So Veeky Forums, what's the best pokemon tabletop system?

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I don't have any personal experience with the system, but that sounds like PTU to me.

can you direct me to a link to the latest edition PDF?

does the game have splats for each generation?(or some other way to reduce variability so I can reduce initial complexity)

mediafire.com/file/lbbtmqi7e75k7td/PTU 1.05.zip

I haven't looked into the game enough to answer your question, though you could always just restrict the players' option to what you're comfortable with running or what makes sense for the campaign you had in mind.

If a player want to do combat as well as a Pokemon they basically have to spend all their levels committing to it by the way. If you'd like players to have an easier / more broken time use the Game of Thros book that has some crazy powerful classes, even outside of the elementalist.

>Game of Thros book
???
a game of thrones book using the same system?

Also, while this isn't a slight on the game's design, Pokérole really needs a proofreader, and an editor would be really nice as well. I'm pretty sure English isn't the authors' first language, and it shows. The layout is gorgeous, though. Whoever did that really knows what they were doing.

The title's just a pun; it's a general fantasy supplement. There's also a science fiction one called "Do Porygon Dream Of Mareep"? They're both in the zip folder link in .

I see

PTU is like maneuvering through a labyrinth of ming vases blindfolded though, you have to be extremely careful not to break the game. Defensive builds are ridiculously OP. Make sure the GM only makes a few select Pokémon available each route which don't become too powerful too easily, and give out Trainer levels very slowly (I recommend a third of the average pokémon level).
Things like Magikarp are a noob trap. Because of the way Struggle is handled it's mediocre but far from useless in battles, also it gains XP at the same rate as everyone else so if you let a player have it they have a monster at lv 20.

so it's really not a good system?

is it getting any active balancing or development?

There's apparently a full-on second edition on the way, but I have no idea how long that's going to take.

>pic related
so, how likely is it that someone went out and wrote up lots of lore like this across all the pokemon?

All within the realm of possibility, but what you're really asking is does a human being stand a chance against a wild animal that's also a fucking wizard. The whole point of pokemon is you use your pokemon to defend yourself, why would you write a setting in which there are pokemon, but no you can't have any here is a stick go murderhobo that horse that's on fire???

>A Boss Templated level 40 Muk has made the county dump too dangerous. >The dump is a massive island, with it's own pokemon ecology.
>A huge nest of Beedrill and Durant amongst the trash makes traversing the island difficult.
>Atop a heap of junk cars and scrap metal, a Skarmory protects it's egg.
>The foundry melts down and recycles scrap autonomously, until recently. The Heatmor and Larvesta that live there are growing anxious.

I haven't gm'd it yet, still work in progress.

more along the lines of.
>the introduction of pokemon through a portal FUCKED a world that previously had none with their physics breaking.
>no free starters
>no pokeballs
>take a sharp stick and go try and catch something to serve as a starter
>if you're lucky you've befriended something that can make survival easier.
>cause in a world that now has these creatures casually inducing earthquakes and fire-storms survival is a major concern.

cool

Our friend wanted to start with Shuckle, and our gm didn't know any better. At level 5, it was slowly constricting everything to death while being a relatively unkillable turtle tank god.

Broken at early levels, I'm sure it would've balanced out by 20.

It really doesn't. I'm playing in a group where our Pokémon are in their mid-30s.

>No pokeballs
>...go try and catch...

... Are we beating them into submission and then serving them eggs in the morning?

I mean, this is a tabletop game so the only thing stopping you from doing so is the GM

So what's broken about your pokemon and why? Legit curious, because I'd venture to guess your gm isn't putting in the effort to make your games difficult, which is not the systems fault.

shit

DOUBLE-SHIT

I take it that flavorful choices are usually the shitty ones?

I like q-bone, sandshrew, scyther, or geodude

you know the historical methods for breaking the wills of wild horses?

also true

At later trainer levels the GM has to put tremendous amounts of work and strategy into the design of every trainer to counter the players.
Also since one point in defense costs as much as one point in attack and damage automatically scales a fair bit because of better attacks being available at higher levels, points in defense are more worth than offensive ones.

Sure, if you decide that that's how we catch pokemon now, assault and Stockholm syndrome, then players can find a way to make that work and derive fun from it.

But that is so far flung from the source material. I'm all for an apocalypse setting, but there's rules for making pokeballs out of apricots. Idk.. Good luck with your hyper realistic pokemon game for serious players.

Define flavorful? And shitty? Maybe it's the autism but I can't figure out how to answer your question.

>Define flavorful?
things I like for aesthetic reasons...
>And shitty?
...because they are mechanically sub-optimal?

Thing is you can build your poke around one offensive stat, choosing moves that best utilize it. But you can't choose what moves your opponent uses, obviously, making the two defensive stats equally weighted against a single attack stat.

>Inb4 don't send a special wall vs Machamp

Yeah but that's part and parcel to pokemon, choosing the right tools for the job. My point is it costs two points for each defense to get the same theoretical mechanical bonus that one point in your pokes preferred attack stat provides.

Sub optimal pokes, ones with lower base stats then other equivalently evolved pokes, usually have a capability called Underdog that gives them access to balancing features you can select. One, for example, increases it's base stats significantly, almost as if it had evolved, until it evolves.

I don't think there are any sub optimal pokemon, the system does a great job of mostly removing tier lists. I will admit, though, that I'm sure there are some pokemon that can be built alongside it's trainer to be game breaking under the right circumstance.

The game is a fun system for the people that like crunch, but my god is it easy to break right now. If you start a game of it I would say just try to learn the basics, but I don't know how much will be changed in 2.0

The PTU devs have put more effort than other systems to make normally shit Pokemon into useful ones with custom abilities.

>The PTU devs have put more effort than other systems to make normally shit Pokemon into useful ones with custom abilities.
I see

Also simplifying the stat system and other things. Even route 1 trash can be useful in the later levels.

And now we're monster hunter

Man, I really want to play a Pokemon game. I keep missing them whenever they show up in the game finder.

The one where fucking Pokemon is the reason you get slightly more intelligent and responsive Pokemon that like humans more.

Bump

I mean, you could also do it like James does and just befriend every pokemon you come across and invite them to your team.
James is the best goddamn trainer in the whole franchise to be honest.

Yeah, one of the common things my players mention when talking about the system is how many pokemon are actually viable to use because of interesting ability combinations and expanded movepools.

I actually really want to run a Monster Hunter campain.

In PTU the trainers are better at fighting than the monsters are.

A floating patchwork island made from a giant Crustle that steals cities from other regions to make its home better.

It gets active development, but the devs can't take criticism for shit and they clearly don't test their own numbers so the balancing only gets worse over time. Also their books have terrible formatting so it's hard to find the rules in the first place, so a lot of games have homebrew or misunderstood rules that makes things even worse.

Or you could put it into HP or Speed and just dodge everything with better survivability than any tank. The game actively works against getting anything done.

The best is obviously Pokerole for out of combat and Pokemon Showdown for in combat

Monsters and Other Childish Things.

The problem with that is it's harder to do stuff like bosses or group battles

To elaborate, Pokemon much stronger than humans. Complete freedom over abilities. Pokemon equally statted so you can choose your faves. Literally designed for kid + monster play so requires very little house ruling for Pokemon. Just try it.

I skimmed OVA the other day and the main impression I got is that it would actually be quite nice for a Pokemon campaign. It even has the four special-move slots, which I imagine was actually deliberate.
Outside of that, I guess Open Legend would do alright because of its Attribute and Bane system could pretty thoroughly reflect attacks and status effects.

And of course you can throw anything at Fate and it can more-or-less work, if you enjoy Fate.

In PTU there are classes specifically for fighting Pokemon, like Black Belt or Psychic.

Sounds good. Any idea where one could find a copy of the rules?

pokemontabletop.com

Wrong game, user.

arcdream.com/home/monsters-and-other-childish-things/

Ak I'm a dumbass

pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=349118

this is my go to. a good balance of adapting the series into the trpg format while still feeling more like pokemon than the systems that get bogged down in recreating the video games. good formatting as well.

i should add that the summary he has for it doesn't do the game justice and actually kept me from giving the game a chance for a long while. i'd just read the rulebook it's pretty short.

Bump
Anyways what pokemon have you used as starters if you've played or DMed a game?

Nobody can reliably fight anything in Pokerole.

I've used a Scatterbug and an Eevee as starters in two different games that went nowhere fast.

FUCK

>I have never played the system but I'm gonna talk shit about it anyways!
Veeky Forums in a nutshell

it really bothers me more than it should that the claymore has a high attack but low speed, while Katana gets to have "incredible special attack and defence" at no penalty. I wasn't expecting to see the OG Katana meme in a pokemon thread, but there you have it.

What did you expect? Almost no one has played Pokémon rpgs

Would that *really* work though? Have you done it?

PTU is awful.

5 stat points = 1 Evasion. We're talking about the difference between +50 damage and +10 AC. You're familiar with the story about the young man who trained his whole life to be fast, and what happened to him the day he got punched just once?

Theorycrafting your pokemon to be unhittable is a hilarious way to make Swift (which is a burst AoE btw), and any other attack that Never Misses look broken.

But they're not. And neither are the core mechanics.

Duskull starter as a hex maniac. Duskull starts with Leer and Night Shade. Night Shade blows at low levels, so it's a good thing my trainer class gave my trainer Will O Wisp and Confuse Ray. Currently, my role in the party is a solid defense against scoundrels who cheat and rob people. Ironically, it's very likely Max will be joining Team Rocket any day now.

my ocd compels me to note that normal and ghost have their 'immune to' on the lower row while everything else has it on their upper row

He is right though. The GM would have to throw players a huge bone and makeup stuff to make trainers stand a chance.

They updated it so trainers can hit things with a stick a few months back.

Trainers using combat maneuvers can easily stand a chance vs low to mid level pokemon, what are you talking about?

Maybe if the Pokemon is maxed out on insight.

Trainers can start with higher attributes and skills than any pokemon around levels 1-20
Thus, being able to perform multiple actions from the beginning when pokemon are not.

The "Strike" maneuver may have Power 1, but it can be used multiple times in a sigle round and it ignores type dis/advantages.
And the Mystery Dungeon Supplement added weapons and traps, so yeah, trainers are able to stand a chance vs Pokemon but why would you do that when you can use your other pokemon? Doesn't make much sense to me to call a game "Pokemon" when you should call it "Trainer" instead.

>The game is a fun system for the people that like crunch

No, because it's so poorly balanced. It's past Shadowrun on the 'Lots of crunch+poor design' axis of the design spectrum, which is hard to beat.

Trying to mess around with PTU rules is like drowning a paraplegic in mud; you can do it, but it's messy and you don't get any fun challenge to make it worth it.

>Pokemon Showdown

Does that thing have a system for maintaining and leveling teams over time, with damage suffered/Exp earned carrying over between matches?

Pokemon showdown is a simulator of the video game, you basically re-create the pokemon with the IV's/EV's, level and moves you want and can fight other players online.

So it's basically using tabletop for the role playing and the video game for the battles. It sounds like a good idea to save time, but it has obvious limitations for group battles.

>use Pokerole for out of combat
Why just not freeform and only use Showdown then?

Listen there are 2 options. Pokerole and PTU. Both are shit. One is for narrative people and one is for crunch people.

Showdown is super boring though because then tiers will decide who wins. In the tabletop games the devs at least can try to make shitmons usable.

>Both are shit

You are shit :^)

Yeah, I'm looking at it now. I'm wondering if there is a good way to save a team over time, or whether you'd have to constantly recreate it.

Yeah, I wouldn't use it, sounds good on paper but the execution would be terrible, Pokemon is pretty unbalanced already.

You can make a text document for the team and just paste it over. Over make an account and save it.

OK. That sounds very doable, we'd want accounts anyways to keep battles organized.

Damn it, I told myself I wouldn't fall into this trap and get hurt again.

I really don't suggest it because the balance is worse than either of the tabletops.

It is just a straight port of the Pokemon vidya rules, right? I know those games have problems, but my players are not into the competitive stuff (and I'd do it only Gen1 anyways, because I don't know shit about the rest of them).

>Doesn't make much sense to me to call a game "Pokemon" when you should call it "Trainer" instead.
because I want to portray that world a little more realistically. with some pokes exploited as/for resources and others used to murder people. teams of people roaming the land with their unregistered fully automatic assault-pokemon causing problems. travel being dangerous because of how common deadly pokemon are.

>Le edgy setting
jesus, why is this so prevalent in pokemon tabletop games?

>Wild pokemon make traveling dangerous
Yeah, that's why you need to travel with a POKEMON to protect you.

>why is this so prevalent in pokemon tabletop games?
It's also prevalent in fangames and the like. I guess a lot of Pokemon players go through an edgy phase.

of course its an edgy setting

1.) they are a series of games about training animals to fight against each-other for personal amusement. it's a core concept of the series.

2.) a fairly significant number of attacks and descriptions make some of the pokemon into literal weapons of mass destruction. this means that a halfway competent terrorist organization can easily get their hands on living WMDs.

3.) it's base setting involves sending children out into the world to gather combat animals for prestige, survive alone in the wilderness, and to settle disputes with violence.

>Crawling in my skiiiiiiin

Yes, but you are trying to jump from this....

To this...

>why is this so prevalent in pokemon tabletop games
Because, out of the three forms of media the Pokémon world is shown, only one isn't rated E

Meant to answer

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