Pony Tales: Aspirations of Harmony
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Taking a Break

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Post  Stairc -Dan Felder Tue May 28, 2013 7:48 am

Hey everypony, need to make a quick announcement.

Nearly a year ago, inspired by my friend Newbiespud's webcomic, I embarked on running a one-shot MLP adventure over Skype. After going over the existing systems and not finding one that I felt would work smoothly over Skype - I decided to channel my studies on game design and throw together a quick system optimized for lots of flavor options, character depth and smooth enough to work over voicechat. After a week and a half, what emerged was the core of the Pony Tales: AOH system. It was supposed to last an adventure or two then I'd head back to 4th Edition D&D.

Instead I've spent nearly a year now working with a team of talented designers and developers plus people in skype chats and these forums to expand and polish the Pony Tales system. We even liked it so much that my non-brony friends wanted to run regular D&D adventures in it - leading to the more classically flavored spin-off we called Living Legends.

However, progress has definitely slowed over the year. I simply haven't had the time to respond to everyone's interesting ideas - even those by my fellow designers. Nehiel Mori and Kindulas (especially Kindulas) have folders stuffed with new utility talents, combat talents and more. They're incredibly passionate about the system and love designing material for it. I love Pony Tales, I'm more proud of all our community's work on it than any other game I've worked on, but I'm interested in exploring lots of other ideas too. I have stories sitting in drawers, I've grown fascinated by tabletop gaming in general (not just RPGs, but tabletop games like Pandemic and Settlers of Catan) and frankly - I could use the creative shakeup that comes with working on some other projects. Hopefully, they'll give me brand new ideas and perspectives to make Pony Tales better.

In short, I need to change gears and work on other projects for a while. In the mean time, Nehiel Mori and Kindulas will be starting to take a more active role in polishing content via updates/expansions and talking to the community. So work on Pony Tales won't stop (though it'll certainly slow for a while, especially considering that we have finals coming up) and once Nehiel Mori and Kindulas are fully comfortable taking on all the roles that I usually do - things should eventually start happening 3x as quickly as they once did.


What This Means
I'm not going to be polishing new content, designing new content, updating old content, taking part in rules discussions or generally doing any maintenance or development work on Pony Tales at all for a while. I might still answer the occasional question and comment on a design idea, but it'll be out of interest and not out of obligation. It's time for Nehiel Mori and Kindulas to step up to the plate while I take a breather and work on other projects for a while. Hopefully this will mean we end up having three people doing development and approval work in the end instead of just one and that I come back fresh, enthusiastic and full of new ideas. So best for everyone.


Last edited by Stairc -Dan Felder on Tue Jul 09, 2013 4:26 pm; edited 2 times in total
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Post  Stairc -Dan Felder Tue May 28, 2013 7:49 am

I'll still be writing my play-by-post thread of course. jocolor
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Post  Paper Shadow Tue May 28, 2013 8:55 am

Stairc -Dan Felder wrote:I've grown fascinated by tabletop gaming in general (not just RPGs, but tabletop games like Pandemic and Settlers of Catan)
Although you are most likely aware of it, may I recommend that you watch Tabletop if you already haven't?
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Post  Ramsus Tue May 28, 2013 1:50 pm

Well, it should be interesting to see how Nehiel and Kindulas handle things compared to how you did. I wonder who's gonna handle the Q&A thread.
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Post  Philadelphus Tue May 28, 2013 2:17 pm

As a creative person with multi-faceted interests myself, I completely understand where you're coming from. Have fun, learn new things, recharge those mental batteries, and pop in once and a while to say hi! sunny
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Post  ZamuelNow Tue May 28, 2013 2:28 pm

I also understand on the mental refresh. Enjoy yourself but don't be a stranger.
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Post  AProcrastinatingWriter Tue May 28, 2013 2:58 pm

I really need to start updating my fanfiction again...

Best of luck with whatever you'll be doing next, Stairc!
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Post  Stairc -Dan Felder Tue May 28, 2013 3:04 pm

Thanks guys.

And yep, Tabletop with Wil Wheton is awesome - one of the main reasons I'm interested in tabletop games to begin with.
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Post  Fury of the Tempest Tue May 28, 2013 3:07 pm

Goodbye (kinda) and good luck!
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Post  tygerburningbright Tue May 28, 2013 4:53 pm

I shall be awaiting a better you at your return.
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Post  Jason Shadow Tue May 28, 2013 10:37 pm

Well, I certainly understand your motivations behind this, and it's definitely something that I can sympathize with. So long, and thanks for all the fish good luck with your future endeavors!
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