Pokémon Tabletop Adventures

Pokemon Tabletop Adventures is a homebrew tabletop game.

In 1996, Pokémon came out in Japan and began a worldwide craze. Pikachu is a pop culture icon. Hundreds of games have come out surrounding the Pokémon franchise. It’s absurd we don’t have an official tabletop role-playing game yet, but it is my hope that Pokémon: Tabletop Adventures suffices and finds a way into your game night or as a part of ongoing sessions that you and your party can enjoy. If you’ve played tabletop games before, great! If not, that’s fine too! Pokémon: Tabletop Adventures 3 tries its best to be accessible to any player. Either way, you’re going to need some things:

Players As a Player, you’ll create a Trainer, who will choose to take a up a profession, or Class, and you will capture and train Poké-mon to fight alongside your Trainer. Like the protagonists in the Pokémon franchise’s games, manga, or anime, Players will be the center of the game’s action. It’s ideal that you play with friends who you can be comfortable with. Playing a tabletop game is like collaborative story writing and overly-critical groups can lead to very unfun game experiences. It’s important as a player to be supportive of other players since everyone has different levels of comfort. If anything does come up that makes any players feel like anything is really unfun, talk about it. The best way to keep a campaign together and fun is to communicate.

A Game Master One person must fill the special role of Game Master, or GM, who controls every non-Player Trainer or Pokémon. They must build adventures, narrate, control non-Player Trainers, non-Player Pokémon and referee and make judgements for any rules that are not perfectly clear. You don’t have to memorize the rules, or be an amazing imaginative writer– but it helps if you’re willing to use every bit of creativity that you have. As the GM you should often check in with players after sessions to see where they are feeling the campaign could be going or if there’s any concerns about the direction. This can be crucial to keeping players engaged and having more fun together.

Books, Paper, Pencil and Dice Players will need access to the Player’s Handbook and whatever Pokédex books are being used. Players have restricted access to the Pokédex books and should avoid metagaming by only looking up a Pokémon’s Pokédex entry when they’ve used the Pokédex on a particular Pokémon. The GM should have access to the Player’s Handbook, all Pokédex books and the Game Master’s Handbook. Players should use the Character Sheets to help organize information relating to their Trainers and Pokémon. Always use a pencil when writing on your character sheets! In-formation for your Trainer and Pokémon are constantly changing! You will also need gaming dice (d4, d6, d8, at least 2 d10 for use in a d100 roll, d12, d20). When rolling dice in Pokémon: Tabletop Adventures, you always want to roll high, the only exception is when you roll two d10s to generate a d100 roll. Whenever you roll a d100 roll in Pokémon: Tabletop Adventures, you will want to roll as low as possible.

Player's Handbook

The Player's Handbook, and Player's Handbook 2, contain rules and options for playing a trainer.

Class Generally, a Class is a Trainer’s specialty or job. While any Trainer may hatch a Pokémon egg to care for and raise, a Breeder would specialize in doing so. Like-wise, any Trainer may battle with their Pokémon, but an Ace Trainer specializes in empowering their Pokémon during battle. Based on your class, specific stats will be more desirable and further specializations will be made available as you become more capable. For example, the Researcher can further narrow their specialty to become a Photographer or Scientist. You will gain these Advanced Classes by leveling up.

Classes Player's Handbook

Ace Trainer - Stat Ace, Strategist, Tag Battler, Type Ace, Underdog

Breeder - Botanist, Chef, Evolver, Medic, Move Tutor

Coordinator - Choreographer, Coach, Designer, Groomer, Move Tutor

Ranger - Invoker, Officer, Rider, Special Operations, Survivalist

Researcher - Archeologist, Capture Specialist, Photographer, Scientist, Watcher

Player's Handbook 2

Martial Artist - Aura Master, Dirty Fighter, Mentor, Ninja, Yogi

Psychic - Air Adept, Earth Shaker, Firebreather, Hex Maniac, Rain Waker

Rules for playing as a Pokémon, even while others play trainers, is available in the Player's Handbook 2.

Stats Stats are designated as Hit Points, Attack, Defense, Special Attack, Special Defense, and Speed. Generally you’ll make this after picking which class you want because in order to excel in a Class you will want your Stats to be relevant to that Class. For example, the Ranger who desires physical dexterity will want a lot of Speed, and not have their Attack stat be their highest one.

Origins After having the mechanical gaming aspects of your character, you’ll want to flesh them out. It’s entirely possible that you already had a character and background for that character in mind before you chose their Class and assigned their Stats. That’s perfectly okay! The Origins are just some additional bits that help to flesh out some mechanical aspects while also giving some additional areas of expertise for a Player’s Trainer.

Pokédex

The Pokédex is a complete listing of every non-legendary Pokémon that is used by both player and GM. It is used to manage your Pokémon's information. Pokémon are pulled from the book and only slightly changed per trainer's expertise.

Game Master's Guide

The Game Master's Guide has many features that help the GM run the Pokémon world without making the game feel exactly like you are playing the Pokémon video game. It is written with lots of pre-made NPCs and suggestions so that even new GMs can play PTA3.

Most Recent Version

You can find the latest editions of Pokemon Tabletop Adventures 3 here: https://linktr.ee/PokemonTabletopAdventures3