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On Swordponies & Spellponies


Bellosh

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[colour=#FF0000]ON SWORDPONIES & SPELLPONIES: A COMMENTARY BY BELLOSH101[/colour]

Welcome back to another installment of my blog! For those not keeping track of what gets posted here, Diomedes posted an excellent write-up earlier this week about what to keep in mind when writing an application for a guardpony OC. This article means to serve as a follow-up, but instead focus on wannabe action heroes, either skilled in sword fighting or spell casting, who are not in the service of the Royal Equestrian Army.

Those familiar enough with the World of Equestria RP know that while it can support adventure RPs just fine, every OC involved ought to be well suited for slice of life scenarios too. Unfortunately, there are quite a number of Canterlot members who don’t understand this when they first try to create a WoE OC. Going in with the mindset that they’re in a violence-enabled setting, they create characters that just aren’t suitable in a show-friendly environment. While indeed there are some characters of this sort that we’ve previously permitted to be used in WoE, understand that this is so only because they were approved at a time when standards were much more lax. WoE is no longer a place where users can app characters that feel like they’ve come from D&D or an action anime.

To be fair, there is nothing technically wrong with a pony being skilled with a useful magic spell or with a sword; after all, we know that fencing canonically exists in Equestria. However, things go so horribly wrong when it’s evident that the person apping such characters only cares about these aspects of the character to the exclusion of everything else. I want to share a few tips today to tell you all how to avoid the pitfalls found a lot with these sword and spellponies.

First off, Equestria is not a place where ponies go on dungeon crawling quests on a routine basis. They cherish friendship and fulfilling their basic day-to-day destinies above all else. Therefore, it doesn’t jive well with WoE’s setting if a character’s purpose seems to be only to wander alone to seek out monsters and defeat them. That... just isn’t what FiM is about; the show instead shows how friendship and love can be used to overcome any possible obstacle, from the plain ole’ mundane to the more fantastical.

Unfortunately, that basic fact seems to be forgotten when swordponies and spellponies get created. All too often, apps of these characters dwell so much about how awesome their blade-wielding skills are or how special their overpowered magic talent is that we have no good idea on what their personality really is, and how they can use their productive talents and specialized social skills to support a group of friends. Nope; the focus always seems to end up on how amazing, brave or GREAT AND POWERFUL a magician or swordpony is. While modern culture as a whole seems enamored with the concept of elite warriors, part of what gives FiM its appeal is how it avoids excessive glamorization of combat prowess and violence.

This leads me to my final point; that violence and angst-producing events like massacres, exile, and other tragedies make up a good portion of a swordpony’s backstory. Instead of actually giving their avatar of awesomeness a well-crafted personality, users replace with the most edgy backstory they can conjure up. If a personality actually is present, it is not likely to consist of nothing else but infinite brooding, a generic willingness to protect the weak, and avoiding emotional attachments due from past generic drama. Again, WoE doesn’t aim to be that sort of environment. WoE is a place where people can roleplay the most purest form of MLP possible; a realm where pastel-coloured ponies embracing the magic of love and friendship thrive throughout the land.

If you want to app a sword-wielding pony who isn’t a REA member, your character shouldn’t be just about roaming the wild in search of dungeons. Give your OC an occupation, cutie mark, and amusing quirks that don’t center on their skill with a blade. In the case of fencing practitioners, they should treat their talent as a sport which doesn’t translate into combat ability. As for magic users, avoid the temptation to make them outcasts because of their misunderstood or faulty spells. Also make sure their magic talent has a mundane day-to-day use rather than something clearly meant to nullify obstacles on dangerous quests.

Everyone who takes my advice to heart will ensure that they have OCs suited for the setting depicted in WoE. As always, comment below if you have any additional insights. ^_^

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