DM: …and harmony has been maintained in Equestria for generations since.
DM: Now, Twilight?
Twilight Sparkle: You mean my character?
DM: Yes. As our story begins, you are living in the royal city of Canterlot, studying under the tutelage of Princess Celestia.
Twilight Sparkle: Sweet!
Pinkie Pie: Ooh! Are we there too?
DM: No. I’m having you girls roleplay your introductions.
Applejack: Instead of starting out in a tavern like a normal D&D group?
DM: Exactly!
Pinkie Pie: Oh! Because ponies can’t get drunk! They’re herbivores!
Rarity: …I’m not sure that’s entirely accurate. Or relevant.
Fluttershy: What’s this about drinking? …Do we have to roll dice for that?
As a DM, allowing your party to meet in a tavern doesn't mean you have to promote drinking and getting drunk. Quite the opposite, actually. It's easy and natural for a DM to go from "the party gets hammered" to "the next morning, there's an angry mob and you have to leave town." If you do this well - if the end result is spectacularly negative enough - you can discourage your group from drinking entirely.
Notice: Guest comic submissions are still open until this arc is finished! Guidelines here.
It was very hard to get my gaming group to do anything beyond Hack and Slash. I did run a couple of "Saturday Morning Cartoon" games at ENBICON where they played Cats and Dogs.
So Twilight understands what's going on, Pinkie has trouble comprehending the way the game works, Applejack seems to have played before and expects cliches, Fluttershy is either a drunk or always needs to know how everything is done, and Rarity does all the work... hey, your players are in character already! (Except maybe Fluttershy, but you can't win them all!)
Fluttershy isn't an alcoholic, she's just a complete noob at the game. Believe me when I say that most newbies tend to be much, much quieter than the experienced roleplayers.
And beer and ale are basically just a slightly alcoholic mash, to a thousand-pound horse. A pony probably shouldn't drink as much as a horse, but it's still a lot more bodymass than a human. (Also, beer and hops have other beneficial nutrients for horses, which is why many horses to get a Guinness every day.)
Also, horses are herbivores; their digestive tracts work differently than ours, and even correcting for the differences in body mass, they have a much higher tolerance for alcohol than we do.
I've been reading webcomics for a few years now, and one of my favorites is similar to this (hence my writing this comment). In one Something Positive, Davan and I believe Peejee are looking @ my little ponies for a kid to take to a girl's b-day party, and they start discussing a..well...Darker and Edgier Trope version of MLP, with them wanting to buy toys for a gaming session in the end. IDK the age range for readership of this, so I'll mention that Something positive is more for an adult sense of humor.
Ok, so was doing a google search and saw one of these strips. I am now two pages in. I can't not read it in their voices and it, is, amazing. Can't wait to read the rest of this.
Carry on good pony, carry on.
Equines can get drunk, and in fact horses tend to like beer quite a bit. I was told more than once how someone had a horse that would steal your beer if you left it too close to the paddock. ;)
Huh, I remember someone commenting that salt acts like an intoxicant to horses, and that's why that one scene in the show where a pony gets thrown out of a salt lick bar was actually faithful to equine biology.