So Veeky Forums how would you make a Pokemon tabletop game?

Wow, I know of like 8 of those characters.

You are pokemon in the wild, teaming up to protect each other and the budding pokemon society from the humans who are trying to enslave you and other, wilder pokemon.

Mystery Dungeon of course. Shit writes itself.

D&D-ish except everyone gets animal companions in the form of a limited list of available pokemon.

Everything else is the scary monsters of the setting.

PETA go home

A handful of Pokemon who hang out with their trainers (lazy owners with day jobs, really) by day and steal valuables at night as an elite team of rogues with nothing better to do.

Set it to the backdrop of Castelia City and have a mafia-esque group of wild Pokemon living in the sewers who directly oppose the party and you have yourself a weird ass campaign.

Go on

This. Mystery dungeon is the best way to go about it

Monsters and Other Childish Things, stealing some ideas from the Persona adaptation, like recruiting Shadows and having multiple Personas/Pokemon. Let players have bonds with their Pokemon to weaponize friendship.

Either super light and PbtA-ish like suggested, or super fucking anal retentive and percentage die based. Playing as a trainer or one of several different size categories of 'mon, each of which has a different based experience cost etc.

Play Pokemon Tabletop United like I am doing now.

Sorry rules-light nerds, Pokemon cannot be accurately represented without rules. There's no way to make a rules-light Pokemon system that isn't so generic you might as well be doing freeform.

Veeky Forums did. At least one.

You’re gonna make me blush.

You’d each pick a Pokémon of intermediate power and use both your own skills and the tools your Trainer has at their disposal to figure out stuff to steal and how to go about it. As an example, a Whimsicott character with a Cop for a Trainer might have access to a police radio while their Trainer is on the beat. Combine that with light flying capabilities and you have someone perfect for gathering intel and working in the background. A Drifblim with a Breeder Trainer might have access to unique moves, and would make a solid getaway vehicle. And of course, a Scrafty to lead the charge and change the fight when things go south.

On top of that, there’d be a few cafes that cater to Pokémon specifically, where they get a little chair and table to grab a drink and pay with money their Trainer gives them to walk around town while they work. Pokémon gotta get their exercise and socialize after all.
I’d also imagine that under the docks would be a Pokémon black market, perfect for profiting off of shiny things.

Personally I’d imagine that there’s an abandoned Hitmontop with a broken horn wearing a fake moustache living in the sewers and running the mafia behind the scenes like some Bond villain.

"Wow, you guys are all fucking retarded. Screw this, make it yourself."

I would focus it on the normal daily life's of people living with Pokémon, fuck gym been doing that all games.
Wanna role a Pokémon researcher that investigates rare Pokémon, heavy emphasis on world building on the local scale, how people and Pokémon live together rather than focus on the battle.
I would make it so the stats of the the trainer have more influence on the battle rather than sheer Pokémon stats.

>a limited list of available pokemon
But pokemon is all about catching them all, man. I think is right, I think it needs to be a pretty beefy, comprehensive system.

When did I say you couldn't catch 'em all?

You have a starter. If you want to catch 'em all, get to work.

With lots of traps.

Riveting.

with butts

I'd make it boring and repetitive, and the players would eat it up.
>Diddlepenis I CHOOSE YOU XDDDDDDDDDD

Go full autist and recreate this with an updated battle system and a National Dex mode.

I wish I had the time or the skills.

Oh yeah. They did make that Pokemon

I genuinely believe you're focusing on the wrong focal point of that image.

are those episode numbers?

just played this on tabletop sim, make is so players aren't forced into the indigo plateau after one roll after leaving it

Emerald was a mistake. So short, so annoying.

Should have been wally

Source

god that game is shit. Played it twice, never again. The most fun we got out of it was two players just hardcore dicking over the third (me) until someone went and put the game out of its misery.

This

Why was it shit?

It was very RNG-y, the endgame was lame, and there was very little interaction beyond 'roll this dice and hope it's high'.
And this is from the user who actually wanted to recreate it.

So luck-based?

Would a Pokemon Adventure tabletop game actually do extremely well?

Why don't you ask Capcom's abused stepchild?
(the answer is fuck yes)

I homebrewed a PMD system, it never saw completion but every game I ran with it was incredibly fun, and easily my most enjoyable DM experiences. 700 races to include that people already know, a few hundred abilities/spells, and you can really go wherever you like with the setting/writing.

>(the answer is fuck yes)
Soon/

Would Veeky Forums tap that?

Any good stories that come from that?

Nothing too crazy, or at least enough for how much I'd have to type up to explain them right now, but I learned a lot of interesting things, and it was nice to see how the game developed.

It ended up being very high-fantasy with pokemon as opposed to the usual pg friendly pokemon settings, this was by the hands of my players since thats just what they kept pursuing
Each legendary had some form of religious following, and religion ended up playing a very large role many times because of it.
Type differences making such a massive difference in weakness or resistance makes a lot of interesting combat scenarios, as well as environmental use with everyday fire, water, etc.
Weapons could be incorporated alright for a good loot system, most worked as free-use moves. (A shield that gives protect, a blowgun that gives bullet seed, etc.)

story wise, I started it as a very light hearted, simple setting, and it grew to be one of my most 'mature', in-depth worlds and games I've ever ran. Maybe I was just lucky with the players I had, but it really was great.

My one regret is I never got to use the final big bad that was kept a mystery, it was essentially a huge amalgamation of numerous ditto, trying to absorb every pokemon, and was in a constant state of being some horrid chimera-blob of random pieces

HEY! I'm the same height as Red-Gold. I'm no manlet.

>Weapons could be incorporated alright for a good loot system, most worked as free-use moves. (A shield that gives protect, a blowgun that gives bullet seed, etc.)

That's a really neat idea

I also really like the idea of a party of Pokemon fighting together - so many of them have such an obvious healer, support and technical capabilities that completely fail in the bare bones mechanic of the main game where 90% of fights are 1 on 1 with raw damage output being the only thing that really matters.

What kind of system did you use for combat?

Also, what did you do about fish Pokemon that in any realistic-ish setting have no business being on land? That aspect always bothered me in the games as well.

I took the idea from a comic I read forever ago, but it was a great answer on "well what the fuck do I put for loot in these dungeons." My players ended up loving it because lets be honest, pokemon running around with swords and boards is cheesy, but it's cool.

And, that was my main drive for teh system, seeing this huge party-wide fights between all these pokemon with a lot of tools and tricks at their disposal was so satisfying compared to what the games portray it is, part of that is obviously account to RP, but the system really opened up all kinds of cool shit.

For combat I just painstakingly re-wrote every existing move as a tabletop equivalent, adjusting it's range to X ft in a Y by Z square / cone / line / touch distance. and recounted the damage to dice. A lot of stuff also got extra RP focused effects, or things like being able to bottle up stun spore, etc in less potent, but usable item forms, honestly a whole bunch of shit but it was horrible, countless hours of work, I spent more time converting moves than I did on the rest of the system, and running the games, most never saw use.

As for fish, also lifted that from an old comic, they can obviously breathe out of water fine, but movement is trickier, most had lower speeds unless they had good reasons like a bubble to be in, my go-to for this was them hydroplaning on a small bit of water they kept under them, essentially surfing on puddles everywhere.

sorry for the wall of text.

>I spent more time converting moves than I did on the rest of the system, and running the games, most never saw use.

Sounds like something I would do.
Do you still have them? Would love to check it out

I lost most the spreadsheet with some google drive fuckup on my end, super old version with only 3 or 4 types edited and the rest are base, thats what killed my motivation for DM'ing it anymore desu

I wouldn't

That's a shame. Thanks for sharing some good ideas though, the whole thing sounds like fun

PTU or Pokerole?

I just wanna use my favorite mons even though they're always dogshit in the actual games

I'd use a generic system to stat out only the pokemons you encounter/use.

All the dedicated systems look pretty eh.

I always wondered about this:

Do obviously predatory pokémon hunt and eat other pokémon.

Can humans eat pokémon? Do they?

Both this
And this

Have advantages and disadvantages. The major strike against PTU is that the combat drags likes a fucking queen, easily the slowest of any system I've played. The major strike against going rules light is that it's super easy to lose track or otherwise miscommunicate a pokemon's abilities, and trying to sort that out also eats time.

So it comes down to your group's preferences and temperaments.

What if instead of using the video game, the Pokemon abilities came from the TCG cards.

Pokemon have a pool of energy that either fills up or drops depending on how you would make the system.

Also for a Pokemon Mystery Dungeonesque game I would divide Pokemon into Wild (who have better elemental attacks but can't use things) and Civilized (who use weapons and items more effectively).

It's not exactly hard, you just port all the stats of the gameboy to the tabletop using a d100 system. Including all the HP values, chance to catch a pokemon with different balls, etc, etc.

You now have a beautifully simple yet complex pokemon TTRPG combat simulator.

You simplify it in terms of the region and actual pokemon involved and keep it small. Just use a small portion of Johto for example, but keep all the maps etc the same as the game, they're made for you why waste that?

Likewise don't forget your HM's , they're your main method for locking off areas and encouraging exploration etc.

For non-combat related skills that fall out of this area you just use a simple d100 resolution system and roleplay the rest.

>It's not exactly hard, you just port all the stats of the gameboy to the tabletop using a d100 system. Including all the HP values, chance to catch a pokemon with different balls, etc, etc.

Literal autism.

Now imagine having multiple pokemon, like in the games, but also, it's not a single player game and you have to take care of like 30 of the little buggers.

Why would you want to play an inferior version of the classic gameboy game? The biggest mistake all pokemon games beyond the classics make is trying to simplify it, then it just turns out shit. Look at Pokemon Go. Likewise its not even that complicated, if I could play this game when I was 7 I think I can play it as a TTRPG as an adult.

I'd probably only use the values and types of gold/silver to keep it simple, maybe with the traits of the later ones as well as they're interesting. You'd obviously simplify the math as part of the design process though most attacks are just going to use static damage values against type with no 'attack rolls' anyway.

In respects to making it a team game that's not that difficult either.

>Each player has 1 active pokemon at a time.
>you can have a maximum of 3 in your bag but the other 2 are inative, rest go to your pc box
>When a battle occurs you choose one pokemon to battle with
>when you swap out you swap to another players pokemon on your team
>team battles are also a thing so 2v2, 3v3, etc to get more players involved at once.

Each player on the team has one pokemon, when you swap out you swap out to another player and their pokemon.

I'd happily write this system myself if I had the time.

Are pokémon halal?

Yes.

Pokemon Mystery Dungeon. Moves can be used a number of times, Weapons and Gadgets can be used to solve problems/puzzles.

How about running Pokérestaurant, catching rare pokémons, slaughtering them and preparing expensive delicacies form the financial elite?

You could make stuff like Drowned Pidgey, pokémon egg Balut, Tauros testicles etc.

Why the fuck it's Gary motherfucking Oak who's the only one dressed more-or-less sensibly?

Yes people can and do eat pokemon. It's not really brought up often because of obvious reasons.

Wel, all animals are pokémons and even dumb pokémons are at the intellectual level of like 69 years olds. They are all vegan, most likely.

Who? There is no Gary Oak on there.

There is a Blue (or Green, depending on your translation) Oak.

Blue/Green/Leaf/Whatever is best.
Still annoyed Nintendo fucked with Sapphire's outfit.
Is that Emerald all the way on the right? When I was reading they didn't have anything past like halfway through Emerald and I had no idea he was a trap.

>using a d100 system
>not a d256 system using 2d8 to set bits

I think there was this one pokemon mystery dungeon game someone modified from pathfinder that looked like it was desent

Maybe

Running a party of civil Pokemon would definitely be the easiest option while also be really fun

If you want to run a party of trainers tho, my best advice would be to simplify the game rules as much as humanly possible. A single player could have up 6 Pokemon, you could have around 3 Players, and bajilion NPCs with their own teams and even more wild Pokemon

You will need to make all numbers and stats really simple. Especially Pokemon levels, HP and damage values.

Also, I think it's pretty obvious that you need to avoid 1 on 1 battles. Give them a bunch of grunts to fight, with just 1-2 Pokemon each, packs of wild Pokemon, duets of Ace trainers with 3 Pokemon each, mini bosses with full teams, and end game bosses where you fight a trio of Trainers with full teams and strong mons.

Also, add a lot of uses for Pokemon outside of combat. Read their Pokedex entries and what moves they can do for ideas. Many of them are described to do things that are not reflect in the games - like tracking things, charging electric devises, seeing future, feeling emotions of others etc. plus obvious things like movement options (flying, riding, swimming), using Fire Pokemon to warm up etc

and if you want to go an extra, and I mean EXTRA mile, you can add Trainer skills or classes. Healing Pokemon, powering them up, using/building/fixing poketech, tracking things in the wild, digging for stones and fossils, stuff like that.

Personally, I'd reduce the number of 'mons trainers can carry with them at any given time.
Six in the games is great, it's a good number that can let you have good coverage and versatility (I mean, it kinda mimics a full party in a normal TTRPG if you think about it). But with multiple players, six apiece not only adds massive bookwork but tons of redundancy, making things both less challenging and pokemon less unique. I'd say 3-4 players carrying ~3 pokemon at a time each sounds decent. Gives each player some room for variety while having to make hard choices, encouraging all players to make teams that complement each other rather than everyone having a well-rounded team.

You could play it as a child because the computer was running the spreadsheets. You don't have that luxury with an RPG.

Porting the games over also makes the entire game videogame-y, and you can expect your players to play like it's a pokemon hack or something. Not worth it at all.

Yellow is the best.

Can we join the evil groups like team rocket

like this

pokecommunity.com/showthread.php?t=349118

i had a lot of fun DMing this.

It’s a direct rebuttal to your statement though?

Have any of you guys visited /vp/? That place is genuinely a cesspool.

in what way?

Meh, It's not that bad outside of leak season as long as you know how to avoid the worse threads. Not any worse than Veeky Forums itself anyway.

go on

Did Red and Yellow ever get together?

I got it from Pokemon Quest back when Quests were still Veeky Forums.

Nice. Anymore?

On the other hand, emulating video game mechanics on paper leads to one of the worst tabletops I've ever experienced.
PTU is an exercise in agony.

Also there was an item that let you steal another players best mon for your garbage, which removed what little sense of accomplishment there was in the game after all that RNG.

Oh there used to be plenty. At times it was basically Is My Hobby Weird? with Pokemon somewhere in the background.

Yes.

No

I want to fuck Moon.

Why