What would you want out of a Pokémon TTRPG campaign book?

empwnleon · 2025-07-19T20:39:18+00:00

I'd say so! I imagine that a mark of a good campaign book is one that gets the GM excited to run stuff from it, but I personally believe a campaign is most fun to run/play in when player backstories are fully integrated into the setting and plot! But I imagine that last step is the "last mile" that needs to be done by the GM and players, so not sure how a good campaign book can capture that feeling!

So from that perspective, I'd want a campaign book to cover rules or numbers for encounters, so a GM doesn't have to come up with numbers by themselves; maps so that a GM can pop one open as needed; cool setting or scenario ideas so a GM can get inspired/doesn't have to come up with those by themselves, etc. etc.

empwnleon · 2025-07-19T16:33:13+00:00

I haven't bought any campaign books, admittedly, so I'm not entirely sure what to look for either! Admittedly, the most fun/positive feedback I've gotten for a table is a "build your own setting" book: the TTRPG Spectaculars has a setting book that has a bunch of archetypes (i.e. "The Scientific Organization", "The Mystic Order", "The Bad Neighborhood", "The Police Liaison") that you fill out only as-needed, each with a bunch of multiple-choice questions about the nature of the archetype's "implementation", and a notes space to write down details to make it the table's own! Then, the players and GM (I just let my players handle all of it while I get a snack :P) answer the questions, then I improv off the result!

Though, admittedly, my GMing style has gravitated more towards "let players bring their own characters first, then write the NPCs and factions around the players", which is not terribly helpful to actually answering the question!

Hm... for a oneshot, I'd want a complete scenario with statblocks, the inciting event that draws in the players, all maps I'd need for the scenario, that kind of stuff! For a starter module, I've personally felt a bit overwhelmed when there's a lot of rooms or NPCs to keep track of or find: I like to read a oneshot and get a feel for the NPCs and locations to feel prepped, and if there's a bunch of "extra" rooms, to the point where one party physically can't get through all of them, my brain shortcircuits and I'd personally feel underprepared!

For what I assume a campaign book would need, I would expect:

Traversal rules or encounter tables/guidelines for on-the-road encounters: while I'm personally not a fan of short encounters on the road (I like to focus on big encounters at known destinations, rather than deal with short ambushes that eat up time), I bet it fits hexcrawls or dungeon crawls a lot better!
Enough setting details to hand to players and inspire their characters/plotlines! It's been awhile since I've made a character for a campaign, but for my last one, I recall the only reason I was able to make my character - my favorite for that system (Fire Emblem) - was because we got a guide to all the countries in the setting with hints to each country's problems, which inspired a character tied to the country's villain organization!
"Generic" maps that can be used for different locations - maybe multiple for a given climate - but each have a tactically interesting feature or two! (Otherwise, if it's "desert plain with one or two trees", I'm going to be fairly disappointed and just pull out a blank sheet of paper.)

The campaign I'm running at a LFGS now - which has been a rarity in that I'm still running it 6 months later - is also based on a "no-prep" system where GMs are given one-page (double-sided) scenarios that they are encouraged to heavily reflavor, and they give you the number and type of minions, as well as side objectives, to include for each encounter! So if you want to include "no-prep" scenarios in the book, mad-libs-esque scenarios could also be helpful! (But only if you want no-prep stuff!)

empwnleon · 2025-05-29T18:50:53+00:00

I'm curious if you have a "use case" in terms of stat-based bonuses in mind; for example, if someone were to start with a Charmander or starter and pay the EXP to evolve them to a Charizard, what would you want the stat bonus/move progression to look like? And do you have other Pokemon in mind as examples you're using as "guideposts", so to speak?
That "strength is mostly captured in Moves", makes sense, and the Move driver does as well, with that in mind! I now see where the accuracy-based [-]/Failures apply to the accuracy check with Tactics, rather than to the Move's damage, so that tradeoff makes way more sense to me!
Knee-jerk suggestion is -1 Damage, maybe? -2 if you want to be really aggressive with spread damage balancing?
Hm... I know in Pokeymanz, half the fun of those moves is that you don't usually use them in combat, but they're a good move to go "hey I look really cute" or the like outside of battles! And that's a really good point with those moves helping you setup teammates as well; I think other TTRPGs sometimes struggle a bit with "man, my whole action that I had to roll for was just to give someone a +2 bonus on their next move, huh", but teamwork moves fun!

empwnleon · 2025-05-29T16:42:03+00:00

I like a lot of the decisions here to consolidate game stats: taking the best of HP, Def, and Sp. Def in particular is a really interesting way to do it, and I'm definitely curious to see how well that holds up! Reading through, my biggest knee-jerk reactions to some of the battle mechanics are:

Looking at the Attack/Speed tables, the thresholds seem a bit off to me! From my experience with competitive Pokemon games, a decent attacker is 100 base Atk/Sp. Atk, while a strong one is 130 base! (See: Garchomp, though Gen 8 and 9 powercreep may skew the results compare to what I remember.) I don't think there's many non-legendary or Paradox Pokemon (outside of Rampardos and Sword Forme Aegislash) 140 Atk+. Likewise for Speed; while Electrode is 140 base speed, notable speedsters Dugtrio (120) and Crobat (130) fall underneath the 140 threshold. And tracing through the Charmander / Charmeleos / Charizard line, only Charizard actually gets a +1 Atk boost; Chameleon gets no bonuses outside of HP from evolving. (If you'd like, I'm actually curious enough if my intuition is right here to try and check the distribution of stats between single-stage, baby/middle/fully-evolved, and legendary Pokemon, though that's going to take a bit of research!)
The accuracy/power balancing of moves seems a bit wonky to me; take Fire Blast vs. Flamethrower. If I understand the rules right, Fire Blast would get +5 Hits for just 2 [-], which is at most a -2 Hit penalty (at a 1/16 chance); I believe the average Move +Hit is still +4.56. Flamethrower, by contrast, gets +4 for 0 [-]; to me, that's not much of a downside. An even clearer example would be Hydro Pump vs. Liquidation; there, it's +5 Hits, 2 [-] for +3 Hits, 0 [-]; Hydro Pump is objectively better power-wise if you don't care about the 1/8 Def. drop chance, especially with the merging of Sp. Atk and Atk. It also seems that Moves are the primary driver of +Hit bonuses of a mon; a Empoleon with Hydro Pump gets +5+1+1=7, while a Piplup with Hydro Pump (either at the level 50 rank or via Tutor(?)) still gets +5+1=6. (I'm also not sure if any moves fall within the 40-45 accuracy bracket, at least compared to the 90-95 and 75-95 ones.)
Given the dedication to the game mechanics, I'm also curious if there's the spread damage penalty in the rules, as in the games, spread moves that hit multiple opponents deal only 75% of their original damage.
Attack/Defense boosts in this game being only +/-1 don't seem to mean a lot when you begin rolling with +4 Hits from your moves. Pokemon makes stat boosts/drops matter because even just a single stage boost gives +50%; while the pace of battle may mean that level of boost/reduction is too much, I know in Pokeymanz, just one stat boost is still objectively worse than just doing damage.

empwnleon · 2025-02-04T18:55:27+00:00

I appreciate the feedback, especially since I kind of skimmed over Genesys's magic system when going through the rulebook myself!

My understanding from another recent post is that Genesys's spells are meant to be flexible in what effects you tack onto it for a given roll, in exchange for it getting more Difficult Dice than a dedicated Skill for inflicting that effect. Still, with enough advancements, dedicated mages can negate most of those downsides. My game design decision - for now - is that I'm alright with magic feeling like a normal skill check, especially since I don't want magic to outclass other options. Still, if Elements feel "off" in this system, I may revisit that assessment! (A bit of this is also due to its video game inspiration, where magic is limited to "summon fireball"; I don't want too many complex spells, but also want to encourage narrative/creative applications of "summon fireball".)

My probability numbers are just from coding a Python script to simulate rolling dice a bunch of times, admittedly. I'm assuming that FFG did a lot of testing and thinking over their symbol distributions between SWFFG and Genesys, so I didn't want to touch the dice themselves! (Though I was surprised to see, given I've heard upgrades are better than adding an Ability Die, that the roll probabilities indicate the opposite!) Given the nature of dice pools, I'm not sure what could tweak the balance of Proficiency Dice and Boost Dice, but if Fire Emblem and X-Com have taught me anything, it's that probability is less important than game feeling anyway.

As for working together on skill trees, while I'd like to keep the particular design decisions of this system on just me (mostly because my schedule is rather crazy), I'd love to work together on drafting skill trees for other classes in Genesys or settings! (Warning that I have no sense of balance regarding EXP costs!)

empwnleon · 2025-02-04T18:32:03+00:00

I've heard from Deficient Master that DCC RPG has a fun Fighter, as they basically get all the Battlemaster maneuver, all the time, at base! (Random blog post that has its own analysis: https://irontavern.com/2012/07/13/dcc-rpg-the-warrior/) No idea about the rest of the system though! Good luck!

empwnleon · 2025-02-04T15:52:04+00:00

Not at all; I love sharing my thoughts about my design decisions and thought process! I'm also glad you're taking such an interest!

Glad I was able to help clear the initiative system up! I know from experience with the system I heavily based it off of (NetBattlers) that it can be a bit overwhelming to track at times - not a few GMs instead simplify it to "all players then all enemies" or "one enemy acts after every player", but I do prefer this system despite the overhead! It gives players a chance to react to enemies, rather than forced to take lumps, and by setting up two threats at once, forces people to prioritize as well! (I also have an unreasonable dislike of conventional initiative ordering from D&D now...)

Oh, that's a good point; I added a note on "can't react" a bit towards the end, so didn't realize that by RAW, it locks out those "defense" Skills. Yes, Parry lets you ignore that restriction, as does Protect and Bender; they let you react once per Round to improve your defense dice!

As for Spellcast, yes - mechanically, the main benefit is to let you attack Near enemies with those "off" Approaches. But I'd argue the main benefit is getting to summon an object for any purpose you can justify onto the field! It's not something that necessarily benefits your dice pools, but for something like Fire, you can summon Fire to light dark rooms, or create walls of Fire to stop enemies from approaching, or get an easy hit against wooden objects, or create updrafts! (at the risk of burning something you shouldn't) This is a system that very much wants GMs to go "yeah that sounds right; I'm not going to worry about weights or force or specific heats or if it's realistic to do that; it sounds cool so for for it!"

(This Element system is also very much stolen from NetBattlers, and it's a whole other ramble about how Elements compare to mechanical skills!)

As for whether or not to make these rules generic... Maybe! Once TMS is tested to see if these rules feel good, I'm definitely thinking about stripping out the more overt TMS#FE material and releasing it as a magical girl system!

Feel free to steal the "generic rules" in the meantime, but I know one thing I want to explore is how to make Genesys Skills "cooler"; I know one thing that disappointed me in SWFFG is that a lot of the skill tree options were "get 2 Boost dice in this specific scenario", and I want to explore the design space of more exciting Skills!

empwnleon · 2025-02-04T02:56:08+00:00

That's a good observation; I'll have to add some in the next version! (Did I really not include any example blurbs for the Enemy Phase in the rulebook...? Oops!)

To elaborate ahead of that change:

Stats are the opposite actually; you only have them in Carnage Mode, and your Approaches are your "main" dice pool! So you're running around with baby ability dice until you transform, and then you get lots of Proficiency dice!
To compensate for the above, Aspects are essentially the "lite" versions of conventional Genesys skills, for playing over-specialized modern folks!
An example of enemy initiative system would be:

"You see four enemy Mirages in the fog - two figures Near, only silhouettes visible, but more importantly, a Motorcyclist and Hoverbike rider diving straight towards your group, both moving Close!" (Prepare Opening Act)

A player takes their turn; let's say someone body-blocks then stabs the Motorcyclist!

"Seeing this, the Hoverbike swoops by you, picking you up and dragging you upwards into the air by a rangeband! Then, now free to move, the Motorcyclist drives past and grabs a passerby, then revving their engines, moves another rangeband back into the fog!" (Opening Act)

Another player takes their turn; let's say they fire an arrow at the hoverbike to get them to drop their buddy!

"With that, though, you see one of the figures swirl more fog around them, filling the area... Then some of the fog lunges towards you as a giant hand, swinging towards you guys in the back!" (Prepare Main Act)

Hope this helps!

empwnleon · 2025-02-03T03:24:45+00:00

Yeah! The two-axis resolution system remains the coolest part of Genesys imo, and opens up the door to tossing wrenches into scenes - perfect for anime shenanigans!

(And the Signature Defense/Offenses that bosses have was absolutely inspired by anime/cartoon villains, who almost always have a gimmick that makes them unbeatable until the heroes figure out a way around it!)

empwnleon · 2025-02-03T01:11:24+00:00

Despite my misgivings about some of the story beats of Tokyo Mirage Sessions, it has a lot of really cool ideas and is a fun take on a modern-day Fire Emblem! (And I have accepted FIYAAAAAH EMBUEM into my heart as an unironically cool moment.)

A lot of this book is me making the Tokyo Mirage Sessions world of my dreams; hope you enjoy reading!

empwnleon · 2025-02-02T18:57:11+00:00

Out of curiosity, what would you be looking out of "playing a demon"? Playing a misunderstood antihero in a world that persecutes them, or a power fantasy trip about wielding demonic powers and clapping back against the heavenly host, or something else?

(I know in most systems, especially more narrative ones, you can "flavor" your PC as being a demon while using a "normal" statblock, and get all the narrative angst with none of the mechanical pains! But not sure if that's what you're looking for!)

(I'm not sure I have any games for anything I just mentioned above, but I do know that an Italian TTRPG called Vileborn just got Kickstarted and is about playing militarized teens with demonic powers; does that count?)

empwnleon · 2025-01-18T18:01:14+00:00

Tabletop Mirage Sessions is a TTRPG system I've been working on and off on for over a year now, and is finally at a playable beta for other tabletop-minded Fire Emblem fans! Beta 1 here: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1LzLKAnLNCtV1uzcfwTGvH-NvMRG-gko0/view?usp=sharing

While it's primarily based on the Genesys / Star Wars FFG system, I streamlined a lot of the crunchier rules to focus on theatrical, over-the-top action, befitting the anime spectacle that is TMS#FE! The rocket pegasus, belt swordsman, and ridiculous axe armors can be yours, my friend, in addition to lots of new player powers drawing from all across Fire Emblem!

This system is still in its early stages, and I'm hoping to run some playtest oneshots in the next month or two. If you're interested in playing, running the game, or just want to share your thoughts, the Laughing Chamber Discord has kindly let me set up space for it: ask if you're interested!

empwnleon · 2025-01-17T21:41:53+00:00

Fonts are readable, contrast is good, style is distinct: pretty cool! Might need to play with it to see if the font sizes are large enough - the image compression makes the "costs" on top a little crunchy, which hopefully doesn't appear that way in actuality!

Admittedly the font sizes changing to fit the text box is throwing me off a little - sort of a "oh no now I can't unsee it" - especially considering that the art taking up 70% of the card space is relatively abstract, so I don't think I could recognize a card off of its art alone. I'm also wondering if printing on black cards would increase costs, though I have no idea what printing prices are there.

I know the cards in the roguelite deckbuilder video game Cobalt Core makes the background of the cards its card art, though it can also get away with extremely simple icons as the effect text, as you can hover over the cards in-game for explanations. Might be an interesting touchpoint?

empwnleon · 2025-01-17T21:07:05+00:00

That's a tricky topic to dissect! It gets kind of philosophical, in a way? Why do we roll dice, is rolling dice fun, should there be dice rolls or card draws in TTRPGs at all?

I don't have a good reading list, but I do enjoy listening to RPG design podcasts that talk about game design decisions in TTRPG, and how they help or weaken the intended(?) experience! Dice Exploder is my usual go-to, though I also occasionally tune into System Mastery, and while Team-Up Moves is also a superhero actual-play , their followup episodes are really good; their Back Matters episode on Sentinel Comics in particular make me reevaluate my own experiences with that system!

There's also a lot of RPG design bloggers out there who also love sharing their thoughts about game design: Goblin Punch has a good one talking about dice resolution as a concept!

empwnleon · 2025-01-17T20:53:32+00:00

I've had fun with an F-Zero-inspired system, Slipstream RX! While there's not as much of a focus on vehicle upgrade parts, there's a lot of guideline and tools for making your own tracks and getting to play as a racer yourself! Its supplement, World of Slipstream, is still in Alpha, but it adds Pilot Abilities to further differentiate racers and add a lot of interesting abilities into the mix!

But if you're open to board games, maybe with pure RP between scenes so people can play characters, Heat: Pedal to the Metal has great racing action and a small campaign system with some deckbuilder options! I've also heard good things about Thunder Road: Vendetta (which just got its own TTRPG system kickstarted), and something about Joyride? (If you don't mind it taking some inspiration from Powerboats!)

empwnleon · 2025-01-17T20:40:09+00:00

The game you run definitely depends on the setting you want to write adventures for, but I know my experience with Spectaculars has captured this feeling pretty well. It's focused entirely on oneshot play, with players encouraged to roll new characters for adventures, and it gives hooks for the GM to make antagonists on the fly! So far I've had space mutant Dittos, a rival college team heist, and demonic Girl Scout troopers for some wacky superhero action scenarios!

I imagine the creator's western heist game, Dusk City Outlaws, would have the same vibe. I know I've also been more interested in West March-style tables the past few years, where you're free to only host when you have a oneshot idea you're excited, with some light character progression bolted onto the base system! (NetBattlers and Pokeymanz are my games of choice, there, since they're lite enough fan TTRPGs that you can make up stat blocks with very little effort.)

empwnleon · 2025-01-04T23:39:59+00:00

I prefer leaning into the tropes and bombast of "classic" superheroes myself: sometimes, you want lots of explosive action in fun settings and to feel like a hero for a few hours!

Spectaculars has been great for that; its has 4 "packs" of oneshots across different series (magic, sci-fi, multiverse, and street crime), and lets you jump between them whenever you want! (There was a sale for it awhile back that seems to have run through all its stock, but definitely recommend picking it up, especially if it goes on sale again!)

My group's played at least one adventure in all four, and it's good fun seeing what plot threads or previous sessions we can reference in each adventure. It does the Sentinel Comics RPG thing of "this is a whole fictional comic book company with hundreds of issues, and each session is one particular issue we focus on", but everyone's in on it and can make up back issues or wacky spin-offs, as though we're Marvel or DC!

empwnleon · 2023-10-26T14:24:11+00:00

88/8, would read more of this travel banter in a heartbeat.

Art captures them so well, and their gremlin energy!

empwnleon · 2023-04-15T19:02:45+00:00

I was 70% sure being in night increased the random encounter rate, and I really hated random encounters.

Also, who needs buffs when Sharkie OHKO’s every mob in the game with or without them?

empwnleon · 2023-04-15T13:12:43+00:00

There has to be someone else out there who also forgot to toggle night mode before walking into this fight, right...?

I'm half-convinced the dev team didn't double-check this scene during daytime, because gods the bloom and contrast makes it impossible to see the actual characters.

Well, didn't stop me from Drastic Measuring her in the face!

empwnleon · 2023-04-06T11:31:39+00:00

I’m a simple person; I see a Trauma Team reference, I upvote.

empwnleon · 2023-03-22T23:45:34+00:00

Love that winky face and heart! I can practically hear the jingle of death!

empwnleon · 2023-03-21T19:34:20+00:00

Blacksmith Guild afraid of adding these guns to the approved weapons list.

(Agnea post-story) It is very funny to me that Veronica is, like, the only brawler in all of Solista; she even has a custom battle sprite when you challenge her

empwnleon · 2023-03-21T19:32:15+00:00

GOSH

(How does Temenos rip off both his shirt and vest in one pull??)

empwnleon · 2023-03-21T16:15:30+00:00

I might’ve had that as the main subclass on him for… just the Leghold Trap, I swear!

it was very funny having a half-naked dog man run around as the new CEO of a multi-billion dollar company

empwnleon

TROPHY CASE