03-15-2020, 06:40 PM
A few responses from me on the praise/criticism:
- I also went through a short scenario with Mika and Karen before the test game started. The only one I didn't do that with was Phantom/Kee since they were an almost last minute addition. Speaking of which, thank you for joining us on this wild ride, Phantom!
- I love that the PC can be accessed from anywhere in both Let's Go and Sword and Shield, even if it does eliminate some of the challenge in some portions of those games should you abuse the mechanic. One change I did make from them, however, was healing in the PC. Due to the nature of the games and the mechanic, dropping mons in the PC doesn't heal them, so you have to talk to Nurse Joy to get any and all mass healing, period. That wasn't gonna work in this campaign, though, so I settled on a delayed heal.
- PMD: Primal Shadows is going to be a bit more open world and sandbox-like than MCM was, so I figured I'd work on practicing connected plotlines and expanded player agency scenarios. Glad to see the results turned out well and were liked!
- You did indeed find everything I had planned ahead of time. Good job! Part of the reason for that is because Ran's backstory involved stuff that would make more sense in his home world than the PMD world. Expect to see sidequests relevant to every character during PMD: Primal Shadows, though!
- Boss design was probably the part I put the most thought into after the story, honestly. A good boss fight can very easily strengthen the impact of their involvement in the story. Next time you face a Legendary, though, expect it to be harder!
- I do feel the section where you were simply traveling down Routes 217 and 216 dragged on for a little too long with respect to the scope of this campaign, but maybe that's just because you visited the Snowpoint Temple first.
- With regards to the story I've created, my ideas draw from a lot of existing lore and facts for the pokemon series, both mainline and mystery dungeon. However, that isn't to say there won't be original content in the future. In fact, I plan for there to be quite a bit of original content supplementing the existing data I'm pulling from (or they could be outright working together to create something partially familiar, partially new)!
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- I agree on the houserules thing. We've addressed this in detail already, though, so there's no real need to elaborate further here.
- On the note of Will Pointed healing, I would like to mention that I only subtracted a Will Point if the healing move in question restored at least 1 HP. If the move does absolutely nothing because of the dice, it doesn't make sense to me that you should pay for that. It was a difficult to change to notice due to every instance of a Basic/Complete Heal in this game restoring more than 0 HP, but it was in place nonetheless.
- Evasion is a weird mechanic in Pokerole, so that is a perfectly valid criticism. I may keep it how I had it in this game, I may try to rebalance it and/or limit it, but I'm definitely taking another look at it. Anime style evasions in a primarily turn based game is definitely...odd. I want to try and avoid the 'action delay' that Skull Ruins has as a penalty for Evading, though. Cover's in a similar boat, but for different reasons. The lack of a battle map for encounters and the way the action system works is gonna require me to reexamine the Cover mechanic a little.
- 4 move limit shouldn't be as much of an issue in the Pokerole Mystery Dungeon World. Mostly because there aren't a whole lot of scenarios where it would even be relevant. No Pokemon Trainers, after all.
- Action costs comparison noted. I'll take another look at that, determine which one will work better for the kind of game I want to create.
- Mid campaign changes to mechanics are definitely something I want to avoid during my main game unless it's absolutely necessary.
- I don't have to lose out on pre-generated dungeons, actually. The last floor of the Snowpoint Temple (which was actually a part of the Sinjoh Ruins due to the time-space shenanigans if ya hadn't caught on to that) was pre-generated, in fact! After looking at the other tabletop game you showed me awhile back, Windos, and its recommendations on flowchart dungeons, I may try my hand at tileless dungeons in the future. Traveling to the locations of Mystery Dungeons may very well also have our standard encounter format during the travel time.
- I'm still working on ironing out some of the Mystery Dungeon native mechanics. I've not thought much about how much of an impact Gummis and Apples will have yet, or if they'll even be present at all (Gummis aren't mentioned in the MD module, and apples are reduced to currency. :/ Fear not, though, the currency will be Poke, as standard for the PMD series). As for recruitment...well, that's another beast entirely. If I want to include all of these mechanics (and possibly others), I'll have to homebrew some rules.
- Speaking of a slow pacing to start with at the beginning of the game, learning to adjust to life as a pokemon is actually something that should probably naturally happen IC regardless, ironically. It's gonna be weird and different for sure, but it'll eventually work out just fine after we've all had some time to adjust both IC and OOC, I'm sure.
- Items should definitely play a stronger role in the long term during the main campaign. The strongest items in PMD are pretty crazy, after all!
- I also went through a short scenario with Mika and Karen before the test game started. The only one I didn't do that with was Phantom/Kee since they were an almost last minute addition. Speaking of which, thank you for joining us on this wild ride, Phantom!
- I love that the PC can be accessed from anywhere in both Let's Go and Sword and Shield, even if it does eliminate some of the challenge in some portions of those games should you abuse the mechanic. One change I did make from them, however, was healing in the PC. Due to the nature of the games and the mechanic, dropping mons in the PC doesn't heal them, so you have to talk to Nurse Joy to get any and all mass healing, period. That wasn't gonna work in this campaign, though, so I settled on a delayed heal.
- PMD: Primal Shadows is going to be a bit more open world and sandbox-like than MCM was, so I figured I'd work on practicing connected plotlines and expanded player agency scenarios. Glad to see the results turned out well and were liked!
- You did indeed find everything I had planned ahead of time. Good job! Part of the reason for that is because Ran's backstory involved stuff that would make more sense in his home world than the PMD world. Expect to see sidequests relevant to every character during PMD: Primal Shadows, though!
- Boss design was probably the part I put the most thought into after the story, honestly. A good boss fight can very easily strengthen the impact of their involvement in the story. Next time you face a Legendary, though, expect it to be harder!
- I do feel the section where you were simply traveling down Routes 217 and 216 dragged on for a little too long with respect to the scope of this campaign, but maybe that's just because you visited the Snowpoint Temple first.
- With regards to the story I've created, my ideas draw from a lot of existing lore and facts for the pokemon series, both mainline and mystery dungeon. However, that isn't to say there won't be original content in the future. In fact, I plan for there to be quite a bit of original content supplementing the existing data I'm pulling from (or they could be outright working together to create something partially familiar, partially new)!
-----------------------------------------------
- I agree on the houserules thing. We've addressed this in detail already, though, so there's no real need to elaborate further here.
- On the note of Will Pointed healing, I would like to mention that I only subtracted a Will Point if the healing move in question restored at least 1 HP. If the move does absolutely nothing because of the dice, it doesn't make sense to me that you should pay for that. It was a difficult to change to notice due to every instance of a Basic/Complete Heal in this game restoring more than 0 HP, but it was in place nonetheless.
- Evasion is a weird mechanic in Pokerole, so that is a perfectly valid criticism. I may keep it how I had it in this game, I may try to rebalance it and/or limit it, but I'm definitely taking another look at it. Anime style evasions in a primarily turn based game is definitely...odd. I want to try and avoid the 'action delay' that Skull Ruins has as a penalty for Evading, though. Cover's in a similar boat, but for different reasons. The lack of a battle map for encounters and the way the action system works is gonna require me to reexamine the Cover mechanic a little.
- 4 move limit shouldn't be as much of an issue in the Pokerole Mystery Dungeon World. Mostly because there aren't a whole lot of scenarios where it would even be relevant. No Pokemon Trainers, after all.
- Action costs comparison noted. I'll take another look at that, determine which one will work better for the kind of game I want to create.
- Mid campaign changes to mechanics are definitely something I want to avoid during my main game unless it's absolutely necessary.
- I don't have to lose out on pre-generated dungeons, actually. The last floor of the Snowpoint Temple (which was actually a part of the Sinjoh Ruins due to the time-space shenanigans if ya hadn't caught on to that) was pre-generated, in fact! After looking at the other tabletop game you showed me awhile back, Windos, and its recommendations on flowchart dungeons, I may try my hand at tileless dungeons in the future. Traveling to the locations of Mystery Dungeons may very well also have our standard encounter format during the travel time.
- I'm still working on ironing out some of the Mystery Dungeon native mechanics. I've not thought much about how much of an impact Gummis and Apples will have yet, or if they'll even be present at all (Gummis aren't mentioned in the MD module, and apples are reduced to currency. :/ Fear not, though, the currency will be Poke, as standard for the PMD series). As for recruitment...well, that's another beast entirely. If I want to include all of these mechanics (and possibly others), I'll have to homebrew some rules.
- Speaking of a slow pacing to start with at the beginning of the game, learning to adjust to life as a pokemon is actually something that should probably naturally happen IC regardless, ironically. It's gonna be weird and different for sure, but it'll eventually work out just fine after we've all had some time to adjust both IC and OOC, I'm sure.
- Items should definitely play a stronger role in the long term during the main campaign. The strongest items in PMD are pretty crazy, after all!
Proud member of the Roleplay section!
Pokerole Game 1: Skull Ruins
Pokerole Game 2: Celadon City Vandals
Pokerole Game 3: PMD: Primal Shadows
Pokerole Game 1: Skull Ruins
Pokerole Game 2: Celadon City Vandals
Pokerole Game 3: PMD: Primal Shadows
