Welcome Guest [Log In] [Register]
Welcome to Pokemon Tabletop. We hope you enjoy your visit.


You're currently viewing our forum as a guest. This means you are limited to certain areas of the board and there are some features you can't use. If you join our community, you'll be able to access member-only sections, and use many member-only features such as customizing your profile, sending personal messages, and voting in polls. Registration is simple, fast, and completely free.


Join our community!


If you're already a member please log in to your account to access all of our features:

Username:   Password:
Add Reply
Has anyone made pokeathlon rules?
Topic Started: Oct 3 2014, 02:54 AM (534 Views)
Kaede11
Unlucky GM
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I just wanted to know because it doesn't seem anybody has... we're going to run a pokeathlon and that would be the diference between creating the rules from scratch or taking some ideas.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
TM93
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I don't think anyone has, the Pokeathlon wasn't a particularly popular part of the series. But in the end I would imagine it wouldn't be too hard to do, in the end it'd mainly be based around Athletics, Acrobatics, Combat, Focus, and Movement scores for checks, all with some sort of theme.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Elemental Knight
Member Avatar
Knight of the Spread Sheet
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
So while I've never done a Pokeathalon myself, I do have slightly alternate rules for contests in my current campaign, New Valkenburg, that might interest you slightly.

Contests in New Valkenburg are typically split into three sections: Appeal, Display, and Battle, usually (but not necessarily!) in that order. With four contestants, that means that a competitor is eliminated after each section, with the last one remaining being declared the winner.

In every stage, we use straight-up skill rolls. A competitor's score is the sum total of their skill rolls throughout the competition. The competitor with the lowest total score is eliminated after every round. Each stage may be comprised of 1-3 rounds, depending on the contest - typically, earlier stages have fewer rounds, just 'cause there're more competitors to get to.

We use Initiative to see who goes when in a given round, but it doesn't usually matter much (since you aren't ever attacking someone else's score).

(Keep in mind that in New Valkenburg, everyone, humans and Pokemon alike, have the full suite of skills, and they all level up as you do. This set-up should still work even if you stick solely to the PDF Pokedex's skills, it just means that Pokemon won't be helpful in the social aspects.)

The Appeal section is where you break out your role-playing chops. You (or your Pokemon) appeal to the crowd, and try to win them over to your side by your charm or wit or cuteness or beauty. You choose a skill, roleplay out using that skill to show the crowd why they should cheer for you, and roll the dice.

The Display portion is typically a contest of athleticism, but you could also make your Pokeathalon a Debate Team affair where Education skills are used, for example. Again, you only use Skills here; Moves have no part in things, and we ignore their contest effects entirely. As far as we're concerned, in this stage, Pokemon are solely balls of skill points.

Finally, we reach the Battle portion of the event. Here, the remaining two competitors battle, typically one-on-one (though 2v2 variants are common). Loser is eliminated; winner takes home the gold. Here, skills no longer matter, except as they pertain to combat (IE using Guile to distract an opponent or Combat to grapple). We've tried variants where you're still gaining points during the battle, but that slowed things down and just felt less fun for us as a group.

So, let's have an example.
Example!
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
« Previous Topic · Pokemon: Tabletop Homebrew · Next Topic »
Add Reply

Pokéball created by Sarah & Delirium of the ZNR