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

[Val HelmetheadDamn it, fire hose doesn't work that way!]

If you end your movement in the same location as another pony, choose one pony at that location to draw (1? 2?) card(s?)

[Huitzil]

Also if we are looking at final versions - I'd suggest Honest Work be changed to function at the end of AJ's movement phase, similar to Ellen.

That lets her follow someone on a useful location, then on that person's turn they can hop about while AJ mans the guns, so to speak.

As is I feel - particularly in 5 player games - like she has too much incentive to never move and her static becomes just 'Draw 6 cards/turn' which isn't all that interesting.

I am assuming that this would also mean Honest Work only draws a card for the other character and not herself?

That's a good idea, I like it.

[Dexanth]

Well, it would be something like :

If you end your movement step in a location containing another player, draw a skill card and then choose one other player to draw a skill card from within your skillset.

Basically it is a twist on Ellen Tigh.

[Val HelmetheadDamn it, fire hose doesn't work that way!]

Here's a thought for Big Macintosh - what if we switched his draw static to "skill checks you participated in". If he throws in he gets to draw again fro Eeyup, if he doesn't throw in he doesn't get to fill his hand for free.

[W.T. FitsSpoilers, you say? Well, in that case, I suppose I should avert my eyes.]

Here's a thought for Big Macintosh - what if we switched his draw static to "skill checks you participated in". If he throws in he gets to draw again fro Eeyup, if he doesn't throw in he doesn't get to fill his hand for free.

Honestly, I've been wondering why it didn't work like this to begin with. I just never got around to mentioning it in here because I'm easily distracted.

[Dexanth]

That makes sense. As is he's like a strat planning powerhouse.

[Ashenai You're dorkin' up the skies, Twilight Sparkle.]

The ability feels absurdly powerful. I think it still might be overpowered even with the change, but it's definitely a step in the right direction.

Also, this partially fixes the problem of his ability scaling with game size: as is, the more players a game has, the more cards Bic Mac draws every turn cycle.

edit: and I just realized that the change would thematically match Applejack's drawback, which is pretty cool

[Val HelmetheadDamn it, fire hose doesn't work that way!]

I was also wondering, with Big Macintosh being a TAC drawing machine...

Doesn't Add Up - You cannot use skill cards to modify your own dice rolls.

[Huitzil]

Well, it would be something like :

If you end your movement step in a location containing another player, draw a skill card and then choose one other player to draw a skill card from within your skillset.

Basically it is a twist on Ellen Tigh.

But that nets 2 extra cards and she isn't down anything if she doesn't use it (unlike ellen).

What if it was "If you end your movement step in the same location as another character, you may give a skill card from your hand to that character's player, then draw a card from within that character's skillset to replace it."

Big Macintosh is drawing 5 cards as his standard draw in Val's game, and I have him as having 4. He appears to be getting 2-3 extra cards per full turn (as in all 5 players going) , which puts him at +1 or +2, but not a whole lot of special action required above and beyond what he does anyway to meet his conditional -- so I support changing his static to only pull from checks he played in to. Val's idea for a drawback also seems better than his current one.

[Dexanth]

Her drawback is arguably where she ends up 'down' so to speak.

[Huitzil]

Her drawback is arguably where she ends up 'down' so to speak.

Your drawback often ends up with you being down cards even if your static doesn't give them to you. I suppose other drawbacks are mitigated by being preventable, whereas you're going to be picking skill checks on crisis cards some timesd and that's that; but often when she's playing into said check it's what she wanted to do anyway.

[Dexanth]

Often, yes - but the one thing to take into account about AJ relative to Ellen is the reason Ellen can so easily move from point to point is she draws so much LEA she can usually always XO.

AJ is a support character - she's facing the pressure between 'use her static' and 'go repair something' - in that regard, I don't have a problem with her static being out and out 'stronger' in many ways than Ellen, since she can't afford to as easily chase other ponies about.

[PingcodePinkie! Stop ringing the @$#! service bell!]

Often, yes - but the one thing to take into account about AJ relative to Ellen is the reason Ellen can so easily move from point to point is she draws so much LEA she can usually always XO.

AJ is a support character - she's facing the pressure between 'use her static' and 'go repair something' - in that regard, I don't have a problem with her static being out and out 'stronger' in many ways than Ellen, since she can't afford to as easily chase other ponies about.

Quick point here - Applejack can match Ellen draw for draw on leadership. She gets a 2 LEA/ENG draw, so in theory she can play Ellen. The only difference is that AJ is designated support, while Ellen is on the bottom of the politician pile.

It could be a problem, but at the same time I can't see anything in AJ's ability setup that I'd want to strip out. As a possible patch, it may be worth locking in one of the LEA/ENG draws into a straight ENG draw.

[Dexanth]

Ellen can pull up to 4 LEA/turn. AJ can too, I suppose, if she is having a pony without LEA draw it - except we have very few of those, and unlike Ellen AJ can't just hand off guaranteed XOs.

What makes Ellen amazing is she can walk somewhere, hand off an XO, and draw 2 more LEA - and with a 4 LEA draw, she'll be able to do this way more often than not. AJ is much less reliable in that regard, and again, unlike Ellen as a support character she also has the impetus of wanting to be around repairing stuff.

So really...I don't see any reason not to have Honest Work be at end of movement!

[Dexanth]

I was browsing the Reddit MLP stuff and came across this :

http://imgur.com/a/jUpxN

It seems someone else has gone ahead and created a full set of Pony.

Some (Pinkie Pie, Celestia) actually look kind of cool.

Others (AJ, Fluttershy, and Cadance) appear hilariously overpowered.

AJ is my personal favorite for bad design since her drawback is 'If you are pony-aligned, this is actually an advantage'.

[Huitzil]

Oh I'm fine with Honest Work becoming end of movement (or "beginning or end of movement"), it's just how many extra cards it oughta give.

Also some of those abilities are pretty interesting, but dear Cylon God, some of it is terrible. Especially the ones that assume you're going to be playing with the Ionian Nebula.

[Bremen]

I think we should give Chrysalis that OPG.

Overall I like our characters better though; more flavor and a bit better balanced as well.

Actually... there's several abilities I like better. If the author's okay with it, I think we might consider mixing and matching.

Chrysalis OPG: Mind Control - Action: Once per game, choose another character. You may move that character and take any action that they would be able to (apart from using Once per game Abilities)

Ditzy drawback: I Just don't know what went wrong - When your viper is damaged, damage Galactica

Discard OPG: Chaos Capital of Equestria - Action: Once per game, you may shuffle all players hands of skill cards together and deal them back to each player until they are at their original hand size
(Not sure how this would work with deck manager)

[PingcodePinkie! Stop ringing the @$#! service bell!]

There really are some nice ideas in amongst the aughbroken ones.

- Ditzy Drawback - I can't help but think this is too destructive for Ditzy's static (inc. our current Ditzy static). Perhaps take this drawback and turn Always in the Strangest Places into a Move/Action?

- As far as Discord's ultrachaos OPG goes, it should be possible, considering Ellen's static involves giving other players her cards.

---

Hm. When it comes to AJ, I think a large draw from her static isn't necessarily a bad thing - it forms a nice mechanical theme linking the Apples, with them having more endurance in general (from more cards) that suits their in character role as the backbone of Ponyville's food supplies.

[Bremen]

There really are some nice ideas in amongst the aughbroken ones.

- Ditzy Drawback - I can't help but think this is too destructive for Ditzy's static (inc. our current Ditzy static). Perhaps take this drawback and turn Always in the Strangest Places into a Move/Action?

As in, she can use it as either movement or an action? That would be nice; it would give her great mobility when XO'd. If no one things it's overdoing things, I think that sounds good.

[Huitzil]

There really are some nice ideas in amongst the aughbroken ones.

- Ditzy Drawback - I can't help but think this is too destructive for Ditzy's static (inc. our current Ditzy static). Perhaps take this drawback and turn Always in the Strangest Places into a Move/Action?

- As far as Discord's ultrachaos OPG goes, it should be possible, considering Ellen's static involves giving other players her cards.

Oh, it is mechnically possible even if a pain in the ass. I think it's just too good. I mean I was unwilling to give DT & SS a OPG that looked at everyone's hands because of how much it could tell them about loyalties, and Discord can do that and give out all the high-value cards to the ones on his side and all the lows to those against him?

[PingcodePinkie! Stop ringing the @$#! service bell!]

Oh, it is mechnically possible even if a pain in the ass. I think it's just too good. I mean I was unwilling to give DT & SS a OPG that looked at everyone's hands because of how much it could tell them about loyalties, and Discord can do that and give out all the high-value cards to the ones on his side and all the lows to those against him?

Actually, he just randomises. He doesn't get to look at them. It may well be too weak, in fact, since he has no way of controlling its value as an OPG.

[Bremen]

Actually, he just randomises. He doesn't get to look at them. It may well be too weak, in fact, since he has no way of controlling its value as an OPG.

Yeah. Particularly if he has one of the more sympathetic agendas its not very powerful as a OPG, since he can't do a lot to control it. But it would be awesome for sowing chaos right after the sleeper phase

[Huitzil]

Actually, he just randomises. He doesn't get to look at them. It may well be too weak, in fact, since he has no way of controlling its value as an OPG.

Oh, hell, if he has no control over it then it's garbage.

[PingcodePinkie! Stop ringing the @$#! service bell!]

One idea might be for him to rebalance all the hands, but that's basically unusable in a sympathetic manner. Another is forcing players to swap hands, which while I have this lovely mental image of him redirecting them it doesn't seem that useful overall.

It is, sadly, a logistical nightmare to handle no matter which way you cut it.

Crazy idea: Pick any two players (can include yourself). Until the end of your next turn, each player controls the other players' character.

Alternately: Shuffle the in-play character cards. Deal one to each player. That player controls that character until the end of your next turn.

[Bremen]

Eh, not really fitting for Discord I think.

[PingcodePinkie! Stop ringing the @$#! service bell!]

But think of all the chaos!

(Think of all the :godna:)

[Tzar469"A thrilling time is in your immediate future."]

How about everyone discards all their skill cards and draws as many cards they discarded from only outside their skillset? Or maybe drawing randomly?

[Huitzil]

How about everyone discards all their skill cards and draws as many cards they discarded from only outside their skillset? Or maybe drawing randomly?

How does Discord doing that help him achieve his goal? It'd be fine if we were assured Discord's goal was "make everything confusing and random", but it isn't, he draws from the same 12 goals as other CLs.

[Bremen]

How about everyone discards all their skill cards and draws as many cards they discarded from only outside their skillset? Or maybe drawing randomly?

That would be easier organization wise, I guess, but it doesn't really address the usefulness of the ability.

It'll cause chaos, certainly, and used properly it can help the ponylons; maximum firepower in the hands of politicians, hard to trace skill check sabotage, etc. But if Discord is actually trying to help the ponies win it's fairly useless. I'm trying to think of a way to make it helpful in that situation.

[PingcodePinkie! Stop ringing the @$#! service bell!]

Possible patch - All players discard their hands. Roll a number of dice equal to the number of players, and assign them at your discretion, one to a player. Each player draws that many cards at random.

[Dexanth]

I really like his existing OPG, myself.

And honestly, I'm leery of porting any of them, if only because...I find it fun coming up with our own. There's a neat idea or two in there, sure - Chrysalis OPG, Derpy drawback and Pinkie Sense are what most come to mind - and a fun one or two like Celestia's drawback, but nothign that says OH YES USE ME.

[Val HelmetheadDamn it, fire hose doesn't work that way!]

See, what we should do is find this guy and get him to come here and chat with us about balancing.

[Ashenai You're dorkin' up the skies, Twilight Sparkle.]

I sent him a message (I can't believe I made a Reddit account just to do that) and linked him to this thread. Maybe he'll join us!

[ClankersGonnaClankKeep on clanking.]

I sent him a message (I can't believe I made a Reddit account just to do that) and linked him to this thread. Maybe he'll join us!

As you can surmise, I took Ashenai up on his offer. I'd love to hear your thoughts on balancing (I've also enlisted the help of BoardGameGeek in this endeavor). One thing to note is that I'd like to avoid duplicating any previously existing abilities in the base set of characters.

I've played a fair number of games using these characters and as of late we haven't had any issues with characters breaking the game. However, a member of BGG has taken issues with some of the Pilot characters, so I'm currently adjusting them.

By the way, I love the Sweetie Bot reference in the title of this thread. She truly is best sentient biological life-form.

Others (AJ, Fluttershy, and Cadance) appear hilariously overpowered.

AJ is my personal favorite for bad design since her drawback is 'If you are pony-aligned, this is actually an advantage'.

Fluttershy... yeah... I don't play pilot all that frequently, so all of the pilots are kind of iffy. It also seems to be a running joke to execute Fluttershy as soon as possible in our games (stemming from an event in the first playtest) and thus I never got to see her in action really. The current revision of Fluttershy (untested) is modified in the following ways:

- Animal Companions only triggers on her turn.
- Her downside has been replaced with Easily Startled - When Raiders enter your space area, you must discard one skill card.

Is the downside the only thing you have issue with in AJ? My intention was to give her difficulty in escaping the Brig/defending against locations, I didn't consider that her ability could be a positive.

As far as the rest of Applejack goes, I haven't seen her OPT/OPG abused in any games.

What particularly about Cadance do you find issue with? I've seen her played several times and she feels very solid. BGG also seemed content with her.

Also some of those abilities are pretty interesting, but dear Cylon God, some of it is terrible. Especially the ones that assume you're going to be playing with the Ionian Nebula.

Which abilities don't you like, apart from ones involving expansion components? (I play BSG with 4 board gaming groups, and I've never seen anything other than Ionian Nebula chosen as the destination. Since this is the only environment I play in, when designing characters, I assume that all the expansion modules are going to be in play. )

It'll cause chaos, certainly, and used properly it can help the ponylons; maximum firepower in the hands of politicians, hard to trace skill check sabotage, etc. But if Discord is actually trying to help the ponies win it's fairly useless. I'm trying to think of a way to make it helpful in that situation.

I have seen sympathetic Discords use it to get high value skill cards out of Cylon hands after revealing. I admit though, this was somewhere where I was clearly considering theme over utility - I've been a little unsatisfied with how Cylon-heavy it is.

Possible patch - All players discard their hands. Roll a number of dice equal to the number of players, and assign them at your discretion, one to a player. Each player draws that many cards at random.

I like this idea... but how would you have players draw at random? (I can see it in online games, but I can't imagine it being anything other than a giant pain in face to face games)

Part of me wants to merge my current OPG with your suggestion - having players draw from the shuffled pool of skill cards rather than the decks. My fear there though would be that a Discord might roll several high numbers, consolidating the number of cards in one or two players' hands. (Perhaps have him go from the lowest roll to highest?)


I appreciate the feedback you guys have given me! I couldn't believe there's another group out there playing BSG with ponies, and I hope I'll get the chance to play with you guys in the future. When I have the time, I plan on going through your past game threads to see how your characters play.

[Glaed]

By the way, I love the Sweetie Bot reference in the title of this thread, by the way. She truly is best sentient biological life-form.

Yeah, and it's complete fact. Rarity has been either a ponylon or dead by the end in EVERY game she's appeared in. It's to the point that ponylon players with extra ponylon cards pass them off to her just because.

[ClankersGonnaClankKeep on clanking.]

After reading over your character list, I just wanted to say that your Discord's drawback is brilliant! I absolutely love it.

Seconded for Pinkie Pie's.

Cutie Mark Crusaders as a group character is an awesome idea too. I love their per-turn ability, it really fits them.

[Bremen]

After reading over your character list, I just wanted to say that your Discord's drawback is brilliant! I absolutely love it.

Seconded for Pinkie Pie's.

Cutie Mark Crusaders as a group character is an awesome idea too. I love their per-turn ability, it really fits them.

Heh, Discord's drawback is a lot of fun to play with, but it's been tricky balance wise. The old one let the losing team have a guess at the end of the game, but that was a problem since the only motivation was spite and they just had to pick the one that won . I don't think anyone's played Discord with the new drawback, but in theory it could be fun with both teams trying to get Discord on their side.

Agreed that treating the CMC as one characters works well. It's resulted in some awesome flavor text

[Val HelmetheadDamn it, fire hose doesn't work that way!]

After reading over your character list, I just wanted to say that your Discord's drawback is brilliant! I absolutely love it.

Seconded for Pinkie Pie's.

It's great to have you come over here to chat and share what you've already done.

We started the first game with some absolutely terrible characters, but they've slowly gotten better. We are always tweaking what we've got post-game (sometimes even during the game in preparation for the next one) - Big Macintosh, I'm looking at you!

When it came to creating characters, we haven't shied away from porting BSG statics, OPGs and drawbacks, but we do try not to copy entire characters outright.

Cutie Mark Crusaders as a group character is an awesome idea too. I love their per-turn ability, it really fits them.

At one point I asked if we wanted to expand the CMC out into specific characters. The idea got shouted down HARD.

[Huitzil]

Which abilities don't you like, apart from ones involving expansion components? (I play BSG with 4 board gaming groups, and I've never seen anything other than Ionian Nebula chosen as the destination. Since this is the only environment I play in, when designing characters, I assume that all the expansion modules are going to be in play. )

Well, in the group of players we have, we usually pick nothing but the Kobol objective. New Caprica really, really draws out the game, and the Ionian Nebula module is just too damn random. I like the idea -- there's supposed to be a tension between doing what is best for YOUR TEAM (placing trauma tokens that help your side, keeping ones that hurt it) and doing what is good for YOU (placing trauma tokens that hurt your side so you don't have them by the time of The Trial/Boxing The Line and get eliminated), and that is cool. But players, especially Cylon players, just don't have enough control over when they get to place tokens, it too often happens that allies get "stuck" on places nobody wants to go, and the Crossroads Cards kind of make managing your trauma in preparation for The Trial pointless since there can be such major swings outside your control, and plus drawing a "disaster" token and getting executed will never, ever do anything but suck.

But if you play with Ionian Nebula all the time, it makes sense to have characters interact with it. It just feels weird to me to make it one of the mane 6, for some reason. I feel like, the main cast should always be playable no matter what expansions you are using, and more obscure or supporting characters ought to have the expansion-only abilities. But that is probably just me.


The abilities I don't like in your character set? Cadance's ability makes Reckless skill checks completely drawback-free, unlike Cally Tyrol / our Trixie who lowers risk greatly but still has some; at the same time, she's less versatile because she can't take out other types of sabotaging cards. I don't think it's overpowered, but I don't like it.

Chrysalis's static isn't good because static abilities for Cylon Leaders need to be able to help or harm the humans, and most static abilities on human characters are just pro-human, so a pro-Cylon Chrysalis won't have much use for it. Plus, the wording is ambiguous, will an ability that is relevant outside of a player's turn persist after her turn ends? Her OPG is also ambiguous -- do you get to see the controlled player's hand of skill or quorum cards? You probably should, but it doesn't say. And I don't like it thematically either; she isn't able to mind control on-demand like Discord is, she has to set up and put a lot of work on a specific pony to get her hooks into 'em. Plus, her drawback only applies when she's Infiltrating, not when using the Cylon locations, which I don't think is a very good idea.

Derpy's static ability to give +1 to all attack rolls seems like more of a hindrance than an ability. You already shoot down raiders 75% of the time, and they shoot you down 50% of the time, and there are more of them -- if you give both sides +1, you're losing out in that equation. It can make it easier to hit Basestars and Heavy Raiders, but I'd rather just have a Strat Plan for +2 and not getting myself shot. "Use a nuke" probably isn't powerful enough for an OPG either, especially with a static like hers that hurts as much as / more than it helps. I do like her drawback thematically though, since I am picturing that it means when she gets shot down she smacks into Galactica every time and that is just hilarious to me.

Luna's a military leader, with a 1 PIL draw (that isn't optional), whose static only deals with her piloting. I think it's fine to give a non-pilot PIL, but they're going to be a backup flyer, and their static shouldn't be something just focusing on piloting.

Rainbow Dash's static is what we used to have for Ditzy, but we figured it was just too weak. Her ability to jump the fleet on a blue space is, I am guessing, "jump without losing population," which means she has an ability that's like a way more restrictive version of Anders's Longshot "set a die roll to any result you want" but has no corresponding increase in power. And increasing the power of that ability would probably end up in something like Helena Cain's Blind Jump, which should not happen.

Rarity's Fashion Show will seldom be worth it as human, I think, especially since she can't even pick to increase a resource other than Morale, which she could be going at with Inspirational Speeches or Eulogies anyway and NOT setting the humans further back from winning the game. It might work as an alternate version of Zarek's OPG if it allowed you to increase any resource and not just Morale. But then also, you wouldn't want to use it as a Cylon if it was your turn and you weren't brigged, because if you blow your OPG instead of revealing to lower jump prep by 1 then a Crisis comes up and it might well add that jump prep right back, and then you're back where you started only still unrevealed and have a whole jump cycle for the humans to deal with you.

Trixie (who I don't think ought to be a Cylon Leader anyway)'s static is pretty weak, since it always triggers off the player before you, it won't change at all during the game and thus you won't be able to switch around to different skill sets you need. Her OPG is an interesting idea but I'm not convinced of its use as a pro-Cylon move since usually all your sabotage won't be coming from one type and you won't have as good a grasp on what types will be used to sabotage as you will what types will try to pass.

Zecora's OPG is flat-out worse than Baltar's in every way by just looking at one loyalty card, and the "show them one of yours" is pure negative utility. If you refuse to show them a card, you indicated to everyone at the table you're a Cylon. So you can only guarantee you see someone's full loyalty if you use it pre-sleeper phase, but if you're a Cylon and use it pre-sleeper, you cannot avoid revealing yourself. The only time I can ever see that clause being useful is if A: you are a Cylon, B: you use the ability to target the other Cylon, C: you see his Cylon loyalty as the random card you select, D: You plan on doing some kind of long-term gambit where you say "He's a Cylon" instead of lying to cover your partner in crime, and show him your loyalty card so he knows what is up. I just don't see this happening nearly often enough to justify the "reveal your loyalty card" clause. I like her static, though!

Vinyl Scratch is interesting in that I think if her skill draw was anything else, she'd be unacceptably broken (Well, except if she had PIL, I guess). If she had any LEA at all, she gets free actions for handing out Executive Orders, broken as sin. If she had 2 POL, she'd be able to Consolidate Power into LEA and get XOs with too much dependability to set herself up for later turns. But with only one POL, that's not super reliable, so she's mostly playing her own skill cards for herself, not hurting the team as much with the lack of LEA since she is still getting 2 actions per turn. It just might work. Her OPG is also very interesting, and I'd have to see it in action before I commented on it, but overall I think she's one of the most cleverly done characters.

I also think your Twilight has better static and drawbacks than ours, though I'd probably make Twi's drawback kick in at the end of any turn.

[Huitzil]

Also, Dexanth, things show up in your outbox if you sent them and the recipient has not read them yet; it doesn't indicate their inbox is full, it just means they haven't read it for one reason or another and you can still edit or delete it.