Its something I've been pondering for quite a while. And yes, I have like 3 or 4 different conworlds I'm working on simultaneously, which as you can imagine is kinda annoying, but I just can't stop myself.

Any way, back on topic. I like the concept behind the pokemon games. When you really look at the mechanics, its actually a very in-depth strategy game. I love that aspect of it, but I just can't get over the childishness of it, or the obviously nonsensical society depicted in the franchise.

My main goal was to try and make a similar game, but one with a world that made more sense. I was initially going for a fantasy theme, rather than the science-fictiony theme the franchise normally has. In my world, the 'poke-balls' (or their equivalent, to be more accurate) are actually magical artifacts from a long dead civilization, thus why the people of the world have access to these highly advanced devices that they themselves obviously can't make. They dig these things up in ruins and they've also recently started mining for them since well they have kinda cleared out the ruins of this civilization. They don't how the things work or why, but they do speculate that they may have been once used in some kind of tournament system, thus why they're bound to strange rules which make no coherent sense (such as being limited to holding 6 monsters at once). Note in my world, I was thinking they would only need one of these devices to hold all their monsters, rather than storing each monster in one device (well, I actually envision them as looking like round crystal balls, they don't actually open or do anything mechanical, but I kinda like to see those as a place-holder for the time being).

As for why people go out into the wilderness to capture giant obviously dangerous monsters? That was actually a lot easier, and somewhat justifies what they do, though it makes the world pretty dark as a consequence. Basically they use these things as weapons to protect their society from these same monsters. Some will attack towns and eat people and such. And besides, they also make handy weapons in warfare between nations too. In my world, trainers don't participate in some national tournament, they're more like adventurers who travel around aiding whoever they can. I also thought about making it so that only a minority of individuals can actually use these crystals they use to summon these monsters, to explain why not everyone is a trainer, and thus why anyone would bother to hire a trainer to do something for them.

I actually don't think I like the way this is, but I really can't think of any other way to make a game world like pokemon that actually makes sense, and doesn't make the trainers look like villains who are completely unphased by their own abusive and obviously morally questionable behavior.

What are your thoughts on this? I'm pretty certain that a game like this could work as a tabletop game (I mean, there is one in existence, obviously not official, but it works). I would really love for it to work, but I'm struggling with it constantly. With my other conworlds, I'm normally more focused on the cultures and history of the world. This one however, I don't know. I do like how I'm not focusing almost entirely on the religion of the world (a bad habit I have with my fantasy setting, I could write a book about their gods and everything, but I couldn't even fill up a page about the mortal inhabitants of the world).

And I don't know where to post this odd question. I guess this section is the best fit. Anyway, what are your thoughts? How would you make a world like this work?