Champions of Order and Chaos
Co-GM(s) – None
The Story
What if one day you woke up and you were a Pokémon? You awaken in a strange new world with new memory of who you are, where you are, or how you got here. All you really know for sure is your name, that you were once human, and that you now inhabit the body of a Pokémon. You do not know it yet, but you are to become one of a handful of champions summoned to this world by the Great Seer. As the Greet Seer will tell you, there is an empire deep below the surface that has uncovered the device that caused the Great Cataclysm ten thousand years ago. The emperor and his generals intend to activate this device and use it to take over the surface world! However, something is missing, something that is stopping them from following through with this plan. Thus, your goal will be to recover both the device and the mysterious key to activating it so that the Great Seer might find a way to harness its power to reverse the effects of the Great Cataclysm, ending a ten thousand year era of darkness!
As the player, you will be part of a fantasy adventure game with the added twist of playing as a Pokémon! You will have the traditional tabletop experience, but instead of knights and mages fighting dragons, you will be Charmander or Pikachu fighting Kyogre, God of the Sea. I am looking for a medium-sized cast of dedicated players who are interested in both group adventures and solo adventures that revolve around fighting legendary Pokémon, uncovering lost treasures, and of course, saving the world! I am especially keen on accepting players with experience with casual and high-casual games that are willing to see this game through as long as they are able. If interested, please read through the rules and fill out the character sheet below! Thanks for reading!
The Great Cataclysm that occurred ten thousand years ago caused the planet to stop spinning. Subsequently, half of the world burned, and the other half froze. Meanwhile, the oceans of the world were pulled to the North Pole and South Pole, creating one large ocean at the top of the world and another at the bottom of the world. By extension, there exists one large super-continent at Earth’s equator, similar to a large rubber band wrapped around the planet’s center. The inhabitants of the world refer to the half of the world that faces the sun as the Inferno Desert and the half of the world that faces away from the sun as the Eternal Tundra. Likewise, the ocean at the North Pole is known as the Northern Ocean, and the Ocean at the South Pole is known as the Southern Ocean. Then, two habitable zones between the Inferno Desert and the Eternal Tundra are known as the Eastern Dawn and Western Dusk.
Scholars think that the Great Cataclysm was a tidal locking event where the planet’s rotation became equal to the time it takes to revolve around the sun, and thus, one side of the planet always faces the sun and the other side always faces away, the same way that there are a near-side and far-side of the moon. In addition to the elimination of the day-night cycle caused by one side always facing the sun, the cycle of the seasons has also ended, probably because of an unknown shift in the planet’s positioning within the solar system.
We will use a system that is a combination between traditional casual games and tabletop games. For the most part, you will be free to determine your course of action and how you interact with the world around you. However, when you are adventuring or interacting with important NPCs, you will attempt your actions and then the GM will roll to see what happens. Likewise, when battling PCs and important NPCs, the GM will determine whether or not your attacks land and what kind of damage is done. The character sheet uses a barebones version of a system called Fate Accelerated (FAE) which will ask you to fill out various attributes about your character that may impact his or her chance at success at certain tasks. Overall, I am attempting a combination of freestyle play and dice, not enough to classify this as a tabletop game but still enough to allow for a more fair and balanced game where your characters do not always succeed at what he or she does.
Simply state what move you are using and describe yourself attempting to use that move. Then the GM will perform a dice check. If your move is an offensive move, it can hit, miss, become a critical hit, or become a critical failure. Another dice check will be performed if your move hits and has a chance of causing a status condition or lowering either your or your opponent’s stats in some way. The GM will state what happens, specifying how one or both parties are affected by the attack. If your move is not an offensive move, e.g. stat boosting, then the GM will simply stat the effects of your move on you, your opponent, or both. After this, it will be your opponent’s turn, in which case, he or she attempts to use a move the same way you did.
You and your opponent will go back and forth until one or both parties are defeated.
The GM will determine post order at the start of the battle. Generally, Pokémon of higher level with more points in the "Quick" approach will go before those of lower level and fewer points in the "Quick" approach. If one of the participants chooses to use a priority move, e.g. Quick Attack, then he or she needs to make this known prior to the start of the turn, either by reserving a post in the IC thread, stating that he or she intends to use a priority move, or by posting in the OOC thread that one is using a priority move. If both participants choose to use priority moves, then the participant with a move of the highest priority goes first. If both moves have the same priority, then traditional post order is maintained.
In general, it's advised that you communicate with both your fellow players and the GMs so that post order is maintained.
If you choose to not use one of your one to four moves, you may use a generic Normal-type move similar to Tackle. You may choose what kind of generic attack you perform. You may choose to bite, scratch, punch, kick, or otherwise hit the opponent through any available means. At some point in the game, you may acquire various toss items such as Graveler Rocks or Cacnea Spikes act as long-range generic attacks.
Below is a simplified example of how combat works:
(Again, this is simplified. Posts should generally be a couple paragraphs in length, as per this section's standards.)
Here is another example with two teams:
Rules
- Please use complete sentences and proper grammar.
- Even in your CS and in the OOC, please write complete thoughts.
- Please be courteous to the GM and your fellow players.
- Please inform us if you need to take a leave of absence.
- If you need to drop out for any reason, please let us know.
- Have fun! You're doing this as a leisure activity, after all!
The character sheet is based on a game called Fate Accelerated and focuses on outlining your character’s personality and quirks. Once you decide on your name, gender, and species, as well as list your species-specific abilities, you will be prompted to come up with a concept, which is somewhat similar to a class and then a trouble, which is a predetermined quirk that you have. Then, you will distribute points to your approaches, or how you typically deal with situations. Finally, you will put together a single sentence stating your level and what moves you presently know, which may be found on your species’ Bulbapedia page. To make things easy, I have provided an example sheet beneath the template.
It should go without saying that your concept, trouble, and approaches should all make sense together. For instance, if your concept is “Lazy Genius” then your trouble shouldn’t be “Highly Unintelligent”. It would likewise make sense for you to have the most points in “Clever” if you are a “Lazy Genius” and few, if any, if you are “Highly Unintelligent”. If you have any issues with this or any questions regarding what makes sense or what doesn’t, please feel free to ask.
Here is a link to Bulbapedia. Simply search for species' name for information regarding its abilities and moves.
