35 replies to this topic

[Vortigern]

RPG Name: ? (I'll think of something cool later if people are interested enough.)
RPG Description: Set in the world on which the pokemon games are based, but terribly, brutally real. Pokemon don't get knocked out, they get ripped to pieces. Trainers don't always fight fair, the pokemon themselves won't necessarily go for your pokemon and might just try to bite your face off instead. Pokemon are caught with heavy fire/water/electricity resistant chains, not poke balls. They're not cute. They're not friendly. They're not pets. They're animals, and they will kill you if you let them.
RPG Era: Modern.
RPG Plot: As yet undecided, but one of two options:
---------> 1) We RP as an elite police retrieval force tasked with containing or, if necessary, killing dangerous wild pokemon.
---------> 2) We RP as a group of would-be trainers looking to make a name and a profit for themselves.
RPG Leader(s): Me (Vortigern).


So, who's interested? And as yet this is still an idea in development, so feel free to suggest anything you think would improve the idea and I will take it into consideration. See also this post.

[mike_]

I'm down for it. Personally, I would prefer your first idea, where it's the same Pokemon throughout the "evolutions", it's just designated differently for each stage that it's at. Does that make sense?

Also, for a plot/map - wouldn't it be neat if we followed the game's map, just made more brutal, like you're wanting? So the Viridian Forest would be a giant, overgrown Beedrill hive. Mount Moon would be a Zubat-infested system of tunnels (with a moon-cult of predatory Clefairy somewhere inside, that pick off travelers). Also, the Pokemon League plot could still remain; it could be our group's motivation for setting out on such a dangerous journey. Battles with gym leaders and random trainers (as well as a more evil Team Rocket, or an equivalent) could work, too.


EDIT: How would starter Pokemon work? How many would you say we can have at the beginning of the RP, and does one of them have to be one of the game's starters?

Edited by mike_, 18 August 2011 - 07:57 PM.

[Elvenlord]

I'm kinda curious how League battles would work. I mean fights to death makes sense in the wild, but for official matches that seems a bit absurd. Would it be to first blood or something then?

I don't think I'll be joining. I like it, but I totally lack the dedication to post often.

[Vortigern]

(Long post ahoy, chaps. Feel free to read whichever parts you give a shit about.)

Ah, shame. I'd like to have you on board, Elven, even if you can't post regularly. Sometimes is better than no times. And yeah, I think league battles would be first blood, or possibly more like animal boxing. Like, you go for rounds and try to win them. Or maybe it wouldn't just be straight-up battles, maybe they'll have a bit more to it than that. Challenges, or gauntlets, or tasks, or something. But also battles. I don't know, like I said it's still an idea in development. Anyway, even if you're not going to take part, feel free to suggest ways to improve it for everyone else.

Mike: you're saying you prefer the idea of charmander as infant form, charizard as adult form with constant growth and development in between rather than hibernation-evolution? Seems fair. I'm leaning towards that one myself. And yes, I was planning to follow the original map as far as possible, except realism'd. So Viridian Forest would in fact be a giant motherfucking forest full of wild animals and really not for the faint of heart, Mt Moon would just be one of a whole range, Cinnabar Island would be a rather large volcanic island. I'm picturing Iceland here, except a little more tropical. In fact, think more Sicily than Iceland, except with an active volcano instead of a dormant one. As for the starter pokemon, theoretically you could have anything. There is no limit to what starter pokemon you could be given, or could catch yourself. It wouldn't be too strange if you were to go out with a tazer and catch a relatively weak pokemon that way and work your way up. Although being given a baby pokemon would be the best option, because then you can train it and it'll get used to you and look out for you. I imagine training pokemon would be like training dogs. Fire-breathing dogs. For our characters' starting pokemon, I think we'd do that pretty simply: when you register the character, you say what pokemon he/she/shcle comes with and then I say if it's too much or not enough or what. That seems like it would work to me.

And if I can be bothered, I think I might do a little profile for each of the pokemon. Just a couple of lines, but enough to give you an idea how I imagine them all in real life. For example:

Charmander - Fire lizard. Combines the flame on its tail with flammable gases in its stomach to 'breathe' fire at its enemies. Grows to adulthood (charizard) in around eight years.

I also have an excellent plan for Team Rocket. This is made quite difficult by the fact that they're villains in a children's TV series and difficult to take seriously, but I think I've got it. I'm thinking 'Team Rocket' would be a widely-known nickname, but not what they call themselves. They are called this because of their founder, Rolando 'Rocket' [insert Italian-ish surname], the grandfather of Giovanni, who I'm sure we all remember. He was the first man to really understand that pokemon could be used for serious crime. Like, diglett-ing his way into bank vaults, and breeding drowzees for use in harvesting their hormones to market as psychedelics. (I bet there'd be a colossal black market in that kind of thing.) Nowadays they're basically the Mafia, but with pokemon.

By the way, I've had some thoughts on types. I don't think I could be having psychic pokemon or ghosts (it just doesn't fit with the whole realism deal), so I'm working around that. The ghosts are actually just tiny psychic-type pokemon who surround themselves with gaseous clouds as a defense which are also psychedelics, which accounts for people thinking they're ghosts and all scary-looking. Psychic-type pokemon release pheromone clouds (or sometimes streams) which can cause all kinds of effects on others. It's first and foremost a predatory technique, but obviously can be adapted for battle. Being hit in the nostrils by a cloud of Kadabra mojo would leave another pokemon struggling to stay in touch with reality and slowly weakening as the poison spread through its system. Also, it would be a paralysis thing, because I'm willing to bet that they'd eat their prey alive. I always thought Kadabras and Alakazams looked evil. Also, poison-type would be genuinely dangerous. Like, people die from them kind of dangerous. And as for rock-type: they grow a calciferous exo-skeleton as a protective measure. It grows extremely slowly, but they have massive lifespans. Like, there are probably onixes over a thousand years old. Also, onixes subsist mainly on insect life and the occasional zubat and burrow all across the world deep underground, only rarely surfacing, and when they get old also get ginormous. I'm imagining rock snakes about two hundred feet long. Steel-type would be exactly the same except that it would be a ferrous exo-skeleton. I'm ignoring dark-type because there aren't any actual pokemon with that in the original 150.

Anyway, that's all I've got for the moment. I'm sure there'll be more to come later.

[Elvenlord]

There aren't any steel type in the first 150 either

If you don't mind me not posting for weeks at a time I guess I'll go ahead and join. I'll still try to stay current, but yeah. Probably has something to do with the fact I still suck at RPs

I was wondering how psychic would work, especially since my favorites has always been the Abra line.

[Vortigern]

Uh, Magnemite/Magneton? God Elven, get your facts right.

You know, if we ever get around to Mewtwo (unlikely) I might make it genuinely psychic, just to throw a little curve-ball. Then again, I might not. The mystery deepens.

[Phil]

Uh, Magnemite/Magneton? God Elven, get your facts right.

In red/blue/yellow they were electric only

Edited by Phil, 18 August 2011 - 10:47 PM.

[Vortigern]

Ah, curses. Foiled by Leaf Green! But given that in all other editions they were steel/electric and even in the originals were still made of steel, I think I'm going to count them.

[mike_]

Sounds groovy, Vort. For starters I meant the three supplied in the games (Charmander, Bulbasaur and Squirtle) or whatever basic forms we want. For example, I would likely pick Cubone, Growlithe and Dratini as my beginners.

[Elvenlord]

No

[The Best Guest]

I'd be up for this!

[some_weirdGuy]

I'd be interested I guess, though I can't guarantee how much I'd be able to participate.(though saying that it always seems i'm more active here than most).

also, @ the not having ghosts/psychics: weren't ghost type pokemons always not really ghosts anyway? I swear they weren't actually the ghosts of dead pokemon they were just pokemon that were ghost-like, mixed with a bit of human superstition to give them the title of 'ghost pokemon'.
(though my mind was pretty blown when i saw this, that and a few other pokemon mindfucks that I saw).


The only pokemon game I ever played was emerald or saphire (whatever, it was that 3rd series) and I realised that I'm going to keep wanting pokemon from that :/
for example right now I'm feeling real keen to have the steel bird I had in that game(1 sec finding name, here it is: )'Skarmory'. I don't even know why, it wasn't one of my main pokemon or one that i really liked back when I was playing...

SO, would we be able to(on a negotiatory basis) bring in the odd pokemon from later games areas? I mean we're meant to be in the first games place, so it makes sense that only the original pokemon are there natively, but that doesn't completely exclude the new(ok, series 3 is probably not 'new' any more but still XD) pokemon from existing in this, right?.

[Vortigern]

Maybe we can get on to the later pokemon if this RP flourishes and persists, SWG, but for the moment I'd like to stick with the first 150, if only because trying to start off with all 500 would be hella difficult and involve way more effort on my part, largely because I never played beyond Gold and Silver, so I don't even know what most of those later 250 pokemon even are. I may, however, consider bringing in a few of the later-game pokemon at various points because they seem like they would fit with the story and/or the world we're creating here.

Mike: I'd have to say no to the dratini, because they're some rare-ass pokemon right there. And of the cubone and growlithe, you could have one of those and maybe catch the other later. Remember, it looks at the moment like we're going to be starting off as fresh-faced, inexperienced trainers with more knowledge than skill. But later on we'll doubtless have a fine, wide selection of pokemon at our beck and call. So yeah, pick one. I'd go for the growlithe, because everyone knows fire pokemon are the best. Fact.

TBG: I'd be glad to have you on board.

[Elvenlord]

Growlithe was definitely my second choice after Abra

[mike_]

Alright, Growlithe it is

[some_weirdGuy]

Maybe we can get on to the later pokemon if this RP flourishes and persists, SWG, but for the moment I'd like to stick with the first 150, if only because trying to start off with all 500 would be hella difficult and involve way more effort on my part, largely because I never played beyond Gold and Silver, so I don't even know what most of those later 250 pokemon even are. I may, however, consider bringing in a few of the later-game pokemon at various points because they seem like they would fit with the story and/or the world we're creating here.

wow, 500. But no no, thats not what i wanted, I never kept track of new pokemon either (and the ones i have seen were kinda crappy).
I was thinking more along the lines of could individual people(ie me) when creating their character, negotiate for themselves to have one of their pokemon not from the original 150 (ie a Shroomish).

So not have all new pokemon out there in the wild, just special cases where a trainer or whatever brought with them a pokemon from a different region. You can do what you want with that other stuff, I just want to have a shroomish to be my starter pokemon XD.

Edited by some_weirdGuy, 20 August 2011 - 03:46 AM.

[mike_]

Alright guys, what needs to happen before we get this going? I know a few people that I can talk to that may or may not be interested in doing this with us (also, you may want to post a link here, Vort: http://www.serebiiforums.com/), but unless we definitely know that we're going to give this RP a shot I won't bother them

How close do we want to stay to the source material? Here's my suggestion; the concept is to have small groups of Pokemon trainers traveling the land, battling each other (to first blood or until one side concedes defeat) and wild Pokemon (to death), with the ultimate goal being to get a League Certification by defeating League Representatives (also known as Reps, or the Gym Leaders from the games) in the major towns, climaxing in the League Championship at the Indigo Plateau (provided you still want to keep the color-themed naming), which would be your basic tournament style fight. The last trainer standing would get a huge cash prize, and that would be that. Along the way we would conflict with "Team Rocket" (aka, the Mafia-like guys you mentioned above), providing another subplot.

Any other ideas?

[{IRS}Athos]

Ash is captured by the Rockets, who put Pikachu through a wood-chipper and feed him the pieces.

Count me in, I s'pose.

[Copaman]

[...] for the moment I'd like to stick with the first 150, if only because trying to start off with all 500 would be hella difficult and involve way more effort on my part, largely because I never played beyond Gold and Silver, so I don't even know what most of those later 250 pokemon even are. I may, however, consider bringing in a few of the later-game pokemon at various points because they seem like they would fit with the story and/or the world we're creating here.

First off, I'm lurking pretty hardcore on this thread.

Secondly - as a one time Pokemon nerd, I'd request that you do exactly what you said, but with special consideration for the Gold/Silver legendaries Ho-oh and Lugia. They were the last legendaries I actually considered canon and not over the top ... see Pokemon the Movie 2000.

[Beowulf]

Vort, what I meant in the other thread is that realism and things of Japanese origin (like anime and video games) don't mix too well. You either destroy the original idea or turn it into something that's more uncreative. This appears to be neither, but tbh, I won't get on board since the idea isn't what I'd enjoy, but this is just me. Now if there's a 'furry' themed RPG that gets going (which anyone can join without being a furry), I'd be all over that.

Edited by Beowulf, 21 August 2011 - 04:15 AM.