The Round Stable

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 8:08 pm

Welcome to the Meta-Thread discussion about Battlestar Equestria [BSE], the game in which a the ponies you know and love attempt to escape from the onslaught of the hated Ponylons aboard their last great warship, the Battlestar Equestria! Watch this thread to see when new games will be starting up, and familiarize yourself with how the game is played.

First, a few quick rules about the Meta Thread.

1) "I swear, first turn when I get back, discard a card, move to Airlock, activate Airlock targeting Rarity. It's the only way to be sure." - W.T.Fits... #battlestarequestria on SynIRC. People may be on there. Maybe. :pinkieshrug:

2) Please do not discuss strategies specific to any ongoing games. Discussion of old games, design of games, what kind of things you'd like to see in the future and spectator commentary on current games that will not affect the outcome are welcome.

3) If there is anyone interested in hosting future games, feel free to sign up. (See the 3rd post for current GM signups) Its a bit tricky to host and you should be at a minimum familiar with the rules before volunteering. This isn't mafia. I have a few tools I've shamelessly stolen from smarter people to help me run my games that I can provide if needed.

4). Help us help you - the characters that we as a group have created are horribly broken I'm sure. Tell us why and what you'd want to see to make them playable or less overpowered / more usable. We might even listen!

Here's links to all of the various rules:
Rules for core game are here.
Pegasus rules are here.
Exodus rules are here.
The official BSG rules errata and FAQ is here.

Here's a current list of characters that have been created:
{Updated as of 2/29/12 revisions.
(1) - denotes characters from the Crooks and Politicians Character Expansion
(2) - denotes characters from the Antagonists and Allies Character Expansion}

Royalty

Twilight Sparkle - (LEA 2 - TAC 2 - LEA/ENG 1) - Setup: Research Lab
Faithful Student -- On your turn, you may increase or decrease the difficulty of any skill checks by 2. (N.B. This does not affect any partial pass checks)
Obsessive Research -- Action: Once per game, look at the top 4 cards of the Crisis deck, and place each one at the top or bottom of the deck in any order you choose.
I Don't Know What to Do! It's Not in the Book! - Any time you play zero Skill Cards into a Skill Check during your turn, you must discard one Skill Card at random.

Spike - (LEA 2 - TAC 2 - TAC/POL 1) - Setup: Communications
Fireball Communications - When you activate the Communications location, you may look at every Civilian Ship on the game board and may move any number of them.
Delusions of Grandeur - Action: Once per game, move any other player out of the brig to any location on Equestria. That player may immediately take an additional action.
A Dragon's Greedy Nature - During the Sleeper Agent Phase, you are dealt 2 Loyalty Cards instead of 1.

Celestia - (LEA 3 - TAC 2) - Setup: Princess's Quarters
Raising the Sun -- Movement: You may discard two Skill Cards to treat the next Crisis Card drawn this turn as if it had a "prepare for jump" icon.
Banish to the Moon -- Action: Once per game, execute another character at your location.
Pomp and Circumstance -- You must discard a Skill Card as an additional cost to move to any location.

Luna - (LEA 2 - TAC 3) - Setup: Command
Ruler of the Night -- Movement: You may discard 1 Skill Card to skip the Activate Ponylon Ships step of this turn's crisis.
The Fun has been Doubled! -- Once per game, after any action is resolved, you may immediately copy that action, choosing new targets as necessary. If the action required a dice roll or skill check, you may use the same result.
Justifiably Feared -- You must discard a Skill Card as an additional cost to move to a location already occupied by another character.
(EXPANSION 1)

The Great and Powerful Trixie - (2 TAC, 1 ENG, 2 LEA/POL) - Setup: Alicorn CIC
Setting the Stage -- On your turn - after the cards of a skill check are revealed, but before they are resolved - you may remove any one card from the check. Discard that card and resolve the check without it.
Anything You Can Do I Can Do Better -- Once per game, at the start of any player's turn take all title cards from their current holders. Return the title cards to their original holders, if possible, at the end of the turn.
Tempting Fate -- All skill checks during your turn becomes reckless, whether or not a reckless card is played.
(EXPANSION 2) (Note: Do not play with Trixie if you are playing without the Pegasus Expansion)

Cadence - (1 LEA - 2 POL - 2 TAC) - Setup: Brig
Spreading Love Wherever She Goes -- At the beginning or end of your Movement step, you may discard a Skill Card to choose another character at your location, who may move or take an action. For the rest of the turn, no player may play cards that grant extra actions.
Royal Union -- Action: Once per game, give the President title to the Princess.
Imprisoned -- Your character starts the game in the brig. If you are the highest on the line of succession for any title upon being released for the first time, claim that title.
(EXPANSION 3)

Politicians

Rarity - (LEA 2 - POL 2 - TAC 1) - Setup: Press Room
Putting it Together -- Once during each of your turns, you may reroll - without any modifiers - a die that was just rolled. You must use the new result.
Art of the Dress -- Once per game, before resolving a Skill Check on a Crisis Card, you may choose the result (Pass or Fail) instead of resolving it normally.
Wallowing in Pity -- When you fail any quorum or crisis dice rolls, discard 1 skill card in addition to the printed penalty.

Pinkie Pie - (POL 2 - TAC 1 - ENG 1) - Setup: FTL Control
"I'm about to be BRILLIANT" -- At the start of your Draw Crisis step, draw two Skill Cards from any skill set.
Surprise Party -- Action: Once per game, look at all Loyalty Cards belonging to another player.
Party of One -- If you end your turn without another player in your location discard 1 skill card at random. If you are in the brig, choose 1 skill card to discard instead.

Zecora - (LEA 1 - TAC 2 - POL 2) - Setup: Administration
Wisdom -- You do not discard Skill Cards as a result of Crisis Cards.
The Ways of My People -- Action: Once per game, lose 1 morale to gain 1 of any other resource type.
Evil Enchantress -- You start the game with 2 Loyalty Cards instead of 1.

Mayor Mare - (POL 2 - LEA 2 - POL/TAC 1) - Setup: President's Office
Political Connections -- When the President draws a Quorum Card, you may draw a Skill Card (limit twice per turn).
Inspirational Speech -- Action: Once per game, even if you are not the President, look at the top four Quorum Cards of the deck, play one, and place the rest on the top or bottom of the deck in any order you choose.
Behind Schedule -- You must discard a Skill Card as an additional cost to activate a location when it isn't your turn.
(EXPANSION 1)

Cheerilee - (LEA 2, POL 2, ENG/TAC 1) - Setup: Press Room
Nurture With Knowledge -- During your turn, if another player is forced to discard skill cards you may let them draw a number of skill cards equal to the number they just discarded. (NB: This does not count for executions)
Moral Guidance -- Once per game, after a player makes a choice on a Crisis Card, you may change that choice.
Indomitable Cheer -- You may not activate the Princess's Quarters or the Airlock.
(EXPANSION 2)

Diamond Tiara & Silver Spoon - (3 POL - 2 LEA) Setup: Administration
Trust Fund Fillies -- Your starting draw is 10 cards.
Juicy Stories -- Once per game, at the start of your turn, you may choose up to two other ponies. Look at their hands of Skill Cards, and take all POL and TRE cards you find into your hand.
Control Freaks -- You may not choose an option to discard if it would cause your hand to drop below 3 skill cards.
(EXPANSION 3)

Pilots

Rainbow Dash (LEA 1 - TAC 2 - PIL 2) - Setup: Piloting a Viper in FOXTROT
Aspiring Wonderbolt -- When a Viper is placed in a space area from the Reserves, you may choose to pilot it and take 1 action. You may only do this when you are on a Equestria location other than the Brig.
Sonic Rainboom -- Action: Once per game while piloting a Viper, move to any space area and either make a normal attack on every Ponylon ship there, or destroy one civilian ship there.
Slacker -- Your hand limit is 8 instead of 10.

Fluttershy - (LEA 1 - POL 2 - ENG/PIL 2) - Setup: Hangar Deck
Kindness -- When you draw a Crisis Card, all 1-strength cards count as positive for any Skill Check on it.
Stare Master -- Once per game, you may cancel the activation of any one location.
Terrified of Your Own Shadow -- If you begin your action phase in the same space area as an enemy craft with no civilian ships present, you take no action this turn.

Derpy "Ditzy Doo" Hooves - (LEA 1 - POL 2 - PIL/TAC 2) Setup: Hangar Deck
Always In The Strangest Places -- Movement or Action - Launch in a viper to any space area or move to any location on Equestria
Special Delivery! -- Action: Once per game, choose another player to draw Skill Cards up to their hand limit.
I Just Don't Know What Went Wrong! -- If your viper is damaged or destroyed, damage Equestria once.

Gilda "Starbeak" Gryphon - (TAC 2 - PIL/LEA 2 - TRE 1) Setup: Armory
Half Eagle, Half Lion, All Awesome -- Once per turn, after you damage/destroy a Ponylon unit, or risk a Raptor and succeed, you may draw two Skill Cards.
Keeping An Eye Out -- Once per game, when the Princess would draw two locations and pick one, instead you may draw three locations and pick one.
Poisonous Friendship -- Your skill set includes Treachery cards.
(EXPANSION 1)

Spitfire - (LEA 2 - PIL 2 - TAC 1) - Setup: Piloting Viper in ECHO
Aerial Ace -- When you begin your turn piloting a Viper, you may take an additional action after your movement phase.
Formation Flyer -- Action: Once per game, activate six unmanned Vipers.
Team Leader -- When raiders fire at Vipers in your space area, you are targeted first.
(EXPANSION 2)

Shining Armor -- (2 LEA - 2 PIL - 1 TAC) Setup: Hangar Deck
Protective Barrier -- When a Raider attacks a civilian ship, you may discard a Skill Card to prevent that civilian ship from being destroyed.
Repel -- Action: Once per game, move each Ponylon unit (excluding Centurions) one space in any direction, or move all Centurions back one place on the Ponylon Boarding Track
Wingless -- You may not move to space areas without launch icons.
(EXPANSION 3)

Support Crew

Applejack - (TAC 2, ENG 2, LEA/ENG 1) - Setup: Weapons Control
Honest Work -- If you end your movement phase in the same location as another characters, draw a Skill Card and choose another character at your location to draw a Skill Card of your choice from outside of their skill set.
Applebuck Season -- Once per game, you may take an additional turn after the current one and skip the Draw Crisis step of this turn. You may only use this ability at the beginning of your turn.
But Still Only One Pony -- When a Skill Check is chosen on a decision Crisis, you must play at least one card into it.

The Cutie Mark Crusaders - (LEA 1 - ENG 2 - POL 1 - PIL 1) - Setup: Research Lab
Try Anything -- Whenever there is a Skill Check on your turn, before cards are played into it, you may name a skill type to count as positive for that check.
"Comedy Routine" -- Once per game, you may choose the result of any die roll instead of rolling it. That result may not be rerolled or modified.
Blank Flanks -- You may not hold the Princess or President titles.

Big Macintosh - (LEA 1 - TAC 1 - ENG 2) - Setup: Hanger
Eeeyup. -- Draw an ENG or TAC card each time a skill check is passed that you played cards into.
Nope. -- Once per game, after a Crisis Card is revealed, immediately discard it without effect and draw a new one.
Doesn't Add Up -- You cannot use skill cards to modify your own dice rolls.
(EXPANSION 2)

Golden Harvest - (2 ENG - 2 POL - 1 TAC/LEA) Setup: Research Lab
Level-Headed -- After cards are revealed in a skill check but before resolving abilities and totaling strength, you may discard a 0-strength Skill Card from the check.
Picking Up The Slack -- Once per game, discard your hand to prevent 1 point of resource loss.
"I Emptied Your Fridge" -- Any time a pony character is forced to discard 3 or more Skill Cards, you must discard one Skill Card.
(EXPANSION 3)

Cylon Leaders

Night Mare Moon - (1 POL, 1 TRE/ENG) - Setup: Pony Fleet
Eclipse -- Movement: Draw the top two cards of the Destiny Deck, then place two Skill Cards from your hand on top of the Destiny Deck.
The Night Will Last Forever -- Action: Once per game, choose another player. On that player's next turn, skip that player's movement and action phases.
Lonely And Resentful -- If a Crisis Card would force you to discard two or more Skill Cards while you are not Infiltrating, discard one card instead of ignoring it entirely. If a Crisis Card would force you to discard Skill Cards while you are Infiltrating, they are discarded at random.
(EXPANSION 1)

Discord - (1 TRE/ENG) - Setup: Ponyville
Chaos Is A Wonderful Thing -- At the start of your turn, choose a player. Draw a Skill Card at random from their hand and add it to yours. If you are Infiltrating, draw a second Skill Card from their hand. That player then draws to replace the cards they gave you.
You've Been Kind For Far Too Long -- Once per game, you may copy the "once per game" ability on any other character in play and perform it as if it were printed on this sheet.
What Fun Is There In Making Sense? -- All players besides you have the following ability: Action: If it is Distance is 7 or less, guess Discord's agenda. If you guess correctly, he reveals it, shuffles the agenda deck, and draws a new one. You may then draw one skill card and take another action. If you guess incorrectly, discard 2 skill cards. (NB: Any player may use this ability, whether human or revealed Cylon.)
(EXPANSION 1)

Tirek - (1 TAC, 1 ENG/TRE) - Setup: Ponylon Fleet
Lord of Midnight Castle -- You may always play TAC, ENG and TRE skill cards for their text, regardless of whether or not you are Infiltrating.
Behold the Power of Darkness! -- Once per game, you may change the target of an action that was just announced to another legal target. You may not redirect the once-per-game abilities of other characters in this way.
Terrifying Presence -- You may not voluntarily move to a location occupied by another player.
(EXPANSION 1)

Queen Chrysalis - (1 LEA - 1 TRE/ENG) - Setup: Infiltrating in Princess's Quarters
Changeling -- Movement - End your Infiltration and place yourself at any Ponylon location, OR Infiltrate Equestria. You may not use this ability if you are in a hazardous location.
(The Brig, Sickbay, and the Resurrection Ship are hazardous locations)
Who Says A Girl Can't Really Have It All? -- Action: Once per game, if you have at least three Skill Cards in your hand, exchange your hand of Skill Cards for another player's hand of Skill Cards.
Deep Cover Agent -- When a player reveals a "You Are A Pony-Lon" loyalty card, you must discard your hand of Skill Cards.
(EXPANSION 3)

Order of Succession:

Princess:
Celestia
(1)Luna
Twilight Sparkle
(2) Trixie
Spike
Rainbow Dash
(2)Spitfire
Apple Jack
Derpy
(1)Gilda
(2) Big Macintosh
Rarity
Pinky Pie
Zecora
(1)Mayor Mare
(2)Cheerilee
Fluttershy
Cutie Mark Crusaders

President:
(1)Mayor Mare
Rarity
(2)Cheerilee
Pinkie Pie
Zecora
Fluttershy
AppleJack
(2)Big Macintosh
Derpy
(1)Gilda
Rainbow Dash
(2)Spitfire
Spike
(2)Trixie
Twilight Sparkle
(1)Luna
Celestia
Cutie Mark Crusaders

CAG:
(2)Spitfire
Rainbow Dash
(1)Gilda
Derpy
Fluttershy
Cutie Mark Crusaders
Celestia
(1)Luna
Rarity
Spike
Pinkie Pie
(2)Trixie
Twilight Sparkle
(1)Mayor Mare
(2)Cheerilee
Zecora
Apple Jack
Big Macintosh

Locations

EQUESTRIA
Note: A character moving to Equestria from Canterlot One, Alicorn, or a piloted Viper must discard a skill card.

FTL Control
Action: Jump the fleet if the jump preparation track is not in the red zone. Roll a die; if the result is 1-6, lose a number of population indicated on the fleet’s space on the jump preparation track.

Weapons Control
Action: Attack one Ponylon ship with Equestria.
(Roll 3-8 to hit a Raider, 7-8 to hit a Heavy Raider, and 5-8 to hit a Basestar.)

Command
Action: Activate up to two unmanned vipers. An activation can be used to a.) launch a viper from either of the two launch zones, b.) move an unmanned viper to an adjacent space area, or c.) fire an unmanned viper’s weapons.
(Roll 3-8 to hit a Raider, 7-8 to hit a Heavy Raider, and 8 to hit a Basestar).

Communications
Action: Look at the back of 2 civilian ships. You may then move them to adjacent area(s). Only the player taking the action may look at the back of the ships.

Princess’s Quarters
Action: Choose a character; then pass a Tactics/Leadership Skill Check of 7 to send her to the “Brig.”
(Characters in the “Brig” can only add 1 skill card to skill checks, and being in the Brig prevents a Ponylon from doing any damage when she reveals herself.)

Research Lab
Action: Draw 1 Engineering OR 1 Tactics Skill Card.

Hangar Deck
Action: Launch yourself in a viper. You may then take 1 more action.
(You must be in the Hangar Deck to use a “Repair” skill card action on damaged Vipers.)

Armory
Action: Attack a Centurion on the Boarding Party track (destroyed on roll of 7-8).

Sickbay
You may only draw 1 Skill Card during the Receive Skills step of your turn. A character can (and should) move out of sickbay during the Movement step of her turn.
(Characters may not voluntarily move to Sickbay, but can be sent there by certain cards and abilities, or by being in a Viper when it is damaged.)

Brig
You may not move, draw Crisis Cards, or add more than 1 card to skill checks.
Action: Pass a Politics/Tactics Skill Check of 7 to move to any location.
(Characters may not voluntarily move to the Brig, but can be sent there by certain cards and abilities, or the Princess's Quarters location. Characters in the Brig may not hold the Princess or CAG title.)

CANTERLOT ONE
Note: A character moving to Canterlot One from Equestria, Alicorn, or a piloted Viper must discard a skill card.

Press Room
Action: Draw 2 politics Skill Cards.

President’s Office
Action: If you are President, draw 1 Quorum Card. You may then draw 1 additional Quorum Card or play 1 from your hand.

Administration
Action: Choose a character; then pass a Politics/Leadership Skill Check of 5 to give her the President title.
(Revealed Ponylons and Infiltrating Ponylon Leaders may not be given titles.)

Alicorn
Note: A character moving to Alicorn from Equestria, Canterlot One, or a piloted Viper must discard a skill card.

Alicorn CIC
Action: Choose a basestar and roll a die:
1-3: Damage Alicorn.
4-6: Damage Basestar.
7-8: Damage Basestar twice.

Airlock
Action: Choose a character and pass a Politics/Tactics/Treachery Skill Check of 12 to execute that character. Reduce the difficulty by 4 if the character is in the "Brig".

Main Batteries
Action: Choose a space area and roll a die:
1: Destroy 1 Civilian Ship there.
2-3: Damage 1 Viper there.
4-6: Destroy 2 Raiders there.
7-8: Destroy 4 Raiders there.

Engine Room
Action: Discard 2 Skill Cards to treat the next Crisis Card drawn this turn as if it had a "prepare for jump" icon.`

PONYLON LOCATIONS
Note: These locations may only be used by a revealed Ponylon player or a non-infiltrated Ponylon Leader.

Ponyville
Action: Play 1 of your Super Crisis Cards or draw 2 Crisis Cards, choose 1 to resolve, and bury the other on the bottom of the deck. Ponylon Activations are not triggered after this Crisis.

Ponylon Fleet
Action: Activate all Ponylon ships of one type, or launch 2 Raiders and 1 Heavy Raider from each Basestar. Activating Heavy Raiders will advance the Centurions one step on the boarding party track, even if there are no Heavy Raiders on the board.

Pony Fleet
Action: Look at the top card of the Crisis or Destination deck and place it at the top or bottom of that deck. Then draw 2 Skill Cards of different types (may come from outside of your skill set). OR Infiltrate Equestria.

Resurrection Ship
You may only draw 1 Skill Card during your Receive Skill Cards step.
Action: Draw 1 Super Crisis Card.
(Characters may not voluntarily move to the Resurrection Ship, but are placed there when they reveal a Ponylon Loyalty Card as an action or by being executed, or choose to stop Infiltrating.)

{Note: Contains Pegasus Expansion Only - for Exodus Cards, see Game 1 below - "Admiral Spike? President Derpy on the Line for you."

Skills
Note: Only 1 "Reckless" card may be played per Skill Check. Humans may not use the text abilities on Treachery cards, but revealed Cylons can.

Politics
(1-2) Consolidate Power: Action: Draw 2 Skill Cards of any type, even outside skill set on Character Sheet.
(1-2) Support the People: Reckless: Play before cards are added to a Skill check. Each human player with 4 or less Skill Cards in hand may draw 2 Skill cards.
(3-5) Investigative Committee: Play before cards are added to skill check. All are played face up (excluding the Destiny Deck).
(3-5) Preventative Policy: Movement: Choose 1 resource type. The next loss of this resource type during this turn is reduced by 1.

Leadership
(1-2) Executive Order: Action: Choose another player who takes 2 actions, or moves and takes 1 action. Cannot use on a revealed Cylon or Sympathizer. Limit 1 EO or "Critical Situation" per turn.
(1-2) Major Victory: Play after you destroy a basestar or centurion on the boarding party track. Roll a die. If 5 or higher, gain 1 morale. Limit 1 per turn.
(3-5) Declare Emergency: Use after skill check is totaled. Reduces difficulty by 2. Cannot reduce partial pass difficulty. Limit 1 per skill check.
(3-5) At Any Cost: Reckless: Play before cards are added to a Skill check. All Treachery Cards count as positive strength.

Tactics
(1-2) Launch Scout: Action: Can only use if there is an undamaged Raptor in the reserves. Roll die 3 or higher look at top Crisis or Destination Card and place on top or bottom of deck. Otherwise, destroy a Raptor and remove it from the game.
(1-2) Guts and Initiative: Reckless: Play before cards are added to a Skill check. Do not add cards from the Destiny Deck to the Skill Check.
(3-5) Strategic Planning: Play before a die roll to add 2 to result. Limit 1 per die roll.
(3-5) Critical Situation: Movement: Take 1 Action. Limit 1 CS or "Executive Order" per turn.

Piloting
(1-2) Evasive Maneuvers: Play after a Viper is attacked to reroll. If Viper is piloted subtract 2 from the new roll.
(1-2) Full Throttle: Movement or Action: If piloting a viper, you may move to any space area. You may attack 1 Cylon ship in that area (even if you didn't move).
(3-5) Maximum Firepower: Action: Play while piloting a Viper to attack up to 4 times.
(3-5) Run Interference: Play before raiders are activated. The first 4 raiders activating in your space area automatically miss (do not roll for them).

Engineering
(1-2) Repair: Action: Repair your current location, or if in the Hangar Deck repair up to 2 damaged Vipers.
(1-2) Jury Rigged: Reckless: Play before cards are added to a Skill Check to reduce its difficulty by 4.
(3-5) Scientific Research: Play before any cards are added to a skill check. All Engineering cards count as positive strength.
(3-5) Calculations: Play after a die is rolled to add or subtract 1 from the result. Limit 1 per die roll.

Treachery
Note: "Reckless Skill Check" abilities activate when the card is part of a Skill Check in which a Reckless ability was activated.
(1) Broadcast Location: RSC -- Place 1 basestar in front of Galactica and 1 civilian ship behind Galactica. Only trigger this ability once per check.
(1) By Your Command: RSC -- Activate all raiders, heavy raiders, and occupation forces (but not Centurions). Only trigger this ability once per check.
(2) Faust's Plan: Movement: Exchange this card with the top card of the Destiny Deck.
(2) Special Destiny: RSC -- Each player draws 1 Treachery Skill Card. Only trigger this ability once per check.
(3) Human Weakness: Action: If at least 1 human is in "Brig" or "Detention", reduce the highest resource by 1.
(3) Sabotage: Play when a human player discards a Treachery Skill Card. Damage Galactica. Limit 1 per turn.

Links to the Previous and Ongoing Games:

Admiral Spike? President Derpy on the line for you. PONY-LON VICTORY

All the Ponies on this Ship are Toasters! - PONY-LON VICTORY

Flutter Valley's Last Gleaming - PONY-LON VICTORY / PONY-LON LEADER VICTORY

There are many copies, and they have a Plot. - PONY VICTORY / PONY-LON LEADER... runner up

Nuclear Winter Wrap Up - PONYLON VICTORY / PONYLON LEADER DEFEAT

For a Good Time, Airlock Rarity Turn 1 - Ongoing

So Neigh We All! - Ongoing

And remember...

(in the ingame threads - you can do it all you want here.)

Sympathetic Agenda Deck

You win the game if...

Guide Them to Destiny: The ponies have won and Population and Morale are within 2 of each other.
Live On In Infamy: The ponies have won and all resources are at 4 or lower.
Atone For Your Sins: The ponies have won, 3 or more civilian ships have been destroyed, and either you are in the Brig or you have been executed at least once.
Prove Their Worth: The ponies have won and at least 5 raptors/vipers are destroyed or damaged.
Surgical Strike: The Pony-lons have won and 2 or more resources are at half or more of their starting value ("in the green").
The Illusion of Hope: The Pony-lons have won and the fleet was one jump from victory.

Hostile Agenda Deck

You win the game if...

Genocide: The Pony-lons have won and Population and Morale are 2 or less.
Reduce Them To Ruins: The Pony-lons have won, Morale is 3 or less, and 4 or more locations are damaged.
Siege Warfare: The Pony-lons have won and all resources are at half or less of their starting value ("in the red").
Survival Of The Fittest: The Pony-lons have won and either two or more pony characters have been executed, or one pony character has been executed and Alicorn or Canterlot One was destroyed.
Mutual Annihilation: The ponies have won and the sum of Super Crisis Cards played (by any player) and damaged locations is greater than or equal to populaton.
Power Vacuum: The ponies have won, you are Infiltrating, and no more than one other human player is not in the Brig or Detention.

(?) · by **Bremen** (?) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 10:37 pm

First off, I'm loving the currently running game. The base game is great fun, and the translation to ponies adds great humor value :ohboy:

. I wouldn't be opposed to running one of my own in the future, but I don't actually own the game currently.

For ponylon leaders, I could see two ways of going with it. Either the "villain" route, like Nightmare Moon and Discord, or alternately the "Antagonist" route, with Gilda, Trixie, Prince Blueblood, etc. I kind of favor the antagonist route for comedy value, and because there's more choices. Plus that means Luna can be a pony. However, my understanding is cylon leaders aren't a well liked mechanic and often the alternate rule (reduced starting resources) is preferred, so I'm not sure how often they would get used. I don't have much experience with them, I've only played the base game.

For characters, nothing stands out to me, though Pinkie Pie seems like she might be borderline overpowered if a ponylon, what with the destiny draw, and she's no slouch as a pony either. If I were to rank the characters, I'd probably put her as the most powerful character.

The other thing, though this is more of a personal opinion rather than any real request for change, is I never liked the bonuses/flaws that change loyalty draws. For various minor reasons; a lot of people have a preference for pony/ponylon, it's not much of a bonus/drawback regardless, and it also skews the statistical chances for other players when one is picked. It's a minor gripe, but if it were me I might consider replacing those abilities with something else.

Lastly, taking a stab at new characters, though given my limited experience they're probably horribly unbalanced:

Leader

Princess Luna (LEA 1 TAC 2 ENG 2)
Princess of the Night: During your turn after a Crisis is drawn you may discard 2 skill cards to skip the ponylon activation step.
The Fun has been Doubled!: Once per game, when you activate a location activate it a second time.
Royal Canterlot Voice: May not be the target of executive order cards.

Politician

Mayor Mare (POL 3 LEA 2)
Political Connections: On your turn, add one to the result of a skill check for every two political cards played (rounded up), whether or not they are counted positive.
Inspirational Speech: Action: Chose a player to draw POL cards to bring their hand up to 4. This ability may not be used again until the fleet has jumped.
And the year before that: If a skill check is failed on your turn, discard two cards.

Flier

Spitfire (PIL 3 LEA 1 TAC 1)
Wonderbolts: When you use the hangar deck location, you may place an unmanned viper in the same location as your viper.
Cheers of the crowd: Once per game, choose a player to discard a card. Draw PIL cards equal to the skill value of that card.
Team Leader: You may not play evasive maneuvers on yourself, only on unmanned vipers or other players.

Edit: Come to think of it, Mayor Mare should probably have a OPG involving quorum cards, since no other pony does. I don't know enough about quorum cards to suggest a good one though.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:06 pm

Original Post is Here wrote:I'm a bit surprised you have Pinkie as most powerful. I figured her drawback would make her weakened if a finger of suspicion was pointed her way.

I think I any need to rebalance the abilities of folks that get multiple loyalty draws at the least, to give it more of a penalty. For instance, with the main game Gaius Baltar's once per game is a loyalty check, when his own is already in some question. And Boomer gets 2 cards, but also sent to the brig.

As for the characters, I'll take another look when I get off work. Right now though, what jumps out to me is that Mayor Mare should have a once-per-game and not a once per jumpcycle.

(?) · by **Bremen** (?) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:18 pm

Well, Pinkie's drawback works both ways. It hurts more to be brigged, but that would also make the other players more reluctant to brig her if they aren't certain. And if they are certain, she'd be discarding cards when revealing as a ponylon anyways.

I figured a once per jumpcycle would be something to make Mayor Mare's ability stand out. If a once per game would be better then something else would work; I think I made the new characters a bit too heavy on draw related abilities anyways.

One thing I did after writing those up was compare the card draws of the current characters. Obviously its not a great metric since every character wont be used in the same game, but I thought it was interesting:

15.5 LEA draws
13.5 TAC draws
11.5 POL draws
5.5 PIL draws
5 ENG draws

Obviously PIL would be low, but it seems like more ponies with ENG draws might be needed. Is ENG comparatively rare in the base game? It's not a big deal for the card abilities, I don't think, but might make some crisis(crisese?) particularly hard.

(?) · by **Raindrops** (?) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:23 pm

Gonna sticky this. It's a meta-thread, so it should be up there with the mafia one.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Mon Nov 21, 2011 11:25 pm

Well, in the game PIL is frequently seen as the "worst" skill for crises, with ENG being "second worst". TAC is typically thought as "best" since nearly all crises use TAC, scouting is almost always useful if you have a spare action (and can help vet the admiral before you jump) and strategic planning is practically required for centurion shots and nuke launches.

In intact, in games without TRE most revealed cylons choose PIL or ENG for their 2 card draws.

Preview edit: thanks Colgate!

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 7:01 am

Val Helmethead wrote:I'm going to develop pony-lon leaders soon, so let me know who you'd like to see and what their powers should be. Suggested so far have been Nightmare Moon and Discord.

What a coincidence! I have some thoughts on the very subject!

Discord - Cylon Leader (1 TAC, 1 TRE/ENG) Setup: Caprica

Option A: Chaos Is A Wonderful Thing -- Instead of drawing an extra card during your Receive Skills step while Infiltrating, draw the top card of the Destiny Deck. Any time you draw cards outside of your Recieve Skills step, you may do so from outside of your skillset or from the Destiny Deck.

Option B: Chaos Is A Wonderful Thing -- Any time you have less than three cards in your hand, draw the top card of the Destiny Deck.

You've Been Kind For Far Too Long -- Once per game, copy the "once per game" ability of any other character in play, and perform it as if it had been printed on this character sheet.

Option A: Twists and Turns -- While Infiltrating, you may not play more than one card into Skill Checks.

Option B: What Fun Is There In Making Sense? -- At the end of the game, before revealing your Agenda, the players of the losing side (human or Cylon) guess what your Agenda was. If they guessed correctly, discard it and draw a new one.

(I like the idea behind this one a lot better but each agenda deck would have to have 9 agendas for it to work, otherwise guessing a pro-Cylon Sympathetic or pro-Human Hostile is a 50/50 chance. But ideally, I want 9 agendas per deck anyway. If this is his drawback, he should have the way more powerful second Chaos static; he needs more cards since he has to waste some to conceal his agenda. If not, the second static is just too good.)

--

Night Mare Moon (1 LEA, 1 POL/TRE) Setup: N/A or Human Fleet

Eclipse -- Movement: Draw the top two cards of the Destiny Deck, then place two cards from your hand on top of the Destiny Deck.

The Night Will Last Forever -- Action: Once per game, choose another player. Skip that player's next turn entirely.

Option A: Banished To The Moon -- Your character is not placed on the board at the start of the game. While not on the game board, you may not move, be moved, or take actions. At the start of your 2nd turn, place your character on the Human Fleet location.

Option B: Lonely And Resentful -- If a Crisis Card would force you to discard two or more skill cards while you are not Infiltrating, discard one card instead of ignoring it entirely. If a Crisis Card would force you to discard skill cards while you are Infiltrating, they are discarded at random.

--

Tirek (1 TAC, 1 LEA/TRE) Setup: Cylon Fleet

Option A: Tyrannical -- You may hold Titles while Infiltrating. While you hold no Title, you are considered first in all lines of succession. (this probably isn't good enough to work for pro-human, but adding something to make it worth it for pro-human CLs would likely make it too wordy and complicated)

Option B: Tyrannical -- During your turn, when a Crisis Card calls for the Admiral, President or CAG to make a choice, you make it for them unless they discard two skill cards.

Rescue At Midnight Castle -- Once per game, change the result of a choice on a Crisis Card or a skill check that could have executed another human character.
(You need not choose that the character actually be executed, it just had to be a possible result)

Terrifying Presence -- You may not activate locations where another character is present (except the Brig).

I picked villains because they're more flashy and identifiable, there's clear demarcation between them and normal ponies (unlike general antagonists like Gilda and Trixie, who you think wouldn't still be completely antagonistic when ponylons start attacking and things start exploding). Villains can be, you know, villainous and trying to blow everything up, or won over by The Power Of Friendship, and sympathetic; more importantly, they're more powerful than regular ponies, operating in a different sphere, and obviously have their own personal agendas to advance. And who says that Night Mare Moon being a CL means Princess Luna can't be a normal character? Put 'em both in! I also want to make some Agendas, but I don't have my copy of the game in the house with me, and can't find a listing of what the existing Agendas are. Cylon Leaders are a really cool idea, but they need better Agendas than Pegasus provides to really work, and that's why people don't use them very often.

I don't think Pinkie Pie's really the most powerful character; she gets the same number of cards as everyone else, but the fact that nobody can predict what 2 of her cards are going to be is balanced by the fact that she can't control it either, and can't plan future turns as well, or get what she needs in order to do what she wants. Pinkie Pie is pretty balanced, I think, maybe a bit underpowered -- her normal draw might need to be 4 cards, since she isn't picking where 2 of the cards come from.

For my money, Princess Celestia is still head and shoulders more powerful than everyone else: her static is better than the Pegasus Engine Room in every way, since you can do it anywhere, it doesn't take your action, and you can choose to do it AFTER the crisis is drawn (so you never waste cards on a Crisis that already has Jump Prep). And the Pegasus Engine Room is already really good. She should at least have the same restriction as that location, where she has to choose to use it before the crisis is drawn. Maybe make her do it "early in the morning" before her Recieve Skills step (since Engine Rooming without an action is still really really good), but that might be a bit too restrictive. So, she has the best static for humans, and then her OPG is also really, really powerful and mostly for Cylons -- there's just nothing you can do about it when she uses it on you, and you lose a character, a hand full of cards, and 1 Morale when she does. I would at least make the change some people suggested to Cally's same OPG, where she has to start her turn in the same location instead of moving there and firing, or replace it altogether. And then her drawback is something that only applies on the first turn, aka "when things haven't gone completely to shit yet", and doesn't have a lasting effect on her play. A drawback that light would be okay for a character who was less of a powerhouse, but I think Celestia needs something ongoing.

The worst character is probably Derpy. Derpy gets a drawback making her a worse pilot, which no BSG character but Kat gets, and Kat has a static making her amazing at shooting down raiders by not piloting. Her OPG is very, very weak (it could be a regular skill card) and can't be used tactically at all since it gives cards to your side and your opponents, and it's only one card per person, and it takes an action and can't be used reactively; as opposed to something like Dee's OPG, which only gets her three cards but she can use it to get what she needs when she needs it. Her static would be less effective than using Communications, if the rule it references existed, but as far as I can tell it doesn't in the base game. Exodus with the Cylon Fleet Board allows you to escort civilian ships off the board, but that's an entirely new rule, it doesn't modify any existing "escort" rule. I'd give her an ability that let her move to space areas more effectively (if it applied to normal locations too, it could be a gag based on her being in the background of every scene everywhere), make Special Delivery refill another player's hand up to the limit, and maybe a drawback like Saul Tigh's (for being absentminded instead of alcoholic) or Helena Cain's (she can't see where she's going far enough to plot a course!) -- something that is going to come up a few times and be a hindrance, but doesn't make her less effective at being a pilot.

That is a lot of words but in my defense I was bored as shit today.

(?) · by **Bremen** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 7:36 am

Huitzil wrote:That is a lot of words but in my defense I was bored as shit today.

Same

I would agree that Celestia is probably the most powerful as a pony. I didn't think about it, but you're right that the OPG is also pretty brutal as a ponylon (I'm not very familiar with the execution mechanic since it isn't normally in the base game). My main issue with Pinkie as a ponylon is that her ability makes it much harder to analyze skill checks; even with abilities where one can choose what card type to draw the other players at least know what that character is drawing. As a Pony I'd say she's fairly middle of the pack, though a ponylon detector ability isn't something to dismiss lightly. Maybe it would be better if she just got the choice of two draws from any decks?

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:10 am

Bremen wrote:
Same

I would agree that Celestia is probably the most powerful as a pony. I didn't think about it, but you're right that the OPG is also pretty brutal as a ponylon (I'm not very familiar with the execution mechanic since it isn't normally in the base game). My main issue with Pinkie as a ponylon is that her ability makes it much harder to analyze skill checks; even with abilities where one can choose what card type to draw the other players at least know what that character is drawing. As a Pony I'd say she's fairly middle of the pack, though a ponylon detector ability isn't something to dismiss lightly. Maybe it would be better if she just got the choice of two draws from any decks?

Execution mechanic: Discard your hand, then if you are a human reveal all your loyalty cards, reduce Morale by one, and pick a new character. If you are a Cylon you still lose your hand, reveal one Cylon loyalty card and give the rest of your unrevealed loyalty cards facedown to a human player (in case you had two of them, or you didn't but want to cast suspicion), then go to the Resurrection Ship without drawing a Super Crisis. So the OPG execution as a Cylon is "Once per game, pick someone to discard their entire hand, and pick a new character, and reduce Morale by one." It's big money. And it's damn good as a human too if you ever have a known but unrevealed cylon, since they can't stop the execution and it costs you no skill or quorum cards, but not quite as good as it is for a cylon.

Pinkie Pie getting two draws from any deck is basically a double version of Gaius Baltar's ability from the base game, which seems like it could be balanced out by her more severe drawback, so that seems like it could work. It does make her closer to a base character than anyone else, since her static and OPG abilities are Baltar's, but that's really just funny instead of a drawback.

also, if Cylons are Ponylons, and Galactica is Equestria, then I move that Colonial One is Canterlot, the Pegasus is Cloudsdale, and Centurions are Seaponies.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:18 am

More comments from me tomorrow evening.

Dead to the world tonight. Sorry.

(?) · by **Bremen** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:24 am

Huitzil wrote:
Execution mechanic: Discard your hand, then if you are a human reveal all your loyalty cards, reduce Morale by one, and pick a new character. If you are a Cylon you still lose your hand, reveal one Cylon loyalty card and give the rest of your unrevealed loyalty cards facedown to a human player (in case you had two of them, or you didn't but want to cast suspicion), then go to the Resurrection Ship without drawing a Super Crisis. So the OPG execution as a Cylon is "Once per game, pick someone to discard their entire hand, and pick a new character, and reduce Morale by one." It's big money. And it's damn good as a human too if you ever have a known but unrevealed cylon, since they can't stop the execution and it costs you no skill or quorum cards, but not quite as good as it is for a cylon.

Pinkie Pie getting two draws from any deck is basically a double version of Gaius Baltar's ability from the base game, which seems like it could be balanced out by her more severe drawback, so that seems like it could work. It does make her closer to a base character than anyone else, since her static and OPG abilities are Baltar's, but that's really just funny instead of a drawback.

also, if Cylons are Ponylons, and Galactica is Equestria, then I move that Colonial One is Canterlot, the Pegasus is Cloudsdale, and Centurions are Seaponies.

You had me until the Centurions. Though I think for the purposes of the game the ponies are still on a spaceship (named the Equestria, rather than Equestria itself).

There is a certain humor to Pinkie having Baltar's abilities, but I was actually thinking she would get the two cards before the crisis draw, whereas Baltar can tailor his draw to the crisis. Basically the ability would just be a highly versatile card draw.

As far as the execution, Celestia having to move to the location of the target would be a decent balance; it means she couldn't use it as a revealed ponylon or on a revealed ponylon and it could be prevented by sending her to the brig, but the ability stays potentially powerful (not a lot of point in executing a revealed ponylon anyways, unless you're really afraid of their OPG). That also makes for an interesting problem if Celestia turns out to be a ponylon; hold onto it too long and you risk getting found out, but use it too soon and you risk executing another ponylon

(?) · by **Glaed** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:26 am

Huitzil wrote:also, if Cylons are Ponylons, and Galactica is Equestria, then I move that Colonial One is Canterlot, the Pegasus is Cloudsdale, and Centurions are Seaponies.

Everything but "seaponies" I agree with. Centurions can be Shadowbolts.

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 6:37 pm

Bremen wrote:You had me until the Centurions. Though I think for the purposes of the game the ponies are still on a spaceship (named the Equestria, rather than Equestria itself).

There is a certain humor to Pinkie having Baltar's abilities, but I was actually thinking she would get the two cards before the crisis draw, whereas Baltar can tailor his draw to the crisis. Basically the ability would just be a highly versatile card draw.

As far as the execution, Celestia having to move to the location of the target would be a decent balance; it means she couldn't use it as a revealed ponylon or on a revealed ponylon and it could be prevented by sending her to the brig, but the ability stays potentially powerful (not a lot of point in executing a revealed ponylon anyways, unless you're really afraid of their OPG). That also makes for an interesting problem if Celestia turns out to be a ponylon; hold onto it too long and you risk getting found out, but use it too soon and you risk executing another ponylon

Well, you can't execute a revealed Cylon, and once you reveal as a Cylon yourself your character's abilities don't apply any more; the danger of the execution ability is as what they call a "soft reveal", where you don't actually flip over your Cylon loyalty card but you start doing things that obviously hurt the humans anyway. That's the kind of thing the execution ability is meant to put a stop to for a human player; Tom Zarek starts throwing out arrest orders on innocents and grinding up your low Population to get some other resource you don't need, and instead of having to spend skill cards getting him into the brig to "prove" he's a Cylon, you just shoot him in the face.

What if it was rephrased to be exactly like Cally Tyrol's ability from Exodus ("once per game, execute someone at your location" instead of just "once per game, execute someone") and her drawback was changed from Helo's "starts off the board" to:

Pomp and Circumstance -- Your Movement step comes after your Action step. When you move and act during another player's turn, you must take the action before the movement.

She goes everywhere with a big regal procession, so she has to plan out where she's going ahead of time, and can't use locations the same turn she moves to them. This would be a hindrance over the course of the game, but doesn't really impede her from playing skill cards for their abilities or from parking in a single location; it would also require her to start her turn at the same location as the person she wants executed, so she either has to have cooperation from the other humans to XO her into position to get a known unrevealed Cylon, or requires her to be more subtle beforehand so that people aren't scared of getting near her, and park in a valuable location others need to use (and if she can't set up the kill, she still gets to scare human characters off of a valuable location for a while). The mind games of "Why are you afraid to stay where I am? Are you afraid I'll banish you to the moon for being a Ponylon?" "That's just what a Ponylon would say!" can be considered a bonus.

Also, I figured there was no spaceship, Equestria was Equestria, jump prep cycles were actual days or other lengths of solar time, and Cy/Ponylon infiltrators were Newborn Cuties in disguise, trying to destroy G4 from within! And when they get killed they just come back not because they have a resurrection ship, but because Newborn Cuties characters are all generic as hell and may as well be the same ones! And I have absolutely no idea what destinations would represent in this analogy! :-p

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 6:50 pm

Originally I had centurions down as parasprite swarms, but I kind of like keeping some battlestar galactica references in the game.

So I think we should focus on:

Fixing Derpy / Celestia / possibly somepony else.
Adding three Pony-Lon leaders for the next game. My vote is for Nightmare Moon / Discord / TG&P Trixie.

For Celsestia - yeah still way overpowered. Fixing the OPG is necessary - maybe limit it to only being used on a character that just got brigged? As for the first power, I think it might just be back to the drawing board for that one.

I like the idea of changing Derpys drawback to absentminded. Or "bad at navigation" if we change the name to Ditzy Doo. And for OPG - what about a "target player draws their regular 5 card draw" usable at any time? not quite sure what to do about the static ability though - previously it was WAY overpowered and I think I neutered it by making it once per turn.

(?) · by **Bremen** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 7:06 pm

Huitzil wrote:Well, you can't execute a revealed Cylon, and once you reveal as a Cylon yourself your character's abilities don't apply any more; the danger of the execution ability is as what they call a "soft reveal", where you don't actually flip over your Cylon loyalty card but you start doing things that obviously hurt the humans anyway. That's the kind of thing the execution ability is meant to put a stop to for a human player; Tom Zarek starts throwing out arrest orders on innocents and grinding up your low Population to get some other resource you don't need, and instead of having to spend skill cards getting him into the brig to "prove" he's a Cylon, you just shoot him in the face.

What if it was rephrased to be exactly like Cally Tyrol's ability from Exodus ("once per game, execute someone at your location" instead of just "once per game, execute someone") and her drawback was changed from Helo's "starts off the board" to:

Pomp and Circumstance -- Your Movement step comes after your Action step. When you move and act during another player's turn, you must take the action before the movement.

She goes everywhere with a big regal procession, so she has to plan out where she's going ahead of time, and can't use locations the same turn she moves to them. This would be a hindrance over the course of the game, but doesn't really impede her from playing skill cards for their abilities or from parking in a single location; it would also require her to start her turn at the same location as the person she wants executed, so she either has to have cooperation from the other humans to XO her into position to get a known unrevealed Cylon, or requires her to be more subtle beforehand so that people aren't scared of getting near her, and park in a valuable location others need to use (and if she can't set up the kill, she still gets to scare human characters off of a valuable location for a while). The mind games of "Why are you afraid to stay where I am? Are you afraid I'll banish you to the moon for being a Ponylon?" "That's just what a Ponylon would say!" can be considered a bonus.

Also, I figured there was no spaceship, Equestria was Equestria, jump prep cycles were actual days or other lengths of solar time, and Cy/Ponylon infiltrators were Newborn Cuties in disguise, trying to destroy G4 from within! And when they get killed they just come back not because they have a resurrection ship, but because Newborn Cuties characters are all generic as hell and may as well be the same ones! And I have absolutely no idea what destinations would represent in this analogy! :-p

I dunno, that seems like a huge disadvantage; though I suppose it could be considered counterbalanced by a sufficiently strong bonus. Particularly in large games its just not possible to predict what the situation will be next time your turn comes up. I was more thinking just put it on Cally's level, making it so she can't do it from the brig (or easily use it and then reveal if given an executive order; that would be painful).

Derpy might do with a reimagining. Right now she has two abilities about mail. What about?

Derpy Hooves
Mailpony - Once per turn - When you escort a civilian, you may take another action that turn.
Always in the strangest places - Once per game when raiders activate, you may move to any space location.
Bad Eyesight/absentminded

Makes her particularly well suited for protecting civs rather than straight up destroying ponylons, especially if she keeps the bad eyesight.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 7:28 pm

I really like the Derpy reimagining. Badeyesight can stay under that - it really turns Derpy into an escort / tank pilot instead of a pew pew pilot, though it's not so serious that she CAN'T use her maximum firepower to shoot at some raiders.

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:08 pm

The reason I think Tirek is more appropriate as a Cylon Leader is that Discord and NMM are both grandiose and intimidating and Trixie is, ultimately, a normal pony with illusions of grandeur; I think Tirek fits the set better than her. If we were going to say "no characters from outside G4" (which I think would be a mistake, Tirek is pretty cool even if he is from G1), a dragon like the one in Dragonshy might work better, or at least Gilda; I think someone who obviously isn't a member of pony society makes it clearer why they are a CL instead of a normal character. But Trixie could work if you've got a crackerjack idea for her abilities... or if we have picture character sheets, and we find a pic of Trixie that makes it clear why she's a CL. Like a pic of her riding on the back of an Ursa Major sowing destruction, I think I've seen a pic like that somewhere.

Bremen wrote:I dunno, that seems like a huge disadvantage; though I suppose it could be considered counterbalanced by a sufficiently strong bonus. Particularly in large games its just not possible to predict what the situation will be next time your turn comes up. I was more thinking just put it on Cally's level, making it so she can't do it from the brig (or easily use it and then reveal if given an executive order; that would be painful).

Derpy might do with a reimagining. Right now she has two abilities about mail. What about?

Derpy Hooves
Mailpony - Once per turn - When you escort a civilian, you may take another action that turn.
Always in the strangest places - Once per game when raiders activate, you may move to any space location.
Bad Eyesight/absentminded

Makes her particularly well suited for protecting civs rather than straight up destroying ponylons, especially if she keeps the bad eyesight.

Pomp and Circumstance would be a huge disadvantage for a support character or a pilot, but Celestia is a military leader; they tend to take most, or at least a lot, of their actions from skill cards like XO and Scout, and they do "Admiral Chooses" crises and pick destinations without needing an action or location. (the most recent Pegasus game I played, I was the Admiral and never moved after the first turn, though in all fairness I was Admiral Cain so the game was shorter than normal). She's in trouble if she has to move and activate a different location every turn, but if she parks where she'll be most needed, or uses skill card actions on turns she's moving to where she has to go, or can get XOd frequently to use her location and get positioned for the next one, she's fine. I think that's a fine dynamic for a drawback to have, and I think "raise the sun before skill draw" / "execute at her location" / "movement after actions" is balanced, or at least worthy of trying out.

Derpy's action escorting civilians and getting free actions was how she used to be in the last game with the Exodus rules and it made her crazy powerful, but without the Cylon Fleet Board rule it doesn't do anything (as that is what adds the escorting rules, not the base game). "Move anywhere right when you need to" and "give someone else a bunch of cards" both work as OPGs; I liked "someone else draws up to their hand limit" as the "give cards" OPG because I liked the tension of deciding when was the right time to use it, since it's powerful recovery but gets better the less cards are already in the hand of the person you use it on, which you can't exactly control. Making it a fixed "draw your skill set" (or maybe "draw five", for the sake of CLs and Pinkie Pie) makes it less powerful but easier to use, and less powerful as a soft reveal to feed a Cylon; but it's already weaker as a Cylon power because it's useless if you are first to reveal since you have no other Cylon to feed cards to... It could work either way, I think, but let's try it as "draws five cards" for now and see how it feels.

"Move anywhere you need to" is a good human OPG but would need something else to be good for Cylons -- as a human, you put yourself in front of every raider; as a Cylon, all you can do is run from raiders if you set up a situation where you were the only thing between them and exploding a bunch of civilians, a lot less powerful and a lot harder to use. It would need something else to be good for Cylons. I think we should try her OPG as the "give someone five cards", and make "wacky movement" her static, which is okay to make totally pro-human. And her draw could stand to be bumped up a bit in strength or versatility, as I don't really get why she gets POL, and PIL is usually considered bad. How about...

Ditzy Doo - Pilot (LEA 1, POL/TAC 2, PIL 2) Setup: Communications

Appearing In The Strangest Places -- Action: Place yourself at any location, or discard a skill card to place yourself, piloting a Viper, in any space area.
(Lets her be a meat shield if needed, or get close to but not engage Raiders for next turn, but as an Action she can't go in and immediately start blasting. Using an action to move to Colonial One or Pegasus without discarding a card is not useful at all, but that text is really only there for flavor purposes to reinforce that her power is that she can just show up anywhere and not that she flies very fast.)

Special Delivery! -- Action: Once per game, choose another player to draw five cards.

Option A: No Sense of Direction -- You may not activate the Engine Room or FTL Control locations.

Option B: Absent-Minded -- If you have exactly one card in your hand at the end of any player's turn, discard it.
(This is probably more relevant than the first one; in retrospect, she's less likely to want to activate FTL Control or Engine Room than Admiral Cain is so it might end up as not a drawback at all, even if it's funny and thematic.)

Option C: Wall-Eyed -- Subtract 1 from rolls to hit enemy craft you fire at.
(Her old drawback makes her a worse pilot and I don't recommend we test her with it the first time, but if her static ability makes her too good at shooting down ships with XOs, we can give it back to her, and possibly make her static a Movement ability, so with a 2 PIL draw she is more of a "less accuracy, way more bullets" kind of fighter instead of just a strictly worse one. I think Fluttershy can cover our "better at defending civs than shooting down raiders" niche more appropriately than Ditzy, and it'd be weird if two of our three pilot characters were more defensive than offensive.)

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:29 pm

I'm willing to consider that version of Ditzy Doo "done" and finalized, with option B as her drawback.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:41 pm

Actually I think it might be better to make her static to clean up the wordy mess:

Action - You may discard 1 card to move to any space zone. If you are not in a viper already, you deploy to that location in one.

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 8:52 pm

Val Helmethead wrote:Actually I think it might be better to make her static to clean up the wordy mess:

Action - You may discard 1 card to move to any space zone. If you are not in a viper already, you deploy to that location in one.

Sure, if you think it's too complicated otherwise; the rest of it was just for flavor anyway.

What do you think of Celestia, want to try my version, or do you think she needs a total redo?

(?) · by **Bremen** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 9:30 pm

Val Helmethead wrote:Actually I think it might be better to make her static to clean up the wordy mess:

Action - You may discard 1 card to move to any space zone. If you are not in a viper already, you deploy to that location in one.

I'd say that could work with one of the minor disadvantages. Alternately, what about "When you use the hangar deck location, you may deploy in any space zone" as an ability with the wall-eyed disadvantage? That would mean she could still attack or escort on arrival, which would make Ditzy a highly mobile pilot but with the tradeoff of less punch. If in space she could still discard a card to move to the hangar and then use it again. It might still be a bit much if combo'd with maximum firepower, come to think of it, but it's not that unusual for there to be raiders in one of the normal launch zones so I don't think it's that bad. And since it would require moving to the hangar first, it wouldn't be any more powerful when XO'd.

Possibly too powerful, especially since none of the other pilots have statics that help with piloting. I just wanted to offer it as an alternative.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 10:15 pm

Well, with an xo she can pop halfway across the map and pewpewpewpew a raider swarm, so I think it'll work as is.

How about this for a reimagining of Celestia:

Raise the Sun - if you activate FTL you may reroll the dice and then use a new result.

banished to the Moon - Action - execute one player at your location.

Not one of the Girls - you cannot activate any location occupied by another player.

(?) · by **Bremen** (?) » Tue Nov 22, 2011 10:28 pm

Val Helmethead wrote:Well, with an xo she can pop halfway across the map and pewpewpewpew a raider swarm, so I think it'll work as is.

How about this for a reimagining of Celestia:

Raise the Sun - if you activate FTL you may reroll the dice and then use a new result.

banished to the Moon - Action - execute one player at your location.

Not one of the Girls - you cannot activate any location occupied by another player.

Well, without speaking of the abilities, I'd probably call the last two "Banish to the Moon" and "Pomp and Circumstance" respectively; they just sound better.

As far as the abilities themselves, I think I kind of liked Huitzil's version better, but either could work. Huitzil's version has Celestia with extremely powerful abilities but a very powerful disadvantage as well, which I think works thematically by making her stand out from the crowd.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 1:00 am

Okay, so the OP is updated with some slightly more useful information. It's a work in progress. :pinkieshrug:

Edit: Here's why I'm not so sure about Celestia's drawback - for a Pony, it's a benefit - you'd be moving yourself into position for the next set of XO's while tossing out XOs and then moving into position based on if they succeed or not.

Maybe a drawback of:

"Pomp and Circumstance" - You must discard 1 card in addition to any other card discard effects to move to a new location.
-or-
"Pomp and Circumstance" - You must discard 2 cards to activate a location.

Right now with "you have to be in their location to execute" it's already the equivalent of Cally's OPG from the real BSG game

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:56 am

Val Helmethead wrote:Okay, so the OP is updated with some slightly more useful information. It's a work in progress.

Edit: Here's why I'm not so sure about Celestia's drawback - for a Pony, it's a benefit - you'd be moving yourself into position for the next set of XO's while tossing out XOs and then moving into position based on if they succeed or not.

I don't think it's a net benefit -- you can change your placement based on whether the XO succeeds, but I don't think that outweighs the inability to move to a location and activate it. And I like how "movement after action" feels for her, it just feels right to me. "Discard 2 to activate a location" is pretty bad even on a Military leader instead of the President, but "discard a card to move" might work, though it seems more cumbersome. I think "action before move" is at least worth trying out, and if it proves too powerful, "discard a card to move" could be okay.

I don't like her new FTL Operator static at all, though, it's not nearly powerful enough to justify the more severe drawbacks we're giving her. The "Engine Room" static she had before isn't terrible in principle, it was just implemented in way that was too powerful (since it let you use it after you saw if the crisis had a jump prep icon on it or not) and not balanced out by her drawback. I like Celestia having a big ability and big drawback, and FTL Operator isn't big enough, especially if her drawback makes it harder to activate locations -- if we made her with the "discard 2 cards to activate locations" Laura Roslin drawback and the FTL Operator ability she'd go from best character in the game to one of the worst, even with the killer OPG.

(?) · by **Bremen** (?) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:05 am

Nice title choice

I like discard a card to move. It's painful, and rewards careful planning, but doesn't actually prevent you from doing anything that needs doing. It might go well with the slightly nerfed static.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 6:26 am

That's a fine point about FTL operator not working right, but I really do think that with XOs being what they are, I just don't see it as being a major drawback. At worst, it's a net wash that sometimes works out in your favor and sometimes doesn't. With 3 times the chance to draw an XO so that you CAN tell someone to go activate that location you really really wanted to activate anyways... it's really not much of a drawback since as long as I have a player I can trust, I effectively can have them "move and activate" if no one is already on that location, and then move myself to the next place that needs activated.

How about this then:

CELESTIA

LEA 3 / TAC 2 - Starts in Princess's Quarters

Raise the Sun - On your turn before the Crisis is drawn, you can discard 2 skill cards to guarantee that the crisis will give +1 jump prep in the post-crisis step. {This limits the current ability slightly by making it so that it's a moderate expenditure to guarantee a positive outcome.}

Banish to the Moon - Once Per Game - Action - Select a character at your location. That character is executed. {Forces Celestia to be in the location - keeps Celestia from using the ability while in the Brig / on viper pilots / on folks on Colonial One}

Pomp and Circumstance - You must discard 1 card in addition to any other card discard effects to move to a new location. - {Forces Celestia to consider not moving as a tactic and rely on others to do the dirty work - a thematic fit. Also means a Pony-alligned Celestia would have to give something up (1 skill card) to use the OPG if the target isn't already there.}

Pro: Almost certain to draw an XO every turn, guaranteed jump prep for a skill card loss, OPG is still fairly powerful and can help whatever team you wind up on. Guaranteed Princess start.
Con: Low hand if you don't "Raise the Sun" in moderation or move frequently on your turn. Possibly suspicion if you don't "Raise the sun" every turn. Very reliant on XOs to get things done.

This should make Princess Celestia a "stand in the background tossing orders around" sort of character, which fits the mold of Princess Celestia's character in the series.

Ditzy Doo

LEA 1 / PIL 2 / POL/TAC 2 - Starts in the Hanger Deck

Always In The Strangest Places - Action: Whenever you use the hanger, you may discard 1 card to launch in a viper to any space zone. Take another action as normal.{This gives her unprecedented movement at the cost of rapidly draining her hand of cards.}

Special Delivery - Once Per Game: Choose another pony to draw up to their maximum hand size of cards from within their skill set.{This lets her either turn around a serious pony card difference for crisis management, or bolster a soft revealed pony-lon ally. Or just hold out hope that someone's cards will be refilled, and then withhold the ability when they spend it all on pointless other things.}

Absent-Minded: If you have exactly 1 card in your hand at the end of any player's turn, discard it.{Coupled with the static ability, it means that Ditzy will have to seriously watch card management in order to be effective in crises.}

Pros: Maneuverability in space at the price of higher card loss. Variable POL / TAC draw give the option of playing emergency politician in a pinch. Powerful card refill that can be used against the ponies to some extent.
Cons: Chews through cards like it's her job. Likely won't have many cards left after "##return to hangar (-1), ##launch into BRAVO (-1), ##play maximum firepower (-1)" to evade raiders firing back.

I could see this making Derpy a fan favorite, but we'll have to try it a couple of times to see if "pewpewpewpew" becomes too powerful with this. Really though I don't think it will be. It just gives her a slightly weaker version of Full Throttle that can be used on demand.

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:32 am

Seems good to me except for a couple things about Special Delivery: it doesn't need to specify within your skillset, as all draws are from within your skillset unless it says otherwise, and should probably be an Action: to do. Restricting it to only ponies makes it too hard to use as a Ponylon, since it not only requires you to not be the Ponylon to reveal first, but that the other Ponylon soft reveals (without knowing that you're the other Ponylon since if THEY know, everyone ELSE knows, and you've likely been dealt with), and then stays unrevealed after your OPG long enough to use all those cards you fed her, since after the reveal her hand goes down to 3 cards anyway. And she doesn't get thrown out the airlock or banished to the moon, which will be Priority One for the ponies once you give her a Special Delivery. I think it has to be able to target revealed Pony/Cylons to be at all useful as a soft reveal. But I think making the "appear anywhere" ability trigger off launching in the hangar bay is a better way to implement it than what I had originally, and I like the increased usability tradeoff with the increased card cost for sustained use.

I like where the other political, military and support characters are at -- especially Rarity and Zecora, who may not be the most powerful but easily win my vote for "favorites", but I think the other two pilots are kinda lackluster. Fluttershy's OPG is nice and her drawback works better now that there isn't another pilot with a "worse at piloting" drawback, but her static is limited to the point of uselessness if it only applies on her turn and still pretty bad if it applies to every turn; Rainbow's drawback isn't much of a drawback at all, since if there aren't Cylon ships on the board you usually have better things to do than launch in a Viper and wait for them. Maaaaybe Applejack could use some touching up too, but I'm iffy on that. Do you agree, or think we should give them another try as-is?

Also also, since it came up in the current game and is a rules question and not strategy discussion: when you pick a new character after you're executed, you get use of the new character's OPG only if you didn't use your last character's OPG. You also lose your new character's OPG if your new character is Baltar and it is after the Sleeper Agent phase because it's too late to deal him his extra loyalty card, but that doesn't come up very often.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:27 pm

Hmm, I didn't see anywhere in the rules where it specifically addressed OPGs and executions, but I read the Balthar ruling as though it gave you a fresh character. It probably wouldn't hurt to house rule that if it isn't set in stone. Do you have a page number for where its in the rules? If so, another "worst gm ever post" will be incoming. If not, we'll house rule it in the next game.

As things stand right now id like to test out Celestia and Ditzy Doo as they currently stand for the next game (assuming someone plays them) and see what's weak / op in a playthrough. I think we've got them pretty well balanced.

It might not hurt to go over Dash at some point in the future. Maybe AJ as well since I haven't seen anyone grab her yet.

Next step is to work up the Pony-Lon leaders.

Lets focus on the three already written up so far and see what we can do with them.

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:31 pm

Pegasus rulebook, page 12, it's part of the execution rules.

"The player then chooses a new character, placing that
character in his starting location. He may choose any
character without regard to character type, excluding
Cylon Leaders (however, the player should consider the
identities of known humans and suspected Cylons when
selecting his character).
If the player has already used his character’s once-per
game ability, the new character’s once-per-game ability
will not be available for use. Each player only gets to use
one once-per-game ability, regardless of the number of
characters he plays."

You're not the worst GM ever though, there's just a lot of rules to keep track of. I certainly could never run a game as well as you even if I remember the rules better because I'm about a hundred times less reliable.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 4:45 pm

Damn, didn't even see that paragraph.

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Wed Nov 23, 2011 8:53 pm

To work on the Cylon Leaders more, we need a solid deck of Agendas. We'll have to make more anyway to replace absolute stinkers like Join The Colonials and Mutual Annihilation and I would like to make enough to have 9 in each deck instead of 6, and not ONLY because I think Discord's "What Fun Is There In Making Sense?" drawback would be awesome. I did find a list of the existing Agendas, and they are, with my commentary:

Hostile: Genocide
The Cylons have won. and Both food and population are at 2 or lower.
Comment: Requiring the CL to focus on bringing two resources down seems like a good choice for a Hostile Agenda as it has them focus on harming humans but they have to grant a small reprieve by spreading their efforts out instead of focusing on one thing to tank, but the problem is that CLs have little to no way of affecting Food resources, so their victory condition is out of their hands. Change to Morale, which they have an easier time of messing with, and I think this could work. Keep, modified.

Hostile: Reduce Them to Ruins
The Cylons have won. and 4 or more Galactica and/or Pegasus locations are damaged. and Morale is at 3 or lower.
Comment: Requires hostile actions, but split over multiple avenues, like the previous one. Assuming that CLs are always played with Pegasus, and I think they are, seems fine to me. Keep.

Hostile: Show Their True Nature
The Cylons have won. and Either you are in the "Brig" or "Detention" or you have been executed at least once.
Comment: Way too easy, doesn't require you to do anything even slightly helpful to the humans, frustrating that once you start infiltrating the only way the humans have of stopping you from completely screwing everything up is what fulfills your goal. Where's the downside? This could actually be more interesting if it was a "humans win" agenda that required the brigging or execution be at human hands, though I don't know if that would be better sympathetic or hostile. Cut.

Hostile: Siege Warfare
The Cylons have won. and Every resource is half or lower (in the red).
Comment: You can do this without even trying; you don't need to split your effort all that much unless the humans have everything align against them and get totally steamrolled. I would make it "every resource is at 4 or lower", that seems to require more splitting effort, and you have to go more ways but not push as hard in any of them. Requires Food to be lowered, but I think 4 food is doable even without ability to directly affect it just by letting the game go long enough for the -food crises to come up and/or the -food civilian ships and damage tokens to be hit. Keep, modified.

Hostile: Grant Mercy
The humans have won. and Population, morale, or food is at 2 or lower.
Comment: I like it. It requires you to do severe harm to the humans even though you want them to win, which is good for a hostile agenda, but it's still doable. Keep.

Hostile: Mutual Annihilation
The humans have won. and You have played a Super Crisis Card.
Comment: Awful. SCCs are hard to get past, yes, but after you played one (and you can play it when things are calm and the humans can best deal with it), you're just a human player, and since this is a hostile agenda, that means there's only going to be one actual Cylon and 4 humans in a 5 player game, or 2 Cylons and 5 humans in a 7-player game -- the humans are going to steamroll. Either cut, or make it require far more hostile action.

Sympathetic: Convert the Infidels
The humans have won. and All resources are at 3 or lower.
Comment: This makes no sense as a Sympathetic agenda (which should focus more heavily on helping the humans) that requires more ass-kicking of the human side than the Siege Warfare Hostile agenda. I would bump to "4 or lower" like that agenda; with 18 agendas we're inevitably going to have some overlap anyway. Also, for pony-appropriateness, I would change the name to "Live On In Infamy". Keep, modified.

Sympathetic: Guide Them to Destiny
The humans have won. and Population and morale values are within 2 of each other.
Comment: Since raising those values is a lot harder than lowering them, this agenda means that you want the humans to win, but if their population or morale drops too low, then you have to drop the other one to keep it in sync. That's good tension to have in an agenda. Keep.

Sympathetic: Join the Colonials
The humans have won. and You are Infiltrating and not in the "Brig" or "Detention."
Comment: Terrible. Requires no hostile action whatsoever and may as well read "You are a human player." Defeats the entire purpose of having an Agenda. Cut.

Sympathetic: Prove Their Worth
The humans have won. and At least 5 raptors/vipers are damaged or destroyed.
Comment: I like it. Help the humans out, but trip them up if they are getting by without enough of a fight, this is what agendas should be like. Keep.

Sympathetic: Salvage Equipment
The Cylons have won. and 2 or fewer Galactica locations are damaged.
Comment: How good this is depends on how often Cylons win by blowing up Galactica. In my group, it happens rarely to never, but my group may not be typical, so I will withhold judgment.

Sympathetic - The Illusion of Hope
The Cylons have won. and 6 or more units of distance have been traveled.
Comment: Almost every game makes it to 6 distance, so just like Siege Warfare, this is a "you don't have to do anything to help the humans unless they are getting totally steamrolled", only this is a lot worse because it's a Sympathetic agenda; having an equal number of Cylon and human players means they are more likely to get steamrolled and force you to hold back but that's just not enough of a drawback. Since different destination cards have different total distance traveled to win (New Caprica has 7, the hypothetical season 4 expansion isn't out yet), I would change this to be "the human fleet was one jump from victory", that requires more work to pull off. Keep, modified.

So of a quota of 9 hostile and 9 sympathetic, after tweaking existing ones we have 4 or 5 (depending on if we can fix Mutual Annihilation) good Hostile and 3 or 4 (depending on Salvage) good Sympathetic, at least in my opinion. That's about 10 new Agendas that need to be made, though some of them can be made out of old ones with the sides or sympathetic/hostile alignment switched. I had some ideas kicking around, though for most of them I don't know if they'd be better Hostile or Sympathetic and would likely require minor tweaking to fit them better in whatever deck they are chosen for. How are these for a start:

Learn from Remorse
The humans have won. and You are in the Brig or have been executed at least once.
(There would either have to be some other agenda in the same deck that was pro-Ponylon and required a brigging or execution but was harder to pull off than Show Their True Nature, or this Agenda would have to say "and You never asked to be brigged or executed", which seems clunky and hard to enforce even if it is in the spirit of things. It doesn't have to specify Detention because if the ponies win and you were in Detention, you got executed anyway.)

Surgical Strike
The Cylons have won. and At least two resources are at half or more of their starting value ("in the green").

Thin The Herd
The humans have won. and Either two or more human characters have been executed, or one human character has been executed and the Pegasus or Colonial One has been destroyed.

Sympathetic: Fix a Broken Heart
The humans have won. and You have been targeted by the action "Executive Order" at least twice.
(This doesn't require you to work to hurt the ponies per se, but you have to convince the ponies to do something incredibly risky by trusting you. It would be even riskier as a Hostile agenda, but once you proved trustworthy you'd essentially be a pony player and have the same problems as Mutual Annihilation. It likely requires another harmful condition even as a Sympathetic, or the existence of the next agenda.)

Sympathetic: Crushing Betrayal
The Cylons have won. and You have been targeted by the action "Executive Order" at least twice.
(Requires you to have helped the humans enough that they are willing to XO you, and forces your undermining to be subtle until they've placed trust in you. The existence of both Fix A Broken Heart and Crushing Betrayal would make them both more interesting and engaging, I think, but may also end up frustrating for the players if they feel like the existence of both agendas means CLs can't do enough to convince the other players to trust them and ponies never have enough information to make a decision.)

Sympathetic: Absolute Superiority
The Cylons have won. and Morale, Population and Fuel are at 3 or lower. and There are 4 or more damage tokens on Galactica and Pegasus. and Either a human character has been executed or a Centurion boarded Galactica.
(Totally hostile, but requires a lot of legwork to make up for it. I like the idea of a pro-Ponylon sympathetic that requires you to do a bit of every possible victory condition, but it's in all likelihood too hard to pull off, and if toned down might just be too hard on the ponies.)

Sow Chaos
The humans have won. and The Admiral and President titles have changed hands three or more times total.
(This may be too hard to affect, but I hope not, because I really, really like the idea behind it.)

Hostile: Mutual Annihilation
The humans have won. and You have played a Super Crisis Card. and You have destroyed three or more civilian ships by activating the "Cylon Fleet" location.

That's 8 of 10, and I don't expect all of them to be usable, but it's a start and this post is too long anyway.

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Sun Nov 27, 2011 7:15 pm

Anyone? Anyone? Bueller?

Well maybe to keep things moving I should touch up someone else. I said I didn't like where the other two pilots were at, though Fluttershy was different when I looked (maybe I looked at the wrong thread) and Applejack might need some changes, so, why don't I do those, if everyone is just intimidated by a big wall of text on Cylon agendas?

As I said, Fluttershy was totally different the last time I looked at her and called her unsatisfactory; her static was the "ditch 2 to get someone out of sickbay when they go there on your turn" and her OPG was "cancel the activation of a location". Her new static is much better than the old one, although the cards are Treachery, not Treason, and it technically isn't as good as the CMC's static -- that's okay, I think, and not exactly unheard of. Her OPG should go back to the old "cancel a location activation" though, since counter-nuke isn't something that can be used as a soft reveal, and I think the choice of when to cancel a location is a more interesting one. Her drawback is fine.

Rainbow Dash's static is a cool idea, but I am worried it might not work overall, or not be powerful enough. It helps make it certain what team you are on (and lets you get away with more if you are dealt a Cylon loyalty as your first card), but doesn't do a whole lot to help that team out over the course of the game. And what happens if you pick Rainbow Dash as a new character after someone gets executed post-Sleeper? We've had a character who doesn't have a drawback post-Sleeper, but RD wouldn't have a static ability! It might be appropriate to make her static a two-part ability, with "You cannot gain extra loyalty cards after the game begins" (to prevent you from being given more by cylon reveals and fulfilling personal goals, which would defeat the purpose) coupled with another, relatively minor ability. Or, if we can't make that work, scrap it all and give her Apollo's Alert Viper Pilot static. That could work for Dash too. Sonic Rainboom looking at three civs and escorting one also seems lackluster, especially with Exodus in play. If we aren't too worried about things being repeats of abilities from BSG, Sonic Rainboom could be like Kat's "Sacrifice" ability (she goes to sickbay afterward because she's exhausted), or we could make it something similar but not identical -- she moves to an area and makes an attack against everything there instead of auto-destroying a fixed number of ships already at her location, or pops a civilian ship? And her drawback seems not very big, and though that fits her static and OPG also not being very big, we should probably make her more exciting. So, to summarize:

Rainbow Dash (LEA 1 - TAC 2 - PIL 2) Setup: FOXTROT

Option A1: Loyalty -- You do not draw and cannot be given loyalty cards after the game begins. When you move from a space area with unmanned Vipers, you may bring one of them with you.

Option B1: Aspiring Wonderbolt -- When a Viper is placed in a space area from the Reserves, you may choose to pilot it and take 1 action. You may only do this when you are on a Galactica location, excluding the Brig.

Option A2: Sonic Rainboom -- Action: Once per game while piloting a Viper, move to any space area and either make a normal attack on every Cylon ship there, or destroy one civilian ship there.

Option B2: Sonic Rainboom -- Action: Once per game while piloting a Viper, send yourself to "Sickbay" to destroy 5 raiders, 2 heavy raiders, 1 basestar, or 1 civilian ship in your space area.
(probably not to be used with Aspiring Wonderbolt, makes it too easy to get out of sickbay afterwards)

Option A3: Slacker -- Your maximum hand size is 8 instead of 10.

Option B3: Impulsive -- While you are not in the Brig, you cannot contribute exactly one card to skill checks. You must either contribute zero, or two or more.

Applejack has a good static (those are okay to be pro-human) and a good drawback, but her OPG is lackluster, and I think her skill draw needs more than one ENG. An OPG that gave her two turns in a row might work, it seems like Cavil's way-too-good OPG at first blush but isn't as powerful for a human player in any case and as a Cylon you'd have to reveal on your first turn and then Cylon it up on your bonus one, which just emulates you getting XOd and I think is fine since her static makes it harder to be a Cylon anyway. There is also another way we could go with her if we want, since we have a couple characters that snort up skill cards like coke, we might need someone whose job it is to generate more skill cards with more than just the OPG. So, instead of interchangeable A and B options, this one has linked Dependable and Hard-Working options, as each set makes her a different character.

Applejack (TAC 3, LEA/ENG 2) Setup: Weapons Control

Dependable: Honesty -- During your turn, cards are played into skill checks face up.

Hard-Working: Honest Work -- Movement: Draw a card, or choose a character at your location to draw a card of your choice.

Dependable: Applebuck Season -- Once per game, take an additional turn after this one and skip the Draw Crisis step of this turn. You may only use this ability at the beginning of your turn.

Hard-Working: Element of Honesty -- Once per game when a skill check is made, all cards (including destiny) are played into it face-up and players play cards into it in the order of your choosing.

But Still Only One Pony -- When a Skill Check is chosen on a decision crisis, you must play at least one card into it.

How do those sound? Other than these guys, I like where all the other characters are at right now.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Sun Nov 27, 2011 8:40 pm

Sorry, been a bit busy and haven't really had time to go over the previous massive effort post (seriously you're rocking and rolling here) between Thanksgiving and time working at the station and oh god where is all my free time. :gonkity:

Going to effortpost reply myself in a bit here. Just give me a bit.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:40 pm

All right, here's what I'm thinking for the 9 Pony-lon Leader Agendas:

HOSTILE

Genocide - Pony-lon victory - Ponies have 2 or less Population and Moral.

Reduce them to Ruins - Pony-lon victory - Ponies have 4 locations damaged at end of game, and 3 or less Moral.

Attone for your Crimes - Pony Victory - You must have been brigged or executed at some point and 3+ civilians must be destroyed.
- This is the changed "Show Their True Nature". I think it could work out this way.

Siege Warfare - Pony-lon Victory - All resources at 4 or less.

Grant Mercy - Pony Victory - Pop, Moral, Food at 2 or less.

Thin the Herd - Pony Victory - There must be at least 2 Executions of Ponies or 1 Execution of a Pony and either Pegasus or Colonial One is destroyed.
- Alternative names - "Power Vacuum" or "Regime Change"

Surgical Strike - Pony-lon Victory - 2 resources at 50% or greater.

Mutual Annihilation - Pony Victory - SCC must be played, 3+ Civilians destroyed, 1+ Basestars must be destroyed.
- (Added basestars as a option for destruction to up the difficulty slightly)

Toaster Boat - Pony Victory - At least 2 Ponies must end the game in the brig, and you must be infiltrating.
- My own idea. I always love Toasterboat games, where cylons are the only players outside of the brig.

Sympathetic

Live on in Infamy - Pony Victory - All resources at 3 or less.

Guide to Destiny - Pony Victory - Population and Moral must be within 2.

Prove Their Worth - Pony Victory - 5 Raptors / Vipers must be damaged / destroyed.

Salvage Equipment - Pony-lon Victory - 2 or less damage to Equestria.

Illusion of Hope - Pony-lon Victory - Ponies must be one jump from victory (distance 8)

Fix a Broken Heart - Pony Victory - You must be XO'd at least twice during the game.

Crushing Betrayal - Pony-lon Victory - You must be XO'd at least twice during the game.
- I'm not sure how well these will work, but we should give them a try.

Absolute Superiority - Pony-lon Victory - 3 or less Moral, Pop, and Fuel. 4+ damage to Equestria and Pegasus and at least 1 Centurion on the boarding track.

Gain Political Influence - Pony Victory - The titles for Admiral, President and CAG must change hands at least 1 time per game based on you activating Admirals Quarters and Administration.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Sun Nov 27, 2011 9:59 pm

Applejack (TAC 2, ENG 1, LEA/ENG 2) Setup: Weapons Control

Honest Work -- Movement: Draw a card, or choose a character at your location to draw a card of your choice.

Applebuck Season -- Once per game, take an additional turn after this one and skip the Draw Crisis step of this turn. You may only use this ability at the beginning of your turn.

But Still Only One Pony -- When a Skill Check is chosen on a decision crisis, you must play at least one card into it.

- I think Applejack is getting too much TAC with your setup, the kind of draw usually reserved for someone 3 or 4 notches down on the Admiral ladder. I think this would be a better compromise, it gives her the variable LEA / ENG draw from before, but gives her more ENG to cement her place as the primary "support" character. I also like the card generator role with "Hard Work", but I don't like the idea of giving her a "all cards face up" for her OPG - that's the equivalent of a single POL card. I think Applebuck season is a bit more special, and works with doubling the "Honest Work".

Rainbow Dash (LEA 1 - TAC 2 - PIL 2) Setup: FOXTROT

Aspiring Wonderbolt -- When a Viper is placed in a space area from the Reserves, you may choose to pilot it and take 1 action. You may only do this when you are on a Galactica location, excluding the Brig.

Sonic Rainboom -- Action: Once per game while piloting a Viper, move to any space area and either make a normal attack on every Cylon ship there, or destroy one civilian ship there.

Slacker -- Your maximum hand size is 8 instead of 10.

- I really like this setup the best. I'm a big fan of the AVP for Apollo and I think thematically it fits with Rainbow Dash. I thought though that AVP didn't give a free action, just a launch into space?

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Sun Nov 27, 2011 10:29 pm

Val Helmethead wrote:- I think Applejack is getting too much TAC with your setup, the kind of draw usually reserved for someone 3 or 4 notches down on the Admiral ladder. I think this would be a better compromise, it gives her the variable LEA / ENG draw from before, but gives her more ENG to cement her place as the primary "support" character. I also like the card generator role with "Hard Work", but I don't like the idea of giving her a "all cards face up" for her OPG - that's the equivalent of a single POL card. I think Applebuck season is a bit more special, and works with doubling the "Honest Work".

Well, her OPG isn't JUST all card face up, but everyone plays to them in the order you choose -- so you make whoever's side you aren't on go first, and yourself (or someone on your team with more cards) last, and know exactly how many cards you need to play to get the result you need. I modeled it after Caprica Six's OPG... but if you didn't get it right away, that's probably a sign it's complicated and counterintuitive, so let's go with Applebuck Season anyway. More ENG and less TAC fits as well.

- I really like this setup the best. I'm a big fan of the AVP for Apollo and I think thematically it fits with Rainbow Dash. I thought though that AVP didn't give a free action, just a launch into space?

Nope, free action too.

That looks like a good list of Agendas to give a whirl, but the modified Mutual Annihilation said you had to pop civilians by activating Cylon Fleet, so you had to do it yourself instead of getting credit when civs are destroyed anyway -- but 3 is a lot, so how about we cut it down to 2 that you kill yourself? I like requiring the Basetsar destruction, since most of the time they just get jumped away from, now you have to delay the humans long enough to fight them. And Political Influence can't require CAG, since that's only in Exodus, and you can't activate a location to give it to someone anyway; I had phrased it as just "changing hands" in case you cast suspicion on the President or Admiral and the humans do your work for you (and since it isn't productive to shuffle titles around a lot, that isn't something they will do just to give you your victory condition). Other than that, seems ready to give it a try, and Toaster Boat is hilarious.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Sun Nov 27, 2011 10:40 pm

Huitzil wrote: Well, her OPG isn't JUST all card face up, but everyone plays to them in the order you choose -- so you make whoever's side you aren't on go first, and yourself (or someone on your team with more cards) last, and know exactly how many cards you need to play to get the result you need. I modeled it after Caprica Six's OPG... but if you didn't get it right away, that's probably a sign it's complicated and counterintuitive, so let's go with Applebuck Season anyway. More ENG and less TAC fits as well.

Yeah, but I don't think mandating the play order really is much of a OPG worthy boost.

Nope, free action too.

That looks like a good list of Agendas to give a whirl, but the modified Mutual Annihilation said you had to pop civilians by activating Cylon Fleet, so you had to do it yourself instead of getting credit when civs are destroyed anyway -- but 3 is a lot, so how about we cut it down to 2 that you kill yourself? I like requiring the Basetsar destruction, since most of the time they just get jumped away from, now you have to delay the humans long enough to fight them. And Political Influence can't require CAG, since that's only in Exodus, and you can't activate a location to give it to someone anyway; I had phrased it as just "changing hands" in case you cast suspicion on the President or Admiral and the humans do your work for you (and since it isn't productive to shuffle titles around a lot, that isn't something they will do just to give you your victory condition). Other than that, seems ready to give it a try, and Toaster Boat is hilarious.

2 that you kill yourself sounds good. As for Political Influence, it should be that YOU need to activate the AQ to brig the Admiral. I could see dropping the CAG though, or have it just read "you must force a transfer of titles through the activation of the AQ and Admin for every title at least once".

And yes, Toasterboat is always hilarious. Especially when you're Admiral Toaster 1 and the President is President Toaster 2 and all the humans are your special brig guests.

(?) · by **Huitzil** (?) » Mon Nov 28, 2011 5:03 am

Wait, derr, we can't use those agenda decks deck, because the proportions are off -- both of them have 5 Humans Win and 4 Cylons Win agendas, but it needs to be 6-3 in favor of Humans Win in Sympathetic and 6-3 in favor of Cylons in Hostile. For now, let's swap Atone For Your Sins (doesn't require a whole lot of hostility) and Absolute Superiority so at least the Sympathetic deck is the right ratio, so I can run a game in IRC with six players and test it out while we think of more Cylons Win agendas.

(?) · by **Val Helmethead** (?) » Tue Nov 29, 2011 3:08 am

Let's talk Pony-lon Leaders! I really don't know anything that isn't FiM, so I don't really want to talk about non-FiM enemies.

Discord - Cylon Leader (1 TRE/ENG) Setup: Caprica

Chaos Is A Wonderful Thing - At the start of your turn, choose a player. Draw a card at random from their hand and add it to yours. If you are infiltrating, draw a second card from their hand. That player then draws to replace the cards they gave you.

You've Been Kind For Far Too Long - Once per game, copy the "once per game" ability of any other character in play, and perform it as if it had been printed on this character sheet.

What Fun Is There In Making Sense? - At the end of the game, the losing side (Human or Cylon) must guess what your Primary Agenda was. If they guessed correctly, discard it and draw a new Agenda

Nightmare Moon (1 POL, 1 TRE/ENG) Setup: Human Fleet

Eclipse - Movement: Draw the top two cards of the Destiny Deck, then place two cards from your hand on top of the Destiny Deck.

The Night Will Last Forever - Action: Once per game, choose another player. Skip that player's next turn entirely.

Lonely And Resentful - If a Crisis Card would force you to discard two or more skill cards while you are not Infiltrating, discard one card instead of ignoring it entirely. If a Crisis Card would force you to discard skill cards while you are Infiltrating, they are discarded at random.

Diamond Dogs (1 LEA, 1 TRE/ENG) Setup: Cylon Fleet

Finding Gems - Movement - While infiltrating, draw the top two crisis cards. Put on at the top of the crisis deck, and bury the other.

Forced Labor - Action - Once Per Game, force another player to give you their hand of skill cards.

"Thiiiiiiiiiiiis is Whiiiiiiiiiiiiiining" - POL counts as positive during skill attempts to brig or execute you.

The Round Stable

[BSE] YOU DON'T FOOL ME RARI-BOT!

[BSE] YOU DON'T FOOL ME RARI-BOT!

Who is online