. One of the big rules of game balance is you never, ever let one group have more choices then the rest. So I had an option to downgrade the unicorns, or upgrade the other two. I decided on both.
Stun Ray is now called Ranged Assault. It can be chosen by any pony type and functions identically.
Locate is not Unicorn exclusive. It is accessible to all pony types.
This opens up two unicorn spells to the general public, and I think it's pretty reasonable. Yes, Twilight can make with the zapzap, but Applejack can kick rocks or apples at high speed, and Rainbow's got the option of lightning. Yes, Rarity can detect gems, but Pinkie Pie has all her cool emergency stashes, and Fluttershy probably has to get her food from somewhere.
This leaves Unicorns with Telekinesis (which they get automatically), Teleport (which affects them), and Force Field (which affects the world around them). Comparing this to the Earth Pony talents Stout Heart and Pony of All Trades (Automatic and self) and the Pegasus talents Fly and Cloud Wrangling (Automatic and world), it became easier to fill in the gaps.
Earth ponies have exclusive access to the talent Groundspeak. At low levels this allows them to sense structural details, such as underground caves and the construction and stability of buildings. Higher levels let them influence the ground, making it easier to grow plants by directing nutrients, and at the top of their power they can even grow specific rocks.
Pegasi have exclusive access to the talent Stormforged. Whenever a pegasus could take stamina damage, they may choose to roll a Wind-dance die; if they roll higher then the stamina they would lose, they only lose half that stamina. Armor downgrades this ability, like Fly and Telekinesis.
Earthspeak, I feel, explains why earth ponies are pretty much everywhere. Even at basic levels they have a better grasp of construction then other pony tribes--might explain why Ponyville can be rebuilt so easily. I'd peg a major farmpony like AJ at the 1d10 level, enough to get the ground to like plants, and rock farmers at the epic 1d20--enough to coax out crystals!
Stormforged was tougher, I had to figure out what would affect a pegasus personally, but my final decision was based on RD's infamous ability to survive crashes. And yes, it's downgraded by armor--that's in the equipment section--and yes, the pegasi have two abilities that have that in comparison to the one by unicorns, and the none by earth ponies... but I think given how OP said abilities are, it's a fair trade.
This also gives a route to make new races for character selection. Simply pick an existing automatic talent, invent an exclusive personal and world-affecting talent, and voila! New race. Might be more difficult to balance then it sounds, though. There are a LOT of races in the land of Equestria.
What do you all think? Do these rules make sense, whether or not you have the book in front of you? Would you consider different horserules? While you're mulling it over, I'm going to go back to writing.
10/10 I'm a fan of these house rules
I don't have the sourcebook, but these certainly seem reasonable. I especially like the balance changes to level the playing field between the tribes, especially since it's through buffs rather than nerfs.
my eyes auto-corrected house rules to horse rules.
4507608
WELL THAT'S WHAT THEY ARE NOW!
Random query but wouldn't repeated Element shifting, hypothetically, lead to a long-term far weaker character if I read that right?
4507725
Mmm, yes. But also an adaptable one.
4507820 Unless I'm reading it wrong, wouldn't it be considerably weaker if you bounced between Honesty & Generosity repeatedly over 6 levels? You'd be 'adaptable' but at the end you'd have nothing more than if you'd always stuck with Honesty.
4507707
I AM PLEASED
4507835
All these rules are optional adjustments.
4507897 Oh, I know. Game designer in me is just pointing out the potential issue there. Possibility would be to have there be some temporary penalty rather than a permanent one.
4508457
you replied to the wrong comment.
you replied to mastermenthe, you meant to reply masterweaver.
4508134
4508578 Whoops!
4508134
Since you are an RPG buff, and I haven't read but a handful...possibly a dozen or so supplements. Could you list the names of the Pony themed RPGs available for purchase so far. I'm currently looking over religious themed RPG's at the moment, but I probably will get around to reading ponyfinder some time this year and the cavalcade of freebees this year. The only other one for purchase I'm aware of besides Tails is Roan.
4509239
Well, if you get past the first five slides of this, you'l find seven "independent" slides and two "list" slides linking to a variety of systems.
It's a little outdated, mind, it predates Roan.
4509288
Oh good, I found all the main line ones. Now all I got to do is read through them all. I am a bit concerned that there are two Pony Tales by different authors, but whatever. Thank you for the link. So, Roan, Ponyfinder, and
TalesTails of Equestria are still the only books in print? I've already purchased two ponyfinder books, and some cards. Probably should have gotten playing cards. You can do tarot/fluxxeque storytelling games with playing cards.4509379
Eh, the only ones I know about, but digitally there are probably plenty more.
One question with Groundspeak; Since Pinky grew up on a rock farm, she should have a high stat in this, but when she tried to run the Apple farm, she failed miserably. Therefor, would it not make sense to either "split" the skill between manipulate minerals and support plants, or to offer specializations that reduce the difficulties for one area but raise the difficulty for another? That way, a difficulty 6 "safely harvest ripe zapapples" for Applejack would be instead a difficulty 18 for Pinky, where "grow small ruby" would see those numbers reversed, despite each having reasonable skills. Naturally, help from other Earth Ponies with either form of Groundspeak would lower difficulties, but the target number would still be different for each.
4509727
Groundspeak might not translate directly to farming--just because you can shift the ground doesn't mean you know how to best arrange the soil. Or Pinkie may not actually have a high level of groundspeak, and could be a terrible rock farmer. Or maybe the magic of the cutie swap scrambled her abilities.
4509736
Ah. The bit about shifting nutrients at higher levels made it sound like having a decent level of groundspeak would be a major boon for farming. I merely suggest that some form of specialization to adjust numbers for rock farmers at a cost of higher difficulties in other tasks might be a fair mechanic. Then again, it may be that Cutie Mark Talents may provide such an adjustment; I don't know the rest of the mechanics enough to tell.
4509736
I'm not sure how the rules work for this particular game, but I reason Pinkie could be the pony equivalent of a shaman and she has the split personality disadvantage. Part of her character creation went into dark magics like necromancy, because gummy has no teeth and I cannot see a carnivore living very long with that disadvantage... If she knows familiar magic then she probably knows blood and bone as they are prerequisites for familiar magic, elemental magic, and sympathetic magic (voodoo) in certain cosmologies. We already know she is quite capable in gastronomy, and breaking a few fertilized eggs might meet the weekly requirements to appease a death spirit.
So, I just I had a great idea and made a homebrew thread in the currently extremely inactive Tails of Equestria group I started. You have the honor of being the first set of houserules added to it. Here's a link. Hopefully more people will show up once the book becomes widely available in the US.
Personally, I think most these are great ideas, but I think the first campaign I run will just use the base rules for simplicity's sake.
4512873
I suspect it isn't as popular as it could be just yet because it isn't free for all. And, there are like a dozen alternatives or similar products.
None of these actually mesh terribly well with the existing rules (ignoring the ones they replace), and they've got a huge host of new problems they introduce that the original text just... didn't have. I don't want to just leave negative feedback without explanation, so here's a quick rundown:
The alternate leveling is almost the same as the (very clearly written) default... Except the bit where you let the player jump from a used d4 directly to a d20, but then say somehow requires a d12 when explaining it? Either way, not an improvement. The quirk removal has no benefits to it apart from making your character more boring, at the cost of about half a level. The Elements of Harmony mechanics are sort of interesting... Until you realize it's strictly worse than just spending Tokens of Friendship normally outside of all but niche cases (statistically, +1 die level upgrade is often worse than an after-the-fact reroll, the jump from d12-d20 aside). The changes to Talents are not very sensible, and even with the (relatively) noble goal of trying to balance the three pony races, it doesn't actually accomplish that goal, instead taking away character niches without providing a lot in return.
The only reasonable bits of this are Groundspeak and Stormforged, both of which are... just meh, as opposed to actively bad.
I agree that the Elements should probably have mechanical impact in core, and they might in future expansions or stories and modules. I agree that the Talent section could probably have been fleshed out a bit more. But the rest of it... These are not very good or well-thought-out horserules.
4514528
Wait, when do I say I let a player jump from a d4 to a d20? That's not at all in there!
4514540
Unless you're changing the definitions of words from the ones given in the book, a "used" talent or trait is one that you actually used at least once during the adventure. How much you used it and how much you've leveled it in the past are both irrelevant. That means that "Upgrade one used talent to 1d20;", which you did in fact say, could work on even a fresh d4 talent from your last level, so long as you have used it in the most recent storyline.
4514569
No, upgrades are pretty hard-coded to meaning "Upgrade one level." That's explicitly stated in the rules.
4514571
Yes! But that's not what you wrote. You explicitly said, and I quote
When you're writing RPG mechanics and rules, you have to pay attention to your specific wording. Yes, the book makes it clear that upgrading only goes up one step. But what you have written here, in a vacuum, overrides that. The exception always wins over the general rule in game design, and that's what I'm trying to point out: You wrote this badly.
If your intent was that you had to forsake an entire level to make the final upgrade from d12 to d20 (which is awful), then you need to phrase it better. Or not do it, because it's a bad idea.
i really lliked the rules and i think im going to implement them at level two or three
and anyone knows of any histories(fanfics here in fimfiction) that i can make them into a campaign ive got some ideas but i want to know some of your opinions