Personal boons?

Hello, first post here!

I'm running my first Pony Tales game but I've noticed one thing that's strange to me: boons. I understand that they're supposed to be party-wide benefits chosen by the entire group but it seems to me like they should be picked by each character individually. As an example, for the basic tier, what if one player wants an assistant, another wants a home, and a third wants a fanclub? It seems the Mane Six would all have completely different boons and I can't imagine Futtershy being OK with a fanclub fawning over her every move or Rainbow Dash missing out on one for a ship when she can fly.

Would it upset balance too much to let characters each pick a personal boon? Maybe add in a separate track for party-wide abilities too? I'd appreciate any thoughts!

Retrokinesis wrote:Hello, first post here!

I'm running my first Pony Tales game but I've noticed one thing that's strange to me: boons. I understand that they're supposed to be party-wide benefits chosen by the entire group but it seems to me like they should be picked by each character individually. As an example, for the basic tier, what if one player wants an assistant, another wants a home, and a third wants a fanclub? It seems the Mane Six would all have completely different boons and I can't imagine Futtershy being OK with a fanclub fawning over her every move or Rainbow Dash missing out on one for a ship when she can fly.

Would it upset balance too much to let characters each pick a personal boon? Maybe add in a separate track for party-wide abilities too? I'd appreciate any thoughts!

Welcome to the forums! Great to have you here.

It's really fun to have your group decide on a boon together, but you can definitely let each player decide on one individually. Boons are more for roleplaying than anything else, so just bear in mind that your players will have a lot more advantages going for them and it might be harder to center the story on the boons they choose. You should be able to adjust your adventure easily to accommodate for their extra resources, no sweat. If you want to let your players each choose their own boons, go for it. At low levels, it shouldn't even require changing much of anything - though once you hit levels 6 and 9 you'll have to scale things up a lot. Just imagine, every pony wielding a Whirlygig...