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Brainstorming remakes for the contest rules. PTU; A central location for redoing that pain-in-the-arse behemoth that are the normal rules
Topic Started: Jun 7 2017, 09:07 AM (344 Views)
Sgt. Cookie
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Welcome, welcome one and all. This thread's sole purpose is to brainstorm a way to remake the rules for pokemon contests in PTU. (Sorry PTA fans, you're on your own.)

FYI: I do not currently have regular access to a computer, so please bear with me if these first few posts aren't as updated as they should be.



Here's an infodump of all current ideas and theories. There's no real organisation to it, yet, but that's purely because we don't have much yet:
Spoiler: click to toggle




That's all we have for now folks.

Oh, and please wait for the all-clear before posting. I need to reserve the next two or three posts, just in case. This forum DOES have you wait 60 seconds between posts, after all.
Edited by Sgt. Cookie, Jun 9 2017, 12:23 PM.
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Sgt. Cookie
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Sgt. Cookie
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Sgt. Cookie
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That ought to be the last one. Let the brainstorming... BE-GIN!
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chif-ii
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So...PTU, in general, is very complex, and Contests are even more so. My ideas revolve around simplifying Contests as much as possible, especially when it comes to Appeal rolls and Contest Stats.

Sgt. Cookie, I like your idea of creating a stronger relationship between the skills a Pokemon has and its ability to perform well in a contest. However, I'm going to take it in the opposite direction; rather than basing a Pokemon's skills off of its Contest stats, a Pokemon's Contest stats directly determine its skill ranks. This encourages players who aren't interested in Contests to try out Poffins by letting them increase skills they otherwise could not give their Pokemon; later on, if they decide they are interested in trying out a Contest, they don't have to start grooming their Pokemon for Contests from scratch.

I have known of PTU for all of 3 months, so I don't have any personal experience to go off of, but Appeal rolls look like a nightmare. First, you have to look up the Contest Effect of each move you know to compare and see what you want to use. Then you have to roll the dice for that move. Then you have to look up what each of those dice rolls give you. THEN you have to decide how many extra dice you want to roll, and THEN you have to look up what those dice give you AGAIN. This sounds like it slows the game down to a crawl, and when I was planning for the game I'm running, I was considering ordering custom dice to eliminate some of the looking up. My solution to speeding this up is two-fold - eliminate bonuses that give you expendable dice, and use the sum of the dice rather than the frequency of certain values to determine how many appeal points you get.

Finally, Contests should be a separate supplement rather than part of the core rulebook. Just as Glitchbenders, Godkillers, and Groundshapers are not appropriate for every setting, not everyone wants Contests and Coordinators. Putting them in their own book gives room to relist every move and its contest type and effect on contests, rather than having to look up separate information each and every time you want to use a move, and also gives room for more custom effects and interactions rather than a cookie cutter combo of effect + type. Plus, the PTU writers are great at providing seeds, suggestions, and jumping-off points, so this new book could be chock full of alternate contest rules and contest-centric campaign ideas.

Those are my main points. Here are the finer details.

  • Contest stats range from 0 to 6. Each point in the stat gives you a +1 bonus to Appeal Rolls using that stat and +1 rank in the skill associated with the Contest Stat. Each stat is linked with exactly one skill.
  • Poffins have a +1 cost to raising stats (ie, it takes 1+2+3+4+5+6 Poffins to get a stat up to max). You can't raise a stat higher than the highest rank skill you have (or the skill associated with the contest?). Haven't decided if this is for total Poffins or Poffins into a specific stat (ie, could you pay 6 Poffins to increase all stats by 1, or would that cost 21 Poffins?)
  • You can't increase a Pokemon's Contest stat beyond the ranks you have in your highest-rank skill [Alt, the skill associated with the given Contest Stat], and your Pokemon can't have a higher Contest Stat Total than its level divided by 4. Thus, a level 30 Pokemon owned by a level 15 trainer could have 6 points in one stat and 1 in another, 2 points in two stats and 3 in another, or any other combination of 7 points.
  • Appeal Rolls are expressed in much the same way as skill rolls; the sum of one to five d6 + X, where X is the Contest Stat associated with the move. However high you roll in this is however many Appeal Points you get.
  • All bonuses that give you additional dice during the Appeal Stage (
  • (not as fleshed out) Each move has both an Appeal value, expressed as Xd6+Y, and a Fumble value, expressed as a whole number. If you roll under this Fumble value, subtract the Appeal Points you would have gotten from your current total instead of adding to it. It should be hard but not impossible to hit the Fumble value with a 6 in the given stat, and far more common, even likely, to hit the Fumble value with a 0 in the given stat.
  • Vanilla contests are much like King of the Hill - it's about getting the most Appeal and staying on top. Each contestant's total Appeal Points at the end of the round becomes their initiative value in the next round. A lot of effects either mess with the contestant in first or grant bonus effects if the user isn't doing so well. The rolls you make during the Introduction Phase


Two final ideas that aren't really a part of the above proposal. First, just as Trainers are able to participate in combat, they should also be able to participate in Contests (if the DM so chooses). Something like...a trainer's Contest Stats are determined by the ranks s/he has in the linked skill (rather than the reverse like Pokemon), and there's a basic Appeal move similar to Struggle that all Pokemon and trainers can use. Second, we might want to consider making Contests more like 4e D&D Skill Contests - either make them completely dependent on skills or use skills as the primary way to gain appeal points and Moves as a boost to those skill rolls.
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Sgt. Cookie
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chif-ii
 
So...PTU, in general, is very complex, and Contests are even more so. My ideas revolve around simplifying Contests as much as possible, especially when it comes to Appeal rolls and Contest Stats.

Sgt. Cookie, I like your idea of creating a stronger relationship between the skills a Pokemon has and its ability to perform well in a contest. However, I'm going to take it in the opposite direction; rather than basing a Pokemon's skills off of its Contest stats, a Pokemon's Contest stats directly determine its skill ranks. This encourages players who aren't interested in Contests to try out Poffins by letting them increase skills they otherwise could not give their Pokemon; later on, if they decide they are interested in trying out a Contest, they don't have to start grooming their Pokemon for Contests from scratch.


I was actually thinking something similar, actually, except Poffins can be used to increase a pokemon's skills, at least for Contests. If Poffins can be used for a more general purpose like that, then it becomes a no-brainer to stuff your pokemon with a variety of Poffins.

Since my (Probably flawed) vision has 10 (effective) skills as far as Contests are concerned and each of those stats has two associated skills... hmmm... actually I think the "two stat" idea is flawed from inception, instead, keep the 10 skill thing and instead have 2 skills per stat, that gives us a minimum of 2 and a maximum of 12 for a stat... hm... yeah... that could work...

Quote:
 
I have known of PTU for all of 3 months, so I don't have any personal experience to go off of, but Appeal rolls look like a nightmare. First, you have to look up the Contest Effect of each move you know to compare and see what you want to use. Then you have to roll the dice for that move. Then you have to look up what each of those dice rolls give you. THEN you have to decide how many extra dice you want to roll, and THEN you have to look up what those dice give you AGAIN. This sounds like it slows the game down to a crawl, and when I was planning for the game I'm running, I was considering ordering custom dice to eliminate some of the looking up. My solution to speeding this up is two-fold - eliminate bonuses that give you expendable dice, and use the sum of the dice rather than the frequency of certain values to determine how many appeal points you get.


Eyup. Like I said in the thread description: They're a behemoth.

Quote:
 
Finally, Contests should be a separate supplement rather than part of the core rulebook. Just as Glitchbenders, Godkillers, and Groundshapers are not appropriate for every setting, not everyone wants Contests and Coordinators. Putting them in their own book gives room to relist every move and its contest type and effect on contests, rather than having to look up separate information each and every time you want to use a move, and also gives room for more custom effects and interactions rather than a cookie cutter combo of effect + type. Plus, the PTU writers are great at providing seeds, suggestions, and jumping-off points, so this new book could be chock full of alternate contest rules and contest-centric campaign ideas.


That's actually what's going to happen in 2.0.

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Those are my main points. Here are the finer details.


I'll go over these point by point.

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Contest stats range from 0 to 6. Each point in the stat gives you a +1 bonus to Appeal Rolls using that stat and +1 rank in the skill associated with the Contest Stat. Each stat is linked with exactly one skill.


That... seems like a bad idea. By having only 5 relevant skills for contests seems... I don't know... I just think that a Machamp should be able to use it's own prodigal Combat ability in a Tough Contest. Instead of needing to eat a cake to make them more intimidating.

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Poffins have a +1 cost to raising stats (ie, it takes 1+2+3+4+5+6 Poffins to get a stat up to max). You can't raise a stat higher than the highest rank skill you have (or the skill associated with the contest?). Haven't decided if this is for total Poffins or Poffins into a specific stat (ie, could you pay 6 Poffins to increase all stats by 1, or would that cost 21 Poffins?)


That... is an awful lot of poffins. The core rules have 8 poffins max for a pokemon. To raise all stats to 6, a pokemon would need 126 poffins costing 63,000 to make. Which is beyond ridiculous.

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You can't increase a Pokemon's Contest stat beyond the ranks you have in your highest-rank skill [Alt, the skill associated with the given Contest Stat], and your Pokemon can't have a higher Contest Stat Total than its level divided by 4. Thus, a level 30 Pokemon owned by a level 15 trainer could have 6 points in one stat and 1 in another, 2 points in two stats and 3 in another, or any other combination of 7 points.


This... hm... I dunno. On the one hand, Contests are a little different than regular battles as a pokemon's level has less real meaning on its overall success. On the other hand, PTU already has limits on how often a pokemon can eat Poffins.

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Appeal Rolls are expressed in much the same way as skill rolls; the sum of one to five d6 + X, where X is the Contest Stat associated with the move. However high you roll in this is however many Appeal Points you get.


In my version, you roll the skill itself to determine appeal points. So it's not too dissimilar.

Quote:
 
All bonuses that give you additional dice during the Appeal Stage (


I... think you meant to flesh this one out.

Quote:
 
(not as fleshed out) Each move has both an Appeal value, expressed as Xd6+Y, and a Fumble value, expressed as a whole number. If you roll under this Fumble value, subtract the Appeal Points you would have gotten from your current total instead of adding to it. It should be hard but not impossible to hit the Fumble value with a 6 in the given stat, and far more common, even likely, to hit the Fumble value with a 0 in the given stat.


So, basically the Contest version of an Accuracy Check?
...
I like it!

Quote:
 
Vanilla contests are much like King of the Hill - it's about getting the most Appeal and staying on top. Each contestant's total Appeal Points at the end of the round becomes their initiative value in the next round. A lot of effects either mess with the contestant in first or grant bonus effects if the user isn't doing so well.


Huh. That actually makes a lot of sense. The Introduction stage actually has a bit more of a role to play as it would determine the initial order. Of course, each pokemon in the contest needs to spend one round as the center of attention.

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The rolls you make during the Introduction Phase


I separated this sentence out because I think you meant to write more. But I'm like 60% sure that you meant the same thing I did.


Quote:
 
Two final ideas that aren't really a part of the above proposal. First, just as Trainers are able to participate in combat, they should also be able to participate in Contests (if the DM so chooses). Something like...a trainer's Contest Stats are determined by the ranks s/he has in the linked skill (rather than the reverse like Pokemon),


PTU core already says that Trainers could participate in a different sort of contest.

Quote:
 
and there's a basic Appeal move similar to Struggle that all Pokemon and trainers can use.


All moves in the game have SOME sort of contest effect, so a Struggle-analogue wouldn't be required. In addition, since Contests are (In many ways) an alternative way to show off moves, a Trainer who hasn't devoted much to moves shouldn't really be Contest-capable.

Quote:
 
Second, we might want to consider making Contests more like 4e D&D Skill Contests - either make them completely dependent on skills or use skills as the primary way to gain appeal points and Moves as a boost to those skill rolls.


Rolling skills to determine how "appealing" moves are was actually the inception of this entire thing.

But I'm with you on the last part, Moves are really just vectors for (and modifiers of) the skill rolls that determine who the victor is.
Edited by Sgt. Cookie, Jun 9 2017, 01:09 PM.
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MrRasputin
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So I have my own revised version of Pokemon Contests that I use, it hasnt gotten much play time as players are more murder hobos but I think it works pretty well. The idea is based on a rock, paper, scissors concept for the performance part of it. Positioning does not mater and as such there is no center or attention. The only thing I would like to adjust about it is to make it more related to your Pokemon's strengths. To give a bigger benefit to a Zapidos over a Pichu in a Cool contest. Anyways this version has more strategy involved since you need to form alliances and harm the biggest threat without putting yourself behind too much. The idea is Performance beats Sabotage, Sabotage beats Hype and Hype beats Performance.

Contest decided by 1d5: (1-Cool, 2-Tough, 3-Beauty, 4-Smart, 5-Cute)
Pick a Pokemon to enter, the Pokemon's Type is linked to a Contest Stat
Beauty- Fire, Ice, Water.
Cool- Dragon, Electric, Flying, Dark.
Cute- Fairy, Normal, Psychic.
Smart- Grass, Ghost, Poison, Bug.
Tough- Fighting, Ground, Rock, Steel.
If using a Pokemon that is related to the Contest Type you get +10 Points
If using a Pokemon that is opposite to the Contest Type you lose -10 Points

Introduction Phase:
Introduce yourself & Pokemon and give a Skill Check that corresponds to one of your Pokemon's Contest Stat(s) and gain 1/2 of that roll as Points (Pick 1 if you have 2)
Command-Cool, Intimidate-Tough, Intuition-Beauty, Guile-Smart, Charm-Cute

If your Pokemon has been fed Poffins for the specific Contest Type, gain +1 for each of those Poffins

Contest Phase:
Each Contest lasts for 10 Rounds
In each Round you can choose to do a Performance, Sabotage, or Hype

Performance- Gain 3d6 Points
Sabotage- Gain 1d10 Points, Target loses 1d6 Points, and if they use Hype this turn they get 0 points and it resets their Hype counter to 0
Hype- Gain 3d6 Points, if its the (2nd, 4th, 6th...) successful use, gain 6d6 Points
The Winner is who ever has the most Points at the end of the Contest
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