On My Shelves: Tails of Equestria

I've been a roleplaying gamer for the majority of my life – 41 years as of now. I've seen and played dozens, perhaps hundreds, of RPGs, beginning with the original three-booklet version of Dungeons and Dragons and then going through Monsters! Monsters! (the "bad guy" version of Tunnels and Trolls), Rolemaster (descended from the three separate works of Arms Law, Spell Law, and Claw Law), the Arduin Grimoire supplements, The Arcanum, then through the ages to things ranging from Vampire: The Masquerade to Feng Shui, AMBER Diceless Roleplaying, the venerable GURPS and its huge numbers of supplements, Space Opera, Star Wars, Spirit of the Century, and many others.

I have tried to pass on this rather important part of my personal entertainment to my kids; the fact that I'm now playing in a campaign run by my son Christopher shows that I've succeeded.

My daughters wanted to game as well. They're younger – 13 and 8 – and have a harder time with complex rules at this point. But they're also fans of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, often MLP:FiM or just MLP. And it so happens that I discovered there was an RPG, Tails of Equestria, that allows players to enter the world of Equestria, create their own Pony characters, and adventure through the world. (There is also an unofficial adaptation called "Ponyfinder" but as my kids are really into the official characters this wasn't a good option for them)

I gave the game to my older daughter, Vicky, for her birthday; she was very happy with the gift… but wanted me to run the game. (understandable; you have to see how someone else does it, up close, before you're going to be comfortable running the game yourself). I am not a rabid MLP fan myself, but it's a nice show as far as I can tell, and I've learned a fair amount by it via osmosis. I am limited in time, however, so I had to find out how the packaged adventures looked; after examining them, I decided I could do this, and I have; we've had several sessions now (drawing additional players in the person of my wife and a friend of my younger son's) and everyone seems to be enjoying it.

Tails of Equestria, published in the US and Canada by Shinobi 7 and elsewhere by River Horse Games, is a very nice hardcover rulebook of about 150 pages. It is nicely laid out; someone spent a lot of time thinking about how the book would be used, and for the most part everything is in the place that makes most sense. It's profusely illustrated in appropriately MLP style with both some of the canon characters in MLP (Twilight Sparkle, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, etc.) and with images of original characters that are often used as examples in the text.

Mechanics-wise, Tails of Equestria has some interesting little twists that work nicely. Where other games may assign a set value to a stat or a skill and then have the stat increase, the major mechanic of Tails is to denote the strength of a stat or ability by the type of die that gets rolled for the ability. That is, you start with a skill at a d4, and it can increase to a d6, then to a d8, and so on.

This obviously has something of the effect of a "level cap", since dice stop giving you reasonable "step" levels after d20 (d30s exist, and of course there are d100s, but there aren't d24s or d46s). With only three primary stats (Body, Mind, and Charm) and an average d6 to start in a stat, that's only about 12 levels before you could in theory max out all your stats.

This actually… isn't so bad, as going up a level almost always is connected with completing a major adventure – a mini-campaign, really – the equivalent of a major module in old D&D terms. That's a lot of adventuring, especially if your players are relatively young, and probably long enough to explore all the major character/story arcs for each of the player characters.

Making a character in Tails of Equestria is probably the easiest character generation I've ever had to do. The entire process (not counting things like "lists of traits and skills") covers only 6 pages (pp 14 – 19), and starts with "choose your Pony type" (Earth, Pegasus, Unicorn – others are introduced in later books) and goes through "Choose Element of Harmony", determining stats, selecting talents, quirks, designing Cutie Mark, picking a name, and equipping your Pony.

Like most of the newer-generation games, Tails provides a mechanism for the players to directly affect the outcome of the game: Tokens of Friendship. The game takes the "Friendship is Magic" theme very seriously, and appropriately. The tokens can do anything from allowing you to reroll a die to forcing a specific outcome if you spend enough of them. This allows the players to ensure appropriate dramatic events play out as they would prefer, but only sometimes – as the Tokens are not easy to come by.

Like some comedy games and others meant for younger audiences, Tails of Equestria also generally does not permit permanent injury or death; instead, at "zero stamina" the Pony collapses, exhausted or unconscious, but not dead or dying.

Also like many other games, significant events/attempted efforts by the characters are governed by whether a particular target number can be reached, and affected by how much the number is missed or exceeded by. It's a fairly simple and straightforward concept that even younger players can grasp.

The main book also includes a nice little adventure, The Pet Predicament, which introduces new players to all the aspects of the game in a context that fits the look-and-feel of the show ideally, including letting the new PCs interact with, and help out, the Mane Six (Twilight, Rainbow Dash, Rarity, Pinkie Pie, Applejack, and Fluttershy).

I like this game very much. It's got simple character generation, effective and quick mechanics, it adapts the world it's based on well, and it can play out in a fashion that fits the My Little Pony show – a crucial point in a licensed property. If you have any interest in combining Ponies and gaming – this is the game to buy!