Tuesday, July 11, 2017

Poké-finder: Session Report 3

On their third day out since obtaining their handler’s licenses, S&P decided to go a bit farther afield. They went down to the docks, and, using the money they’d taken from the hooligan the previous day, hired a fishing boat to take them out to the island known as the “Dragon’s Punchbowl”. The inactive volcano was known to be a prime nesting ground for all manner of dragon-type pokemon.

The wind was calm that day, and the two mile ride out to the island took close to an hour. As they sailed slowly, Petra got out the fishing rod she had obtained the other day, tossed the line in the water behind them. She soon felt a tug on the line and reeled in a smallish Magikarp, which she easily snagged in one of the balls Brock had packed for them this day.

Her second cast brought in a poliwag, which put up more of a fight, deflecting her first ball. A full-force tackle from her eevee nearly broke the line, and sent the fluffy pokemon tumbling into the water. Luckily the boat was moving slowly enough that P was easily able to haul him back in after capturing the poliwag.

With a flash, the poliwag disappeared. S reminded her that all of the balls were tagged with her trainer license number, and would automatically be teleported to the nearest pokemon center if she exceeded the limit of 6 on-hand pokemon.

When they finally reached the island, P was quite dejected to realize that she had already used up all the balls she had on hand. S suggested that they should stop at a pokemart and buy some extras before heading out again. In the meantime, however, he still had some balls and wanted to explore.

There was nowhere to dock the boat, so their captain dropped anchor in the lagoon and said he’d fish there until they were ready to head back. S&P jumped out of the boat and swam the 10 yards to shore, emerging quite wet onto the beach. The beach sloped steeply up towards the island’s caldera — the so-called “punchbowl” — and was largely empty, save for a single big-eared bat pokemon resting and sunning itself on a rock. Not sure what it was, and not wanting to disturb it, S&P snuck by and headed up to the ridge.

As they climbed the slope, P spotted a blue snake-like creature winding its way down the slope. Silas pulled out his guidebook and started flipping through, trying to figure out what it was. As he did, the pokemon got closer and reared up, ready to attack. As the pokemon drew in a deep breath, S through down the book, cursed his dad for not getting him a proper pokedex, and tossed out Pineco.

“Pineco, Protect, NOW!” The dratini’s dragon rage bounced off the bagworm pokemon’s protective field. S tossed a ball at the dratini, but it deflected it with its tail. “Geodude, go. Use rollout!” The dratini was soon flatted, rolled up, and stuffed in a pokeball — which promptly teleported away.

After an hour of hiking, they finally made it to the lip of the caldera. Down below, they observed a lush circular valley, almost a half-mile across, literally crawling with nesting dragon-pokemon of all kinds.

P started down into the caldera, hoping to steal some eggs. A bagon spotted her. It charged. It looked fierce. She ran.

As she ran past him, Silas stepped in. “Tamao go! Use razorleaf!” This was, of course, not very effective against the dragon-type pokemon. Nor was it any more effective the second time, or the third, as the dragon leered at the leafeon.

Finally S changed it up. “Use Yawn!” The bagon yawned. The dragon launched a devastating headbutt at the leafeon, knocking it out cold, then promptly fell asleep. S tossed his last pokeball, but it bounced harmlessly off the sleeping dragon’s rock-hard head.

S&P ran back to the boat, swam out, and headed back to the mainland.

Once back in Sandpoint Town, they stopped at the pokemon center to heal their pokemon and check out their new catches. S swapped his Pineco for his new Dratini. P swapped Magikarp for her Poliwag.

Then they went home.

Thursday, July 6, 2017

Poké-finder: Session Report 2

The next morning Silas and Petra again rose early to find their backpacks packed for them, loaded with lunch and three new pokeballs each. They ate breakfast quickly, said goodbye to Brock and Jenny and headed out to go pokemon hunting. This time they set their sights on nearby Murkrow Mountain, a popular hiking and camping spot known to be home to many rock-type pokemon.

On their way out of town, they were stopped by a leather-clad Hooligan who demanded that they hand over their unused pokeballs. Rather than give in to such coercion, S&P sent out Leafeon and Eevee and ended up in a double battle against the roughneck’s male and female nidorans.

It was a long slog of a fight, with Eevee steadily reducing the nidorans’ combat prowess with repeated application of Growl, while Leafeon slowly whittled away their strength with razor leaf — which was not very effective against the poison types. Finally after several minutes of razor-leaf bombardment, the two nidorans passed out. The angry hooligan threw down his wallet and stormed off.

The two kids excitedly divided up the man’s cash and then skipped out of town towards Murkrow Mountain.

As they made their way up the twisting trail to the overlook, they heard a low growl from behind them. Spinning around, Silas spotted a Rockruff. One critical hit from Tamao’s razor leaf later and the poor puppy was dead as a door-nail.

Disheartened by his failure to catch the rockruff, they continued up the mountain until Petra pointed out a small tree that appeared to be moving.

“It’s a SUDOWOODO!” Silas shouted, and Petra started dancing around saying “Sudo-woodo, sudo-woodo, sudo-woodo”.

The tree started dancing around and singing in exactly the same manner.

“IT IS SUDOWOODO!” Petra exclaimed.

“IT IS SUDOWOODO!” the tree responded.

Both kids sent out their Pinecos (because bugs are good against plants, right?) and launched simultaneous tackle attacks on the tree, for basically no effect. The “tree” responded with its own, much harder tackle attack.

“Oh, it’s a Rock type…” Silas suggested.

The Pinecos were swapped for Shellder and Krabby and a barrage of bubbles and water guns were met by a countering barrage of the same. Finally Petra through a ball at the tree, which was deflected. Silas followed up with a ball of his own and caught the…

“Oh," Silas remarked, "it’s just a bonsly and it knows Copycat.”

They continued on up the mountain, heading for the overlook. They had gone no more than a dozen paces further when Petra spotted another pokemon, the mountain’s namesake.

She threw a pokeball. It was deflected.

Angrily she sent out Shellder. He was promptly knocked out by the murkrow’s peck attack. Silas came to her aid with Krabby, who was beaten soundly and had to be recalled. Petra’s eevee did not fair much better.

Petra threw another pokeball. The damn bird dodged it.

Finally Silas sent out Leafon who used Yawn to put the murkrow to sleep. After which P finally caught the thing in a ball.

When the reached the overlook, they found a small copse of young trees which had been uprooted and knocked over. Checking the nearest one, they found a sparkling powder lying near the roots which had clearly been gnawed on. Petra scooped up the glittering powder, while Silas tore off the bigger of the roots.

Then they heard a digging noise behind them. They spun around to see a gray and yellow geodude uprooting yet another plant. They walked closer to see what it was doing and it glared at them menacingly. Silas tossed it the piece of root he had taken, which it promptly gobbled up. More flecks of the Bright Powder fell away from its teeth as it used them to grind up the roots.

Silas chucked his second-to-last pokeball at the thing, hitting it square in the forehead. Enraged, the geodude ran at them. S&P ran away following the path down the far side of the mountain, with the geodude in hot pursuit.

As they rounded a switch-back and reached a steeper part of the trail, the geodude threw itself forward and began rolling after them, picking up speed as it careened down the mountain. Afraid of being overrun, Silas sent out his bonsly.

“Bonsly, Copycat it’s rollout!”

The two rock types collided in mid-roll, and went spinning off the trail. Bonsly, at least, was badly injured. Silas recalled his small, rocky tree and threw his last pokeball, this time catching the geodude.

With most of their pokemon thoroughly beaten up, S&P made their way down the far side of the trail and homeward. As they neared the bottom, Silas said “Hey, I think that rock is watching us…”

The rock said, “Hey, I think that rock is watching us…”

Petra tossed her last pokeball at the bonsly and critically caught it on one throw.

Then, tired and out of pokeballs, they went home.

Tuesday, July 4, 2017

Poké-finder: Session Report 1

So, a while ago I talked about running a Pokemon Pathfinder game for my kids, but never got around to following up. Short answer: that game lasted about 4 sessions before they died horribly while trying to catch a Spiritomb. So, over the July 4th extended weekend, we rebooted the game, with a slightly more light-hearted tone and mechanics tweaked to more closely map to the underlying math of the core gameboy games. 

I'll dive into the new math in a later post (because it's vaguely interesting from a game-dev standpoint), but start with the stories, since that is where I fell off last time.

Note: The first couple paragraphs of fan-fic backstory are entirely a creation of the kids...



Redux Session 1:

Nearly twenty years after his adventures with Ash Ketchem, Brock, Pokemon Doctor, Pokemon Breeder, and former Gym leader has settled down in Sandpoint Town, having finally convinced one of the many Jennys to become his wife. Now 35 years old, Brock has a thriving Pokemon Nursery, where he is aided by his twins Silas and Petra, while his wife is out fighting crime.

This is not Brock’s story however. Rather, it is the story of his offspring.

It was the day of the twins, Silas and Petra’s tenth birthday. A large party had been thrown for them by Brock and Jenny, culminating in the gift of their very first pokemon. Being the offspring of a famed Pokemon Breeder has its advantages — in this case the gift of a pair of highly unique Eevees housed in ornate black-and-gold luxury balls. Silas received Tamao, a shiny eevee who had learned some powerful psychic attacks from its Munna father, while Petra received Sally, an adorable and sassy eevee who had learned healing powers from her Komala father. Ecstatic at the gift, the kids played with their new eevees long into the night before passing out.

The next morning, they were awakened by Jenny who presented them with the other half of their birthday gifts, their official Pokemon Handler’s Licenses, which would allow them to legally purchase pokeballs, challenge Pokemon Gyms, and to participate in Pokemon League sanctioned events. Jenny had to quickly scarf down her breakfast and run off to work, leaving Brock to pack Silas’ and Petra’s backpacks — a packed lunch box, a change of clothes, five pokeballs, and a potion for each of them.

With pokemon and licenses in hand, the kids ran out to start their very first pokemon adventure. The two debated for some time on where to go hunting first — Silas wanted to check out the Joltick Wood, or possibly head strait to challenge the gym in the nearby town of Cougar Creek, while Petra said they should go down to the beach to look for water pokemon.

Petra’s arguments won out, so they headed north out of town down to the public beach. This early on an autumn morning, the gym was not very crowded. A couple of tubers played down by the water, while one fisherman stood a ways off with a line in the water.

Petra made a bee-line for the fisherman to ask if she could try her hand. As she approached, the man gave a mighty pull on the line and reeled in a very large magikarp. With a gleam in his eye, he turned to Petra and shouted “Magikarp Go!” Of course, the ridiculous fish only knew Splash, so Petra’s first trainer battle was over quite quickly. Laughing, the man released the fish back into the water and handed Petra his rod.

Silas, meanwhile, had wandered down to the water, rolled up his pants-legs, and was wading and splashing with Tamao. Suddenly, he cried out in pain and kicked his foot in the air, launching the krabby that had pinched him out onto the sand. With an angry clacking of pincers, it scuttled towards him, blowing bubbles.

“Tamao, use Yawn!”

Well, that didn’t take long. The krabby was soon sleeping peacefully in a pokeball.

Petra, running over to watch, stubbed her toe on something just beneath the sand and tripped. Scrambling to her feet, she spun around to see a wild shellder (these pokemon are hazardous). Sally was soon dripping from multiple water-gun attacks, but the shellder was caught.

Excited by their new pokemon, S & P moved further up the beach to eat their lunches, then decided to head to the Joltik Woods to see what they could catch there. As they turned to leave, they were confronted by a young boy wearing an innertube. The boy, Jude, lived near them and was clearly too young to be a licensed pokemon handler, but, had an oddly determined look on his face.

“You’ve got pokeballs! That means you can’t refuse a challenge,” he told Silas. “Tentacool go!”
While it was not absolutely true that a licensed handler could not refuse a challenge, Silas was eager to try out a trainer battle, even if only against a kid with a family pet cum secondary flotation device. A single critical hit with Tamao’s covet attack dropped the poor jellyfish in one blow. Jude did not seem at all bothered by his quick defeat however.

“Thanks!” he said excitedly, then tossing a small silver bell to Silas, “here, I found this down by the water this morning.”

Petra gave Silas a spare ribbon from Sally and he tied the soothing bell around Tamao’s neck. The two then waved goodbye to the boy and ran through town, eager to check out the woods.

A couple hours later, they were wandering through the Joltick Woods in the shadow of Murkrow Roost Mountain, their eevees out and walking beside them, when a massive murmuration of starly swooped and danced across the sky before alighting on every possible tree-branch.

Sally shuddered in anticipation at the massive flock, but Petra’s eyes lit up. “Let’s catch some! Sally, Growl attack!” Silas was clearly on the same wavelength as he almost simultaneously shouted “Tamao, use Synchronoise!”

The pair of eevees set off a near-deafening cacophony, which definitely caught the bird pokemons’ attention. Ten starlies broke off from the group and dive-bombed them.

Sally was badly injured and Tamao was nearly overwhelmed. The two children recalled their eevees into their pokeballs and ran, hard. Covering their heads with the arms and dodging between trees to avoid the vicious pecking of the birds.

They ran, and ran, and ran, without thought of distance or direction. Anything to get away from the enraged flock. Finally they burst into a clearing and fell down on the grass, gasping for air. The birds having left off the pursuit some time ago.

After catching their breath, S & P stood up and looked around. It was getting late already, and they realized that they had no idea where they were. “Maybe we should just stay here,” Petra suggested.
In the middle of the clearing was a large moss-covered stone. Petra released Sally from her ball and the eevee immediately began sniffing around the rock excitedly, then climbed up on top and lay down to rest on the soft moss. Silas followed suit, and soon they released all four pokemon to rest and play around the rock. The children ate what was left of their lunches and looked up at the evening sky, trying to get their bearings from the angle of the setting sun.

As they rested and recovered, Silas thought he spotted a pokeball lying in the grass. Moving to pick it up, he found, instead a strange mushroom-like pokemon. “Eevee go!” he called, pulling out a pokeball to catch this new creature. The tired eevee let out a Yawn, which was plenty to catch the foongus.

Then Tamao started glowing a strange green color. The mossy rock began glowing as well. Everyone scattered, afraid of what might be happening. Then, before their very eyes, Tamao evolved into a Leafeon!

“That rocks an evolution stone!” Petra said. Then, quickly recalled Sally into her pokeball in case she might start to change as well.

Moments later, the metamorphosis was complete. Silas was thoroughly excited at this sudden turn of events with his Tamao. “Come on,” he said pointing at the setting sun, “we should try to get home before its completely dark. We just have to head towards the sun.” They jogged through the woods until it was quite dark before finally exiting on the western end. With the old lighthouse now in sight, they were easily able to make it to the road and follow it back to Sandpoint.

As they walked, they passed a large pine tree, unusually laden with pinecones for the season. “Not pine cones,” Silas said, “those are Pineco!” And indeed they were. S & P both managed to catch one before heading home to sleep.