#i basically always wanna hear about peoples pokemon ocs though ptu or not

[lunchboxart]

how easy/fun is PTU to run or play just using the rules as written because i skipped a bunch of steps and i'm actively ignoring at least half the rules to make my pokemon mystery dungeon campaign work (with roll20 doing the-majority-to-all of the math) and I feel the core rules are a lot to think about, to say the least. Controlling multiple pokemon as well as a trainer with like 30 edges and feats, and damage in combat being based on flat addition/subtraction. I guess what i'm asking is, do you think it's a fun and worthwhile game for players who usually play (and feel comfortable with) dnd 5e?

I honestly don't blame you for skipping a bunch of the rules. I think Pokemon Tabletop Adventures 3 is supposed to be a little more suited to playing a mystery dungeons type game but I have never looked into that module. PTU should be workable for it though probably? Anyway, though to start answering your question, with how popular dnd 5e is, people tend to forget that it is a pretty rules heavy and fairly difficult game to get into especially if you're trying to figure it out on your own. Unlike dnd though PTU is nearly impossible to do the maths by yourself you like absolutely have to have something on roll20 set up to make the game tolerable. As cool of a concept a pokemon TTRPG is there is a reason why the official pokemon tabletop game is a card game because you're right! It is fairly difficult to keep track of with the fact that you do essentially have 7+ characters to keep track of as a player, you are absolutely expected to multiclass as a trainer at least 2 or 3 times and pokemon have a lot more stuff going on with them than the official video games do with how they also get tabletop abilities to utilize (although a lot of stuff they get are based on the video games?). As a GM, you multiply 7+ with how many PCs there are to keep track of. For NPCs you usually don't have to ever fully stat out them as a PC would be and with that you can get away with making some stuff up as with any TTRPG.

Long story short, as much fun as I'm having playing with my friends (and I can't wait to draw out more in depth things to share here) I actually wouldn't exactly reccommend playing PTU? The creators of the game sort of don't like their own game anymore either, which is why they are overhauling it to create a new game that they've been developing for quite some time called Pokemon Odyssey (PMO). I can't say anything about PMO or PTA, but as for PTU if you're willing to put in the work for it you can do things like be a trainer that rides a charizard into battle weilding an Aegislash, as well as give a farfetch'd a gun soooo you gotta weigh the pros and cons on that haha.

There is a discord for all of these games too and I think if you don't have discord there are some forums on their website.