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
Need help learning some GM tips
Topic Started: Jul 25 2011, 09:40 PM (1,777 Views)
Praetors
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
So i'm trying to learn to GM for some friends, and I need a few tips. If you know any useful information on GMing for Pokemon, Please feel free to help out.

Also, if you know anything about maptools, i'm also trying to learn to use that as well
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
RioCadaro
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Well, I find it easiest to look at this from a broad spectrum, get the little things out of the way first. In the RL sense, remember you're all here to have fun in some form or another so knowing your audience is a must. Talk with them before starting the game, get an idea of what they would be interested in doing. Maybe one wants to be the best (like no one ever was) and beat all the Gym Leaders while another is looking to research the greatest Berrilixir formula that makes someone's taste buds jump. This gives you an edge on what to aim the story at. Secondly, I've found it helpful to know the characters in the campaign in a decent amount of detail. Backgrounds, how they act, what they wish to achieve are all examples of useful information. Being able to tie in your characters into a large plot is probably one of the hardest and most satisfying items to conquer as a GM/DM and becomes more and more complicated as more factors come into play (More players, more plot points, etc). Not to say you couldn't do Pokemon:The Game: The Tabletop, but why not get creative about it?

With all that pregame mumbo jumbo out of the way, actually GMing the game....In my experiences the books are only guides to help me, not bibles to go by to the fullest. Your players may see this differently from you so be sure to consider that. Depending on what kind of campaign you may consider having a healthy rotation of story and player development (leveling Pokemon, getting Gym Badges, etc). It will help keep things fresh. I myself struggle with this concept but I'm devoting side-sessions to those who want to 'look for trouble' while they're in a town or separated from part of the group. Perhaps devote a small portion of your sessions to trouble-finding if it makes sense at that time. Finally, don't be afraid to try new things! The only catch to this is to make sure you're not crushing your audience by some force that's out of their league in some way. After the session, talk to your players and see how they liked the way things went.

On a more personal experience level, I treat my GMing like I do my roleplay. If you want a good quality session I expect some form of effort, creativity, and initiative to come from my players. They need you to control the world, and you need them to react to it. If somebody doesn't seem to get in on the action often try a method that'll draw them in. It's really all a trial-by-error process in my opinion.

That's my general response on GMing tips. If you have a specific area you need help in I'd be more than happy to throw my two cents in there too :)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Praetors
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Yeah, thanks. It's really more of the technical stuff specific to this game i need a bit of advice on, such as making and running encounters. I've been playing DnD 4e with some other friends, and the book is really specific when it comes to the details about all that stuff a GM needs to know, but the guide for PTTA is a bit more vague.

Also, i'm fairly aware of what most of the players want to do. one wants to be a snagger and steal pokemon, probably for his own gains, and the other wants to become a powerful martial artist to fight alongside his pokemon as they travel the lands. since there's only 2 so far, i've also been DMPCing.

Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
tortles
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I would say a big thing is practicing encounters. I'm not very experienced with other tabletop games before this, so maybe you will find them to be easier. I think they can be a bit complicated, considering you will have a couple of trainers, their pokemon, npc trainers, and their pokemon all on the field. You'll have to be aware of each pokemon's stats and each players stats for calculating attacks and damage.

It takes a bit of getting used to, and I recommend doing 1on1 battles until you get the hang of it. Having your team get jumped by a group of wilds can be a bit stressful if you're not prepared to handle all the math and calculations.

As far as maptools goes, I think it's a great thing to use, especially considering a lot of the guidelines in the game involving shifting. If you go into the "drawing" tools, it also has some templates for things like blasts, bursts, sprays and walls, which would come in handy. I also like to use the drawing tool to display things as well (like when a move shoots a 5 meter beam that's 45 degrees wide, drawing out the lines and literally showing its area is handy)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Praetors
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Cool, cool. I think I can get all that going, but one last question. This is probably the hardest concept for me to grasp when it comes to Pokemon:Tabletop.

Explain the evasion bonuses to me. for example, it gives +1 for every 5 points in attack, but is that 5 bonus points you add when leveling up, or is that 5 total, like say a pokemon has 4 base attack, and after a few levels, it was raised by 6 making the total ten. would the evasion bonus be +2 because the total is 10, or would it only be +1 because i only put in between 5-9 points. and do those stack with defense the respective defense, like +1 from attack and +1 from defense making +2, or is it one or the other?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Darchias
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Evasion is pretty simple, though you're kinda off. For every 5 points in DEFENSE, they get +1 Evasion against moves that consult the Attack stat for damage. For every 5 points in SPECIAL DEFENSE, they get +1 Evasion against moves that consult the Special Attack stat. Attack has nothing to do with it.

Example:
Level 12 Dull Ferroseed
HP: 4
ATK: 5
DEF: 9 (15)
SPAT: 2
SPDE: 9 (14)
SPD: 1

This Ferroseed has a Physical Evasion of 3, since (15/5)=3, but a Special Evasion of 2, since (14/5)=2.8, and you always round down. If this Ferroseed was to use Iron Defense, it's Defense would increase to 22.5, rounding down to 22 and increasing it's Physical Evasion to 4.

The Speed Stat gives evasion against ALL moves at half the rate of the two Defense stats, 1 for every 10. An extremely fast Pokemon can be very difficult to hit indeed! Take Accelgor, with a base 15 Speed. A level 20 Accelgor with, let's say a 22 Speed, would have an Evasion against all attacks, including those that don't do damage, of 2. After that Accelgor uses Agility, it's Speed would increase to 33 and thus have a +3 Evasion.

Evasion effectively increases the accuracy checks of the affected moves. One must roll an 11 or better to affect a target with Supersonic, but against said Accelgor, the user of Supersonic must roll a 13 or better if the Accelgor did not use Agility yet.

I hope that answers all your questions.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Praetors
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Yeah, i just noticed i was incorrect with the attack and sp. attack when i looked over that section again.

And yes, that was very helpful. I think i'm pretty much ready to GM for my friends. thanks very much. (now to learn maptools better. To the maptools forums!!!)
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
tortles
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
Oh! Other stuff I thought of. You can include multiple rolls together in maptools, which is handy in battle. Like.. If you wanna do an attack, +STAB, +AtK stat, you can do..

/r 2d10+1d4+7

And it'll do the math. You can also use it to do other basic math as well if you need it. This is also handy for players making checks that use their modifier, like 1d20+DEX. You'd just do 1d20+3, or whatever. /rollgm or /rollme to keep a roll secret to yourself.

I GM at times for a couple of friends, and what I usually do is have my players incorporate their attack, special attack, and STAB into their damage rolls, to make it a little easier for me.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
Praetors
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
I assume that you type the /r and /rollGM command into the chat field?
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
tortles
Member Avatar
Pokémon Trainer
[ *  *  *  *  * ]
You can actually do: /r, /rme, /rgm for short, or /roll, /rollme, /rollgm. Roll me would be good if for some reason you had another GM active with you and you wanted it to specifically go to you, or if a player wanted to do a private roll for some reason they could use that.

Those are all I can think of, but it helps to know random command tricks. Oh, also there are somethings.

/e or /emit Puts a bolded text that doesn't list a source name, which is good for narration or general GM communication.

tortles is good for doing emotes, like "Tortles is pretty rad" which shows up in a green text.

/ooc Puts whatever text that follows in (( )) brackets.

Take some time to explore the map features and tokens. You can increase the size of tokens, flip them around, put status markers on them. You can also arrange them on a few different layers, which is pretty handy. I think any maps or tokens you use have to be in PNG, and the maptools website has a cool Tokentool that lets you make your own tokens.
Offline Profile Quote Post Goto Top
 
1 user reading this topic (1 Guest and 0 Anonymous)
Go to Next Page
« Previous Topic · Union Room · Next Topic »
Add Reply
  • Pages:
  • 1

Pokéball created by Sarah & Delirium of the ZNR