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 - Wild Encounters, Capturing & Loyalty

Our system for capture mechanics literally only got finalised yesterday afternoon, so this is all fresh stuff that I'm looking forward to testing out.

Wild Pokemon Encounters
In Pokemon Journeys, wild Pokemon will primarily be encountered through the Travel Deck while the group is making their way between towns. The GM can of course feel free to add wild Pokemon to other parts of the game, such as Story Points, but for the most part, the player's Pokemon are going to come from the deck.

Our first big hurdle was that randomly generating a Pokemon on the spot is going to be tough and time-consuming, given that you have to generate it, find its stats, boost its stats to match the level you want it to be, and assign it some level-appropriate attacks, all on the fly while your players are just sitting and waiting. So instead, we came up with "The List".

The List (I'm sure it'll get a different name), is a group of 30 or so Pokemon that the GM randomly generates before the campaign begins; 10 common, 10 uncommon and 10 rare (or whatever mix you like). Each group should contain a good mix of types and habitats, and outline each of the Pokemon's base stats and a few attacks. This list will then become the group's wild Pokemon encounters.

When a player draws a wild Pokemon encounter, the GM chooses a Pokemon from the appropriate list, based on the area the group is currently in. Alternatively, you could also have the player roll a dice to randomly select a Pokemon from the list, or any other system you want to implement.

Once a Pokemon has appeared and is captured, you strike it off the list. After the game session, the GM can then repopulate the list, either by filling the gaps, or by generating an entirely new list - whatever they like.

By having this list and doing all the numbers work between sessions, it means the game can keep moving and not get bogged down while the GM tries to quickly stat up a wild encounter. The list system can also be used for Trainer battles - even using the same list if the GM wishes.

For random generations, I like to use http://randompokemon.com/, as it also generates random natures as well, which is handy. 

Here's a basic example for some level 1-3 encounters:

COMMON

Pokemon	HP	Atk	Def	SpAtk	SpDef	Spd	Nature	Moves
Natu	12	5	5	7	5	7	Brave	Leer, Peck
Tentacool	12	4	4	5	10	7	Relaxed	Poison Sting, Supersonic
Bellsprout	15	8	4	7	3	4	Quirky	Vine Whip
Seel	21	5	6	5	7	5	Docile	Headbutt, Growl

UNCOMMON

Pokemon	HP	Atk	Def	SpAtk	SpDef	Spd	Nature	Moves
Kakuna	15	3	5	3	3	4	Hardy	Harden, Poison Sting
Onix	12	5	16	3	5	7	Lonely	Bind, Tackle, Harden

RARE

Pokemon	HP	Atk	Def	SpAtk	SpDef	Spd	Nature	Moves
Kangaskhan	33	10	8	4	8	9	Adamant	Comet Punch, Leer
Tepig	21	6	5	5	5	5	Careful	Tackle, Tail Whip

And there's my list for the next couple of sessions, all done and ready to go. When the wild Pokemon card gets drawn, I'll already be prepared for trouble ;-)

Capturing

Much of the capturing system has been lifted from Pokemon Tabletop Adventures. During the battle, the player will likely want to capture the wild Pokemon. To do this, their going to need a Pokeball, which they can buy in-game or find with the Find Item card.

Each Pokemon in the game has a Capture Rate, which determines how hard or easy the Pokemon is to catch. In order to successfully capture the Pokemon, the player must roll a d100 (2d10) and score under the capture rate.

There are modifiers to this capture rate, however. As we all know, Pokemon are easier to capture when they are weakened, and the same is true in Pokemon Journeys. As the GM, you do not have to tell your players how much HP the wild Pokemon has remaining (unless the player has a skill that lets them gain this information), but you should let them know when the Pokemon is Injured (at half HP or below, similar to the 'Bloodied' mechanic in D&D) or Wounded (25% HP or below). 

Capture rates adjust according to the current health of the wild Pokemon:

- Uninjured grants a -15 penalty

- Injured uses the base Capture Rate

- Wounded grants a +15 bonus

Like the game, Pokemon that are knocked unconscious are unable to be captured (you could say in-game that at 0hp, the wild Pokemon flee, so players don't simply pick up the unconscious body and take it off to a Pokemon Center). Captured Pokemon also grant full experience points as normal, just like the recent X & Y games. 

Loyalty

Loyalty is a role play mechanic that the GM uses to affect the behaviour of captured Pokemon in battle. In a role play sense, loyal and loving Pokemon are likely to do their best for their trainer, whereas disloyal Pokemon probably aren't going to do what they're told. Just because you captured it, doesn't mean it's going to obey you right away without some care and training. 

Upon capturing a new Pokemon, the player rolls a d6 to determine its loyalty and the effect it has. For new captures, count a roll of 4-6 as 3:

1 = Resentful: The Pokemon resents you for capturing it. In battle, roll 1d6 before each move. On a 5 or 6, the move succeeds. 1-4, the Pokemon ignores you.

2 = Disloyal: The Pokemon is wary of you, and does not respect you as a trainer. In battle, roll 1d6 before each move. On a 3-6, the move succeeds. 1 or 2, the Pokemon ignores you. 

3 = Neutral: The Pokemon has accepted you as its trainer and will obey you in battle. 

4 = Friendly: The Pokemon considers you a friend, and will obey you in battle. 

5 = Loyal: The Pokemon respects you completely, will obey any command, and cares about your well-being.

6 = Happy: The Pokemon loves you unconditionally. It may evolve to please or protect it's trainer.

Though player's will keep a track of a Pokemon's Loyalty in their Pokedex, Loyalty is predominantly a role-playing aspect. The GM should pay attention to how the players act and treat their Pokemon during the game, and feel free to award or subtract loyalty points based on their actions over the course of the campaign. Mechanically, the player's Pokemon will obey them at 3 and above, though some Pokemon will only evolve when they reach a Loyalty level of 6. As a rule, players who simply use their Pokemon as tools for battle won't get above a 4 in Loyalty. Going higher than that will take some special care and attention. 

I'll be back with more next time! 

As always, thanks for reading! Until then,

- Jamie