QuoteI really want to do a Pokemon inspired setting, with BLANK modifications
Watching the threads and shout box for as long as I have, at least once a month someone mentions wanting to do a setting based on the basic premise of Pokemon. A few get started, but never last particularly long.
Let's fix that.
The goal here is to create a unified setting focused on the core element of Pokemon - the world is inhabited by a variety of creatures that people capture and train to various ends. Most of the settings I've seen propose a feudal-japan style time period, since guns and planes and cars would render some of the more interesting uses of these beasts obsolete, but I've seen 'em all. (HA! See what I did there?)
I'm interested to see who all actually wants to work on this and get the whole thing going. There's not much here yet because I'm keeping it flexible - just going to see who is interested in the concept of a Pokemon collaboration before we go into details.
I haven't played pokemon since there were only 151 of them so go easy on me but I might be interested in messing around with this, if only because I think collaborations are awesome.
I've only played bits and pieces since the original 151 - and I'm more interested in the basic concept behind it than anything.
And I hope you are, because collaborations are, in fact, awesome.
I think having people with less current Pokemon knowledge than myself involved would be useful, actually. I'd be interested in contributing some, depending on where and how this goes. I can't imagine making this sort of thing not dark...
I've got a bunch of ideas but before I get ahead of myself, I think we first need to come to a decision as a group about a few things. The biggest is what, exactly, is the core of the Pokemon / monster genre. Just behind that is the level of realism thatt we want.
Quote from: Nerevarine D!
I can't imagine making this sort of thing not dark...
Quick! Someone get Steerpike!
Quote from: Nerevarine D!
what, exactly, is the core of the Pokemon / monster genre
I think the core of Pokemon is that of the classic adventure. The act of striking out on ones own with nothing but the materials and weapons you can take with you. Beyond that I can really see it going any direction as it offers a nice blank template to build upon. I think really the decision comes down to what do WE want the genre for this thing to be? I actually kind of like the idea of a darker pokemon like you mentioned.
For a darker take, there is the Pokethulhu approach or the realistic one. For the realistic one, see dog fighting.
I'd be on board with the realistic take. Mons can attack people, and people can attack mons. Mons can gang up on each other. Mons can and do die. And something you beat the crap out of and force to fight on your behalf doesn't necessarily love you, however you feel about it.
For mons design, I don't think I'd take it full Cthulhu. The visual design of some of the original 150 could look pretty distinctive without borrowing like that (I'm thinking things like venonat, hitmonlee, oddish and the like). I might ditch the animal + elemental theme of many, but not all the original 150 were like that anyway, so you could still keep an appropriate Pokemon feel without using the same old formulas.
Also, pokemon as unique instead of species, and a story format that would often include saving a town from a wild mons. Just 'cause the mons are a little nastier doesn't mean the trainers have to be.
Suggestion: Why not use Cryptids... cryptozoological monsters, like those used in the Strange Matter book series?
That's not a bad idea. Maybe modified versions of cryptids and creatures of legend...and owlbears, just because they're so cool.
You could go all out and just use the Monsters Manual :P
I should not be surprised that this got so many responses, but I'm glad it did. :D
Quote from: Nerevarine D!
I think having people with less current Pokemon knowledge than myself involved would be useful, actually. I'd be interested in contributing some, depending on where and how this goes. I can't imagine making this sort of thing not dark...
It getting dark is almost certainly inevitable, but I'd like to avoid it getting super-ultra dark - so the question is how dark do we want it to get?
Quote from: Nerevarine D!
I've got a bunch of ideas but before I get ahead of myself, I think we first need to come to a decision as a group about a few things. The biggest is what, exactly, is the core of the Pokemon / monster genre. Just behind that is the level of realism thatt we want.
Realism is an interesting question: do we want monsters that can shoot fire/lightning/ice/psychic powers, or do we want "powers" more closer to those found in nature. I'm inclined towards a middle ground, leaning a bit towards the former - I like them having supernatural abilities, but not to the degree they do in the source material.
Quote from: Nomadic
Quote from: Nerevarine D!
I can't imagine making this sort of thing not dark...
Quick! Someone get Steerpike!
Summon the master of Darkness!
QuoteQuote from: Nerevarine D!
what, exactly, is the core of the Pokemon / monster genre
I think the core of Pokemon is that of the classic adventure. The act of striking out on ones own with nothing but the materials and weapons you can take with you. Beyond that I can really see it going any direction as it offers a nice blank template to build upon. I think really the decision comes down to what do WE want the genre for this thing to be? I actually kind of like the idea of a darker pokemon like you mentioned.
I'd like to answer the question about what we want with some more questions: do we just want it to be about people collecting and fighting these monsters for sports? Do we go with social hierarchy being based on a feudal society where your place is determined by the creatures your have trained and raised? Are they used for war? Transportation? Police action? (I'd like the answers to everything after the first to be yes, but that's my thought)
Quote from: Nerevarine D!
For a darker take, there is the Pokethulhu approach or the realistic one. For the realistic one, see dog fighting.
I don't want to go the dog fighting route as the focus - at that point, it starts just getting incredibly uncomfortable and a lot of the fun of game would be lost.
Quote from: beejazz
I'd be on board with the realistic take. Mons can attack people, and people can attack mons. Mons can gang up on each other. Mons can and do die. And something you beat the crap out of and force to fight on your behalf doesn't necessarily love you, however you feel about it.
I agree with this up until the last part - if we want to avoid the super dark slavery route, we could make it where mons and humans fight side by side, so it's not fighting on your behalf while you stand back and watch it bleed and suffer and war, but rather you bleed and suffer and battle as it does. Doesn't mean it will love you, but there's the potential for it to at least respect you and if it does love you, it's not a sick, twisted Stockholme syndrome thing. :P
QuoteFor mons design, I don't think I'd take it full Cthulhu. The visual design of some of the original 150 could look pretty distinctive without borrowing like that (I'm thinking things like venonat, hitmonlee, oddish and the like). I might ditch the animal + elemental theme of many, but not all the original 150 were like that anyway, so you could still keep an appropriate Pokemon feel without using the same old formulas.
I'm with you on this - something between Pokethulu and the actual game in terms of monster appearance, as well as ditching animal+elemental - we can manage much more originality than that. :P
QuoteAlso, pokemon as unique instead of species,
I'm not sure what you mean by that.
Quoteand a story format that would often include saving a town from a wild mons. Just 'cause the mons are a little nastier doesn't mean the trainers have to be.
I'm in favor of taht, though I'd like to leave that up to the DM more than anything else: just creating the possibility of it is good, though.
Quote from: Light Dragon
Suggestion: Why not use Cryptids... cryptozoological monsters, like those used in the Strange Matter book series?
Quote from: Nerevarine D!
That's not a bad idea. Maybe modified versions of cryptids and creatures of legend...and owlbears, just because they're so cool.
Quote from: Superfluous Crow
You could go all out and just use the Monsters Manual :P
I think those are all a good sources of inspiration, but I'd like to see us create new monsters - that, for me, is half the appeal of this kind of setting. :P
QuoteSummon the master of Darkness!
*Appears in a puff of noisome brimstone and echoing sussurations*
If it's going to be sort of feudal Japan, what about basing the creatures on Japanese Yokai? This allows for various animal spirits (foxes, serpents, wolves, all sorts of things) and various weirder creatures (kappa, akaname, oni). The world would be sort of "Nipponpunk": think Samurai Champloo but with weird monsters, necromancy, spirit-binding, etc. The demons/spirits/mons would be used for everything from labour to entertainment (dog-fighting) to warfare to divination to transport to ritualized dueling. There'd almost be an Eberron-like quality to the bound elemental stuff.
Random images: a sentient katana; fox-possession epidemics caused by a Kitsuneesque thing in the nearby woods, a rickshaw being drawn by a red-skinned, hairless dog with smoke coming from its nostrils; a haunted waterwheel.
QuoteIf it's going to be sort of feudal Japan, what about basing the creatures on Japanese Yokai? This allows for various animal spirits (foxes, serpents, wolves, all sorts of things) and various weirder creatures (kappa, akaname, oni). The world would be sort of "Nipponpunk": think Samurai Champloo but with weird monsters, necromancy, spirit-binding, etc. The demons/spirits/mons would be used for everything from labour to entertainment (dog-fighting) to warfare to divination to transport to ritualized dueling. There'd almost be an Eberron-like quality to the bound elemental stuff.
I can't speak for everyone, but I can happily speak for myself when I say: SOLD.
Quote from: Black Market Xathan
QuoteIf it's going to be sort of feudal Japan, what about basing the creatures on Japanese Yokai? This allows for various animal spirits (foxes, serpents, wolves, all sorts of things) and various weirder creatures (kappa, akaname, oni). The world would be sort of "Nipponpunk": think Samurai Champloo but with weird monsters, necromancy, spirit-binding, etc. The demons/spirits/mons would be used for everything from labour to entertainment (dog-fighting) to warfare to divination to transport to ritualized dueling. There'd almost be an Eberron-like quality to the bound elemental stuff.
I can't speak for everyone, but I can happily speak for myself when I say: SOLD.
I'd be all for this. Japanese folklore has some very unique spirits and creatures that would work great here. In fact I really like this idea for our theme. A darker more adult version of Pokemon driven by a theme that makes that level of maturity appropriate for the setting. I also really like the idea of Pokemon and trainers fighting side by side. IMHO that actually brings out the companion quality that Pokemon supposedly has better than Pokemon itself.
re: xath
I'm just saying Ash is supposed to be the best because he has a more special bond with his pokemon. There should really be room for variation, and as you pointed out, if mons can fight people and people can fight for their mons, a certain kind of respect can develop. So what I'm saying is you could be like Ash and develop camaraderie, or you could be the rival and be a real dick towards them. Magically compelled loyalty (at least) is there though, and can be addressed in a number of ways. Some may find the capture of mons morally repugnant, even given the threat mons can pose.
As for uniqueness, I'm saying it would be different and kind of cool if every individual mon was its own species. So there aren't pikachu all over; there's just one pikachu.
"Story format" mostly applies to adaptation as a comic or story (which has come up). Though in-game rationale would be that there wouldn't exactly be an army of mons hanging around each town.
RE: Feudal Japan
Make it postwar Japan, if we're going that route I think. I can't remember the name of that one manga/anime with the weird kid and his eyeball dad, but there's an existing aesthetic there that would go great with pokemon. But I think ordinary people in a semi-modern world are part of what make pokemon pokemon, and the others tend to bump things forward if anything. There are probably enough wandering samurai fighting against / alongside monsters out there in the anime world, and they don't have much of a mons feel. Not that I don't love the occasional anime in that genre.
Now we need GamerPrintshop in here.
Framing it around Japanese folklore and Shintoism should work really well and be a justificattion for why the world isn't too different from our own.
To address beejazz's concerns, I think we should not set the game in actual Japan. I think it should be an original island continent, based on Japan. That worked for Pokemon and then we can ignore historical accuracy. At least that's what I would like.
Unique monsters would be cool but sort of difficult to make work. I would say a halfway point would be best. There are many kappa but they're not all exactly the same.
They different 'types' of monsters could come from there being physical ones, which would most likely follow you around, just spirits that you would need to summon, and then magical creatures that are somewhere in between. Thoughts?
I think, since this site was made by and for gamers, we should build a fairly simple game system alongside the setting. Maybe that's just me, though.
Of course an alternate world/history would be an improvement in terms of our time investment and quality (the research into anywhere/when real could bog us down), but I see big potential in the rapid development, poverty, and age demographics that skew especially young. Also, it's a mixed modern setting where everyone walks everywhere, and a fictionalized version would allow for the minor scifi elements characteristic of several works in the genre.
Pokemon handled technology worst of all monster games. What they have and don't have just doesn't make sense. Dragon Quest Monsters has advanced technology and it still works quite well. Monster Rancher showed pretty well a world whose technology had developed differently because of the monsters.
Quote from: Nerevarine D!
Pokemon handled technology worst of all monster games. What they have and don't have just doesn't make sense. Dragon Quest Monsters has advanced technology and it still works quite well. Monster Rancher showed pretty well a world whose technology had developed differently because of the monsters.
I only semi-disagree. Situations where cellphones and PCs creep into places without roads can happen under specific circumstances. Cars and trains might not be a big deal on a small island chain, for example. Walking is a big part of what makes pokemon pokemon (at least), and so is some minor level of modernity. There's a lot of room for making the world different in ways much more subtle than the pokequivalent of magitech.
Pokemon was dull because it didn't acknowledge the weird tech level that let animals be stored digitally, but wouldn't let Ash get on a bus. But acknowledging it can go a long way to figuring out the "real" setting in which this kind of thing might have taken place.
That was my problem with how Pokemon handled technology. They also had motorcycles (at least in the anime and manga) and steam ships and I remember at least one truck. I always assumed that they had cars and things, you just didn't have access to them because you were a child. They really just didn't address technology. Also, like much of Japan (or any dense urban area), a lot of normal people probably didn't have cars. They would use public transportation, bikes, or walk.
In any case, it doesn't matter. We can do it how we want to do it and address it in our setting.
It should probably be decided how much the setting should derive from Pokemon. Personally I wouldn't be as big a fan of modern tech since a lower tech level allows for the various mons/demons/whatevers being used more frequently and creatively for labour purposes. If there are planes there's not much reason for riding on the back of an Onmoraki. If there are guns/flamethrowers/grenades, why bother training a fire-breathing chicken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basan) to fight for you?
Quote from: Steerpike
It should probably be decided how much the setting should derive from Pokemon. Personally I wouldn't be as big a fan of modern tech since a lower tech level allows for the various mons/demons/whatevers being used more frequently and creatively for labour purposes. If there are planes there's not much reason for riding on the back of an Onmoraki. If there are guns/flamethrowers/grenades, why bother training a fire-breathing chicken (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Basan) to fight for you?
What if we took it back to WWI tech-wise, kept a postwar reconstruction vibe, and used a chain of small islands. No commercial flights, minimal roads between towns, maybe there are ferries. Scrounging for fare or a simple storm could get you stuck every now and again. Until you pick up flying/swimming mons, at least.
If we're not going to have advanced technology (and I don't think we need it), I would like it to be a step down from WWI technology. At least in the area of weapons. Maybe allso transportation but that is less of a big deal.
I allso think that a sort of reconstruction vibe could potentially be cool but rather than post war, I think it should be post cataclysm of some sort. Maybe even a disaster caused or relatted to thesee monsters in some way.
WWII tech with a reconstruction/cataclysmic feel might be interesting, with people reverting to monster-drawn carts and flying mounts. If the realm is modeled after Japan, a Hiroshimaesque disaster would seem to be in order. What about some kind of "spirit-bombing"? Cities overrun by Yurei, spirits of concentrated hate released by a massive "pokeball"-style weapon. Survivors of the disaster emerging as twisted shade-things, possessed or mutated, with elongated necks or monstrous Oni faces... what do you think, beejazz and others?
Also, wikipedia has a great list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_from_Japan) of Mononoke/Yokai etc. They could be used whole-hog or adapted/based on these creatures.
Quote from: Steerpike
WWII tech with a reconstruction/cataclysmic feel might be interesting, with people reverting to monster-drawn carts and flying mounts. If the realm is modeled after Japan, a Hiroshimaesque disaster would seem to be in order. What about some kind of "spirit-bombing"? Cities overrun by Yurei, spirits of concentrated hate released by a massive "pokeball"-style weapon. Survivors of the disaster emerging as twisted shade-things, possessed or mutated, with elongated necks or monstrous Oni faces... what do you think, beejazz and others?
Also, wikipedia has a great list (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_legendary_creatures_from_Japan) of Mononoke/Yokai etc. They could be used whole-hog or adapted/based on these creatures.
I'm liking the feel of this! It has my vote.
That sounds good by me. Some Pokemon-style conflict could come from the existence of that sort of weapon. Traditionally, people would tame or befriend these monsters in the same way you would a normal animal. This pokeball-like thing traps the creatures and enslaves them, instead.
Just to let everyone know, I love the direction this is going.
Since I kickstarted this, I'm going to go through the thread and get a rough draft of what everyone seems to have agreed on to post, though I might not get it done before X-Mass, and keep discussing. :)
Cool.
Do you guys think monsters should be contained in portable form as in Pokemon? If so, how? Or might there be multiple methods?
Quote from: Steerpike
Cool.
Do you guys think monsters should be contained in portable form as in Pokemon? If so, how? Or might there be multiple methods?
I think there should be two forms. If you train and care for one it will probably stick around like a companion and you wouldn't really contain it. Alternatively some people bind the souls of these creatures to eldritch items (small stone tablets? sickly gems?) and can summon them forth and control them from these devices. Such creatures could be pushed much farther and would be more dangerous, but if the owner loses control of them they could very well have a rampaging beast on their hands.
Just popped in to see where this was going. I don't have much to contribute as I never really got into the Pokemon thing (MtG ~ahem) But I read a series of books called the Bartimaeus Trilogy a while ago and the magic system was based on summoning demons, ifrits and all sorts of 'levels' of otherworldly monsters to do the magicians will. The interesting thing was that the monsters were all trying to kill the magicians...so if the summoning was done wrong the monsters could break out of the spell and do whatever the heck they wanted. Perhaps the edge to this thing is that the monsters are not exactly....amicable...to the trainers.
Also it took place in an alternate history England...Prague was the other super power for some reason. Great books either way.
Man, and I had to be gone for a freaking week! Why do I always miss out on the cool stuff? Anyways, sorry i couldn't be here for the consultant thing this week but it turns out i had to go to montana for the week. But i would love to be a part of this!
PS i was just going through this thread and the post WW2 thing has my vote as a dedicated member of The Dieselpunk Alliance!
Also the Leviathan trilogy by Scott Westerfield!
What about small lacquerware boxes like this one (http://arts.cultural-china.com/chinaWH/upload/upfiles/2009-06/26/yangzhou_lacquerware_techniquesbf6515a4c517e2a892b2.jpg) to contain monsters?
I feel like if the monsters come out of littlle containers that are bigger on the inside, it's going to feel like barrowing too heavily from Pokemon. It also sort of messes up these people having any sort of reverence for their monsters in a religious sort of way. I think it would also ruin the logic of these people and monsters having respect for each other from fighting side by side because it makes the human clearly the master in the relationship.
Interesting point. I think I'd been assuming that humans were the masters... but maybe that's what makes something like the "spirit-bomb" so horrific. I kind of like Nomadic's suggestion: some people bind them (maybe not in pokeball style containers, but somehow or other), and other people just work with them more symbiotically. Kind of reminds me of how demon familiars function in the Cadaverous Earth (magisters bind their familiars with silver chains, some other spellcasters simply form contracts).
Are we going to assume that most of the monsters can talk, or no? Are they of human-level intelligence? At a certain point they start to simply look like unusual races.
Quote from: SteerpikeAre we going to assume that most of the monsters can talk, or no?
Maybe they can talk but the only word they can say is the name of their species. :P
Kappa! Kappa, kappa! Kaappaaaaaaaa!
This was going so well, I hope I remember the correct incantation for tthread necromancy.
So I been thinking 'bout the war/cataclysm...
Zinn's book on US History (People's History of the United States IIRC) claimed that part of the reason the US used nukes in Japan was to prevent Russia from getting involved, for fear of something like what happened in Berlin. So what if there wasn't a cataclysm? But now two cold war powers (and the remnants of a more local defeated imperial power) are looking at the mons for a superweapon for the next war.
So it would go something like this:
Empire spreads through oceanic islands.
Local chain happens to have mons.
Empire conscripts from local island chain, and harvests/mines/manufactures there, but the war is fought mostly on other fronts.
They used mons a little, and develop ways to capture/control them, but too late.
The war ends, and ostensibly the island chain is independent, but spies remain from both sides of the new cold war.
There are people investigating something big.
What remains are island chains with a little infrastructure, starting to build phone and power lines for the first time while small ports and short rail lines (from mines to ports, but not from town to town) were established by the empire. Factories are repurposed for cheap toys and games, exploiting a faddish foreign obsession with the mons. The cockfighting is for the benefit of bored moviegoers in other countries. It actually earns a bit of money for the gyms and organizers, but the trainers make little money.
As far as enforced/"normal" loyalty, I'd prefer that the same method of capture be used across the board, just because "good" methods might look an awful lot like exploiting Stockholm syndrome. Also, if capture is based on a tech/magic breakthrough, it could explain why the plot starts recently.
Final thoughts:
There could be more widespread mons, with powers looking to the local islands for access to "legendary" types.
Japan, US, and USSR analogues don't have to have the characteristics of their historical counterparts. They can be totally different from in the real world; they're just a convenient analogy for now.
If "mons" work on magic instead of tech, the tech level can be really mixed. There can be a setting in an early industrial transition with a few specific "magic" advancements where necessary.
Adding to this... saw something about fixed/thrown fights in sumo on TV. So there's another interesting angle here. If betting is big money for non-participants, there's room for all kinds of corruption-centric plotlines. Of course, availability of live TV (at least in the rest of the world) could help with such adventure types / plotlines. In the case of sumo, there were even suspicious deaths for a few of the whistleblowers.
And if mons are somehow new to the world, there could be legitimate researchers working on a "pokedex" style project.
Thoughts? The idea of the monsters being central to a non-local entertainment industry is an interesting one.
Doing an interest check here, seeing if it's still there, and if so, looking for someone who's interested in taking lead on this one - my schedule just isn't going to allow me to be at the helm of this project. :)
I'm absolutely still interested. I don't know about lead...is that really even needed?
Still here, still interested, considering making it a comic (since it would be less time consuming than my plans for Qoheleth, and I've got college courses to continue to deal with).
Truthfully, I would be very interested if certain things were kept more traditional to the monster-hunter genre. I like the idea of a mix of animals and spirit types, especially with having a good number possess "supernatural" abilities. Elements/Types is a big part of the paper-rock-scissors subgame within the games as a whole.
It seems like others have submitted enough ideas for the setting that I'm going to discuss crunch a bit more. Not knowing at all what base system we would use (though it would be really cool to use OGLd20 and actually "publish" a product would be very cool), here are some thoughts of mine:
- Definitely keep types and elements.
- Fighting should be more about the monsters than the trainers, but some amount of realistic "going for the trainer" would be good for changing the mood.
- I'm assuming we'd be going with a party-based thing, where each player plays a trainer, so some in world limitation on why each trainer only uses one monster at a time would be best, I think. Perhaps the monsters are actually being summoned by the trainer, or sort of mentally controlled by the trainer, so concentration must be kept.
- Customization of monsters is a must. Part of the fun of pokemon is figuring out move sets for your individual monsters, and building the perfect team. The party is the team, so each individual needs the ability to customize their monster.
- Keep types and elements.
- I can imagine different "classes" for different themes of monsters (like D&D4 roles), with ability sets being drawn from theme and type. This would allow for abilities to be drawn from recognizable lists while helping individual monsters to be unique (and of course, unique abilities are still possible). Perhaps different "classes" for the way an individual trainer commands their monsters, but that might not be necessary as it could be attained through specialization in other manners.
As far as the theme of the monsters, many pokemon are themed after Asian supernatural animals/spirits to begin with, so going after the same source material would work just fine. I just like the idea of animals being trainable as well. Low level monsters shouldn't be stronger than people, but high level monsters definitely would be.
If we need to limit mons to one in a given fight, my normal answer would be that gym fights have rules that don't apply in the wild. However, from a game standpoint I can see the need. If you have 4 players with multiple mons each, the mons you're trying to catch will be either trivially easy or really powerful (throwing everything off once you catch it).
So if you want a justification for why you can only use one mons at a time in the wild, I'd say that you look at the pokeball system. One gemstone holds all your mons, and it can only project one at a time. Even then, you'll have four gemstones with four trainers, so why not more than one for one trainer? It seems like we might have to establish a whole cascade of setting rules here to keep things sane. So maybe there's an easier solution I'm missing?
Alternately, mons can be weakened by the act of capture, with training restoring the monster to its original strength. You might have the option of "overclocking" your monsters early, but they'll become feral if not properly trained. In this case we can kind of embrace a group going after an individual, as the individual will be tough enough in that first fight, but without the super-fast power curve that would normally entail.
Lastly, we can use setting logic (mons are very rare, so you won't have 50 of them early), xp rules (the more ways you split xp the less your mons level, which will suck in gym fights), the rock-paper-scissors model (you won't even use all your best if a few of your best aren't good for this fight) and occasional mons death to encourage people to use fewer mons in wild fights.
I totally agree with customization. Pokemon evolve. The system should have levels for mons, but a slower more story-based advancement system (if anything at all) for trainers. I think mostly that mons should advance in terms of accuracy, with damage advantage determined more by energy types and vulnerabilities (my main concern with animal plus element stems from the potentially formulaic look... I'm cool with recycling cool core concepts like "ghost" and "psychic" but I think a mouse with a "bubble beam" is a weird concept we can leave with Pokemon proper). Mechanically, an RPG with mons can just plain do more too. With movement that matters, fighting water type mons in the water with a monster that doesn't swim can be a bad idea. Also we can have melee/ranged target/area differences. Just to give an example.
And if we go with "unique not species" mons, customization is going to be an absolute must.
I'd like to see mostly species mons, with uniques as exceptionally rare. I also think that my "psychic control" idea might be the best, and it could be why only certain people are trainers (and don't just have a pet). Or it could be a matter of mons only taking orders from one person, and if that person's attention is divided between multiple mons each would be far more likely to not listen.