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WhitemageofDOOM — Courage is Magic 2e
#rpg #dungeonsanddragons #mlpmylittlepony #mlpfriendshipismagic
Published: 2019-09-04 16:15:16 +0000 UTC; Views: 3160; Favourites: 63; Downloads: 257
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Description
After years of sitting in hard drives and google docs, Courage is Magic is back!
The original developer is long gone, burned everything. In a way we failed in our promise to keep working when they left, but, here it is, the fruit of three? Sweet Celestia I think it's three years of work now. Oh wait it was 5, though i guess that makes sense considering some things. Evolving and adapting out as we tried things, some good, some monumentally stupid. But it's here again, and we aren't going to vanish again, not for awhile.
Edit: I have some dev thoughts you can find next deviation over if you want to see behind the curtain into my thoughts on things and a glimpse into the changes throughout the years.
Edit: Because one of my devs asked why we don't, we have a discord! discord.gg/EbHY6Be Come on in!
Edit: A number of people have had problems with the DA link, I'm providing a back up google drive link in case you do too. drive.google.com/open?id=1OrOL…
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Comments: 24
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Newb question here: the PDF you posted seems like it has to build on top of a ruleset for game mechanics, since it's only covering races, classes, etc. - where do the mechanics come from? (our gaming group is decades old and runs on an entirely homegrown system, so I'm completely out of touch with commercial RPGs).
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This looks interesting. The art work is very nice. Unfortunately none of my friends watch MLP so I won't have anyone to play with, but I'll definitely read through what you've created when I can. I enjoy TableTop RPGs and MLP so this is nice to have. Looks like a lot of work was put into it. Thanks for your time and effort.
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Very surprised and nostalgic to see this return! I was one of the original play-testers for CiM back in late 2011, before the previous developer even started to get a team together independent from our old Steam group and just made this little system for their friends to play with. We used it for MLP roleplay for years afterwards (until early 2015), trying out the new versions and classes while offering feedback all the while, and had plenty of fun with it despite how broken it often was between versions.
I got to know the man who'd later become my boyfriend while we were both newbie players creating our first pony OCs in the initial campaign of this system, and we both ran our first online tabletop games as GMs using it. I played Loyalty, he was a Generosity, back when those classes were very different, and the rest of the party was a Kindness, an Honesty, and a class that doesn't even exist in the current version, Spirit of Companionship, which was meant for PCs who wanted to play animal sidekicks. The character I created for that very first game, Spur Bevel, is still one I often play in various incarnations to this day. I even developed a list of new potential merits and weapons for the system based on our play experience, though the only ones I made that still remain in name are "We were making a table?!" and the wingblades.
We made many lasting friendships during those games, and each campaign provided learning experiences for all of us in both playing and socializing together, getting us to come out of our shells and share our creativity. Though we've moved on to other systems and groups over the years, CiM helped awaken a love of tabletop gaming that many of the original players still hold dear. Even this far gone from its creation, it's fantastic to see that there are still people passionate about this little game to continue on with development, and I hope that many others can perhaps have of the same experiences playing it that we did all those years ago!
Though I was a friend to the original developer until they kinda scorched the earth of their online presence, they never really told me much about the team who continued work on the game after they stopped, so I was never able to keep tabs on it. I saved pretty much every old version of CiM they made for play-testing up until they stopped, so I can lend those documents to the dev team if there's interest; just send me a note, or I can post them on the Discord if you'd prefer. Not sure how helpful they'd be to anyone since the system is so different now, but it might be neat to see how the game was in its original and early forms for you all, if you don't already have them.
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It's pretty clear that 4th Edition D&D was the template from which CiM was built, especially in the previous versions. Old Loyalty used to be this AoE DPS with their lightning-aura ability that did damage to themselves as a trade off; that mechanic was really silly and busted but entertaining, resulting in a joke where my character got arrested after a battle for "illegal use of weather" after being KOed in part by her own lightning. Generosity was honestly a gimped class for a very long time, they started out as just pure support but that meant they couldn't really do anything neat themselves, so they just kinda sat around during combat buffing everyone during their turns. My favorite class in the older versions was Laughter; I love summoning mechanics in games, having minions, turrets or monsters to order around tactically on the map and do cool stuff alongside my character, so Laughter's Imaginary Friends ability was a lot of fun for me with the more comedic characters I played. Plus, some of the damage you could do with that on a lucky roll was INSANE, I believe I once did 107 damage to a single enemy by detonating all my minions and rolling a crit with two of them, stuff that almost puts a high level 5E Rogue's Sneak Attack crits to shame! I'd be happy to share what I have, so I'll hop into your Discord once I have it compiled.
Woona did eventually give the classes a pretty major overhaul every year or so, but there were still lots of balance problems they never got around to fixing, instead adding more features and saying things like "everything in the game is supposed to be broken"; Music, for example, was so broken at one point that a player in the campaign I was running in 2014 who was using that class voluntarily switched out to a different one near the climax of the game because the bonuses he'd be able to give the party were so high at 8th-9th level that even if someone rolled a Nat 1, they'd still be able to hit almost every feasible target they'd encounter, so combat became a joke. Your version does seem a lot more fleshed out than any of the ones I've seen from previous editions; perhaps I'll run a one-shot of it sometime to see how it plays whenever I finish any of the campaigns I'm currently running!
I knew Woona IRL since 2009; we were college friends who played D&D together and hung out sometimes, I was the one who actually got them into MLP. However, Woona was always kinda hard for me to understand as a person, and the last time I saw them was in late 2017, then a few months after that they nuked their online stuff without warning, cut ties with most of their old circle of friends, left every fandom I know of, and disappeared. I have a lot of respect for the effort they invested in getting this game together and forming our old group of friends; after all, if he hadn't done that, I'd have never met my boyfriend or have so many fond memories, but Woona's always been inscrutable and their actions hard to understand at times. Hopefully, they might stumble upon this continuation of their work someday and see that the passion for it lives on in good hands.
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Seems like an interesting game (I haven't heard of the game before unfortunately)! I plan on checking it out!
I also thank you for your service and work into this project, and I'm sure many will appreciate it in the future
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I hope you have as much fun making it as we are playing it!
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It's working now! Must have been my network, thanks!
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Works for me in Google Chrome, so it's likely something on your side.
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Thank you! Me and my friends are going to have some fun with this <3
Do you know of any pre-made campaigns or scenes/settings for courage is magic? I'm a first time DM and would like to have a little help to get started.
If there's nothing then i'll have to write my own story, but you know that takes a long time. (i was thinking ye olde Griffin kingdom with the Arimaspi still on the loose)
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**"I'm a huge proponent of making your own stuff, and like a lot of basic adventure rules get thrown out by the power of pony. Half your starting party probably flies frex. and at least one player is likely to have a plot merit, or the plot hammers that are Magic/Nightmares/Spiritualism/Invention.
I can include premade adventures for 1, & 4 when I do the beastiary if people want (lvl7+ characters are just too setting defining to write generic adventures for.)"**
Something small as an introductory campaign would be awesome. Just to get the hang of the rules and so before jumping into custom stuff.
I can see where you're coming from with writing while keeping in mind all possible characters... don't get me started about changelings which are basically Alicorns in disguise (no pun intended) according to the Tails of Equestria Bestiary... I do really like how you're handling them in your rulebook tho. I don't think level/abilities should be TOO much of an issue tho... In the grand scheme of things a DM can always adjust things according to the party's abilities. (For example: An Ursa Minor is OK on a level 3 adventure, but on a level 7 adventure you can upscale it to a Ursa Major... or if you need to climb a mountain you can put on strong winds or an NPC escort that's scared of heights to keep them on the given path).
I'll try to come up with some rough world/sandbox map to mess around in. I was thinking about just having some NPC's on a map and then letting people interact with them as they please. Triggering events and quest lines depending on where the party goes. (for example: the treasures of Griffinstone have been stolen and you have to retrieve all 4. But the party can choose which one to get first... after retrieving the first treasure event X triggers and the NPC's do stuff around the town and/or stronger enemies appear or so).
**"The best advice I really have to offer is don't get too wrapped about where your story is going day one, introduce the characters first then figure out where to send them, something quick and easy will provide some good fodder for plot hooks. Also since you are I assume starting at lvl1, don't make them feel irrelevant compared to the existing stories and triumphs, this is a great tool for destiny to get involved so as to push them to the forefront.
The existing names might be able to solve the problem, but they aren't the heroes anymore, your characters are. If it's set post end of series having the tree create a new set of elements that finds it's way to the players is definitely a good/easy option."**
Thanks for the advice, I'll keep it in mind when working with the adventures... Me and my friends i think had most fun in the small 'slice of life' parts of the adventures. I have a lot to think about.
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Thanks for all the hard work! It's good to see this!
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