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| Wild Pokemon Encounters; Making Things Interestign | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Jun 8 2015, 01:45 PM (1,306 Views) | |
| Myrmidon | Jun 8 2015, 01:45 PM Post #1 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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So, my players and I have been playing a play-by-post for the past month or so and the story has been steadily moving along, but I'm starting to realize something: I'm not very imaginative when it comes to wild pokemon encounters. While I can handle trainers (it's fantasy, so bandits and mercenaries) fairly handily, I don't want my wild encounters to be, "Oh, you go through the forest and see several oddish relaxing by a creek." or "You see a rattata being hunted by several ekans!". So, what I was thinking was having this thread be where people can post their ideas for making wild encounters more memorable or the one's they have ran that where more interesting then "You encounter a few spearows". |
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| Hariku | Jun 8 2015, 02:52 PM Post #2 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I can offer a program me and my friend made that randomly generates Pokemon for you to fight after setting a few parameters. It's possible to take these generations and apply a short scene for them. (Link in the signature) As for ideas, you can take seemingly simple ideas and make them memorable. I made an encounter with a couple of Spearow for instance, except they were being led by a creepy crazy bird man who would go out and attack trainers and pokemon with guerrilla tactics. Not every encounter has to be memorable either, it's perfectly fine to give them a couple of random Pokemon to just go out and fight. |
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| Grand Silver | Jun 8 2015, 03:21 PM Post #3 |
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2 kewl 4 u!
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I'm running one right now where a non-native species has rallied a bunch of minion mons into taking over the forest and harassing regular pokemon that live there. |
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| Slytherclaw | Jun 8 2015, 06:24 PM Post #4 |
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Storyteller
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I dunno, most of my encounters tend to just be animals acting like animals, although reasonably intelligent animals. Attacks from carnivores seeking food, pokemon doing normal things. I had a totodile group that bit down the ropes holding up a bridge, so they could try and attack when they were swimming over, a small group of baby growlithe puppies whose mother had been caught and thus they were young, abandoned, and starving, etc. There was a blog at one point that had some ideas for special encounters, though. A shiny pokemon eating pinkan berries to hide its shinyness, that sort of thing. |
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| FanaticRat | Jun 9 2015, 08:27 AM Post #5 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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Well I'm not sure if mine are applicable since they require a degree of pokemon intelligence that the system doesn't assume but... One I had was when the pcs first encountered a tribe of pokemon working with the main bad guys to exploit and control the region. A bunch of grass shifted poochyena made a big deal of demanding tribute while hidden in the underbrush, but the pcs ended up luring them out with snacks and trouncing them. Later, more of the tribe tried to ambush the party by laying a poorly disguised pit trap in the middle of the road in front of a much better hidden one. You can also get more silly with these if you want. Maybe something like a farfetched that is sword fighting a honedge, or your party comes across a dark misty forest or bog at night and at the entrance a litwick has set up a little booth advertising guide services through the place (no refunds). Or maybe you come across some baby pokemon playing, and their parents come running when you interact with them. |
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| Elemental Knight | Jun 9 2015, 06:23 PM Post #6 |
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Knight of the Spread Sheet
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That'd be the ol' Daily Pocket Monster. (I think I wrote the very article you're talking about, too!) Anyway, the blog's archives are still full of good hooks for a smattering of Pokemon, as well as the articles I contributes about Berries and whatnot. Something might strike your fancy - it was well-loved in its time, and there's a reason it's still considered the benchmark for quest hooks in this community! Anyway... I actually think your examples are totally fine, but you can get a lot more mileage out of them by asking "why?". For example: Why're the Oddish relaxing by the creek? Maybe they just finished walking a long ways (which might mean they're all Slowed from exhaustion if a fight starts with them). Why did they have to walk a long ways? Maybe they're going someplace important, but they could just as easily be running away from something, or just out to explore, or maybe just looking for a good place to soak up some rays. What's so important about where they're going? Maybe they think it'll always have a full moon, or fewer predators, or treasure, or be secluded from wandering Trainers, or it's where a friend was going and they haven't heard from him in a while... ...and so on. By asking 'why' a lot about a mundane situation, you can give it a depth and complexity. You can also use the answers to those questions, even turning a simple detail into a full quest if you need or want to. You can even use the answers to circle back around to the initial encounter and inform it. I already mentioned those relaxing Oddish moving extra-slowly; if they've been moving during the day, they might also be so tired as to be asleep, too. Perhaps whatever they were running from will catch up to them, interrupting any discussion or fight with the players - or some other group of humans, Pokemon, or Trainers might come crashing through, trying to beat the Oddish to their destination to obtain whatever wonders motivated the little sprouts in the first place. And even if you don't do all this, not every encounter needs to have a deep, meaningful story behind it. This depends heavily on your players, of course, but I've seen players have whole sessions just hanging out and enjoying the scenery, gently poking at NPCs to see what they say and explore their characters. If the Trainers are willing to just hang out with the Oddish - no catching, no chasing, no fighting - they might use their Sweet Scent to make the break even more relaxing (perhaps giving the players a small bonus to their travel time, a li'l pep in their step). So yeah. Ask "why". Ask "what happens next". And remember that every NPC is in the middle of their own story, and the players are jumping into it in medias res! |
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| Gamesdisk | Jun 12 2015, 02:15 AM Post #7 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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I miss old greg. ......... However you dont need to make things more existing all the time. The mundane will add to the excitement. ![]() Unless your platinum games, you need to give peeks and troughs or the amazingness of the boss encounter wont feel as epic. (Unless you want to end your game with punching a god into the sun and then having a dance party) With that said feel free to mix your mon up too. Throw a few grass types together, oddish and bellsprout just chilling by the creek for example. Edited by Gamesdisk, Jun 12 2015, 02:16 AM.
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| Myrmidon | Jun 12 2015, 06:08 PM Post #8 |
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Pokémon Trainer
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Thanks for the replies everyone. I wasn't thinking of exciting epic fights all the time, just something a bit different, though I liked Elemental Knight's answer, just ask why. But since I'm playing a play-by-post, encounters take days to play through (we're all working so we post after work kind of thing). Thanks for the ideas guys. I just got the team interested in a circling flock of spearows in the distant I used as a bit of fluff for the scene. Maybe they're circling because of a deceased adventurer or something. |
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