Wednesday, June 25, 2014

Mystical Pokebeast Integration

For +Richard Grenville

Okay, you probably don't need a pokemon generator (just roll a d719), but I want to write something anyway.  (Actually, you could probably just roll a d719 and then look up whichever episode featured it.)

This generator has two parts:  The first part generates a pokemon, the second part generates poke-plot surrounding a new area.

let's play Name That Pokemon!

Type:
50% chance that it has a second type.  If so, roll 2x.
  1. Normal
  2. Fire
  3. Fighting
  4. Flying
  5. Poison
  6. Ground
  7. Rock
  8. Bug
  9. Ghost
  10. Steel
  11. Water
  12. Grass
  13. Electric
  14. Psychic
  15. Ice 
  16. Dragon
  17. Dark 
  18. Fairy
  19. Slime???
  20. Water, again
Body Plan:
Either think of something psuedo-appropriate, pull up a random animal combination from here, or roll a d20 on this table.
  1. Feline (or small mammal)
  2. Canine (or large mammal)
  3. Rodent
  4. Song bird
  5. Bird of prey
  6. Snake
  7. Human-shape (think Power Rangers)
  8. Child-shape (or maybe just a floating head-thing)
  9. Abstract Angular (think porygon)
  10. Tentacular
  11. Leggy
  12. Army
  13. Dinosaur
  14. Abstract Soft (think solosis)
  15. Inanimate Object (manmade)
  16. Inanimate Object (natural)
  17. Mythological Rip-off
  18. Arthropod
  19. Reptile
  20. Bird
mankey + primeape
Other Trait:
  1. Fat
  2. Skinny
  3. Super Big
  4. Super Small
  5. Intelligent
  6. Mischievous or Malicious or Angry
  7. Beautiful
  8. They all have a specific personality (roll on an NPC trait table).
  9. Huge swarms of them
  10. Breaks physics
  11. Symbiotic with another pokemon
  12. Muscular
Lastly: 
Give your pokemon 2-3 abilities (50% chance of each).  Either roll on a random spell table or use this thing to generate some pokemon moves: http://thousandroads.net/asb/metronome.  Might I recommend 1 spell and 1-2 metronome moves?

In game, pokemon can only ever learn 4 moves, so perhaps it is good to leave some room, hmm?

i can only assume this is a graveler + geodudes

first, ROLL THE NUMBER OF POKEMON IN AN AREA

The coolest part of playing a pokemon game is getting to a new area and finding out what kind of pokemon they have there.  Whenever you get to a new area, there will be one type of pokemon that you totally expect, so if you visit a volcano, of course there's going to be a fire pokemon (with a 50% chance that it has a secondary typing as well).  So in addition to the Expected Pokemon, you gotta roll to see how many other pokemon there are in this area.  These Additional Pokemon will be rolled randomly, on the above table.
  1. +1 normal pokemon, +1 legendary pokemon with UBER MOVES AND STATS
  2. +1 normal pokemon
  3. +1 normal pokemon
  4. +2 normal pokemon
  5. +2 normal pokemon
  6. +3 normal pokemon
So when you're finished, the area will have 2-4 normal, catchable pokemon, and a 1/6 chance that there is a hidden, legendary pokemon that is hiding in a well somewhere and will probably TPK you if you glance in its direction.

your mom


DISCOVERING THE POKE-PLOT

The coolest part of the pokemon anime is that there is always a pokemon related plot afoot whenever you get to a new town, or some sort of mystical beast with IQ 300 pulling a plow or some bullshit.

We need to see what the poke-plot is for this fucking village.

First, we need to roll and see which pokemon is part of the pokeplot.
  1. Some travelling trainer is using a pokemon.  Roll a new pokemon, then see table ZORP.
  2. Some entrenched poke-institution is using a pokemon.  Roll a new pokemon, then see table QUARF.
  3. The Expected Pokemon is being used in a generic way.  See table DEGENERES.
  4. The Expected Pokemon is being used in a specific way.  See table SPACKLE.
  5. The first Additional Pokemon you rolled is being used in a generic way.  DEGENERES.
  6. The first Additional Pokemon you rolled is being used in a specific way.  SPACKLE.
Now just roll on whatever table I just told you roll on.  Don't even read this sentence.

manpac

ZORP - Pokemon Trainer
  1. Trainer will not let you enter the area unless you can beat him.  50% chance he is being cruel to his pokemon, independent 50% chance that he'll follow you to the next village.
  2. Trainer wants to trade.
  3. Your rival is here.  If you don't already have a rival, you will meet your rival in this town.  He's just like you, except better.  (This can be the rival to an individual PC, or if you're feeling ambitious, there can be an entire rival adventuring party.)  The rival will show up, verbally abuse you, and then challenge you in a friendly way.  You probably can't kill him because he's a prince or something.  Make something up.
  4. Someone is using pokemon to commit crimes in the area!!??? who could it be?  They're probably just stealing pokemon (ripping spirits out of people's heads?) but they might also be committing some stone-cold murder.
  5. Trainer has gone into dangerous area and has not returned.  Friend wants you to go in there and retrieve him.  Dangerous areas with precedents: crystal cavern, burned out building, weird tunnel dug by pokemon, freakishly magnetic mountain, sea cave filled with whirlpools, meteorite-impacted mountain, forest filled with mushrooms and spirits.
  6. Something weird.  Roll a d6: 1 - trainer is possessed by his ghost pokemon, 2 - trainer is fleeing with a stolen pokemon, 3 - trainer must go to great lengths to save his pokemon's life, 4 - pokepoliceman is pursing a criminal, 4 - trainer from a distant land is wreaking havoc with his cultural ignorance, 5 - trainer has died in suspicious, public circumstances, 6 - trainer is researching something that should not be researched
jigglypuff?  is that you?

QUARF - Pokemon Institution
  1. Gym Leader will give you a boon if you overcome the trials inside and then best the leader.  Pokemon gyms have gotten weirder in the last few games, and usually involve some sort of puzzle, and always involve some combat.  Giant spiderwebs, lightless mazes, moving dragon statues, etc.  In a more primitive game, you probably want something more topical.  Tea plantation maze full of plant monsters?  Sunken, waterproof ship accessed via tunnel?  Gym leaders always give you three thing.  (1) enhance some stat of all of your pokemon by some tiny, ultimately trivial amount, (2) give you a badge, so that higher level pokemon will obey you, (3) and give you a TM, so you can teach a new move to one of your pokemon.  Honestly, the only thing worth getting excited about is the TM.  In an OSR game, a TM could be replaced with the gym leader teaching you kung-fu, how to walk through walls, or grow a prehensile tongue.  Alternatively, you could just add an ability to one of your pokemon, but whatever.
  2. Museum of pokemon, 50% they have the ability to resurrect pokemon from fossils.  (Depending on the ruleset, you may want to extend this into sort of a pokemon-temple, where pokemon can be resurrected).
  3. some sort of non-violent pokemon competition.  dancing contests, beauty contests, eating contests.
  4. Pokemon breeding / daycare.  Either way, pokesex.  Can be a literal day care run by two old people who have NO IDEA WHAT SEX IS or some sort of mystical ley-crossroads where chimeras mix their bloodlines.
  5. Shopping hub that specializes in pokemon stuff.  50% chance that there is a huge gambling den adjunct.
  6. Something weird.  Roll a d6: 1 - villagers are pokemon in disguise, 2 - pokemon training academy with a 50% chance that it's some sort of trap, 3 - secret castle/ship where bourgeois trainer-nobles do battle with gold-encrusted pokemon,  4 - haunted pokemon cemetery, 5 - pokemon storage system that can send and retrieve pokemon from around the world via technology, so I guess he can store extra pokemon for you if you catch more than your limit, and establish some method of switching pokemon around, 6 - insane professor gives pokemon to children and tasks them to travel the world documenting pokemon, no reason why he shouldn't give PCs the same opportunity.
holy shit cofagrigus

DEGENERES - Generic pokemon
  1. oh noes a bunch of these pokemon are attacking the town!  Surely there's something that's causing this.  Surely you don't have to kill all of them.
  2. oh noes all of these pokemon are interfering with daily living in a humorous way.  what could be causing this?
  3. oh noes all of these pokemon have been taken over by their biologies and won't stop mating/migrating/stampeding/burrowing/sporulating
  4. the pokemon are weaponizing, or at least forming into a warband around a charismatic leader
  5. the pokemon are all dying OR are getting trapped somehow.
  6. oh noes all of these pokemon are being killed/captured by a single person/group with ignoble intentions
  7. weird pokemon interaction: d3: 1 - pokemon have adopted a human as one of their own, 2 - are returning from myth and upsetting the natural balance, 3 - have been artificially created
  8. another weird pokemon interaction: d4: 1 - are invading people's homes with strange intent, 2 - are building/chipping away at a certain structure, 3 - have completely destroyed the natives/invaders and then just-as-suddenly returned to their peaceful ways, 4 - are only present as fossils
SPACKLE - Specific plot
  1. pokemon are being exploited en masse as weapons.  This has to do with their Type.
  2. pokemon are being exploited en masse as non-violent tools.  This has to do with their Type.
  3. pokemon are being exploited en masse as spiritual guidance.  This has to do with their Type.
  4. pokemon's Type has greatly impacted a Certain Human Activity in the area for the worse/weirder.
  5. people have bonded so closely with their pokemon that they have begun to take on their Type, or at least have started living in imitation of Their Favorite Pokemon.
  6. Pokemon is not actually available (possibly gone extinct), but has permanently changed the area, based on their Type
it's zubro!

EXAMPLE

So the PCs walk into a seaside village.  This place obviously has a water pokemon in it (the expected pokemon).  I'll roll on the Number of Pokemon Species in an Area table, and get +2 pokemon, for a total of 3 in the area.

Let's discover the first, water pokemon.  First I roll to see if it is mono-water Type or Water/something type.  (50% chance of each).  It's bi-typed, and the second type is Flying.  Water/Flying then.  I roll on the random animal mixer and get smelt-goose on my second click.  But that's stupid, so I decide to make it a very literal goose barnacle, that clings to side of ships, but turns into an attack goose when it's molested.  Great.

Then I roll for how many moves it's got.  2 moves.
Sleep spell - probably via yawning.
Pluck attack - similar to Peck, except it also eats any food the opponent has
I'll call it it CYGNACLE (water/flying type).

Roll up two more pokemon the same way.

HELICAN - Flying Type
hated pelican-demons that eat away bad children
people that try to stop them will be shat upon, while the bird flies away laughing
Protection from Good spell: this is obviously an evil fucking bird
Cotton Spore attack: it probably shits on you, working as either an web spell or making you automatically lose initiative
Rock Slide attack: probably just barfs rocks on you, or fish bones or children bones

GARGARFU - Dragon Type
look like chinese foo dogs crossed with chameleons
act like foo dogs crossed with chameleons crossed with wolverines
Blend spell - It has chameleon skin, so it can melt into the jungle
Thunder Fang attack - it's a bite that does +1d6 electrical damage, maybe
Psych Up attack - honestly, this is probably just barbarian rage

it's munna!


That wasn't so bad.  Now to roll up a plot.

4  + 6 = The Expected pokemon is not actually present, but it has permanently changed the area based on its type so, this sounds like there isn't a direct plot hook, but maybe something like:

All of the Cygnacles have been killed off as pests.  Vast graveyards of Cygnacle shells litter the bottoms of harbors and decorate tavern walls.  Because of this, the natural enemies of Cygnacles, Helicans, have proliferated, and the town is now covered with Helican shit.  It regularly rains fish bones and Helican bile.  At dusk, the Helicans call to each other as they circle overhead, but it mostly sounds like cruel chuckling.  A paladin has showed up, but has been at a loss for how to combat the birds (which sleep on the waves over the reefs).  A woman has begun trying to breed Cygnacles back into the ecosystem, but faces two obstacles from both (a) certain townspeople which continue to view the Cygnacles as pests (and will continue to do so, until they see an demonstration of how good Cygnacles can be at killing Helicans), and (b) the Helicans themselves, which will attempt to stop the woman from releasing the baby Cygnacles into the surf, because the Helicans are assholes.

i WISH this was a pokemon

1 comment:

  1. Wow, this is going to be incredibly useful to me in the campaing I'm running. Thanks!

    ReplyDelete