Tails of Equestria

Bit of a change from Hitman, I know.

I decided last week that I could economise elsewhere, and I was going to buy Tails of Equestria, the new My Little Pony tabletop RPG from River Horse games, created by Alessio Cavatore. I wanted to do this primarily as a means to introduce my daughter to roleplaying through a property which she is invested in, and which offers some serious opportunities for teaching her.

As RPGs go, Tails of Equestria is pretty simple, as you'd hope for a game aimed at children and families, but not simplistic. Three stats and an open-ended number of talents are each rated by die type from D4 to D20. Rolls are either to beat an opponent's roll or a static difficulty. Combat is there, but while a 'scuffle' can – indeed will – have consequences, they are never outright lethal. If you have a talent that applies to a roll, you typically get to roll an extra die and pick the better result; points off for removing a maths teaching opportunity, but more than made up for by the gain in pacing. In addition you get a quirk, which is a non-mechanical drawback that the GM can use to create interesting trouble for your character, which is one of the ways of regaining Friendship Tokens.

Friendship Tokens are the game's fate/drama mechanic, and tie into the franchise's 'friendship is magic' theme. You start with more tokens in a larger group, because more friends means more friendship, and players are encouraged to donate their tokens to help a friend out with re-rolls and other bonuses. Easily the best and most innovative mechanic in the game's simple system is that if two players are willing to pool their tokens, they can be counted as more valuable than the sum of their parts to represent the fact that Equestria almost literally runs on friendship. A little less successful is the last-ditch 'exploding hoof' mechanic, allowing for a slim chance at impossible seemingly impossible tasks, which is one of the more complex elements of the rules (which is, I think, its failing.)

Secret Ants Midget Mother Cheese.

Character creation is simple – we generated three characters in half an hour, including my daughter's first PC, Secret Ants Midget Mother Cheese(1) – and plays to the strengths of the series. Mechanical variation and niche protection is slight. Earth Ponies are strong, Pegasi can fly and Unicorns can do magic, but the game encourages open problem solving and represents many approaches with a handful of mechanics to let the story shine and to ensure that the characters will tend to be on an equal footing. After a few level-ups there is likely to be more distinction, but everyone levels up together so the PCs should always be equals, although some may choose specialism and others range, and everyone will benefit from doing things together.

Without testing the system to destruction, the game seems a good fit to the license and target age range. This may well be my favourite licensed RPG now, although it's not a high bar. 

I'll report further on the adventures of Secret Ants Midget Mother Cheese and friends and they happen.

(1) Her second choice for a kind Pegasus with 'The Stare' as her cutie mark talent, after I suggested that 'Fluttershy' was taken.

Disney Storytelling Adventures

One of Arya's presents that I'm hoping to get plenty of use out of was a double helping of Storytelling Adventures tins. Produced by Parragon publishing and largely themed around Disney products (although there is also a PAW Patrol one,) these are basically a kind of child's first roleplaying set, or perhaps an introductory version of the card game Once Upon a Time. Each tin - Arya has the Disney Princess and Marvel Avengers sets - contains a set of storybooks and a few cardboard models, and more importantly a set of character cards and storytelling dice (one each for feelings, actions, props and locations.)

To play the game, you pick a card and role one of the dice and use the combination to tell a part of a story. The next player can either pick a new card or use one that's already out, then rolls another die. Arya's not bad at it, although she has does tend to want to sort out the Tangled characters from the deck beforehand and roll the feelings die exclusively. Honestly, I think this is okay as long as we're telling stories together.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer: The Board Game

To be clear, this is the US import, not the UK
version. TARDIS cookie jar, racks of CDs
and Andrew not included.

On Friday night, we introduced a new board game to the repertoire, in the form of a version of the Buffy the Vampire Slayer board game sufficiently old that it treated Tara as a minor support character and only went up to Season 4. Props though, because it was in sweet condition given age and usage; that's some quality game manufacturing.

In the spirit of the infamously difficult Army of Darkness board game, one player controls the baddies (determined by Season,) the others the heroes (Buffy, Willow, Xander and Oz.) Each hero has their own tray, a long card strip with spaces to place cards representing Help (allies), Weapons (most of which seem to be wooden objects which allow an insta-kill staking attempt,) Artifacts and Research (mostly spells, but also sewer maps allowing fast transit.) Characters are moved around the board by rolling dice, which are pretty standard six-siders, but with the 1 on one and the 6 on the other marked with a moon which progresses the oddest time track ever (I can't find a decent-sized close up, but it basically runs from the new moon to the full moon, then back through the waning phases until sunrise.)

The villain player rolls a die to see how many of the master and minion monsters can move in their turn. Characters move and then take an action, which can be searching for artifacts (one in each corner of the board,) drawing a regular card (in appropriately marked spaces,) or trying to smack the person next to you if they aren't on your side.

Each character has their own strength and weaknesses, which are not balanced (purposely; in a four player game, one player controls Xander and Willow.) Heroes (apart from Oz) can be sired as vampires (mechanically, this functions as the equivalent of the heroes stake option, and requires a specific villain card) and, if sired, re-ensouled with the appropriate spell. Buffy is tough, Willow has lots of magic dice, Xander... is basically likable, since it isn't Season 6 yet, and Oz is fundamentally indestructible. He's only an uber-badass during the full moon phase, but there aren't many monsters to match him (pretty much Veruca the bad werewolf, I think,) and every time he switches form in either direction, he basically heals all his damage. He also can't be one-shotted with the 'Sire' card; he's badass as all get out.

This character tray shows that a) other editions had more playable characters, and b) Giles is a fucking badass.

We actually had a surprisingly good game, beating the Mayor without losing a single character (although things looked very bad for Xander, who was saved by hitting the victory conditions from near certain death at Faith's hands.) We also didn't take out any of the minions, going straight for the Box of Gavrok (or as the card mistakenly insists, Garvok.)

There is a UK version which is a sort of double-blind Cluedo*, which is one of the weirdest concepts for a Buffy licensed game I can think of.

* Or Clue, for Americans.