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Monster Trainer Setting: Collaboration Edition

Started by Xathan, December 19, 2011, 01:36:35 AM

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Mason

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.

LoA

#31
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!


Ninja D!

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.

Steerpike

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.

sparkletwist

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



beejazz

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.
Beejazz's Homebrew System
 Beejazz's Homebrew Discussion

QuoteI don't believe in it anyway.
What?
England.
Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?

beejazz

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.
Beejazz's Homebrew System
 Beejazz's Homebrew Discussion

QuoteI don't believe in it anyway.
What?
England.
Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?

Ninja D!

Thoughts? The idea of the monsters being central to a non-local entertainment industry is an interesting one.

Xathan

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. :)
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Quote from: Sparkletwist
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beejazz

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).
Beejazz's Homebrew System
 Beejazz's Homebrew Discussion

QuoteI don't believe in it anyway.
What?
England.
Just a conspiracy of cartographers, then?

Xeviat

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.
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