Has anyone tried Pokémon Tabletop Adventures? Is it any good...

>It sucks ass because it tries to translate as many mechanics from the video games as possible.

Considering it's a turn based RPG how is that an issue?

Standard trainer campaigns are all I really want out of pokemon.

I want to play michael vick, not 'herpaderp I punch the pokemon in the face'

Its bad, excess rules and mechanics with broken balance and old as fuck.

PTU is pretty much the same except for the old part. If you have to choose one oth the two go with PTU, but i'd recommend you check other systems (Pokemon pen and paper, Pokerole etc.)

Or generic monster systems like monsters and other childish things or something similar.

then ill tell you straight up. its a lot of paperwork. you practically have 7 characters youre keeping track of. its a bit of a hassle. if youre into that youll enjoy it. personally, i keep 3 or less pokemon and myself.

Play PTU instead, it's a much more balanced system and has a new edition coming out soon, 1.06 by the end of the month I think.

I've GM'd PTx games for going on three years now. I like the system a lot, but it does have drawbacks. PTx has a ton of bookkeeping, I mean a TON. You're easily looking at seven sheets per player if you're running a standard game, probably more if they cap more than a full team, so using electronic sheets is absolutely necessary. Thankfully the people on the forum maintain an excellent gdocs sheet, and there's multiple encounter generators if you're too lazy to stat shit out. Character creation is pretty quick and easy, at least.

Combat takes for-fucking-ever, so I'd recommend having a battle timer for players that are slow. Your typical wild encounters probably take an hour or two, depending on how persistent your players are at catching/knocking out stuff. Always have a reference open for damage bases and cap rates and stuff, it will speed up gameplay a LOT. Combat also tends to be very rocket-tag, and the devs are pretty happy to take the nerf-bat to the classes each edition. Don't expect to play a healer, the devs hate healing since it makes the game slow to a crawl and eliminate challenge. Also don't expect to play defensively with either your trainer or Pokemon, as there are 1000% more offensive options compared to defense.

My only real advice is to have fun and keep the momentum going when you play, so your sessions aren't a single combat for 4 hours. Also NEVER PLAY THIS SYSTEM PBP. NOTHING WILL EVER GET DONE. I know that goes for any system because pbp is shit, but IT IS ESPECIALLY TRUE FOR THIS ONE.

One more thing I forgot to add: the devs made PTU with an emphasis on tactical combat, so there are almost no options for making a socially-focused character outside of one or two classes. Your character will either be good at battling, punching, or wacky support like being a musician or scientist.

And because of the way skills are done (d6s with d20-like DCs), skill rolls are incredibly polarized; when someone's rolling, they're either going to be absolutely passing or absolutely failing. There's almost never an in-between, since it's so easy to minmax your skills in this system, especially in 1.05 when you have a billion Edges and nothing to spend them on except skill upgrades.

OP here, thanks for the obvious bait. Enjoy your (you)

most pokemon RPG tend to be too crunch heavy for my tastes

pokerole looked decent though

Yeah, PTA and PTU suck dick for all the reasons you're given here. But also let's not forget the level of autism that was brought with each version and new books, such as Pokémon talking, the fact that all Legendaries take human forms, such as Zekrom and Reshiram being gothic lolitas. Just reading through those fucking books make me cringe.

Me and my friends tried to play it a while ago, after two sessions of character creation and a tedious 3 hour long random battle, we simply dropped.

Splatbooks are optional, you don't have to follow what's written there. The weeb shit comes with the territory.

I'm wondering how the hell CC took two sessions for you? Making characters for a party of 4 ttrpg newbies took an hour and a half for me, not nearly enough time for an entire session.

Yeah, Gold/Silver was the end of decent pokemon designs.

Adding on to previous posts. Been running a campaign for around a year so far.

Everything is super slow on the GM side of things. Every time someone hits one of your pokémon, you gotta go "Okay, now minus defenses. Any type matchups? Gotta multiply that..." It doesn't sound like much, because you're just typing it into a calculator (and seriously, I think it's a downside when a system benefits from using a calculator), but it still takes a little bit of time, every time. But then the asshole with Draco Meteor or whatever drops his shit on four or five of your mons, and everything screeches to a halt while you think/type up the resulting damage for each one.

Statting up a pokémon also takes quite a while, and as a GM I just don't bother. I use a generator to decide the general stuff for me. When a player catches a pokémon, you basically have to put it off until after the session to give them access to it. Statting up a Gym battle takes most of an afternoon.

It's pretty much the best system if you want to play pokémon like the games. Problem is that playing it like the games has its downsides too. It's really good if you like heavy systems, though. Lots of room for tactics and exploring different ways to build each pokémon.

Pokérole could have started out as a neat idea as far as I could tell, but in the end it's a massive pile of shit for many reasons.

Where are all of those? I'm curious now.

You should read the thread before posting.

...

i haven't played pokerole but it always looked the best of the 3 big pokemon systems. what do you think ruined it?

Tabletop games generally have a lower tolerance for bookkeeping.
Yes, it's possible to make a 1:1 adaptation, but it will be tedious to keep track of all the variables manually.
PTA/PTU is nearly unplayable without an automated spreadsheet.

Why I'm glad you asked, user! I happen to have a list pre-written (though I wrote it quite a while ago).

GOOD
+ its core mechanic is a neat idea
+ point-buy-ish leveling gives you a fair bit of variance as levels go up.
+ I like the idea behind negatively-scaling multiple actions, with evasion requiring an active action (but you can declare it to overwrite another action)

OKAY
~ it's not trying to emulate the math of the vidya
~ imposed hard limits on how far each poke can go
~ literally never heard the word "Canalize". The book also names another ranged skill in that section but then never mentions it again anywhere, including on the character sheets
~ It's got lighter rules, but still refers to a pokédex and moves list. Cognitive dissonance.
~ Healing is limited in a weird way.

BAD
- Dex is a god stat, out of four/five attributes
- Trainers and pokémon are handled inconsistently
- Weird, out-of-place inclusion of not-fate-points for really no reason at all
- Seriously wonky scaling on multiple actions, which is weird because the simpler solution works better (Start at +2 for a single action, -2 for each further action)
- Hard-imposed, pre-defined limits on all pokémon means at top level they converge back to being about the same
- FUCKING GRAMMAR GOD DAMN
- Understanding the lists for moves and abilities requires learning a big set of icons first.
- Physical moves use the same stat for accuracy and damage, but Special moves are arbitrarily split, and therefore are just weaker for no reason.
- As-written evolution is real fuckin' dumb

makes sense. it's a shame, the beer and pretzels system i posted above seems to be the best pokemon system i know of but i can't find the source and its incomplete.

>I happen to have a list pre-written.
Bait confirmed.

I GM'd PTTA once.

It was a of a lot of fun to tell the story and run it with my players, but dear hell was there so much crunch that I had to do all of the time in order to keep the game running. The amount of set-up work that I ended up having to do for encounters was staggering.

Also, for the love of god, don't use the Psychic class.

That's fair.

(You)

Said it before, saying it again: Pokethulhu has fulfilled all my pokeneeds with much simpler rules. If PTA or PTU is too much for you, try pokethulhu

play PTU

The issue I heard of last with PTA was that trainer's and pokemon didn't mesh well. Trainers used STR, CON, DEX, INT, WIS, CHA and skills based on them using d20, while pokemon didn't really have particular rules for skills.

So you end up with a situation where a pokemon is sneaking up on the party and... there's no contested roll and the GM just has to pull a number out of their ass. Or the party is sneaking up on pokemon and the pokemon don't have the stats to roll a spot check.

PTU was fun, but you almost certainly need a computer to run it, because if you're doing a trainer-ish campaign then random encounters become complex with having to pick each pokemon for the fight, level them up appropriately, and have all their moves listed. Without computer assistance it makes dealing with players wanting to look/train slightly difficult.

I had a lot of fun running PTU. All the players knew what to expect, so when the crunch hit us we were braced appropriately.

I planned a whole region to the point of working out the encounter rates at each location. It was great. The players all got involved. It was interesting. Most of all it was unique because It was based on Hawaii...

I was a little disappointed when Sun and Moon were announced.

Pokemon Tabletop United is better in better in pretty much every way.

Even with that, it's a bookkeeping nightmare. TONS of work. Can be really fun if you have motivated players, a good setting, and are willing to deal with the tedious bookkeeping.

Due to all other Pokemon RPGs being so crunch-intensive, I've been considering doing a simplified, dare I say retro, Pokemon RPG, but I've never been sure how much of an interest there would be for it.

I've typed out a lot of the basic mechanics, but would need to round out the poke'mon, moves, and items lists; along with some generic NPCs. There would be no core stats, but each trainer would have an Occupation (swimmer, martial artist, bug catcher, etc) that granted them a couple of minor +2s or +4s, or if they were something special like a psychic, they'd have some sort of special ability. Then, as with many retro/lite rpgs, you would just have a bonus to rolls based on your level, well half of your level, called the BLB (Basic Level Bonus) beginning as a +1 to all rolls and increasing by +1 every odd level.

Now, pokemon being pokemon, they also gain an escalating Evolution Bonus, of +2 at first/baby form, +4 at intermediate forms, and +6 at final forms. So, a max-level fully evolved pokemon would be rolling with +16 to stuff, while a max level trainer would be rolling with +10; maybe +12 if it was some task or skill directly effected by their Occupation. Pokemon would all have their in-game traits like Filter or Magic Bounce, but then also characterizing traits based on their size, or implied abilities. Like, a caterpie may have "Climb" (which would let it freely move along vertical/upside down surfaces). And also their size would be relevant; Tiny, Small, Medium (Human), Large, Huge, and Colossal; the smaller sizes would pack less of a physical punch, while the larger ones would be much easier to hit. Scratch and Bite and all that would just be chocked up to basic attacks. Pokemon would gain experience points by wining battles or personally advancing the plot. Trainers get experience points by catching new pokemon, personally advancing the plot, and whenever one of their pokemon evolves.

My main problem with pokemon as a TTRPG is grinding levels.
Pokemon itself, the vidya, revolves around keeping a balanced and levelled party, and this is done by grinding. But that really doesn't mesh in with the way I play TTRPGs, where combat usually is quick, sparse and decisive.

I like it, sounds pretty solid so far. type it all out and ill give it a quick read, maybe even help contribute.

here's the first draft's PDF.
I'm certain it's full of typos and inconsistencies; half of the tables are empty too, but the gist is there.

NICE.give me a bit to read it. dont worry about typos, thats what editing is for.

have you read or heard of a system called doublecross? You have a couple of similar game mechanics in your game system. Might be worth a read for ideas.

I've got a full list of all of the original 151 pokemon stat out in NWOD. It's using their real weights and what not from Bulbapedia though.

>pre-written
Are you for real?

Other than Dex being a god stat I don't agree with most of what you said, which appears to be mostly a personal rant than a serious analysis.
I have GM'd Pokerole for three months by now and it's certainly more intuitive than what you are making it to be, it's not a perfect system, but much better than I expected so I'll say that you are being unfair if you are reviewing a system without playing it, as you obviously haven't.

PTA was the first pokemon system my group tried but our GM dropped and a few years back I tried to GM PTU for my group a couple of times, but we stopped trying due to the excess crunch, we couldn't keep track of everything during battles. That being said I don't believe it's a bad system, it was simply not for me or my group.
Now we tried Pokerole and have been doing well with it ever since; I'd say you give it a chance if you have the time.

Why are you using and apostrophe instead of an accent mark to write "Poke'mon" instead of "Pokémon" it looks retarded.

because its Poke'mon, monsters that poke, due to copyright violations and such. derrr...

If I want to experience Pokémon battles, I just fire up my 3DS and play online with my m8s.
Roleplaying and doing things in a Pokémon world other than being a prodigy kid who saves the day is what you'd seek out a Pokémon TTRPG for.

The problem is that even simplified battle systems would still have to create at least some default stats for 730+ Pokémon, which sounds extremely tedious. Digimon TTRPGs suffer the same problem (but at least with the Digimon games, there's a precedent for stats being less species-dependent and rather something that a single individual Digimon accumulates).
There ought to be a system that consists of just a handful of templates which can be mixed and matched to suit every Pokémon/Digimon, without being truly faithful to the games, but doing a good enough job approximating their feel.

I've been working on a Mystery Dungeon tabletop, but I'm wondering how to handle out-of-combat stuff. I'm thinking I might use GURPS for non-combat skills and leave the rest as-is.

Also, what's so bad about rocket tag gameplay? Being swept by bravest bird is a nuisance, but at least it's quick. I can't even imagine the horror of Toxic stall in an already-slow game.

PTA is pretty busted and is essentially dead. PTU is extremely crunch heavy, but I personally find it fun and play it a lot, and it has an active community and dev team. Pokerole, Pokemon Pen and Paper, and all other minor Pokemon ~narrative~ games have all been trash for one reason or another - at least one of them even used Cthulhu-tech style Glitch dice, complete with dice pools that got worse as they got larger, because the dev had no idea how mechanics work. So play second tier games at your own risk.

>complaining about things happening in the anime being in the [optional] rules
>two sessions to make characters
Maybe you and your friends are just retarded, have you considered that?

because I have to type fast and ALT+0233 is too slow

What I mean by templates is something like:
- Build 1 (bulky, swift, smart, etc.) – determines the base stats
- Build 2 (offensive, defensive, special, etc.) – distributes additional base stats
- Type(s) – other than typing, includes a list of default moves available to every Pokémon of that type after reaching a certain level
- Progression (slow, medium, fast) – determines the growth rate of the Pokémon; either how much EXP it needs to level up, or how many stat points are available to distribute upon levelling up; could be used to balance Pokémon with high base stats
- Evolution (slow+strong, medium, fast+weak) – standardises when a Pokémon levels up, and how many additional stat points the evolution gains.
Finally you'd have an abridged list of Abilities and non-default Moves which you would be able to apply/teach to a Pokémon as deemed reasonable by the GM, or for which there is precedent in the games. You could use a point-buy system for these, and some would have stat requisites.

Ctrl+alt+e

Gets you an acute accent over your e, and can be set to capitals with the shift/caps lock keys.

Every Pokemon tabletop roleplaying game is complete and utter garbage.

You'd be better off playing Cute and Fuzzy Cockfighting Seizure Monsters than any Pokemon fantrash game.

PTA is complete garbage, don't play it ever, let it die.

If you play PTU, consider making suggestions to the devs as the remains of PTA still carry on through some of its mechanics, making an otherwise good system into a below average one.

>Pokémon
There, I did it for you, now replace that fuckery, or you could just write "Pokemon" without the accent, you know?

Here's a thing I made a while ago. I stopped updating it when I couldn't get anyone to play and the guy that was going to do a couple art pieces to fill in the blank areas flaked.

Though it does add a new concept, Cores, which I used to simplify everything. But I can see how it could be a little too weird.

Would it actually be easier to do Pokemon in GURPS?

that is actually pretty much what I do with my pokemon games, cooked up some battle sheets to model pokes like in the video games but otherwise treat it like a stereotypical urban fantasy game.

> Has anyone tried Pokémon Tabletop Adventures?
I am starting a second campaign as the DM, we're already in one.

> Is it any good?
A bit too 1-hit-killy IMHO. But I like the mechanics. I also like how trainers level up. Could be improved by pic related being added.

> Do y'all have any stories or tips for running a good Pokémon campaign?
1. Give players agency.
2. Prepare stuff as generic as possible.
3. Find ways for PCs to generate money other than duels.
4. Use the pokemon random generator.
5. Don't give a class / class abilities to trainers that aren't important enough to shine.

Story
> One of the PC, a Martial Artist / Ace Trainer, earned his two first badges due to having a slightly higher level Bibarel
> Actually hates Bibarel, but hates losing more.
> Has a hard-on for Hitmonchan
> Being mocked by being said things like "Use your main, Bibarel"
> Normal Gym
> Gym Leader is a Move Tutor
> Starts duel with Larvitar, Leader sends a Meowth
> Meowth used HYPERBEAM
> Holyfuckingshit
> Battle drags on
> Bibarel downed by some pokemon's Thunderpunch
> Gets Hitmonchan out
> Hitmonchan uses Fake-Out on absurdly resistant pokemon (Miltank?), Foe used Counter
> Would kill the Hitmonchan
> Palms sweating
> Try to find a way to counter "Counter"
> Looks at his own sheet in bewilderment
> "I've got FEINT!"
> Mega Punch for whatever was left.
> Hitmonchan recognized as his main fron now on.

Of course, those of us that won received the HYPERBEAM TM (TM 15)?

One time, I had my players camping out on a Route to the next city, and there happened to be a lake nearby.

When they woke up, suddenly there was a fishing contest going on out there. I did some NPC rolls and made a value chart for catches, one of them won and got something good or other that I can't recall now.

The twist was that when the contest had wrapped up, the people all seemed to be leaving or even gone rather quickly; it turns out that they were all a bunch of Dittos that had gotten together to pretend to be like humans for a day.

This. It's unbearably clunky, and I have no idea why they thought 4e (or any edition of D&D) was the ideal foundation for a Pokemon game. Furthermore, the focus on trainers in combat runs against expectations of how Pokemon works, IMO.

I'd rather just run a variation on FATE or something.

What do you do when your players want to keep treating it like the game? I've tried to demonstrate it before, but it keeps happening.

id suggest using rules that don't attempt to reproduce the game's mechanic if you don't want it to feel like the game.

But otherwise, try having the world respond in a distinctly un-game-like way. If their behaviors don't do what they expect, they may change them.

Have pokemon attack the trainers, those big bags of meat yelling a lot and posing but not actually attacking, they'd probably make a better meal than some small voilent insect/balloon thing.

What's wrong with it "feeling like the game"?

>Mystery Dungeon
Explain Further

I might recommend keeping stuff on the lighter side when it comes to non-combat. It's going to be a pain dealing with all the limbs and options so many Pokemon have

To be Veeky Forums mean, I'd ask why aren't you playing a ROM hack then?

Tabletop gives you a ton of opportunities to do interesting things, like making Contests into actual contests, changing the Gym battles, even messing around with balancing the types.

> Tabletop gives you a ton of opportunities to do interesting things, like making Contests into actual contests, changing the Gym battles, even messing around with balancing the types.
The problem
points out is that PLAYERS treat it like the game. Gym battles / Contests / Elemental Balances are things the GM completely controls.

> To be Veeky Forums mean, I'd ask why aren't you playing a ROM hack then?
I like the roleplaying aspects, choosing how my character evolve, facing trainers that ARE more experienced than I am and will defeat me once in a while (and finding a strategy to win anyway), cooperate with a friend on team battles and have quests whose rewards is a rare/powerful pokemon joining my team willingly.

Also, I like my opponents not choosing moves at random.

And if Fireblast ressembles the videogame's Fireblast, if characters refer to metagame concepts like HP and Lvl, if Flying gives immunity to fire attacks or if badges unlock the use of the Cut/Surf techniques or the obedience of level 20+ pokémon, who cares?

Video games can handle a lot of complicated calculations very quickly.

Physical players cannot.

PTA gets bogged down by all the math.

Also, the only good Pokemon campaign would be a Mystery Dungeon campaign anyway.

I'm glad someone else agrees with this. Whenever I say that game is too complex, I just get yelled at and called a retard.

We were playing Shadowrun. PTA is actually giving us a break.

I knew some guys years ago where were converting the entire pokemon video game system into GURPS. I played in one of their test games, and it was pretty unbearable. I remember one like 5x5 battle taking almost two hours to complete.

For real though, if PTTA came with a calculator and a generator, it would be a great deal of fun to sit there as the GM. You'd just have your papers/dice/misc. on one side of you and a laptop on the other.

As a GM who runs in Roll20, the automation still doesn't make it run smoothly.

>Bulbasaur.png

I'd settle for better than it is. The crunch without tools is painful.

So how would you run a superior Mystery Dungeon campaign?

You can actually just do that with PTTA. And it removes a fuckton of the game's clutter because you don't have to worry about Trainers and their mechanics.

Really, a secured PDF?

I dunno what happened on that guy's end when he uploaded. This one that I have lying around probably opens fine though.

Yeah this one is open. Thanks, friend.

Hey now, don't attribute us furries with this faggot.

>PTA gets bogged down by all the math.
It can LOOK really painful, but it really doesn't get that bad. PTU is even a bit better with its set damage tables, so you just go "move plus attack stat, it deals X" and the GM factors in weak/resist and its defense and you move on.

Turn, Pick action, roll acc, calculate damage, next Turn. If you're spending over 1 minute per combat action after the 3rd session your players are literally retarded

>Drawing attention to the fact that you're a furry for no fucking reason.
You are a faggot, user-kun