Don't Rest Your Hooves

still transcribing/editing the work as you read this. --NotBrandX 22:54, 29 March 2011 (UTC)

One thought was all it took, that day. The day you looked down at your pristine hooves, at the colorful-but-glassy eyes and hollow grins of the Ponies around you. The day you asked the question that started all of this. Maybe it was "why am I here?" or "how does this all work?" or even "What am I doing this for?" but what it did was open your eyes. It made you realize something terrible, something awful.

In this paradise, where all needs are taken care of, where everything is beautiful and just, and everything is just so saccharine... in this paradise, you simply aren't happy to just go along with things anymore.

That's when you started to notice things. The way all the other Ponies just drifted without a paying attention to the world, trotting like zombies. The way things always seem to work out for the better and go back to they way they were as if the problem never happened in the first place. The world operates on a disconnect with reality that you can't help but find ultimately disconcerting. Stuff seems to happen not because it should or because it makes sense but because it ought to, and you seem to be the only Pony that finds this troubling.

Voicing these worries to your fellow Ponies got you nothing but confusion and concern... and the vague feeling that maybe you'd be better off forgetting about these little delusions of yours and rejoining the herd.

About

This is the game of Don't Rest Your Head, a popular indie RPG about insomnia and madness, taking place in the setting of "My Little Pony: Friendship Is Magic," a popular cartoon of 2011 using the My Little Pony franchise on the Hub cartoon channel. Cartoon magical baby-horses having existential crises and exposed to horror -- dear god, what have we wrought?

Familiarity with the DRYH rules and the MLP:FiM setting are not required, but will be helpful. The "Friendship Is Magic" cartoon is surprisingly watchable for children's television and episodes can be found on YouTube under the name "Pensive Pine." Some DRYH rules are included below with a description of character creation.

Character Generation

Every player has a Pony Character (PC) that they are portraying in the game. One player is the exception; they will be playing the role of the narrator of this story, with the plot of the story, and playing the role of all the yet 'Nother Pony in the Crowds (NPCs). In the tradition of other role-playing games, this player has the title Stablemaster. Just because the Stablemaster knows the plot of the story doesn't mean she has total control; the PCs are special because they don't quite belong anymore, and thus they can act on their own or even change the story.

Since this is a mostly narrative game, the character sheet is descriptive instead of the list of measurements you usually see in role-playing games. Your "stats" will be the short written answers to the interview questions below. Each question is followed by some hints on how to answer.

My Name Is...

Your Pony needs a name. Remember that your character is a magical pony from a child's cartoon, so stay away from names like John Doe or Lord Cthonicus. Stick to names like "Pinkie Pie," "Rarity," and "Applejack."

And I Am...

Describe your Pony's physical apperance and abilities, going into as much or as little detail as you like. Remember that almost all Ponies have a "Cutie Mark," a brand on their haunches that is iconic to their personality. At the least, you should state whether this Pony is a regular Pony, a Pegasus (with wings and flight), or a Unicorn (with small sorcery tricks related to their Cutie Mark).

Why Aren't You Happy?

What is it that's giving you trouble? Why can't you fit in anymore? What is it that makes you a PC and not an NPC -- an actor instead of part of the crowd?

How Did You Realize This?

What was the event that set off your sudden self-realization? What was the think that forced you to discover something was "off" about the world and Ponies around you?

What's On The Surface?

How do you present yourself to the world? What's the mask that you show to keep the illusion of normalcy, to keep you from the scrutiny of the herd?

What Lies Beneath?

What are you really like? What's the face you have that only your trusted friends may see (if you have friends that you trust that far)? What makes your secret heart-of-hearts beat, what are you like when you're by yourself and don't need to pretend?

Your Dream Is To...

Where would you rather be? Who would you rather be? What do you expect to accomplish that will make everything better again? What do you believe will soothe your troubled psyche and give you the peace that you crave?

When You Get Upset...

This is the only part of the character sheet with numbers. Sometimes a Pony will get frustrated and upset, and they will react hot or cold. Next to the words "aggressive" and "passive", put down a total of three marks between them; these are your Responses, which will be explained fully later. If your Pony will always be chomping at the bit, put all three in "aggressive." If your Pony is more likely to shy at the fence, but not always, put two marks beside "passive" and one next to "aggressive." Leave some space here as you'll be making and erasing marks, but the first three are permanent and most important.

There are two more items that define your Pony Character: their Spark of virtue, and the Power of their Cutie Mark. Before you decide on them, we should explain how they play a part in resolving conflicts.

Mechanics

You will need many six-sided dice, in sets of four different colours. What colours you use isn't important (I like pink!), but dice of the same colour should be kept together. There should also be a sets of tokens in two different styles: one nice (Skittles!) and one not-so-nice (sour gummies? saltwater licorice?)

Everypony starts with a pool of 3 dice in Friendship (nice bright dice, like white). This represents your normal innate abilities, and your capacity to compromise and resolve problems in mundane ways.

The Stablemaster will also have a pool of dice, called Discord Dice (dark dice, like red or black). These represent the effort required to overcome adversity, or the resolve of whoever is opposing you. Sometimes this may be more than three dice, but the Stablemaster will not roll all of them every time.

Whenever you are resolving a conflict, you would roll your Friendship dice along with other dice you would use (described below), and count how many dice show values 1-3 -- these are called "successes". The Stablemaster would do the same with Discord dice. If your dice show more successes than your opponent, the conflict resolves in your favour. If the Stablemaster's dice show more successes, then things certainly do not go your way.

To see how things get resolved, look at the dice again. Find the highest die; in case of ties, discard the highest die of each colour and repeat. Whichever pool of dice has the highest number is the tone of the resolution. If the conflict resolves with a tone of Friendship, then things work out well even if not everyone gets what they want. If the conflict resolves with a tone of Discord, then someone is upset. The Stablemaster gets a Chaos Coin, putting a not-so-nice token on the table for her to use. She can use as many Chaos Coins as she wants during a conflict to discard any die showing a '6'. Each Chaos Coin she spends turns into an Harmony Coin, giving one of the nice tokens to the Pony players. Each Harmony Coin can be spent in a conflict to add a '1' to a Pony's Friendship pool of dice. Harmony Coins don't turn into anything else, but you may wish to refrain from eating them in case you need more later.

Sometimes, the problems that Ponies have to face will have more Discord than what Friendship alone can overcome. There are two more abilities that Ponies can use: their Spark, and the Power of their Cutie Mark. These use differently coloured dice, rolled with your Friendship dice, and they have their own effects when they set the tone of a resolution.

A Pony's Spark is a jewel of virtue in their their personality: a capacity for great Kindness, unwavering Loyalty, or humbling Honesty. This Spark is always something selfless, something to offer to those around you. Anytime you roll your dice in a conflict, you may also add a Spark die to increase your chances of success. When you do this, you will always roll that many Spark dice from then on; it's as if you start the game rolling zero Spark dice. A Pony's Spark is so powerful in can insure success: if you roll less successes than Spark dice, just count how many Spark you used instead (i.e. you rolled 2,5,5 with Friendship and 4,4 with Spark for one success, but you have two Spark dice so you can just say you have two successes.) It's tempting and powerful to play out your role in a simple fable, and it gets easier the more you do it, but be careful: if you ever get up to rolling six Spark dice, you've lost your independence, and you've become just a 'Nother Pony in the Crowd (NPC). Furthermore, if your Spark dice is what sets the tone of the resolution, then someone in the conflict has learned a valuable lesson related to your Spark, and you add ANOTHER Spark die to what you already have. The only way to resist the temptation to use your Spark is from the help of your friends. If the tone of the resolution is Friendship, you can drop a Spark die.

A Pony's Power of their Cutie Mark is your magical ability to change the world right away to be a better place. It's a powerful gift, but it's hard not to feel a bit superiour when you can take short-cuts like this.

I'm still transcribing! God this needs art. --NotBrandX 23:07, 29 March 2011 (UTC)