Review: Pokemon Tabletop United

[deaddmwalking]

Anyone who comes to the table with one of those expectations will encounter a ruleset that either tells the appropriate story or does not. But a ruleset that tells one of those stories will not tell the other story and vice versa.

I'm not sure that they'll be satisfied, but MewToo of the movie being high level (advanced) and there also existing a 'basic' or less advanced type that can BECOME more powerful means that they could both have the same ruleset.

[Darth Rabbitt]

So that's my fundamental question: say we're going to play a Pokémon based elf game. How is this set of rules a better starting point than the 3rd Edition Player's Handbook? Assume I am physically capable of writing stats for Solosis and Cloyster and also Pokémon that don't look like butts or vaginas.

I need to ask a question before I can give you an answer: are you arguing "hey, let's use the d20 system as a base for a Pokemon style game rather than hacking it into 3e D&D itself"? Because I have no objection to that. If you use the d20 system and then write up a bunch of base classes instead of just Pokemaster (kind of similar to the ones in PTA/PTU but better written) and then wrote up the entire Pokedex as D&D style monsters I'd genuinely love to see/play that game.

OTOH, if you're just talking about your Pokemon d20 project but with more monsters, there are plenty of reasons why just putting Pikachu into 3e D&D does not a dedicated Pokemon tabletop game make. They're why I heavily enjoyed PTA/PTU (despite their many, many flaws) over Pokemon d20.

There are plenty of people who know a lot about Pokemon who don't know anything about D&D other than "pretending to be an elf." Pokemaster is a fun D&D class, but it's still fundamentally a single D&D class. By having Pokemon Trainer be a single class slotted into D&D, it basically puts all your abilities into just Training Pokemon, and so you can't have any other abilities nor can you have any other classes with Pokemon training abilities. And a class based game is pointless if everyone's playing the same class; everyone playing a child adventurer named Ash isn't any more satisfying than everyone playing a Dwarven adventurer named Carlos. So a game where every player wants to train Pokemon would be sufficient reason to have Pokemon tabletop be its own thing and not a Pokemon/D&D mashup. And I know a hell of a lot more people who want the former than the latter.

You can kinda sorta solve that by allowing Pokemon as D&D creatures that can be familiars/animal companions/special mounts/whatever the hell else and writing some prestige classes for the Pokemaster but they're going to be doing less Pokemon stuff than the person whose pure class is "10 year old in hat." And for a game where every player is expecting to have a bunch of Pokemon friends that's a rather unsatisfying solution.

[Username17]

Anyone who comes to the table with one of those expectations will encounter a ruleset that either tells the appropriate story or does not. But a ruleset that tells one of those stories will not tell the other story and vice versa.

I'm not sure that they'll be satisfied, but MewToo of the movie being high level (advanced) and there also existing a 'basic' or less advanced type that can BECOME more powerful means that they could both have the same ruleset.

Well... no. The point is that in the handheld video game, max level Groudon can be one-shotted by some fucker's Dewgong before it even gets to act. In the anime continuity, Groudon is a fucking Kaiju and even "well trained" Dewgongs have as much effect on it as tanks have on Godzilla.

That's not a thematic difference that can be handwaved off with higher and lower level Pokémon. It's a fundamentally different way for high tier monsters and middle tier monsters to interact.

And while that particular decision is very obvious and has far reaching impact, it's also true that there are many other similar questions that must be asked and will necessarily result in failure to emulate for some fans of Pokémon. In Detective Pikachu, Ditto can transform into humans and be essentially undetectable as long as it wears shades. In some of the more out-there properties and fanfics, humans can be caught in pokeballs. Ash Ketchum can completely understand Pokémon when they say "Bulba Bulba Bulbasaur!" and in Detective Pikachu it's an important plot point that most people can't understand most Poke talk.

How much a Houndoom is "basically a dog" and how much it's "basically a person" is a really important setting conceit, and different Pokémon properties have set that slider pretty far towards either end of the scale. Making these choices will inform what kind of game system might be important and will also help decide whether your game conversion is good or bad at what it's trying to do.

-Username17

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

I spent 3 days putting off doing Contests, got sick, typed it all up today... and the fucking site ate my post because I've had this tab open for days.
I'm sorry, but I'm not doing it again. Here's a quick overview of Contests:

Chapter 8: Contests (sorta)

I'm still fucking mad I wrote all that up for nothing.

They work like in the video games - you use Moves to generate Appeal and try and fuck over the other contestants, and there are 5 types of Contest Stats, also from the games. There are two big problems with Contests: Not many people actually care about them, and when they do they care about how neat it looks in the anime. Unlike Pokemon Battles, which will probably happen all the fucking time, Contests are generally rarer and you need to seek them out in a city. And once you do find a Contest... I think the odds of the entire party wanting to do one is extremely low. So you can have a PC who's all about battling and making items to buff up their Pokemon in the same team as someone who's almost entirely focused on Contests and will always beat you if you ever dare to step up to the plate... and that's just a bad look.

There's a Contest Demo, which I think will highlight everything you need to know about Contests in this game.

The Contest begins with the Introduction Stage, where the Trainers for each of our contestants roll to determine how many extra Contest Stat Dice they’ll have to work with during the Contest. Each of the Trainers for the Zubat, Lickitung, and Mawile choose to roll for Cute Dice. This would normally be a Charm roll for each of them, but the Mawile’s Trainer has Grace and is able to use multiple Skills to roll for each Contest Type. They choose to roll Guile.

The Lickitung’s Trainer has Expert Charm while the Zubat’s has Adept Charm and the Mawile’s Adept Guile. They roll [5,1,3,4,4], [4,3,1,6], and [2,5,6,2] respectively. This nets them 4, 3, and 2 Cute Dice, meaning Lickitung is assigned to letter A, Zubat to letter B, and Mawile to letter C. The turn order and positions for the contest are displayed in the table on the right.

Round One: The Lickitung goes first and gives the audience a flirtacious wink as it uses Attract! The Excitement Contest Effect increases their Voltage by +2, and they roll a 3d6 for their Appeal, increased to 4d6 for matching the Cute Contest Type. They roll [3,2,6,1], and because they’re in the Center of Attention, they gain 1 Appeal Point for the 3, 0 Appeal Points for the 2, a whopping 3 Appeal Points for the 6, and a Fumble Point for the 1.
The Zubat goes next, using U-Turn, doing a somersault in the air! This has the Inversed Appeal Contest Effect, allowing the Zubat to roll 5d6 + 1d6 for the Contest Type. They roll [6,1,2,1,5,1]. They gain a total of 4 Appeal from this.
The Mawile takes their turn last in the Contest and opens up their maw to release a pleasant aroma into the Contest Hall. Sweet Scent! They spend 2 Cute Dice on the Appeal roll, hoping to catch up with the others, and roll 5d6 and gain 2 Voltage, for [2,2,6,4,1], also a total of 4 Appeal.
At the end of the first round, everyone is tied at 4 Appeal Points, though the Lickitung and Mawile have 2 Voltage,
and the Lickitung has 1 Fumble Point.

Round Two: The Zubat doesn’t like the fact the others around it are gaining Voltage! It opens its mouth wide and shoots out a ray of disorienting light. Confuse Ray! It has the Unsettling Contest Effect, meaning each competitor adjacent to Zubat – in this case both Lickitung and Mawile – lose 1 Voltage, while the Zubat loses 2. Already at zero Voltage, the Zubat doesn’t mind this at all. The Zubat’s Trainer has fed it Poffins, giving it 3 Smart Dice, which it proceeds to spend on this Appeal, rolling a total of 8d6! The risky move results in a roll of [1,1,4,6,5,1,6,2]. This is a whopping 10 Appeal for Zubat, but also 3 Fumble Points.
Mawile goes next, and aiming to recover and further increase its Voltage, it sheds Fake Tears for the crowd, another Excitement Move. Why not Sweet Scent again? Because in a Contest, you cannot repeat the same Move two turns in a row. Its Voltage increases by +2 again, and it rolls 3d6 for Fake Tears, plus another 1d6 for its one Voltage at the beginning of its turn. [6,6,3,5] is the result, netting Mawile 6 Appeal Points!
Finally, Lickitung has its turn this round and it opts to swish its tail with a splash of water. Aqua Tail! This Move has the Steady Performance Effect, meaning its base dice roll is 5d6, and it increases Lickitung’s Voltage by +1. Lickitung chooses to spend 3 of its Cute Dice on increasing its roll, rolling a total of 10d6 from that, Voltage, and the bonus for matching the Contest Type. It rolls [1,5,3,3,4,6,6,5,3,5], getting a huge 11 Appeal Points.
At the end of Round Two, Lickitung leads the pack with 15 Appeal Points, 2 Voltage, and 1 Fumble Point. The Zubat has 14 Appeal Points, 0 Voltage, and 3 Fumble Points. Mawile has only 10 Appeal Points but 3 Voltage.

Round Three: This round, it’s Mawile’s turn to go first! Desperate to recover and make use of their Voltage, it goes on a rampage on stage with a Giga Impact! Its Voltage gets set to 0 by the Seen Nothing Yet Contest Effect, but they roll 2d6 for each Voltage lost this way, for a total of 6d6. They also do get to add their Voltage bonus for the turn regardless, and their Trainer has bed them Poffins for two Beauty Dice. Their final roll is 11d6, and they’re in the Center of Attention! The result is [2,5,1,2,4,5,3,2,2,1,4], which is terrible news for Mawile. However, its Trainer
has the Coordinator Class Feature, which allows them to re-roll one Appeal Roll each Contest! They spend it here, and the new result is [3,4,5,4,1,5,6,4,1,6,2], which adds up to 17 Appeal Points and 2 Fumble Points! Will this be enough to bring them back from last place? It’s all up to the other competitors now.
Lickitung goes next and decides to go for disrupting the Mawile instead of gaining more Appeal. They’re not sure they can beat that Appeal, but they can sure cut it down some! It curls up and rolls around the stage, getting in the way of the other contestants. Defense Curl! This Move has the Sabotage Effect, meaning it gives adjacent competitors Fumble Points instead of gaining Appeal. They spend three Cute Dice, one of them from the Introduction Stage and two of them from their Speed Stat, and roll a total of 9d6, counting their Voltage and matching the Cute
Contest. The roll is [5,3,1,3,5,1,3,6,6], which means Mawile gains 9 Fumble Points. Ouch!
Zubat has the last word in this Contest and flits about in Frustration. This Move has the Desperation Effect, which means all 1s result in a Fumble Point, but all 6s reward an extra Appeal Point! They spend their 3 Cute Dice on this turn, making their total roll 9d6. They get rather lucky, with a roll of [5,6,4,6,6,4,3,1,3], netting them 14 Appeal Points and only 1 Fumble Point to show for it.

The GM tallies up the final score for each Contestant. Lickitung had 15 Appeal Points but 1 Fumble Point, giving them a final score of 14! Mawile had 27 Appeal Points but 9 Fumble Points, giving them a score of 16! Zubat had 28 Appeal Points and 4 Fumble Points, giving them a final score of 24. If Lickitung hadn’t Sabotaged Mawile’s efforts, they would have won, but instead Zubat emerges victorious in the Contest! The GM calculates and distributes Experience Points to everyone involved, and the Zubat’s Trainer walks away with a new Contest Ribbon.

In case you thought that wasn't enough rolling, there are multiple Contest Variants, like one where you use a different Pokemon each round, one where the Trainer can fight alongside the Pokemon, and one that's just a straight-up fucking Battle Contest where you're making all your regular combat rolls AND ALSO throwing buckets of d6s around for Appeal Points and shit. God have fucking mercy on our souls.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Well... no. The point is that in the handheld video game, max level Groudon can be one-shotted by some fucker's Dewgong before it even gets to act. In the anime continuity, Groudon is a fucking Kaiju and even "well trained" Dewgongs have as much effect on it as tanks have on Godzilla.

That's not a thematic difference that can be handwaved off with higher and lower level Pokémon. It's a fundamentally different way for high tier monsters and middle tier monsters to interact.

Yeah, that's what Legendary Auras are for, if you have truly powerful Pokemon. Those aren't in this book, though - they're in the splat for legendary Pokemon. They are horrifically overpowered and unbalanced and some of them just straight up go "no" unless you disable the Aura.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Are there Legendary Auras that give us functional rules for the following:
1. This thing is a creator god that can spawn thousands of minions (Arceus).
2. Time traveling away when the situation looks bad, then eating the enemy's parents in the past (Dialga).
3. Teleporting a 1000' radius centered on its enemies into outer space (Mewtwo).

Narratively speaking, I don't think the god-tier Pokemon look like a problem you can solve with tactical combat.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Do Legendary Pokemon even need to be that strong? If they're so far beyond every other Pokemon then that kind of shits on your team if you catch one... and if you can't catch one, then why the fuck are you playing Pokemon?

But to answer your questions, no. They are not that crazy, because you have no recourse against that whatsoever, you fool. How the fuck do you even begin to fight something with legit time travelling powers without beating something that can already do that? Ask for help? Suck GM cock until they let you fight the legendary Pokemon at the end of their totally epic story? I don't think god-tier Pokemon is a problem we even need to deal with.

However, Arceus has access to every Aura at once, but it can't use more than 3 at one time (then again, no Legendary can). Dialga can stop time and change Initiative order as it pleases, manipulate the terrain around it or create a "servant" in battle. Mewtwo can impose D&D 5e disadvantage when you try to hit it, can use all of its moves as much as it wants, ignores your Resistances, or if you have a "nicer" Mewtwo from the end of the movie rather than the beginning, in which case it makes Pokemon under 5 Loyalty half as strong and can make someone its Symbiant, where they can use each other's Moves, Skills, Edges, and Stats.

[Avoraciopoctules]

Yeah, sorry, I’m more interested in playing in the Detective Pikachu world than the straight videogames. Trying to catch Mewtwo is what the bad guys do.

And it feels really lame if wide swathes of the cool Pokémon flavor abilities get negated just because we want the game to resemble videogame combat more. At this rate, you’ll be telling me Team Rocket isn’t allowed to build battle mechs to fight Pokémon with. I want to shoot Freeze Blast missiles at some volcano beasts.

[jadagul]

I don't think the point is that you need to implement Movie Mewtwo. The point is that not implementing Movie Mewtwo is a choice, and once you've made that choice then your system doesn't model the movie.

But in contrast, if you model the movie well, then you don't have a system that models the games where an equal-level Houndoom or Tyrranitar or something will trash the Mewtwo.

You said you want a system that can handle any pokemon story, and you can't have that, because the pokemon stories are mutually irreconcilable.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

At this rate, you’ll be telling me Team Rocket isn’t allowed to build battle mechs to fight Pokémon with. I want to shoot Freeze Blast missiles at some volcano beasts.

What the fuck are you talking about? One game I was in featured flying around Orre in a giant mecha-gyarados with beds and amenities and everything. Cool flavor is nice, but literal world-ending power is unnecessary. I don't see the value in modelling a game where you have NPC Pokemon with giant cocks to slap the PCs with because they're so much better than you. Don't people hate Elminister and shit for that? Just because it's Mewtwo doesn't make it any better.

You said you want a system that can handle any pokemon story, and you can't have that, because the pokemon stories are mutually irreconcilable.

You are correct, and upon closer inspection, that is not something I actually want to do. That makes things easier!

[Username17]

OK, now that you've figured out that you can't model every kind of Pokémon story with a single ruleset, you now need to determine what kind of stories you do want to model and choose a base system that could tell those stories.

Although I have to say that I'm rapidly losing interest in your vision now that you've explicitly jumped on the "we have to destroy the village to save it" bandwagon. If your vision of tactical combat requires scrapping all the cool narrative abilities in the lore and cartoons, I don't see how what you're offering is better than just playing Smash Brothers or something.

If Kyogre can't drown the world and Jirachi can't monkey's paw reality, they don't have the flavor of those Pokémon. There's no point in roleplaying, because we've replaced the bad ass world ending threats with 4e D&D style bundles of stats.

-Username17

[jt]

You can tone down all the pokemon that created the universe without getting rid of all the narrative abilities. There's a big gap between getting to rearrange the continents and limiting your out of combat abilities to Smash Brothers (or D&D 4E).

Some of the narrative needs to be thrown out; Magcargo can't be hotter than the sun, Alakazam can't have an IQ of 5000. These destroy the setting (literally in Magcargo's case). My favorite mindcaulk is that the pokedex is what you get when you outsource your science to 12 year olds.

The question is: of this sprawling mass of self-contradictory ideas, what gets sacrificed? Almanac suggests that you can't have pokemon that are too strong to allow the players to capture them. The movies handle this by having the scary kaiju pokemon wander off into the sunset at the end of the show (this solution will sometimes mandate a GM asspull, but the capture mechanics could back that asspull up). The games handle this by having legendary pokemon only have their powers in a cutscene (this is incredibly lame). Almanac's solution is to scale them down outside of kaiju/god territory. Another solution nobody's mentioned is that if somebody captures Kyogre, that's acknowledged as the end of the campaign.

One useful thing that I'd like to point out is that the competitive community is used to playing with a banlist, and all the kaiju nonsense is on Smogon's Uber's list. So if you wanted to follow a route more like the Pokemon cinematic universe, not only can you give a bunch of pokemon kaiju stats and immunity to pokeballs, but you can also choose which pokemon get that treatment out of a list of pokemon that people are already used to not getting to use.

[Dean]

I like the head canon that Pokédex entries are written wiki style by lots of enthusiastic tweens. Medieval bestiaries were full of crazy nonsense like bears laying eggs in the real world so it’s totally possible that good science doesn’t exist much in the Pokémon world yet. It actually seems like a world where a lot of tech is new so it actually fits as a setting conceit pretty well. That’s an efficient head canon to let you shrug off bits of the canon that don’t fit. You just have it said in setting that not every entry is true and there’s a hefty mix of urban legend and myth mixed up in the actual scientific classification of these creatures still.

[Username17]

Sure, but Magcargo could be 10,000 Kelvins. I man, that's a lot, but it's not thermo-nuclear weapon hot. It's the surface temperature of a Blue Giant, and roughly one tenth the heat of a hydrogen bomb. What actually matters for how severely they set the world on fire is how conductive they are. If they are made out of some weird low-conductivity ceramic, it's entirely possible for their temperature to be exceedingly high without transferring a lot of that heat to their surroundings. Being that hot would mean that a Magcargo that stayed in one place would eventually transfer enough heat to adjacent iron to liquify and then vaporize it, but being hot enough to melt (and vaporize!) steel beams wouldn't inherently do that in a reasonable amount of time depending on how quickly it transferred that heat to the steel beams.

I'm actually fine with the mind caulk that some of the Pokedex entries are wrong. But fun facts like Exploud being audible six miles away and shouting loud enough to start earthquakes is pretty cool. Much cooler than whatever 4e-based tactical minigame you were considering making. If something has to give, I'd much prefer it to be the idea of being able to have fair fights between hamsters and kaiju than to get rid of the feeling of having kaiju at all.

-Username17

[OgreBattle]

I figure you can have the pokedex be accurate and not have every town burst into earthquake flames if you take the pokedex as what they can potentially achieve and not what they are as default.

Like not every human is Ussain Bolt, but you may mention humans can achieve that speed

[Omegonthesane]

I figure you can have the pokedex be accurate and not have every town burst into earthquake flames if you take the pokedex as what they can potentially achieve and not what they are as default.

Like not every human is Ussain Bolt, but you may mention humans can achieve that speed

It's worth metnioning that this fails for pokemon where there is a strictly limited number - Mewtwo isn't a species, Mewtwo is a Steve. But kaijus are a separate problem anyway.

[Avoraciopoctules]

One thing I do like about PTU is that they let you play a human that is personally hardcore instead of being a combat cheerleader. It would be pretty cool if a Pokémon adventure RPG could expand on that. If I imagine a mid tier Pokémon anime/manga team who save the world, I think of the following:
- ace trainer: they have a handful of loyal fighting beasts with magic powers, and are preternaturally lucky
- Team Rocket Gadgeteer: you build mecha suits, traps, and have criminal contacts. If you have Pokémon, they are better for utility than combat. Or when your prepared daily mad science breaks.
- Psychic: about on the level of Remedy’s Control, you can do SCARY things with telekinesis and get weird magic insights. Making pocket dimensions and forcing people into them probably doesn’t come online until later.
- Machamp: why not go all in and just BE a wrecking ball Pokémon? It’s for the player who wants to yell “hulk smash” and not track a bunch of minion info.

I’m not sure what an ideal system would be, besides Fate. It does seem like all 4 of the concepts I thought of would benefit from players being able to compel their negative aspects, though. As a Rocket player, you’d be able to declare that your mecha fails at a time it would be an interesting setback without wrecking the game, and get Fate points for it. Or the ace trainer could do compels for disobedient Pokémon.

Fate doesn’t have a great tactical combat engine in my experience, but it feels like it could emulate the feel of the anime pretty easily. I wonder if a more Shadowrun-inspired core system could bridge the gap.

[Koumei]

One thing I do like about PTU is that they let you play a human that is personally hardcore instead of being a combat cheerleader.

Of course, that in itself is a decision that basically says "We are not emulating the video games or most of the anime". That decision takes things in a very D&D direction. It's a good decision, I feel, but just deciding that at all (and having trainer HP scale up at basically the same rate as their Hippowdon or Artichoke or whatever) is a noteworthy thing and sets a direction for the kind of stories you're telling.

[jt]

The video games have psychics and people who train martial arts with pokemon. If you imagine these people are any good at what they do, it's not much of a stretch.

The Pokemon Adventures manga might be the most D&D-like version of the franchise. It has a fair deal of tough humans, lots of individual pokemon with unique abilities, and a plot by the Elite Four to destroy the world.

[Username17]

The video games have psychics and people who train martial arts with pokemon. If you imagine these people are any good at what they do, it's not much of a stretch.

The Pokemon Adventures manga might be the most D&D-like version of the franchise. It has a fair deal of tough humans, lots of individual pokemon with unique abilities, and a plot by the Elite Four to destroy the world.

Well sure, there is certainly lore to support major characters who contribute meaningfully with their own skills in and out of combat. There is certainly lore to support characters who are humans that don't have any Pokémon. But that is a total departure from the videogame and is in fact literally exactly the 'Dungeons & Dragons' conceit that The Adventurer's Almanac was uncomfortable with earlier in this thread.

Obviously I'm fine with one character being a Pokémon Trainer with a flaming rodent in a ball and another character being a Samurai with a big hammer. I mean, that's why I wrote my system like that. But that's a very fundamental choice. And it's a dealbreaker for players who want everyone to have Pokémon in their Pokémon game.

So anyway, here are some sliders to consider, and remember that your choices on these will inform the game on a fundamental level and make it non-functional for other peoples' visions of what a Pokémon game should be about:

• How devastating are Kaiju?
• How balanced are Pokémon supposed to be to each other?
• Are Humans without Pokémon playable?
• Are Pokémon without Humans playable?
• How lethal is the game?
• How relevant is combat?
• How relevant is investigation and social intrigue?
• How relevant is world map mobility?

There are at least 2 answers to all of these questions and the answers can be mixed and matched. Like, maybe you're doing Pokémon Mystery Dungeon and everyone is playing Pokémon in small scale tactical battles and the power levels of everything are really flattened. Maybe you're doing Detective Pikachu and some of the characters are just human reporters and in any case you could expect to go several adventures without anyone using a combat ability or drawing a gun.

-Username17

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

Whew, holy shit I have been fucked up these past few days. Now that I'm in a right state of mind again, let me catch up...

I'm actually fine with the mind caulk that some of the Pokedex entries are wrong. But fun facts like Exploud being audible six miles away and shouting loud enough to start earthquakes is pretty cool. Much cooler than whatever 4e-based tactical minigame you were considering making. If something has to give, I'd much prefer it to be the idea of being able to have fair fights between hamsters and kaiju than to get rid of the feeling of having kaiju at all.

-Username17

I see where you're coming from and I actually totally agree with you. I don't really watch the Pokemon movies or anime because I don't really give a shit about the Pokemon setting, but my vision is to have legendary Pokemon be way stronger and more badass than everything else, because duh. Modelling the lore is generally better, barring the really stupid shit. To be pedantic though, Pokemon doesn't really have kaiju: the biggest one ever (barring Gigantimax because I don't fucking care about that stupid shit) is fucking 65 feet tall - smaller than the smallest of Godzillas! Groudon can control ALL LAND and shit, and it's... 11 feet tall. For some reason, Pokemon just don't get that big. However... it's absolutely worth modelling those giant pokemon because people clearly do want giant fucking kaijumon and shit.

Another solution nobody's mentioned is that if somebody captures Kyogre, that's acknowledged as the end of the campaign.

I don't think anybody brought it up because that's rather boring unless that was already the end goal. What's the fun in catching one of the strongest Pokemon in existence if the game ends right afterwards? It's like beating a post-game dungeon in a JRPG and now you have uber-god equipment that you can use... to go through the dungeon again? Even if legendaries are as tweaked-out as possible, I still want people to be able to use them, because that is awesome.

Of course, that in itself is a decision that basically says "We are not emulating the video games or most of the anime". That decision takes things in a very D&D direction. It's a good decision, I feel, but just deciding that at all (and having trainer HP scale up at basically the same rate as their Hippowdon or Artichoke or whatever) is a noteworthy thing and sets a direction for the kind of stories you're telling.

Honestly, that's how I run my game and it's been extremely enjoyable for me and my players once we completely abandoned all delusions of adhering to the Pokemon franchise. Sure, I still use pokedex entries and shit to get an idea of what a Pokemon is like, but that information seems applicable across all mediums. Being a badass luchadore who tag-teams fuckers with his Machamp is awesome and people love it... unless they eat shit and die, but people generally don't like that.

Obviously I'm fine with one character being a Pokémon Trainer with a flaming rodent in a ball and another character being a Samurai with a big hammer. I mean, that's why I wrote my system like that. But that's a very fundamental choice. And it's a dealbreaker for players who want everyone to have Pokémon in their Pokémon game.

This strikes me as a false dichotomy. What's wrong with being a Pokemon Trainer with a flaming rodent in a ball who has THE BEST FLAMING RODENTS in the party, while the Samurai smacks people with a hammer while his pokemon support him? The way that Pokemon and Trainers fight together on the battlefield is one of the most interesting parts of this system for me, at least on the fundamental level, even if the execution is a bit... weak.

How devastating are Kaiju?
How balanced are Pokémon supposed to be to each other?
Are Humans without Pokémon playable?
Are Pokémon without Humans playable?
How lethal is the game?
How relevant is combat?
How relevant is investigation and social intrigue?
How relevant is world map mobility?

• I'm not exactly sure on the upper limits of their power, as I'm still not convinced you can do ANYTHING to a fucking time travelling fairy unless it allows it, but they've at least gotta be able to wipe out cities and shit, right? I kind of like the idea of legendaries ALWAYS being above a certain level, even right after they're born, simply because they're that powerful. A Groudon that just popped out of its egg may only be able to destroy like, half a city, but it'll still Earthquake you because fuck you.
• I don't think Pokemon should be balanced compared to the legendaries, but one of the things I hate most about the video games is the absolute proliferation of shitmon. It is my opinion that every single Pokemon is someone's favorite, and I think it's valuable to be able to use your favorite Pokemon and not get fucking bodied for it. I should be able to take a Butterfree up against the Elite 4 if we've been training relentlessly for months.
• The name of the game is Pokemon, so no. If you don't want to catch Pokemon, go fucking play D&D or something.
• This question is a bit harder. People have tried to do that in PTU and it... does not work well. There's actually an entirely different game system just for Pokemon Mystery Dungeon-style shenanigans where everyone is playing a Pokemon. I think I'm okay with telling people that I'm focusing on the relationships Trainers and Pokemon have and just point them over there.
• Not very. I actually like the lethality in PTU - it's totally possible to eat shit and die, it's just extremely difficult to let that happen. You can see your death coming from a long ways away... unless you fall off a cliff or something, but I don't think I want D&D-style "I fell into the atmosphere like Master Chief and ate 20d6 damage". I think the Injury system does a good job of modelling that and I'd like to stick to that level of lethality. As a GM, I almost never have to worry about killing the party when I make an encounter or dungeon and I like that, because that gives me license to beat the fucking shit out of them.
• I love combat. I love fighting dudes. I love drawing copious amount of blood on the map when people get taken out. This is also Pokemon where people just engage in cockfighting for shits and giggles. I feel safe saying that combat is highly relevant, even if it's not necessarily lethal.
• With the amount of power you have at your disposal with even a handful of Pokemon, it can make investigating things almost trivial if you have the right Pokemon. Of course, most Pokemon can't just tell you what they know, because we don't want to just trivialize everything by asking Xatu who killed Professor Plum. I have to say I haven't given much thought to 'social intrigue', as I can't recall playing any games with mechanics supporting those. I've heard about the ASOIAF RPG and that's all that really comes to mind. Do we need to emulate Game of Throhs Thrones in our Pokemon RPG? I mean, shit, one player class in this game LETS YOU READ MINDS! I enjoy political skullduggery, but I'm not convinced it should be in the base rules. I'm open to hearing more on this topic.
• Fucking relevant as shit. I wrote up a whole overland movement system that makes it easier to traverse the world the stronger and better Pokemon you have. Moving through a forest eats up more movement than walking through an open field... unless you're riding something that is used to living in the forest, at which point that penalty is removed. Having an early Final Fantasy progression where you go from beating up rats outside of town to flying around the world on your giant pimp ride strikes me as something people enjoy and I want to have as part of the base game. As an anecdote, my players love uncovering new areas of the map and sometimes waste time just so they can scribble down more of their surroundings. I think this is extremely important because one of the things I dislike about the newer games is how fucking on-rails they are. What's more fun: Walking along a Route in the woods where there's plenty of people and safety, or saying "HEY WHAT'S THAT", hopping on your Gogoat, and riding west for 50 miles?

[jt]

Frank: that's a great list of questions. Almanac: i agree with all your answers.

It is my opinion that every single Pokemon is someone's favorite, and I think it's valuable to be able to use your favorite Pokemon and not get fucking bodied for it. I should be able to take a Butterfree up against the Elite 4 if we've been training relentlessly for months.

How much effort are you willing to put into this? There are two ways you can pull this off:
[*] Choose a balanced-by default method of generating pokemon stats (probably a template thing) and force all bazillion of them into that mold as well as you can.
[*] Port all the stats over from the games using some mechanical method and start patching them by hand every time you find something under-performing (or over).

The latter approach is going to give you better results, but it's a lot of work. If you want to do that, I'd recommend establishing a well-rounded benchmark team and balancing everything towards that. And publishing your system on a wiki (with privileged edit access), because you'll need so many edits.

With the amount of power you have at your disposal with even a handful of Pokemon, it can make investigating things almost trivial if you have the right Pokemon. Of course, most Pokemon can't just tell you what they know, because we don't want to just trivialize everything by asking Xatu who killed Professor Plum. I have to say I haven't given much thought to 'social intrigue', as I can't recall playing any games with mechanics supporting those. I've heard about the ASOIAF RPG and that's all that really comes to mind. Do we need to emulate Game of Throhs Thrones in our Pokemon RPG? I mean, shit, one player class in this game LETS YOU READ MINDS! I enjoy political skullduggery, but I'm not convinced it should be in the base rules. I'm open to hearing more on this topic.

RPGs are going to have some challenges that are in-focus and some that are out-of-focus. For an in-focus challenge, you need:
[*]Actual rules, with enough meat on them that spending time using them is interesting.
[*]Abilities that allow everyone to participate. Force people to have them, because sitting on the sidelines is boring.
[*]At least enough balance that it's meaningful for everyone to participate.

For an out-of-focus challenge, things are very different:
[*]There are not that many rules, and the amount of time spent on this activity needs to be short. Otherwise it's in-focus.
[*]It doesn't matter as much if people can't participate, because the time spent on this activity is short.
[*]Abilities that completely trivialize the challenge are great, because they make it so you spend less time on a thing with low rules coverage that not everybody can participate in.
[*]Balance barely matters, but you want to avoid situations where an ability is both broader and better than another, since the person with the worse ability will never get to use it.

So you could have real social intrigue rules if you want to declare investigations in-focus. Or you could let Xatu mindread your way through a mystery novel in half a minute if you want to declare investigations out-of-focus. And both of these are fine. But you need to avoid letting someone spend half their points on investigation skills and then never getting to use them because their gormless friend caught a psychic bird.

(I'd lean towards out of focus; I think Pokemon has lots of room for "fuck you I win" in this space)

I wrote up a whole overland movement system

I'd like to see that. It's always been something I've wanted to see more of in both Pokemon and TTRPGs.

[The Adventurer's Almanac]

How much effort are you willing to put into this? There are two ways you can pull this off:
[*] Choose a balanced-by default method of generating pokemon stats (probably a template thing) and force all bazillion of them into that mold as well as you can.
[*] Port all the stats over from the games using some mechanical method and start patching them by hand every time you find something under-performing (or over).

The latter approach is going to give you better results, but it's a lot of work. If you want to do that, I'd recommend establishing a well-rounded benchmark team and balancing everything towards that. And publishing your system on a wiki (with privileged edit access), because you'll need so many edits.

Yeah, the latter is clearly better, if more time consuming. If I'm going to do this, I'm going to do it right so Pokemon don't feel like a slightly-tweaked template with a different coat of paint on it.

(I'd lean towards out of focus; I think Pokemon has lots of room for "fuck you I win" in this space)

I agree here, too. Obstacles that could severely hamper one party can be breezed through by others, simply by using common sense. If you have even one Diglett, you've got a fucking digging machine that eats dirt and powers through the ground like a fucking sandworm from Dune, so a lot of physical obstacles are invalidated since you can just wait half an hour and go crawling through some holes. I think if I were to make up some more "fuck you I win" powers, you could have Dewpiders spitting out giant bubbles that give other people waterbreathing, even if that's the exact opposite of how it works in lore... we can mindcaulk these things.

I'd like to see that. It's always been something I've wanted to see more of in both Pokemon and TTRPGs.

Sure. I'll tell you now it's probably not great, but we've been using these rules for 3 years with minimal issues... just uh, don't do the math on how quickly you're moving. My players are endlessly amused by the fact that they cruise around on a flying ride going 10 mph, but they actually move EVEN SLOWER THAN THAT in combat!
Also, these rules would probably make more sense if you saw my encounter tables, too. The colors of the encounters correspond to the Disposition Roll you make when you land on the encounter - darker encounters roll 1-8, while lighter ones roll 3-10. I feel slightly embarrassed posting this, since there's a lot I should clean up about it.

yes, "Horny" is a disposition you can roll during some random encounters, but 99% of them are Pokemon encounters so you can see the bizarre courtship rituals some of these monsters go through. also that one time a random NPC had the hots for one of the PCs they ran into

[Username17]

The bizarre tininess of Pokémon is very much a video game continuity thing.

In other continuities, big Pokémon are just allowed to be big.


Giant Pokémon from the Anime.

In the Detective Pikachu movie, the mega Torterra is large enough that the characters have a chase scene running around on top of one of them.

-Username17

[jt]

That specific Dragonite is huge though. They're usually pictured as a little bigger than humans: