Ponies & Parasprites is a tabletop role playing game based on the My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic series. Written by a Twitcher named Flatline, it is supposed "to be a good time for pony fans of all ages". The accuracy of this statement is debatable at best, as some rules seem geared more towards early teens and adults than children.
Characters are defined by their Race (ranging from the holy trinity of Earth Pony, Pegasus, Unicorn all the way to esoteric and fan made races such as Camels and Changeling Drones), their Age (Colts and Fillies, Ponies, or Stallions and Mares), three Attributes (Body, Mind, and Heart), and ten Skills. From there, the customization for characters are varied. Shadow mages mingle with royal photographers and ponies imbued with the powers of gods.
Gameplay is resolved via building a static modifier using the scores from one Attribute and one Skill and rolling a d10, compared versus a target number. The higher the target number, the more difficult the challenge. The game is still in development and updates to the game are published on the Facebook fan page
. A Live-Action version of the game, Laws of Friendship, debuted at Bronycon 2014 for a three day stent which was only moderately successful. Both are very much open to commentary and critique; the fan page was designed for communication between the players and the writer.
This game provides examples of:
- An Adventurer Is You: Averted for a reason. There are no classes, and certain character builds are going to be categorically more "powerful" than others. The game is more about self-discovery and learning lessons than it is about slashing or hacking.
- Character Level: Averted for the same reason as AAiY. Much like the Storyteller System games, one doesn't level up a class. Instead, they use experience points to increase their abilities individually.
- Damage Reduction: Comes in two flavors. Some supernatural abilities give a character "Buffer Exhaustion", which absorbs incoming damage without affecting the characters. Other abilities just allow characters to flat-out ignore a portion of incoming damage altogether.
- Dark Is Not Evil: Shadow Magic, or Umbramancy. Created by Luna, corrupted by Sombra. Characters who practice Shadow Magic revere it as a potent tool with some rather effective in-game benefits.
- Eldritch Abomination: The Nightmare Force (from the comic series) is written as one. One of its Specialties is "Things Ponies Were Not Meant To Know" and one of its powers is 'The Shadow out of Space'.
- Entropy and Chaos Magic: Characters can become Anarchy Mages, channeling Discord's power in much the same way a Dungeonsand Dragons style Cleric would. Their control over their power is tenuous at best, though they gain more control as they gain more power.
- Instant Armor: Comes in two flavors:
- The Alchemy Brews Hide of Brass and Celestially-Perfected Hide of Orichalcum provide the character damage reduction and immunity to extreme temperatures of any kind.
- Three of the Celestial Templates (the Phoenix Glories, Aegis Mercurial, and Sapphire Paramour) grant the Chosen the ability to summon suits of armor from nothingness. The other five Celestial Templates instead summon some form of jewelry, though these gems still provide some manner of protection for the wearer.
- Luck Manipulation Mechanic: The Anarchy Mage's 'Spin' mechanic allows them to tweak the results of their die rolls. Spin is highly limited, though, and the mage runs the risk of running out when they need Spin the most.
- Magic Knight: Some of the Celestial Templates.
- Point Build System: The number of points a character has to spend on Attributes and Skills at creation is determined by that character's Age. The older the character at creation, the more points they get.
- The Power of Friendship: Obviously, given the source material. This is measured by the character's Love, which boosts the results of their die rolls. Of course, Love can always fall below zero, and thereby subtract from the final tally of your die rolls.
- Shout-Out:
- To The Lord of the Rings, H. P. Lovecraft, and Ghostbusters, among others.
- Special mention goes to Exalted because it is referenced repeatedly. Most notably in the custom "Celestial Templates" section, where Celestial and Dragon-Blooded Exalts have near 1-to-1 thematic parallels, and with the write-up of Discord, which is clearly influenced by The Ebon Dragon from Return of the Scarlet Empress. Plus the naming of various abilities.
- Spell Levels: Arcane skills are split into 'Magic' and 'Rituals'. Magic is inherent to Unicorns and doesn't follow a leveling system, growing as the Unicorn does. Rituals are divided based on their power: Common > Uncommon > Protected > Arcane > Lost.
- Teleport Spam: Just like on the show, a Unicorn with a decent Mind+Body can use the 'Teleportation' Ritual once a round with virtually no penalty.
