I really got the urge to run a Pokemon campaign, but I haven't used PTU before. Looking through it though, it seems solid. Anyone have any experience running the system? How is it?
As a side note, if it does run pretty smoothly, I'd be looking for a couple of people that have a lot of free time this summer to play
Other urls found in this thread:
docs.google.com
twitter.com
It's basically just using Savage Worlds to do Pokemon. It's not... extremely horrible, but it uses an rpg designed for playing 1 character per player and tries to make it down a team of Pokemon and a trainer. Really, the best way to use it is probably to run a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon style campaign, and put a limit on how much dice can explode based on the player's relative level of power.
I spent the better part of 3 years wrangling this beast, and I can tell you three things:
1- It's popular. You won't be hurting for players that's for sure.
2- It's not that good. Forces you to check giant lists of moves every session. Relies on online tools. It generally isn't very open to character concepts, and has a lot of imbalance when it comes to narrative power given by classes
3- If you try to run pokemon on any other system, you'll get no players and any players you get will ask why you're not using PTU, because it has gathered quite the cavalcade of fanatics
Sorry if this seems like I don't like it because it's popular, but I've actually run it for a very long time and I'm just pissed I can't manage to run MaOCT Pokemon without digging deep into the autism mines for players
PTU is not savage worlds and it doesn't have exploding dice?
Pokemon as a setting has advantages, since it's a setting that teaches itself to people. Learning about it is usually the point of playing the games, and that attitude translates pretty well. Since it has no static canon characters, it's one of the few settings that can be used without fear of the player assuming they can go fuck with specific people.
The pitfalls it has have all to do with how videogame-y the games are, and how little PTU does to get away from that feeling. It's common for people to expect you to map places out in the style of the games, a map for each area, and those people will be pre-trained to follow the railroad. It's very difficult to get people to break away from that and seek out their own individual plotlines, beyond looking for new pokemon. I've never seen a group of PTU players decide to go off-route without prompting from an NPC or the GM
Ah... my bad. I read as far as "Skills, Edges, and Trainer Options" and felt it was all too familiar to SW. Looking at it now it seems... alright? Last I heard the general opinion was that it missed the point of being a Pokemon Tabletop game.
Another big advantage of the setting is that you can grab any real world location and make a pokemon map out of it. Once you do that you have easy access to worldbuilding fuel, since all you have to do is translate real world details into pokemon hooks. Wikipedia pages work wonders.
The map in is directly based off of Sardegna, the Italian island
Unfortunately, after unsuccessfully trying to run a game I noticed some pretty major flaws. Some other posters also mentioned some of these.
-Relies heavily on referencing each individual move, as if they were a spell or similar concept. Which is fine until you realize that every player has a list of moves, every Pokemon has a list of moves, etc. It's like every player is playing and managing 2-6 or even more Wizards in D&D, while the GM is having to manage an entire array of wizards for every combat. This quickly becomes incredibly inundated. All that said, it's possible to avoid that if you play online with tools that will track and process all of that, otherwise you will spend every session digging through pdfs or materials to reference every move. Even if you print out cheat sheets, you will end up needing to make new ones every time a Pokemon learns a new move or a new Pokemon is caught. It's an endless uphill battle.
-Rolls and calculations are deceptively simple. The problem is they're all long step by step processes and even calculating the damage for one simple move takes time, having to account for so many factors and to process them in the correct order.
-Tries too hard to emulate the mechanics of the video games, which is the whole reason you get inundated with those previous issues.
Again, all that said, it's feasible to play this if you play online or everyone has a tablet or device to calculate and track everything for them seamlessly. This still requires a lot of front-loaded effort on you and your players, to ensure everything is working with your tools, and to track all of the changes in Pokemon, new Pokemon gained, etc. You can't ever let yourself fall behind, or you will find yourself suddenly overwhelmed.
Yeah, I actually already have a map sorted out based loosely on my home state
So from this thread, it sounds serviceable but not great. To run a traditional league challenge campaign like I intend would require a lot of things to keep track of, and a lot of work. I really wouldn't mind putting in the work though, if this is the system I've got to use, whether that's because there isn't a better one or because no one wants to play any others
I've played some slow games before, I kind of got used to them, so hopefully I'm not the only one and I can still make it work
Please, for the love of god uses computers or tablets to play.
I've heard Pokerole is a good system. Haven't read it, tried it, or anything else. But Veeky Forums has recommended it before in these threads.
Supposedly more streamlined? I don't know. Check it out, and weigh your options before you dive in headfirst and crash like I did.
Also I'll post the map I'm using because why not. It is still a work in progress, though
Well the intent was to play this all on Roll20, since the one person I know will be playing lives across the country
The good thing about PTU is the fanwank. The classes and mechanics make my cummies fly
It's way too slow if any more than one person fights at a time. Which is show and game accurate, to be fair, but isn't too good in a group unless your group is fine with most of them doing nothing for every combat
The learning curve is steep. But once you can figure out how everything works and what does what when, a lot of it seems intuitive.
I will concede the combat takes a long time, but it rarely FEELS like a long time because so much happens.
There's a whole lot of 4e in there.
Not the good parts of 4e either.
Either make all your trainers use combat classes or none of them, because goddamn does trainer combat break that game wide fucking open.
You may already have found this but ff you're playing over the internet make sure to use these sheets.
docs.google.com
Makes everything a lot simpler as it links back to a database containing information about every pokémon, move and feature in the game. During sessions my group has only referenced the books regarding moves that change power depending on the situation, catching mechanics and the effects of conditions. It saves a ton of time and I'm really thankful towards whoever made it.
Well, the bulk of the campaign was going to be sanctioned league matches, so no trainer interference anyway. I was thinking I'd leave the option open for someone who wanted to tussle with wild Pokemon, or defend themselves from criminals. Just how wide open are we talking, here?
Hey, that's great. Thanks for linking this user, I'll be sure to use it
Trainers have smaller combat stats, but they have higher HP. They theoretically have access to fewer high power moves, but in practice, by level 13, they have access to enough type variety and so many bonuses that you're looking at something about the level of a fully evolved pokemon, and that's while having the action economy advantage of ALSO having a pokemon.
The real problem, though, is not combat trainers. The real problem appears when you mess up the experience distribution with a munchkin in the group. It's a curve, or sorts, so a level 5 trainer with level 15 pokemon is fine, but a level 13 trainer with pokemon in the low 30s is not.
Once you get to levels 16 and up, munchkins will take your game apart faster than you can counter them. The disparity in damage potential will become apparent. A munchkin'd lvl 20 Luvdisc could be dealing 60 damage per turn on average, while a fully evolved starter can still be in the 30s. And luvdisc is a shit pokemon. The whole thing will make up for the combat trainers twice over, but it'll still make your campaign cry.
The point is, the system is very gameable. You're plain encouraged by the rules to minmax your stats and pick the best features for your level. It's a sort of culture, too, among fans of the game, 3.5 style, except most people play PTU on the internet so most people are exposed. The few times I decided to leave optimization by the wayside and focus on a cool concept I was left so far behind I had no business being on the same team as everybody else.
It's especially painful, and patently obvious, when a GM decides to run a staple of the system: PvP.
I've seen first sessions where the starter testing combat was something like Onyx (OP) vs Honedge (2xOP) vs Buneary. I was the trainer with the buneary.
That sounds like it could get really out of hand. I imagine in a campaign that ends in an anime-style league tournament, that kind of issue would really rear its head
Is there a way to avoid such a ludicrous imbalance?
The best I can offer is allow rebuilds as the campaigns go on, within reason. You are also always down to talk things out with your players to nerf and buff things as needed, but that doesn't fix the system.
Something my group has had fun with is accepting that when one character is building a competitive team the rest go after something else, ie contests or move tutoring. We had a great time with the contest system in our last game and in the previous game the objective was to get a western frontier town up and running, which meant that other classes/players were able to shine in different situations.
I think the game really is only meant for 1-3 players at the most, each with 1-3 Pokemon. Any more and the crunch just overwhelms the gm.
I want to run a pokémon game set during world war 2.
Pokémon have always existed but the pokeballs where never invented. To have a pokémon you have to bond with it and you are limited to 1, maybe 2 (max 3) at a time.
The players will be a group of commando with 1 un-evolved pokémon send in occupied !France and have to fight and sabotage their way through the !nazi army.
What do you guys think ? Do you have ideas of usefull way to uses pkmn ?
I was thinking allong the line of "voltorb bombardement", Onyx and Golem reinforced bunkers, etc