#dungeonsanddragonairs

[dungeonsanddragonairs]

Pokémon cookies from our Pokémon D&D session yesterday!

[sammarkham]

Messy art is messy. But anyway, this is a comic about one of the characters in the Dungeons and Dragonairs RP I'm running/writing! His name is Buster and he usually wears a ghillie suit but hell if I can draw that. His Grimer's name is "Experiment 88"...

[dungeonsanddragonairs]

PokéStudies: Introduction

@umbreonlibris​ and I interrogate the Pokémon world! Before we really get into it, we thought it would be a good idea to talk about why, how we’re approaching this, and what it will involve!

Why we’re doing this

Two years ago, @melodydanteandthemobverse​ and I started working on a Pokémon tabletop RPG (@dungeonsanddragonairs​) to play with our friends. Basically, she’s developing the mechanics and doing all of the math, and I’m writing the story. And doing a lot of worldbuilding.

The point of @dungeonsanddragonairs​ was to have a Pokémon RPG that takes the rules of the Pokémon world seriously—and also to have less rules, if that makes sense. For example, in our first session, one player punched a Rattata in the face—and then took a lot of damage and was in the hospital for a day when it attacked her back. Basically, you can do whatever you want, but you might get killed, arrested, or anything else that would happen in real life—or at least in a game that has the mechanics to allow for it.

In the process of discussing how parts of this would work with @umbreonlibris​, we figured out there are a LOT of things in the Pokémon world that don’t make sense, or are really inconsistent. Are there animals in this world? How accurate is the Pokédex? How does Pokémon food work?  

With the vague goal of getting to/deciding some concrete answers for using in this tabletop RPG, but also mostly because this is the sort of thing we both really enjoy, we’re going to talk about some of these things and and post them here! If you have any thoughts, please hit us up and continue the discussion!

How we’re approaching this, or, what counts as canon

One of the biggest issues in figuring out how the Pokémon world works is that there are a lot of different sources—and for the most part, they say really different things. A couple of examples: in the main anime series, Pokémon say their names, and in Pokémon Origins, they make noises. There are also extreme size differences between Pokémon in the main anime series versus the main video game series.

(Source.)

There are a lot of “canons” to consider. Not only the main series games, the main anime, and Pokémon Origins, but also Pokémon Generations, the various mangas, the side games (Pokémon Stadium, Snap, Mystery Dungeon, and many more), and the TCG. A lot of these sources actively contradict each other—sometimes in small ways, but often in large ways that are really difficult or even impossible to reconcile, like how in the main anime series Pokéballs shrink down and in Origins they don’t.

So, if these worlds don’t always fit together, what counts as Pokémon canon? What is the most reliable source of information?

(Source.)

@umbreonlibris​ and I are going to be dealing with the main video game series, and using the other worlds as possible (but not canonical) sources of insight—probably in relation to how closely they adhere to the world of the video game series. Video games were Pokémon’s original medium. The main series has been the most consistent and long-lasting Pokémon canon available, and it has the most information to go off of except for maybe the anime—but it also has a lot less obvious logical flaws than the anime does. This is important in trying to deal with the Pokémon world as realistically as possible. And part of deciding to just deal with the main video game series, of course, is that we’re making a value judgment.

Why one canon?

Everything I’ve mentioned above is sanctioned by the Pokémon Company, so it’s all canonical in one definition of the term, but the reason we want to deal with one canon is that we want to actually get somewhere with PokéStudies, and not spend all our time trying to reconcile the odd differences between different media. There are discrepancies across the main video game series too, but we will attempt to reconcile these by finding out or coming up with a reason for them. (There are a couple of notable exceptions to this, but we’ll get to that later!) Basically: if we accept everything in the main video game series as canon, what happens?

(And after all of that, tune in next time for a post about what in the main video game series we are not accepting as canon and why!)

More PokéStudies

[dungeonsanddragonairs]

New buildings!

The Dungeons & Dragonairs story—at least, this first one that @sammarkham​ is writing—takes place in Johto five years after the events of HGSS. We're modifying some maps to use as a reference, and that meant making a few new key buildings. Here are some of them!

Some cities have local police forces! Goldenrod has a proper police station, but in Ecruteak the police operates out of an officer's house.

Ecruteak also has the Pokémon Protection Society (PPS), where players can adopt rare or strong Pokémon. But these are rescued Pokémon, so they often have some handicap—like a Totodile that's afraid of water. The building features a fenced yard so that Pokémon can go outside.

In Olivine, the boardwalk near the pier features a market with some interesting vendors: Thrifty Joe's Funky Finds, Alolan Wonders, and an unnamed BBQ joint that serves Pokémon meats. I made these based on the Name Rater tent.

Finally, there is a houseboat in the waters of Olivine. On the houseboat walls are Pokémon murals—here you can see one featuring Dewgong and another with Alomomola.