>What is this? Well, the Winter Ball is coming around and as a gift to our main date /vp/, we're making them a *new* pokemon tabletop RPG, This time by using the Pokemon Showdown Battle Simulator to facilitate all battles:
Basically, it's a rules-lite tabletop rpg where we replace the heavy rules of combat with some vidya, but otherwise follows the standard concept of a Pokemon RPG. Core mechanics are mainly based around trainers skills and social interaction, with some methods for using Pokemon Moves outside of battle to overcome obstacles. In order to keep the system accessible to new players, we're going to keep it based around the d6, and very likely core dice mechanic outside of battle will be 3d6 + skill against target number.
This is the first thread, so feel free to toss around ideas. I'll be coming in with a short list of design steps in the next little while. Discuss.
Post the design steps first, so we know what we're working with.
Jace Bell
Design steps are as follows.
1. Point buy system and basic stats for Trainers. Establish what Trainers are capable of relative to Pokémon.
2. Quick approximation for rolling skills as Pokémon. Likely going to be 3d6+(percentage of relevant stat) should be relatively quick to calculate.
3. EXP and stat assignment system for Showdown. Basically determine how quickly advancement occurs as a trainer.
4. GM systems. Creating Encounters, random encounter tables. Various tools and tricks to speed up combat.
5. Art and aesthetics for the pdf.
I'm tempted to use Toon or Gurps Ultra-lite as the basis for the system.(Irony: using one of the most intimidating systems to create an rpg designed to get people into the hobby.) However, I'm open to any and all suggestions.
Henry Ortiz
It doesn't have to be anything too drastic. 5E could be a good template for the point buy system and the basic stats.
Trainers will be more conversation-oriented, with their partner-pokemon having the combat stats. Trainers have the Int, Wis, and Cha-based stats, while the Pooks get Str, Dex, and Con- based stats. There's more stats in the actual game itself, but we don't have to go that far into STAB and resistances.
I'm willing to run a game to test out whatever we make.
Connor Thomas
I'd actually argue that Pokémon need a lack of stats, since they're all statted, while trainers will need all the basic stats in order to evade physical hazards.
5e certainly has a great stat assignment for beginners, with a nice limited curve of numbers and a lack of circumstancial bonuses and Modifiers. I'm not liking how 3d6 works with advantage/disadvantage though. I'll work on a short page on stat assignment and skill usage and see how it looks.
David Reed
4d6 - lowest number? It's the easiest.
Having the Pokemon's regular stats be their in-game stats is fine. It would make your work easier. It would also mean over 700 separate stat sheets for individual pooks AND their personality traits, though.
Alexander Russell
hey Veeky Forums, board hopper from /vp/ here
You guys seen some of the new pokedex entries for sun and moon? Shit gets kinda crazy.
You guys would run the statlines off their actual stats or the lore?
Jackson Fisher
The plan is that you should rarely have to roll for 'Mon out of battle, and when you do, it's simply roll+(add modifier derived from relevant stat)
Nicholas Campbell
We'll be deriving it from Showdown, and keeping it light wherever possible. It'll most likely be through DM fiat (ignoring insane entries like Slugma having the temperature of the sun)
Camden Price
Ah, I see. Well, in that case, your plan seems to be fine.
In terms of rolling skills for Pokemon, why not just keep it a straight d20?
Eli Williams
I have an idea. How about when a Pokemon levels up you get a set amount of EV's you can distribute into stats on Showdown. This way we only need to make a generic chart of points per level because all Pokemon only go up to level 100 and have a maximum of 510 EV's.
Because we're making this for /vp/, and are assuming complete newbies who don't want to buy new materials for the system.
Also, there's nothing more sexy than a 3d6 bell curve.
Tyler Gray
>Game Resources >Empty Welp.
Jordan Foster
PTA is dead. PTU is what those devs moved onto.
Jose Gomez
I'll take a look at it ASAP.
Gabriel Mitchell
Anyone else kinda want a Pokemon rpg with custom dice? You could probably replace some of the tables/math by just having dice with specific probabilities.
Owen Hernandez
The Pokemon Tabletop United website has their download links and a newer playtest of some stuff for statuses. But with SM on the way some of the crunch is slightly off.
Josiah Brown
It's going to be hosted on roll20, but if you have a website that makes original dice, please share.
Blake Long
I thought about a more cinematic Pokémon RPG for a while. It was basically FFG Star Wars with custom printed pokemon dice, but the whole cost to play would make it completely inaccessible to most people interested in it.
David Ramirez
I just use blank dice and put stickers on them when I need custom dice. It's not too hard to buy blank dice online (in the US).
If I needed to make custom dice with a slightly higher quality level, I'd probably get some custom rubber stamps and just stamp paint onto the blank dice. Not as good as proper molded dice, but durable enough for homebrew.
Xavier Martin
I hope the new pokemon get statted for the tabletop systems soon.
Benjamin Smith
They already are. Just round up and cut the 1s digit off.
Jason Morales
>It's modified Savage Worlds
Whelp, at least I know someone is doing something right.
Well, not much I can use here, except that now that I think about it, trainers should have a toughness rather than Hit Points.
Jonathan Perez
Sounds good. Pokémon should be a real threat though. Like, the immediate PC reaction if they don't have a Pokémon should be to run.
Gabriel Collins
Yeah. Does anyone know if it's possible to give Pokémon status effects and damage before battles in Showdown? That's really the only thing that will cause a major break in continuity for the game.
Brody Hill
PTA is indeed dead, but it's worth looking at. I've run both and while PTA had some broken and not well thought through stuff, PTU kinda went super complicated for my players, and I felt like I had to do a lot more babysitting in character creation. It's worth looking at both for the benefits each provides.
Combat in both sucks because they're basically trying to make you play the video game if you had to do all the work yourself, which drags on and adds a lot of kinks that you otherwise wouldn't think about.
Andrew Foster
/vp/ user here a mon can inflict itself with burn of poison by having it hold a flame/toxic orb respectively
Nicholas Brown
*burn or poison
Hudson Cox
that'll keep them from having a hold item though. like imagine if your mega Heracross got burned in a previous fight and you had to carry that over into the next fight. You can't hold the flame orb and the Heracrossite at the same time.
Benjamin Carter
PTA and PTU are both trash.
Rarely has an RPG based on a franchise miss the point so badly.
Mason Morgan
guts heracross is better desu senpai
but I see what you mean
Alexander Watson
Never said they were good.
Nolan Edwards
Yeah, that's the impression I got from it.
This is what I was worried about. I'm going to have to factor the lack of continuity in battles then. You can edit teams for fainted Pokémon between battles, but that's about it. The main issue will mainly be the GM creating encounters that stay tough and can be entertaining.
Hudson Mitchell
Bumpity.
Isaac Reyes
page 10 bump
Isaac Allen
Or like most tabletop you can just make a note about status effects until it gets removed. You're making a new system, up to a point, even if it is based on an existing one. Make sure the system does what you need it to, especially when all it would take is a Status line to fill in or a Notes section.
Stats follow a standard limit of 20, with a modifier gaining or losing 1 for every 2, to a maximum of +/-5.(basic 5e stats)
Skills use a binary proficiency bonus, which advances according to your level. You're either good at a skill or you aren't. Skills have a bonus equal to Stat+proficiency(again, 5e rules)
Advantage: roll 4d6 drop the lowest. Disadvantage: roll 4d6 drop the highest.
Critical Success: natural 17-18 Critical Failure: natural 5 or lower.
Toughness: used in place of Hit Points. How much of a tumble you can take. Should always assume Pokémon can easily kill you unless you have your own Pokémon. Keys off of Constitution.
Benjamin Walker
Profession and Background.
Profession defines a few basic abilities that each trainer has. Example:
As a Ranger you know how to survive in the wilderness, and are able to forage for food in the wilderness when supplies run short.
Backgrounds detail your upbringing.
Assistant: you worked for a Pokémon professor at some point
Gain proficiency in : Nature OR Investigation AND PokeZoology
Professor's contact info: you are able to contact your professor. As to whether he's able to help you or not, or if you get along is another matter entirely.
Basically you choose a Trainer Class, a background, assign stats, then pick a starter and you're good to go.
Thoughts?
Thomas Ortiz
I actually had hope for this thing.
But what are you guys doing? This is terrible, This is turning from a bad D&D heartbreaker into an unplayable system worse than any of the pokemon RPGs before it. It's like you're trying to change things only to change things, but making the worst decisions you can in the process.
Congrats on spending your effort producing something for no one. Really admirable.
Luke Martinez
This is the stats for Trainers only. Basically the Trainer's method of interacting with the world when not battling. The actual system for combat is the one set by Pokémon Showdown. If there's a better method to resolve Trainer interaction I'm all ears.
Jackson Morales
...
Camden Jones
Alright, let's start from the roots.
>What are we trying to achieve? rules-lite RPG that gives an actual Pokémon experience.
>How do the mechanics fit that? Pokémon Showdown is a battle simulator that allows the GM to create custom battles and let players face off against them. This is the main combat mechanic.
>What else is needed? Something to give characters depth and feel, in order to prevent the game from simply being a series of showdown matches strung along by the GM'S plot.
>How was this achieved. By using trainer stats to allow better world interaction.
>Why this method? 5e is an easy system to create a character for.
However, examining it now, I realize that this is heavily superficial. 5e does make a terrible system to play.
(Cont)
Joseph Lopez
Just a bit of side commentary, I suggest avoiding using HP for the trainers and going for a mutants and masterminds 3e styled wound system, where you just take more and more damage debuffs until you go down. Somewhat like smash brothers I guess.
Aiden Powell
The 5e mechanics focus on the Player Character as the tool of interaction, which is why I initially chose it. Instead of simplifying things, it instead complicated matters, adding in unnecessary material to the game, because it's character centric, not Pokémon centric.
>What are the new parameters? What are the tasks the Character would encounter on your typical pokemon journey?
-Wilderness Survival in various environments. -Foraging and supplies -shelter. -maintain physical health.
-Various feats of athletic and physical ability, Including running, jumping, hiding, stealing, throwing, etc.
-Various forms of social interaction with Pokémon and people. Some good, some bad.
-various forms of intellectual interaction -purchasing good, gathering supplies, and learning to survive on your own -studying of Pokémon and their habitat.
So, the question is, how to define this.
We have:
Physical activities Dextrous Activities Social Activities, Intellectual activities.
So the system itself can be confined to these for attributes.
Dylan Cooper
If this is a bit much I can stop, otherwise I thought you guys might be interested in the design process.
Now, do we need to derive any further skills from these. This depends on the differentiation of abilities.
>Does it make sense to define skills defined by a single stat? This concerns the skill of the player. Is a physically fit person always good at swimming AND biking. Generally, yes, but that also depends on the individuals skill and practice.
However, Intellectual skills define an immediate variance: not everyone who knows a lot about Botany knows a lot about Zoology, but intellectuals often pick up various pieces of information pertaining to various different subjects, so we can conclude that while the to branches of skill are different, the overall blanket attribute does contribute to the skill, which makes sense as the skills are derivatives of the main attribute, so it makes sense to differentiate the two skills under a single stat.
Thus we can conclude the necessity of broad stats with skill derivatives.
Jason Baker
The question is, how many derivatives of each stat do we need?
Physical requires almost no derivatives at all. In fact only two: a toughness system, the ability to withstand hazards around you, and a skill to be able to perform well. -toughness -Athletics
Social may require many skills -lying -persuading -handling Pokémon.
Intellectual is even more so: -knowledge of Pokémon behaviors and Biology -knowledge of technology. -knowledge of nature and survival -ability to investigate and stay aware of one's surroundings.
Dextrous -hiding -Delicate operations such as pickpocketing, drawing, or lock-picking.
So, that's 10 skills, treating toughness as a separate, passive ability.
Now, how to use this mechanically.
Oliver Jackson
At the very least, I am. Thanks for keeping us informed.
The broad stats + skill derivatives system seems sound to me. Simple enough to be easily grasped by anyone, while still being able to cover most eventualities. I don't have any experience designing homebrew systems, so I can't really help, unfortunately.
Should we implement a Fate points system ?
Brandon Reed
The core mechanic should be simple, in order to keep the target audience in mind: Pokémon Players interested in playing Tabletop RPG. The game is intended to be rules lite, but even more so, should be physically lite as well.
Not many people consider that rolling dice should be a factor considered when creating a homebrew game. It's why I despise Dice Pool systems. The mechanics are stupid simple, yet the physical game itself means gathering an unwieldly amount of dice, rolling them, then attempting to organize them into some form of coherence. It's a mess.
So, the mechanics should be low on the number of dice. 4d6 leans into that dice pool complexity, and 1d6 and 2d6 lend too little a spectrum of numbers to calculate failure and success. Thus we can safely say 3d6 is likely the most optimal. It also tends towards unremarkable numers meaning that players decisions have more of an impact than the degrees of success.
Dominic Scott
Does giving the ability to manipulate the environment, luck, and the situation at - will, without the need for Pokémon fit in line with the game we're trying to create? I say no, as this game is less about fate or luck, and more about decisions. In the end, Pokémon has always been about choices. Which Pokémon should I get? What moves should I choose? It's really not about how well something works, it's more about seeing the result of your actions. Make sense? That being said, I say a M&M Toughness system fits more in line with what we're aiming for, as suggested.
Carter Gonzalez
Now, integrating the core mechanics. In a 3d6 system there are two methods: target number or target roll. Again, keeping in mind the aimed for simplicity, the target roll method(aiming for target stats with the gm assigning task difficulty) tends to force the Player to do more bookkeeping, instead of the GM. Furthermore, the concept of Higher numbers = Good is somewhat ingrained in our psyche, making it more intuitive as a whole to do a target number.
The next step is deciding the spectrum and scope of the rolls
Connor Long
This is kind of sad.
Levi Jenkins
Before an excel sheet, now an online game.
Can we make it so we don´t need a fucking computer to play it? It doesn´t matter how complicated you do this, you´ll never make +100 pokemon be mechanically unique. It´d be much easier if we simplify all that fucking math and simply throw in more narrative mechanics.
Describe better the attacks and the pokemon, and let things take their normal course.
Carson Williams
So, what is our scope? In a system without modifiers the scope of 3d6 is going to be 3-18. A task of medium difficulty at this level Will have a 50/50 chance of success or failure, which directs us to any result between 10 and 11. This is our base difficulty. From there we branch outward to determine degrees of difficulty, which determines as follows:
Easy- 6, less than 10% chance of failure.
Medium- 10, less than 50% chance of failure.
Hard- 14, less than 10% chance of success.
Jayden Clark
>there´s nothing more sexy than a 3d6 bell curve
Oh yes there is: a 1d12+1d6 curve with a nice flat top so we don´t get the same three numbers half of the time.
Nathan Cook
Well, yeah. Normally I do all of this outside of Veeky Forums, work on all the voodoo, autistic math, logic, and reasoning, and then present it as a whole. Game design ain't easy.
Justin Bell
Doing all this just to bump your winter ball thread kind of highlights what kind of pathetic person you are though.
It just goes to show that retard effort isn't a substitute for talent. Might want to up your medication.
Cooper Price
Medium difficulty shouldn't be 50/50. I mean, do you have a 50/50 chance to get an essay right? 50/50 is quite hard imho
Nolan Torres
Oh, no, this is mainly insomnia caused by the new medication. Switched to Vyvance, and then shit hit the fan. Besides, I really don't give a flying fuck what you think.
Hudson Diaz
That's kind of why you don't know how to build a system. You are waaaaaaay too far up your own ass. Way up there.
Jordan Thompson
Eurgh. I mean. Sure, huge areola do it for some but I prefer a tit to be, you know, round.
Christopher Gray
So what does Veeky Forums think of the UBs?
Connor Carter
Oh, I didn't mean everyone as a whole, just you. You specifically. The guy who keeps trying to shit up the Winter ball threads. I mean, come on Virt, when I sent you that email telling you to get new material, I didn't mean finding a different way to be just as annoying. I expected you to actually do something clever, subtle.
William Long
>Using Pokemon showdown to simulate the battles
Sure, and I could use horoscope to simulate battles in d&d, that doesn't make it a good idea. Nice job destroying my interest before it even peaked. Asshole.
Jayden Williams
Yeah, honestly I'd like to do a full-length RPG at some point. However, this, and what I'm going for are completely different.
The end goal is a rules-lite Pokémon RPG that feels reasonably like Pokémon, with a target audience of new tabletop players who enjoy Pokémon. This fits the bill quite nicely. Combat is quick and easy, and familiar to anyone interested in Pokemon, and outside of combat I plan to keep roleplaying and system fast-paced.
Matthew Fisher
You're a pretty incredible faggot if you honestly think only one person recognizes your little club shitting up all the boards.
You probably just think that way because you stick to the threads on boards where most people already know to ignore and filter this shit. On the other boards, people call ypu out for being a silly little circlejerk pretending to be anything but all the time.
They're even banned in /v/ because you guys are so insufferable. But, go on, call everyone who calls you guys fags Virt.
Jason Harris
Alright, Virt. I'm going to do just that.
Is there a need to stat Pokemons as well ? If that's the case, it's something other anons could help you with.
Colton Robinson
Can I also be Virt? I also want to call you guys a bunch of circle-jerking faggots. All the ideas in this thread so far would have been laughed out of the Game Design General, and you and your fairy friends are still earnestly working on your heartbreaker.
William Torres
Since It's all done through Showdown, there's not really a need. I do need to develop a method of determining modifiers for pokemon. So Far I've been able to approximate the "Average For A Human" stat level is around 40. Considering that Pokemon can get their stats well over that it seems reasonable that Pokemon get huge modifiers. Of course, this is for improvised abilities outside of combat. the idea being that if you want your pokemon to do something unconventional. all you have to do is look at the relevant stat and derive a Modifier from it.
Jayden Butler
And why would you be called Virt? I want to be called Virt too, it's unfair!
Gabriel Cox
If the goal is to say that anyone who's tired of these guys doing all these dumb things just to advertise their little personal project is Virt, then I think all they're going to end up doing is turning being called Virt a point of pride.
You can be Virt, I can be Virt, we can all be Virt. And if being Virt means telling these guys to go away, we should all be Virt.
Austin Reed
Alright, You know what, Fuck it. I have not slept in 18 hours, I'm calling this thread quits for the next 24 hours, then starting it up again when I've actually gotten some sleep, and am able to re-evaluate the core concepts from the ground up. You win guys. shit this thread up all you want.
