[Meta Thread] Dragonstrike's Pokerole Test Game: Mount Coronet Mystery

[Lord Windos]

Um....not to be nitpicky Dragonstrike, but shouldn't Ursaring have at least 2 Loyalty upon Capture, since it was not hurt at all and therefore suffered no Pain that would decrease its base Happiness and Loyalty? Or is it just so ornery that 1 Loyalty is all Kogeki will be getting out of it right at the get go?

The book's definition is if the pokemon is caught against its Will (but not fainted), it will have 1 Loyalty.  I might be loose with it depending on the pokemon (like what Iron did with Ray and Seaking in SR), but in Ursaring's case, it follows that rule.

By the way, I apologize for the misunderstanding on Sucker Punch.  I didn't read the book's version of it carefully enough, which is 100% my bad.  We'll use the 1.2.5 book's condition for Sucker Punch not failing since it's more convenient in this system.  (The system tries to not be prediction heavy, now that I've reanalyzed some aspects of it.  In my defense, though, it was rather late last night, but that's hardly an excuse, so...)  Again, sorry for the trouble.  It is, however, still a +1 Priority move, not +2.  The book's fairly clear on that.

Usually in Iron's campaign Loyalty and Happiness upon Capture are directly correlated to how much Pain they suffered prior to being Caught, with no Pain = 2/2 in Loyalty and Happiness. I can probably site several examples of this outside of Diplomancy Captures, but I won't waste either of our time doing that. Only in rare cases does that not pan out, and usually in those circumstances the Pokemon ends up with more Happiness and/or Loyalty, or their's a good in story reasoning for them having less Loyalty/Happiness (Like the Pokemon being especially unruly, or having reasons to distrust/dislike its trainer).

Mate, with all due respect, I believe you following the rules rather strictly in these circumstance instead of pre-established homebrew conventions smacks a wee bit of making things harder than it needs to be to potentially use Ursaring later down the line , rather than making things more fair and balanced using them in practice. If you're worried about Ursaring being abused/too strong of a Pokemon to use at this stage of your test campaign, just raise its Disobedience to 5 and let them have 2 Loyalty, and make it so that it has to go through the same process as  Belladona when it comes to listening to commands (If Spirit manages to make the bear completely Loyal to him somehow during the test campaign). That way using them at all without some heavy persuasion on Kogeki's end will just have them try to make a break for it, and even a successful negotiation will make using them a gamble in battle like Ran using Sekmet is at this point. Later on you could include an event that could lower their Disobedience if Spirit gets into the habit of using and caring for the big bad bear, which would be a nice way to reward putting up with a constant liability and catering to it.

In all honesty, though, I don't find it bad to just give the bear 2 Loyalty without any caveats. 2/4 Loyalty vs. Disobedience is still a risky gamble, and as a savage bear it's liable to maul it's partners and/or humans at that Loyalty Threshold Lethally or laze around the battlefield, instead of being productive or 'kind' in battle in its own ways when it Disobeys. Raising its Loyalty is likely going to be a hassle too, unless feeding it plenty of delicious meals is a factor to quickly making it a more friendly bear (Which Ran can help with - that Crafting Skill ain't just for smithing and handy work!).

Oh, and all's forgiven with the Sucker Punch dealio. Stuff happens, and the outcome ended up making things better for me, so I am not too torn over it anymore.