Monster Trainer Setting: Collaboration Edition

[beejazz]

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.

[Xeviat]

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.