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Estee


On the Sliding Scale Of Cynicism Vs. Idealism, I like to think of myself as being idyllically cynical. (Patreon, Ko-Fi.)

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Mar
8th
2018

Patreon Blog Takeover: "If it was completely fair, it wouldn't be a competition": balancing sports in Equestria -- and elsewhere. (Dinode) · 6:07pm Mar 8th, 2018

So let's see what we've got here...

I think I've decided on what I'd like to hear about: sports in your 'verse. We've already seen how Golf works for the Minotaurs, and we know they have Hoofball (Rarity's father), Bowling, and Tennis (since Apple Bloom tried to use an apple as a ball), but how do these sports work when about of the third of the population is telekinetic, a third can fly, and the remainder have super strength/seismic senses for situational awareness? I know my headcanon for Hoofball basically requires the teams to take turns picking what tribal makeup both teams use every quarter, with restrictions on what each tribe can do (e.g. pegasi can only block the ball while flying), how does it work in your verse? Are there other sports that are specific to particular tribes, like only earth ponies being strong enough to sumo wrestle? Sports we have no equivalent of whatsoever? Thanks in advance.

...oh boy.

Okay: let's take this in stages.

There are many jokes regarding hoofball's rulebook: a compilation which, over the centuries, has reached the point where most unicorns need a double corona just to get into the index. One of the most prevalent is that everything could be simplified by adding just one more rule: The playing of hoofball is forbidden -- and given that a typical game will see at least one instance where two seconds of play are followed by ten minutes of referees in conference, we're pretty close to that point already. Equestria has yet to reach the point of live radio or television broadcasts, but the commercial breaks have already been provided for.

And part of that rulebook's thickness, a page count which would make Twilight hesitate... comes from a simple fact: all three major pony races play.

Humanity has had -- and is still having -- arguments about whether certain regional genetic combinations do in fact make their recipients better at a given task. (Any major attempt to reproduce such discussions in the Comments section will lead to blog post deletion.) For ponies, there is no argument, because you generally shouldn't waste time in arguing facts. Earth ponies are stronger, with hidden tools. Pegasi have flight and techniques. Unicorns get telekinesis, plus whatever workings they've mastered and a personal trick. Put all three races on the same playing field and you'll be dealing with the simple truth that any one pony can do something which two others can't.

The possibilities start to open up quickly. Most of them center around cheating.

Let's take hoofball as a specific example. As described elsewhere, it can be thought of as the bastard child of American football and rugby -- one which was raised in a deliberately-broken home. (It builds character!) It's the legacy of the territorial battles which took place before Equestria settled into its current form: armies pushing for one more square gallop of reclaimed land and sky. In a very real way, it's not played by teams, but by herds -- and those herds are racially mixed because the sport was created as a way of forcing ponies to work together.

(The game itself? Without showing an actual match -- something which would be several thousand words -- it's about controlling territory. There is a ball, and you are supposed to advance it forward -- but as the ball shifts forward, everything behind its position becomes that much harder to reach. It's not so much a line of scrimmage as it is the border into foreign territory: turning a defender into an attacker means they've just crossed into the enemy camp. Somepony making a solo run to take down the general had better either have an unstoppable plan or a clear path to their team physicians.)

But that cooperation, in itself, creates a huge number of problems. We're supposed to be advancing a ball? Then give it to a pegasus and have it advanced through the air. For that matter, unless the ball is a rather awkward shape, then it's going to take a unicorn to catch the thing: everypony else will have difficulties keeping it between their teeth. Actually, does a ball count as being within somepony's possession if it's just being held within their field? Okay, now what if the unicorn in question projects their field all the way across the playing area and has the encased ball enter the scoring zone? Are there any plays where we can kick the ball? Because throwing is out of the question, and even if we allow kicking, do you know what wind gusts can do to something in the air? Good thing the weather is controlled! And yet we just got a wild gust from the west. What a coincidence. I'm sure that player who's not-so-subtly flapping her wings near the sidelines had nothing to do with it. Now, about using telekinesis for takeaways, tripping, mane and tail yanks, pinching somepony's eyelids shut...

All right, we've banned all that. Back to the game. And there goes somepony down the field! -- oops. Their left forehoof just hit a divot and they went down. Not that the little pothole existed twelve seconds ago, but it's still a loose ball and here comes an earth pony to retrieve it --

-- yeah. The rulebook basically hit a triple digit page count during the first match ever played, and it's been steadily adding chapters ever since. Hoofball is nasty, and that's just within the bounds of what can Still Be Done. Even in the modern era, Unspoken Rule #1 is 'do anything you can get away with'. Currently, there's an all-star team being assembled, one whose purpose is to introduce the game to the Empire -- playing against an Equestrian-trained group of locals. The professionals are anticipating a curb-stomp win. None of them know that they're going to be playing on a reflective, refractive, slippery, blinding surface, one which the natives can move across without issue, even as it dumps a professional into a no-give solid with every hoofstep. And playing on that kind of surface is perfectly legal, because it's never been done before: there's been no reason to create a rule against it.

There are four routes which can be followed when playing mixed sports:

* Negate all advantages through the nature of the game itself, creating a level arena It's a nice thought, but it's almost impossible. Is the sport physical? Then earth ponies probably have the edge. Is there speed involved? Win goes to the pegasus! Manipulation? The bettors are only wagering on the unicorns. There generally have to be some rules, because creating a truly neutral game only exists within the realm of theory. And a sport which is equally difficult for all three races...

* No magic, period And now we're all going to glare at the earth ponies. (It's possible to temporarily negate the strength advantage through the right potions, but you're essentially asking ponies to deliberately poison themselves: the formulas exist, but are hardly ever brewed, much less used.)

* Limited use This is the hoofball route. You get # wind gusts per game, # workings (which themselves come from a very small list), no flight, and anything over the line is breaking the rules. Of course, even within those constraints, ponies become -- creative. And when it comes to finding tactics which exist outside the rules -- well, there's still new pages being added every season.

* Free-for-all The survivors generally insist they had fun.

And before we leave hoofball, a few general notes:

* Because Equestria is new to the rail system, until recently, teams spent a lot of time traveling: paying to get an entire franchise through the escort network isn't a casual financial exercise, and that meant a west coast swing for an eastern team was a major operation. Scheduling road trips used to be based around doing a grand circuit of every other arena and then getting home in one limping piece. This means home/away games weren't -- and still aren't -- balanced in their count: it just wasn't realistic. Even now, the circuit can take a couple of moons to complete, and that's with playing matches more than once per week. The athletes are happy about having a shorter season and getting to spend more time at home -- but there's also a shorter period for recovery between matches: injuries are up.

* On the list of Equestria's Most Dangerous Professions, the line right next to Device Mechanic reads 'Hoofball Referee'. In part, this is due to a minor level of balkanization: Equestria is a single nation -- but it's a nation comprised of distinctive regions, some of which still retain a fair portion of their pre-Unification character. And when it comes to sports, the country instantly subdivides, breaking apart into something close to the original factions. Throw in herd mentality and you often get a silent (false) understanding in place with the locals that A. the home team had better win or B. somepony's gonna pay. (For those looking for a human equivalent: Caribbean winter baseball.) A visiting team which wins is always ready to make a break for it, and it's common courtesy to bring the referees out with you -- which, of course, proves to the locals that they were working with you all along...

(Traditionally, all hoofball referee teams are one-third earth ponies. Very strong earth ponies, who spend most of their working lives in a constant state of NO. There's also a sub-faction of referees whose job is to watch for magical interference from the spectators: they have to roam the bench area, and extracting them can become complicated.)

* In terms of square acreage, hoofball arenas are big. Remember, even without flight, ponies are considerably faster than humans: three hundred feet from end to end just isn't going to cut it. As such, the rising bowl shape of a professional facility is much more oval and relatively shallow.

* Because Equestria lacks in communications magic & technology, it can take a couple of days before the visiting team's fanbase learns exactly how the game went. Some cities will take the play-by-play sheet (once it arrives), rent a stage, and put on a small-scale recreation of events. Others use the empty arena, then find out the volunteers were amateur athletes looking for a chance to improvise.


For mixed sports, the general rule is "Remove or restrict racial advantages." For something like bowling, unicorns using direct field control of the ball is fine -- for showing off, stuntwork, and maybe the very rare unicorns-only matches where it's just Anything Goes with pins. On the professional level, you kick the ball into the lane and if anypony picks up on a hidden field nudging that one pin, may Celestia help you: the league rules won't. (As bowling is largely about aim, earth pony strength stops helping after a certain point and, if the ball is just crashing through instead of rebounding, will eventually start to hurt their chances.)

Tennis is much like rounders: the majority population considers them to be joke sports due to a simple fact: a pony's head just doesn't torque with sufficient force to allow true play. Unicorns may occasionally try to indulge in a local version of tennis which allows the rackets to be directly controlled (although they must stay within a few hoofwidths of the body and outside of serving, you can never touch the ball): rounders forbids just about all field use.

As noted in both Triptych and Naked Lunch, there are rulebooks out there which dictate the interaction of non-ponies within the games, but they're very rare. Within Equestria, you won't see a griffon scout or minotaur blocker unless you're looking at a playground scrum. On the professional level, it's pretty much Ponies Only -- and everyone's generally fine with this, simply because species capabilities are different and you can't ask a griffon to substitute for a pegasus. You can, however, ask a griffon to be a griffon -- and so once in a while, you will get one on the paid-to-play team, while the referees groan and blow dust off some pages. It's limiting your team's capacity in some areas while potentially adding new ones, and it's also an open invitation to get CUNET marching outside your arena. Having non-pony athletes play for Equestria in the Games does take place, but it's rare for two reasons: low population and the sheer number of adjustments which can be required.

(The rarest sight is generally a minotaur athlete on a pony team, something which hardly ever happens: the minotaurs acknowledge their lack of defenses against magic while knowing that for many mixed-team pony sports, hands change too much.)

Because ponies are ponies, racing is a passion, and kicking in some obstacles just adds to the fun. As earth pony endurance only factors in for long events, this is the easiest sport to make fair: just keep all the pegasi ground-bound, say 'no workings allowed', make the jumps a little higher in the earth pony lane, and you're most of the way there. Aerial-only competitions exist to favor the flying species, but getting everypony on ground level and keeping them there leads to some of the biggest events on the continent -- along with a few of the most famous athletes. (However, racing careers tend to be relatively short: there's only so much time for a pony to maintain peak speed across their lifespan, and the professional runner is often on a path of quiet desperation, knowing somepony younger and faster is coming up behind them.) Similarly, kicking on the gallop is a fairly natural thing, and so there's a rough equivalent to soccer holding its place in Equestria's youth culture, especially as it's one of the easiest sports for an extremely mixed group to play.

For human equivalents: basketball doesn't exist: asking ponies to dribble and shoot was fairly ridiculous to begin with. Hockey would be 'soccer, on ice, with skates': you can't ask them to do stick control either. Rounders is baseball crossed with cricket, with a few local touches added: it's a niche' sport which is generally looked upon with either vague bemusement or absolute boredom.

Small sports which have fine control as their most major aspect have a good chance to catch on. There are pony curlers, and shuffleboard has a yawn-inducing place.

But when it comes to pony-only sports, among a single race...


Combat sports are fairly rare: ponies generally have other ways of taking out their aggression. (Similarly, martial arts are scarce -- but can be extremely effective, especially considering that they're designed to mix magic with movement.) Such things do break down along racial lines: you're not going to get a unicorn against an earth pony in a springsquare unless the unicorn is either extraordinarily large or extremely stupid. Nopony's going to unite the silver saddles in pony combat because nopony can compete in all three leagues. (Well, technically, one pony, but she's probably not interested.)

Digging out a fosse and using it for sport is reserved for the most isolated of earth pony communities -- and even then, you'll typically only see it among teens: the vast majority of earth ponies take the duels a little too seriously to treat them as simple won-loss records. (Anypony who tries dueling their way through life quickly finds the community objecting -- in bulk.)

Single-race sports based in magic tend to share a common factor: they're usually about control. This is due to a simple fact of pony life: field strength can't be improved, field dexterity can. Since (in theory) anypony could eventually reach the top of the charts when it comes to fine manipulations, emphasizing control as the dominant element levels the arena. So you will get divisions based on raw field strength and going for the most powerful demonstrations available -- but for the most part, if you're looking at a unicorn contest of magic, it'll be something like 'steer this acorn through a narrow maze which you've never seen before and can only feel through collisions, at speed' or 'create and maintain the most detailed judge-assigned illusion, retaining its realism through the following exercises' -- assuming both ponies know that working. Similarly, a pegasus contest of magic may come down to hitting targets with lightning, but you're just as likely to see a skywriting exercise, molding a provided supply of clouds into a given message before anypony else can finish. The earth pony equivalent leads to crop circles.

And if we look outside Equestria?


Prance, as the other major pony nation, tends to have the normal pony sports, just about all of which they claim were invented in Prance. However, you don't see competition between the two countries all that often. Remember the possibly-mysterious mention of Caribbean winter baseball and the suggested biases inherent therein? This manages to become even worse on the rare occasions when an Equestrian team plays in Prance, because a Prance athlete is not supposed to lose to their inferiors. Which happens. A lot. The local press then goes on a rampage of imagination while making up excuses for it. There have been many Equestrian victories over the centuries and if you look at the Prance history books, a grand total of none were legitimate. Equestria doesn't play Prance all that often not because, as the Prance citizens claim, they know they'll lose, but because they get sick of hearing the post-victory accusations. In fact, no one likes to play in Prance, because the fun starts when your hotel loses the reservation, the chefs serve food intended to make the visiting team sick and weak, the police arrest you for sleeping in the streets, you make bail and your locker room turns out to be a mud pit a half-gallop from the actual stadium, and may Sun and Moon help you if there's a single local referee on the officiating crew because the rulebook won't.

Prance believes in home-arena advantage, and so generally refuses to compete when they don't have it. After all, everyone else is clearly looking for an opportunity to cheat.


As previously noted, minotaurs and wrestling are like ponies and racing: it pretty much comes with the species. Mazein wrestling favors a Greco-Roman style, with some adjustments: the presence of horns creates the opportunity for new moves while adding a pair of often-unwelcome points for leverage. (Debates which reach the physical stage will use this form of combat for resolution, and there are handsigns which must be honored: when your opponent signals a stop, you stop.) Great wrestlers are living legends: deceased ones are held high among the Ancients. Other than being among the great debaters or inventors, it's probably the fastest way to minotaur fame.

(There is a lucha libre tradition, but it's partially underground: the majority population doesn't necessarily mind the characters, but finds the storylines ridiculous, some of the moves to be undignified, and would vote to censor the entire sport if they ever found evidence that results had been predetermined. As such, the matches book small facilities and try not to call too much attention to themselves. Being attracted to the sub-sport is a little like a pony going through flank-brain: it strikes a lot of adolescents, and the adults just hope it passes quickly.)

Because many minotaurs are both rather physical and creative, new sports emerge from Mazein on a semi-regular basis. They'll also take a look at anything which appears in another nation to see if it can be adapted for their own use, and take occasional pride in finding ways for those with hooves to participate in minotaur creations. However, they also lead the world in folded leagues: some things just don't catch on.

Minotaurs are the most likely species to own franchises in other nations: it's the joy of competition. (Griffons come a close second, but some such purchases can be short-term: it takes a patient personality to get past the frustration over not being able to dominate immediately.) Outside of Mazein, they're also among the most demanded -- and most scarce -- rule arbitrators: many see them as being fair when it comes to any competition in which they're not actively participating -- along with being vulnerable to magic and potentially swayed by popular opinion.


Griffons love sports: it's one more chance to dominate something, and their determination to prove themselves better make them the species most likely to try and find a role on an other-race team. They'll give nearly anything which comes across the borders what they see as a fair shot -- followed by quickly dismissing most of it as not being suitable for griffons or just plain stupid. (Anything they feel they can't dominate in.) During peacetimes -- including the current one -- there's a tradition of competition against pegasus settlements in obstacle avoidance events. And for the most major gathering, one war which stretched across the International was suspended for three days in order to make sure every medal was properly awarded.

Protocera is the source for the majority of mixed-species rulebooks: as the most mixed nation, they have the greatest need for them. Even if just about your entire population thinks of themselves as being griffons, their bodies just aren't going to cooperate.

When it comes to local sports, the dominance chain and perceived predator status unite into the Hunt, which can be readily summarized as a blood sport without the blood. A group of players are released into a semi-stabilized wild zone: one where the weather will be regulated for a few days and the worst of the monsters have been removed, but everything else is still waiting for you. The goal then becomes to take all the other players out of the game -- non-lethally. You can trap, lure, use the environment, get into direct fights -- whatever it takes to make someone else submit and drop out. (Any player rendered unconscious is considered to be out -- but sending someone out cold is an imprecise art.) But you have to do it all yourself. No temporary alliances: eventually, someone will have to be the dominant one. No ganging up. It's one-on-twenty -- one at a time.

A significant percentage of Protoceran youths will go through at least one Hunt: it's not a rite of passage by any means, but it is looked upon as a way to advance a few links up the chain. Non-griffon participants are welcome, but non-Protocerans are hardly ever seen.


Sports makes the divided state of Pundamilia Makazi worse. With the exception of a newly-opened area, a kraal which can't form a viable team is no kraal at all -- which means that for any team sport, there are one hundred teams. There are many zebra creations at work in the world and out of necessity, they include leagues, divisions, and playoff systems. Even so, some geniuses try to figure out a master theory of magic and science: others just go to work on drawing up a kraal team's road schedule.

The zebra tradition of hospitality means that many of the pitfalls involved in, say, playing Prance are avoided: pretty much every kraal has coded laws regarding polite treatment of visiting teams (which extends to non-zebra squads), and any kraal which ignores or obliterates those rules quickly finds no one's willing to play them any more. There may be some glares, and it's generally not a bad idea to check your food -- but for the most part, visiting teams are treated as ambassadors from their home kraal, and are also expected to act accordingly. Even the most restrictive, hidebound kraal will allow a 'foreign' athlete inside -- but that player had better be ready to abide by all local kraal laws. A zebra athlete needs many things, and chief among them is a complete set of guidebooks.

So if you're looking for nastiness between kraals expressed through team clashes, it's generally kept at the normal sports fan level. The true hostility comes out in what passes for the free agency market -- or what's allowed to exist of one, because more than a few kraals have passed laws which work out to 'any athlete born within our borders may never play for any other kraal's team.' Penalties for breaking this are... well, 'are'. Except for saying that you really wouldn't want to go through any of them, let's leave it at that.

You can probably imagine what this sometimes does to local salary structure. A few of the most restrictive kraals are intelligent enough to keep their stars happy -- but there's always a franchise owner who'll claim they aren't practicing slavery because the player is still getting paid! -- something... Harsh treatment of such athletes can lead to a player trying to get over the border, usually bringing any family with them because the treatment of those left behind isn't going to be all that great either. More than a few of Pundamilia Makazi's greatest stars are effectively fugitives who can never (well, almost never -- see below) return to their homes: road trips can leave a few refugees waiting for the rest of their team in the next kraal up the line. And naturally, any such escapes are all due to misconceptions by the heartless athlete, never the franchise owner or kraal itself -- or so the franchise owner and kraal say.

(It's not always that bad, of course: the worst kraals can approach horrific, but they're also the minority. However, there's more than a few which like to play legal tricks like 'You can change teams, but you're sending two-thirds of your salary to your home kraal's government.' On the whole, player mobility is complicated to the point where a few zebras decide it's easier to change countries and cross the final border.)

Zebras have their own love of racing, but they favor endurance contests: extended marathons which stretch across a moon or more -- not to mention the fractured parts of a nation. And so Pundamilia Makazi has the Ziara Kuu, or Grand Tour: a hoof race which winds down the roads until it passes through every last kraal.

The Kuu has... a few unique facets.

First: the starting line is everywhere. Some kraals have harsher travel restrictions than others, which means getting everyone to a single launch point starts at ridiculously difficult. Careful coordination allows runners to begin the race at the same moment in any participating kraal -- and every kraal participates, although a few fume about it. A individual racer's run ends when they return home, and the course is laid out so that all runners cover the same total distance. (If you catch up with another group, you're really moving.)

Second: in order to avoid legal complications, barabara (road law) applies to the course. Nothing else. As long as you're in the race, even though you're passing through multiple kraals, you are subject to none of their individual statutes -- if you stay on the course. So a road running through the heart of the most restrictive kraal in the land, down its main street... for a racer, will fall under barabara law. Nothing else can touch them until they leave the course or the race concludes.

You may want to think about that one for a few seconds.

Technically, someone under a hundred warrants, all leading to death sentences... or a zebra who just broke out of prison hours before -- can be at a starting point when the Kuu begins, start to run, and they're untouchable. Unless they break barabara law or have a warrant already waiting for them there (something which only a road court can decide), they can't be arrested and brought back to their home kraal unless they leave the course or finish the race. The most restrictive kraals despise the race because they can never be sure if their best runner is using it as a chance to truly run: the most open ones stand ready to receive any who leave the road at exactly the right moment -- while being intelligent enough to watch for potential spies. And there's very little need to leave the road unless you're using an overnight stop for a hotel, good meal, or just looking around a little: runners are fed on the road, are issued tents which occupy the road... basically, if you're a true racer, you could finish the entire Kuu without your hooves ever parting from the flag-bordered path. (A repeating pattern of one hundred, representing all of the kraals.) Or you could leave -- anywhere. And extradition laws between kraals are as complicated as the rest of it: one kraal may demand the return of its former citizen, the new home asks why, and they're going to want some proof of reason before they send anyone back. Additionally, some parts of the course pass close to the true border: it's possible to get into another nation this way.

The Ziara Kuu is open to anyone who wants to run it: since the race doesn't completely wrap up until the last runner crosses or quits, some among the other species will use it as their chance to see what Pundamilia Makazi is like with a relative degree of safety. (However, the winner is declared long before the race ends: the stragglers aren't going to beat the fastest time.) There are rules involved, of course -- 'no flying' is heavily enforced -- but you'll see a few representatives from the other nations on the course every year: it's considered a badge of honor for any true endurance runner to try participating at least once. However, due to the staggering distance, true endurance requirements, and necessary knowledge of local hazards (including, potentially, monsters), no non-zebra has ever won: the highest all-time finish for such a runner was eleventh place -- something which had most of Pundamilia Makazi temporarily united in holding their collective breath.

Outside of the races, zebra sports tend to look for games which allow individual contributions within team effort: anything with a defined position has at least some chance to catch on. (This is the nation which created the local version of soccer, and some zebras are seen as having a minor addiction to it.) And a few kraals will host visiting airshows: they can't participate, but there are those who just like to watch.


Yaks just want to humiliate anyone who A. isn't themselves or B. isn't a yak.

The latter tends to backfire.

Spectacularly.

Report Estee · 1,310 views ·
Comments ( 19 )

Notice you didn't mention Buckball, i.e. the canon sport that has specialized roles for each tribe.

I could point out I designed Criffleball before Buckball was a thing, but that's kind of Oversaturated World Exclusive at the moment...

Georg #2 · Mar 8th, 2018 · · ·

The locker room for the Canterlot Cavaliers was nearly silent except for the sound of turning pages and the odd whispering as certain hoofball players attempted to sound out the unusual words on their copy of the invitation. Finally, Wind Gust closed his copy and looked around at his fellow athletes.

"Dis rulebook is too short. Dey must have broke it up into pieces, on account of it ain't got no rules for most of our plays."

"Like the Flying Piledriver," said Static Block.

"Or the Mitzocanitic Blitz Incantation," said Esoteric. "In fact, this has to be a joke. The Interdimensional League? I've never heard of it before."

"They shipped us fifty-six kilograms of .999 pure gold for a down payment," said Assay Line, the team owner, who had been lurking in the corner ever since he passed out the duplicated invites. "Substantially more is due on our arrival, and if we win all three of our exhibition games at this venue, we'll clear more net than the gross for a whole season in Canterlot." The wealthy unicorn's lips curled back in a vicious grin, reminding all of the players that he had once been out on the field just like them, and had plowed more than his fair share of opponents into the turf despite being nominally a Canterlot Royal with a pinkish coat and frilly mane. "They said it would be a lot of fun teaching a bunch of little paisley ponies how to play their game."

There was a low growl that went around the locker room, the kind that would make a full-grown lion decide on rutabagas for lunch.

"I'm in," said Heavy Impact, the quarterback, with a gap-toothed grin. "I tink we can teach them a lot too about how to play--" He squinted at the cover of the instruction manual "--Bloodbowl."

:raritystarry: So. Much. Amazing. World building.

...there's only so much time for a pony to maintain peak speed across their lifespan...

Something Rainbow Dash is likely all too aware of on some level.

As for uniting the silver saddles, I kind of want to see Luna try her hoof (and other appendages) at it.

As for the other species... Well, see first line. Thank you for an amazing rundown of athletics in your world.

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It also assumes every player has hands, so unless minotaurs learn to fly...

This may be slightly off topic, but since we've got a bit more minotaur world building here, I can't help but wonder: how do the minotaurs view Cadence, and the fact that she basically killed Sombra? Or is that even common knowledge?

A rather more on topic question: do the minotaurs have a tradition of Sumo? Would that be a sport they would respect?

In any case, an excellent and detailed bit of world building :twilightsmile:

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Nuffle would be pleased, and bless everyone with the proper course of action. Pure utter pandemonium.

, if you're looking at a unicorn contest of magic, it'll be something like 'steer this acorn through a narrow maze which you've never seen before and can onlyfeelthrough collisions, at speed'

wow. this made me think of an OLD book by Anne McCaffrey, "the Rowan": there's a scene where a bunch of "Talents", children with Telepathy, Telekinesis, and Teleportation, are playing an enhanced version of dodgeball. the rules permitted anyone to grab the ball with Telekinesis, so a common tactic was to make the ball wobble rapidly to make it harder for other players to "grip". Teleporting out of the ball's path was also permitted.
this video also comes to mind:

Thanks for this, it was a lot of fun to read. I especially liked the Ziara Kuu section. Also, the line about crop circles was hilarious, and I have to wonder how long they've been blaming aliens for unusual activity. :rainbowlaugh:

What about board games or tabletop games? I imagine that would be a popular thing, if only because it is fair for all species.

Really fun read! I wonder if when they finally get around to creating enough films to have sports movies as a genre in Equestria, there would be an equivalent to our human obsession with chronicling the sports journey. Hoofball especially could be really dramatic and intense, if film crews had the equipment to follow the teams around without it getting damaged in the process.

Poor Prance, no one loves them. I like how it's easier for athletes to go to Pundamilia Makazi than it is to try and be the away team in Prance.

Thanks for a thorough look at triptychian sports. I enjoy how the culture breakdown changes things in ways I wouldn't have thought about but make perfect sense once you see it. It does make me wonder if the hoofball still retains the same shape as a usual American one. The minotaurs have a baseball equivalent right? Holes for the horns through the hats? If the griffons are as flexible as they seem in the show here, would they be able to play something like that too? I could see literal fly-balls.

followed by quickly dismissing most of it as not being suitable for griffons or just plain stupid. (Anything they feel they can't dominate in.)

Wow, Rainbow must have spent ages in Griffonstone.
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Why would Minotaur have a particularly strong opinion about that? The only part the directly relates to them is that Sombra used to enslave his people.

Side note, do the Crystal ponies have unique magic, either in Triptych or elsewhere? I've never thought of it until now.

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As I recall from previous stories, the minotaurs free very strongly on the topic. I remember a particular passage describing a fashion for nose rings as a f*ck you / dare to any and all slavers.

Gosh, I adore the whole Ziara Kuu section. You could write a whole story around that.

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I imagine buckball was explicitly invented by a very frustrated former hoofball player.

4812808 Really, the whole section on Pundamilia Makazi made me exponentially more curious about Triptych Zecora's backstory. Why did she leave? How did she leave?

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Why did she stay? In Ponyville I mean. I hope we get something on Zecora in the Continuum sometime, there's something compelling about seeing how that came about.

All very interesting and informative, and more than a few story seeds to plant and grow.

I'd image dragon's have "lava diving" or the like, maybe some sort of crafting competition? And what about diamond dogs? And changeling sports. And the breezies. So many varied races for so many sport ideas.

Oh the grounds of "It's about precision, not power" I imagine snooker/billiards/pool etc might work across multiple races, depending on how well they can manage the cues. Might even work as a multi-species sport for griffons and minotaurs. Is there a local version of chess (or shogi or go or something along those lines).

Hoofball sounds like the average game has more referees than players. Match fixing bribery must cost a fortune...

Rounders is baseball crossed with cricket, with a few local touches added: it's a niche' sport which is generally looked upon with either vague bemusement or absolute boredom.

Does it combine the worst of both sports? A game that lasts five days, with the most common result being a draw. Incredibly low scoring, with long periods where nothing happens. I’ll bet weather control is banned too. What kind of psychosis must exist in players and fans minds that a scheduled game could be washed out by a scheduled rainstorm?

Part of me wants to see you write that...

I bet pegasi and thestrals could play a mean game of jai alai with their wings...

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I think I've read about that game in a story somewhere.
They called it 'Grasshopper'.

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