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Forums About 21 Dec Pokemon Journeys Winter Playtest Whoa hey look here’s a new Pokemon Journeys playtest packet ! And wow look there’s a cool map too to go with the adventure module inside. The rules are still incomplete, but there’s enough material here for you to run a 5-6 session adventure with pregenerated Level 1 Trainers and Pokemon about being stranded on a mountain in a blizzard. Catch a Wooloo and cuddle with it for warmth! Run from angry Galarian Darumakas! Give all your possessions to Snom! And of course, hop onto our Discord over in the sidebar and let us know what you think of the system so far and the adventure. castella Posted in Development Process 26 Nov Pokémon Tabletop Community Creation Event What Is This? We want to try out a creative activity that can bring the whole Pokémon Tabletop community together to make maps, adventures, fakemon, and more all around a theme! This is our first time hosting such an event, so bear with us as we figure out how to best run this. From now through January 5th, we’ll be taking submissions via a Discord submission channel for creations in a few categories: Maps made for battles, towns, and exploration areas Homebrew Pokémon – whether they’re regional variants, Shiny Pokémon, Type Shifts, or flat out Fakemon Battle encounters, whether they’re wilderness encounters, Gym Battles, or other boss fights Adventures, whether they’re location descriptions, quests, or longer modules This isn’t going to be a formally ranked or judged event, and we don’t have strict rules for submissions in each category. However, all submitted entries will be linked in a showcase post, and some of the devs and mods will take a moment to highlight an entry or two which they found interesting, which had a unique idea, or which spoke to them in some other way. Doxy’s thought process is capricious and subservient to the whims of the Power Brick, so don’t treat this like a competition to win! The Theme The theme for this event will beWinter Festivals and Celebrations ”! We’re purposefully avoiding making the theme explicitly Christmas or another winter holiday so you can think about what kinds of celebrations people in a world with Pokémon might have, whether it’s a small-town festival held when the first local Cryogonal awaken for the winter, or a larger holiday that exists in your personal region centered on a Legendary Pokémon like Articuno. There’s a whole world (literally!) of inspiration to draw from for this theme, and so we’d like to gently remind everyone to be tasteful and responsible when borrowing from cultures you aren’t member to. If you’d like to base your entry on a real world festival or celebration, ideally talk to someone from the source culture for a sensitivity check and make sure to do thorough research. However, also be mindful that members of minority cultures often spend a lot of time and energy explaining their cultures to others as it is, so ask for help tactfully when you do. How to Submit Please enter your submissions by posting in the #community-creation-submissions channel on Discord. In your post, include the following: The name or handle you and any collaborators want to be credited by. Which of the four categories you want your submission filed under; if you feel your work falls under multiple categories, choose the best fit. A short, 1-3 sentence blurb describing your entry. This will be used to describe your entry in the showcase post. A link to your submission. This should include enough fluff and description to tie it to the winter festivals theme. We suggest hosting a Google doc or link to a file on Google Drive, but a forum post or other form of hosting is fine too. Just be reasonably sure all links you provide will last. Credits for any art used (that you have permission to repost), assets with licensing that allows reuse, etc. A few notes on submissions: We reserve the right to exclude any submissions we deem to be inappropriate. Use common sense here. You can collaborate with others and submit works together. You can submit multiple works, but keep it reasonable. If you do this, we’d prefer if you submitted works in multiple categories instead of multiple works in one category. If you use outside art and assets that aren’t under a license that permits resharing and alteration, you must acquire explicit permission to repost them and show us proof. (Official Pokémon assets are an exception; feel free to use game sprites, ripped tilesets, etc.) Resources and advice will be provided for each submission category, so read on for more details! Resources and Advice Maps Resources If you’d like to make Pokémon-style pixel art maps, we recommend Tiled Map Editor ( https://www.mapeditor.org/ ). Here’s a good starting tutorial for Tiled: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZwaomOYGuYo (You can safely ignore the parts of the tutorial talking about collision maps since you are just making an image and not a functional video game map) This tileset has plenty of winter-themed tiles for a map: https://www.deviantart.com/chaoticcherrycake/art/Pokémon-Tileset-From-Public-Tiles-358379026 (Note that if you repost maps you make using this tileset elsewhere, you should credit the artists listed in that deviantArt post) Should you choose to use tilesets from elsewhere, check that their creators are okay with others publicly sharing maps made from them and please give them credit as well. If pixel art maps aren’t your speed, 2minutetabletop offers a variety of map-making assets under a Creative Commons license. Unfortunately, there isn’t a snow-themed asset pack, but you can find many other useful assets here: https://www.2minutetabletop.com/product-category/map-assets/ Advice Large battle maps in Pokémon Tabletop tend to be cumbersome and can severely disadvantage melee-centric Pokémon if the entire breadth of the map is used. 20×20 tile size is recommended for a standard battle map, and if you go much larger than that, consider adding environmental features that help combatants move around quickly. Battle maps should not only look good but have interesting terrain features. Including a brief description of what kind of encounter your map is best for, any mechanics particular to the terrain, and any fluff and lore behind your map’s location (even if it’s just the site of a snowball and Pokémon fight at a festival) will make it more useful for GMs. When it comes to town maps and routes and other locations to explore, it’s even more important to include some brief descriptions. Homebrew Pokémon Resources ElementalKnight has put together a utility for Type-Shifting Pokémon here: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/Pokémon_tabletop/ptx-type-shifting-movelist-helper-t3192.html Our very own Pokémon Tabletop blog has various ideas for variant Pokémon you can use to get an idea of what the possibilities are for regional variants and shinies: https://Pokémontabletop.com/category/pokespotlight/ While it is old now, the homebrew Sage dex done by a set of PTU veterans remains a good example too: http://paradoxhaze.wikidot.com/capxdex Advice The easiest way to start creating a Fakemon of any sort is to take an existing Pokémon and make adjustments to it. You can slot out Moves for equivalents of different Types, use their move lists to gauge what Moves go at which levels, and pick similar Ability options. Don’t feel obligated to provide 100% full Egg, TM, and Tutor Move lists. Having several strong options in each list is more useful than very full lists with a lot of filler and Moves that no one will ever take. When it comes to homebrewing Moves and Abilities, don’t go overboard. Having a core Ability or Move that is distinctive to the Pokémon and which it is built around is more effective than giving it a massive array of new things. Include a couple ideas for how your homebrew Pokémon can be encountered and how it fits into a world. The theme is winter festivals, so maybe the Pokémon is at the center of a celebration....