Gameplay Structure

The Adventuring Loop

Pokémon Odyssey structures a campaign, or extended multi-session game in the system, with a standard adventuring loop made up of three phases:

1. Planning and preparation
2. Adventure!
3. Downtime and rest

In the planning and downtime phases, the players and GM have certain procedures they follow, but the adventuring phase is much more open-ended and makes up the bulk of a campaign.

Planning and Preparation

After the players decide what kind of adventure they want to embark on next, their Trainers gain a fresh set of Travel Basics, refresh their stock of Pokéballs to 5, and restock any Travel Items they gain from their Calling if applicable.

Travel Basics include the following: Phone, Backpack, Sleeping Bag and Shelter, Towel, Weather-Appropriate Clothing, Flashlight, Lighter, Compass, Water + Filter, Rations.

Pokéball: Allows the capture of a defeated Pokemon outside of combat.

Additionally, GMs decide on the length of the adventure coming up and give the players a number of Potions; Supply Points, or SP, to spend on additional Travel Items for the adventure; and a number of Camp Supplies they share as a party. One unit of Camp Supplies must be expended when taking a Long Rest at camp in order for the party to gain any recovery benefits.

The allocation of Potions, Supply Points, and Camp Supplies are both a transparency mechanic to let the players know the planned length of their upcoming adventure and an attrition mechanic to challenge them and prevent them from coasting through by simply resting to recover after every single battle, or by using an overwhelming hoard of healing items to brute force through encounters. Here are some recommendations for how many Supply Points and Camp Supplies to hand out.

Short Adventure: 1-2 sessions long. Up to 3 normal battles or 1 normal battle and 1 boss battle.

• 2 Potions per player
• 2 Supply Points per player
• 1 Camp Supply for the party

Medium Adventure: 3-4 sessions long. 3 normal battles and 1 boss encounter or 1 normal battle and 2 boss battles.

• 4 Potions
• 4 Supply Points
• 2 Camp Supplies

Long Adventure: 5+ sessions long. 5 normal battles and 1 boss encounter or 3 normal battles and 2 boss battles.

• 6 Potions
• 6 Supply Points
• 3 Camp Supplies

Adventure!

The adventure phase is the most unstructured in Pokémon Odyssey and also occupies the most play time. This is when the party explores the wilds, infiltrates a criminal team's base, solves a murder mystery, or otherwise has, well, an adventure! Here more than anywhere else, the gameplay of Pokémon Odyssey resembles a conversation where the players dictate their actions within the world and the GM responds. However, it's still useful to break up this phase into units of narrative time we call Scenes.

Scenes

A Scene is a discrete unit of narrative time that's often referenced in Pokémon Odyssey. Many effects are usable a set number of times per Scene, or they last until the end of the current Scene. If you cut to a new location or decide the primary conflict in a given situation is resolved and you want to move on to something else, that’s generally the end of the Scene. Sometimes Scenes are short, like a social meeting between a Gym Leader and the PCs at a Pokémon Center, but sometimes they can be lengthy, such as an extended infiltration of a criminal Team base. During these extended sequences, it is still a good idea to find stopping points for new Scenes. Any time the players can stop for a breather and take time to collect themselves before moving forward can qualify.

During the adventuring phase, there are two special types of Scenes that are of note: Combat Scenes and the Camp Phase.

Combat Scenes

When a Pokémon battle starts, the gameplay shifts from a free-flowing conversation to a turn-by-turn combat game played on a map with a grid. If you've played other TRPGs that make a similar shift in gameplay when a fight breaks out, this should all be pretty familiar. You can find the details in the combat rules chapter.

When a new battle starts, that's almost always a new Scene, even if all the characters are still in the same place and addressing the same primary conflict. Very rarely, a GM may present back-to-back fights that are collectively all one Scene, but those fights should be smaller and less intensive in those cases because characters' combat abilities in Pokémon Odyssey are calibrated for one combat encounter per Scene.

The Camp Phase

The Camp Phase happens when the party stops adventuring for the day to rest. In the wilderness, it'd be when they set up camp for the night, of course, but even in urban adventures, you would trigger the Camp Phase when the party checks into their hotel or finds other lodgings for the night.

During the Camp Phase, the party takes a Long Rest (a rest of at least 6 hours) and may spend 1 unit of Camp Supplies during that time to recover in the following ways:

• All Trainers and Pokémon with 25% or less of their HP remaining set their HP to 50% of their maximum
• All Trainers and Pokémon with more than 25% of their HP remaining recovery HP equal to their Recovery Value
• All Trainers and Pokémon regain 1 spent Effort
• All Trainers regain all spent Boost Points
• All spent Moves, Abilities, Techniques and other effects with a number of uses per day are refreshed

Each Trainer can take one Camp Action during this phase as well. While some Callings provide unique Camp Actions, all characters have access to the following Camp Actions, some of which require specific Travel items to use.

Recon: Requires either a Pokémon with Naturewalk for the current environment, a piece of environment-specific gear (ex: snow shoes, darkvision goggles, etc), or advanced exploration gear (ex: powerful binoculars). The character gains 1 Recon Point which may be spent by anyone in the party as if it were Effort during the next day on Skill Checks and Group Actions related to navigation, searching, pursuing, or escaping in the current environment, even if the character doesn't have the requisite positive Skill modifiers to do so. This point can also be spent by anyone to reroll a Skill Check of that sort. You must use the new result, even if it is worse. This point is lost if unspent at the start of the party's next Camp Phase.

Cooking: Consumes 1 Gourmet Ingredient. During the next day, all Trainers and Pokémon in the party gain the benefit of the consumed Gourmet Ingredient. No more than one character may take the Cooking Camp Action during one Camp Phase.

Treatment: Consumes 1 use from a Medical Kit: Choose one Trainer or Pokémon - they recover additional HP equal to their Recovery Value. A given character can only be targeted by Treatment once per Camp Phase.

Forage: Requires either a Pokémon with Naturewalk for the current environment, or gathering gear (ex: a shovel, a pickaxe, etc). The character broadly describes what sort of item they’re looking for (ex: something that can be eaten, something that can be used as a weapon, etc), and the GM chooses a Travel Item along those lines for them to find.

GMs, be creative with the forms items can take when a player uses Forage! A wild herb can be a Potion or a Gourmet Ingredient. A mushroom can be a Pester Ball if it explodes with spores upon impact when thrown. An electrically charged stone in a cave can be a Battery for a drone. If the players are in a city, Forage can instead mean hitting up friends and contacts for help, either in the form of items or favors for the next day.

A GM may decide that campsites set up in particularly hostile territory or in a region that’s just plain hazardous are unsafe. In that case, they can call for a Camp Danger Roll. This is a 2d6 roll with the following modifiers:

• +1 if the party has at least half the party size in Pokemon with an applicable Naturewalk for the current environment
• -1 if the party as no Pokemon with an applicable Naturewalk for the current environment
• +1 for each party member who forgoes their normal Camp Action to instead patrol the campsite at night
• Up to a -3 situational penalty depending on how precarious the GM deems the situation to be

Resolve this roll similarly to a Skill Check. On a 6-, something bad happens—an item is stolen from camp, someone is hurt by a wild Pokémon, etc.

On a 7-9, something bad nearly happens, but the party has a chance to avert it—play out a short Scene where one or more party members can take actions to protect the camp.

On a 10+, any danger is averted for the night, but the party wakes up to signs of what that danger could have been—wild Pokémon tracks, a party member on patrol having chased off thieving poachers, etc.

Downtime

At the end of an Adventure, the party will usually arrive at a town or city and get an opportunity to rest and restock. The Downtime Phase formalizes this, giving players a chance to fully heal, level up their Trainers and Pokémon, restore their Inventory of Travel Items, and gain perks such as Move Tutoring.

When a Downtime Phase is initiated at the end of an Adventure, do all of the following:

• All Pokémon and Trainers are restored to their Maximum HP, Effort, and Boost Point values.
• All effects with daily uses are refreshed.
• If the GM feels the party has reached a milestone, then all characters gain +1 Level.
• All players’ Pokémon at a Level below their Trainer Level are set to their Trainer Level.
• All players may take up to three Downtime Actions.
• All players lose all unused Travel Items— they will get a fresh set the next time they enter the planning phase for a new adventure.

The party should also gain Favor at the start of a Downtime Phase, in the form of getting paid for a quest, receiving their normal income, or simply having made friends and connections they can call on. At a minimum, each party member should receive 2 Favor at the end of each Adventure.

Downtime Actions and Favor

Downtime Actions are extended endeavors that characters can engage in to organize help from allies, conduct investigations, and prepare for their next adventure during a time of rest. Downtime Actions cost Favor, an abstraction of cash, valuable assets, favors owed, and connections that can be leveraged.

By default, characters can conduct up to three Downtime Actions during a single Downtime Phase as long as they have the Favor to pay for them, but the GM can adjust this number based on how long the Downtime Phase lasts in the game world.

Favor can also be used during the normal adventuring phase to perform actions with narrative effect like bribing a bouncer, buying an expensive bottle of wine as a gift, or purchasing a service like a private chartered flight.

Performing a Downtime Action usually requires a Skill Check, though requesting help through a Calling Talent often bypasses the need for that. You may pay twice the cost of a Downtime Action to gain Advantage on the roll.

On a 6-, the character either fails to get what they want or they are put into immediate trouble as a result of their Downtime Action (play out a small Scene or begin the next Adventure with this scenario).

On a 7-9, the character gets what they want but need to pay more Favor to avoid complications, causes suspicion, attracts trouble, or does something else that has no immediate effect but will have costs or an unintended consequence further down the line.

On a 10+, the character gets what they want with no complications.

Downtime, like the planning phase, is pretty procedural, but that doesn't mean you can't take this time to roleplay and let the players hang out with NPCs or just run more lighthearted low stakes Scenes wherever they're resting. If the party isn't getting a concrete benefit from a Scene, such as checking in to see how a friend is doing or just going on a fun jaunt through town, it doesn't cost them a Downtime Action.

Example Downtime Actions and Costs

TBD