Tails of Equestria - They finally made one! · 8:22pm Jul 14th, 2017
As my dear "readers" (or rather waiters,,, sorry, I am working on stuff, I promise) may have noticed, I like RPGs. I even wrote an entire chapter as an RPG, for goodness sake! Now, the good people at "River Horse" (love the name already) managed to talk Hasbro into making an official MLP RPG called "Tails of Equestria".
I got the book today and I just finished it... here are my thoughts:
Its good! I mean it! It's really, really good.
Let me get this out of the way: This is a game made for adults to be played with children. It goes deeply into detail about what RPGs are, how to approach the narrative. It is also rather focused on not turning your group into the typical murderhobo-stereotype. Heck, the sample adventure is about petsitting the mane 6's pets (and getting messed around with by Angel, because Angel was kicked out of the warren of misery by the Black Rabbit of Inlé for being too much of a monster!). Basically, you are supposed to play your characters going around, being nice and helping people with problems through friendship. I like that!
The system is very straight forward: 3 Attributes (Body, Mind, Charm) and a list of talents that are defined by what die you roll. The better the trait, the bigger the die. Stamina is the "HP" of the game. You add your body and mind dice and write down the number. Stamina is used for everything and once spent, the pony goes down.
You roll against difficulty, there are no modifiers except if the GM decides to lower the difficulty for good roleplaying or friendship. 1 is always a botch and double the target is an outstanding success. If you have a talent that fits a roll, you add the die of the talent and roll both, then pick the better.
If ponies work together, the difficulty of the roll is reduced by 1 per pony helping, all roll and the highest die is used. If nopony has a fitting talent and the roll is impossible (let's say the highest die is an 8 and the target is a 12), charactes can use the "Exploding Hoof" trick (love it!) as desperation. They roll a single fitting and if they get a maximum result on the die, they can roll the next higher die. Basically you pull a "Twilight VS Hydra" and see what happens.
Combat is amazing! Ponies take out their battle-axes and horribly mutilate each other in... no wait, that's that one fanfic, I read last night. Combat is describes as "scuffles". Basically the scufflers both roll their body die (plus a combat-worthy talent such as bucking) and the one who is gets it higher wins. The loser detracts the rolled number from his stamina. Repeat until one goes down. Nice and simple.
Character creation is delightfully simple: You pick a tribe. All 3 tribes (no alicorns! It even has a very nice reasoning why) are decently defined and have the advantage you expect (pegasi can fly, unicorns do magic, earth ponies can pull houses around). Then you say if the pony is brawny or brainy (decides which of the two is higher) and then you pick a few talents, one of them get's boosted by your cutie mark. Then you pick a quirk. They are the character flaws that we love so much. They are mostly a roleplaying tool but can be used by the GM to change difficulty and such.
Now then there is Friendship. It comes in form of tokens. You get them at the start of the game, depending on how many players are on the table (the GM gets the same number). You can use those tokens to alter rolls, make small adjustments, roll bigger dice or help each other out. Acts of kindness and friendship gift more tokens. (Sold separately)
Conclusion:
This game knows what it wants and it does it well. Players are constantly encouraged to solve their issues with creativity and teamwork. Combat is seen as a sad necessity and there to be dealt with quickly. Quirks help ponies feel unique and they focus on personality and making it your own. Friendship and kindness arerewarded, none of the tribes feel overpowered and the example adventure is a great way to show how to make an interesting adventure without a need for combat.
There are also a lot of just nice touches. There are tables in the back of the book that you can use instead of dice, if you don't have any (close your eyes, point at the table and look). It suggests using the Blind Bag ponies as figurines if you need a visual aid. There are even suggestions to teach younger kids about serious issues like blindness or bodily handicaps by using those as quirks to give them a feel for it.
Yeah... I think it's a great game, a perfect RPG for beginners and our first session is next week
Sounds nice.
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It was clearly made by people who love both the show and roleplaying. The foreword is especially sweet, since it's the lead writer explaining how he fell in love with the show by watching it with his daughters and how he loves the setting.
4601835
Thats great then, a work of love is always a good thing.
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Yeah, I mean, Zecora is statted in the book and her personality description is entirely in rhyme. And it jokingly mentions the pony's ability to perform complex tasks with their hooves and mouths.
Seriously, this might be the best "beginner" RPG that I have seen so far.
Hmm, this sounds really intriguing. I'm usually a 3 to 3.5 ed D&D player, but I'm willing to at least look into this.
Quite a well-written post, I already want to at least peek into the book. Will add it to my 700-position 2nd read-it-later list, following my 500-position 1st RIL.