The Campaign Builder's Guild

For those unfamiliar the Mons genre are things like Pokemon/Shin Megami Tensei/Dragon Warrior Monster where the character controls a group/stable of monsters that fight for him.

Does anyone have any experience with an RPG of this kind? Does anyone have any interest or insights it this?

The Mons genre is a fair bit different from your typical RPG. You don't play a swordswinging hero or a fireslinging mage. You're a normal person who has a stable of monsters that fight for you.

How would you handle stats for your various Mons? Is each an individual hero so each player keeps track of several mini-heroes? Should the person behind the monsters influence them at all? This is from a mechanical view-point, now obviously how things work in your setting will effect how you want your mechanics to work, but disregarding that what are some thoughts on this?

I've been talking with isomage about doing some kind of conversion of Guild School (LordVreegs homebrew RPG ssytem, for those unfamiliar) into some kind of Mons friendly system, tentatively called PokeSchool since it is most likely going to be based off Pokemon. We've had some good ideas but there are still some problems (as usual).

So thoughts, comments or ideas regarding Pokemon/Mons genre RPGs?

The most experience people have with a mons-esque mechanic in-game would be the Druid's Animal Companion. The Animal Companion is both strong and stalwart, typically one of the (if not THE) strongest melee combatant in the group at early levels. The Companion often has several types of attacks it can use (bite, claw) and as the Druid gains levels, the Companion evolves into something much more fearsome, gaining new attacks, new powers and new forms.

So, form a certain point of view, D&D incorporated the Mon-genre already :)

As for how a truly dedicated Mon RPG would work... Well I have given this much thought over the years.  The first (and biggest) decision being that you'd have to make at the outset is how important the Trainer/Tamer/Rancher is to combat. For example in Pokemon the trainer is the strategist and commands the pokemon to battle in a way he sees fit. On the opposite end of the spectrum, the Digidestigned/Tamers from Digimon were more akin to inspirational cheerleaders that occasionally helped unlock the evolution of their Digimon companion.
 
For the Pokemon approach, it is best to remember that the strengths of the Trainer are shown through his strategy, thus he should have give his Pokemon a more passive oriented bonus. Meaning, the pokemon should be relatively self-contained mechanically.

An interesting idea would be to have a PokeTrainer-skill (akin to Star Wars Saga Edition's Use the Force) which would have trainers roll against a set DC to give out commands during a battle. The DC would be lowered and raised based on circumstantial bonuses (a noise level) as well as more abstract concepts such as how the level of your pokemon (strong pokemon only respect strong trainers) and how much trust the pokemon has in its trainer. In fact the latter would probably be a consistent number that goes up and down based on the pokemon's personality and how the trainer treats it (i.e. a pokemon with an ambitious warrior personality would take defeat more harshly (ref. Bulbasaur) than a pokemon with a more laid back personality (ref. Snorlax)).

Other ideas I have had were Action point-esque once-per-battle abilities that could make your pokemon perform better and do amazing things (it could be limited to gaining a bonus on an attack roll or something more powerful like gaining a re-roll or an extra action). These would be reminiscent of Ash's never give up attitude and the way he inspires his pokemon to do amazing things.

Anyways, I wish you the best of luck with this project! :)  

I've played in a Pokemon RPG one-shot.  It had been worked out by someone at my college, who used the Wild Talents system from One Roll Engine.  The trainer and the Pokemon are statted up the same way, but the Pokemon tend to have a higher point build, and are the ones that might advance.  It is also the Pokemon who have the option of buying the powers called "Talents."

Alright the preliminary ideas for the system are as follows.

Trainers are part of a Trainer Dojo (akin to a Guild School Guild) that gives an XP mod to each pokemon based on its main type. The Fire Dojo for example would have a .70 mod for Fire type, .50 for Flying Type and .30 for Water Type. For dual type pokemon I'm thinking that ether you take the main type XP mod and it gets a bonus (+/- .1 or 0) depending on its secondary type. Or you divide your skill for each type in 2 then add them together.

Now, the Trainer himself would have social skills as well as trainer skills. Things like basic social would still apply, because Trainers interact will all kinds of other people, Gym Leaders, Pokemon Profs and other Trainers. Training skills would be things that help you raise your Pokemon. These are also dependant on Dojo.

ok, that's a cool use for EXP mods...

A member of this site (I can't remember who right now) once posted a Pokemon game system that they had worked out. I'm sure you can find it if you did hard enough.

The problem I've always had with systems like this is that the trainer / rancher / tamer / whatever always has a statistical impact on things. I don't think that should be the case. I think they should be role played by the player and that strategy should matter, not where they came from, how they trained, or whatever else.

Quote from: Ninja D!The problem I've always had with systems like this is that the trainer / rancher / tamer / whatever always has a statistical impact on things. I don't think that should be the case. I think they should be role played by the player and that strategy should matter, not where they came from, how they trained, or whatever else.

Impact on what things? In combat that might be a problem and as of yet, Trainers have no effect in combat. In leveling your Pokemon/Mon, I think they should have a definite effect. These people are dedicating there lives (or its just there job ~~) to raising Pokemon/Mons, there's going to be a definite impact.  In this system it's represented by Pokemon having an XP mod from the Trainer for learning stuff.

Also, I'd say the trainer is kinda important in the non-battle aspects. I mean without them you're basically playing a wild pokemon (possible, but something else entirely).

I thought the system here was faithful enough to Pokemon. Not one I'd use, though.

Shouldn't what the mon does impact the experience it gets? That's how the games work, too.

Quote from: Ninja D!Shouldn't what the mon does impact the experience it gets? That's how the games work, too.

The mon earns the experience. A good trainer will help a mon learn faster that one without a trainer or even a bad trainer. That's what the XP mod represents. You earn XP wich goes into your total XP pool wich is then multiplied by your XP mod to give you your real XP. Real XP is what is used to calculate skill levels. So the Trainer just shows how fast your mon will learn stuff.

I mean it makes sense, even from a game perspective, because how often do you see high level wild pokemon? They're pretty much non-existant. They cap out somewhere in the 40s iirc, while pokemon go up to level 100. I realize the legendaries are different (Mewtwo is level 70 iirc).

I think that wild mons being found only to a certain level isn't because they would gain more experience with a with a trainer but because they wouldn't be training at all or fighting all the time in the wild. At least in the Pokemon setting, the mons are just normal animals.

Alright, so after some discussion last night a couple more things have been finalized.

Every Pokemon move is its own skill. Some are Commonality 1 skills, and stronger moves are drop downs of them. One example of this is Hyper Fang--->Super Fang. WHere Super Fang is a dropdown of the Hyperfang skill.

Evolution is also its own skill. To evolve a pokemon must reach a certain level of its evolution skill.

I have yet to read it myself and it sounds terribly broken but I came across this on /tg/. It sounds terribly broken but probably worth a look. Best case scenario, you fall in love and use it. Worst case, mildly entertaining reading for a little while that may inspire some ideas.

Initiative in Pokeschool uses the base GS rolling init system. In combat you roll d10+move speed and add that to your previous init. So if you have Quick Attack, with a move speed of 4, you roll d10+4 then add that to your previous init.

Starting combat order is determined by the speed stat.

Have you seen this?

I had forgotten all about that!