Tails of Equestria - RPG · 7:58pm May 9th, 2018
A few months ago an official My little Pony tabletop RPG was released.
http://riverhorse.eu/our-games/my-little-pony-tails-of-equestria/
I used to be huge into RPG's back in the day and I'm huge into ponies, so I bought it, along with every expansion ever but I never got a chance to play or GM it. Until this monday, when I finally had a chance to run a one-shot adventure for the local boardgame/geek bar. And despite not GM'ing in years and having mostly players who didn't watch the show, I can safely say that it was a grand success 
What follows, is a recollection of what exactly happened.
First, the characters. We had:
-Lucky Strike, an earth pony whose special talent is "luck". Ironic, cause he had the worst rolls possible!
-Fluffy Star, a pegasus, with aspirations of becoming a Wonderbolt, even though she's short sighted and has to wear glasses
-Way Finder, a unicorn pathfinder, with a talent for finding ways in wilderness
It all started when Lucky Strike won three tickets for an airship cruise, to Griffinstone and back. The team boarded the ship and went on a guided tour over the airship, but due to unfortunate accident involving marbles, turbulences and rescue pods (you can imagine the hijincks) ended up stranded on an uncharted island! It was a typical island- surrounded by a beach, with thick jungle and huge volcano in the middle.
They woke up on the beach, near their rescue pod, hungry and hurt (Fluffy broke her wing due to poor rolls earlier) and went inside the jungle to look for food. Thanks to Way Finder's spell they found a bunch of delicious mangos, so that was one problem less. They headed towards the mountain and eventually reached the mountain, which from their point of view was an impossible to climb wall surrounded by jungle. And that's where it got real.
They were attacked by four tigers! And since none of them were fighters, the entire encounter was quite cartoonish. Lucky Strike diverted the attention of two tigers and ran off, barely avoiding being mauled and even managed to lead one straight into a canyon and slow down the other by striking him with a branch as he ran (classic manouver!), then threw a mango at it's face! And since he had a really nice roll, he managed to blind it for just long enough that he managed to run back to his team.
Meanwhile, his friends tried to run away by air- Fluffy Star tried to lift Way Finder up (lost a point of stamin for being hurt), but the tigers climbed the trees around them and pounced both of them to the ground. Way Finder rolled his best roll for telekinesis yet and slammed the tiger straight into the wall, stunning it for a while. Meanwhile, Fluffy Star wrestled the other one, lost her glasses in the process, but that only made her stronger, as is played up to her quirk and gave her a friendship token!
...oh yeah, you don't know what that is. Friendship Tokens are bright purple gems (which I bought in dollar store) that are awesome, cause they let you reroll bad rolls, use better dice, create better opportunities or even outright pass any test they want if they use enough! You start the game with a few and you get one every time you either complete some objective, act friendly (Friendship is magic, literally!) towards those that need it and by playing up your quirks. If, for example, your quirk is "Being Too Silly" (Pinkie has it) and you act very silly to the point of possibly sabotaging your situation- you get a friendship token. As long as your quirk makes things worse, you get a token.
Fluffy Star needs glasses and is almost bling without them.
Way Fidner is naive, but he didnt get a chance to play it up.
Lucky Strike easily gets distracted.
Back to story: Lucky Strike came back in style, literally swinging by and kicking the tiger on Fluffy Star into the other tiger, which Way Finder lured bz taunting it! It was so epic I gave them all a token each!
Hint: when playing in my game, make your action as cool as possible. I will bend the laws of reality and game mechanics to make it so you'll achieve it. I'm not sure if it works for every GM, but it should. Or rather, I wish it would. Anyway...
The tigers weren't done yet (though the two they just struck were at 1 HP, not that I ever told them that), but the fight was interrupted by some odd warcries coming from the bushes. All the tigers ran away with panic, while the group stood in place, surrendering and playing along with whoever found them. Their apparent saviors were... a bunch of filly scouts. No, really- imagine eight fillies, roughly CMC's age, only a few of them had cutie marks, but all were wearing warpaint, dirt, makeshift clothes and hlding hoof made spears and bows! And they were led by a young adult earth pony mare, who kept on chewing gum (they never found out where she got it from), talked like Maud Pie and was very cold to them, but cared about her scouts (and they girls really liked her, it seemed).
Okay, full disclosure- I stole this idea from a podcast called "Bronyville". It was a good podcast (they ended in 2016) and they made a few RPG episodes using Savage Worlds mod, the game being ran by a guy who made it. On one of their adventures, they ended up stranded on an island and encountered a group of filly scouts and had various adventures. I don't remeber most of it, but parts of it stuck with me and I really wanted to make my own take on it. I also highly recommend you find those RPG episodes of Bronyville, cause they are awesome.
After some initial mistrust, they were accepted by the scouts and led to their primitive, but very efficient camp. Apparently the girls were here for an entire week and were VERY good at surviving in wilderness (they had badges to prove it). Also, Copper Star (their leader, the emotionles one) had a special talent in repairing stuff and was in the process of fixing the airship they crashlanded in, but required a few more things. And you know what that means? Yes- quests
Quest #1 was to find a specific metal plate to fix the baloon. There was one in their escape pod, so they tracked it down easily, but there was a problem- a tiny crab took a liking to it and the group ended up picking a fight with it and it's thirty foot giant enemy crab! The scouts were observing them from afar, while they were no match for the thing and Fluffy Star ended up begging for their lives... at which point they found out that it can talk! The giant enemy crab was named Clark, sounded like a pompous british person and was only bothering them to save his little brother, Jimmy. After apologizing, Clark and Jimmy went to the ocean and the group completed their quest.
But then came the hard part- the fuel. The airship was fueled by magical crystals and there just happened to be some of them on the island- inside the inactive volcano. You know how magical crystals are in the show, just about anywhere you want. Problem: caves were filled with giant spiders and Copper Star wasn't going to send any of her girls inside, so the party went alone. They stocked up on torches, ropes and bags and went exploring. It went about as you expect: quiet until they found the glowing crystals, were attacked by a bunch of spiders and had to run up. It all concluded with all of them reaching the top, which turned out was a balcony high above the ground, with spiders still trying to web them inside (they were afraid of light, apparently).
And this is where the most amazing thing happened- Way Finder rolled a 1 on defense, and the Spider rolled 1 on attack. And you know what that means? Yep, it got hilarious -he sidestepped back... into nothingness! And took everyone else with him!
They ended up sliding on the surprisingly steep mountain and this is where they spent ten real life minutes trying ot figure out a way to save themselves. I came up with the idea before any of them and hoped they also think of it. It took them a while and after completely botching a few attempts (and losing their rope with another epically placed natural 1), they finally got it- Fluffy Star extended her wings, Way Finder and Lucky Strike grabbed her by the hooves and used her as a pony glider 
Due to a poor roll they only got so far and both stallions fell halfway, but landed in a lake and were relatively unscathed.
They came back to the scout camp wet, dirty, tired, dishevelled, Fluffy had webs in her mane, but they completed their mission and along with the filly scouts, everypony went back home to Canterlot.
I skipped a few smaller moments, but overall it was a huge success. I did a few rules wrong along the way, but in tabletop RPG's rules are more suggestions than laws anyway. The players loved it and expressed their interest in having me as their GM, not necesserily for ponies, which made my heart grow two sizes. They did remarkably well in this world unknown to them, especially since only one player (Lucky Strike) watched the show (and only 3 seasons), while the others never watched a single episode (though a suspect they might remedy that by the next time we meet). There were a few other groups playing RPG's there as well: they played Numenera, Star Wars and some horror I didn't recognize. But it was my game that shined above anything else. 
not that I want to brag... 
Overall, it reminded me why I love RPG's, why I loved being a GM and I would really love to do it more often. It doesn't even have to be ponies. While this one went well, I don't like one-shot's and prefer longterm campaigns, where choices have long lasting consequences and plots are longer, more elaborate and character focused. I think you can tell from my writing. I mean, see how many one-shots have I written thus far
As for the Tails of Equestria rulebook, it's fantastic for beginners as well as veterans who want something lighter on the side. I highly recommend it to anyone who loves ponies and good storytelling.
God I wish I had the time and friends to play these kinds of games with.
This sounds amazing.
I have managed to play it twice with a friend of mine who's a rather experienced GM. He had added "tokens of discord" I think he called them, to add a bit of... well, chaos, if the player wanted to try it. A nice add I think.