#Pokédungeon

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

We’ve been getting sign ups for the 2 upcoming playtests but we could use more people still! If anyone is interested please check out the Discord and look for the sign up links!

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

Charsheet Sunday the 9th

This week in Pokedungeon, I'd like to take a look at the Town.

During each adventuring day, players can interact with the facilities of Floros Town, in which the guild resides. These facilities have both narrative and mechanical function; for instance, the Dojo allows players to learn and remember moves, the Hypnotist allows players to reallocate their stat points as well as talk through mental issues, and the Boutique allows players to make cosmetic changes as well as purchase clothing accessories.

There's more, including Klefki's Treasure Box popper, Mismagius' Cauldron, and the Guild itself, but tumblr polls don't let you make that many options.

Below the cut: Wobbles the Wobbuffet and his opinions on the town.

Any explorer of the Guild is expected to be familiar with all of the town's facilities, of course. Food, entertainment, and the various goods to buy and sell are all important. But if Wobbles had to choose one, he'd say he likes going to the Dojo best.

Usually as the punching bag.

-Mod Nines

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

Big announcement time!

A lot has happened and even more is about to so I’m here to catch everyone up and announce something new!

To start: Over a month ago I held the first play test in the server with Nines, Slime, Chime, and Talai. It went really well! So here’s a rough overview of what happened:

Team Twoshot was tasked with finding a missing Volbeat and disabling a minor dungeon, named the Symphonic Glen, which used to be a stage for Pokémon to share their music with each other. Loudred, with his posse of 4 Whismur, took over the stage and pokénapped the Volbeat to use as a personal spotlight with her Tailglow, which gave him a +3 to Insight making his Echoed Voice even more dangerous. Plus each Whismur had a specialty punch move; Ice, Fire, Thunder, and Mega punch. It was a tough fight but Team Twoshot managed to bring the crew down and save the Volbeat, reuniting her with her lovely partner Illumise.

Nines played Heathcliff, a scarred male Gyarados with a purple scarf, well-worn but also well-cared for. Very much willing to let loose, but surprisingly careful about his allies. Particularly the ladies.

Talai played Slasher, a female Sneasel with some piercings. She has a rough exterior and personality who secretly has a soft side.

Slime played Demeter, a somewhat dainty and matronly Roserade with a penchant for drinking tea, and a distaste for unnecessary fighting. Has unique colored roses, one red and the other purple.

Chime played Tealight, a small but fearless Litwick. He's friendly if a bit creepy, and prone to jumping straight into battle for his teammates. Totally consumed with inflicting status effects.

We found a lot of things that needed clarification thanks to the playtest, such as:

Travel Points now allow you to move up to 2 tiles per point.

Which kinds of effects still apply on partial hits, most notably Lifedrain.

Fainting has been entirely reworked, which will be addressed at a later time.

General Movement, such as you can't move diagonally through 2 hostile Pokémon.

Lots of changes to Roleplay Actions, including a new feature called the Stamina Bar.

And a lot more that we've been working on!

In other news, we've finished our Explorers of Sky playthrough and have started Gates to Infinity! Team Soy Bois, led by Boi the Riolu and Wattson the Shinx, managed to save the world (with a single punch!) and now it's time for a team; Team Gorls, staring Fraisey the Axew and Brittany B the Snivy. I've actually never played Gates (no spoilers if you join us!) so I'm excited to see what happens. We stream most every Saturday at 6pm est and we voice the characters! Anyone is welcome to join and, if you're interested, you'll have a chance to voice a character too!

Another event that is just starting is Talai's Friendlocke! We will be playing through Pokémon Insurgent as a nuzlocke where each person participating roleplays as a member of the team, choosing moves in battle and strategizing together. Can these mons parent their kidnapped orphan trainer? Join us and find out!

So, what's next? Well, simply put, more playtests! There's still a lot of mechanics that need tested before this project is finished. This time, however, I will be taking a backseat. Instead, my co-creators Nines and Slime will be DMing, each testing different parameters with very different dungeon layouts, difficulties, and more. I will still be involved, just this time I will be observing the sessions and taking notes on anything that needs worked on. Below are brief descriptions of each DMs planned playtest:

Nines' Playtest:

The Coral Cape stars a ragtag group recruited by the Cutthroats, a roving pirate band. You're tasked with scouting out the titular dungeon, reporting back with any objects of interest, and - most importantly - looting anything you can get your hands on!

This playtest places low-level characters against a variety of situations,  primarily combat as well as some social scenarios.

Slime's Playtest:

Deep within the Iron-Soul Mausoleum, something has stirred, causing Steel, Rock, and Ground type Pokémon to become rowdy and dangerous. Several Explorer teams have ventured into the ancient crumbling ruin, but none have successfully cracked the puzzle and made their way into the central chamber.

This Playtest is testing the upper levels of character creation, dungeon based weather effects, as well as the maximum size of Dungeon layout.

Once the Alpha playtests are over we will be going over the entire system and reworking/finalizing as much as we can before the next stage; Beta test Oneshots. There will be a series of oneshots with the goal of giving as many players a chance to play as possible. If you are interested in being a part of the two alpha playtests or the upcoming beta oneshots please check out the Discord server.

And that's all for now! I will do my best to keep everyone posted but if you have any questions feel free to drop them in the comments and we will do our best to answer them. Thank you all for being a part of this project and for being patient while we figure out the next steps; your support truly means a great deal to me!

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

Charsheet Sunday 14!

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

A little progress update (I'm sorry I've been MIA, life has been a lot).

To start: We are hopefully wrapping up Alpha testing of the Pokédungeon soon. The last group has been taking a bit longer than the first two groups did but fortunately it was somewhat expected! The DM running it wanted to push to see how big he could go with the Dungeon layout and we can say with certainty it was way too big. At least for a normal dungeon; it would probably be fine for late game, final dungeon, or for special dungeons. But so far its lasted 3 sessions, all between 3-6 hours long, and they have covered a bit more than half the dungeon. So safe to say that's way too big for basic dungeon crawling.

Once they've finished up, the creators will be knuckling down and reworking the system to as close to finished as we can. We have already reworked the Character sheet, how attack rolls work, a number of mechanics like RP Actions, a bunch of items, and a lot of bugs that we discovered from the alpha play tests (not to worry, no Bug types were harmed in the process).

After we finish reworking the system, we will hopefully be moving into Beta play tests. The goal will to be to run a bunch of single session dungeons, with as many different people as we can get. This will be to both stress test the system and to give as many people as we can (and are interested in it) a chance to try the system out. It won't be for a while, and I know I say this a lot, but if you're interested in trying the system out check out our Discord. Its pretty small but its a good community and I'm proud of how its developing.

And that's about all! There's a few secret side projects a few of us are working on as well but those won't be released for a while. Thank you all for following and showing interest in this project, it truly means a lot to me.

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

Charsheet Sunday 15

I was supposed to present the updated charsheet today but i forgor

Have a silly question instead

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

Progress Update!

I know it’s been a while since I posted an update on here so here’s just a big update dump!

Last time I really talked on here, I was about to run a few beta test sessions. Which did happen but too much happened during the two sessions and I ultimately had to cancel the rest. Which was a bummer but its ok! I got a lot of good data on what did and did not work. So I took a few weeks as a break and got back to work. Most of said work has been reworking the Move dex to be clearer and more consistent. Which brings me to…

The Move Dex is now at version 6!

@bdigfreakingwooper and I, as well as a few others from the discord server, have gone through the entire move dex (again) and its hopefully in the last stages of development! Combat still needs overhauled somewhat so the move dex might need to be updated again afterwards but other than that, I don’t foresee any other big issues so I’m happy with where its at.

It now includes all moves (excluding z-moves & dynamax/ gigantamax moves), a few custom moves (still being added to), Key words, and move range descriptions/examples. I will be posting it here in the near future, once combat has been reworked and a few more custom moves have been added. Here’s a few notable moves that I just want to show off:

I’m sure parts of this won’t make much sense yet so if there’s anything you’re curious about, let me know!

Current Focus

What we’re currently working on is creating an Ability dex, with every ability being adapted to this system. We’ve started work on it and it hopefully won’t take nearly as long as the Move dex to finish (or finished enough). Other than a few annoying ones (looking at Transform) its not too bad! My personal favorite so far is Ball Fetch, the signature ability of Yamper, which in this system has a D6 Chance to regain an Orb after a party member uses it, if User has free pouch slot. Just the thought of little Yamper running to retrieve Orbs is so cute I couldn’t help myself lol.

As for what comes after the Ability dex, I have an ever growing To-Do list that’s slowly being worked through, starting with overhauling the combat system. Then there’s going through all the status effects, weather, terrain, items, Dojo effects, and a bunch of other stuff. Once that’s done I’ll be going back to working on the Player’s Guide, which will be a simple introductory guide to the system, character creation, and a few other important things. After that? No clue. We’ll see what happens!

Other Stuff

The server has reached over 30 members! Its been an absolute blast to hang out in with everyone. I definitely wouldn’t have gotten as much work as I have without those in the server, most notably Nines (@bdigfreakingwooper) who is now the Co-Creator of PDM! She has done a lot work independently as well, like creating a version of the character sheet that automatically fills in stuff like move information and a treasure bag sheet that does the same with items! Its absolutely insane, biggest thanks to her for being here through so much of the development.

Also about the server, I’ve been streaming a playthrough of Explorers of Sky, following the adventures of Team Soy Bois, and it’s been a huge blast. A few of us have even been doing voices for all the characters and some others enjoy just joining muted and chiming in using the text chat. We also have been doing movie nights, going through all the Pokémon movies, which has been on hiatus but will be starting back up next week! Its overall a very chill place and I would encourage anyone following the blog to consider checking it out!

As always, I appreciate the support and interactions from everyone and I will try my best to update more regularly! If you have any questions or comments or anything, my asks and DMs are open!

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

Charsheet Sunday 10

Have class today, going to make this one quick.

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

Charsheet Sunday 19!

We've still got open slots for the two upcoming playtests! If you're interested in playing the system, join our discord and sign up!

Anyways. Question of the week.

It always felt weird to me that Ghost was physical and Dark was special before the gen 4 split. Especially since they made 90% of the ghosts special attackers and 90% of the dark-types physical attackers. Like, Game Freak seriously didn't figure that one out?

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

Charsheet Sunday 8!

Question of the day

(inspired by this chart for Limbus Company characters)

Today's example character: Aaron Bastardwing the Staraptor!

A straightforward brawler who uses speed to blitz through opponents before they can even react. In his younger years, he ran away from a catastrophe that took his family from him. He's dedicated himself to ensuring that neither he nor anyone else will ever need to run away again.

Aaron scores highly on Wrath, as directly attacking enemies is his modus operandi. Next are Sloth (representing his past inaction), Pride (represent his willingness to sacrifice himself for his cause), and Gloom (representing his regrets for his past). Notably low scores in Lust, Gluttony, and Greed - he's asexual, leads an ascetic lifestyle, and while he won't shy away from using available resources, he's not motivated by luxuries.

Buildwise, Aaron's pretty straightforward - he enhances his party's speed with Tailwind and hits things hard with STAB Reckless Double-Edge/Brave Bird.

There's been some notable buffs to the Charsheet, though - integrated access to the customization rules for players, including tutor moves, learnsets, and Dojo Effects. You can see them in action here, with Warp to further play up Aaron's ability to outmaneuver anything he wants to hit.

Also integrated in the charsheet: Current status, movement abilities, travel/action points per turn, items, and more.

Playtest 2 is coming up soon, and I for one cannot wait to see this project come to fruition.

Mod Nines

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

Charsheet Sunday 18!

Fairy only existed after the physical/special split but you can't tell me it wouldn't have been a special type.

[pokemon-dungeon-masters]

One Shot Time!

I am nearly ready to run the One Shot and I am in need of players!

This will be a single session. I'm not sure how long it will take to complete but I would say to expect at least an hour+.

The session will include:

A single Dungeon that is 10 floors and a Boss fight at the end

Very little RPing

Discussion over the system/mechanics

If you are interested, please join the Discord and look in the #Announcements channel for the sign up form!