All The Pretty Little Horses Adventures (in playtesting)

Our beautiful world is under threat.

Monsters and mayhem and discord abound all around us. Outside of the confines of our own Saddle Valley, there are a million and one things that are burned by the touch of light and beauty and that seek to destroy it. Apocalypse looms, waiting to crash over the Palace of Dreams and blanket the world in eternal night.

We of the Equine Queendoms won't let that happen.

Our world is too beautiful, with too much potential for goodness and music and light and love, for us to let that happen.

To that end, we send our champions, our avatars of virtue. We send them to make those virtues real in the world, to drive back the swirling chaos outside Saddle Valley and to make it a place fit for life and love.

We are strong because we must be. We bring beauty because we choose to.

We are all the pretty little horses.

And we stand against the apocalypse, not because we must, but because we can.

~~~~

...is a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by My Little Pony (both Gen 1 and Friendship is Magic), as well as by classic children's fantasy novels like the Narnia series, The Hobbit, and Harry Potter. Naturally, it uses the Apocalypse Engine.

I am it's creator, and the game is ready for playtesting.

My design goal with this sucker is to make a family roleplaying game with this - one suitable for a parent to run for their kids, particularly their young girls. 

My current publishing goal is to have an awesome playtest kit ready in time for an April convention, BABSCon, that caters to child and adult fans of MLP, and any suggestions on where I can find graphic designers to that end would be very welcome.  I can pay a little.

All of the illustrations for the playbooks are by [img=http://lillayfran.tumblr.com/]http://Lillayfran,[/img] commissioned for this purpose.

My playtest documents, very much a work in progress, are through this gDrive link.

I am currently setting up playtest groups.

So:

• Do the rules make sense so far?
• What odd omissions am I making?
• What strikes you as very cool?
• Would you like to playtest, and if so, how?

Thank you all in advance.

I made a previous thread, but it's been dormant for so long and I've done so much substantial work that I felt opening a new one was warranted.

I want to playtest, but I've kinda sworn off becoming game master of more games for the moment.

But just reading through, a few things come to mind.

First off, I'm not sure who your audience is. At some point the text seems directed towards little girls, at other times towards adults (sometimes specifically towards bronies). The styles don't really fit well together, IMO. It kinda gives the feel that the document pretends to be aimed at the little girl, but really is written for bronies.

Rules-wise:
Make Someone’s Day: The 7-9 result seems weird and a bit bland in the context of the move. Weird because "she’ll ask you what you want her to do." when the move is not "Asking Her For A Favor", and bland because gaining experience seems very neutral, when you are cheering someone up. I'm thinking advantage  or bond would be a better pick.

Bonds: I'm thinking you might want to flip the order in which you tell about the function of bonds. So first explain how you Aid a Friend, and then that you get xp at three bonds. So rather than being boiled down to, "bonds turn into xp, and you can also use it to Aid a Friend" it becomes "Bonds are for helping friends, and if you get too many, one of them becomes xp."

First off, I'm not sure who your audience is. At some point the text seems directed towards little girls, at other times towards adults (sometimes specifically towards bronies). The styles don't really fit well together, IMO. It kinda gives the feel that the document pretends to be aimed at the little girl, but really is written for bronies.

I'm much more interested in this being a kid's game than a game for bronies - bronies already have Ponyfinder and too many other fanprojects to count - so I would very much appreciate any specific examples you can give me so I can fix it.  Part of the problem is, like it or not, I'm an adult fan of the show that got immersed in the fandom - probably have habits that are hard to break.

Rules-wise:
Make Someone’s Day: The 7-9 result seems weird and a bit bland in the context of the move. Weird because "she’ll ask you what you want her to do." when the move is not "Asking Her For A Favor", and bland because gaining experience seems very neutral, when you are cheering someone up. I'm thinking advantage  or bond would be a better pick.

Advantage or bond would be a better pick, you're right.  You're also not the only person to mention that.

Part of the problem here is that I started out by adapting the Maturity moves from Monsterhearts as basic moves, in this case Make Someone Feel Beautiful - and Monsterhearts is a much more adversarial game, even when the characters grow up.  Call Out A Cruelty is likewise a renamed Call Bullshit, and Valor's In Deepest Confidence is a reskinned Share Pain.

Bonds: I'm thinking you might want to flip the order in which you tell about the function of bonds. So first explain how you Aid a Friend, and then that you get xp at three bonds. So rather than being boiled down to, "bonds turn into xp, and you can also use it to Aid a Friend" it becomes "Bonds are for helping friends, and if you get too many, one of them becomes xp."

This is much more in line with the function of Bonds, yes.  They're primarily for the fantastically good 1d bonus to aid.

I'm much more interested in this being a kid's game than a game for bronies ... so I would very much appreciate any specific examples you can give me so I can fix it. 

Okay, first a disclaimer. Now that I'm reading through the document for the purpose of finding "offenses", I may be overly critical. I'm pointing out anything that draws my attention.

Except for a few strong examples, a lot of it might also be that I'm a brony myself. So I recognize some of the shoutouts. Stuff like "The story you tell is explicitly a fantasy or faerie tale (you can call it a pony tale if you’d like, but your friends will probably throw things at you)", which seems like a reference to MLP punning. And the name of the Charity move "The Pony Everybody Should Know" is just gratuitous :).

The strong examples are mostly stuff that ties to closely to the Apocalypse Engine. This stuff seems either target at adults, or inappropriate for minors.

- You might want to find another name for the GM than Master of Ceremonies. Or at least drop the MC moniker.
- "If that made you immediately think ‘Final Fantasy only with ponies as the heroes’..." I might be mistaken, but Final Fantasy might not be well known among your target base
- The entire section "This game is Powered by the Apocalypse!" You mention a long list of games, and then say "but these are for adults".

Stuff with overt brony feel

- I might just be overly critical, now that I'm reading stuff with this in mind, but the title "All The Pretty Little Horses" seems a bit like the faux-cutesy-girlyness that a brony might take on, to show he isn't afraid of girly stuff. At least, the title doesn't make me think of ponies going on adventures, defending the world against evil.
- This is echoed in the line "You should play this game because all the pretty little horses are awesome, simple as that." in the "But why should we play?" section
- The paragraph about the Handsome Haunchmark kinda have the "boys who don't like girly things are stupid" smell as well.


Something else I noticed, not related to the target audience thing:
Instead of explaining how the ponies look in the "On The Humble Race of Ponies" section, you might want to simply let your pictures talk. I'm not sure if it adds anything to explain in words that unicorns have "split hooves like a goat’s, and a thin tail ending with a tuft of soft, mane-like hair". I don't think everyone will be imagining the ponies correctly from being read the description. But if all the pictures show of the ponies, then you can see what they look like.

Okay, first a disclaimer. Now that I'm reading through the document for the purpose of finding "offenses", I may be overly critical. I'm pointing out anything that draws my attention.

Except for a few strong examples, a lot of it might also be that I'm a brony myself. So I recognize some of the shoutouts. Stuff like "The story you tell is explicitly a fantasy or faerie tale (you can call it a pony tale if you’d like, but your friends will probably throw things at you)", which seems like a reference to MLP punning. And the name of the Charity move "The Pony Everybody Should Know" is just gratuitous :).

That's a useful disclaimer. 

Especially because I'm keeping the horse puns.  That's an MLP thing, but it's an all-ages MLP thing.

The Charity move name is indeed gratuitously referential, although I'm surprised you haven't also taken issue with Redemption's blurb for the same reason.  Mind, I also need to make Charity a lot less 'this is how you play as Rarity' and a lot more of it's own thing, like I've arguably succeeded with with most of the other playbooks...

The strong examples are mostly stuff that ties to closely to the Apocalypse Engine. This stuff seems either target at adults, or inappropriate for minors.

- You might want to find another name for the GM than Master of Ceremonies. Or at least drop the MC moniker.
- The entire section "This game is Powered by the Apocalypse!" You mention a long list of games, and then say "but these are for adults".

Yeah, no, I kind of need to do that.  Part of this is me working out my own amazement that a very simple and flexible engine has so few kids games attached to it; out it goes. 

That chapter was a VERY early pass to begin with.

Stuff with overt brony feel

- I might just be overly critical, now that I'm reading stuff with this in mind, but the title "All The Pretty Little Horses" seems a bit like the faux-cutesy-girlyness that a brony might take on, to show he isn't afraid of girly stuff. At least, the title doesn't make me think of ponies going on adventures, defending the world against evil.

I'm on the fence about it, and have been slapping an '...Adventures' at the end of the title.  Frankly, I chose that name partly from growing up with the lullabye, and partially because I'm beyond astounded no one else has used that for a line bootleg pony toys yet.

It has been a problem, but I don't have a better name for it.

- This is echoed in the line "You should play this game because all the pretty little horses are awesome, simple as that." in the "But why should we play?" section
- The paragraph about the Handsome Haunchmark kinda have the "boys who don't like girly things are stupid" smell as well.

Agreed on the last part.  I was editorializing that day.

I AM trying to make another pass at this in time for BABSCon, so I can have it at the kid's tent.

Something else I noticed, not related to the target audience thing:

Instead of explaining how the ponies look in the "On The Humble Race of Ponies" section, you might want to simply let your pictures talk. I'm not sure if it adds anything to explain in words that unicorns have "split hooves like a goat’s, and a thin tail ending with a tuft of soft, mane-like hair". I don't think everyone will be imagining the ponies correctly from being read the description. But if all the pictures show of the ponies, then you can see what they look like.

That will await my actually having better art, but it's a good idea.  I should probably do something more like like the henge introductions in Golden Sky Stories, from the point of view of a typical unicorn, pegasus, and earthtamer (which also means that I can introduce goats and deer and things as well, something I eventually want to do).

The Charity move name is indeed gratuitously referential, although I'm surprised you haven't also taken issue with Redemption's blurb for the same reason.

I might have noticed that during the first read-through, but I didn't want to bother to go through and find all the references just to list them :p

I'm on the fence about it, and have been slapping an '...Adventures' at the end of the title.  Frankly, I chose that name partly from growing up with the lullabye, and partially because I'm beyond astounded no one else has used that for a line bootleg pony toys yet.

It has been a problem, but I don't have a better name for it.

I don't know the lullaby, so to me it just sounds cutesy :) Then again, I'm a grown man, so maybe we shouldn't read too much into my preferences.

Brainstorming name:

Pony Adventures (a bit generic)
Pony Tales (already taken)
Adventures of Saddle Valley (maybe add a more evocative name for the pony realm)
Hoofguards (another name for the champions)
Magical Adventures in Saddle Valley (or alternate evocative placename)
Friendship, Ponies and the Forces of Evil (just to get it all in there)