I'm A Banana
Potassium-Rich
So, a few threads to tease out:
#1: This is fantasy. Like JustKim said, this isn't about ponies going to high school or braiding each others' hair. There are lava monsters, trolls, goblins, knights, wizards, elves, and other assorted fantasy paraphanalia. Magical crystals, magical creatures...
#2: This is about Getting the MacGuffin. The ponies have to go to dangerous places to get items that they need. This is the reason for adventure, the core story of the game: Ponies leave home, brave dangers, get thing, come back home, repeat next week.
#3: This is fairly nonviolent. Resolution should be more about the players' ability to solve puzzles, learn moral lessons, and be lucky, less about squishing the bad guys. Obstacles need to be negoatiated, dangers need to be overcome, and friends need to be helped out.
#4: This is about Teamwork!. The ponies should depend on each other for success. Let them talk with each other about how to cross the river of lava. The chance of success is mostly luck (that's where the dice come in!), but if you don't make it, a friend can help you out. If your friend helps you out, they get a bonus for the adventure. The same thing happens if you help a friend out. The individual path may fail -- maybe you can't cross the lava -- but success becomes more likely for it. There could easily be roles for the ponies -- the adventurous leader (who gets in over her head), the good-hearted trickster (who sometimes hurts others when she makes fun of them), the steadfast friend (who maybe is a little cowardly)...
#5: Encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. Don't give them options to select from, ask them what they do about it. If they can't cross the lava, ask them what they try next. And it should almost always have a chance of working. Perhaps cleave to the "lessons learned" Saturday Morning Cartoon format by making those plans which focus on friendship, generosity, kindness, etc. to work better than the totally random stuff, but give the totally random stuff a shot, too. The worst that can happen is that a friend helps them out and they get a bonus for it!
So the general outline of the game goes:
The ponies are frolicking in the fields when something kind of bad happens. Say, one of the ponies can't stop being sad, and no one knows why. But one of the leader-ponies has the idea to go see the great oracle of the mountain to find out. The journey is dangerous, so our Pony Characters are selected to go on this important mission. They have to first climb the mountain (challenge 1), then negotiate with the invincible golem at the top (challenge 2), then save the great oracle from one of the Bad Guys (challenge 3), and then apply the oracle's lesson to the sad pony (challenge 4) -- with the lesson maybe being that the pony was sad because she felt like she didn't have any friends, and the fact that these ponies went on this dangerous mission to help her proves that she really does, and now she's happy again.
Each challenge is a question, an answer, and a die roll: "How do you solve it?", "I solve it like THIS!" "Okay, roll your dice!". When a pony fails, the other one can help her out and gain a bonus for it, but they need to try a different solution.
That's very quick-and-dirty, but it hits some of the high notes.
#1: This is fantasy. Like JustKim said, this isn't about ponies going to high school or braiding each others' hair. There are lava monsters, trolls, goblins, knights, wizards, elves, and other assorted fantasy paraphanalia. Magical crystals, magical creatures...
#2: This is about Getting the MacGuffin. The ponies have to go to dangerous places to get items that they need. This is the reason for adventure, the core story of the game: Ponies leave home, brave dangers, get thing, come back home, repeat next week.
#3: This is fairly nonviolent. Resolution should be more about the players' ability to solve puzzles, learn moral lessons, and be lucky, less about squishing the bad guys. Obstacles need to be negoatiated, dangers need to be overcome, and friends need to be helped out.
#4: This is about Teamwork!. The ponies should depend on each other for success. Let them talk with each other about how to cross the river of lava. The chance of success is mostly luck (that's where the dice come in!), but if you don't make it, a friend can help you out. If your friend helps you out, they get a bonus for the adventure. The same thing happens if you help a friend out. The individual path may fail -- maybe you can't cross the lava -- but success becomes more likely for it. There could easily be roles for the ponies -- the adventurous leader (who gets in over her head), the good-hearted trickster (who sometimes hurts others when she makes fun of them), the steadfast friend (who maybe is a little cowardly)...
#5: Encourage creativity and out-of-the-box thinking. Don't give them options to select from, ask them what they do about it. If they can't cross the lava, ask them what they try next. And it should almost always have a chance of working. Perhaps cleave to the "lessons learned" Saturday Morning Cartoon format by making those plans which focus on friendship, generosity, kindness, etc. to work better than the totally random stuff, but give the totally random stuff a shot, too. The worst that can happen is that a friend helps them out and they get a bonus for it!
So the general outline of the game goes:
The ponies are frolicking in the fields when something kind of bad happens. Say, one of the ponies can't stop being sad, and no one knows why. But one of the leader-ponies has the idea to go see the great oracle of the mountain to find out. The journey is dangerous, so our Pony Characters are selected to go on this important mission. They have to first climb the mountain (challenge 1), then negotiate with the invincible golem at the top (challenge 2), then save the great oracle from one of the Bad Guys (challenge 3), and then apply the oracle's lesson to the sad pony (challenge 4) -- with the lesson maybe being that the pony was sad because she felt like she didn't have any friends, and the fact that these ponies went on this dangerous mission to help her proves that she really does, and now she's happy again.
Each challenge is a question, an answer, and a die roll: "How do you solve it?", "I solve it like THIS!" "Okay, roll your dice!". When a pony fails, the other one can help her out and gain a bonus for it, but they need to try a different solution.
That's very quick-and-dirty, but it hits some of the high notes.
