Tamers: Gotta {pick one: capture, grab, acquire, snatch, get, obtain} em' all!

[Elberon]

Hi there,

Any news on how you're getting on with this one?

BESM (Big Eyes Small Mouth) have a suppliment called Super Fuzzy Animals which, if memory serves right, tweaks the superhero rules to fit in with furry critters, it is very closely linked the normal BESM rules, I've never really clicked with them but might be worthwile taking a look. 
It might also be worthwhile taking a look at Streetfighter RPG (yes I know its not all that but) it has X number of combat manouvers that when played in a sequence your character has 'trained' for gets better results but of course your opponents can find out about them.

A possible different tact could be have the critters as the main character and the tamer in the sidekick role?

Chris

[whiteknife]

[neko ewen]

Yeah, I was just about to suggest checking out that BESM sourcebook. It only adds a tiny handful of things rules-wise, but it does explore different possibilities within the genre a lot, including crazy stuff like kids confronting government conscription of their beloved monsters.

There's also S. John Ross' game Pokethulu, which is now available as a free PDF. It's a simple, traditional RPG. Its setting is basically Pokemon, but with a bit of Cthulhu mythos thrown in. Take note of the Aspects, Weaknesses, and Attacks of the monsters.

Pokethulhu's monster special attacks basically have a number of dice and an aspect, and that's it. I don't know how much detail you want to put into the monsters' special abilities, and in turn how much you want to get into tactical combat, but I definitely like using different elements, perhaps combined with attack types (melee, beam, cone, blast, entangle, shield, etc.).

I too would suggest not bothering with collectible stuff. That kind of product pretty much only makes sense if you're a company with enough marketing leverage to create a decent-sized fanbase. Non-collectible spinoff games might make sense, but unless you're overwhelmingly inspired I'd definitely concentrate on the RPG first. Besides, Digimon, Monster Rancher, and of course Pokemon already have CCGs.

(And then the forum told me there was a post while I was typing up this post)

So if I'm understanding this right, the game is going to be about people using trained monsters to protect humanity from more dangerous monsters? That does sound neat, and as you say, sounds like it would work better for the group dynamic of an RPG. Do you still want to include Pokemon-style one-on-one duels? It might not be a central thing to the game, but it might make sense for monster tamers to do that kind of thing to train for the real battles.

[whiteknife]

Yeah, I've checked out pokethulu. I thought they did a very good job on the attack/monster desgin system and something of that level of complexity (probably a bit more though, since this is less of a comedy and more action-y) is probably what i'll end up with.

Although I do enjoy me a good CCG, I'm not going planning to make any sort of collectible stuff, especially since I want you to be able to basically make your own stuff (or steal from an existing source if you're so inclined). Although I suppose that a non-collectible card game might be a possibility, it's not in the works or anything.

I would indeed like to include pokemon style one on one battles as at least a side thing, but I have no idea as to how to make that interesting for anyone other than the person fighting. If anyone has any ideas for that, they would be much appreciated. Also, if anyone has any ideas on how to handle training in between fights that would be cool too.

[neko ewen]

Yeah, handling duels would be tricky. At least within the source material, the monsters don't really do much beyond what the trainer tells them to do (and if they do, it's probably enough for the GM and/or some die rolls to figure out what), so having other players be the monsters doesn't seem terribly effective to me.

The only other thing I can think of is to do something like Fan Mail in PTA, or Dreams in the Japanese game Yuuyake Koyake. Dreams are like Fan Mail, but there's no limit to how often you can give them out (just one Dream per "thing" that happens in the game), and you spend them to improve connections rather than to be more effective per se. Still, in my limited experience with Yuuyake Koyake, it did give the other players an incentive to pay attention to the game even when they weren't participating. Maybe the other players could represent the crowd watching the duel?