Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures Rageview
Posted: Thu Jun 02, 2011 7:02 am
Sit down, and let me spin you a tale. A tale of Pokemon Tabletop Adventures, the worst RPG I have ever been in a long-term game of. Oh, surely, there are worse RPGs - it probably isn't anywhere near as bad as most whitewolf trash. But there are few RPGs I have actually played continually, hoping it gets better. If that doesn't sound exciting to you yet, you can make this a drinking game - drink every time you think I let out a hearty sob while writing this, and finish your drink every time you imagine me throwing my hands into the air, screaming "WHYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYYY?!"
Let's start with some background. Pokemon Tabletop Adventures is primarily the child of one "Dr. Mr. Stark", although the credits in the book are quite large, he is apparently the head and final say on this. He is, from what I've seen, a reasonable person - however, the community of the game is absolutely poisonous. If you point out how something doesn't work, you get told that you "Just don't understand the game", how it "Isn't that kind of system", and so on. Simply put, there are no dissenting voices with any sort of intelligence, and so the system makes grave, obvious errors. A lot of the problems with the structure were explained by my friend JD, who has posted here from time to time; JD explained that this system started on 4chan, when people started by working on stats/level-up moves/etc lists for pokemon, without any idea of what those numbers actually MEANT. In short, it was created ass-backwards.
The system can be downloaded from here: http://s4.zetaboards.com/Pokemon_Tabletop/site/ , and right away you can see the insanity. Note that the most prominent download link does not actually download the latest version of the game, and instead is one that is several months out of date. You need to click the black header with the date, which presents you with an overly vague change log (with gems like; "Light Items, updated") to find the REAL download links. Downloading gives you three books - the Player's Handbook, Pokedex, and GM's guide.
But you all are here for a rant, so let's delve right into the player's handbook, shall we? The first mechanical insanity begins on the page where the first mechanics appear, labeled "Creating your Trainer". Making a trainer in P:TA is... simple enough. First, you assign a lot of points to ability scores, the exact same six ability scores from D&D. Then you gain "feats". There are a whole bunch of broad feats, but you generally can go into classes from the get-go, which give you a bunch of feats for free, and then let you pick more, class-specific feats. Trainers level up independent of their pokemon.
But wait. Let's look at how trainers level, and I will quote:
So let's go back to stats. As I mentioned, the primary six D&D ability scores are used. You start with 64 points to spend 1:1, and stats have to be between 6-14. The positive mods are the same as D&D; the negative mods are just the difference between 10 and the score, so a score of 6 gives you a -4 mod. Every level you gain you get +1 to a stat. Classes generally require some stats (usually low, like 10-13 for the base classes, and high like 22 for the later classes), and give out further stat bonuses. The smart ones of you can already tell where it’s going. Due to the fact of how skills and class requirements work, you are HIGHLY encouraged to hugely specialize. As an example, the Chef class requires 18 Wis, and it’s primary class feature gives you temp HP equal to 5x wis mod, and others are stuff like roll 1d20+wis mod, if not 10 or higher it fails. As such, this encourages huge amounts of hyper-specialization and min/maxing.
Trainer features are up next. Most of them are powers that are one per day. For example, there’s a 1/day success whenever you fail a die roll, there’s a 1/day + 1/day/10 levels heal, and so on. A lot of these also cost HP to use. And then there are stuff like this;
Now, some of you at home may be suffering from alcohol poisoning already. Those of you at home who are astute may be asking “Wait – JUST stats and feats” ? Yes… just stats and feats. There are no trainer skills in this system. The closest are things like a 1/day + 1/day/5level “Roll 1d20+int, if >15, open a lock” feat. Otherwise, you don’t do that. I pointed out how this was, well, stupid. People want their trainers to be able to sneak, or be charismatic, or whatever. I got these responses;
“If you want to sneak, just have a high dex!” (see the problem with stats, above, and how this RNG stats TINY but eventually grows huge)
“Just roleplay it, you don’t need mechanics, you rollplayer!”
“If you want to sneak, just be a ninja!” (this requires taking TWO classes, of which you can only take 3 until very high levels, and 22 Dex! Also, it DOESN’T WORK WHEN MOVING)
Very helpful answers, obviously…
So onto classes. There are a bunch of base classes, and each has a tree into a bunch of advanced classes, each tied to one base class. You can pick up a class instead of a feat, and it gives you a stat bonus and two feats. Then you can take from that classes’s feat list from now on. The classes are… wildly variable and confusing and crazy. A lot of the classes let you use pokemon attacks at the cost of HP damage. This has two problems; first, trainer’s don’t have an attack stat or anything, and enemy pokemon have a defense stat they use to protect themselves, except for other trainers who have hugely inflated HP. So that’s kind of random and stupid. Second, THERE ARE RULES FOR PUNCHING PIKACHU TO DEATH BUT NONE FOR SEEING IF SOMEONE SEES THROUGH YOUR LIE OR FOR SNEAKING OR FOR AAAAAARGH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!
*huff* This isn’t even getting into the MINOR craziness. There are, for example, two totally different class features called “Camouflage” – one from ninja, one from psychic, and they do two different things. Many class features cost you money to use, if they’re stuff like cooking or first aid. Others cost HP, and honestly, this is just a mess and I’m tired of talking about it.
So let’s… keep going. Next up it explains stats for pokemon, and I’ll wait on these. And then BREEEEEDING. (/brock) So yes, there are rules on rolling dice to see how well your pokemon fuck. Jolly good time, that. For sanity’s sake, we then get to XP… and here comes the next big kick. Pokemon level up based on how often you use them, with one class line (Ace Trainer) giving bonus XP boosts. There is no way to “cash in” XP or anything either. So if one guy continually uses a great pokemon, that’s great – if you use a whole bunch of pokemon that you eventually upgrade, you’re kind of screwed. So using a butterfree for the short-term, and replacing it later is a BAD MOVE; any XP you’ve leveled up that butterfree is then wasted if you no longer using. “Just like the games!” people try to justify it with. But also hugely unbalancing in a group tabletop RPG.
Base stats. They are as you expect; HP, ATK, DEF, SPATK, SPDEF, SPD. Every pokemon has a set of base stats based on their species. These base stats are then modified by an individual pokemon’s nature; +2 for a positive nature, -2 for a negative. Or only +1/-1 for HP, for reasons that are never explicitly made clear. Most stats seem to be in the 1-10 range, with some powerful/crazier pokemon having more. Gengar has a speed of like, 12, I think? You get the idea. So when a pokemon levels up, you get to add a +1 to one stat of your choice. HOWEVER, you must keep the stats “ranked” in the same order. So if you have a pokemon who starts with 10 speed, 8 defense as his highest two attacks, you can NOT have its defense raised up above its speed. Obviously, natures change this.
So, again, you should see the problem by now; the problem that SAME solved, that Frank went over before in his entire red/blue chips thing. The “Ideal” pokemon has ATK or SPATK as their highest stat, and the other as their lowest. You then MAX that one attack stat (with any defenses as you feel necessary), and leave the other to rot. You enjoy super min/maxing, and caring more about numbers than anything else, right? Great, because this system punishes you HARD if you don’t. Also, there are vitamins that alter your base stats, and they explicitly say that those can get you into new “original orders”. However… it’s never stated what happens If your new stat order is now illegal. Greaaaat.
And the way attacks work; if you hit (more on this later), you deal some base damage + relevant attack. If it’s a STAB move, you get STAB dice based on level. The opponent than just subtracts their relevant defense, and takes the end result.
Abilities are listed next. These are just passive things. I see nothing to really talk about here, but…
We finally get to attacks. I’m going to talk about pokemon design in general here, too. Pokemon get attacks as they level up. They can have up to 7 level-up learned attacks, and 7 TM attacks. It Is never said in the rules, mind – it was in an earlier version of the rules, explicitly removed, and the fanbase just goes “Well, nothing has been written to contradict it yet, so it still applies!”
Sigh.
Moves and pokemon. There’s… some craziness here. Moves are sort of what you expect, but they also have a frequency; they can be used At-Will, Every Other Turn (EOT), once per Battle, or once per poke Center rest. This causes some problems. First of all, some moves have a frequency that makes some pokemon unusable to how they’re used in the game, despite the fact that the RPG “tries so hard to be true”. Seismic Toss is a center move – did you want to use a Chansey? Too damn bad! Moves are listed with damage values, that are just all over the place. And pokemon gain their moves in ways that are hugely unbalanced. In the game I was in, I was stuck with one pokemon who had TWO damaging attacks; one EOT, and one Battle frequency, which meant started on turn 4 I had to growl on all the odd-numbered turns. My other pokemon was a gastly, who’s ONLY moved were all attack-based until level 29. Also, Confuse Ray is Center and Night shade Battle, so… yeah. He was useless!
Also, the sprays. The joy of joy sprays. Sprays are essentially cones, and are listed as “1 Target, Spray” in most cases, despite hitting everyone In the spray. That makes PERFECT sense, right? They’re also listed by length and angle. Yes, angle. There are SIX different angles for sprays: 10, 35, 40, 45, 60, and 75 degrees. Yes. There are multiple attacks in this game with 10 degree cones. I… I don’t need to comment further on that, do I?
There are also all sorts of crazy ways to break attacks. Take, for instance, the attacks that do multiple hits; here, they do (low damage + ½ stat + full STAB dice) if you hit. You get to roll a max of 5 times, but can only keep rolling if you hit. Of course, some pokemon like Shellder just get to roll all 5 attacks to begin with. These attacks are then crazy, amazingly powerful if you optimize that STAB die, and otherwise optimize that attack stat.
To end the insanity with, all attacks are listed with an “AC”. To hit the target, you roll 1d20 (no modifiers) and have to roll higher than the AC. Only, this is modified by the target’s Evasion stat: (SPD/10 + appropriate DEF/5). So… you add an unknown number to the number that varies based on your attack, and have to roll above it. Why couldn’t they have just given attacks an accuracy modifier, and have the opponent just have a armor class type thing? I have NO CLUE.
Any specific questions / challenges / inquiries, etc, I will be happy to answer for those who don’t want to delve further. But at over 2700 words, I think I’ll stop here for now.
Let's start with some background. Pokemon Tabletop Adventures is primarily the child of one "Dr. Mr. Stark", although the credits in the book are quite large, he is apparently the head and final say on this. He is, from what I've seen, a reasonable person - however, the community of the game is absolutely poisonous. If you point out how something doesn't work, you get told that you "Just don't understand the game", how it "Isn't that kind of system", and so on. Simply put, there are no dissenting voices with any sort of intelligence, and so the system makes grave, obvious errors. A lot of the problems with the structure were explained by my friend JD, who has posted here from time to time; JD explained that this system started on 4chan, when people started by working on stats/level-up moves/etc lists for pokemon, without any idea of what those numbers actually MEANT. In short, it was created ass-backwards.
The system can be downloaded from here: http://s4.zetaboards.com/Pokemon_Tabletop/site/ , and right away you can see the insanity. Note that the most prominent download link does not actually download the latest version of the game, and instead is one that is several months out of date. You need to click the black header with the date, which presents you with an overly vague change log (with gems like; "Light Items, updated") to find the REAL download links. Downloading gives you three books - the Player's Handbook, Pokedex, and GM's guide.
But you all are here for a rant, so let's delve right into the player's handbook, shall we? The first mechanical insanity begins on the page where the first mechanics appear, labeled "Creating your Trainer". Making a trainer in P:TA is... simple enough. First, you assign a lot of points to ability scores, the exact same six ability scores from D&D. Then you gain "feats". There are a whole bunch of broad feats, but you generally can go into classes from the get-go, which give you a bunch of feats for free, and then let you pick more, class-specific feats. Trainers level up independent of their pokemon.
But wait. Let's look at how trainers level, and I will quote:
Follow? So every PC trainer will level up independent of the others in the party. Better yet, you only level up if you act like the most cliched "Gotta catch em all" guy ever. People who have other goals are ignored. When this is pointed out to the community as a problem, I got attacked by people saying that "I just didn't get the game, it's not about power", and "Well, the DM can easily change it, stop acting like the GM doesn't exist".Trainer Levels are gained when you achieve something that can prove your worth as a Trainer. They mark your experience in triumphs, not experience points like your Pokemon. Whenever one of the following events are completed, you gain a Trainer Level. Refer to the leveling chart to determine what is gained during that level up. Pokemon Trainers start at Level 0.
Parentheses indicate how many levels you could potentially gain from that category of ways to gain a level in the Pokemon: Tabletop Adventures canon.
When you gain a Badge from any Gym Leader. (0-40 Canon)
When you gain a Ribbon you have not earned before in a Contest. (0-20 Canon)
If you can defeat a region’s Elite Four and gain a Hall of Fame Ribbon, you gain four levels. (0-20 Canon)
If you can defeat a Frontier Brain, the Symbol they award you will gain you two levels. (0-24 Canon)
For every ten Pokemon you obtain, you will gain a level. If one of Pokemon evolves, both of their stages in their evolutionary line will be counted towards this count. When you trade a Pokemon away, replace the Pokemon you traded away with the Pokemon you gained for this count unless you own two of the Pokemon you traded away. This is to prevent a party of Trainers from trading and then trading back, just to increase the count of “owned Pokemon”. (0-60 Canon)
For every twenty-five Pokemon you identify with your Pokedex, you will gain a level. This is not a shared total with all of the Trainers in your party. You must actually use your Pokedex, to add to this total. Pokemon are everywhere! Be sure to always Pokedex the new ones! (0-24 Canon)
If you do something that your GM believes noteworthy, they may award you a level at that time. (o-∞)
Add all of these canon totals together and that would give 188 ways to level up, not including the GM’s awarded levels. (0-188)
Even though there are over 180 ways to level up, the Trainer level cap is 50. But, most full campaigns, starting at level 0, still only get to the high twenties. Starting a campaign at a higher level can easily change that.
So let's go back to stats. As I mentioned, the primary six D&D ability scores are used. You start with 64 points to spend 1:1, and stats have to be between 6-14. The positive mods are the same as D&D; the negative mods are just the difference between 10 and the score, so a score of 6 gives you a -4 mod. Every level you gain you get +1 to a stat. Classes generally require some stats (usually low, like 10-13 for the base classes, and high like 22 for the later classes), and give out further stat bonuses. The smart ones of you can already tell where it’s going. Due to the fact of how skills and class requirements work, you are HIGHLY encouraged to hugely specialize. As an example, the Chef class requires 18 Wis, and it’s primary class feature gives you temp HP equal to 5x wis mod, and others are stuff like roll 1d20+wis mod, if not 10 or higher it fails. As such, this encourages huge amounts of hyper-specialization and min/maxing.
Trainer features are up next. Most of them are powers that are one per day. For example, there’s a 1/day success whenever you fail a die roll, there’s a 1/day + 1/day/10 levels heal, and so on. A lot of these also cost HP to use. And then there are stuff like this;
That’s a ‘finish your drink’ moment. Yes, there are feats that permanently boost your stats that you can lose forever and can’t get back unless you keep buying books, that have a cost that WILDLY varies between games, and highly rewards characters who write in their background “I have been everywhere before”.Study Session: Trainer Feature
Prerequisites: Bought a book at least once.
Effect: You must buy a book at each Pokemart for 70 per town visited. If you don’t have 70 when you enter a town you have never visited, you lose this Feature and cannot get it back. Your Wisdom stat gains 1 point or your Intelligence stat gains 1 point. You may take the Study Session Feature multiple times. If you take this Feature multiple times, you still only need to spend 70 at a time.
Now, some of you at home may be suffering from alcohol poisoning already. Those of you at home who are astute may be asking “Wait – JUST stats and feats” ? Yes… just stats and feats. There are no trainer skills in this system. The closest are things like a 1/day + 1/day/5level “Roll 1d20+int, if >15, open a lock” feat. Otherwise, you don’t do that. I pointed out how this was, well, stupid. People want their trainers to be able to sneak, or be charismatic, or whatever. I got these responses;
“If you want to sneak, just have a high dex!” (see the problem with stats, above, and how this RNG stats TINY but eventually grows huge)
“Just roleplay it, you don’t need mechanics, you rollplayer!”
“If you want to sneak, just be a ninja!” (this requires taking TWO classes, of which you can only take 3 until very high levels, and 22 Dex! Also, it DOESN’T WORK WHEN MOVING)
Very helpful answers, obviously…
So onto classes. There are a bunch of base classes, and each has a tree into a bunch of advanced classes, each tied to one base class. You can pick up a class instead of a feat, and it gives you a stat bonus and two feats. Then you can take from that classes’s feat list from now on. The classes are… wildly variable and confusing and crazy. A lot of the classes let you use pokemon attacks at the cost of HP damage. This has two problems; first, trainer’s don’t have an attack stat or anything, and enemy pokemon have a defense stat they use to protect themselves, except for other trainers who have hugely inflated HP. So that’s kind of random and stupid. Second, THERE ARE RULES FOR PUNCHING PIKACHU TO DEATH BUT NONE FOR SEEING IF SOMEONE SEES THROUGH YOUR LIE OR FOR SNEAKING OR FOR AAAAAARGH MY GOD WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU!
*huff* This isn’t even getting into the MINOR craziness. There are, for example, two totally different class features called “Camouflage” – one from ninja, one from psychic, and they do two different things. Many class features cost you money to use, if they’re stuff like cooking or first aid. Others cost HP, and honestly, this is just a mess and I’m tired of talking about it.
So let’s… keep going. Next up it explains stats for pokemon, and I’ll wait on these. And then BREEEEEDING. (/brock) So yes, there are rules on rolling dice to see how well your pokemon fuck. Jolly good time, that. For sanity’s sake, we then get to XP… and here comes the next big kick. Pokemon level up based on how often you use them, with one class line (Ace Trainer) giving bonus XP boosts. There is no way to “cash in” XP or anything either. So if one guy continually uses a great pokemon, that’s great – if you use a whole bunch of pokemon that you eventually upgrade, you’re kind of screwed. So using a butterfree for the short-term, and replacing it later is a BAD MOVE; any XP you’ve leveled up that butterfree is then wasted if you no longer using. “Just like the games!” people try to justify it with. But also hugely unbalancing in a group tabletop RPG.
Base stats. They are as you expect; HP, ATK, DEF, SPATK, SPDEF, SPD. Every pokemon has a set of base stats based on their species. These base stats are then modified by an individual pokemon’s nature; +2 for a positive nature, -2 for a negative. Or only +1/-1 for HP, for reasons that are never explicitly made clear. Most stats seem to be in the 1-10 range, with some powerful/crazier pokemon having more. Gengar has a speed of like, 12, I think? You get the idea. So when a pokemon levels up, you get to add a +1 to one stat of your choice. HOWEVER, you must keep the stats “ranked” in the same order. So if you have a pokemon who starts with 10 speed, 8 defense as his highest two attacks, you can NOT have its defense raised up above its speed. Obviously, natures change this.
So, again, you should see the problem by now; the problem that SAME solved, that Frank went over before in his entire red/blue chips thing. The “Ideal” pokemon has ATK or SPATK as their highest stat, and the other as their lowest. You then MAX that one attack stat (with any defenses as you feel necessary), and leave the other to rot. You enjoy super min/maxing, and caring more about numbers than anything else, right? Great, because this system punishes you HARD if you don’t. Also, there are vitamins that alter your base stats, and they explicitly say that those can get you into new “original orders”. However… it’s never stated what happens If your new stat order is now illegal. Greaaaat.
And the way attacks work; if you hit (more on this later), you deal some base damage + relevant attack. If it’s a STAB move, you get STAB dice based on level. The opponent than just subtracts their relevant defense, and takes the end result.
Abilities are listed next. These are just passive things. I see nothing to really talk about here, but…
We finally get to attacks. I’m going to talk about pokemon design in general here, too. Pokemon get attacks as they level up. They can have up to 7 level-up learned attacks, and 7 TM attacks. It Is never said in the rules, mind – it was in an earlier version of the rules, explicitly removed, and the fanbase just goes “Well, nothing has been written to contradict it yet, so it still applies!”
Sigh.
Moves and pokemon. There’s… some craziness here. Moves are sort of what you expect, but they also have a frequency; they can be used At-Will, Every Other Turn (EOT), once per Battle, or once per poke Center rest. This causes some problems. First of all, some moves have a frequency that makes some pokemon unusable to how they’re used in the game, despite the fact that the RPG “tries so hard to be true”. Seismic Toss is a center move – did you want to use a Chansey? Too damn bad! Moves are listed with damage values, that are just all over the place. And pokemon gain their moves in ways that are hugely unbalanced. In the game I was in, I was stuck with one pokemon who had TWO damaging attacks; one EOT, and one Battle frequency, which meant started on turn 4 I had to growl on all the odd-numbered turns. My other pokemon was a gastly, who’s ONLY moved were all attack-based until level 29. Also, Confuse Ray is Center and Night shade Battle, so… yeah. He was useless!
Also, the sprays. The joy of joy sprays. Sprays are essentially cones, and are listed as “1 Target, Spray” in most cases, despite hitting everyone In the spray. That makes PERFECT sense, right? They’re also listed by length and angle. Yes, angle. There are SIX different angles for sprays: 10, 35, 40, 45, 60, and 75 degrees. Yes. There are multiple attacks in this game with 10 degree cones. I… I don’t need to comment further on that, do I?
There are also all sorts of crazy ways to break attacks. Take, for instance, the attacks that do multiple hits; here, they do (low damage + ½ stat + full STAB dice) if you hit. You get to roll a max of 5 times, but can only keep rolling if you hit. Of course, some pokemon like Shellder just get to roll all 5 attacks to begin with. These attacks are then crazy, amazingly powerful if you optimize that STAB die, and otherwise optimize that attack stat.
To end the insanity with, all attacks are listed with an “AC”. To hit the target, you roll 1d20 (no modifiers) and have to roll higher than the AC. Only, this is modified by the target’s Evasion stat: (SPD/10 + appropriate DEF/5). So… you add an unknown number to the number that varies based on your attack, and have to roll above it. Why couldn’t they have just given attacks an accuracy modifier, and have the opponent just have a armor class type thing? I have NO CLUE.
Any specific questions / challenges / inquiries, etc, I will be happy to answer for those who don’t want to delve further. But at over 2700 words, I think I’ll stop here for now.