18 replies to this topic

[Vortigern]

1) I just came across this, and find myself entirely in agreement. What we're attempting here is a world of realism that happens to involve animals with control over certain aspects of the world around them. That does not mean that everything levels up as you do, nor that everybody is focused entirely on these animals. Life carries on much as it does in any other universe for the vast majority of people. Being a pokémon trainer is a career and lifestyle choice, much as being a doctor or a teacher would be. So let's try to keep this as similar to the real world as we can, because let's face it, people are people wherever they're from.

2) Pokémon do not 'evolve'; they grow. A basic, 'unevolved' form is an infant, a 'fully evolved' form is an adult. There is a constant pattern of growth among pokémon from birth to adulthood just as you would expect from a real animal.

3) Two of the same pokémon (e.g. charmanders) can be as different from one another as two humans, especially if they're raised differently. Each and every one of them is unique. They have different lifespans, life cycles, lifestyles, everything.

4) The map portrayed in the games is ridiculous, I think we can all agree. The biggest city has about twelve houses and a giant corporation. Therefore, how about we bear this in mind instead: cities are the size of cities, not unusually well-developed roadside hamlets. The major towns and cities are the following: Pallet, Viridian, Pewter, Cerulean, Vermilion, Lavender, Celadon, Saffron, Fuchsia, Cinnabar. Saffron is the capital, and the largest city in the country, as well as being the home of Silph Co., a corporation with wide-ranging interests and a serious research and development department based around the abilities of pokémon. (It should also be noted that Silph Co. does not exist solely in one building that can be overrun by criminals, and the CEO almost certainly does not live there. Remember: realism.)

5) The primary method of inter-city transportation is trains. (Or boats, which are mostly powered by sails, though sometimes oars.) The trains are powered by electric-type pokémon. As would be the case with this world, it has taken some very different turns in technological advancement, seeing as electricity was known and able to be exploited by humans at around the same point as fire. For example, there are no cars, though there are trains, as mentioned already. Medical care is limited and only very recently beginning to seriously develop. Largely, what technologies there are are based around pokémon. For example, the postal service heavily relies on messenger birds, while most ships carry at least a couple of strong water-types with them in case of unfavourable circumstances.

6) Pokémon die. If you make your pokémon battle, they will get hurt and there is a serious chance that sooner or later they will end up on the wrong end of an ass-kicking. Or more probably, a throat-ripping or flank-devouring. Either way, it's not going to end well. There is also a good chance that enemy trainers will simply stab you in the face rather than go through the whole pokémon battle rigmarole, especially if your pokémon don't particularly seem to like you or respect you.

7) Nothing comes for free. As a pokémon trainer, you're going to be a freelancer unless you can get yourself employed by the police or one of the pokémon League teams, who have medical insurance. So every time your pokémon gets injured (or you do, that happens too) you can either wait and hope it gets better, try and fix it yourself or pay for better care. There's also the issue of food. Some pokémon will feed themselves (herbivorous pokémon, for example, will happily feed themselves while you're walking along somewhere that isn't a desert or a frozen tundra), while some can be trained to hunt for you. but all of them need to eat, and so do you. Don't forget that part.

8) Pokémon are caught not by shiny magical poké balls at your waist. Rather they are caught by subduing them however you can and tying them down with the strongest chains you can get hold of. Of course, those pokémon will still have been born into the wild and will probably not adapt awfully well to a life of servitude and obedience. The more usual course would be to catch a pokémon, contain it and present it with opportunities to breed, then raise the offspring as domesticated pokémon. Pokémon used to being in the wild will usually be stronger and fiercer than their domestic counterparts, but also less likely to obey their supposed masters. And of course, the ultimate loyalty of a pokémon is worth far more than a little extra strength most of the time. A wild pokémon may also take the opportunity to flee from a fight rather than stand.

9) There are pokémon gyms in the cities, but they are not as they are in the game. The gym leaders are some of the best trainers in the country. Every one of them maintains a full roster of pokémon (six, of various types but often with a particular favourite) and is an affiliate of the pokémon league: without all eight badges you cannot take part in the league itself, which is of course as in the game. But they are the absolute best. There is no linear progression here. They are all more or less equal and all seriously tough. Their pokémon will show yours no mercy at all.

10) There is a movement which I'm going to call the PRA: Pokémon Rights Association. They want to ban all forms of pokémon combat beyond the absolutely necessary, which means the police and the power grid.

11) The government maintains a strict degree of control over the strongest pokémon. To own one of the stronger pokémon, classed as 'restricted', you have to get hold of a permit and submit to an inspection to ensure the pokémon is sufficiently under your control to be allowed in active society. If not it will be remanded into custody and either kept for government use or put down. The same applies for rare and endangered pokémon, though of course they would almost certainly not be put down under most circumstances.



More to come, as and when I think of things to add.

[Vortigern]

Team Rocket.

They are more correctly called the 'Vitelli family criminal syndicate', but Team Rocket is the more popular name, after their founder Rolando 'Rocket' Vitelli, the first man to use pokémon in organised crime. Some of his methods included using digletts to tunnel into vaults; using psychic types to knock out rooms and even buildings full of people while his men, wearing gas-masks, went about their criminal business; machop/machoke/machamp as easily-exploited manual labour, and much more besides.

They have been linked with Silph Co., but nothing has ever been proved with enough substance to go to trial. The rumour is that Silph Co. researches those things that will benefit Team Rocket, and in return the company remains safe from plunder.

Giovanni Vitelli is thought to be the current head of operations for Team Rocket, though his brother Arturo seems to be more heavily, or at least more noticeably, involved. Giovanni is also the leader of Viridian City gym and a prominent politician in Kanto, despite his reputed involvement in the criminal underworld. He is almost always found backed up by his two favourite pokémon, an extremely powerful nidoking and nidoqueen. Besides these two Giovanni usually operates in his gym with a magmar, a blastoise, a hypno and a golem. The golem is said to be a family heirloom pokémon and over two hundred years old. It is hugely powerful.

Arturo Vitelli's pokémon are largely unknown, but for a venusaur, a pidgeot and an arcanine. Beyond that his roster seems to be variable, making him extremely difficult for the police to pin down, especially given his venusaur's proficiency with toxins. More than one impromptu attempt at an arrest has led to unconscious or paralysed police officers. Moreover, as he is not affiliated with the pokémon league and lives largely outside the law, he has never registered a roster and is not required to limit himself to merely six pokémon. He is considered extremely dangerous.

Team Rocket are thought to make the majority of their profit in the trades of rare pokémon, whether alive or dead, between collectors, and narcotics, mostly hallucinogenic, distilled from psychic and grass pokémon hormones and poisons: in diluted form even the most deadly poisons can cause a (relatively) harmless high, though the long-term effects are still widely unknown. Of course, Team Rocket also deal in the regular narcotics, but appear to have significantly less of a monopoly in that field.

[some_weirdGuy]

I suppose the question would go here:
what level of development are we talking with this society? I've been under the impression of a modern age (since pokemon has a fairly modern setting), but it seems that its not.
You meantion how pokemon have effected development, stuff like how electricity comes from pokemon and isn't utiliesed in the same way we do in the modern age, (your lack of TV's comment indicates this anyway, so if they haven't developed television and other such electronic technologies then thats a fair way back).

So what's the setting for this? Obviously it will be different (more advanced some ways but less advanced in others due to pokemon and their abilities), but whats it closest too?

(i'm assuming no earlier than an industrial revolution era) :

19th century? (early/late)
20th century? (early/late)
present day but they somehow skipped tv?
none of the above?

Am i kinda right when I think full metal alchemist style setting, where its kinda styled after the industrial revolution(but with some differences, in their case stuff like 'automail', in this case technology derived from using pokemon to 'cheat' things like electricity into winder use then it would otherwise be),

So they have paved streets(not bitumen), with those early style cars, no tv's but radios are common, refridgerators are quite a novelty and old style steam trains are what's used? (well, ignoring that last one since you said electric pokemon power trains, but it helps in my head to visualise the era).

Am I on the right track?

[Vortigern]

Not... really. The trains are pretty high-tech, they're bullet trains, because pokémon have given people a path to understanding electromagnetics. However, there is no TV, no radio, no computers, because no pokémon have that ability and in the areas not linked to the abilities of pokémon this society is remarkably underdeveloped. So medicine isn't very good, architecture isn't particularly advanced (I'd say probably around 1930s-level, so they've got skyscrapers, but they're not very good yet), communication is done mostly by messenger birds and news is spread by newspapers. (Also, without computers there's no porygon either. Which I'm fine with.) And there are no cars. People cycle or they walk or they ride pokémon. Although there are government agencies which do have some form of cars, which are powered by voltorbs locked into the engine and aren't really very good, but are necessary for transporting cages in which to contain really dangerous wild pokémon.

It's only recently that the Celadon House Company have started making any real headway, and at the moment they're largely invested in medical research, and Silph Co., the other big R&D company in Kanto, are based entirely in pokémon-related research.

Basically, if you can think of a technology that could be developed by exploiting pokémon and their abilities, this world probably has it. If it's a technology unrelated to the abilities of pokémon, they probably don't.

[Vortigern]

The Kanto Pokémon Ranger Service.

The Rangers are an elite group of trainers in the employ of the national government, formed with the remit of capturing and containing dangerous wild pokémon and, on occasion, renegade trainers in liaison with the police. The Rangers have some seriously powerful pokémon of their own and are known to the whole world as being both rather unscrupulous and utterly merciless. Nonetheless, many still see them as a noble and worthy profession to be admired. The Ranger Service is the only discipline in Kanto besides Gym Leaders that has no restrictions placed on the ownership of pokémon.

They were originally formed by then-Lieutenant Surge, in the days before he became leader of Vermilion Gym, as a specialist branch of the armed forces. Similar groups have since sprung up in other countries, but the Kanto Rangers remain the first, and proudest.

The Rangers often seem to take on the personality of their leader, and the current leader of the Kanto Rangers is Colonel David Mulholland, having recently taken over from the disgraced former Colonel Preston Hardwick, arrested after his involvement was discovered in underground pokémon fighting rings. (It was at this stage that an investigation into General Surge began, Hardwick having been his handpicked successor to the post.) Mulholland has since opened links with the Fuchsia Safari Zone and placed coordinators within each Prefecture to streamline the process of capture and provide the unsafe animals with a more comfortable environment than the underground concrete cells Surge and Hardwick had implemented. However, he has not yet been in control long enough to change the nationwide reputation of the Rangers, and nor does he enjoy complete support amongst the Rangers themselves, many of whom were brought into the Service in person by Hardwick. But one way or another, the Rangers are in a time of transition. How will they emerge from it remains to be seen.

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

I was thinking as I was reading the first post is that point 8 doesn't make sense.
If there's no Pokeballs what makes them Pokemon?
Wouldn't they all just be Monsters?

Where does that leave someone wanting to train Water Pokemon like Magikarp,Seaking etc?

Another thought is if technology is based around the abilities of Pokemon (and assuming that all Pokemon exist just not native to Kanto)
Would that mean people could predict the future via Xatu's ability in the same way electricity would probably have come from Magnemites?

Rather than also posting this in the General topic maybe some of the rules can be tweaked so we can catch Pokemon more easily and maybe "evolve" a bit more like the games so that we can more Pokemon fun into it.
The 1 partner thing so far remind me more of Digimon.

Just some thoughts.

[Vortigern]

1) Yes, they are just monsters. Well, animals. I guess what makes them pokémon is their various elemental affinities and somewhat supernatural strengths. Anyway, it's like if you want to train animals in the real world. You wouldn't be able to train dolphins if you lived hundreds of miles inland, like you wouldn't be able to train dogs if you lived on a boat. Probably, anyway. So really if you want to train water pokémon you have to live by/in the sea. Or a lake. Or a river. It's all good. Unless you go for amphibious pokémon like poliwags, squirtles, slowpokes, dratinis (though they're a controlled species, so that's a no-go) and I can't be bothered to list them all right now, but you get the idea.

2) No, people can't predict the future. They probably only thought Xatu could predict the future because it was sensitive to natural phenomena, in the same way that dogs and other animals in the real world can sense earthquakes coming before it hits. Most 'psychic' type pokémon use hallucinogenic or panic-inducing spores to disorient their predators/prey, and if some of them are indeed sensitive to natural phenomena like that, it figures that ancient societies, in the time before serious science and things, would think they were just extra psychic.

3) Most trainers do have more than one pokémon. The only reason we have one each so far is that we're beginners. That's all there is to that. As the RPG goes on, we'll pick up more and build proper teams.

4) I actually put the evolution question to a poll before we began. I was in favour of proper evolution where pokémon would go into a kind of hibernation for a little while and emerge later, like when caterpillars go into cocoons. Which would render Metapods and Kakunas a little obsolete, but who really cares about them? However, the majority vote was in favour of constant and gradual growth from infant forms to adult forms over the course of a pokémon's young life.

Does that answer your questions?

EDIT: Oh, and 5) Yes, all pokémon exist, but we're in Kanto, to which only Kanto pokémon are native. We have a couple of exceptions in the form of a cyndaquil and a shroomish but they're special cases that have been brought over from neighbouring countries by their owners.

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

The time based evolution may pose a problem for people who want their Pokemon to evolve.
So far we're only 2 days in so, will some time pass between Chapter 1 and 2?

[some_weirdGuy]

I'm not suppose to be here but in regards to the evolution thing:
Yes, it does make it difficult. Unfortunately when vort pushed the pro-realism agenda he removed all the things which were added for convenience and ease of use, (evolutions, pokeballs, clear pokemon types), which does indeed get in the way of the 'pokemon fun'.

@ vort:
Thats because (for example) having charmeleons climb into cacoons and emerge a few months later as charazards doesn't seem right (its a reptilian pokemon, it should work like a reptile not a bug), and in terms of making evolution easy is actually even less convenient/more difficult for us.
Think about it, your pokemon goes into its cacoon:
You now have to wait around for a few months while your pokemon hibernates and metamorphs into its next form. This means that you can't keep moving any more as near all pokemon are too big to carry(especially in their evolved forms, which is what they're becoming inside there), you can't just abandon them, and you still have to wait for ages.

The growing option means you still have to wait for ages, but the other down sides are all gone. It was the lesser of two evils really.

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

We're going to be old men by the time the Pokemon hit their final forms.

[{IRS}Athos]

This is why you should have picked a Bird pokemon.

[Vortigern]

But there's not much you can really do about that. Animals are animals, and they age. If we want them to grow at a convenient speed, they'd likely be dead of old age if we carry on for more than two chapters. However, if they don't age ridiculously fast, we don't necessarily get to their max-evolved forms. But they do get a lot stronger and more experienced and able in combat because that's reasonable for them having spent more time fighting.

There's not really a good solution for this apart from taking some serious time out between chapters, catching/trading already-evolved forms or having some kind of artificial evolution that seems to me to detract from the realism aspect, which would be the opposite of what I wanted from this RPG.

SWG: Maybe you could leave it at the pokémon centres and they'd take care of it for you. For a fee, of course. Healthcare isn't free in Kanto. And maybe different types of pokémon would work differently, it doesn't have to cocoon. Maybe a charmeleon would slowly shed skins as it grows out of them in layers, or something.

[Radspakr Wolfbane]

This is why you should have picked a Bird pokemon.

Thankfully I chose a rat Pokemon

Maybe the realistic aging can be tweaked.
Maybe as a Pokemon trains and battles they get stronger and it could show in their physical appearance somewhat.
Think Cyndaquil,Quilava,Typhlosion they all are somewhat similar looking but each form is larger and stronger looking than the last.

You could have 2 Wartortles around the same age but one would be larger and more like Blastoise because it's been training more.

I thought ahead with the aging thing and though I haven't mentioned it yet Fearless is already close to being a Raticate he has larger fangs and a brown colouring.

[Vortigern]

That's pretty much what I had in mind. It's natural for RPGs to get tweaked along the way, so I'm fine with that. The only problem there arises with the pokémon that look particularly different between evolved forms, such as charmeleon->charizard. In those cases, I would say that size and strength can be dependent upon battle experience and preference (obviously if they spend all their time using special moves, their physical capabilities will be less than if they used wholly physical attacks all the time), but the important features of the adult variety (in this case, wings) will still take time and growth to full maturity to be maximally effective.

[some_weirdGuy]

so wait, what is actually happening?

Pokemon still grow to 'evolve', but battling makes it grow faster? (if yes, how much faster?)
What's been worked out here?

[Vortigern]

Think of it like with people. If a thirteen-year-old gets in fights a lot, plays rugby, works out, eats the right stuff to help him grow big and strong, he'll be pretty hardcore for a thirteen-year-old. But he'll still be a thirteen-year-old, so he'll still most likely get beaten up by a twenty-five-year-old with the same diet, preferences, routine and whatnot. However, the thirteen-year-old would quite probably win against a twenty-five-year-old skinny, pacifistic chain-smoker with a poor diet. Or indeed against a normal guy who fights and works out as much as a normal person might.

Thus, a young pokémon with lots of training and the right conditions could conceivably defeat an older pokémon with a less competent trainer or less experience in combat. Evolution remains something that happens over time.

[some_weirdGuy]

So really we didn't address the issue first brought up at all? XD
(that because of the removal of instant-evolution it will take forever for anyone to get an evolved pokemon, ruining the fun)

[Vortigern]

Well, we kinda did. But you can't go speeding up the passage of time. Basically, the harder a pokémon trains the faster it grows (up to a point). Does that satisfy everyone?

[some_weirdGuy]

I don't mind, i was just trying to work out what was decided.

Also people should totally post more.