| 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: |
| Tips for Making a Custom Regional Pokédex; Exactly what it says on the tin | |
|---|---|
| Tweet Topic Started: Jul 27 2015, 07:06 PM (1,611 Views) | |
| Getsugaru | Jul 27 2015, 07:06 PM Post #1 |
|
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
Hello again. A week has passed since I first began my search for a GM to help lead myself (and now a couple of others) through their first game. Alas, I've not had much luck and now am aware of just how rare a PTU GM really is. However, I am now considering being a GM myself. I've already started designing a custom region complete with all the standard environments, but now am having trouble in the form of the Regional Pokédex. I do not want every single Pokémon to be available to my potential players, but I do wish to include a lot of variety and options as would be expected of a Regional Pokédex. So I have decided to turn the experts/people who've actually played this game. Has anyone ever done this? Does anyone have any tips for designing this? Maybe willing to help me set it up in secret so players do not get an ahead-of-the-game advantage? I already have a couple of pokémon on my list as "included" from my own planning, gym designing, etc., but I really need help in adding more to balance the options. Any help at all would be appreciated. |
![]() |
|
| Dark Shadow | Jul 27 2015, 07:16 PM Post #2 |
|
Reploid
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
I'm not an expert by any means, but my suggestion is to try and figure out how common each terrain is in your region, then set Pokémon accordingly. For example, a tundra region would probably have more ice types, a beach region more rock and water types, and so on. Have enough of each habitat-dwellers to keep each area of your region from being either too uniform (not a bunch of Zubats or Tentacools everywhere) but also don't have too much, or else things stop being special. |
![]() |
|
| tvgg | Jul 27 2015, 07:22 PM Post #3 |
![]()
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
I haven't exactly dabbled in this myself yet, however, I have spent an amount of time just thinking about making new Pokemon in my head, and i have come to a conclusion: "it's all in a name" the name of a Pokemon is incredibly important in a thematic sense, if the name doesn't feel Pokemon like, then the Pokemon is likely to feel a little of in my opinion. Other than that just follow a few guidelines that the games seem to, some types are straight up more common than others for a reason. I also haven't Been GMing long, so take everything I just said with a grain of salt, I could be way off base. I did notice while GMing though that you shouldn't be too stingy on giving your players the "good stuff" they are the heroes of their own Pokemon story after all, and having a cluster of lame rodents and birds just doesn't bring much of a heroic flare in a lot of cases. |
![]() |
|
| Getsugaru | Jul 27 2015, 07:43 PM Post #4 |
|
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
@Dark Shadow: I have enough of each type to reasonably include an even number of each type (I even added 20% more Water to the region's design! ), or whatever the usual balance is. The region is rather large, so I am thinking a maximum of 250-300 unique species including legendaries. I am just really uncertain about what numbers of each type, etc. to include. I will take your advice to heart, however, and calculate up just how much there is of each type of environment. I am still working on the map at this time, but when it is finished I may post an image or two...maybe the town map.@tvgg: I am actually not making any new pokémon for this region at this time; for now, I'm thinking my best bet is to just choose from the 721 out there already. There will likely be some cameos in the form of pokémon that are unavailable in the region (such as pokémon owned by foreigners), but they likely will not be Fakemon. |
![]() |
|
| Dark Shadow | Jul 27 2015, 07:54 PM Post #5 |
|
Reploid
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
20% more water? Oh, you mean Hoenn! But, regardless, make sure you include enough weaker ones, and not just high-powered ones. If all you see from bug types is Pinsirs, Scythers, and Heracrosses (I have no idea how to pluralize these...) then that's going to make those Ratattas seem pretty pathetic and worthless. I think a good rule of thumb is to include enough of each type that having a few Type Aces in the same party won't have to have too much overlap. That's just my 2 cents, though. Edit: And also, variety... We don't need 15 different normal-flying, or a dozen ground-water, and maybe a half dozen combined of other combinations.
Edited by Dark Shadow, Jul 27 2015, 07:55 PM.
|
![]() |
|
| tvgg | Jul 27 2015, 08:00 PM Post #6 |
![]()
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
^that is too true. you really need to make sure you include Pokemon that interest your players, i fell into that problem early in my game. Only one of my players would catch anything, because the rest didn't feel like even wasting their time with any of the begginer staples (pidgeys, ratatas, etc.) i'm pulling my mons from the full list though, so our circumstances differ in that sense. |
![]() |
|
| LeadPipe | Aug 1 2015, 11:13 PM Post #7 |
![]()
Pokémon Trainer
![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() ![]()
|
(Warning: the next advice comes from an innexperienced GM. Discretion is adviced) I think the key in making regional pokedex is to give a wide variety of options at the same time as you don't clutter too much the players. Something I like to do is keep around 6 species of pokemon per route (distributing them according to environment) and having about 2 of them as rare (pretty low rates to appear). if you really want the place to look realistic, you can make the top predators in the area be the rare ones, but there's no reason why not to make some wild mons endangered or even alien to the region. Another thing you may want to do is give some early mons to your players to even out their parties: if they're surprisingly weak to fire-types, then offer a wild water-type. if they have no way to defeat a rock-type, allow them to capture a grass-type. That being said, always remember to keep them from getting stuff that is too powerful. Offering a fighting-type to counter a lack of strenghts against steel-types can be a bit too much overkill, having in mind that fighting-types have A LOT of advantages and can give them and early edge against most things. Also, be aware that not all parties are going to have to face early on against a strong steel-type. Also, most regions wont need a regional pokedex bigger than 20% of the current pokemon out there. Your region can have around 150 in it, but feel free to add any pokemon at anytime to your pokedex if you feel like they could fit, even if you didn't originally think of them. |
![]() |
|
| 1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous) | |
| « Previous Topic · Pokemon: Tabletop United · Next Topic » |
| Track Topic · E-mail Topic |
12:07 PM Jul 11
|
Pokéball created by Sarah & Delirium of the ZNR





![]](http://z4.ifrm.com/static/1/pip_r.png)




), or whatever the usual balance is. The region is rather large, so I am thinking a maximum of 250-300 unique species including legendaries. I am just really uncertain about what numbers of each type, etc. to include. I will take your advice to heart, however, and calculate up just how much there is of each type of environment. I am still working on the map at this time, but when it is finished I may post an image or two...maybe the town map.

12:07 PM Jul 11