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
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 3
GM Tips, I could use them; Y'know, player wrangling and such.
Topic Started: Dec 3 2014, 04:09 PM (2,535 Views)
Zweilous
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Hi, all. I'm brand-spankin' new to GMing in general, not to mention PTU. I spent a good year studying it off and on, buckling down to really build a campaign with players and stuff a few months ago. Things are going rather well for this new kid on the block, despite lack of experience, a complex system, and five (count 'em) five players. Turns out I'm worse at overbooking than I am about getting people's heart set on things. We've gotten through about four sessions now, each one better than the last as I've gotten more comfortable with my lawyering abilities and loosened up enough to let the story flow.

----

Anyways, so here I am. I've got a few categories I could really use some tips on from some more experienced GMs and players:

-Wishlists have been working well, despite a couple people having somewhat undefined ones. I've made it clear that Wishlist = Dibs and pointed to the roll20 forum where the others' list can be found, but how do I make sure that the Undefiners don't step on other players' toes without stepping on theirs myself? How do you guys deal with duplicates on the wishlists? Is it really that big a deal to have two Ampharos and two Scyther spread through the group?

-I have a borderline cheesemonkey, but he's kindof the good kind. You know, the kind that tests the rules and throws everything at the wall to see if they stick. On one hand, it's mostly harmless and I encourage that kind of out-of-the-box thinking. It'll help when the campaign is more free-form than it is now. My biggest concern is not that he'll try to break things with a Shedinja or anything like that, but that his experiments will waste a LOT of time. It'll be easy enough to tell him that you only get one Command Action so you can't have Fearow carry your Pikachu to rain lightning from the heavens, but it takes a lot of work to get a Slowpoke to level 35 just to see what happens when you put a Shellder on both its head and tail. I guess I'm looking for some tips to channel that and use it to drive some interesting situations without wasting everyone's time.

-Last question is on experience gain from Pokemon that have been Charmed rather than battled. My players have been kinda abusing this, always attempting to charm everything and succeeding more times than I'd like. I think it's done well in the lower levels where the game can be kinda punishing (our AceTrainer/Mentor has had a rough time because she's chosen to bring out the potential of really slow Pokemon), but I'm more concerned moving onward. What I'm plotting to deal with this is to make higher level Pokemon much more difficult to charm (raised DC, won't join party even when Very Friendly unless battled), and to make Pokemon Exp gained proportional to if everyone had participated. I've had instances where one player will walk up to a Fearful Pokemon, roll 3 lucky dice, and suddenly have 8-10 Pokemon Exp all to themselves plus a Trainer Exp from the capture. So now I'm cutting that down to 1/5 per player that participates, up to 5/5 total if they all work together on the Charm. Does all this seem like a reasonable fix?

----

I'm honestly not afraid to crack down on anybody, so if I'm doing something wrong and need to re-jigger something or deny someone something it's no skin off my nose. I figure every single one of my players is even newer to this than I am, so we've all got growing to do before everything works smoothly.

Sorry if these are too long or whatever, I figure if I've posted something incorrectly I'll be told ^^
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Lockdown
Member Avatar
I SEEE YOUUUU
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
- A good way to work with the wishlists is to have small groups of mon. In one case one of my players wanted an Aron; I gave them an encounter with a number of Aron and a Lairon leader. The diplomaned their way through it, leading to a chance to charm the Aron into coming with them if they asked.

- In all honesty for your cheesemonkey player, I'd recommend having him bounce ideas off of you out-of-play in skype or some other chat format. This allows him to exercise his creative muscles and get GM feedback without dragging down the game, and gives you a potential source of ideas to use for the game itself, properly tweaked so he doesn't see them coming until the last minute of course.

- This actually seems like a reasonable way to handle the situation. Bigger stronger pokemon are going to want to test these humans. Like Bulbasaur in the first season, they won't go with a human just because they're friendly. Or perhaps they've been harmed by humans before, and are mistrustful and suspicious. There's plenty of ways to fluff it.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
azoicennead
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Gonna agree with Lockdown on at least the last one. I explained it to my players that the pokemon that hang out in well-traveled areas do so specifically to find a trainer, and often use battles as a mix of application ("Look how strong I am!") and assessment ("Will you help me get stronger?"). They're also generally friendly about the battles (that is, they won't rip out our throat if you lose), because killing trainers risks people being paid to exterminate the dangerous pokemon.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
GrayGriffin
Member Avatar
"Ah, you unmasked me. Whatever shall I do."
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I don't see why you can't have Fearow pick up Pikachu and carry it up on one turn, then have Pikachu attack from above on the next turn, though.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
castfromhp
Member Avatar
Mawile Ace
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
1) Overlapping wishlists is an issue I'd have your players talk out amongst themselves. For many Pokémon species, it's rather easy to build them differently, especially taking Trainer Classes into account. And I think many players would welcome the RP opportunities that come from their Trainers having an appreciation for the same species and raising them side by side to be companions. Of course this will differ by group, and some players may prefer more uniqueness to their team.

2) Definitely encourage your more experimental player to communicate their ideas to you, both so you can have an idea of what to prepare for and so you can tell him in advance that some of his whims won't actually be very fruitful before he wastes a lot of time on them. Another thing you should do is construct situations with no obvious solution in sight but a lot of assorted parts and pieces that can be put together for a possible solution. Players like that tend to have novel ways of MacGuyvering together an answer to a problem, and they'll feel rewarded for being able to use their creativity in a productive way. As an example, put the party in an underground lab which is then closed off from the rest of the world by a cave-in. There's no obvious escape route, but there are machines, parts, Pokémon, and tools lying all around the lab which can make potential escape paths. A creative player may come up with anything from overloading the lab's generators to clear the cave in with an explosion to jury rigging a drill or vehicle to dig their way out or cobbling together a psychic network out of the Solosis in the lab to communicate with the surface and find help.

3) Very Friendly != "I will come along with you and let myself be captured." Not that I think there's any problem with primarily befriending Pokémon rather than capturing them by force, but if you see it being exploited or abused, then that's the easy line of reasoning to fall back on. If someone is purely befriending a Pokémon without a fight, then there's no EXP rewarded to Pokémon unless the Pokémon played a big role in the RP of contributing to the befriending. I'm generally a fan of the idea of non-battle EXP for using your Pokémon to solve other problems, but that's another topic entirely. I think what you've outlined is pretty reasonable.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Elemental Knight
Member Avatar
Knight of the Spread Sheet
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Another thing about making Pokemon distinct: You can do this right off the bat, too.

Say you have two players who both want a Scyther. Take a look at their characters - I bet they aren't entirely similar. Look at their character classes and their playstyles, and also how they play their Pokemon and what social situations they enjoy. Then take those different play styles, both in terms of how they role play, who their characters are, and what they each do in combat (their Trainer Classes and whatnot), and apply them to the two Pokemon of the same species.

Perhaps one Scyther is kind, enjoys friendly competition, and rushes headlong into situations; while the other Scyther is scathing and has dark humor, but is surprisingly intelligent and cunning. Maybe you grant one a good Intuition skill, and the other a bonus to Perception. Statistically, maybe the kind one knows Quick Guard as an Egg Move, while the more dark one knows Counter as an Egg Move. If you really wanna go crazy (or if the players in question are Type Aces who either need the coverage or want the Pokemon to fit into their Type), perhaps the two Scyther have been type-shifted to two different Types entirely, so that they are (for instance) Fire/Bug and Dark/Bug respectively.

Once your players catch their Scyther, their characterization is up to them. But you can nudge them in separate directions, both with their personalities, and their statistical crunch, to make sure they 'feel' different.
Edited by Elemental Knight, Dec 3 2014, 08:32 PM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Zweilous
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Aw man, so many replies and good advice. I'm used to much smaller forums, so this much feedback really took me by surprise.

Anywho, I'm glad to know I'm reasonable, it's hard to tell when you're inexperienced with a thing. At this point, in terms of Charming, I have no problem with it from an RP standpoint, or even a mechanical one. In fact, I'd say it makes *more* sense for our Diplomancer/AuraGuardian and CaptureSpecialist/Researcher/Hatcher to primarily befriend. I'd like to encourage that kind of different-from-the-video-game thinking without letting it go crazy easy, so I'm glad to hear I'm on the right track.

For my Experimonkey, he really does have some great ideas. For example, in his first gym. The gimmick here is that there was a mixup in paperwork, so the Bug Gym and an accounting office have to operate in the same one-room building. No moves with the Sonic keyword or you get kicked out by the accountants. My friend gets the idea to dodge Joltik's onslaught by having his Pokemon burrow into one of the plastic plant pots. I would have encouraged this if he hadn't been using an underleveled Poliwag that didn't know Dig, and it was getting late in real world time and he had already earned his badge and was just fighting another one for kicks. He didn't think it through, but there was real potential there. None of my other players think that way on a consistent basis. A diamond in the rough, I think. Just need to get him to talk to me about things before calling dibs d:

And from what I'm hearing, it shouldn't be too difficult to nudge players to build their mons differently and it's usually not a big problem even if they can't. In the case of the Scyther, I was going to have the Bug Gym Leader give them an egg or two before they left the area, so it shouldn't be that hard to give good but different natures and a few egg moves. We've got a double interest in Mankey, but fortunately the Jolly one in the encounter I made was rolled a natural Shiny, so that won't be hard to handle. Sometimes I forget we're capable of carrying 30 Pokemon at a time, so type and stat weaknesses are almost not a problem...

Speaking of that differentiation, does anyone have any ideas for differing builds to get my gears going? So far we've got dupes wishes on
-Scyther (Which we've already discussed, with good ideas)
-Mankey
-Mareep
-Ditto

I'm genuinely at a loss about the Ditto. I barely even know if it's supposed to be usable in combat in PTU and how if so. Good thing my players are tapping into its more creative potential, as my Rogue and my Hatcher are the wishers.

Thanks again for all the help!
Edited by Zweilous, Dec 4 2014, 12:35 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
GrayGriffin
Member Avatar
"Ah, you unmasked me. Whatever shall I do."
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
You could probably give the Rogue's Ditto several ranks in Guile. Or, if you want to go more interesting, make it part-Psychic type and give it Telepathic, letting it act as recon.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Zweilous
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Guile would probably be a good choice if he uses it like a mask a la Pokemon Adventures, I didn't think of that. He also expressed interest in using it as a lockpick and other tools, so I'll probably give it some Stealth or TechEdu later on.
Edited by Zweilous, Dec 4 2014, 01:23 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Elemental Knight
Member Avatar
Knight of the Spread Sheet
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
For Mankey, just taking a look at it...

  • You could make a Special Attack Mankey pretty easily, even without GM shenanigans. Give it a Modest nature (-Atk +SpAtk), and have it come with Moves like Thunderbolt, Thunder, Overheat, and Hidden Power. Note that it loses its advantageous Base Stat Relation when it evolves, though, so you may want to make vitamins or stat-reducing berries available for this guy.
  • You could make a calmer Mankey, playing against the stereotype. Meditate, Foresight, and Beat Up would all work well for this guy. Focus Punch would also work well, though I've found it tricky to actually use. This guy might also have an Aura capability, to reflect its 'higher understanding' and more wizened outlook.
  • A Street Fighter-esque Mankey. This uses Moves that 'combo' - Close Combat is an especially good one, flavor-wise, and Beat Up can serve well if you're more of a Marvel Vs. Capcom kind of guy. I'd suggest giving it something like Flamethrower, Sky Uppercut, or some other Move that imitates your favorite Fighter's style. (Available as DLC for Pokken Fighter!)
  • The Pesky Thief. Thief, Fling, Acrobatics, and maybe Taunt or Swagger. You'd have to make sure your baddies had things to pilfer, but having a Mankey that can take an enemy's weapon, throw it back at them, and then absolutely rail on them physically or mentally just sounds like fun, don't you think?
  • The Helpful Lifter. Strength is the obvious choice, and then Rock Smash. This guy will get you past that mountain one way or another.
  • VENGEANCE. Counter, Revenge, Payback, Facade. Anything you do to this guy just makes him stronger, meaner, and more liable to punch your ticket. Pairs great with Anger Point and a nice red wine.
  • The Grappler. Strength again, and then focus on increasing its Combat score (either with standard Poke Edges or with GM shenanigans). As a GM treat, you could give it a Move like Wrap or Bind, which provides a bonus to, and ongoing damage from, grapples. For further GM shenanigans, replace one of its Abilities with Crush Trap or Pumpkingrab to really drive the point home to your player. And for the cherry on top, giving it a Toxic TM will enable this guy to pick the biggest, baddest dude in the room, lock him down with Grapples or Disarms, and then take away his HP with percentile damage until he cries "uncle!".
  • Finally, for full GM fiat: To further riff on the idea of Mankey as a thunder-god, you could also handwave it some Thunder Punch and the Static Ability (just look at that hair, you know it's gotta pick up a charge), which is a good anti-melee and anti-grappling mechanism. You can even straight-out make it Electric/Fighting. Now name him Thor, give him a hammer, and watch the sparks fly.


And that's without getting into Type Syncs or further oddities.
Edited by Elemental Knight, Dec 4 2014, 09:17 AM.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Pokemon: Tabletop United · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1
  • 3

Pokéball created by Sarah & Delirium of the ZNR