Pokémon Tabletop United

Pokémon Tabletop United, or PTU for short, is a tabletop RPG system designed for running games in the world of Pokémon. Players take on the role of Pokémon Trainers and travel the world, capturing and battling with the hundreds of Pokémon species that have been discovered. The core of the system is largely inspired by the Pokémon Special manga, though it can handle adventures ranging from the standard Pokémon League gym romp to more exotic campaign ideas like PokéPirates.

The system is currently under active development and is a sister system or spin-off from Pokémon Tabletop Adventures created largely by former devs of that system. It's an attempt to address many of PTA's underlying issues such as a lack of a skill system and the use of different combat stats for Pokémon and Trainers, as well as the balance issues between classes.

The developers for Pokémon Tabletop United hang out in an IRC channel on the Rizon network, and that's the best place to go with questions or comments. There's also a forum community that PTU shares with PTA, which has active games and homebrewers.

Core Rules

Pokémon Tabletop United is a level and class based system with a relatively high level of crunch. Unlike most class-based systems, however, player characters are completely expected to take multiple classes, even starting from level 1. Classes are more like packages of feats than like templates that completely determine how a character plays.

Skills

Skills are ranked on a scale from 1 to 6. Skill checks call for an Xd6 + modifier roll, where X is a character's skill rank. Modifiers can come from equipment and other sources.

PTU previously had an attribute system as well, but it was removed in the 1.05 update. However, the categories for skills based on the attributes still exist.

Body Skills are: Acrobatics, Athletics, Combat, Intimidate, Stealth, and Survival

Mind Skills are: General Education, Medicine Education, Occult Education, Pokémon Education, Technology Education, Guile, and Perception

Spirit Skills are: Charm, Command, Focus, and Intuition

Trainer Classes

PTU has a wide variety of Trainer Classes, mostly reflecting the types of Trainers that are battled in the video games, or archetypes drawn from other Pokémon media such as the anime and manga. Some examples of the classes include Ace Trainer, Hatcher, Capture Specialist, Martial Artist, Researcher, Survivalist, and Type Ace. They can excel at various tasks from training their Pokémon to battle harder, to helping the party travel through uncharted wilderness, to even battling alongside their Pokémon to fight off wild Pokémon or criminals.

Pokémon

Fans of the video games will see a lot that is familiar about how Pokémon are handled and a lot that is new and different. Pokémon have Stats, Moves (6 rather than video games 4), and Ablities, just like their video game counterparts, and Trainers share these same traits and use them in battle as well. There are a lot of new Abilities available in Pokémon Tabletop United, however, which serve to help make weaker Pokémon more usable and generally add to the customization of Pokémon.

Most of the raw data for Pokémon are in separate Pokédex PDFs due to the sheer volume of information needed.

Supplement Books

Everything contained in the core PTU pdf is deemed usable for all types of Pokémon campaigns, but over the course of the development of both PTA and PTU, many genre-shifting campaigns have cropped up such as Pokémon in space and an Etrian Odyssey crossover campaign. To help facilitate that, there are a number of supplement books for running PTU campaigns in various other genres and settings.

Do Porygon Dream of Mareep? is a science-fiction supplement for PTU and includes optional rules for handling the vacuum of space and other environmental hazards, as well as a wide selection of sci-fi-oriented items and subsystems. It also adds a few Trainer Classes for customizing Poké Balls, upgrading Pokémon with cybernetic augmentations, and more. Finally, there are a number of sample setting ideas to help GMs get started with sci-fi campaigns and guides for running PTU campaigns in various sci-fi sub-genres.

Game of Throhs is the fantasy supplement for PTU and is structured very similarly to Do Porygon Dream of Mareep?. Notably, it contains the Elementalist Classes, which are there to provide Trainers with elemental powers similar to those that the Psychic Classes in the core pdf can access - though for the other Pokémon Types, of course.

The Blessed and the Damned is a supplement focused on Legendary Pokémon and their treatment as divine entities. There are rules given for Legendaries to give Trainers their blessing or for handling battles against Legendary Pokémon. While the core pdf takes a more conservative and restrained stance on Legendary Pokémon and treats them like any other Pokémon, this supplement is explicitly geared toward treating them as special powers within the Pokémon universe.

Book of Divines is an unofficial supplement (for an unofficial RPG) that is meant to update and expand on The Blessed and the Damned. Specifically it focuses on adding tweaks to the previously listed Legendary and Mythical Pokémon as well as adding newer Pokémon brought along in later editions. It is, however, now out of date thanks to the newest generation having been released (Sword & Shield).

Downloads and Links

Website: https://pokemontabletop.com/

PTU Version 1.05 (latest version): https://mega.nz/#!5KBkUQhR!j6cWDEk9KdHOC9xlFs78_-L1j5X2HoSlxmf3O4P-z5I

-includes core pdf, pokédex, supplements, character sheets, and useful charts

Discord server: https://discordapp.com/invite/X9tQUX?utm_source=Discord%20Widget&utm_medium=Connect

Forum Community: https://www.tapatalk.com/groups/pokemon_tabletop/index.php

Criticisms

• No differentiation between types of weapons, armor and other gear. The game can't recognize the difference between a knife and a zweihander/polearm; between a surplus revolver and a micro-SMG; between the surplus breech-loader/break-action/lever-action/bolt-action rifle, the semi-auto/assault/battle rifle and the light/medium machinegun; between a .22 LR and a .338 Lapua Magnum. The most mechanically effective weapon is Melee/Short-range/Long-range weapons lumped together: a rifle with attached bayonet and attached shotgun (either a combination gun or an underslung shotgun). This also applies to protective gear like bulletproof vests/helmets, gas masks, etc; that makes the directly combat-specialized humans more clunky, as most (war-)gear options are missing or overly simplified.
  • Even worse - this makes it practically impossible to model Pokémon using proper wargear (e.g. wearing gas masks/rebreathers, CBRN/NBC/Hazmat suits, various types of armor, elemental-resistant suits like fire-proof and electricity-proof suits, etc; e.g. if WW1 dogs and horses could use gas masks, then Pokemon also should be able to). And that's before tackling futuristic, heavy "everything-proof-suits" one could build (as the Pokémon universe's tech is rather advanced by default), on top of a few technical nuances (e.g. what attacks require inhalation or contact with eyes, or require contact with bare skin, and what can punch through sealed armor).
  • Since weapons are grouped based on type (Large Melee Weapons, Small Melee Weapons, Short-Range Weapons, Long-Range Weapons) and quality (Crude/Simple/Fine), and moves being chosen as needed - game indeed can't discern the difference between bow, bolt-action rifle and machinegun (only difference, if any, is different Moves). Since Fine weapons are proper police/military weapons, it means that almost all guns would be lumped in Fine category ("Simple" gun would be crude zip gun; "Crude" guns can't exist, as "Crude" weapons are improvised weapons). Two-handed firearm (automatic carbine/rifle) with under-barrel grenade launcher (shooting grenades or buckshot) with good bayonet would be the best in-game weapon - as it is 3-4 Fine weapons (automatic rifle + grenades/buckshot + bayonet + bashing with stock), for 6-8 Moves total.
  • Such simplification also means, that firearms and other advanced weapons are heavily downplayed - as pretty much everything has same stats. Although, that's mostly because no-one can get to consensus about how strong guns are in Pokemon universe (from those who think that guns are weak, to those who think that guns are strong because "if average Team Rocket Grunt with club can defeat an average Marowak - and guns are a lot stronger than melee weapons, in joules/range/lethality/etc - then guns in Pokemon should be very strong").
• Characteristics of some equipment pieces make no sense. E.G. it's only possible to wear 1 equipment piece per equipment slot (Head, Main Hand, Off-Hand, Body, Feet, Accessory) - so you can't simultaneously wear Hazmat Suit and armor (despite IRL soldiers frequently wearing armored vests over NBC suits). Or Pokemon only having 1 slot for Held Item (he can't wear gas mask and some armor and amulet/scarf - despite human being capable of that, due to such objects going in different slots). The solution would be some sort of layers system (skintight, underwear, clothes, padding, armor, over), but game doesn't have it.
• Some game-relevant information about NPC's are missing, requiring to read or remember it from other sources. For example, game doesn't list NPC's average starting disposition (how average NPC - member of certain organization, Trainer of certain archetype, or Pokemon of certain species - acts upon noticing an average PC who's a complete stranger; from helping as much as possible, to attacking on sight, and everything in-between), list of non-standard actions affecting Pokemon's disposition (which cause disposition to rise or drop; E.G. some Pokemon highly territorial, or hate being touched in some areas), chart of NPC faction relations (how average NPC from certain faction - member of certain organization, Trainer of certain archetype, or Pokemon of certain species - reacts to other average NPC of certain faction; some groups of Pokemon species or Trainer types may be grouped into "faction" if they're similar enough, while some species and notable individuals have their own positions).