I ran a Tails of Equestria one-shot for the first time. It went better than expected.
A bit of background first: I like tabletop RPGs. I've been in a DND campaign for about 2 years, with a group of guys aged between 20 and 33, run by a great DM. Sometimes he wants to take a break and get to play as well, so one of the players will run a game or two so he can enjoy the game from the other side of the DM screen.
I'm also relatively new to the MLP fandom. I started watching FiM about a month ago, and just got to the end of season 7. I heard about the RPG/storytelling game, Tails of Equestria, and grabbed a copy of the core rulebook. The mechanics are much more streamlined and 'simpler' than DND or Pathfinder, but there's a decent amount there for some fun little adventures. I wasn't sure if I'd ever actually get to play the game, but it's a nice book.
About a week ago, our DM asks if one of us can run a one-shot the following session, as he just got a new job and won't have time to do prep. I mention that I have the My Little Pony Tails of Equestria RPG, and get a couple of odd looks from around the table. But then the DM says "I don't watch the show, but I've heard good things about that system. Let's try that."
Rather than using one of the existing modules or adventures, I decided to try crafting my own. I sent the group instructions on how to create their own Pony, along with character sheets. Everypony would start at level 1, and the adventure would be set in and around Ponyville. I came up with the idea of a "mysterious illness" that had caused several ponies to lose their voices. Mayor Mare called a town meeting and explained the situation. While she would usually ask the Mane 6 to help, they were unavailable. Apple Bloom, Scootaloo and Sweetie Belle had all been affected, so Applejack, Rainbow Dash and Rarity were busy looking after them, Fluttershy was at her cottage taking care of some birds that had lost their songs, Pinkie Pie hadn't left Sugarcube Corner for nearly 2 days (and had missed two birthdays!), and Twilight was trying to research the problem by herself in her castle. The Mayor asked for volunteers to look into the matter, and off the adventure went!
The idea was to have the Mane 6 act as 'clues' to the wider mystery: the players could choose to visit them in whichever order they wanted and gather these clues from all across town. This also let me guide them around and introduce them to Ponyville, as most of the players were not particularly familiar with the setting or characters. This worked very well, and the group got into the setting and began to enjoy themselves pretty quickly. I had a couple of plans written in, depending on who they visited first: if they went with option A, they could have ended up in the Everfree Forest, whereas option B would send them to Sweet Apple Acres, for example. But, as the Mane 6 were all occupied in other ways by this mysterious illness, they couldn't directly help the players by solving the mystery or accompanying them: they could point them in the right direction, but it was left up to the players to follow that information.
Over the 3 hours of the adventure, these hardened players, used to playing back-stabbing rogues and fireball-hurling wizards, really got into the spirit of co-operation and the emphasis on friendship being a tool to overcome obstacles or uncover information much faster than I expected. Yes, DND has plenty of cooperation, but I wasn't expecting them to take so quickly to this much 'lighter' tonal experience. Plenty of Tokens of Friendship were spent during the game, and I gave out a couple of bonus effects where multiple players contributed their own tokens to a challenge.
I don't want to spoil the entire story of this one-shot, on the off-chance I want to share the whole adventure later or perhaps get to run it again for other players, but the group got to the bottom of the problem and saved the day!
And what really surprised me was two of the group, as we were packing up for the evening, said they were going to watch a few episodes of the show, as the world and characters I'd presented them legitimately intrigued them.
I loved running Tails of Equestria. It's an elegant, fun system that is very easy to pick up and play but has a pretty wide scope when it comes to running an adventure. And it was great fun leading a group of ponies all across Ponyville.
Getting to make my first pony NPC, Silent Whisper, was also great. Forgive the artwork, I'm not an artist by any means, but this was enough to get his depiction across to the players.
I want to draw more NPCs...
Anyway, the group were eager to play Tails of Equestria again in the future, which will probably sometime in the New Year or when our DM needs another week off. I've got ideas for more adventures to run, so hopefully I get to use them. If you get the opportunity to try the game, I do recommend it!
Submitted December 03, 2019 at 01:10PM by lordwelshi
via reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/mylittlepony/comments/e5mtke/i_ran_a_tails_of_equestria_oneshot_for_the_first/?utm_source=ifttt
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