I’m kinda burned out after the third weekend of trying to sell handspun yarn, handknit hats and wraps, and handwoven maille to renfairies who have no money to buy anything, for me to do anything intelligent. So I’m going to continue with the ‘what everyone already knows’ kind of thing this week.

First off, let me get this out of the way:

My Little Pony: Roleplaying is Magic

Friendship is Dragons

My Little Pony WotC April Fools

My Little Pony Pathfinder April Fools (Not the original posting, but I can’t find a good link to all three pages except for this.)

Ponies for Pathfinder

My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic Roleplaying Game

My Little Pony RPG

I’m vaguely aware of others, and if anyone has any more links pass them on and I’ll add them to this blog.

The first MLP animated show: Rescue from Midnight Castle isn’t really that much different from the Dungeons and Dragons animated series that was running at the time. Both had oddly dark undercurrents in a nominally 80’s ‘Saturday Morning Cartoon’. In fact, I think Venger and Tirek are villains cut from the same cloth. But honestly, 80’s cartoons were weird in general so I can’t really say there’s a natural connection between them. However, the original MLP unicorn’s magic was limited to a form of teleportation called ‘winking’, plus one special trick. This maps very well to early edition D&D’s teleporting unicorns.

Fast forward to MLP:FiM, however, and the ties become a lot closer. Many of the creatures from the Everfree forest are lifted from the Dungeons & Dragons versions of these creatures, rather than the mythological versions. The hydra and the cockatrice for example, are instantly recognizable to an old D&D player, but a mythologican would spend a few moments confused by the depiction until they remembered the same obscure bestiary that Gygax used as a source. Plus unicorn magic is upgraded to be follow similar rules as 3rd edition D&D’s new (at the time) sorcerer class. Once a unicorn/sorcerer has mastered a spell, they can spam it as necessary as long as they have the energy to pull it off. The primary spell for unicorns now being the trivial ‘Mage Hand’ (a 0th level spell in 3rd edition) instead of teleportation. More experienced and powerful unicorns upgrading to a full Telekenisis (a 5th level spell in 3rd edition) such as Trixie, Twilight, and Rarity (yep, Rarity).

As per the links above, lots of people have blended MLP and RPGs together with varying levels of success.

It baffles me, to be honest, why Hasbro has let this one slide for so long. They own both MLP and Dungeons and Dragons at the moment (a historical aside: Dungeons and Dragons was originally from Tactical Studies Rules Inc. in 1974, eventually named just TSR, bought out by Wizards of the Coast in 1997, bought out by Hasbro in 1999.) An official MLP RPG is a natural fit, heck even a MLP board game from their Parker Brother’s division would make sense. But Hasbro doesn’t seem to be able to have products cross their divisional lines.

Okay, politics aside, what has all of this got to do with worldbuilding? Well, what we look for here is where things follow a pattern, and then see if there are holes in that pattern. Those holes can tell us a lot.

Unicorn magic does seem to map to sorcerer magic very closely, many spells Twilight pulls off are very similar to D&D equivalents. Primarily telekinesis, but teleportation, magic missile, reverse gravity, prismatic spray, transmutation, etc. Here’s the hole: there are no indications of being able to cast anything that D&D would classify as a clerical spell. Specifically, no pony has shown any ability to cast straight healing spells, a staple of D&D and other RPGs. Yes, spells that can free someone of mind control and the like, but not heal sicknesses or wounds. This is really important when you think about it.

Modern gamers and fiction writers fall into the trap of thinking that magic can do anything. It’s the ultimate get-out-of-jail-free card. Except, that’s boring. It leads to ever-escalating magic-only fights in the style of the Slayers anime ("Darkness from twilight, crimson from blood that flows; buried in the flow of time; in Thy great name, I pledge myself to darkness! Those who oppose us shall be destroyed by the power you and I possess! DRAGON SLAVE!!" , and then Super Dragon Slave, then Mega Slave, then Giga Slave, and so on and so forth. Each time getting progressively more ridiculous.)

But when there’s a serious limit to what magic can do, there’s room for actual worldbuilding, as well as drama and the like. In the world of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic, magic can’t do more than heal minor scrapes and bruises, and even then that’s more a side effect when huge amounts of magic power are thrown around to achieve other goals (Cadance and Shining Armor when they repel Chrysalis from Canterlot). Other healing effects are from Zecora’s herbalism, and follow the same ‘it takes awhile’ process that real life has.

This means there’s no ‘go until out of hit points, and then down a healing potion’ in this world. No health packs, no vita injections, nothing. If ponies get hurt, they have to take time to heal just like us. This kind of limitation is critical for creating a living world.

That’s as far as I’ve gotten with this train of thought. Next week I should be more rested and able to do something more solid.