What plot hooks can we make for an adventure set in the world of pokemon other than “Poachers set out to kidnap the...

What plot hooks can we make for an adventure set in the world of pokemon other than “Poachers set out to kidnap the most dangerous animal on earth and you need to stop them”?

A businessman wants to build on land that Pokémon inhabit...
He wants them gone, either by being captured or exterminated.

Local pokemon won't stop using Sunny Day/Rain Dance/Hail/whatever and fucking up the local climate for everyone, figure out what their problem is and how to make them stop.

My POKEMON has fallen into a skelington infested well, can you slay the necromancer for us?

The Pokémon of the local trainers have become stronger and more aggressive than usual, they go quite when asked about it

After a local festival, lots of pokemon evolved through moon/whatever stones are "un-evolving" and getting really sick. The town is now not as well defended from wild attacks and also needs help tracking down the cause of the phenominon.

an anti-Pokemon fighting group is stealing Pokemon and releasing them to the wild, interfering with local habitats and generally causing a ruckus

Some brat caught the embodiment of space/time/emotion/dreams/truth/fig cakes and fucked off with them, now the universe is falling apart.

Someone released a non-native Pokémon in the area and it's thrown the local ecosystem for a loop.

Local gym leader has lost his motivation and quit accepting challengers. Help him get his shit together before the League revokes his license and the whole badge system gets messed up for the year.

The Pokémon in the woods near town have started attacking travelers and stealing their clothes. Investigation reveals that they've started holding contests in the clearing and are engaged in an arms race over costumes and accessories.

Entire town is crawling with trainers following the sighting of several shiny 'mons in the area, and they're being dicks.

OH SHIT GHOSTS.

An Earthquake has caused significant damage to the commercial district of Modern City! Can you assist with search & Rescue?

Alternative goal: find the guy who used Earthquake in city limits and serve him a subpoena.

Alternate-alternate goal: YOU used earthquake in city limits, SHIFT THE BLAME!

you want to be the very best, like no one ever was

Hypno kidnapping ring.

>A new Route is being carved out between this city and the next, but they ran into yet another pile of ancient ass ruins
>now everyone and their mother is charging into the blatantly trapped halls with reckless abandon in search of potentially valuable items and whatever form of tortured soul gets to be classified as a Pokemon this time

>Secret Bases are the new fad, and now anyone who's anyone has a cozy bolthole tucked into a tree or rock or whatever
>slight problem: the city thrives on tourism and all these silent, empty streets are giving the visitors the creeps

>a local trainer has returned after making a (failed) run at the Championship, shattering whatever balance of power existed among the local trainers
>can you make sure the battling scene in this area remains enjoyable with such an overpowered asshole hanging around?

>a Machamp Cafe has opened up
>it's really damn creepy

>a handful of Absol have been spotted
>while most people these days get that they aren't the cause of disaster, it's still thrown the area into a bit of a panic

This franchise is ripe for a Planet of the Apes-inspired conflict, especially since some pokemon already have the capacity to speak with humans.

Going off of this, the events of the first Pokemon movie would be a good launching point for the setting's lore. The cosmological order that legendaries have established is pushed into disarray as Mewtwo and his forces make their stand against Mew and go conquer.

Go with djihad it always works like take 2 towns let them have war letsgo

Damn near anything you think of quest wise can tie into environmental side effects of some kind. Given that in the pokemon setting, cities are pretty small and well spread out, its easy to make things a bigger threat/priority than if you did something similar in a similarly modern campaign.Nature out numbers (and overall out fights) civilization as pokemon world has it, and to top it off our kids are out there.

Mountain pokemon are getting antsy because a bunch of paras/fungus-mons moved in the caves, and they were only able to due so because of a lack of zubats keeping their numbers down, and ALL THAT was because Rockets poached them for grunts/trainers got tired of being harassed by them in the caves. BAM! Now you got a fairly complex problem with multiple routes of solutions. Do we re introduce zubats to the caves? New predators? Do we just clear out the geodudes and have people deal with hiking more? Maybe the whole thing is fucked and we need to carve out a new tunnel?

It's really not that hard to expand on stuff to this level in the pokemon setting. Just take a simple problem and think up some off shoot cause by the thing being added/taken away.

I've populated an island with only the rarest Pokemon species. Trainers will come from all over the world to catch Pokemon on Safari Island! Oh shit the power is out and all the Dragonites are out of their cages!

>a Machamp Cafe has opened up
>a Maidchamp Cafe (male)
FTFY

A mysterious entity is causing nuclear meltdowns, creating a horde of feral radioactive Pokemon.

Someone is killing a lot of pokèmon, both trained and roaming.
Like, literally killing. Lavender Town is receiving too many graves for this shit. Ghost-type pokèmon all over the country, wailing.
You have to investigate this serial-killing trainer and bring him to justice.
The killer has no pokémon

This is what PTU was made for. There are a lot of games involving it, some cringy and some not. I'm sure you can find some inspiration there.

That said, I do have a question: I'm thinking about running a PTU game where the PCs are trying to settle a newly-discovered region. However, since I don't want to include natives (the player reactions would be so unpredictable I wouldn't know how to start planning), I'm at a loss for a BBEG. Sure, wild Pokémon doing wild Pokémon things are fine for early-game, but I want there to be a proper climax to the story. Kinda debating a natural disaster - yet another meteor the PCs have to deal with, only there is no Sky Pillar here and they have to get Rayquaza's attention some other way?

you are the pokemon
try to not get captured
forge alliances and take down the trainers who would try to steal your families away to be their gladiatorial slaves, while also foraging and hunting for food/water/etc.

If they are trying to settle a new region, they definitely didnt come alone. Maybe your BBEG is some other settlers making power plays in the up and coming community.

Or theres some ancient occult shit going down. Take your pick of legendaries that fit your themes or make some new ones (there's 15 unused regi-types to choose from). This way you have a "force" youre fighting against rather than a single event + fallout like weather disasters.

A Pathfinder adventuring party lands in the Pokemon world. Stop them before their wizard destroys reality.

Hey maybe you could find a proxy for the gym leader, like how Ash fought Misty in the Cerulean Gym

>OH SHIT GHOSTS.
My favorite one. I want to do some sort of "PokeGhost Busters" bullshit campaign at some point.

Or not just ghosts, but supernatural bullshit in general. Ghosts, mediums, psychic Pokemon fucking shit up, centuries old Pokemon doing illusion bullshit for whatever reason. Like that Ninetales in the anime who made some bullshit mansion because it had some thing for Brock.

There's a lot of interesting things you can infer from Pokedex entries to suit your own ends with a supernatural campaign. Like Spiritomb being a legion of 108 evil spirits bound to some stone because of unspecified misdeeds they did 500 years ago. And Ninetales itself has shit about being formed from the souls of nine noble saints/wizards/sages/whatever being united into one being. Just fun shit like that. It would be awesome to integrate some of this shit into a full campaign.

>New species of Pokémon reported
>There's a rural festival
>Cheap evolution stones sold there
>Food grown there is good for Pokemon health
>Fossil dig
>New type of competition
>Ghost stories about the location
>There's work to be done building a new town or park

Pokemon RPGs work best when supplies cost money and cash isn't plentiful beyond welfare checks and a cheap meal a day to trainers and six of their Pokemon from the government.

I generally run with the idea that food and pokeballs are cheap due to league government intervention. A lot of supplimentary stuff like held items or TMs are still really expensive because its a cost you build towards if you really plan to be a professionsal trainer.