Hey, Lemmy!
I’m a somewhat experienced TTRPG designer and my latest project is an RPG based on the first generation of Pokémon games.
You can download the complete game for free here:
https://heavenlyspoon.org/pocket-monster-adventures/
My focus was on ease-of-play and simple prep. Many of the other Pokémon RPGs out there seemed to involve a lot of overhead—especially for the GM. I prefer a more improv-heavy game, and having to do a lot of prep makes that basically impossible.
Sticking to gen 1 made it so I could keep the scope small enough to allow for simple encounter tables, pre-prepared Pokémon sheets for every Pokémon, and a simple set-up for every Pokémon controlled by the GM.
The game is designed to be played with one GM and two or three players, and every aspect of the original games has been changed where needed to accommodate this.
I don't know how much interest there is for this kind of thing, but hopefully at least someone will get some joy out of it!
Wow, this is incredibly detailed, very keen to try it out!
@HeavenlySpoon@ttrpg.network I don't know if you're looking for feedback, but something that seems potentially confusing is the different behaviour of the move die between normal and special moves. If I'm reading it correctly for a normal move your "attack roll" (to fall back to d&d terms) is determined by the Move die and the target to beat is the move's Threshold, but for a special move your "attack roll" is your Special die and the target is the Move die. I'm not sure if using the same terminology to refer to two opposite things is the clearest!
Feedback is always welcome!
The issue is that for out-of-combat actions, the move die has the same function for both types of moves, so giving it a different name could lead to more confusion. Additionally, any number mentioned on the move card always refers to the move die, so having different names might again be more confusing.
I hope I made it clear that special moves have a very different procedure, and as soon as you realise that, knowing that the “move die” is the die on the move card should hopefully make things fairly clear.
Part of the impetus behind the combat rules was trying to make a singular “Special” stat not just functional but logical. If it was just going to be SpA/SpD combined, there’d be no reason not to split them. Having the split be damaging moves and effect moves solved that issue nicely, but it did necessitate very different mechanics.
Thanks for the feedback, though!
Fair enough, you can tell I hadn't read that far yet!
Another bit of feedback: the word "move" is used to mean different things and can be a bit ambiguous. A good example is the paragraph explaining paralysis: "move(s)" is used to mean changing turn order, movement around the grid, and an attack (and I'm still a little confused as to how paralysis works in general!) Might be worth calling "moves" (the attacks that pokémon make) something like "abilities" or "techniques" to make it clearer?
Hmm, techniques might work, but space is often limited and it’s quite a bit longer than “move”. I’m aware of the issue, but didn’t have a clean way of solving it. I couldn’t use “attack” since there’s already an Attack die and abilities are also a thing in Pokémon in general. If it was going to be confusing regardless, I figured I might as well stick with the name used in the games. Basically, move as a noun is an “attack”, move as a verb is movement. I may have to try to fit that clarification in somewhere…
The thing to keep in mind with Paralysis is that every round starts with determining turn order, any Paralysed Pokémon move to the end of the turn order and then loses Paralysis. The not-being-able-to-move bit is only relevant if the Paralysed Pokémon hasn’t acted yet that round.
Regarding paralysis it might be worth clarifying that it only affects the following round (in case you get paralysed before you've attacked that round)
Feedback is always more than welcome!
I might just change Paralysis at this point, it’s been a bit annoying to track in playtesting and if it’s apparently hard to understand as well it may not be worth it. The general goal of conditions was to have them go away as quickly as possible to keep things simple, which is why Paralysis disappears at the end of the start of turn, but having it just be no-movement for 2 turns is probably the better option. I’ll have to do some playtesting first, though.
And capitalising Move is probably the easiest option. I’d have to check if that causes anything weird, but probably not.
Might be better to pick a single thing for paralysis to do if simplicity is the goal. Some ideas:
Just replying to let you know that I’ve changed move to Move whenever it’s not referring to movement and that I’ve changed Paralysis to the easier option of not being able to move this round and next round. It definitely plays differently, but it’s quicker and should hopefully be easier to understand!
Sounds good! I noticed a couple of little typos when I read through before, want me to make a list of them if they're still there? Also, very strangely, a few pages had a tiny blob on them which when I zoomed in turned out to be Vileplume's stat sheet.
Weird! I don’t know how that happened, can you give a page number for where it shows up?
And yes, please share any typos you find!
I first noticed it on p182 (Abra), I'll let you know if I see it anywhere else
I figured out what happened, apparently the Vileplume sheet snuck onto my Pokémon sheet template. It should be fixed now.
Right, it seems I really went down the rabbit hole with proofreading so I hope this seems helpful rather than obsessive!
.)instead of).)’) and vertical ones ('), e.g. in Charmeleon's dex on p291Oh wow, thanks a lot! I guess I know what I’m doing this weekend.
Hmm, good points. I can think of three possibilities:
BTW I hope this doesn't come off as negative, I'm really enjoying reading it and I'm keen to try running a campaign!