A thread to talk about the various Pokémon tabletop games out there. Have you played any before or have any interest in them?I'm currently playing through a game of PTU right now through Foundry, it's been fun. It seems like it would be a nightmare to try to coordinate in-person though with how much paperwork and crunchiness there is since you would have to manually manage different sheets and calculations for each seperate Pokémon you catch.
>>97886220I love Pokemon tabletop games in theory, but every time I've tried to play/run one the bookeeping was too annoying to do anything with it other than a Pokemon Mystery Dungeon sort of thing.
Is there a stadium style battles wargame?
>>97886845Yeah, that's why I'm glad stuff like Foundry exists to make everything easy on both the player and GM side. I remember GMing a short lived campaign a long ass time ago and everyone getting fed up after a while with having to bookkeep so much.>>97886865I've only played PTU but there's a load of other fan-made systems, some more tactical and wargame like than others.
>>97886220>>97886845The fundamental problem with any pokemon tabletop is that the genre basically assumes every player is going to essentially end up with 6 characters to manage unless they intentionally hold back. Pair that with how so many of the rulesets try to cram in as many moves and game mechanics as possible, and it quickly becomes a book-keeping nightmare. Even with digital tools, there's still a lot of decision making to factor in even if you shortcut a lot of the math and tracking.
>>97886220PTR/PTU foundry is good. I am preparing a manifesto to give them to implement in a goal to fix all the dogshit classes & features.>>97887278While it isn't a huge help. I find limiting Pokemon either the whole game or at first helps. But also you have to understand how big Pokemon autism is. For someone like me, PTU is a breeze to actually keep track of everything. Only with Foundry, which I would say is core to the system at this point given the people working on the foundry are actually continuing to work on the system. So the people making a system for Pokemon are likely in that same vein. I would say Pokerole was a decent option if you don't want to be playing 4e D&D style Pokemon.
>>97886220I personally found that the best way to handle Pokemon RPGs is just to do it freeform. The PCs and their mons just operate better by rule of cool (within reason) than meticulous crunch.
>>97886220I ran Pokemon through Majimonsters, but it required a bit of work converting moves and stats over. For something looser and more like the anime, Cartoon Action Hour worked decently well.
>>97886220I prefer the "PTE" version of the system, which is a split of PTU. Rebalances stuff and has a default limit of 3 mons
>>97887321I've got a fair bit of pokemon autism, but the games have just piled on so many minor mechanics and redundant moves over the decades that designing a ruleset that assumes you're doing all of that manually is just a bizarre decision. Pokerole is one of the better ones for at least remembering to simplify stats, but even that includes 200 pages of moves.
>>97887773That is just the nature of Pokemon I think. Unless you do like what one anon suggests and go totally freeform. I myself enjoy the crunch, but another person who is a player without the tism does get overwhelmed at times so I understand there is too much for some people. I'm not sure how to make a solution while keeping the stream of "every move, ability, and Pokemon from the game gets adapted". At least the more annoying shit like Base Relation was killed off.
>>97886220Does anyone have a "Family Tree" of all the "Pokemon Tabletop Advetures" family of games and which ones are still being developed?
>>97888112I think it's went PTA>PTU which then split off into PTR and PTE and are still indev
>>97886220It's something I've been interested in for a long time. I even started sketching out my own region and league based on Florida, but always got bogged down by the extreme crunch. Recently, I started getting back into play-by-post, and I feel like that would be perfect for a Pokemans game since things are already naturally slow.
>>97887321>I would say Pokerole was a decent option if you don't want to be playing 4e D&D style Pokemon.I can't wrap my head over how bad they are at marketing. Most people don't even know that pokerole 3.0 has been out for a year now.
>>978907653.0? Aren't they on 2.0?
>>97890819my point exactly. the current pdf is only available on discord.
>>97890822Link?
bump.
>>97890416My main advice if the crunch is too much is just find some basic things that are reliable. Can't Miss moves, generic and mostly passive trainer classes. Find those so you can easily get together basic trainers. Then as you get more familiar you'll be able to pick out combos or mechanical interactions you want to try out easier.>>97890822I should really take a look since I very much disliked Pokerole 1.0. But PTU/R is really what I would want anyways. Just have to fine tune the balance on classes / rework the dog shit player combat.
>>97890949limewire.com / d / rAwkJ#JSO6kx6rSC
>>97893602>not dolphin porncheers, lad
>>97893398Fair. There was also a lot of 'my friends aren't going to have the patience/memory for a lot of this' and that causes some discouragement as well. Another thing I'm enjoying about PbP: players often have more investment and discipline. Unlike my wife, who has played a dozen different games and never read the rules for any of them...
>>97893750>>not dolphin pornoh well, i'm not thinking clearly today, no mental capacity to make jokes. have a good one. also if you end up wanting to print it hmu, i have an illegal edit without background images that you can't get on discord
This is where my autism finally pays off.Pokemon Tabletop United is the ones that most people are familiar with and are very crunchy but generalist. I think if you wanna play PTU, just use Pokemon Tabletop Evolutions, which is catching up in terms of tools and uses a much more manageable 3 Pokemon per trainer.Pokemon 5e USED to dominate the Pokemon tabletop scene for a short stint before the DMCA forced all the support to shut down. It's back now under new management, but no one I know plays it anymore.Pokemon Tabletop Adventures 3 is very much what I'd recommend for most people. The bookkeeping isn't terrible. There is trainer combat or PMD options if you allow it, but it's generally well-balanced and doesn't get into Pokemon build autism.Pokeymanz is a well-done Savage World hack with the unfortunate side-effect of having cringe humor on every other pages. It's a genuinely good system but it's hard to sell a party on it because it has that early tumblr humor baked into its PDF.Pokerole is a system I've basically written off. Every trainer will feel the same. Every Pikachu will feel the same. The devs are autistic as hell with a very narrow vision of the setting, and it's restricted the system into being something you play with your little cousin rather than with friends. It's a very usable system, but you will not find people going to bat for it unless they're ESL third-worlders.Pokemon Tabletop Reunited is the opposite side of Pokerole's autism. It is PTU's problem amped up to 11 and only meant to be played on Foundry, which can automate the actual fucking game mechanics. It's absurd, it's autistic, it's both ugly and beautiful in the way it flippantly turns a tabletop RPG into a video game.The Poke RPG is a niche system that I will put out there if none of the other options interest you. It's a generalist system but feels a lot more concise and easier to introduce to people.Finally, Explorers! is for PMD. Use this for PMD. Use PMD for it.
>>97894568>YOU LIKE YOUR TABLETOP HAVING AUTOMATION? FUCK YOUStay mad, I'll keep playing PTR with my pals and have several complete and fun campaigns.
Any games based on 70s/80s design styles rather than modern DnD mega crunch?>>97886865Sounds pretty sick
>>97894606I don't have Foundry so I can't really comment on it too much. Automation is ultimately a good thing when things get as crunchy as PTR does. Hell, even PTU and PTE needs some automation. Glad you're actually playing games Anon. That's rare in this day and age of /tg/.>>97894650More of the lighter systems of Pokemon TTRPG are gonna lean on narrativist or gamist systems. The Poke RPG is probably the most simulationist outside of literally playing Pokemon 5e or some bootleg Pokemon system.
>>97886220>>97886845>>97887321I feel like pokemon might work as a skirmish game. where you control a squad sized group that individually have less total info then most RPG's, where you are just assumed to handle one entity if you are a player.I personally would look at things like Rangers of Shadow deep or mordheims for inspiration. Skirmish games that have a bit of a campaign focus. Spec some of your mons into melee combat and tankyness, others into ranged, others into support and others still into contering mon's who counter your other mons (say you have a steel type main tank, you have a secondary water type tank to adress fire types). Then you can have a party of 6 mons that all fight together instead of one at a time. Hell in a campaign situation you can even evolve your pokemon as an equivelent for leveling up.
>>97894606If your tabletop isn't playable without automation it's kind of a bad tabletop.
>>97894606People like automation. People don't like the system being damn near unplayable without automation.PTU/R is unironically only behind deranged systems like FATAL for how much math they expect you to do. It's only remotely playable because the fanbase automated it, which is an insane thing to say about a genre defined by playing at a table.
I just want a pokemon tabletop without null turns, is that too much to ask?
>>97886220Consider a hybrid game where you use a pretty basic TTRPG for the trainers, then pokemon battles are handled via the TCG or Showdown.
>>97895014I feel like that would remove all of the fun of the battles when it comes down to utilizing the environment, giving trainers extra things to do mid-battle, and other non-videogame stuff that you can do with roleplaying and a tabletop system in general
>>97894871Having it be a squad based game would be neat since you as the Trainer could expressly still influence your troops. Or go full PMD and make it squads of Pokemon.>>97894894What do you mean Null Turns?
>>97895056I was wondering about that too, it looks like reddit speak for missing your attacks/failing your checks during a turn and not feeling useful ;(i initially thought it meant excessive action denial or something which yeah can be a massive pain in the ass
>>97895074There was an errata for PTU like almost 10 years ago to remove all the turn loss status except for Freeze and Sleep. In my game we turned Freeze into Frostbite, -special attack burn basically. Sleep is still there, but any damage wakes you up and we made it easier each turn to wake up like the Vortex saves. I have PTSD from when a Slaking put my Raichu to sleep and I failed 4 turns even with +4 and rerolls.
>>97894568>something you play with your little cousin rather than with friendsanon, are you aware of the target demographics of the franchise we're talking about?
