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Originally Posted by clu2415
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I'm not sure if you mean more info on the Ponyplex or more info on alternate genres of pony gaming.
Here's a little of both:
The Ponyplex Shadygallop I ran was based on using my daughter's toys as minis. Aside from the obvious ponies, there was
A lost little girl with a bear (actually a disguised security robot that ran a behavioral AI looking for folks who reacted weirdly to children - the PCs were friendly and kind, and didn't realize it was Keebsec until much later.)
A matryoshka warbot that shot plastic explosive cookie dough that stuck to you and then detonated, leaving behind a delicious odor. Every time they "killed" it a smaller warbot popped up from inside, until the last one was the size of akcat and just stomped on.
A translucent white stag that looked like a hologram but was actually an artistically designed robot with sonic emitters designed to improve employee morale. (Mostly weirded out the PCs, but also took them a lot of time.)
A cross between Cookie Monster, a T1000, and a Shoggoth (the bioweapon they were looking for) that was basically unkillable short of nuclear strike. It swallowed the powerarmor pony, who temporarily fragmented it by tripping concussion grenade from the inside - the slice pony grabbed a sample in a container and they ran while Keebsec tried desperately to contain it again.
The best part was the safe door though. As an anti-hacking measure, the Keeblers had an old fashioned completely mechanical safe door in the PCs way. The hacker had to ponygoogle it to even understand what it was. This sparked a talk about old-fashioned tech, and somehow hacking old school temporary light-up highway signs was brought up, including the instruction that "the DoT never changes the default password." They captured a drunk exec and coerced the combo from him - it was still the factory default setting.
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Adding ponies to another genre is easy, since the show basically does not restrict them realistically. Peg got winged flight, unicorn got some TK, otherwise ran them without any pony template. It works largely because no one was taking it too seriously, which was the intent.
The best genres to mash with "innocent children's entertainment" are gritty ones, because it heightens the silly factor and is a contrasting flavor. Pony DnD is meh, but Pony Dark Sun is cool, and Pony Madlands is probably too mindblowing for me to ever run.
Even more generally, when I run a genre mashup, I try for contrast. Yes, sometimes two dark things go well together (VtM Zombie Apocalypse), but it can easily become overbearing in play. If you have two or three opposing poles of mood, you can easily adapt to the table.
And don't worry about it making sense. In this great hobby of ours, awesome beats sensible 9 times out of 5.