Fandom Con 2012!

Thanks to everyone who played FRAGing is Magic with us at Fandom! It was a lot of fun, and I hope you all had a good enough time that you will go buy the game and play it with your friends!

Frag is a game by Steve Jackson Games. You will need to first buy that before you can play FRAGing is Magic. I suggest you go to your local provider of table top games, and if they don't have it in stock, ask them to order it for you. If you live in Pensacola, Bobe's Hobby House is my favorite place for this stuff, so SHOW THEM SOME LOVE. If you for some reason can't, or don't want to do that, then you can order it online from a number of sources, including SJ Games themselves.

Character sheets for ponies can be found in a number of places. The Mane 6, as well as a few others, are on Google Docs, and the link to that can be found in the tab above (or, just click here). We also have a group on Facebook where a number of other characters have been built and are being hosted (you can find that here!).

Once you are playing, we would LOVE to hear feed back from you! Tell us your thoughts on the builds, make suggestions for things that can fixed, or submit your own character builds! This is entirely a fan project of the community and we encourage participation from everyone!

Oh yeah, and show us some love by liking our Facebook page (which is HERE)

And by the way, this was the first time we ever played an over sized 9 player game before, so thanks! I think it went very well ^_^

PeliCon 2012

It's official! We're going to be running FRAGing is Magic at PeliCon here in Pensacola this year!

You can get all the details here:
http://bobeshobbyhouse.com/pelicon/pelicon.html

I will be out of town, so Jonathan Harpster and Joseph Bartholomew will be running the games in my absence (I will be in Orlando for the Legend of Zelda: Symphony of the Goddess concert :p). Come show them your support!

Playtest Report 06/08

A productive playtest to report!? What is this?

Yeah, we got two solid games of new character playtesting in. Most of the new additions are just about ready to go, while two or three still need further testing before I consider them ready. Still, it feels good to finally make some real progress! More details after the break.

Lots of new characters being tested...

So, I haven't checked in here in a LONG time. Sorry about that. I'm apparently busier than I believe sometimes. Anyway, while I haven't had the chance to make a post here, I have been busy working on a bunch of new stuff for Fraging is Magic. One of those things is new characters. I finished Fallout: Equestria a little while back, and I decided to add some of those awesome characters in here, since they seem to fit pretty well. Check them out after the break.

Newcomer: Queen Chrysalis

She still needs some balancing, I think. protip: don't fly over lava when a player has a portable nuke or Grenade. This for Boss battles mode, so she can't pick up equipment or weapons.

We are still working on the basic rules for boss battles, things got wacky last time when we pulled some cheat cards that make no sense for boss's. (no carrier on the boss anyone?)

Princess Luna enters the fray!

I figured it was time somebody posted a boss character, and since I've got one handy that survived a playtest, here we have it: Princess Luna.

Carnage report on Pensacola Gamenight

Carnage report for pensacola game night:
Chrysalis:0
Ponies:4 changelings and 1 boss
Details after the break:

BOSS BATTLES!

Big stuff is in the works! A Boss battles mode where you can team up with other ponies and take on the leaders and villains of Equestria is in the works. So far Queen Chrysalis has been tested using experimental rules and she is shaping up nicely! Once we have the final rules ironed out she will probably need a final testing session before we throw her out into the wild though.

~Jon

My Rule Variation

From the time I started my weekly FRAG matches until the week before Freecon, I unknowingly was not playing by "strict" FRAG rules. Upon realizing this, I changed the rules for my games to follow standard FRAG. Much to my surprise, neither I nor my fellow players enjoyed playing by standard FRAG rules nearly as much. So, I figured I should probably post the rule variation that I tend to enjoy.

My friend Patricia sent a picture of FRAGing is Magic to Steve Jackson. This is what he had to say:

"This is so wrong. You win the internet. -SJ"

New character! Derpy now available!

After a little contemplation (and a good playtest at Freecon) I think I've finally got a working Derpy! Let me know if any of her abilities need modification (especially if there's any confusion on the language of any of them). Have fun!

FRAGing @ Freecon 8

If anypony will be in the Tallahassee area this coming weekend, Freecon 8 will be taking place. It's free, it's fun, and it's gonna be FRAGy. Yep, I will be running FRAGing is Magic on Saturday from 6-8pm, and on Sunday from 1-4pm. Both sessions will be in SSB 221. If you're gonna be here, feel free to join in the massacre!

Hope to see you there!

Fluttertree is now canon!

Well, I wasn't a big fan of naming Fluttershy's ability "Um, I'm a tree... *squeek*" because I wasn't interested in using fandom gags for the game, but I guess Fluttertree is now canon, so it's all good! 

Playtest After-Action Report: 3/16

Holy s*yay*t, it's been a long time since I've done an update... I blame my hellacious school schedule, as well as my uber hatred of discrete math. :/ ...Anyway, I'll try to keep this relatively short, since I still have a ton of proofs to get through. So... Let's do this thing.

Big character update!

We recently had another playtest, and a lot of good data was collected. Just made a bunch of little tweaks and changes, as well as a couple big changes! Rainbow Dash, Twilight Sparkle, Apple Jack, and Pinkie Pie have all had an update! Check out a couple highlights from the game and the updates after the break.

Concerning the spelling of "FRAGing"...

I understand that the proper spelling would be "fragging," but I chose to emphasize the game "Frag" in the title. So, instead of "FRAGging is Magic," or "Fragging is Magic," I chose to stick with "FRAGing is Magic" because I thought it looked best.

However, I have been concerned that this may be causing some confusion, as well as making me look kind of stupid. People who hear about the mod may be searching for "fragging is magic," which brings up a number of other results (including a Steam group by the same name. Of course, if I am lucky, simply mentioning it in this post will fix that problem ^_^). There is also the issue of pronunciation, where in "fraging" would be read something like "fray-jing," in which case I look like an idiot.

Despite my concerns about the spelling, it's already out there, so it's kind of hard to take back, considering the fact that the URL represents this spelling. But, I figured I'd throw it out there to see what you guys think. That is, if you guys have an opinion that you don't mind sharing.

Philip Reed is aware of this!

The other day I was checking the search engine to see if "Steve Jackson Games Frag Mods" would bring up My Little Pwny: FRAGing is Magic. It did, but I also noticed a thread for "Frag Mods" on the SJ Games forum. So I decided to go ahead and post in there and let them know about this mod. I am assuming that thanks to that post, I got an anonymous tip earlier today that Philip Reed is in fact aware of the mod and mentioned it on his blog.

He called it, and I quote, "disgustingly cute."

Unfortunately, he didn't have the URL for the blog, so I didn't get a proper plug. But, just having the designer of Frag be aware of this game mod...

Read the whole thing here:
Battlegrip: Frag Meets My Little Ponies

UPDATE 2/28:
Last night I tweeted to Philip the blog url and he just tweeted it today.

All I can say is, thanks Philip! You're awesome.

Ushicon (2/3 - 2/5) and other updates!

Oh, hey, Ushicon has pretty much come and gone, hasn't it? It was a lot of fun, but not much to report. Played several rounds of FRAGing is Magic, but I spent a lot of time just teaching people how to play. While feedback was good, it wasn't exactly the best place to get real constructive criticism.

The best thing to happen there was one of the event coordinators used to work for Steve Jackson Games and personally knows Philip Reed, the game designer for Frag! He didn't get a chance to play himself, but he took some pictures and e-mailed them to Philip. Unfortunately, I never heard back from him if Philip has ever responded...

Anyways, it was a fun weekend! Joseph and I have kicked some ideas around this month and here are some changes we've made:

ENTER PRINCESS TROLLESTIA!!!

Oh yeah, I got one. My little sister had one, so I bought it off of her (promised to buy her the mane 6 ponies from the blind bags). 

I'll be making rules for her soon. I intend to make her into a sort of BOSS battle that all the ponies would have to team up to defeat. It's going to be AWESOME

After-Action Report 02/03

I figured that I should do this eventually...

Dear Princess Celestia,

Today I learned that Rarity and the Needler can score obscene amounts frags together, and anything that increases her accuracy, let alone doubles it, turns her into a beast capable of unspeakable destruction. Also, attempting to flee Rarity's wrath is nigh impossible; better to sacrifice yourself to out-roll her defense than attempt to outrun her accuracy. Finally, I learned that Applejack's best bet is not hunting down weapon spawns trying to get a chainsaw, but hunting down item spawns to stock up on medpacks and Speed Boosts...especially Speed Boosts. I feel that this knowledge will lead to a more evenly balanced kill spread among the other ponies; hopefully everypony uses it well.

Your Faithful Slaughterer,
Twilight Sparkle

...Yeah, it's cheesy, I know. But it had to be done! :P Anyway, on to the details:

Playtest Damage Report: 1/27

(EDIT BY KELLY: By the way, I made Joseph, aka Dakaptin, an author for the blog so that he can post results for games he will be running at FSU, since he's 3 hours away from me. Huzzah!)


I finally got my copy of FRAG and FRAG: FTW today, so I decided that I'd waited long enough to start running the FSU playtests! We had bronies, non-bronies, and parasprites all getting in on the action, and everybody had a lot of fun. Anyway, on to the actual report...

EDIT: My apologies for the length of this post. I tend to want to record EVERYTHING that happened, and can become a bit long-winded in the process.

Playtest Damage Report: 1/26

Met up with a couple other bronies for a round last night. A lot of good data was collected, and we've responded accordingly by making some changes. Here's how it all went down!

New Ability: Twilight Sparkle gets telekinesis!

I had been wanting to give Twilight Sparkle a telekinesis attack for a long time now, and thanks to the knock-back rules in the FTW expansion, I know how to do it!

- Works like an attack in that it needs an accuracy roll. Target must be in line-of-sight.
- Roll a number of dice equal to Twilight Sparkle's current health, disregarding armor.
- Number of spaces opponent is thrown is that number divided by 2.
- Apply damage according to knock-back rules.
- Counts as an attack.

With that, the ponies are complete! Now we just need to do a bunch of playtesting to make sure everything is properly balanced! ...And I need to come up with unique abilities for Earth ponies still.... O.o

Custom Team Rules for 2 - 3 Players

There have been several times that I have played the game with only a few players. Since playing with all six ponies is better than two or three, I came up with these rules to make the game more interesting. Ideal for  games with only 2 - 3 players.

- Players roll a die. Highest roll gets to pick a pony first. Players will take turns picking a pony one at a time until all ponies have been picked. (So for a two player game, each player should have three ponies, while a three player game each player will have two ponies)

- Players will arrange their character sheets in the order they wish their ponies to take their turns, from left to right.

- Each pony will have their own hand of 5 cards. Keep these hands seperate from eachother, as if they had their own individual players. Cards from one ponys's hand cannot be played on another pony unless the card says otherwise.

- Begin play with the player who picked their pony last. He begins with the pony he placed at the start of his turn order. After he has moved this pony, play moves to the next player. Once everyone has had a turn, play then goes to the next pony in the player's turn order.

- Items may be exchanged between ponies, but only items that are currently on the table. Pony must move to an adjacent space in order to trade. When trading weapons, the ammo carries over.

Finally acquired the Frag expansion, FTW. New ability for Apple Jack!

Here it is, Frag FTW. It has two new maps, exploding barrels, lava, water, door switches, and a few cool new rules. In fact, I feel like an idiot for not realizing that the rules for FTW were also online in .pdf format until just now...
Official Frag FTW Rules

One thing I am really happy about is that it includes tokens for keeping track of health. Hooray!

FTW comes with rules for "knock back" damage, which is something that applies to weapons dealing 6d damage. I am going to apply this idea to Apple Jack and give her an ability called "Bull Rush."
- Apple Jack may charge into an opponent, but her movement will end there.
- Spaces opponent is pushed back is equal to number of spaces Apple Jack moved in a straight line prior to striking target, divided by 2 (rounded down)
- Opponent gets pushed back that many spaces.
- Apply damage according to Knock Back rules.

Example: Apple Jack rolls a movement of 11. She moves 4 spaces, turns, then charges into Twilight Sparkle, hitting her on the 5th space. Twilight Sparkle gets pushed back a total of 2 spaces. Apple Jack's movement ends despite having 2 movement points left.

Of course, had I been smart enough to look up rules for FTW already, I would have known this before. However, I assumed that FTW would only contain rules for new features like lava, door switches, and exploding barrels. Oh well....

Sukoshicon Damage Report: 1/6 - 1/8

Had a great time at Sukoshicon DESTINation in Destin, FL this past weekend! Met a lot of Bronies and much FRAGing is Magic was played! Everyone seemed to enjoy it, too. Hooray! Also, before Sukoshicon, we had a game night at Bobe's Hobby House in Pensacola, FL. Bunch of Bronies came out to check it out. Good times were had!

I didn't keep track of all the frags and stats since it was a very laid back event, but I did take some notes. Here's a couple highlights, as well as some observations and adjustments I plan on making.

Happy New Year!

Well, the holiday season had made it a bit hard to work on the game mod. Taylor has been away for the holidays, and my usual game nights have been on hold, so there haven't been many opportunities to break it out for play testing.

I did play a round with my brother over Christmas, but he had never even played Frag before so it was all introductory. We tried playing teams, but the official team rules are in the Frag: FTW expansion, which I don't own, so I had to make it up as we went...

Anyways, once things start winding down and our schedules return to normal we'll hopefully be working on this game again!