Trying Pokemon Tabletop Adventures

I'm gonna be running a Pokemon Tabletop Adventures game starting a couple weeks and I thought I'd ask if anyone could share their experiences with the system? Any glaring imbalances that will break the game? Any one class or feature drastically overpowered/underpowered? Recommended changes? General advice? I'm only using the first 151 pokemon, if that makes any difference at all.

Having read through the PDFs already, I've found them to be somewhat poorly laid out, but I guess that's to be expected for a free beta. The actual rules seem okay, but I don't have a very good eye for balance before I actually sit down and run a game.

So, what can you tell me?

EDIT: Apparently this is going to be a campaign log now.
Region Map
Entry 1: P-Day, 2002
Entry 2: The Choice is Made
Entry 3: The Sea Cottage Research Center
Entry 4: Escape
Entry 5: In Which It Hits the Fan
Entry 6: The Caves of Mount Moon
Entry 7: Miracle
Entry 8: Lavender

The Party:

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Dale, capture specialist. Owns a squirtle (Deuce), a dratini (Kellen), a meowth (Ben), and a gastly (yet unnamed).

Katherine, breeder, medic. Owns a rattata (Rita), a bellsprout (Pete), and a mankey (Spanky).

Frank, researcher. Owns a bulbasaur (Frodo), a rattata (Frisby), and a mankey (Conan).

Violet, ace trainer. Owns a pikachu (Tom), and a mankey (Fifi).

Hiker, researcher, watcher. Owns a vulpix (Janice), a slowpoke (Nell), and a cubone (Bambi).

Chaos, unowned charmander.

The Graveyard:

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Jack, capture specialist. Threw himself on a selfdestructing geodude to save his friends.

Evan, Katherine's eevee. Shielded his master from a selfdestructing geodude.

Poseidon, formerly Jack's magikarp and briefly Katherine's gyarados. Took on an onix twice its level while the party escaped.

Tesla/Tessie, Violet's magnemite. Destroyed in one shot by a spectral marowak.

HP is way too low. KOs on turn1 or 2 are very frequent.
Bump it up to Statx5 rather than 3 and it should get a bit better.

Having set up a few test fights I agree with you. I'm going for a darker, grittier motif (because nobody's ever done THAT before) than the rules imply, themselves being grittier than the actual pokemon games, but I still don't want to play rocket tag. I think Statx5 should do the trick, thanks :smallsmile:

Anyone else have experiences to share?

As tempting as it is, don't give the players TM/Egg moves in character creation. Yes, yes, I know the early moves are boring, but so is wiping out a swarm of wild pokemon with your level 5.

The turn orders can be a bit confusing, at least over PbP. An irl game ought to be fine though. In my groups, there was confusion over distinguishing between the Trainer Turns and Pokemon Turns, to the point where I seriously considered merging the two (afterall, most of my players had already done that).

Make sure your players start out with enough money to qualify for whatever base class they might want to enter. Particularly the Capture Specialist... But if you don't want to do that, suggest the feature that lets you take "Feature Points." That way you don't need to waste your levelup feats on Trainer Features, instead spending your points when you finally qualify for your base class.

Although you shouldn't hand out TM/Egg moves, you'll find a lot of pokes that are 'suitable starters' lack access to an at-will at five. Be prepared for that. I suggest either giving them an at will (Since you know, tackle is so broken you can't hand it out) or making their poke's damage move at-will.

This may not be an issue for you, I don't know what pokes interest your players. But it may be useful nonetheless.

Ah, only the first 151 pokes. Then I won't hand you the Unovadex made by the folks and their fans. It's not condensed into a pdf yet, but seems pretty legit for the most part.

The more I look over the rules the more I begin to think balance isn't really something to worry about too much in this system. Especially since I'm changing a lot of the aspects of the pokemon mythos which seem to be considered a given by the rules. Like that trainers will fight one on one and not carry guns. Learn by doing, I guess.

Also, Tackle IS broken! :smallbiggrin:

Oh well. Despite that, it still looks like fun and my players are psyched for it. First session's in a week. I'll post a summary afterwards as thanks to everyone who had advice to give.

Pokemon is a game of rocket tag. It is what it is.
Now, my pokemath is not up to date but this is how I remember it:
Its supposed to be possible to have types on your rooster that can take like maybe three STABs. HP is supposed to be scares, not a lot of back and forth between individual pokemon, rather between roosters.

Guns don't seem to really exist in pokeverse, but change what you want.

1 on 1 is already changed. A lot. Putting aside the formalized duels, PTA is based on Pokemon Special. Special is the manga where half the gym leaders are evil, and is actually kind of brutal. Red's Charmeleon bisects an Arbok after it poisons Red, for instance.

BTW, that occurs in a gym leader battle.

There's a reason Trainers are valid targets and have hit point counts. They're not just there to fuel Trainer combat abilities; they're there because Trainers get hit. A lot. Wilds are trying to eat you or protect themselves, so they don't care about the formalized pokemon duel rules. Villains may or may not care. Other trainers may or may not care (But if they're not villains will generally not try to kill you).

Basically, the things in games that people have grown used to, in PTA (and in Special which it draws from) work that way because of ritual. Pokemon don't (generally) refuse to attack humans; trainers agree not to do that (generally). It's more than possible to eat Flamethrower though, if circumstances may demand it.

Well, here's the summary, if anyone's interested. I think the first session was pretty awesome, even though we spent a lot of time with explanation of the rules. Wall of text follows.

The characters (Dale, Violet, Frank, Katherine, and Jack) are all high school students, ages 15-16, attending a boarding school in Viridian City. The campaign begins on P-Day, which is the 50th anniversary of the arrival of pokemon on earth. Every year the schools show the same old film strip, which follows in the spoiler.

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(The Indigo League logo is displayed prominently, then fades away revealing grainy footage of a ruined city. Most of the buildings have collapsed, and piles of ash and rubble can be seen through many broken windows. The earth itself appears to have split open in several places. A caption appears: Brooklyn, 1965. Suddenly, a massive shape lurches out from behind one of the collapsed structures and starts running towards the camera. The cameraman turns and starts to run, but drops the camera. After it lands, the man can be seen fleeing as the monstrous grey creature follows, gaining on him. They disappear off the edge of the screen.)

OAK: Hello there. Welcome to the world of pokemon.

(The scene changes to a laboratory, where a middle-aged man in a lab-coat leans against a table.)

OAK: My name is Samuel Oak, leading authority on pokemon. People call me the Pokemon Professor.

(The man stands and walks across the room. The camera pans to follow and reveals a purple quadruped with a large horn on its head and long ears. It glares aggressively through the plated glass of its enclosure.)

OAK: Our world is inhabited by creatures called pokemon. For some people, pokemon are pests. Others must fight against them for survival. Myself… I study pokemon as a profession, so that we may better understand the nature of our enemy.

(Some historical footage is shown, mostly of research and occasionally of prominent pokemon attacks throughout history. Prof. Oak continues to narrate.)

OAK: On September 20th, 1952, the Earth was struck by what may be a record number of meteors. They varied greatly in size, but some were large enough to permanently change the geography of our planet. Many perished during the initial meteor storms, and many more in the resulting earthquakes, floods, and fires. Global radio communications were disrupted, and remain so to this day. But the greatest threat to humanity was still unknown to us.

These meteors brought with them extraterrestrial life forms. The first reports describe them as small, mobile clusters of slime. How they came to be lodged inside the meteors, we still don’t know. They quickly spread across the face of our planet, but they were not at first believed to be harmful. However, they quickly displayed not only a startling degree of intelligence for such primitive creatures, but also the ability to alter their own DNA and mimic local flora and fauna.

By doing so, the creatures we now refer to as pokemon gained the ability to reproduce. The offspring were unable to alter their shapes at will, but maintained the ability to change forms one or more times over the course of their lives. By storing energy over long periods of time, they could trigger severe genetic mutations which would change them into larger, more aggressive, more dangerous individuals.

This, combined with their ability to release stored energy in the forms of heat, electricity, or even solid matter, allowed them to quickly drive many of the animals they had first mimicked to extinction. Though the pokemon had assumed many different forms, their genetic similarities force us to classify them as a single species. Today, they are the most successful species on the planet.

(The scene settles on Prof. Oak walking past a line of individuals wearing military-like uniforms. Each one stands behind or in front of a different pokemon.)

OAK: We’ve come a long way since those first days of terror and confusion. The Indigo League was formed as a branch of the military dedicated to capturing, studying, and fighting pokemon. In time we learned to train pokemon so that we could use them as a weapon against their wild brethren. The League’s goals gradually expanded to include exploration and mapping, resettlement of wild areas, the defense of these resettled areas, and finally, governance of all known survivors of the pokemon cataclysm.

Today, we can live without fear of starvation, extinction, communism, or pokemon, and can enjoy all the modern conveniences we humans once took for granted, all because of the efforts of these brave men.

Thank you, Indigo League!

(Prof. Oak turns and salutes the pokemon trainers, who salute him in turn.)

OAK: Well, I hope you’ve enjoyed our time together, and maybe learned a little something too. If you keep on learning, maybe you too can one day become a member of the Indigo League, and help us protect your friends and family. Have a safe and happy P-Day, everyone.

VOICE: This message has been approved and produced by the Indigo League. The Indigo League wishes to remind you that although you are safe within the walls of the resettled zones, the outside world is still dangerous. Always travel in groups. Always report any unusual pokemon or communist activity to your local Indigo League authorities.

After school, the characters started hearing rumours spreading among the other students that Prof. Oak himself had finally retired (after a falling out with the League, even) and moved to Pallet Town, no more than an hour's bike ride away. They decided to check it out, since it was Friday and they had the whole weekend ahead of them. On the way, they accidentally disturbed a wild pidgeot, which was apparently hungry. Violet and Katherine managed to bike away but the boys got their bikes tangled up and ended up having to flee on foot, with the pidgeot gaining on them.

They were saved at the last moment by a patrolling pokemon trainer, none other than the legendary Gary Oak himself, also on his way to Pallet Town. He gave them an escort the rest of the way.

Once at Pallet, they started looking for any clue of where Prof. Oak may have set up shop. They looked for most of the afternoon, then stopped for dinner, where a waitress was able to point them towards an old, ramshackle warehouse on the outskirts of town that a strange old man had recently moved into with his pet growlithe (lobotomized for reasons of safety, of course).

Heading through the farm lands to the old house, they saw two figures moving inside and heard the muffled sounds of an argument. They snuck up under a window and heard the end of it: "...I'm not going to be held responsible for what happens if you keep doing what you're doing. I did my part and warned you; we're done now." Someone then stormed out the door and back up the road. Dale peeked and saw that it was Gary Oak again.

They knocked on the door and, through a barrage of questions and a lie about a school project, managed to talk their way inside and get Oak talking about his firsthand experiences with pokemon, ranging back to first contact and spanning to the present day. They gathered that Oak wasn't actually very confident that the Indigo League was keeping people safe.

Oak let them stay over for the weekend while he continued to give a bunch of lessons about pokemon behaviour and biology. On Sunday they planned to head back to Viridian so as not to miss school, but first they went to pick up some groceries since they'd eaten most of Oak's food. By the time they returned, Oak's house was a blazing inferno.

Frank ran off to alert the fire department while the others got closer to try and help. They found the door ripped off its hinges and a magmar inside burning everything in sight. Oak and his pet growlithe were trapped on the other side of a burning barricade of furniture. Oak was clutching a duffel bag protectively.

Dale and Violet threw some of the groceries at the magmar to distract it while Jack ran inside and tried to help Oak, despite it being more than hot enough inside to deal damage. Oak grabbed something out of the bag, then threw it to Jack. "Take what's in this bag and get it to my old student, Bill! He works at the Sea Cottage Research Center to the northeast! You can use what's inside, but for God's sake, don't get caught!"

Oak then used the fire stone he'd grabbed on his growlithe, undoing its lobotomization and turning it back into a killing machine. It attacked the magmar as the house began to collapse. The players fled, picking up Frank on the way (he's a slow, dumpy kid) and running off into the fields to avoid the firefighters and military personnel on their way. As they went, Frank noticed Gary Oak standing on a nearby hill, calmly watching the blaze...

Huddling in a ditch, they found that the bag contained twelve pokeballs (five occupied) and five strange devices which seemed able to scan pokemon, hack the Indigo League's computer network, and retrieve all available data on that pokemon species. Realizing that they could be arrested or shot just for possessing pokeballs without a license, nevermind stealing Indigo League secrets, they agreed to keep the stuff and deliver it as asked, but also that they had to keep it secret at all costs.

The military tried to stop them from returning to Viridian given the "wild pokemon attack", but Gary showed up and offered to escort them again, and the military stepped aside. Gary seemed a little suspicious of them, but got them back to Viridian and then went about his business.

After that they spent some time checking out their pokemon in Frank's basement (bulbasaur, charmander, squirtle, pikachu, and eevee, of course) and trying to think of a way not to get shot while carrying dangerous contraband across the known world to some guy they don't even know.

So, that was the first session, and they are already properly terrified of my setting and everything in it, but also pretty excited about it. I think it's gonna turn out to be pretty entertaining :smallbiggrin:

Thanks again to everyone for offering up their advice. If anyone else wants to post some Pokemon Tabletop Adventures stories, that'd be cool.

*gazes at the awesome*

HOLY! That is the most awesome start I have ever seen.
Pokemon from meteors, Indigo League soldiers.

I tip my hat to you sir *tips*

This is impressive and lovely and if you write more I would very much like to read it.

That is fantastic. Please do a campaign journal.

Well, I guess I can keep posting 'em if folks are interested. It's gonna be awhile before the next one though, as this campaign had the unfortunate timing of starting the week before I head out of town. We're still on the first page so I'll just reappropriate this thread rather than start a new one I guess.

This is going to be a pretty dull log if we don't start playing more often.

The second session started where the first one left off, in Frank's basement with everyone meeting their pokemon for the first time, and discussing what to do with them. An old man who was nice to them for three days asked them to deliver them (and the pokedexes... pokedices?) to a guy halfway across the known world. Given that they were likely seen at Oak's house leading up to and probably during his assassination, they reasoned that the all-powerful Indigo League would soon be dropping by and asking some difficult questions. Owning non-lobotomized, non-domesticated pokemon without a license can get a person shot dead even when that person isn't also a witness to the League's more shadowy operations. Ditching the stuff would be far from reliable, so they can't just walk away from the whole business. They decide they have to go through with it, as once they get the stuff to Bill they can just return and claim they never even saw it.

They decided to leave the next morning. If they take a ferry from Pallet to Vermilion, they think they'll only be missing for four days or so, which they can hopefully explain away as generic childhood mischief. They got on their bikes and stealthily headed south at dawn. They were lucky enough to spot some patrolling trainers before getting within their line of sight (because once they see you, you have to battle them, right?) and took a brief detour off the route and through the woods. They were attacked by some venonats, and Jack's charmander was knocked out before they could scare them off. This served as a grim lesson that they would have no choice but to make use of their pokemon, and that this sole defense was far from infallible, as only the charmander and eevee were willing to fight without serious coercion, and the squirtle never fought at all.*

They spotted some other wild pokemon but avoided them. Arriving in Pallet, they found the ferry docked and ready to depart, but swarming with Indigo League officials. They were loading a number of large, unlabeled crates onto the boat, yet the general public still seemed to be allowed aboard. It must have been a serious operaton nonetheless, as the legendary S.S. Annihilator, the world's last and greatest battleship, was acting as an escort. The party debated whether to wait for the next boat, but eventually decided it was worth the risk. They bought their tickets and laid low for the entire 3-hour trip. Fortunately, the League officials kept to themselves and they all made it to Vermilion without incident.

They continued on to Saffron and rented a couple of rooms at a hotel. Jack spent the whole night nursing his charmander back to health, while the rest of them huddled around the radio listening to the news, hoping their names didn't come up. They did not. They left early the next morning, turning northeast towards where their map indicated the Sea Cottage Research Center should be located. On the bright side, there was no official route leading towards it, so they were less likely to run into trainers. But this also meant a higher probability of wild pokemon attacks.

Sure enough, it wasn't long before they noticed some movement among the trees. It turned out to only be some pikachus, a relatively docile pokemon, as they'd learned. Violet sent her own out to attempt to draw them out into the open where they might be able to catch them, which worked. Unfortunately, leaving the cover of the bush attracted a decidedly less docile pokemon, a scyther. Luck of the draw dictated that Violet's pikachu was the one to get attacked, and it was very nearly knocked out in one shot. A pitched battle ensued, but all of the pokemon were eventually convinced to join in, including one of the wild pikachus which stayed behind to help its domesticated cousin. Violet's pikachu was soon knocked out however, and the wild fled after being badly injured.

The battle went on and the scyther started taking some serious damage. Once the pokeballs started to fly, however, it turned its attention to the trainers. Jack ended up getting knocked down to 3 hp in a single hit, but his charmander had grown attached enough to come to his defense with a lucky crit. After another round, the scyther was crushed and turned into pokemon food.

Though they failed to capture the scyther (repeatedly), the injured wild pikachu wandered back after a few minutes. Unfortunately, they'd used up all their pokeballs already. Still, they managed to entice it to follow them temporarily with the pet food they'd brought along and they're hoping one of their two capture specialists will be able to do some repairs, at which point they can cruelly betray the wild pikachu's trust and add it to their slave pen. Yay, pokemon!

Given that the way ahead was too rough for their bikes, they were feeling pretty grim about their chances. It's going to be a long walk.

And that is what this campaign is going to be. I hope you all still enjoy hearing about it.

*Their pokemon are young, which makes them easier to manage in general but less likely to obey in dangerous situations.

This is a world that contains monsters capable of wiping out entire cities at a time.

Gyarados. Tyrannatar. Poisonous clouds of toxic, deadly gas released by Vileplumes.

If you want to play up a "darker" pokemon world - emphasize this fact.

Every town is surrounded by watchtowers manned 24/7 by the military, ready to snipe any particularly daring pokemon that that tries to wander in. The routes are patrolled by trainers and their pokemon in order to keep them relatively safe to travel by. The S. S. Annihilator (get it?) is a modified anti-sub ship which patrols the coast and blows up any large water pokemon that are prowling too close to shore. Despite these measures, the civilized world is still only about a hundred kilometres wide and everything else is uncharted wilderness, blasted by meteors and bombs and controlled by wild pokemon.

The players are definitely aware of what this campaign setting is :smallwink:

After running this for six months, I had to put an end to the campaign I loved as of today because the system filled me with hatred. You won't understand for a little while - I know I did, with nothing but good things to say at first - but it becomes restrictive, unbalanced, and scared to let players build the characters they want.

Well, here's the next one while it's still fresh in my mind.

The party, though badly wounded, decided to press on. After a few more hours walking (and two more encounters which they avoided), they came across an old abandoned town. They spent the night in one of the less collapsed buildings. Come morning, they spotted flashlight beams outside. They recalled their pokemon and hoped they would pass by, but they just barely heard someone whisper "you kick down the door, I'll train the gun on them." This was enough to prompt them to dive out the back window and flee into the woods. They managed to evade their pursuers, two men that they didn't get a very good look at.

Some time later they came across the major obstacle on their route: a river. While Jack and Frank set about making a simple raft, Dale, Violet, and Katherine had their pokemon attack a school of magikarp. Not to catch them (they had two pokeballs repaired by now, but honestly, what good is a fish going to be :smallamused: ), but to cook them. Their pikachu, squirtle, and eevee were easily able to knock out three of the fish pokemon before they could flee downstream. These were dragged out of the river and a cooking pit was dug, but Jack demanded one be left alone to recover so he could try to catch it.

In my setting, pokemon who have been beaten unconscious die from the shock when you use a pokeball on them. Part of the goal of this campaign is to take as many dumb or weird little nuances of the pokemon canon and figure out why they would possibly be that way, after all.

Anyway, after a few hours of raft-building and fish-cookin' Jack (barely) managed to catch the badly injured magikarp once it woke up. Their first capture ever! Though they did still have that one wild pikachu following them around because she had the hots for Violet's tame one. The raft was finished, and it was determined that they could cross safely one at a time with the squirtle pulling them. The magikarp was allowed to rest.

However, spending all this time at the river gave their pursuers time to track them down. Two men in jeans and sweatshirts burst out of the trees, their faces covered by bandanas. They also had a zubat and ekans with them. And a rifle. They demanded the party stand down, but as three of them were already on the far shore and one was halfway, that didn't happen.

Rather than stand and fight they tried to flee, but they (the trainers) started getting attacked and shot at. The wild pikachu fled (again) and the tame one got knocked out, and the eevee paralyzed. However, with the help of their new magikarp (well aware of being saved from the lunch menu and grateful for it) they got across the river and managed to knock out the zubat without much trouble. The ekans, however, knocked Violet out and started crushing her dead. The two thugs, for they were clearly not Indigo League personnel, ordered them to return and surrender or their friend would die. It was close, but a last minute crit from Frank's bulbasaur knocked the ekans out cold. They fled into the cover of the trees so they wouldn't be shot and dragged Violet to safety.

By the time the sun was going down again, they reached the Sea Cottage Research Facility. It was surrounded by a 15-foot wire mesh fence and peppered with watch towers full of armed soldiers. The place was set up like a military base rather than the quaint little cottage they'd been hoping for. They debated for a long time on how to get in, but finally settled on the idea of luring a dangerous pokemon towards the facility and hoping that they would be admitted without questioning during the chaos. Well, okay, they didn't settle on it so much as have a wild onix settle on them after many hours of debate, but they quickly turned the situation to their advantage.

Once the watchtowers started shooting at the onix it ignored the party and broke through the perimeter easily, its high defense eating up machine gun bullets like they were marshmallows. It's things like this that really made it sink in for the players just WHY, in 50 years of warfare, the unorganized wild pokemon were winning against humanity.

Before too long, the Indigo League trainer on duty arrived and had her machoke kick the onix in half (it was only level 14). She had a soldier escort the party to the infirmary until the perimiter could be secured and they could be questioned. They were treated for pokemon AND bullet wounds, and they managed to keep their pokeballs out of sight. Eventually the head of the facility greeted them; none other than the man the late Prof. Oak sent them to find, his old student, Bill.

They told him that they'd been sent by Oak, whom Bill thought had been "imprisoned on suspicion of communist sympathies". They convinced him to talk to them in private later, somewhere without surveillance. They met him in his room where he used a white noise generator of some sort to make sure they couldn't be heard. They explained the entire sequence of events and handed over their pokedexes and pokeballs (most of them reluctantly).

Bill fiddled around with the pokedexes for awhile and concluded that they were pocket computers (very advanced for this setting) which could nigh-instantly and nigh-effortlessly hack into the Indigo League networks and retrieve all collected data on any pokemon scanned. They would then store the information indefinitely, and appeared able to save new data entered into them as well. He said that such devices would be a huge boon to trainers if made standard issue, but that he believed Oak intended for them to be available to the public instead, so the common man would be better armed against the pokemon menace. However, he still couldn't figure out why there was so much secrecy involved, and why he'd apparently been assassinated over them, nor why they'd been brought to him specifically. He apologized but said that he couldn't help the party. He recommended that they flee the facility and go into hiding, as their names had apparently been flagged. If they were identified, they'd be taken into custody.

The only help he could offer was to repair their broken pokeballs and heal their pokemon instantly using the latest Indigo League technology. However, when he put their pokeballs in the restoration machine, his computer identified strange code embedded in them. After some fiddling around he determined that the code was an addition for the pokedexes. He installed it, and it proved to be a tracking device, which pointed out... something between Pewter and Viridian. He had no idea what it was, but he recommended the party check it out if they really wanted to get to the bottom of the whole business. He also warned them not to use any more ATMs or make any phone calls, as the Indigo League had manufactured pokemon which could live in energy form within computer systems and be trained to emerge and attack when certain phrases or pieces of code were transfered. These pokemon were what his white noise machine was protecting them from.

Come morning, Violet had awakened, and they were batting ideas around on how to sneak out, when suddenly the facility was thrown into an uproar. Word had arrived the repurposed power plant to the south, where several kinds of artificially created pokemon were mass-produced, had been attacked and overrun. But by whom?

And thus ends session three. Having fun so far!

Subscribing because awesome.

What system is this running on, anyway?

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Originally Posted by Immonen

Subscribing because awesome.

What system is this running on, anyway?

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Pokemon Tabletop Adventures.

Yes it really took this long between sessions. And everyone's going back to school soon so it's only gonna get worse. :smalleek:

The session began with the party debating what, if anything, to do during the confusion caused by the attack on the power plant to the south. Most of the military personnel stationed at the research lab were being sent across the river to the south to try and take back the plant, as it was a valuable strategic position. This, several of the players pointed out, would be the perfect time to sneak away before somebody figured out that not only had these five kids gotten into the base without proper screening, but that they were in fact wanted by the Indigo League for questioning.

However, Violet demanded that the party stay at the lab for as long as possible to make use of the infirmary, as she'd been shot a few times and wanted to heal up (humans heal a lot slower than pokemon in my campaign). Jack was also badly wounded and not averse to this idea, but Katherine and Frank were worried that the longer they stayed the harder it would be to escape, and the more danger they were in. (Dale's player was absent and so did not express a strong opinion one way or the other). Eventually Violet broke the tie by saying she wasn't going to leave the hospital bed until something bad actually happened, or until she was at full health. Since the rest of the group wasn't willing to leave her behind, that settled the matter.

Since they were staying anyway, most of the group spent the first day resting. Frank wandered about the facility a bit to get the lay of the land. Enclosed within the mesh fence, which was still destroyed in one area from the onix attack, were the lab itself, living quarters for the research staff, a military bunker, a few storage sheds, a hydro generator, and a boathouse. The river was blocked by chain mesh nets to keep wild pokemon out, but the nets could be lowered to allow boats to move up- or downstream. Frank also overheard on the radio that the power plant had been "shut down indefinitely" since all cities had long ago started supplying their own power. This meant the attack on the plant was not to be public knowledge.

Towards evening, wounded and dead soldiers started returning to the base, and the guard had been doubled in case the fighting should spread north. The party was still unable to get any solid details on what was actually going on at the plant.

The next day, with Violet nearly healed and Jack at least no longer on the brink of unconsciousness, things took a turn for the worse, as had been feared. The Indigo League trainer stationed at the facility appeared at the guest quarters and informed the party that they were under arrest for suspicion of terrorist activities, and advised to come along quietly. The trainer (Elizabeth) had six pokeballs on her person, plus a gun, so the party decided not to comply. They were then led down the hall to retrieve Violet from the infirmary.

As it happened, there was an exit right next to the infirmary, so the party unanimously decided that being arrested would be a game over and that they had to try and escape while they had the chance. Frank made a move for Elizabeth's gun, but she turned out to be a lot faster than a dumpy nerdy kid. Their lives no in serious, immediate jeopardy, they decided to throw all their chips down and turn it into a pokemon battle.

Elizabeth sent out a sandslash. As it turned out, it was able to one-shot the party's pokemon with relative ease. Jack's charmander and Dale's squirtle went down in seconds, but provided enough of a distraction for Jack, Dale, Katherine, and Frank to escape. Violet was trapped in the infirmary, as Elizabeth was blocking the door, but she cleverly realized that while the sandslash was out in the hall trying to catch the escapees, Elizabeth was unprotected. The party's pikachu and squirtle were able to knock her unconscious. Just as Violet was about to flee, the sandslash blocked the door. However, as soon as it noticed its trainer unconscious*, it attacked her instead, and literally ripped her to pieces. The party recalled all of their pokemon and fled.

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*In my setting, pokeballs have two functions. One is to capture pokemon and store them in energy form, which puts them in statis and could render them immortal unless the pokeball was damaged. The second is to encourage obedience. By placing their thumb over a small scanning device on the pokeball's surface, the trainer broadcasts a signal to the pokeball's occupant which causes them identify the trainer as a maternal figure. It doesn't necessarily force them to obey, but it does prevent them from causing harm to the trainer. However, very powerful pokemon have been known to focus their energy and destroy their pokeballs even after having been captured, so the devices are still not perfect.

When Elizabeth fell unconscious her thumb slid off of the DNA scanner, which left the sandslash under no compulsion to behave but its own judgement. Either Elizabeth wasn't a very friendly trainer, or the sandslash wasn't a very friendly pokemon.

The party attempted to approach the breach in the gate casually and try to talk their way out. Several soldiers were repairing the breach, and two were standing guard. The party was told that the facility was still on lockdown and that they may not leave. At this point, Violet informed them that Elizabeth had been killed by her own pokemon, which was now presumably running rampant inside the living quarters (this was news to the rest of the party). The soldiers then noticed that there were indeed screams coming from the infirmary and blood splashed on the windows, so most of them ran off, leaving only a few at the breach.

The party made a break for it and ran for all they were worth to the tree line. They were spotted by one of the towers and Katherine was shot, but they managed to escape. They were not pursued, as only Elizabeth was aware of their wanted status, apparently.

They decided to follow the river west towards Cerulean City, then try to cross over the Mt. Moon range. There used to be a patrolled route through the mountains, but it was obliterated some years ago by a meteor, and has yet to be rescouted. On the way they encountered some more wild pokemon, but were only attacked once, by a group of rattata. They proved very weak however, and soon fled, but not before Jack and Katherine each caught one.

At that point there was a lot of leveling up to do. I gave them a level for reaching the Sea Cottage and most of them earned another from pokedex use soon after, plus they had new pokemon to stat up. Given that, we decided to end the session.

On a hilarious note: although only Violet was aware of the rampaging sandslash in-character, all of the players knew about it OOC. Despite that, they failed to think of it while brainstorming for a distraction to present the guards with so they could sneak out. A bit of a headdesk moment for me, but eventually Violet's player figured out that they had a REAL distraction and didn't need to make one up.

No matter the length between sessions, let me at least express my interest in your group's continuing adventures!

I've never tried the system, but your world is decidedly interesting to me, where pokemon rampage and rivers are netted to protect bases. Please, do continue when you can. :)

This just gets better and better.

I must concur. I found this today, but this is amazing.

New installment, in which the party's luck is only ever very good or very bad.

The group arrived on the outskirts of Cerulean City, but decided it was too risky to pass through it so soon after their escapades at the research center. They instead decided to skirt around to the north, through the mountains, and then over Mt. Moon. But first they had to round up some more food, so they went down to the river looking for pokemon.

After a few encounters with things that could kill them (which they wisely avoided) they got really lucky and found a lone, low-level slowpoke guarding an egg. They made some half-hearted attempts to catch it, but when they knocked it out they settled on butchering it for rations. Katherine kept the egg, however. Now resupplied, they began their ill-fated journey through the mountains.

Their luck turned sour when they were ambushed by a machop and machoke duo, which flanked them in a gorge. After the machoke proved powerful enough to take out most of their pokemon in one solid hit, they instead focused all their power on the machop, knocking it out, and then fleeing. Fortunately, the machoke then proved more concerned with nursing its child/brother/friend/whatever back to health than pursuing.

They rested awhile, and then their luck turned back to good. Their next encounter was with two groups of pokemon, a charizard and a tribe of mankeys. The lucky part was that both groups had already killed each other, AND that they found another nest with three more eggs ripe for the taking. Katherine added them to her growing collection and they moved on. All were in high spirits, as once these eggs hatched they would have all the pokemon they could handle with their current (small) collection of pokeballs.

And then their luck did another 180 and turned very, very, VERY bad.

They failed to notice a group of resting geodudes before tripping over them, which caused the territorial creatures to defend themselves. It was a group of six, with two clearly being infants. At first the battle seemed to be going well, as the party laid down a number of debuffs in support of Deuce the squirtle, who was the powerhouse of this encounter. His bubble attack was almost good enough to knock out one of the adults in a single hit. If only it had been... if only it had been.

The wounded geodude, clearly recognizing its time was up, gestured to its family to flee. Once the others were a safe distance away, it flew directly towards the party, glowing bright white, and made a kamikaze strike.

Jack recognized the danger, and was well aware that the chances of surviving a self-destructing pokemon were not good. So, in a selfless act, he threw himself over the geodude while grimly shouting his final words;

"Hey guys, watch this!"

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Mechanically speaking, Jack used the Hey Guys, Watch This feature to take Let Me Help You With That+, which allows him to give an ally a +7 bonus on any check a certain number of times per day. Since selfdestruct is a nasty player-killing attack, I decided to be generous and ruled that this bonus could apply to a death saving throw as a "penalty". Thus we decided that, fluffwise, Jack nobly sacrified himself to save the others.

When the dust settled, only three of the ten people and pokemon in the party were left standing. Frodo the bulbasaur had been just barely out of range. Dale and Katherine had been shielded from the attack by their pokemon, Deuce and Evan. The latter had given his life in doing so. Everyone else was gravely or even mortally injured, but through sheer strength of will managed to live long enough to be tended to. All except for Jack, who had taken the full force of the blast and was beyond helping (which is to say, in two pieces).

They party spent the rest of the day and all of the next resting the crater and tending their wounded. Jack and Evan were buried with as much dignity as the party could give them. Jack's useful possessions were divided up among the party while Chaos, his first pokemon, stood grimly over his master's grave. It was decided that Katherine would take custody of Jack's magikarp to compensate for the loss of Evan, while Frank would take his rattata. As for Chaos...

The charmander decided that, although he owed some loyalty to Jack's companions, he would not accept any of them as master. Focusing his energy, he overloaded and permanently destroyed his pokeball, making him a wild pokemon who just happened to be traveling with humans.

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Jack's player will be playing as Chaos until such a time as we can gracefully work a new trainer into the story. I already have some ideas on that, but Jack's player says that being a wild, revenge-seeking charmander is fine (and awesome) for now.

With heavy hearts the party carried on. Jack's death was tragic, but only served to underscore just how much danger the rest of the group was still in. After a few more hours of walking, they reached the slope of Mt. Moon and started climbing.

They had another brief flirtation with good luck when Frank noticed a strange pokemon hiding nearby. It proved to be a dratini, a very rare and powerful specimen. The party gave chase and tried to catch it, but knocked it out instead. Not to be detered, they carried the unconscious pokemon with them until it woke up, then started pummeling it with pokeballs. Dale had the best reflexes and, after failing to catch over a dozen different pokemon despite having the most pokeballs and the most favourable modifiers to capture rolls, finally got himself a second pokemon.

Katherine briefly noticed a shadow pass over the party as Dale rejoiced over his capture, but as it had no apparent source, she dismissed it.

Continuing along, the party also noticed a lone nidorino, but avoided it as it was high level. Despite this, they noticed that it was heading in the same direction as they were, though it wasn't actually following them. They changed course rather than force a confrontation.

After some time they crested the slope and could see both Cerulean laid out behind them and Pewter up ahead. The continued west down the slope, making much better time now. However, before long they became aware that the earth beneath their feet was shaking. A bestial roar drifted to their ears from the other side of the mountain.

Naturally, the party started running as fast as their legs could carry them.

As they went, the general quaking resolved into a steady staccato thumping; heavy footfalls. Looking back, they saw a massive nidoking with glowing red eyes hot on their trail. Their pokedex rated its power at level 60. For reference, their highest level pokemon was a level 23 magikarp. Everything else was less than half that, and one of the rattatas was still only level 3.

Turning and fighting was out of the question, and escape seemed impossible as the creature was slowly gaining on them. Fortunately, they soon came across a cave entrance leading down into the heart of the mountain which was not quite wide enough for the nidoking to follow them down, despite its apparently ability to reshape the ground just by pushing it. They fled down into the darkness, following Chaos' glowing tail, as the fearsome roars of the monster nidoking faded into echoes behind them...

When I clicked the thread, I had no idea it would be this neat.

Nice journal - I'd love to keep updated!

I really enjoy your campaign journal. It kind of makes me want GM it.
Your subversion of Kanto I kind of great. Would you be offended if I borrowed from your ideas if I do end up GMing pokemon?

your version of Pokemon is so depressing. My childhood, you have killed it...

I like it.

This is really neat, it almost makes me want to try out the system. I like your campaign journals, Keep up the good work.

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Originally Posted by mint

I really enjoy your campaign journal. It kind of makes me want GM it.
Your subversion of Kanto I kind of great. Would you be offended if I borrowed from your ideas if I do end up GMing pokemon?

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Thanks! And by all means, steal away.

EDIT: Also, we're only going to play about once a month now, unless we can sneak in extra sessions during holidays. Accursed school!

I think someone (not me) needs to run a similar game of GitP

It ain't dead, it just likes to sleep in.

The group fled deep beneath Mt. Moon until they could no longer hear the nidoking behind them. The tunnels were very cramped, but mostly wide and high enough to walk upright. Since going back wasn't an option, they decided that all they could do was head onwards, with Chaos in the lead as their primary light source.

The tunnel branched many times, but Dale labeled every intersection by carving the stone with his pocket knife, while also making a rough map of their progress. They hit many dead ends and even encountered a few wild pokemon, but they were all relatively docile and didn't pursue them as they fled. One possible exception was a massive zubat at the end of one tunnel, big enough to bite a man in half, but as it was sleeping they managed to avoid a confrontation.

After awhile they came across a fork where the ceiling had partially collapsed some time ago. Caught in the cave-in were two pokemon trainers, long ago reduced to skeletons by scavenging pokemon. Searching the area, Dale found three empty pokeballs and an ultra ball (the latter of which he pocketed himself). They also spotted the remains of three destroyed pokeballs, reminiscent of when Chaos overloaded his and freed himself.

Finally, one of the trainers had an occupied pokeball (they glow) sticking out of his pocket, but it was wedged under the fallen stones. Attempting to retrieve it might cause another collapse. Dale was willing to give it a try, though. After a few unsuccessful but non-fatal attempts, he managed to get the pokeball loose and replaced it with a similar sized rock, Indiana Jones style. Not that any of them know who Indiana Jones is, since the world ended before those movies were ever made. What a shame...

The pokeball contained a magnemite. As manufactured pokemon, they are unerringly obedient to whomever holds their pokeball. Since Violet was the only one without at least two pokemon, she took the magnemite and named it Tesla (or Tessie). She also pondered specializing in electric type pokemon, but she'd have to catch a few more first.

The party decided to take the right fork at first, but it led only to a large chamber split by a chasm a couple dozen feet wide. They could hear running water echoing from the bottom. They decided not to risk trying to cross it until they'd explored their other options, and so they backtracked and took the left fork.

This tunnel transitioned from stone to dirt floors, and they began to see many side tunnels branching in all directions. Most of these were too small for a human, but Chaos wandered down one, curious to see where they led. He returned a moment later dragging a dead diglett, which he told the party (through shaking or nodding his head) was already dead when he found it. They also noticed that the walls and floor of the tunnel were becoming more and more damp the farther along they went. This was unusual and somewhat worrisome, but what choice did they have but to go on?

Rounding a bend, they found a collapsed dugtrio being eaten by a meowth and a bellsprout. The party instinctually whipped out their pokedexes to retrieve data on the two new species, but the noise alerted the pokemon to their presence. The meowth took up an aggressive stance while the bellsprout slapped its leaves together noisily. From farther down the tunnel came the answering slap of approaching footfalls. A pokemon trainer, they assumed. They didn't want to be caught, but they had nowhere to flee to, so they decided to stand and fight.

At first the battle went well, though the bellsprout was able to put Chaos to sleep almost immediately. That still left the party with a numerical advantage, however, but those footfalls just kept getting closer... until they suddenly stopped. Dale shone his flashlight down the tunnel, revealing a large, angry-looking golduck.

Let me tell you something about Dale. Up until his Squirtle jumped in front of him and saved his life, he didn't have a very high opinion about pokemon in general. He refused to form any sort of attachment to them, even though the ones he and his friends had captured proved to be friendly once they got used to human company. All of this stemmed from his childhood pet, a domesticated (which is to say, lobotomized) growlithe. He'd loved his pet, but one day they'd wandered too far away from the safety of Celadon City and were attacked by a wild pokemon, resulting in the growlithe's death. He afterwards found it easier not to get attached, since pokemon often live short and brutal lives.

The wild pokemon that killed his pet? Yeah, it was a golduck.

Dale froze up, which caused his Squirtle to cease shooting off bubbles from way in the back of the line, and the bellsprout was kicking the crap out of Poseidon the magikarp (who finally got to attack something, at least). The meowth had been paralyzed and confused into submission. Tessie's thundershock attacks were wearing down the golduck quickly, but it had plenty enough time to get right into the middle of the group and unleash devastating burst attack, which knocked out both Frank and Katherine. You'd think they would've learned not to stand so close together after the geodude incident, but I guess they can be forgiven as the tunnels were so narrow.

This jarred Dale back into action. Since the approaching footsteps belonged to a pokemon and not a trainer, and these three were working together despite being of very different breeds AND not being local to the caves, he concluded they were the pokemon that had escaped from those two dead trainers. He quickly caught the meowth, which freed freshly-awakened Chaos up to start roasting the bellsprout. Tessie knocked out the golduck in only two strong attacks, and Violet was able to catch the bellsprout just before it collapsed (remember, unconscious pokemon die when captured).

There was some talk about trying to catch the golduck as they had the magikarp before, but Dale executed it instead. Who knows whether this encounter will leave him a better person, or just make him worse.

Dale and Violet (and their conscious pokemon) tried to carry Frank and Katherine back to a safe tunnel, but the way back was blocked by a group of digletts. Trying to retreat past the battlefield, they were blocked from going onwards. In fact, every single tunnel they could see had a tiny little head poking out of it stopping their progress except for one. They were wary of allowing themselves to be herded, but with half their party already down (including the medic), they felt they didn't have much choice.

After being coerced through several twists and turns, they found themselves back in solid stone tunnels once more, and the digletts stopped following them. Furthermore, no giant boss diglett showed up to devour them whole, which was a relief. Had the mole pokemon merely been chasing them away from their territory, or had they been deliberatly helping the group out of gratitude for getting rid of three vicious predators? Digletts can't speak, so they'll probably never know.

They went on until they found an unoccupied branch tunnel, then rested for the better part of two days, at which point their careful first aid work paid off and the girl who actually knows something about medicine regained consciousness. At about the same time, three of the four eggs she was carrying began to hatch. Katherine was now in possession of three infant mankeys, which clung to her hair as if she were their mother. She didn't want to keep all three, but the group thougth it better to decide on that when and if they could see the sun again.

Once everyone was fit to walk, they carried on. They wandered for many hours through many brnaching, dead-end tunnels. They occasionally seemed to be heading upwards towards the surface, but any given tunnel might change direction dozens of times, winding up or down seemingly at random. They understood that the mole pokemon had dug the tunnels back in the softer dirt areas, but most of these stone tunnels couldn't be natural. What creature could have dug through solid stone?

After spending most of three days underground, they blundered into a large chamber strewn with boulders. Before they could explore further, the boulders reared up and glared at them furiously. It was an onix, much larger than the one they'd encountered previously. And, as they found out while fleeing at top possible speed, it was more than twice the level of any of their pokemon. It was also faster.

Just when all seemed hopeless, they spotted moonlight shining down from a tunnel up ahead; an exit! Fitting that they would both enter and escape these caves with a giant bloodthirsty monster on their tails. But this onix wasn't going to be lost or evaded as easily. Even now it was closing the distance between them...

Suddenly, Katherine stopped running. "This foe is beyond any of you." Planting her feet, she stood before the charging onix and cried, "you shall not pass!"

And then she threw Poseidon the magikarp at its face.

In midair, seconds before impact, Poseidon glowed brightly as it released the energy it had been storing over its entire lifetime. Pokemon evolution is drastically different from that of native Earth creatures, but it serves the same basic purpose. When a creature is faced with extinction, it must adapt and become stronger if it wants to survive.

The party continued to run as the ground shook with the fury of the epic serpent battle behind them. They burst into the open air and fled down into the valley below. They could see they were lost in the mountains somewhere, but just then, they didn't care. Not until they had covered several miles were they shocked into stopping as Poseidon's pokeball began to spark and short circuit.

They had escaped the tunnels of Moria Mt. Moon, but only at great cost.

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The PTA bestiary says that pokemon don't evolve automatically when they reach the right level, but that they have to be in a state of strong emotions to trigger the change. Basically this means pokemon evolve when the DM says so, I guess. Instead, I made some rules which give a random chance for a pokemon to evolve every time it gains a level over its minimum to evolve, and also every time it enters battle against a stronger opponent. This chance gets higher the more levels a pokemon has over its evolutionary minimum.

However, an onix versus gyarados fight was too cool not to happen, so I abandoned the die rolls in this instance.

Also, the session mostly considered of "We go right." "Dead end." "We backtrack and go left." "You find another fork." However, there were many other rooms with 'scripted' encounters in them, such as the dead pokemon trainers and their escaped pokemon, and the onix nest. The party just didn't end up finding any of them. They ALSO ended up taking the longest possible route through the tunnels, passing by two other exits before finally escaping. That's just the way these things go sometimes.

That means Poseidon died in the battle, right?

Yes, pokeballs actually explode if their captive has escaped. Poor Poseidon ended up doing exactly what everyone knew he would do from the moment they caught him; getting throw towards danger in the hopes he would provide a suitable distraction.

Well, he was a Magikarp. At least this way he had a suitable epic death.

This is so awesome, I may poop. I need to convince my group to play this.

Subscribing to awesomeness.

And here I was hoping this was updated with another amazing chapter of the story. If there is only one way to go down, I'm sure Magikarp definitely achieved it.

Still goin'! This was kind of a short session though, as there was a lot of semi-OOC talk about what the party wanted to do before a plot point caught up with them.

Having escaped the wild onix and put some some distance between themselves and Mt. Moon, the party continued to wander south and west towards Viridian Forest, saddened by the death of another pokemon but happy to be alive. They rested at the edge of the forest, then continued on in the morning, following the tracking devices in their pokedexes leading them towards... something.

The devices' crude maps zoomed in the closer they got to their target. The maps didn't feature any significant detail, but the smaller scale helped Dale triangulate. It wasn't long before they found themselves to be standing right on top of... nothing?

Their first instinct was to look up, but there was nothing there but clear blue sky through the forest canopy. Next they thought that perhaps there was something under their feet, perhaps a secret Indigo League base of some kind. As they debated, Katherine noticed that a small nearby branch was bent towards the ground for no apparent reason. After quietly discussing with the rest of the party, they decided to have Frodo, Frank's bulbasaur, use her vines to pull on the branch.

No sooner was this done than something became visible sitting on the branch, but the party only had enough time to tell that it was small and pinkish-white before Frodo suddenly went flying backwards into a tree trunk, mortally wounded and bleeding from its ears, nose, and mouth. Fortunately, they were able to give it medical attention just in the nick of time, but the strange pokemon (for so it must have been) had escaped in the confusion. Their pokedexes indicated it was fleeing at great speeds to the north.

As the group's only purpose had turned out to be something powerful enough to kill them in one shot, they all sat down and tried to think of what they were going to do with their lives. Following the pokemon didn't seem worth their lives, but neither could they just go back home, as they were likely to be nabbed by the League as soon as they showed their faces. Dale said that he wanted to start tracking down rookie trainers and ambushing them. Not out of any sense of justice or even vengeance, but for their pokeballs. If they could amass a large enough and powerful enough force of tamed pokemon, they should be able to carve out a meagre living somewhere in the wilderness.

Before they could discuss further, they head approaching footfalls, either two humans or a quadruped, which probably meant Indigo League. They quickly hid in some nearby bushes. The footfalls slowed as they drew closer, and then who should step into the clearing but Gary Oak, rising star of the League, riding his ninetales.

The moment of panic caused something to snap in Violet's head. Apparently, exposure to the psychic energies of that mysterious pokemon had unlocked similar powers within her, and she found herself able to read Gary's thoughts. He appeared to be looking for something, but could have sworn he'd heard voices. He set his gengar free to comb the area for auras...

They had no choice but to run for it, as several of their pokemon were out of their pokeballs, and they couldn't be caught with them. The pokemon themselves were easily able to flee, being used to making their way in the wild, but Katherine and Frank both made too much noise. Gary demanded that they show themselves. When they tried to run instead, his ninetales tackled Katherine to the ground while his gengar paralyzed Frank with its tongue.

They managed to cobble together a lie about a sick aunt and a school project to explain why they were in the woods. It seems Gary wasn't up to date on the League's most wanted list, which was lucky for them. He didn't buy their story, but rather than pressing them he seemed to assume they were doing something ELSE alone in the woods. He escorted them back to Viridian while the rest of the party followed behind.

He left them at the city's edge rather than bringing them to the authorities, then headed back out into the woods, seemingly to keep looking for that strange pokemon. The party regrouped and fled to the northwest, well away from civilization. They hoped to establish a hideout somewhere, but while they were talking about it, they blundered into a flock of spearows and their alpha, a large fearow.

The battle only lasted two rounds, in which time Violet's electric pokemon were easily able to take out the larger bird. However, there were enough of the smaller ones to wound Tommy and Deuce, but poor Frodo found himself on entirely the wrong end of a type disadvantage. The spearows pecked him to death, and his luck had apparently run out. Frodo was gone.

Before the party could even react properly, all of the pokemon in the group suddenly stopped and looked off in the same direction. The party realized they could feel the ground shaking beneath their feet at regular intervals. The spearows took flight, and the party wisely did the same.

They ran at top speed, but the creature was gaining. They entered a large clearing and looked behind them. It seemed that the high level nidoking from the other day had finally tracked them down. Why it was so intent on ripping them apart, they still didn't know. Its eyes no longer glowed red, but purple. It fired a devastating beam of white light over their heads. It didn't hit any of them directly, but they all felt it. It also carved a nice little trail through the trees ahead of them.

Well, if the nidoking was faster than them AND had that kind of power, they would just have to kill it before it could fire again.

They started off with some debuffs and lined their remaining non-level-one pokemon up for battle, but when the nidoking got within a few feet of them, they saw that it wasn't actually about to smash them into paste. It had missed them DELIBERATELY. It held out one massive forelimb, and they saw it was clutching Frodo's battered corpse.

Violet heard a slow, deliberate voice echoing in her head...

We can make a deal.
What kind of deal?
It can be restored.
What do you need from us?
East, in a mountain of steel, humans are making an abomination. Stop them. Destroy it.

What choice did they have but to agree?

No sooner had they done so than Frodo squirmed in the nidoking's grip. She dropped to the ground and started running around in apparent panic, but calmed down momentarily. With that, the nidoking began to walk away.

They called out after it with more questions. What was the nature of this abomination? How could they destroy it? When were they expected to complete this task?

Soon.

The pokemon disappeared into the trees.

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Some notes.

If you think resurrecting someone's pokemon is cheap in this kind of campaign, wait'll you hear this! We'd all thought the bulbasaur had permadied the FIRST time it took damage this session, but because I'd houseruled the death saving throw slightly, the first (failing) roll Frank's player made was a dud. When he rerolled it, Frodo turned out not to have died after all. That's two revives in one session! What gives?! This was supposed to be a dark and gritty game!

There are exactly three ways to revive a dead pokemon in my setting, which all have their own rules and explanations for why it can happen. If it had been ANY other pokemon that had died on the spearow encounter, they would have been other luck. What makes Frodo the bulbasaur so special then? Hmmmm.

Also, there is NO way to revive a dead human.

Hmmm... The fact that Mew can learn Transform has a lot of theories bouncing around. Really enjoy reading your log, keep it up!

EDIT: Also, what dying rules are you using?

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Originally Posted by Arcran

EDIT: Also, what dying rules are you using?

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I was wondering the same thing. You can't just leave us hanging like that! :smalltongue:

I houseruled death saves so that both people and pokemon use a d20 roll with the target number based on trainer level. This means pokemon have a greater chance to pull through, but "greater" is still a relative term.

If you mean what are the three ways pokemon can be revived, I'm not telling. I didn't even tell the players THAT much, so I guess if they bother to read this log they'll get some bonus info.

Still horrifying to read. I really like it.

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Originally Posted by EspritRequin

I was wondering the same thing. You can't just leave us hanging like that! :smalltongue:

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I seem to remember finding a pdf of the rules somewhere online. It looks kinda amazing, actually. So much variety. Im gonna have to try it someday.

We had a session last night, but it was a really short one. As such, I'm going to lump the log together with the next one, as we're hoping to squeeze another session in before Christmas.

Awesome! Can't wait to read it.

We did indeed sneak in one more session this year, and I will now relate it to you.

After the strange nidoking left, the party decided they should waste no time in heading back east, for the "mountain of steel" the creature mentioned was surely the headquarters of the Silph Corporation in Saffron City, the closest thing the post-pokemon world has to a skyscraper. However, when they attempted to cross the Viridian/Pewter route on their way to the mountains, they found it heavily patrolled by Indigo trainers, including at least one scout circling on a fearow.

A few plans were concocted and discarded over the course of several minutes. The best idea they could come up with was to create a distraction by throwing a rock. Cliched, yes, but Violet could throw it with TELEKINESIS, which would surely give them an edge.

Before embarking on this foolish endeavour, Katherine noticed that they had apparently picked up a fifth wheel. A large, hairy man was crouching in the bushes behind them, listening to their whispered conversation. They asked him who he was and he said his name was Hiker. After a very awkward conversation (the man was out of practice) he invited them back to his cabin for soup. They were too hungry to argue. Plus they figured they could always sic their pokemon on him. Strangely enough, though, Hiker (or Scruffy as Dale took to calling him) didn't seem at all unnerved by the half dozen pokemon walking around with them.

At the cabin, Hiker turned out to be an illegal pokemon owner himself. He had a vulpix named Janice which he apparently trusted enough to wander about on her own. He'd looted some pokeballs from a dead trainer some time ago, then caught Janice after beating her up with his bare hands. Hiker had been living on his own in the woods for longer than most of the party had been alive, and he didn't care much for the League, though he didn't explain why.

The party decided to trust him and explained their situation, and their need to get past the trainer patrols. Hiker pointed out that pokemon had dug a tunnel under the mountains some time ago, and that the entrance was nearby. The exit was on the far side of Vermilion, which was just about perfect for their needs. The League didn't seem to know about it, which was even better. It was decided; they'd take the tunnel. Hiker would go with them, as he didn't like the idea of a bunch of kids on the run from the League by themselves.

At first all was quiet. As Hiker had promised, the tunnel seemed to have been abandoned by the local pokemon. At least, until they got a couple of miles through it, at which point they saw a light up ahead and heard something charging down the tunnel towards them. A rhyhorn, badly injured and on fire, ran past and collapsed unconscious. Two magmars emerged from the darkness ahead. The party prepared for a fight/retreat, but rather than attacking the magmars simply stepped aside and let them past. Nobody knew what to make of this, but they weren't about to question their continued good luck. They hurried past (though Chaos stayed behind and "talked" to the magmars briefly), and by midnight they had reached the other end of the tunnel.

The party set up a watch while they rested before heading north to Saffron. During the second shift, however, Violet found hersolf dozing off.

Come morning, Dale gave Violet hell for falling asleep on watch. Violet tried to defend herself by saying that nothing bad had happened (except that a wild bulbasaur had chewed on the tail of the party's new baby slowpoke, which recently hatched; Hiker ended up getting it since he, too, was ridiculously slow due to a knee injury). The party soon noticed, however, that Katherine was missing.

Dale has his meowth follow her scent, which led east. They found her discarded pokeballs, but after some time the meowth refused to go any further. In fact, all of their pokemon were clearly afraid of something. The meowth even went so far as to try and overload its pokeball and escape, though the attempt failed. In fact, only Tessie the magnemite (being totally obedient to its trainer) and their first pokemon (which had been around them long enough to develop a lot of trust) were willing to go on. The group was worried, but Katherine had saved most of them with her medical knowledge at least once. There was nothing for it but to keep going. They returned most of their pokemon to their balls and left Chaos waiting under at tree.

(This was where the first session ended. It looks like a lot when typed out, but it was really only a short session interupted by way too much screwing around.)

After heading east for some time along an overgrown former route, the party reached the abandoned Lavender Town. Many years ago, early in the days of the Indigo League, a massive radio tower had been built there in an attempt to counter the strange failure of all long-range radio signals which coincided with the arrival of pokemon on Earth. However, after only about a day of broadcasting, all communications with the town were lost. The official League explanation was that the tower's energy needs were too high, and so it and the entire town were abandoned.

The party had seen way too much to believe that for a second, of course.

The entire town was obscured by dark fog, and a sheet of black clouds blotted out the sun. No plants were growing in the area, which meant that most of the buildings were intact rather than town apart by trees. There also seemed to be no pokemon or animals about. All was silent and still except for the occasional breeze blowing the dust about.

Hiker's vulpix was able to follow Katherine's trail, which deep into the centre of the town. On their way, the party noticed a pokemon centre. These buildings are the League's connection the public. They offer medical services and temporary shelter to victims of pokemon attacks in addition to services and supplies for trainers. Reasoning that there might still be some pokeballs or other useful things inside, the party decided to check it out quickly.

The building was largely whole except for a few cracks in the ceiling and a thick layer of dust and cobwebs. They quickly scooped up any medication they could find that wasn't expired and that they knew wouldn't kill them, as well as some bandages and clothing. The centre had clearly been abandoned in haste.

After a few minutes, Frank noticed a faint, ominpresent static hiss inside the building. Occasionally he thought he could hear snatches of words or music. Thinking it might be the PA system, they started fiddling about with the computers at the front desk. They weren't receiving power, however. Violet had her pikachu try to power them up, but they got the wiring wrong and the attempt failed. They decided not to try it again lest they break the machines and tire out their pokemon.

They also found a portable radio whose batteries seemed to still have a charge. Turning it on, however, they couldn't seem to pick up a proper signal, and all they got was a loud mix of various broadcasts, Bizarrely, they all seemed to be for sporting events; there had been no organized sports broadcasts in made in over fifty years.

Seconds after turning the radio on, the building seemed to quiver and dust rained down from the ceiling. They quickly turned the machine off.

In the back, they found several useful items after ripping open some drawers with Frodo's vines. They found some pokeballs, some antidote (which only worked on pokemon, unfortunately), and some "potions"; small portable batteries which could be plugged into a pokeball to restore energy to the pokemon inside. All seemed to be in working order, but unfortunately the centre's main pokemon restoration device was out of power. They left the building.

They continued to follow Katherine's trail, but they noticed that the static hiss could now be heard outside as well. Before they could even being to guess what that meant, they saw Katherine up ahead, sitting on a park bench. She was staring blankly ahead and stroking her hair. She seemed to be singing, but the sound she made included instrumental accompaniment...

Katherine didn't respond to Dale and Frank asking her what she was doing here. When Violet tried to help her to her feet, the music stopped and she fell limply to the ground. Before they could pick her up, she shot off across the ground as if being dragged. Dale gave chase, but despite being the fastest runner in the party, he couldn't keep up. They'd lost her, and what's worse, the static noise around them was now louder and more erratic.

While wandering the streets and trying to come up with a plan, they noticed something strange. A small house nearby had been covered entirely in copper plating, even the door and windows. As this seemed a recent addition, they decided to check it out. After nobody answered their knocking, Hiker shouldered the door open. They were immediately greeted by the blinding glare of two industrial flashlights and a raspy voice shrieking at them; "Close the door!" They did so, and the ominpresent static ceased.

A disheveled, white-haired man was pointing a revolver and a blowtorch at them from behind a desk. After closing the door, they made repeated attempts to calm him down, but only seemed able to escalate the situation. Eventually the man released a voltorb from a pokeball and threatened to blow them all to pieces (including himself). Hiker, being intimately familiar with going crazy from isolation, was finally able to confuse and distract the man enough to render him less of an immediate threat.

They gathered that the man wasn't with the League; in fact, he was very much against them, and initiatlly suspicious that the party themselves might be League officials come looking for them. Rather than push that topic, the party tried to get information on just what was going on in Lavender. The man revealed that in building the "Tower of Babel", the League had brought down God's wrath. Instead of leading to heaven, the tower now served as a gateway to hell. He that he and some accomplices had attempted to take the tower back, but were stopped by "the devil" himself, a terrible skull-faced monstrosity. The man claimed to be the only survivor.

As the man was clearly more than a little insane, they waited until he apparently forgot they were there while banging away on an old typewriter. They snuck out the door, but not before snatching up his flashlights (he had a third which bore the Silph logo, oddly enough) and blowtorch, which they thought might come in handy. They reasoned that he wouldn't try to get them back, as he didn't seem to have left his little shack in years.

After some more wandering, they finally came across the old radio tower. The building was in good condition, except that the tower was bent to one side (due to a heavy impact, they guessed). It was also surrounded by corpses, . All showed signs of severe blunt trauma, and most were armed with pokeballs (broken, but salvageable). Those farthest from the door also had guns, but none of the weapons still worked (or had ammo). The men seemed to have died while trying to get through the broadcasting station's front door. Or perhaps while trying to escape. None of them wore League uniforms.

Hiker noticed movement inside. A small pokemon was peering out of the doorway; a cubone. They puzzled over the description their pokedexes gave them; an orphan pokemon first created when another pokemon species lost its mother at an early age. It used the mother's bones for both armour and weapons. Hiker decided that he wanted to catch it, so the party went inside. Once again, the static hiss stopped.

There were more corpses (and parts of corpses) inside. Violet turned on her flashlight to get a better look at things, but the Silph-labeled light emitted a dark purple beam rather than a bright white one. It also revealed glowing splatters across the walls and floors. They didn't know what the strange light's purpose was, but they could see by it and so didn't bother to turn it off.

The cubone fled up to the roof, and the party followed. Violet stepped forward to get a better look at the pokemon as it huddled behind one of the tower's legs, but the beam of her Silph flashlight reveal something alarming. Surrounding the tower were... faces. Angry faces, which could only be seen when the black light shone on them. Realizing they could be seen, the faces would emit a high-pitched tone and fly away, but the party was able to identify them as gastly, a ghost pokemon.

They quickly fled back inside, as the gastly appeared unwilling to enter the building. Looking for a reason why, the party headed downstairs, where they found the recording and broadcasting studio. There were bodies down here, but they were older, and had seemingly died instantly rather than by violence. There were no splatters except for in the far corner. They stepped forward to get a closer look.

Huddled in the corner was a partial pokemon skeleton, a squat humanoid creature. It was missing a femur and its skull, with only its jaw still resting nearby. Many of its bones were broken, and some still had embedded bullets. The ground beneath the skeleton was absolutely littered with them. The creature had apparently killed dozens of armed men while under heavy fire, then only died hours later after dragging itself here.

Suddenly they heard a wail from the stairwell. The cubone had followed them, and was shrieking at the top of its lungs. The room grew darker, and the static returned. Somehow, it sounded angry. Violet's flashlight revealed a massive semitransparent marowak rising out of the floor.

In a panic the party attacked. If the thing had a visible form, it could be damaged, they reasoned. Apparently their pokemon agreed, as they were now willing to fight again after hours of slinking along uselessly behind them. The marowak for some reason gave them the chance to strike first, but it wasn't nearly enough to take the powerful spectre down. In its first attack it shattered Tessie to pieces, and the party was only able to win by slowly wearing it down with a constant barrage of energy attacks. Finally, the creature collapsed. But it didn't disappear as they hoped it would; it just lay there. The cubone sobbed in the corner.

Hiker decided this was his chance. He had his vulpix attack the creature, then caught it once it was weakened. This proved to be a bad idea.

The marowak turned its eyeless gaze on Hiker, and uttered a low rumbling noise from its distended mouth. The party fled before it could do anything other than scare the hell out of them.

Outside, they found the static greatly subdued. Janice was able to keep her head and follow Katherine's trail again. They soon found her, floating slowly along with her feet dragging. Violet and Hiker grabbed her and Frank shone the Silph light on her, which sure enough revealed a gastly engulfing her. The light chased it out of her body, causing her to instantly go limp. The party steeled themselves for another battle...

...but Dale threw a pokeball and caught it instantly.

Katherine immediately regained consciousness and began sobbing the name "Evan" over and over and over.

The group hurried away from Lavender, heading northwest towards Saffron, as they'd already lost a lot of time. Only as night fell did they remember they'd left Chaos behind on the abandoned route. They hoped he would still be waiting for them come morning.

Spoiler

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THIS IS WHAT POKEMON HAS BECOME IN MY HANDS. WEEP FOR YOUR DESPOILED CHILDHOOD.

This is awesomeness. Nightmare fuel Lavender Town. Too bad you're just sticking to the original games; Litwick's family would make this even scarrier.

Chaos was the Charmander, right? Was the player absent or something?

Chaos was a temporary player character. His player is now Hiker. While playing as a pokemon SOUNDS cool, and SEEMS like it would improve your survivability, what it really means is that you're all alone when the rest of the players are three or four people each. Pokemon can die pretty easily, as demonstrated by the magnemite getting nailed by a powerful ground type attack.

Anyway, Chaos is now an NPC ally, but we'll see what becomes of him now that he's been left on his own.

Sorry to necropost; this IS still ongoing, it's just a CRAZY long time between sessions. As such, I am continuing it on my own forum so as not to (further) break the rules of this one :smallsmile: