Post by Bryan on Jul 9, 2015 15:10:59 GMT -8
Before you can begin playing Pokémon Tabletop United, you first need to create your Trainer character who will be your alter ego in the world of Pokémon. Your character will be the focus of the game and the exciting adventures you have, so making the right character for yourself and for the game campaign is very important!
As you first read this chapter, you may come across some terms and rules you don’t immediately understand. Don’t worry! We’ll be explaining everything you need to know, and you’ll see green boxes showing a step by step example of character creation.
There are a lot of options when it comes to building your character, but at the beginning of this chapter, we want to focus on the step by step process, so you’ll see page references and hyperlinks laid out wherever you would turn to another part of the book to choose options for creating your very own Pokémon Trainer.
Before you begin, you’ll want a blank character sheet to fill out. You can find one in the back of this book or as a standalone pdf in the .zip file for this system!
Now you’re ready to start writing your character!
Step 1: Character Creation
You may be tempted to jump into crunching numbers immediately, especially if you’re an experienced roleplayer. Don’t! Or at least take just a skim through to get an idea of what’s available before coming back and thinking about who you want your Trainer to be.
It’s important at this step to talk to the other players and the GM about what kind of campaign you will be playing and what character types the GM is looking for. You may be faithfully following the anime and manga and all play kids setting out on their first Pokémon adventure, or your GM might have in mind something more specific, such as playing rookies in a detective agency under the command of Looker or even as grunts of Team Rocket. You only need a brief idea for now, and you can expand on it later!
Step 2: Create Background
A Background is a brief phrase describing your character’s life experiences and helps determine your Trainer’s starting Skill Ranks. Depending on how your Trainer got to where they are today, they will have acquired different Skills and neglected others.
Skills represent conscious interest and training that your character uses to interact with the world, as well as incorporating a Trainer’s natural talent. Skills are used for the most basic interactions between yourself and the game world, and they help determine what Classes and Features your Trainer qualifies for. You may want to read up on the Skills in Pokémon Tabletop United before continuing with writing a Background and the next step in character creation.
This is the step where you start taking your Character Concept and fleshing it out a little. Hone in on what your Trainer would have picked up and learned, either from necessity or by their own interests, as they grew up. And then think about what their weaknesses might have been and what sorts of developed skills they would have neglected in that time. Have fun with this process! Remember, you’re determining the baseline from which your Trainer will grow and develop, and you should make sure it is something you’re completely happy with.
All Skills except for those modified by your Background begin at the Untrained Rank before Edges and Features are chosen, so your choices here will have a huge impact on your character.
A list of example Backgrounds can be found on the following page, but you may simply choose to make up your own, with the approval of the GM, of course. Simply choose 1 Skill to raise to Adept Rank and 1 Skill to raise to Novice Rank. Then choose 3 Skills to lower one Rank, down to Pathetic. These Pathetic Skills cannot be raised above Pathetic during character creation. Be sure to give an evocative name to your custom Background!
Step 3: Choose Edges
Edges are used to represent a character’s training and development in the broad fields covered by this game’s Skills. The most basic type of Edge is a Skill Edge which simply raises the Rank of one their Skills by one. Keep in mind you cannot raise Skills above Novice at your starting level!
However, there are also other Edges which represent more specific training within the area of a single Skill, such as training to be a better Swimmer within the Athletics Skill or learning to better prepare your Pokémon for Contests within the Charm Skill.
Starting Trainers begin with four Edges to distribute as they see fit.
Step 4: Choose Features
Features are what really make a Trainer stand out and provide most of their definition and functionality in the game. There are a number of General Features available to all Trainers in Pokémon Tabletop United, but most Features are tied to Trainer Classes.
Classes are special Features that act as gateways to groupings of related Features that are strongly tied to a particular concept. If you’re familiar with other RPGs, even if not tabletop RPGs, you probably know of the common set of the Warrior, the Rogue, and the Wizard as character classes. The same idea applies here, but you’ll be finding Classes such as the Ace Trainer, the Coordinator, and the Capture Specialist which are much more tied to the concepts of Pokémon.
Starting Trainers begin with four Features to distribute as they see fit. They also choose one Training Feature to gain, regardless of prerequisites.
Most players will find it most useful to spend all or a majority of their starting Features on Features in a Class when possible, so as to best define their Trainers at the beginning of the game.
While it is technically possible to take three or four different Classes as a starting Trainer, doing so will stretch you very thin with the Skill prerequisites for those Classes and can dilute your Character Concept. Consider starting with just one or two Classes and developing within them and perhaps a General Feature.
You can take Steps 3 and 4 in any order, alternating between spending Edges and Features as best suits you.
Step 5: Assign Combat Stats
Pokémon Tabletop United uses the same 6 Combat Stats used in the Pokémon video games. If you’re familiar with the video games, then these will need no introduction. If not, read on for an explanation!
The 6 combat stats are HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed.
HP determines your Hit Points, which represent your ability to take hits and keep going in battle.
Attack represents how hard you can hit Physically, and it is added to the damage roll of all Physical Damage a Trainer or Pokémon deals.
Defense is used to avoid and resist Physical attacks. Whenever a Trainer or Pokémon takes Physical damage, they subtract their Defense stat from the damage first before subtracting damage from their Hit Points.
Additionally, for every 5 points a Pokémon or Trainer has in Defense, they gain +1 Physical Evasion, up to a maximum of +6 at 30 Defense.
Special Attack represents how hard you can hit with Special attacks, and it is added to the damage roll of all Special Damage a Trainer or Pokémon deals.
Special Defense is used to avoid and resist Special attacks. Whenever a Trainer or Pokémon takes Special damage, they subtract their Special Defense stat from the damage first before subtracting damage from their Hit Points.
Additionally, for every 5 points a Pokémon or Trainer has in Special Defense, they gain +1 Special Evasion, up to a maximum of +6 at 30 Special Defense.
Speed is a measure of how quick a Trainer or Pokémon is and determines turn order in combat. Additionally for every 5 points a Pokémon or Trainer has in Speed, they gain +1 Speed Evasion, up to a maximum of +6 at 30 Speed.
Starting Trainers begin with 10 HP and 5 points each in the rest of their Combat Stats. You may distribute 10 additional points among your Combat Stats, but no more than 5 points into any single stat.
Step 6: Find Derived Stats
Your Skills, Combat Stats, and more feed into a number of other stats that are used in Combat as well as Capabilities that determine how much your character can lift, how fast they can move, and more. For more details on how Capabilities are used in playing the game, see the page on Capabilities.
Action Points, or AP, are a resource Trainers use to power their Features. Trainers have 5 AP plus 1 more for every 5 Trainer Levels. A Level 10 Trainer has 7 AP,
for example. AP refreshes at the start of each Scene. See the Playing the Game page for more.
Hit Points determine how much punishment you can take in battle. If a Pokémon or Trainer ever reaches 0 Hit Points, they are unable to take any actions and are unconscious. Hit Points are derived from HP and are calculated differently for Pokémon and for Trainers. See this page for Pokémon Hit Points.
Trainer Hit Points = Trainer’s Level x 2 + (HP x 3) +10
Evasion helps Trainers and Pokémon avoid attacks. There are three types of Evasion: Physical Evasion, Special Evasion, and Speed Evasion. To calculate these Evasion values, divide the related Combat Stat by 5 and round down. You may never have more than +6 in a given Evasion from Combat Stats alone.
These derived stats and their uses will be described in further detail in the Combat page.
Power is measure of raw physical strength and ability to lift heavy objects. A Trainer’s Power starts at 4 but is changed by several factors.
If your Athletics Skills is at Novice Rank or higher, increase Power by +1.
If your Combat Skill is at Adept Rank or higher, increase Power by +1.
High Jump determines how high a Trainer or Pokémon can jump in meters. A Trainer’s High Jump starts at 0, but is raised by several factors.
If your Acrobatics is Adept, raise High Jump by +1.
If your Acrobatics is Master, raise High Jump by an additional +1.
If you have a running start when jumping, raise High Jump by +1.
Note that a High Jump of 0 doesn’t mean you can’t jump; it just means you have to make a Skill Check to determine how high you can jump and whether you breach 1 meter.
Long Jump is how much horizontal distance a Trainer or Pokémon can jump in meters. This value for Trainers is equal to half of their Acrobatics Rank.
Overland Movement Speed is how quickly a Trainer or Pokémon can move over flat land. For Trainers, this value is equal to three plus half the sum of their Athletics and Acrobatics Ranks. By default, this value is 5.
Overland = 3 + [(Athl + Acro)/2]
Swimming Speed for a Trainer is equal to half of their Overland Speed.
Features and other bonuses that grant general boosts to Movement Speed only grant it to Movement Speeds which you already have; giving a Trainer a +4 bonus to all of their Movement Speeds does not suddenly grant them flight. However, Features and Abilities that grant specific movement boosts do. A Feature that grants +4 Levitate Speed causes that trainer to have a Levitate Speed of 4, if they did not already have a Levitate Speed.
Throwing Range is how far a Trainer can throw Poké Balls and other items. It’s equal to 4 plus Athletics Rank.
Size is how big you are. Trainers are Medium by default. Your Trainer’s weight matters too. A Trainer between 55 and 110 pounds is Weight Class 3. Between 111 and 220 is WC 4. Higher than that is WC 5.
Step 7: Basic Descriptions
Your character is now mostly complete as far as the game mechanics go, but that’s only the start. Now’s the time when you should take care to flesh out your character’s appearance, their personality, and anything else that isn’t covered by the game mechanics but is important to defining a person. Choose a name! You’ll be using it for the rest of the campaign, so be sure you’re happy with whatever you choose.
At this point, you may want to talk to your GM and the other players about developing a more detailed history for your character. This is optional and doesn’t need to happen in every campaign. It’s perfectly okay to gloss over childhoods and focus on the adventure to come, but in some campaign types, it’s important to establish where a character comes from, such as a detective’s brush with death at the hands of some thugs as a child or a Team Rocket member’s difficult childhood growing up in the slums with a single parent.
It can be fun to talk to the other players and develop a sort of loose interconnectedness or shared history between your Trainers. Maybe you all went to the same Pokémon Trainers’ school or were even in the same homeroom. Some GMs may require that you establish these connections between characters before the game starts, while others will want you to develop your relationships organically through playing the game.
Step 8: Choose Pokémon
Even if you begin the campaign with Trainers receiving their first Pokémon, it’s a good practice to have the players pick those Pokémon before the game starts to allow them to stat up the Pokémon and learn how they work. See the chapter on Pokémon (page 196) for how to stat and manage your Pokémon.
While it’s up to the GM to decide how many Pokémon and what kinds of Pokémon the players start with, it’s recommended for level 1 Trainers to begin with a single level 5 or level 10 Pokémon, chosen from either the Starter Pokémon in the video games or any relatively common species of Pokémon with three evolutionary stages. The page on Running the Game provides more tips on choosing starting Pokémon.
Step 9: Money and Items
Pokémon Trainers need to do a lot of packing for their journeys, from basic supplies like Potions and Poké Balls to more specialized equipment like Fishing Rods and Poffin Mixers.
While it is ultimately up to your GM how much money Trainers start with in their campaigns and what items are available for purchase, we recommend all starting Trainers begin with a Pokédex and PY.png 5000 to split between spending on supplies and keeping as cash.
Example: Lisa’s GM gives each player PY.png 5000 to buy items for their character, in addition to the standard Pokédex. Lisa decides to spend PY.png 1500 on buying 6 Basic Balls, PY.png 600 on 3 Potions, and PY.png 200 each on an Antidote and a Paralyze Heal. She then realizes she needs a Poké Ball Tool Kit to use her Apricorn Balls Edge, which she buys for PY.png 500. This leaves her with PY.png 2000 cash on hand.
And that’s it! Enjoy playing Pokémon Tabletop United!
As you first read this chapter, you may come across some terms and rules you don’t immediately understand. Don’t worry! We’ll be explaining everything you need to know, and you’ll see green boxes showing a step by step example of character creation.
There are a lot of options when it comes to building your character, but at the beginning of this chapter, we want to focus on the step by step process, so you’ll see page references and hyperlinks laid out wherever you would turn to another part of the book to choose options for creating your very own Pokémon Trainer.
Before you begin, you’ll want a blank character sheet to fill out. You can find one in the back of this book or as a standalone pdf in the .zip file for this system!
Now you’re ready to start writing your character!
Step 1: Character Creation
You may be tempted to jump into crunching numbers immediately, especially if you’re an experienced roleplayer. Don’t! Or at least take just a skim through to get an idea of what’s available before coming back and thinking about who you want your Trainer to be.
It’s important at this step to talk to the other players and the GM about what kind of campaign you will be playing and what character types the GM is looking for. You may be faithfully following the anime and manga and all play kids setting out on their first Pokémon adventure, or your GM might have in mind something more specific, such as playing rookies in a detective agency under the command of Looker or even as grunts of Team Rocket. You only need a brief idea for now, and you can expand on it later!
| Example: Lisa is sitting down for her first game of Pokémon Tabletop United, so she’s creating a character. The GM has told the players they’ll all be teenage Trainers leaving their hometown for the first time, and they’ll be receiving their first Pokémon as the game starts. She decides on an energetic girl who’s the daughter of the Poké Ball crafter in town. She’s passionate and eager to put her family’s Poké Balls to use, but she’s a little naive about the dangers of the world. |
Step 2: Create Background
A Background is a brief phrase describing your character’s life experiences and helps determine your Trainer’s starting Skill Ranks. Depending on how your Trainer got to where they are today, they will have acquired different Skills and neglected others.
Skills represent conscious interest and training that your character uses to interact with the world, as well as incorporating a Trainer’s natural talent. Skills are used for the most basic interactions between yourself and the game world, and they help determine what Classes and Features your Trainer qualifies for. You may want to read up on the Skills in Pokémon Tabletop United before continuing with writing a Background and the next step in character creation.
This is the step where you start taking your Character Concept and fleshing it out a little. Hone in on what your Trainer would have picked up and learned, either from necessity or by their own interests, as they grew up. And then think about what their weaknesses might have been and what sorts of developed skills they would have neglected in that time. Have fun with this process! Remember, you’re determining the baseline from which your Trainer will grow and develop, and you should make sure it is something you’re completely happy with.
All Skills except for those modified by your Background begin at the Untrained Rank before Edges and Features are chosen, so your choices here will have a huge impact on your character.
A list of example Backgrounds can be found on the following page, but you may simply choose to make up your own, with the approval of the GM, of course. Simply choose 1 Skill to raise to Adept Rank and 1 Skill to raise to Novice Rank. Then choose 3 Skills to lower one Rank, down to Pathetic. These Pathetic Skills cannot be raised above Pathetic during character creation. Be sure to give an evocative name to your custom Background!
| Example: Lisa thinks her character spends a lot of time playing outside and running around, so she wants a Background that will raise her Athletics Skill. Not wanting to get too complicated, she decides to look over the sample Backgrounds. Fitness Training raises Athletics and Acrobatics, which is a perfect fit. Even better, it lowers Guile, Intuition, and Focus, which Lisa thinks is perfect to represent her character’s naiveté |
Step 3: Choose Edges
Edges are used to represent a character’s training and development in the broad fields covered by this game’s Skills. The most basic type of Edge is a Skill Edge which simply raises the Rank of one their Skills by one. Keep in mind you cannot raise Skills above Novice at your starting level!
However, there are also other Edges which represent more specific training within the area of a single Skill, such as training to be a better Swimmer within the Athletics Skill or learning to better prepare your Pokémon for Contests within the Charm Skill.
Starting Trainers begin with four Edges to distribute as they see fit.
| Example: Lisa decides that her Trainer is a natural leader and spends one of her starting Edges on bringing her Command Skill up to Novice. She also figures that with a family working in the Poké Ball business, her Trainer would be at least passingly familiar with the process for making them. Figuring that her Trainer wouldn’t be interested in the mechanical processes for building modern Poké Balls, Lisa spends one Edge to raise Survival up to Novice, one to focus in the area of Apricorns by taking Apricorn Balls, and one to take the Swimmer Edge. |
Step 4: Choose Features
Features are what really make a Trainer stand out and provide most of their definition and functionality in the game. There are a number of General Features available to all Trainers in Pokémon Tabletop United, but most Features are tied to Trainer Classes.
Classes are special Features that act as gateways to groupings of related Features that are strongly tied to a particular concept. If you’re familiar with other RPGs, even if not tabletop RPGs, you probably know of the common set of the Warrior, the Rogue, and the Wizard as character classes. The same idea applies here, but you’ll be finding Classes such as the Ace Trainer, the Coordinator, and the Capture Specialist which are much more tied to the concepts of Pokémon.
Starting Trainers begin with four Features to distribute as they see fit. They also choose one Training Feature to gain, regardless of prerequisites.
Most players will find it most useful to spend all or a majority of their starting Features on Features in a Class when possible, so as to best define their Trainers at the beginning of the game.
While it is technically possible to take three or four different Classes as a starting Trainer, doing so will stretch you very thin with the Skill prerequisites for those Classes and can dilute your Character Concept. Consider starting with just one or two Classes and developing within them and perhaps a General Feature.
You can take Steps 3 and 4 in any order, alternating between spending Edges and Features as best suits you.
| Example: Lisa decides that although her Trainer’s parents develop Poké Balls, she herself hasn’t spent dedicated time to learning how to capture Pokémon with great skill. It’s a good thing too, because she looks at the requirements for Capture Specialist and sees that she would have to redo her starting Edges in order to qualify anyway. Instead, Lisa focuses on the energetic and competitive nature of her Trainer and gives her the Agility Training Feature as her free Training Feature. For her four Features, she starts with the Ace Trainer Class and its Perseverance Feature. She then eyes some of the Features further into the Class but decides that she needs to better reflect her character’s active nature and goes with taking the Athlete Class instead. With one Feature remaining, Lisa chooses Training Regime. Both Athlete and Training Regime have [+HP] tags, so she keeps that in mind for later. |
Step 5: Assign Combat Stats
Pokémon Tabletop United uses the same 6 Combat Stats used in the Pokémon video games. If you’re familiar with the video games, then these will need no introduction. If not, read on for an explanation!
The 6 combat stats are HP, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed.
HP determines your Hit Points, which represent your ability to take hits and keep going in battle.
Attack represents how hard you can hit Physically, and it is added to the damage roll of all Physical Damage a Trainer or Pokémon deals.
Defense is used to avoid and resist Physical attacks. Whenever a Trainer or Pokémon takes Physical damage, they subtract their Defense stat from the damage first before subtracting damage from their Hit Points.
Additionally, for every 5 points a Pokémon or Trainer has in Defense, they gain +1 Physical Evasion, up to a maximum of +6 at 30 Defense.
Special Attack represents how hard you can hit with Special attacks, and it is added to the damage roll of all Special Damage a Trainer or Pokémon deals.
Special Defense is used to avoid and resist Special attacks. Whenever a Trainer or Pokémon takes Special damage, they subtract their Special Defense stat from the damage first before subtracting damage from their Hit Points.
Additionally, for every 5 points a Pokémon or Trainer has in Special Defense, they gain +1 Special Evasion, up to a maximum of +6 at 30 Special Defense.
Speed is a measure of how quick a Trainer or Pokémon is and determines turn order in combat. Additionally for every 5 points a Pokémon or Trainer has in Speed, they gain +1 Speed Evasion, up to a maximum of +6 at 30 Speed.
Starting Trainers begin with 10 HP and 5 points each in the rest of their Combat Stats. You may distribute 10 additional points among your Combat Stats, but no more than 5 points into any single stat.
| Example: Lisa decides her Trainer is quick in battle and assigns her Combat Stats as so: 13 HP, 7 Attack, 5 Defense, 5 Special Attack, 5 Special Defense, 10 Speed. With the two [+HP] tags from before, her final HP is 15. |
| Tip: HP is very important, both for Pokémon and for Trainers! Even if you’re making a “glass cannon” build, you can’t neglect HP too much or you’ll be sorry! Seriously. You’ll be miserable if you do. |
Step 6: Find Derived Stats
Your Skills, Combat Stats, and more feed into a number of other stats that are used in Combat as well as Capabilities that determine how much your character can lift, how fast they can move, and more. For more details on how Capabilities are used in playing the game, see the page on Capabilities.
Action Points, or AP, are a resource Trainers use to power their Features. Trainers have 5 AP plus 1 more for every 5 Trainer Levels. A Level 10 Trainer has 7 AP,
for example. AP refreshes at the start of each Scene. See the Playing the Game page for more.
Hit Points determine how much punishment you can take in battle. If a Pokémon or Trainer ever reaches 0 Hit Points, they are unable to take any actions and are unconscious. Hit Points are derived from HP and are calculated differently for Pokémon and for Trainers. See this page for Pokémon Hit Points.
Trainer Hit Points = Trainer’s Level x 2 + (HP x 3) +10
Evasion helps Trainers and Pokémon avoid attacks. There are three types of Evasion: Physical Evasion, Special Evasion, and Speed Evasion. To calculate these Evasion values, divide the related Combat Stat by 5 and round down. You may never have more than +6 in a given Evasion from Combat Stats alone.
These derived stats and their uses will be described in further detail in the Combat page.
Power is measure of raw physical strength and ability to lift heavy objects. A Trainer’s Power starts at 4 but is changed by several factors.
If your Athletics Skills is at Novice Rank or higher, increase Power by +1.
If your Combat Skill is at Adept Rank or higher, increase Power by +1.
High Jump determines how high a Trainer or Pokémon can jump in meters. A Trainer’s High Jump starts at 0, but is raised by several factors.
If your Acrobatics is Adept, raise High Jump by +1.
If your Acrobatics is Master, raise High Jump by an additional +1.
If you have a running start when jumping, raise High Jump by +1.
Note that a High Jump of 0 doesn’t mean you can’t jump; it just means you have to make a Skill Check to determine how high you can jump and whether you breach 1 meter.
Long Jump is how much horizontal distance a Trainer or Pokémon can jump in meters. This value for Trainers is equal to half of their Acrobatics Rank.
Overland Movement Speed is how quickly a Trainer or Pokémon can move over flat land. For Trainers, this value is equal to three plus half the sum of their Athletics and Acrobatics Ranks. By default, this value is 5.
Overland = 3 + [(Athl + Acro)/2]
Swimming Speed for a Trainer is equal to half of their Overland Speed.
Features and other bonuses that grant general boosts to Movement Speed only grant it to Movement Speeds which you already have; giving a Trainer a +4 bonus to all of their Movement Speeds does not suddenly grant them flight. However, Features and Abilities that grant specific movement boosts do. A Feature that grants +4 Levitate Speed causes that trainer to have a Levitate Speed of 4, if they did not already have a Levitate Speed.
Throwing Range is how far a Trainer can throw Poké Balls and other items. It’s equal to 4 plus Athletics Rank.
Size is how big you are. Trainers are Medium by default. Your Trainer’s weight matters too. A Trainer between 55 and 110 pounds is Weight Class 3. Between 111 and 220 is WC 4. Higher than that is WC 5.
| Example: As a level 1 Trainer, Lisa’s character has 57 Hit Points 1 Physical Evasion, 1 Special Evasion, and 2 Speed Evasion. Her Capabilities are Power 5, High Jump 0, Long Jump 1, Overland 6, Swim 3, and Throwing Range 8. She is Medium Size and weighs 120 pounds and therefore is Weight Class 4. |
Step 7: Basic Descriptions
Your character is now mostly complete as far as the game mechanics go, but that’s only the start. Now’s the time when you should take care to flesh out your character’s appearance, their personality, and anything else that isn’t covered by the game mechanics but is important to defining a person. Choose a name! You’ll be using it for the rest of the campaign, so be sure you’re happy with whatever you choose.
At this point, you may want to talk to your GM and the other players about developing a more detailed history for your character. This is optional and doesn’t need to happen in every campaign. It’s perfectly okay to gloss over childhoods and focus on the adventure to come, but in some campaign types, it’s important to establish where a character comes from, such as a detective’s brush with death at the hands of some thugs as a child or a Team Rocket member’s difficult childhood growing up in the slums with a single parent.
It can be fun to talk to the other players and develop a sort of loose interconnectedness or shared history between your Trainers. Maybe you all went to the same Pokémon Trainers’ school or were even in the same homeroom. Some GMs may require that you establish these connections between characters before the game starts, while others will want you to develop your relationships organically through playing the game.
| Example: Lisa chooses the name Sylvana for her Trainer and then talks to Kate and Brian, the other players in her game, to discuss their characters’ histories. Kate is playing Maya, a level-headed Martial Artist, who they decide has been best friends with Sylvana since they were kids. Brian is playing Viktor, a Mentor whose family just moved to town and was welcomed warmly by both Sylvana and Maya’s families. The three of them and the GM decide that establishing this level of loose connection is enough, and they don’t need to go into too much further detail. He does ask for a little more detail on each of their families and about their classmates though and files that information away for later to use for making rival NPCs and character-driven plotlines for the game. |
Step 8: Choose Pokémon
Even if you begin the campaign with Trainers receiving their first Pokémon, it’s a good practice to have the players pick those Pokémon before the game starts to allow them to stat up the Pokémon and learn how they work. See the chapter on Pokémon (page 196) for how to stat and manage your Pokémon.
While it’s up to the GM to decide how many Pokémon and what kinds of Pokémon the players start with, it’s recommended for level 1 Trainers to begin with a single level 5 or level 10 Pokémon, chosen from either the Starter Pokémon in the video games or any relatively common species of Pokémon with three evolutionary stages. The page on Running the Game provides more tips on choosing starting Pokémon.
| Example: While the GM in Lisa’s game is having all the characters receive their first Pokémon at the start of the game, he’s decided not to restrict them to the canonical starters. Despite this, Lisa chooses Cyndaquil for Sylvana’s first Pokémon. Kate chooses a Machop for Maya, and Brian has Viktor begin with a Swinub. |
Step 9: Money and Items
Pokémon Trainers need to do a lot of packing for their journeys, from basic supplies like Potions and Poké Balls to more specialized equipment like Fishing Rods and Poffin Mixers.
While it is ultimately up to your GM how much money Trainers start with in their campaigns and what items are available for purchase, we recommend all starting Trainers begin with a Pokédex and PY.png 5000 to split between spending on supplies and keeping as cash.
Example: Lisa’s GM gives each player PY.png 5000 to buy items for their character, in addition to the standard Pokédex. Lisa decides to spend PY.png 1500 on buying 6 Basic Balls, PY.png 600 on 3 Potions, and PY.png 200 each on an Antidote and a Paralyze Heal. She then realizes she needs a Poké Ball Tool Kit to use her Apricorn Balls Edge, which she buys for PY.png 500. This leaves her with PY.png 2000 cash on hand.
And that’s it! Enjoy playing Pokémon Tabletop United!