Pokemon Journeys - Minor Playtest

Currently, the very first proper playtest for Pokemon Journeys is scheduled for this coming weekend, and I'm very excited about finding out what everyone thinks of the system, seeing what works and what doesn't.

My good friends Chris and Louise from Parental Guidance came by this weekend, and we decided to have  a small, informal playtest of the game, to give them a look at how it was all progressing, and also so I could see it in motion with my own eyes before the upcoming major playtest.

I built a small 20 card Travel Deck, drew a simple map on a blank D&D Battlemat, and then we made some test characters. Louise played as a Breeder, and started with Bulbasaur, whilst Chris chose to be a Researcher and started with Charmander. Each Pokemon began at lvl 5.

The map had 10 squares between the two towns, so it would take the pair a little over 2 days to get there.

Our first playthrough went very smoothly - probably too smoothly. A lot of Clear Run cards were drawn in succession, despite my thorough shuffling. I used my List of randomly generated Pokemon I made beforehand to select trainer Pokemon from when Trainer Battle cards were drawn, and Chris' Charmander destroyed the only Wild Pokemon they came across with some big damage rolls.

It was really good to see the excitement when a 2v2 Team Battle card was drawn, where they got to battle together against a pair of opponents. I think these cards are going to be a real hit with players. 

We "teleported" back to the first town and tried it again. This time, the journey was far more arduous. Louise came across a wild Bouffalant that pasted her Bulbasaur before charging off, meaning they had to backtrack to the starting town to heal up. Upon trying again, a wild Pinsir attacked Louise, and Bulbasaur bit the dust again, forcing them to scurry back a second time. I was having the players roll to randomly determine wild encounters, and it was just unlucky that Louise rolled the two most powerful Pokemon I had generated.

Chris also blew another wild encouter when his Charmander destroyed an Azurill. As well as downing an opposing trainer's Pokemon in a single hit, Charmander quickly earned the nickname 'Killer'.

We got to test out the different weather cards, and that system worked well. Dry Weather (Fire Types may re-roll their damage rolls) feature predominantly, and Chris made plenty of use with it with Charmander. It wasn't until after the game had finished that he realised he could also have used Dry Weather to reroll Charmander's big damage rolls to make them lower, thus not completely devouring the wild encounters he'd had. Chris thought this was a great mechanic.

With the deck empty and all the wild encounters having either been too powerful or eaten by Charmander, we finished the playtest with their starters having just reached lvl 8, and we decided to give each of the players an extra lvl 5 Pokemon (Chris got Rattata, Louise got Spearow) and have a friendly match against each other.

Chris managed to pull the win after his Rattata went down to Bulbasaur, and finished off both of Louise's Pokemon with his increasingly scary killer Charmander.

We had a long discussion after the game about what worked, what didn't, what we liked and what we thought needed changing. Both Chris and Louise loved the game, and actually thought it was almost perfect as it was, with only minor changes needed. Even though Louise got done in twice by two powerful wilds, it turned out that they actually enjoyed that, Chris saying that it added a real feeling of adventure and danger to the game; "sometimes you run through to the next town without a hitch, and sometimes you get beat and scurry back to your mum's house with your tail between your legs. That's just how it goes sometimes." They pointed out that Louise could have chosen to run from those powerful encounters, but she took them on and paid the price.

I was wrapped to hear that the game was not only playable, but enjoyable in it's first draft. For me as the GM, it was easy to run, as I only had to get involved to play the role of wild and trainer encounters, or dish out items that had been found. All of this came from my list that I'd made beforehand, so there was very little looking up stats or the like for me.

The battling system worked really really well. Rolling to see who sends out first really added a great element, and the rest played out very naturally from there.

There were really only 2 issues that cropped up during the game, and a few things that caused discussion on what should happen. They were:

- Money. In Pokemon Journeys, battles against Trainers do not grant money in the way the games do. Instead, the player makes a wager before the battle. If they win, they get that much money. If they lose, they lose it. In theory we loved this system, but in practice it led to a quick money shortage for the players, especially with items like Pokeballs and Potions still costing the in-game equivalent. We resolved this problem by granting the player double their wager if they won, but still losing their wager if they lost, which the three of us thought balanced things out much better.

- Damage. I've said it before, but the damage values we were using from Pokemon Tabletop Adventures was mostly a mess. I'll be working this week on a new damage system, converting Power ratings from the in-game moves into dice, that I'll talk about in another post, which I hope will make things a lot more balanced.

- When a wild Pokemon beat Louise, we discussed whether another player could jump in and try to continue battling it and capture it. In the end, we decided against this, as it meant the defeated player could do all the work and get it to a capturable state, for someone else to just jump in and steal. We resolved that if a player's Pokemon are defeated by a wild one, it runs away.

- We decided to alter the Capture Rates of the Pokemon to a d10 system instead of a d100 system, by simply dividing the CR's by 10.

- We discussed whether a player could borrow Pokeballs from other players if they ran out trying to capture a wild Pokemon. We didn't resolve whether they could borrow one from another player and that's it, or if they just couldn't altogether, but we did resolve that item swapping was something the group could do when they made camp, but not during the journey.

- We decided that the players in the group taking turns to draw a card from the Travel Deck each turn was the best way to go, rather than the group as a whole drawing a card and deciding on who gets it.

- We came up with a great system where, when it's a player's turn to draw a card, they can choose to either resolve it themselves, or pass it on to another group member. This way, if say Louise has 4 captured Pokemon and has found 3 items, and Chris has been unlucky and only drawn weather or Clear Run cards, if Louise draws another Wild Encounter she can choose to pass that to Chris instead.

That's about all from our little test run. I'll be sure to give you all a more detailed look at our major playtest this coming weekend.

Until then!

- Jamie

Pokemon - Battles

Alright, let's take a look at how the all important battles will work.

Encounter
The first thing needed for a battle is someone/something to battle. These can come from Travel cards (Wild Pokemon, Trainer battles and Team battles), or be part of a Story Point.

Choose Move Set
If battling a trainer, each player involved in the battle must choose their move set that they are going to use. Currently, each Pokemon can learn a total of 10 moves, but only 4 can be used in battle at a time. Players will most likely come up with a 'default' set, and will only look to change it for specific battles. This gives that 'deck building' element to the game that I wanted, without all the cards. However, if this starts bogging the game down too much with players changing movesets all the time, I'll place some sort of restriction on it (EG: Movesets can only be changed at Pokemon Centres).

Who Goes First?
Unlike the game, when a wild Pokemon appears, the player gets to decide which Pokemon to send out, instead of automatically using the first one in their roster. Once a Pokemon is selected and sent out, you use the Pokemon's Speed stats to determine who attacks first each turn. If Speeds are the same, simply roll a D6 to determine who attacks first.

In a trainer battle, things work the same way, but start off a little differently. At the start of the battle, player's roll a D20 and add their Luck stat (if it makes it into the game). Whoever rolls the highest can choose to go first or second. The disadvantage of going first is that you have to send out a Pokemon blind, not knowing what your opponent has, whereas going second means you'll see what your opponent sends out, and can choose to send out something to counter that. Once both players have Pokemon out, use the Pokemon's Speed stat as normal to determine turn order.

EG: Chris and Louise are battling each other. Each player rolls a D20 and adds their Luck - Chris scores a 14 and Louise rolls 18. Louise can now choose to either send out first or second, and she chooses to go second. 

Chris sends out his Growlithe to kick things off. Based on this, Louise decides to start off with Geodude. Growlithe has the higher speed, so Chris now gets to move first. 

Attacking
Much of the combat itself will be lifted from Pokemon Tabletop Adventures, with a few changes to better streamline things and keep the action moving.

Much like D&D, combat in Pokemon Journeys works with 2 sets of rolls; a roll to hit, and a roll for damage. Each move in the game has an Accuracy Check (or AC) associated with it. Once the player has selected a move, they must roll equal to or above the AC to hit.

Evasion
All Pokemon have an Evasion stat, which is currently calculated by their Speed. For every 5 points of Speed a Pokemon has, they add +1 to the AC roll of an attack, up to a maximum of +6. If the attack hits, they roll damage on the move.

Damage
Once damage is calculated, the attacker adds either their Pokemon's Attack stat or Special Attack stat to the total, depending on the type of move used. The defending player then subtracts either their Pokemon's Defence or Special Defence stat from the damage total (depending on the type of attack). The remainder is the damage that makes it through and hits the target Pokemon.

Weaknesses and Resistances
Once the appropriate defence has been taken out of the damage, any weaknesses or resistances are applied, either boosting or lowering the damage taken. Note that resistances cannot lower the damage below 1 - all attacks that hit are guaranteed to do at least 1 damage.

Using the above example, lets see how a couple of turns of combat would work:

EG: 
Chris' Turn
Chris attacks first with his Growlithe's Ember attack. Ember's AC is 2, and since Geodude has a low Speed of 2, Louise can't add anything to this. Chris rolls an 8, hitting with Ember. 

Ember does 1d12 + 6 damage, and Chris rolls a total of 11. Chris adds Growlithe's SpAtk stat to the damage (7) for a total of 18 damage. 

Geodude is resistant to Fire attacks, so that damage is halved to 9. As Ember is a Special Attack, Louise then subtracts Geodude's SpDef stat (3) from the damage. Geodude takes 6 damage. 

Louise's Turn
On Louise's turn, she has Geodude use Rock Throw. Rock Throw's AC is 4, and Growlithe's Speed of 6 adds +1 to the AC, making it 5. Louise rolls an scores a 14, hitting comfortably.

Rock Throw deals 2d8 + 6 damage, and Louise rolls a total of 15. She then adds Geodude's Atk stat (8) for a total of 23 damage.

Growlithe is weak against Rock moves, and so that damage is doubled to 46. Chris removes Growlithe's Def stat (5) from the damage, for a total of 41, which knocks Growlithe unconscious. 

Switching Pokemon
On a player's turn, they are able to switch out Pokemon if they wish, though doing so takes up their whole turn. The only variation from this is when a player's Pokemon is knocked out - they are then free to switch to another Pokemon, and a new battle is commenced in the order of the battling Pokemon's Speed stats.

STAB
STAB, or Same Type Attack Bonus, is still something I'm working out and will need to play test. Pokemon Tabletop Adventures is by no means perfect, and STAB is one place where this shows, only giving Pokemon an extra 1 damage every 5 levels, a pitiful amount as opposed to the games, where STAB grants 50% bonus damage. I'll play around with this and see what works and what doesn't.

Damage Values
The same can be said for Pokemon Tabletop Adventures' damage values for different moves, which seem to be all over the place at first glance (though I'm sure there's a method in there somewhere). What I'm thinking of doing is removing the suffix from damage rolls (2d8 +6) and replacing that with the Pokemon's Atk or SpAtk stat instead, similar to how damage is calculated in D&D. This way, each attack would have a damage dice roll, to which the appropriate stat is then added. It seems cleaner to me, and removes the ambiguous suffixes from the PTA system.

I'd like to try and base the dice rolls on the Power Values of the moves from the game somehow, but I'll have to play around more with that in testing.

In any case, that's a good look at how battles work in Pokemon Journeys. If you've played D&D before, it won't be anything new, as well as being easy for newcomers to pick up.

Next time, we'll talk about capturing Pokemon.

Until then!

- Jamie