Pokémon fans? Something a little more advanced...

So I've been on this site for awhile now, and I've been itching to be a part of a GOOD, REALISTIC, Pokémon RP.

Now, of course "realistic Pokémon" sounds awfully weird, but allow me to explain through example of what I typically see in Pokémon RPs and what I'm shooting for.

The average RP I cannot bring myself to join:

~ Has a plot like: "evryone r pokemon now what will happen?"

~ Or like: "be pokemon trainr yoos ur fav pokeman in new region JOIN PLZ"

I've often lurked in Pokémon RPs, and even joined a decent one for awhile, though eventually it too became plagued by the following problems:

~ Terrible writing.

~ Ridiculously overpowered Pokémon.

~ No plot.

~ No consideration for the Pokémon's actual moves/abilities/stats/strengths/weaknesses/etc.

What I'm wondering is if I could get together some people who actually perhaps play Pokémon (dare I say?) competitively, or at the very least understand how to make sensible choices for their Pokémon's moves. For example, would you teach your Aggron Fire Blast? If you answered "yes", then this probably wouldn't be the RP for you. Aggron has terrible special attack power, and teaching it Fire Blast would be silly, or at least extremely ineffective.

What I am looking to do here is combine the sensibility of competitive battling with the creativity of our imaginations: Pokémon in realistic match-ups with realistic moves, but with still that anime-esque quality. Not in the "Pikachu can beat anything if you believe" or the infamous "Finish him with False Swipe!" kind of way, but the using combinations of attacks, the environment, etc. to your advantage, and not making it necessarily a turn-based attacking system.

Something where you might make more use out of a move like "Wrap" and a Pokémon like Arbok, where perhaps a combination of Wrap and Glare work to trap the opponent's Pokémon, but at the same time being able to recognize if you've used this combination on a Pokémon like Scizor, when you go in for a Gunk Shot, it won't effect him. Perhaps an example would serve better?

Here's an example of the types of posts I would be looking for:

The two trainers faced each other, their eyes locked and their minds racing, trying fruitlessly to predict the other's final Pokémon. Finally, without a word, the two cast out their Pokéballs, the ground bursting into light as the Pokémon emerged. With a menacing hiss, Arbok slithered forward to face the opposing Scizor, which was silently awaiting its trainer's instruction.

Though it was fairly certain it could defeat the opposing Arbok, the poison serpent's striking chest pattern intimidated it, dropping its will to attack. Arbok's trainer took notice of the Pokémon's hesitance, and quickly called for Arbok to attack with an Earthquake. Though it wasn't a super effective attack due to Scizor's secondary bug typing, it was the best the venomous snake could manage against a steel type for now.

Scizor's trainer quickly called for Scizor to take flight and stop the attack with a quick Bullet Punch. Scizor's pincers landed several blows on the Arbok dealing heavy damage, but it seemed this was what the trainer wanted. With a smile, Arbok's trainer had Arbok wrap its long, powerful body around the plated bug. The attack itself dealt little damage, but the Scizor was now more or less trapped, it's pincers held down in the snake's coil.

Now, what he was certain the other trainer didn't see coming, "Arbok, use Fire Fang!" The Pokémon's sharp teeth glowed, and the Scizor, despite the thick protection of its steel coating, felt the burn of the super effective fire move directly to its head.

Yet despite Arbok's powerful attack, it had been thoroughly weakened by the Bullet Punch, and as it put its energy into its Fire Fang, Scizor was able to escape its grip, barely surviving the attack with its powerful defenses. It flitted backwards with its wings, standing back from the satisfied-looking snake. Had it not been for that damn distracting pattern, the Bullet Punch would've packed full power and left the snake helpless, but now here they were, both Pokémon clinging to life already, the battle just begun. Scizor's trainer realized a full on physical assault on the Arbok was impossible without his own Pokémon sustaining serious damage. He would have to find another way...

See there? A bit of both. Of course, in a normal battle, Scizor probably would've destroyed Arbok even with Intimidate lowering its attack, but with this style of writing we can make all sorts of match ups possible and exciting while still being fairly accurate to the game's mechanics.

And I'm thinking this will be a more "grown-up" story, with mostly adult or older teen trainers and some more mature themes/story lines. Nothing morbid or sexual or anything like that, just more... advanced than the average Pokémon RP.

I'm still working out the story, level system, wild Pokémon encounters, etc. but of course I don't want to go through with all that if no one is interested. So what say you Pokémon fans? Interested? Post any thoughts, ideas, questions, concerns, etc. Criticism is welcome, so long as it is constructive. And I mean about the IDEA not about my writing, because I wrote that really fast, okay? Thanks!

~Queen of Ice

BUMP

Just checking. :)

Well... I was actually on a pokemon online league for a few years, and I learned E.V. training there, so I know how to make the best out of a pokemon's stats, and the best according moves to go with them. I also love tactical warfare, so I know how to use the nearby terrian to my advantage.

Granted, I can't constantly make 5 paragraphs on just the normal stuff, but I can do really well on combat scenes:

fast example of my work:

MY example will be a fight between... oh... a Machamp against a Blaziken, in an rea with a lot of trees. This is also assuming that i'm not limited to just four moves

Blaziken and Machamp faced one another. On one side, Blaziken was breathing deeply, feeling the soothing flames that his legs provided him. On the other side, Machamp cracked his four fearsome hands, flexed his arms, and entered a normal, karate like stance, glaring at his flaming opponent.

After glaring at each other, both Trainers gave the order to attack. Blaziken, being the faster of the two, launched high-in the air, with a high-kick command. As he began to land, Blaziken's Trainer shouted, “Blaze Kick!” The flame's on the birds legs grew brighter, and with a cry, he launched a spinning kick.

The Machamp managed to guard itself, by using it's powerful arms as a shield of sorts. When the attack was finished, Machamp's trainer ordered a cross-chop, so the bulky pokemon, used two arms to grab the Flame- Fighter's Legs, the other two preparing to come down in a powerful chop attack.

Blaziken's trainer gave a slight smile, and ordered a flamethrower attack. Before the attack could land, Blaziken opened his beak, and a burst of fire shot forth, nailing the now unguardered Machamp with a stream of fire, forcing him to let let go of Blaziken, in order to shield himself, taking less damage then he would of.

With a slash of Blaziken's powerful flaws, a nearby tree began to fall. On his trainer's orders, Machamp caught it, twirling it with his powerful muscles, and throwing it like one would throw a javelin. Following up, he rushed, and Caught the Blaziken with a swift Mach Punch. The bird, mid-fall, countered with a sharp blaze kick to his face, before they recovered, facing each other again.


Is that acceptable?

Yeah, something like that is good. I was thinking that I would keep it limited to four moves still and also force the Pokémon to actually have to learn the moves by leveling up, TM, etc.

I'm still trying to work this out though, so let me know your thoughts on the following if you don't mind:

~How to deal with Player vs. Player battles: When two people's Pokémon are fighting, how should the posting work? Should each person only be allowed one move per post? Will it end up going too long with posts that are too short? Should it be left to the players to work it out, or should the GM "referee" the battle?

~Level up system: Should the GM be in charge of experience and deciding if the Pokémon should level up or not?

~Wild Pokémon: Again, should this be the GM's job exclusively?

~Learning new moves: How would egg moves, move tutor moves, etc. work? Perhaps a special move tutor in each town that can teach your Pokémon any move it could learn through breeding, TM, or a move tutor in the game?

Any thoughts on this would be much appreciated, just to help me think it through beforehand. :)

Let's see...

for idea 1... maybe the two can battle out over the pm, and post the entire fight (or maybe slight parts at time, your call) when they're done with it.

Leveling up: Well, the level system should be judged on how well they fought that fight.

Wild Pokemon: This one took me a while for an idea. I think it would depend on what the goal is. If it's training, then yes, you should handle the encounter. If it's to catch, they should ask for permission to catch it, then write a couple of paragraphs describing how they caught it. The length could increase depending on the difficulty of the Pokemon.

Moves: Perhaps not in each town. Maybe every two or three would be more logical

I like the battling idea a lot! Let the two players handle it however they want, then post the battle in one post so as not to spam the IC with short, "Then he did this." posts.

Yeah, I think I'll just have to use my best judgment for the leveling up part.

For attempting to catch wild Pokémon, I think there should be a certain element of randomness to it. That is to say, I don't want to be the one deciding factor that determines if they catch the Pokémon. That makes me the "bad guy", and I think it will lead to, "Well, so-and-so got to catch that Pokémon, so why don't I get to?" kinds of arguments. Perhaps I should determine the difficulty to catch the Pokémon, but the actual catching itself needs a random factor. Perhaps with a random number generator? Thoughts?

And for the move tutors, I think there is going to be a pretty long period of time between each town, and the tutor will probably have a pretty steep price, so do you think that might balance out a bit better? I don't want people to become frustrated or feel like they have to rush to the next town and hurry through the RP to teach their Pokémon moves.

...the number generator could work, but within limits. If by using the random generator, one number counts as their pokedex number, you would have to reroll if you caught a number if the selected pokemon couldn't be found in that region (you can't say, select a magikarp in the desert,and other obvious things like that) , and obviously, no legendary or starter pokemon, either. If you're willing to do that, go for it. I could help when I'm not the subject in question. If we do this though, their levels they would normally have go out the window. Maybe put them at two or three levels less than the pokemon used when capturing

and I suppose your right regarding the move tutors. balances out without much probelm

now for a few nitpicky, but still necessary things:

The actual story: Will this be a league game (IOW: are we taking out the gym leaders?") If so, who's handling them? You? Or will they fend for themselves, and we just tell them what PKMN each has?

Next: Pokemon Contests: Personally, I don't think this will pose much of a problem, unless more than one wants to do it. Then I suppose someone unbiased (I'd volunteer, I'm not touching the contest door otherwise) could decide, based on everyone's post, who did the best.

Next: The starter's : Personally, A Blaziken is my favorite Pokemon, so of course, I want a Torchic, but whoever else might not WANT that set. So, maybe just put all the starters in the same room, one of each. If you don't get the one you want, tough?

Last: The region. are we in one of the earlier regions? Or are you making a new one?

Rarikou wrote:...the number generator could work, but within limits. If by using the random generator, one number counts as their pokedex number, you would have to reroll if you caught a number if the selected pokemon couldn't be found in that region (you can't say, select a magikarp in the desert,and other obvious things like that) , and obviously, no legendary or starter pokemon, either. If you're willing to do that, go for it. I could help when I'm not the subject in question. If we do this though, their levels they would normally have go out the window. Maybe put them at two or three levels less than the pokemon used when capturing

That does make for quite the dilemma. Random number generator until a decent option is found could take a pretty long time... especially in certain areas. I'll really have to think and figure that one out...

and I suppose your right regarding the move tutors. balances out without much probelm

now for a few nitpicky, but still necessary things:

The actual story: Will this be a league game (IOW: are we taking out the gym leaders?") If so, who's handling them? You? Or will they fend for themselves, and we just tell them what PKMN each has?

Next: Pokemon Contests: Personally, I don't think this will pose much of a problem, unless more than one wants to do it. Then I suppose someone unbiased (I'd volunteer, I'm not touching the contest door otherwise) could decide, based on everyone's post, who did the best.

Haha, so stuck on the mechanics of it I haven't done much thinking about the story. I was thinking of making it pretty open ended as to what the characters' goals were. I would control all the gym leaders, judges, etc. NPCs. I have a side plot involving an evil organization in the true Pokémon spirit, haha, and I thought it might be interesting not to make it a forced interaction with them necessarily. What I mean is, let the character's trainer do whatever he/she wants in terms of gyms, contests, or pursuing the organization. Then, depending on how involved each trainer becomes in each area, have that affect how NPCs treat them, how their story goes, etc.

For the actual contests, I think your idea about battles would work if I set the guidelines and rules, then after the two people post the results I would pronounce the winner. And if he/she is competing against an NPC, they can do it with me, and I'll adjust the difficulty based on what round he/she is in. I guess they'll have to trust me to be fair, but I won't have any reason to want to cheat them out of a victory since I'd just be an NPC and won't be very invested in the character most likely.

Next: The starter's : Personally, A Blaziken is my favorite Pokemon, so of course, I want a Torchic, but whoever else might not WANT that set. So, maybe just put all the starters in the same room, one of each. If you don't get the one you want, tough?

People tend to throw a hissy fit if they can't get the Pokémon they want, so I think I would let people, for the most part, pick any first stage evolution Pokémon they want. I'd of course make restrictions, but I think it'd be alright (and a heck of a lot easier) to let people pick what they want.

Last: The region. are we in one of the earlier regions? Or are you making a new one?

A new region. Still have work to do on that (i.e. map, town names, etc.).

I'm in red. :)

...okay, your idea sound fine.

Awesome, thanks for your help ! :)

Now I just need to get started writing.