10-13-2026, 03:02 PM
Oh, I thought I responded to this.
I think pokemon is in some ways tough, in some ways easy to adapt.
It's tough because crunchy mechanics, granular stats, and repetitive actions are so core to both the gameplay and the world. Being a video/card game feels very baked into the world-logic, in a way that would be tricky to convert to elegant TTRPG play. You end up needing to choose between a game that only marginally resembles Pokemon and a game that's borderline unplayable.
But it's easy because people love it, so it's fine for a game that's more about trad riffing and vibing. If people are just there with a beer and pretzels mindset, anything can work.
Have I mentioned on the podcast that my origin story (one of them, at least) is that my roommate homebrewed a pokemon TTRPG and ran it for our flophouse? I don't remember much about the details, and I'm sure it's not in line with my current philosophy on RPG design, but I also remember having a lot of fun at the time. This would have been back in like 2007, and is pretty directly responsible for me starting to look into RPG design.
I think pokemon is in some ways tough, in some ways easy to adapt.
It's tough because crunchy mechanics, granular stats, and repetitive actions are so core to both the gameplay and the world. Being a video/card game feels very baked into the world-logic, in a way that would be tricky to convert to elegant TTRPG play. You end up needing to choose between a game that only marginally resembles Pokemon and a game that's borderline unplayable.
But it's easy because people love it, so it's fine for a game that's more about trad riffing and vibing. If people are just there with a beer and pretzels mindset, anything can work.
Have I mentioned on the podcast that my origin story (one of them, at least) is that my roommate homebrewed a pokemon TTRPG and ran it for our flophouse? I don't remember much about the details, and I'm sure it's not in line with my current philosophy on RPG design, but I also remember having a lot of fun at the time. This would have been back in like 2007, and is pretty directly responsible for me starting to look into RPG design.