Element Expansion - Discussion

I was pretty sure the upgrades weren't changes to the actual talent itself unless specified. So basically, anything that's X/Day would just be in addition to the Utility itself. You couldn't target those daily uses with Spellchild at all.

I'm seeing a lot of interesting ideas in this thread, unfortunately I'm too tired tonight to go over them properly. I'll just leave this quick explanation of how I was envisioning things, which I really ought to have done when I posted the document. Basically, all these abilities would be, mechanically, utility talents with a level requirement and the appropriate Element as a prerequisite (you'll notice that I stuck The Fun Has Been Doubled! in there for Laughter). You would get to take one at levels 3, 6, and 9, though you could also choose to take one of lower-level at levels 5 and 8, too, since they are just utility talents. For each level, I was hoping to have the following three options:

One that upgrades the base, level 1 version of your element – things like rolling twice for Laughter, asking more questions for Honesty, etc. All the Elements would also have the Friendship Is Magic! talent available at level 9 that lets you use your basic ability 1/day without a Magic Point.

The second option would, hopefully, be one that somehow relates to your Element, but is independent of it. These could be Magic talents, or ones with X/day or X/session uses depending on how powerful they were. Honestly, I'd pefer to keep the number of extra Magic ones down because it's just more things to spend your Magic Point on and precludes you from using your basic Element in most builds...though it might be interesting if every Element had a single Magic talent available, perhaps, especially since you can get the ability to use your Element without a Magic Point at level 9. Just a thought. Some examples of this type of talent that I have in there are Inspire Loyalty for Loyalty, and Someone Needs A Hug! for Kindness...and those are pretty much the only ones I have at the moment, although you guys have definitely given me some ideas. I'd love to use these options to explore various other facets of the Elements as demonstrated by the Mane 6 in the show, though that shouldn't limit your creativeness.

The third option would be something that affects your ability to do assist checks. Pony Tales is my first RPG system that I've become really familiar with, and I remember reading the Player's Handbook for the first time and thinking "Assist checks! That's wonderful! It's a great way to foster camaraderie and teamwork by rewarding players for working together!" ...and then literally the only other things in the system that affect assist checks or even mention them again are two racial traits. I've wanted to have some way of incentivizing people to assist each other more for a long time – I even wrote a destiny a year ago based on it where I introduced the Element-specific bonuses that make up the level 3 assist talents in this document.

Anyway...that was just my vision when I wrote the document, and I look forward to evaluating all the suggestions put forward here. I admit that I haven't really thought much about whether the talents should increase in power a la Destinies as you advance in level. I suppose I have subconsciously been ordering them by "power" in my mind, but I haven't given much thought to just how powerful they should/could be at different levels. Something to think about, I guess.

I think your awe of assist checks is a little odd since they're hardly unique to this system. Also, while I have no problem with every element having some assist check boosting thing, I think we shouldn't necessarily go out of our way to focus on that as there's tons of ideas we could implement I'm sure. (Basically, I don't think we should get to three in each level category for an element and then stop accepting new admissions simply because they don't fit your current format for what kinds of things they should do.)

Nothing exactly wrong with calling the element upgrades utilities, though I think we might be better off treating them as their own separate thing. Otherwise we might end up seeing people attempting to do nothing but their element related stuff and... yeah, I don't think that was anyone's intent here.

Ramsus wrote:I think your awe of assist checks is a little odd since they're hardly unique to this system.

A year later and some more exposure to other systems, and I now know that. I thought they were a unique aspect at the time (because I hadn't heard of them before) meant to fit the flavor of the show (overcoming problems with the help of others). But that's neither here nor there.

Ramsus wrote:(Basically, I don't think we should get to three in each level category for an element and then stop accepting new admissions simply because they don't fit your current format for what kinds of things they should do.)

I actually agree with this, let me put it this way: three is a target number at the moment, because as I said 3 options times 3 levels times 6 Elements means we need 54 options. We probably have around 35-45 at this point. Once we hit that target we can definitely start thinking about adding more options in. (Once we have 3 per level I'd personally consider it complete enough to let people start play-testing it, we can then add new options in over time without pressure.)

Ramsus wrote:Nothing exactly wrong with calling the element upgrades utilities, though I think we might be better off treating them as their own separate thing. Otherwise we might end up seeing people attempting to do nothing but their element related stuff and... yeah, I don't think that was anyone's intent here.

Hmm. That's true. I guess if we make them get stronger with level, they won't really be worth a utility talent anymore, will they? Good thinking.

I had a bit of time tonight so I went through and added a couple upgrades to the document. I think I used at least one idea from everyone who suggested one, in one shape or another, plus one I thought of for Magic.

@Ramsus: You know, I think you may be right about the assist boosts not being interesting or important enough to warrant separate upgrades. It sort of becomes a struggle between "Do I take something to help me be awesome, or something to help me help other people be awesome?", and while I still like the idea of assist boosts, I don't think people should be forced to choose between them. Rule of Fun, in this case. I had trouble thinking up more than about 7-8 anyway. So how does this sound to people: we trim it down to one ability per Element, and instead of being an upgrade chosen at level-up, it just becomes something that you get with that Element at character creation, as a sort of bonus? They'd have to be fairly small effects, but since most of them are already designed for level 3 it shouldn't be too difficult.

Alright, this died right about when Mind Gamer disappeared, so I'm bringing it back.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1OuCoIlctiGrT7LhtpGqnlv4Z_iagQNlKEXD1UAz7iRI/edit

Enclosed is my version of what Philadelphus did. It's about the same, except I dug deeper, and where there was nothing, I proposed something. I currently have 2 things suggested for all of the elements, and I'm hoping to come up with things for each of the virtues soon. If I remember my work correctly, there's one upgrade to the base talent and one new ability at each level.
More thorough explanations of the setup I chose can be found in the Google Doc. I also have a great many comments sprinkled throughout, explaining things and pointing out problems I couldn't solve.

What I'd really, REALLY, appreciate, are suggestions about how to make virtue upgrades. Any suggestions?

Actually, since a lot of DMs and I are finding boons really annoying (and honestly wondering at this point if they should just be cut) - that might open enough design space to make some other kind of utility-upgrade like the element/virtue trees workable.

Got lots of complaints on the original ones in particular, as they often felt like things that should be brought about via roleplaying and when they *were* introduced believably - it felt like the party should have gotten it anyway. Lots of players haven't been very excited about choosing a boon and the more mechanical ones (less roleplay-like) often feel boring or go extremely far or mess with the setting.

There are *some* that work really well and a lot of people enjoy, but the boon system overall hasn't offered as much as we'd hoped. Not cutting it, but if a better system does come along that people like *more* than boons - we'd of course be open to replacing it.

We're planning something much, much bigger with Talent Specialization than merely replacing boons.

Well that is news.

WAIT... You guys are planning to turn the Talent Spec into something official? WOW.

Also... DO NOT REMOVE BOONS... Maybe retool them to be RP gained or something and not level dependent. But removal would be a HORRID MOVE for the system.

Ooh, you guys were planning on making some sort of book of non-combat treasures DMs can grant the party, weren't you? Obviously it's pretty low on the to-do list for obvious reasons, but what if the boons became the foundation for that system? Some of them, like team Awesomeness, work really well as magical artifacts, and declaring things like the fan club as a tangible reward (in place of some source of treasure) might make the DM's life easier.

Also, my first draft of the element expansion submission is now done.
I now have two options listed for every element and every virtue, at levels 3, 6, and 9. Obviously every drop of feedback is appreciated, but I would particularly like help naming a few of the talents (they're marked with comments) and help with the questions posed in various comments all throughout the document. Also, if I haven't credited you for something, tell me, please.

Also don't forget updating that dam GM guide... IT NEEDS UPDATES AND EXPANDED NOTES... Like adding in suggestions for Skill Challanges and junk... Notes on sometimes people can do things without needing to do a roll. And other stuff like that. Finally I do put support to that idea expressed by Sunbeam for the Boons.

Naming suggestions!

Lvl 9 Laughter

I think the non- Friendship is Magic trait could be "Give a Smile, Get a Smile" Something from the song "Smile,Smile Smile" would work.

Lvl 6 Honesty

For both of them, I think something related to trust would be appropriate. "Rewarded Trust" would be my suggestion for the first one, but the other is a bit harder. I almost think "Bonds of Trust" would work better here than on Reliability.

Lvl 9 Family

Maybe "Family Inheritance" would be appropriate

Meant to post this earlier and forgot, but you have full permission to use anything I had in my earlier document. I'm kinda busy this week so I haven't had time for more than a cursory glance, but I'll try to give you some feedback when I can.