Pokemon: Grod Edition

[Grod_The_Giant]

PTUg
Last year, one of my oldest gaming friends was really excited to run a Pokemon game of some sort. On the advice of a friend of his, he settled on PTU. It was... not the most successful system, and I got pretty frustrated with a lot of the things the system did. I also have deeply-seated mental disorders, so I wound up rewriting the whole damn thing, even though my group wound up switching systems altogether. Still, I figured I'd put it out there in case anyone else is interested, so...here it is: Pokemon Tabletop United, Grod's Edition. My main design goal was to simplify the game though consistency, along with basic quality-of-life improvements. The big changes are:

• Trainers now use the same set of rules as Pokemon for character creation and advancement.
• Any kind of consciously-chosen action is now a Move.
• Features have been almost entirely rewritten; pretty much everything now plugs into the new "Assume Stance," "Commanding Shout," and "Train Pokemon" moves.

(Disclaimer: this is an old project I've mostly moved on from)

PokeSTaRS
The one thing I couldn't really do was make the game lighter or faster, and my friend was quickly burning out. We discussed a few options, and I remembered that I once wrote a generic rules-light system our group has enjoyed more than a few times--STaRS. One of the example magic systems was sort of Pokemon-esque, and I had a bunch of important assignments I needed to work on, so I offered to work out a STaRS-based Pokemon hack. I wrote it up in a flurry of procrastination, showed it to my group, and we agreed to give it a shot. We went through a couple iterations of revision over the first few months, but the changes have been getting smaller and smaller as I home in on the game we want, and I figured it was time to share with the world.

So... introducing PokeSTaRS! Major features include:

• More of an anime aesthetic to battles and training, rather than trying to directly ape the games--I want to encourage creative tactics and highlight dramatic moments.
• Bounded accuracy, sort of! Nothing is level-gated--instead of learning new (and more powerful) moves as they accumulate experience, Pokemon get to improve their existing moves to better match their inclinations. A brand-new Pokemon is certainly at a disadvantage compared to a highly-trained one, but can come out on top with a little luck.
• Pokemon are defined mostly through their moves and abilities-- no complicated level-based progressions or hidden variables.
• Trainers each pick one iconic class, which gives them a unique mechanic to play, and a handful of moves and abilities they can teach to even Pokemon who don't normally learn them, and a short list of thematic special features (there's also a much longer list of generic features available to everyone)-- meaning that the Hiker, Super Nerd, and Cooltrainer will be guided towards, but not pigeonholed into, unique battle styles. They advance by gaining badges or other honors, with no experience tracking necessary.

I'm pretty proud of how it's turned out, but a few disclaimers before you download: this is an incomplete draft, with only a few classes and a subset of moves and abilities written up (though I'm happy to take requests). Also, it's not (currently, at least) really written as a stand-alone system, since my group is pretty familiar with STaRS. I quickly copied the "rules in brief" section from the base STaRS rulebook and tweaked it to match PokeSTaRS changes, but it might not be super-clear, so you'll probably want the original rules on hand.



(And if you discover you really like said original rules, consider picking up the full or lite rulebook on DriveThruRPG; my poor empty piggy bank would sure appreciate it.

[aimlessPolymath]

Oh, interesting!

The DB change sticks out to me as something the PTU discord actually suggests as an option (among a number of other 'general fixes', like ditching Base Stat Relation entirely), though they use d4s instead.

[JNAProductions]

On break at work right now, so can’t read it too much.

How well would it work for Mystery Dungeon style games? I’ve a friend looking to run a game like that, but he’s lacking a system.

[aimlessPolymath]

On break at work right now, so can’t read it too much.

How well would it work for Mystery Dungeon style games? I’ve a friend looking to run a game like that, but he’s lacking a system.

I can't speak to this rewrite without a deep read, but the PTU devs suggest against running PTU for PMD- it's balanced for each character having 6 Pokemon, with Pokemon not being built to stand up to focused fire, taken down by super-effective damage, etc.

Their suggestions are either:
-Each player runs a 'guild' of Pokemon, rather than one single protagonist, using a 'virtual' trainer
-Using a different system and reskinning for Pokemon (ex. 5e+homebrew, with Fire Bolt renamed to Ember)

I'm personally a fan of Pokeymanz for something light-hearted and rules-light; it supports PMD play.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Oh, interesting!

The DB change sticks out to me as something the PTU discord actually suggests as an option (among a number of other 'general fixes', like ditching Base Stat Relation entirely), though they use d4s instead.

Hmm, not too surprising; I wrote this mostly in isolation, but it's an obvious change. d4s track really well with DB up until DB 10, at which point they quickly fall behind--Above DB 12, average damage increases by 5 with each step. d6s are noticeably better at lower damage values, but take much longer to fall behind the curve. I decided I was okay with that, given that I felt like defense was inflated and it's easier to roll a fistful of d6s than d4s.

(I put an embarrassingly large amount of time into working that out. If you want to be really close, you could roll (DB)dX, where the first ten dice in your pool are d4s, the next ten d8s, and the next ten d12s, but that feels like too much of a pain.)

On break at work right now, so can’t read it too much.

How well would it work for Mystery Dungeon style games? I’ve a friend looking to run a game like that, but he’s lacking a system.

I mean, I'd argue that it would work better than PTU-as-written, but only marginally-- the biggest improvements are found in the Trainer rules, and those wouldn't be super-relevant to a Mystery Dungeon game.

While I'm usually hesitant to say that D&D is the right ruleset to start with, you could definitely do worse than using 5e as a base for a dungeon-crawl-focused Pokemon game. Mutants and Masterminds would work pretty well too. If you're really curious, I could share the STaRS-based Pokemon system my group has been using for the last few months-- that one has been working pretty well, but I've only written up a small percentage of moves and abilities, so you'd have to do a bunch of legwork.

[JNAProductions]

Share what works, if you can. :)
Much appreciated!

[animorte]

If you're really curious, I could share the STaRS-based Pokemon system my group has been using for the last few months-- that one has been working pretty well, but I've only written up a small percentage of moves and abilities, so you'd have to do a bunch of legwork.

I've still been slowly working through your system and planning to actually run it with some friends in a couple months. I would be very interested in this.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Share what works, if you can. :)
Much appreciated!

I've still been slowly working through your system and planning to actually run it with some friends in a couple months. I would be very interested in this.

Sure; check it out. Fair warning, it's not (currently, at least) really written as a stand-alone, since my group is pretty familiar with STaRS. I quickly copied the "rules in brief" section from the base STaRS rulebook and tweaked it to match PokeSTaRS changes, but it might not be super-clear, so you'll probably want the original rules on hand.


(And if you discover you really like said original rules, consider picking up the full or lite rulebook on DriveThruRPG; my poor empty piggy bank would sure appreciate it.

[Grod_The_Giant]

Update: I've added the STaRS stuff to the original post and renamed the thread to steer people towards it, since it's (in my group's opinion, at least) much more fun to play than PTU.

[Amechra]

On break at work right now, so can’t read it too much.

How well would it work for Mystery Dungeon style games? I’ve a friend looking to run a game like that, but he’s lacking a system.

Pokerole has a Mystery Dungeon supplement. I'm not sure how good it actually is (there's definitely a bit of clunk and some weird design assumptions in Pokerole), but it's there.

...

I haven't had a chance to look at PokeSTaRS yet, but I appreciate the idea that you're aiming more towards the anime feel than trying to replicate the games. Will it be a better Pokemon game than Pokethulhu¹? I'll have to read it and find out next time, on When I Get Home From Work.

¹ Pokethulhu is unironically the best Pokemon tabletop system I've ever seen, despite it being a joke-y gimmick game. I'm not sure if that's because it's really good, or if that's just an indictment of the other options.

[Grod_The_Giant]

I haven't had a chance to look at PokeSTaRS yet, but I appreciate the idea that you're aiming more towards the anime feel than trying to replicate the games. Will it be a better Pokemon game than Pokethulhu¹? I'll have to read it and find out next time, on When I Get Home From Work.

¹ Pokethulhu is unironically the best Pokemon tabletop system I've ever seen, despite it being a joke-y gimmick game. I'm not sure if that's because it's really good, or if that's just an indictment of the other options.

Yeah, it turns out that a combat-focused single player game where you control a large team in simple, abstract battles doesn't make a good template for a cooperative RPG, who'd have thought?

Taking a quick glance at Pokethulu (which does look pretty slick), I'd say that PokeSTaRS is probably one step up on the crunch ladder-- the basic engines are at about the same level, but PokeSTaRS adds a lot of options on top of that. Call it like switching from a martial D&D character to a spellcaster. I'd give the edge to Pokethulu for a one-off, but I'd stand by PokeSTaRS for a longer game where mechanical growth and differentiation start to become more important.