Berin Kinsman

Laser Ponies is a setting for the QAGS roleplaying system, inspired by 80s cartoons. It attempts to cater to both boys and girls by incorporating elements of rainbows and friendship with action and violence. Hey, they’re ponies that shoot lasers out of their eyes! The reason for this unusual ability is explained in the backstory, a creation myth suitable for most heroic fantasy games. Nundras created fire, and used it to build the sun. The she reached into the sun and pulled out the fire of life, which she used to create the Solar Stallions. A couple of them settled on the world of Panagonia and had children, and that’s how the Laser Ponies were born. In addition to shooting lasers, they have other magical powers, and the duty to preserve life.

About a hundred years ago there was an earthquake, and from a large crack in the ground sprung forth Rhondondra, Queen of the Chasm and her horde of monsters. The Laser Ponies now do constant battle with Rhondondra to keep her from taking over the world of Panagonia.

If this isn’t brilliant enough, the illustrations were done by a kid. This game is suitable for hanging on your refrigerator.

The Hack
Now, I don’t have anything against the QAGS system. It’s a fairly light system, and it does what it does. I want to run Laser Ponies as a one-shot, so I want character creation to be fast. You generate attributes in QAGS by rolling 1d20, dividing by 2, and adding 6. No. My first thought was to just port it to Risus, which seems perfect for this setting (I actually want to stick Laser Ponies as a playable race in the Uresia game I want to run with Risus someday). A lot of the appeal of Laser Ponies is the character sheet, though. It’s got a picture of a pony on it, for you to color and decorate and customize! That’s why I don’t want to do pregenerated characters. So I have to bend Risus around to make it fit.

You get 10 dice to split between the three attributes: Body, Brains, and Nerve. You roll those for everything. You pick a job (for Laser Ponies, that’s things like babysitting and gathering plants for dinner), and add an extra die when you roll for things related to the job. You get 3 skills unrelated to the job, which add +1, +2, or +3 to your attribute roll. You get 5 dice to go into Gimmicks (including Shoot Lasers). and 5 dice in Weaknesses (to balance out the Gimmicks and give the GM story fodder). Everything else is Risus as usual.

Katie is way into playing this game. She wants to go to the dollar store and buy some My Little Pony knockoffs, and bring markers and gel pens and glitter pens to decorate both the figures and the character sheet. I’m all about props and handouts, so that sounds fun. The downside is that I feel like I need to find monster figures, maybe buy a knock-off Barbie and decorate her to look like Rhondondra, and get some creepy rubber monsters for the Laser Ponies to fight. This turns a one-shot game into a Project, which means to justify the effort it has to go into my demo game kit so I can run one-shots at game days and conventions on a whim.

Yes, I’m talking about adults doing arts and crafts and playing with toys. It’s silly, silly fun. Get over yourself. It’s going to be a blast. It’s also perfect for playing with kids, if you want.