21 Dec

Pokemon Journeys Winter Playtest

Whoa hey look here’s a new Pokemon Journeys playtest packet! And wow look there’s a cool map too to go with the adventure module inside.

The rules are still incomplete, but there’s enough material here for you to run a 5-6 session adventure with pregenerated Level 1 Trainers and Pokemon about being stranded on a mountain in a blizzard. Catch a Wooloo and cuddle with it for warmth! Run from angry Galarian Darumakas! Give all your possessions to Snom!

And of course, hop onto our Discord over in the sidebar and let us know what you think of the system so far and the adventure.

26 Nov

Pokémon Tabletop Community Creation Event

What Is This?

We want to try out a creative activity that can bring the whole Pokémon Tabletop community together to make maps, adventures, fakemon, and more all around a theme! This is our first time hosting such an event, so bear with us as we figure out how to best run this.

From now through January 5th, we’ll be taking submissions via a Discord submission channel for creations in a few categories: 

  • Maps made for battles, towns, and exploration areas
  • Homebrew Pokémon – whether they’re regional variants, Shiny Pokémon, Type Shifts, or flat out Fakemon
  • Battle encounters, whether they’re wilderness encounters, Gym Battles, or other boss fights
  • Adventures, whether they’re location descriptions, quests, or longer modules

This isn’t going to be a formally ranked or judged event, and we don’t have strict rules for submissions in each category. However, all submitted entries will be linked in a showcase post, and some of the devs and mods will take a moment to highlight an entry or two which they found interesting, which had a unique idea, or which spoke to them in some other way. Doxy’s thought process is capricious and subservient to the whims of the Power Brick, so don’t treat this like a competition to win! 

The Theme

The theme for this event will be “Winter Festivals and Celebrations”!

We’re purposefully avoiding making the theme explicitly Christmas or another winter holiday so you can think about what kinds of celebrations people in a world with Pokémon might have, whether it’s a small-town festival held when the first local Cryogonal awaken for the winter, or a larger holiday that exists in your personal region centered on a Legendary Pokémon like Articuno.

There’s a whole world (literally!) of inspiration to draw from for this theme, and so we’d like to gently remind everyone to be tasteful and responsible when borrowing from cultures you aren’t member to. If you’d like to base your entry on a real world festival or celebration, ideally talk to someone from the source culture for a sensitivity check and make sure to do thorough research. However, also be mindful that members of minority cultures often spend a lot of time and energy explaining their cultures to others as it is, so ask for help tactfully when you do. 

How to Submit

Please enter your submissions by posting in the #community-creation-submissions channel on Discord.

In your post, include the following: 

  • The name or handle you and any collaborators want to be credited by.
  • Which of the four categories you want your submission filed under; if you feel your work falls under multiple categories, choose the best fit.
  • A short, 1-3 sentence blurb describing your entry. This will be used to describe your entry in the showcase post.
  • A link to your submission. This should include enough fluff and description to tie it to the winter festivals theme. We suggest hosting a Google doc or link to a file on Google Drive, but a forum post or other form of hosting is fine too. Just be reasonably sure all links you provide will last. 
  • Credits for any art used (that you have permission to repost), assets with licensing that allows reuse, etc.

A few notes on submissions: 

  • We reserve the right to exclude any submissions we deem to be inappropriate. Use common sense here.
  • You can collaborate with others and submit works together.
  • You can submit multiple works, but keep it reasonable. If you do this, we’d prefer if you submitted works in multiple categories instead of multiple works in one category.
  • If you use outside art and assets that aren’t under a license that permits resharing and alteration, you must acquire explicit permission to repost them and show us proof. (Official Pokémon assets are an exception; feel free to use game sprites, ripped tilesets, etc.)

Resources and advice will be provided for each submission category, so read on for more details!

Resources and Advice

Maps

Resources

If you’d like to make Pokémon-style pixel art maps, we recommend Tiled Map Editor (https://www.mapeditor.org/).

Here’s a good starting tutorial for Tiled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwaomOYGuYo 

(You can safely ignore the parts of the tutorial talking about collision maps since you are just making an image and not a functional video game map)

This tileset has plenty of winter-themed tiles for a map: https://www.deviantart.com/chaoticcherrycake/art/Pokémon-Tileset-From-Public-Tiles-358379026 

(Note that if you repost maps you make using this tileset elsewhere, you should credit the artists listed in that deviantArt post)

Should you choose to use tilesets from elsewhere, check that their creators are okay with others publicly sharing maps made from them and please give them credit as well.

If pixel art maps aren’t your speed, 2minutetabletop offers a variety of map-making assets under a Creative Commons license. Unfortunately, there isn’t a snow-themed asset pack, but you can find many other useful assets here: https://www.2minutetabletop.com/product-category/map-assets/ 

Advice

Large battle maps in Pokémon Tabletop tend to be cumbersome and can severely disadvantage melee-centric Pokémon if the entire breadth of the map is used. 20×20 tile size is recommended for a standard battle map, and if you go much larger than that, consider adding environmental features that help combatants move around quickly.

Battle maps should not only look good but have interesting terrain features. Including a brief description of what kind of encounter your map is best for, any mechanics particular to the terrain, and any fluff and lore behind your map’s location (even if it’s just the site of a snowball and Pokémon fight at a festival) will make it more useful for GMs.

When it comes to town maps and routes and other locations to explore, it’s even more important to include some brief descriptions. 

Homebrew Pokémon

Resources 

ElementalKnight has put together a utility for Type-Shifting Pokémon here: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/Pokémon_tabletop/ptx-type-shifting-movelist-helper-t3192.html

Our very own Pokémon Tabletop blog has various ideas for variant Pokémon you can use to get an idea of what the possibilities are for regional variants and shinies: https://Pokémontabletop.com/category/pokespotlight/ 

While it is old now, the homebrew Sage dex done by a set of PTU veterans remains a good example too: http://paradoxhaze.wikidot.com/capxdex

Advice

The easiest way to start creating a Fakemon of any sort is to take an existing Pokémon and make adjustments to it. You can slot out Moves for equivalents of different Types, use their move lists to gauge what Moves go at which levels, and pick similar Ability options.

Don’t feel obligated to provide 100% full Egg, TM, and Tutor Move lists. Having several strong options in each list is more useful than very full lists with a lot of filler and Moves that no one will ever take.

When it comes to homebrewing Moves and Abilities, don’t go overboard. Having a core Ability or Move that is distinctive to the Pokémon and which it is built around is more effective than giving it a massive array of new things.

Include a couple ideas for how your homebrew Pokémon can be encountered and how it fits into a world. The theme is winter festivals, so maybe the Pokémon is at the center of a celebration.

Battle Encounters 

Resources

Our Pokémon Tabletop blog has some old posts with tips for making Gym challenges: https://Pokémontabletop.com/category/gymideas/

One of the most impressive tabletop systems I’ve seen recently for tactical combat is Lancer, and it not only has interesting ideas for enemies in a variety of combat roles but suggestions for creating objective-based combat encounters where you’re not just aiming to rout the enemy side. Take a look at an old free draft of the system, starting at page 350: http://www.mediafire.com/file/ekxb2fxp60ccsnk/Lancer_Core_Book_%2528PR2%2529.pdf/file  

Advice

A good battle encounter has enemies that play multiple roles and that are of varying levels of danger. A boss or lieutenant with two stronger bodyguard types and then a mass of weaker Pokémon supporting them is a well-tested pattern. Players should feel like they have meaningful choices in target prioritization.

The GM has more leeway to use strategies that may be less optimal for PCs to use – for example, you can make stronger use of status Moves by adding more weak enemies that exclusively use status Moves. You’re improving the enemy side’s action economy, but by making them relatively weak actions, you aren’t going to overwhelm the PCs and you get to use a strategy that is less common in PTU.

Otherwise, combat encounter design is a very, very well-tread topic for Pokémon Tabletop that many veterans are happy to talk about. It’d take far too much space to put all the possible advice here, so don’t be afraid to ask for help!

Adventures

Resources

I recently found a pretty good article on writing winter encounters. It’s more geared towards D&D and other fantasy games but can still be helpful here: https://www.2minutetabletop.com/how-to-run-a-snow-adventure/

And here are more example snow encounters from the same author: https://www.2minutetabletop.com/10-snow-encounters/ 

Advice

You don’t need to create a linear adventure for this category. It can be a location with multiple quest hooks, like a festival with many friendly competitions to join and locations to explore, or a set of adventure hooks for an entire region centering on winter celebrations.

There are a number of things you can do to make an adventure or location easier for a GM to use: 

  • Make NPCs simple but distinctive. A signature Pokémon, a peculiar mannerism, or an off-the-wall description can all make an NPC easier to remember. 
  • Include ways an adventure can be modified – this could be multiple possibilities for where a clue can be found in a mystery, what-if scenarios for players going off the beaten path, ways to reuse content that players have “skipped”, ways to move a scene forward if the players are stuck on what to do, etc
  • Structure your work in a way that’s easy to reference at the table. All information and materials that would be used together should be put in the same place. 

This category can feel like you have to include the other categories in your submission (a map, a battle, etc), but that isn’t the case! It’s okay for this category to write the outline of a location or quest and leave suggestions for battles and maps to use without going into explicit detail. Though this can also be a good reason to do a collaborative submission with someone else.

02 Apr

Pokémon Journeys Dev Diary 2: Playtesting

mimikyu is cute
Playtesting is king. It’s a mantra among game designers, who often know all too well the pain of carefully designing a mechanic and then finding that it’s absolutely awful to play with or too hard to understand when playing in a real group. On the other hand, it’s a huge relief whenever a mechanic or idea that looks iffy on paper happens to test really well among players.

We’ve been pretty damn insistent that we want playtest feedback for Pokémon Journeys over untested theorycrafting, so it’s only fair we explain a bit of what we’ve learned through playtesting and what makes for a useful playtest for us. I’m going to be jumping through a number of sub-topics here, but I’ll try to keep each of them anchored to actual playtest experiences we’ve had in PTU or Pokémon Journeys.

If you haven’t gotten a chance to look at our draft materials for Journeys, you can find them at this link.
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05 Mar

Pokémon Journeys Dev Diary 1: Custom Move Lists

pokemon journeys
Hey Pokémon Trainers, as we get further into testing and development of our Pokémon tabletop RPG, we thought it’d be fun to give you a peek into the design process. So here’s the first entry in our new dev diary series!

I’ll try to keep the preamble short, but first of all, we have a new working title for what we’ve been calling PTU 2.0 up to now: Pokémon Journeys

We’ve heard feedback requesting a new name to better reflect how big of a paradigmatic change the system is from PTU 1.05, and we also feel we’ve long outgrown the “United” label which was originally meant to juxtapose the system with PTA. So that’s what we’re calling the system…for now. Things may change, as always!

If you haven’t taken a look at our playtest docs and drafts yet, you can see them at this link.

Okay, that out of way, let’s talk about how we’re approaching one of the most exciting shifts in Pokémon Journeys: Every Pokémon will have a custom Move list, including many new Moves we’re writing ourselves to fill holes in a particular Type or mon’s repertoire.

It wasn’t an easy decision to commit to curating Move lists for all mons in Pokémon Journeys. On top of the sheer amount of work it creates for us, it also means we hold more responsibility now for the system’s overall Pokémon balance and can’t pass the buck to Gamefreak when a mon has garbage Moves.

But we believe there are astounding benefits to it. The sheer size and scope of some Pokémons’ TM and Tutor Lists in 1.05 was not only unwieldy, but it made certain Moves far too prevalent, such as Ice Beam and Thunderbolt. Early Gen Pokémon could usually enjoy wide coverage from their TM and Tutor options whereas later Gens appeared to have been assigned those Moves with more scrutiny. Extreme disparities existed within generations too. In contrast to the obvious Move lottery winners like Clefable and the Nidos, the Move lists for Pokémon like Electrode would make you think someone at Gamefreak had it out for them.

Let’s take a look at some example Pokémon Move lists, and I’ll explain what we did along the way. But first, a quick disclaimer: everything in this post is accurate as of time of writing, but if you’re looking at this post weeks or months later, don’t be surprised if our drafts look different.
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07 Dec

PTU 2.0 Playtest Materials!

Not a release, sorry! But we’ve been testing PTU 2.0 for a few weeks now, and we want to share with everyone who isn’t part of our Discord server (but you should join us here because we’re cool).

As of time of writing, a lot of this material is pretty spotty as we’ve mostly been converting over the bare minimum we’ve needed for sessions. In the next couple days you’re going to see more Specializations go up, mostly more Type Aces and some Stat Aces. The Move doc will also be backfilled with all the modified and new custom Moves we wrote in the converted Pokemon document.

Playtest materials here! Have fun!

12 May

GM Advice: Your First PTU Session

cute

Artwork by pokemoa

Pokémon Tabletop United is a daunting system to GM, so naturally the other devs and I try to make our GMing chapter as robust and comprehensive as possible. However, we realize that having over 50 pages of assorted advice to read through can be dizzying, and a new GM may simply want to know what they strictly need to do to ready themselves for a first session in the system in a straightforward, step by step manner.

Well, here you go! This post will take a look at what goes into putting together an enjoyable first session of PTU. Anything that can be considered more general RPG advice for first sessions, such as how to cast out your first plot hooks or introduce engaging NPCs, will be glossed over at most. Instead, I’ll focus on PTU-specific issues and idiosyncrasies of the system.
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01 May

PTU May 2015 Playtest Packet

journey

artwork by yuza

Annnnnd we’re back! After the exhausting eleventh hour crunch time we took to finish up the 1.05 release of Pokémon Tabletop United, we all needed a break from intensive work on the system. Unfortunately, that for me included working on blog posts, especially with how quickly I burned through my reserve of posts when 1.05 work was piling up.

Now we’re back though, and we’ve come bearing gifts. We’re going to begin releasing occasional playtest packets with material we’re still tweaking and experimenting with. For our first pack, we’re focusing on utility character options. Hopefully, this will give you both interesting insights into our dev process as we make changes over time and another focused avenue to give us feedback on what you’d like to see out of PTU.

Download here and enjoy!

Discuss this post on our forums at this thread.

22 Jan

Pokémon Spotlight: Mareep Family

year of the sheep

Artwork by 電竜ライ

It’s the year of the sheep! Back when Gold and Silver first came out, Ampharos was my favorite Pokémon, and I’m happy to celebrate this Pokémon family as we coast into the new year.

As a note, we’ve ramped up the work on the 1.05 update for Pokémon Tabletop United, which is why this post has taken a while to surface. It’s also why the blog will be going on a partial hiatus until we get the update done. I may still post once or twice before the release if I find topics I really want to write about, but don’t count on much.

Mareep’s fluffy coat of wool rubs together and builds a static charge. The more static electricity is charged, the more brightly the lightbulb at the tip of its tail glows. – Mareep Pokédex Entry

Flaffy’s wool quality changes so that it can generate a high amount of static electricity with a small amount of wool. The bare and slick parts of its hide are shielded against electricity. – Flaaffy Pokédex Entry

Ampharos gives off so much light that it can be seen even from space. People in the old days used the light of this Pokémon to send signals back and forth with others far away. – Ampharos Pokédex Entry

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