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Hello all and welcome to my adventure roleplay game. This game will be pokemon flavoured and xianxia themed (a traditional chinese fantasy story archetype, involving cultivation and ascension to stronger levels of being).
Discord is a requirement for this game, and gameplay will exist mostly in discord with some major events and updates on forum, smaller story and exploration/adventure moments will be confined to discord.
In terms of commitment, you will need to make regular, checkins similar to most games on this forum. I have no real end goal or set date for it, just general plot beats, but there will be the option for new players to drop in/out or even take a break between different story moments.
The hope for this game is to start quite simple, I will store player stats and roleplay and conflict will be handled on an extremely soft basis with rolls where I deem necessary. Although I hope to gameify the traditional roleplay experience to make it a bit of an adventure game hybrid (with a sprinkle of org inspiration), I will be prioritising narrative both overarching and individual players, so liberties will be taken and hot fixes made as the story progresses. Likely new mechanics will also be introduced as we go along to keep things interested/not make it a nightmare to get to grips with 50 million different things to start.
This was your general overview of what to expect. Please see below for game mechanics and start up plot.
All things be it man, animal, or a stone bears some level of qi in its core. It is our qi that gives us consciousness, and allows us to ascend to a higher level of being. Men are born with higher qi than most, with many having the ability to cultivate, and draw in more qi, allowing their cores to expand and become stronger. The vast majority of the remainder of cultivators then comes from other forms of life, such as animals or plants. When a non-human cultivates enough qi to become self aware, they are classified as a Pokemon.
As a cultivator fills its core, they will eventually reach capacity. When this happens, it becomes possible for its cultivator to evolve. For humans, this results in a massive power spike between the stages, but for Pokemon the effects can be even bigger. When a Pokemon evolves, it may also change form, as its original form is often not built for holding the amount of raw qi it now possesses.
You are a bronze level cultivator, be that human or Pokemon. The weakest tier of the 3 mortal tiers of cultivators. If you are a human, you have set out on an expedition across the Stormy Sea, to the unexplored continent. You are the first wave of explorers, aiming to establish a foothold, explore, and set up a base of operations to allow further exploration on the continent.
If you are a Pokemon, you are newly awakened, having just recently achieved the level of qi necessary to become a Pokemon, from your previous state of being without self awareness.
Hi guys, please read above and if you're interested in playing let me know below, or by discord dm is fine. If there is reasonable interest I will post more and write up mechanics fully, in the meantime I decided to just whack up this as an opening and allow questions. I intend to start this within the week, and get going quick. As mentioned above it will be a bit barebones to start, but just wanted to get the general premise out of the way in case absolutely no one is interested.
I also made this post to reserve the spot.
Stats
There are 6 main stats in this game, separated into two groupings. Mind stats are rated 1-5 for mortals, with 1 being average, and 5 being genius level. A character will tend to gain 1 mind stat when they evolve. Comparatively, Qi is passively gained at a much more rapid rate, and grows exponentially. These will get like rpg stats where because they are growing exponentially, giving ranges will be a bit meaningless but just suppose it will grow a lot for now.
Mind stats: Influence and Insight
Qi Stats: Qi Pool, Body arts, Spirit Arts, and Mystic Arts
Influence: This is the general stat governing charisma, social intelligence, intimidation etc. It will be generally called upon when trying to influence others, gain street credit, lead groups of people and the likes.
Insight: This is the general intuition stat, it covers intelligence, wisdom learning and knowledge. It will be the stat drawn upon in instances of knowing about your surroundings, deducing things others might not, making logical leaps etc.
Qi Pool: Qi Pool is literally the total amount of qi your body has stored. Cultivators store qi in their core, and accumulating qi will also function similar to experience in other games. Once you gain enough Qi Pool, you can ascend to higher levels of power by increasing the size of your core. Your Qi Pool stat will always be equal to the combination of your body, spirit and mystic stats.
You will gain qi passively as you play the game, which it is then your choice to distribute between body spirit and mystic as you desire.
Body Arts: Body arts are the conversion of qi into physical abilities. This stat will determine the likes of your raw strength, speed and resistance/constitution. A body art ability example would be something like fire punch, turning fire qi into a blazing physical attack.
Spirit Arts: Spirit arts are the conversion of qi into ranged, qi blasting attacks. The raw strength of your abilities doesn’t just increase with a higher stat, but also the actual range of your abilities, how long it takes you to charge a stronger attack etc. The range aspect doesn’t just cover for your raw offense ranged attacks either, but can also cross apply to mystic arts and help you increase your qi range in general.
Mystic Arts: Mystic arts are the conversion of qi into support based abilities. This includes defensive arts such as shields, debuffing abilities potentially, such as an electric qi user paralysing opponents. At higher levels, mystic arts can also be used to create the likes of field of effects with the support of Spirit, or many other things. If you have something creative I have not thought of it, it probably goes here. Mystic arts will also be what governs out of combat abilities, such as creating Mystic weapons or items.
Character Creation
Every cultivator is attuned to one or two types of qi. These types are aligned with the traditional 18 pokemon types. Pokemon will be attuned by default to the types of their final evolution. Human’s may choose one or two themselves, HOWEVER, if choosing two, the two they choose must stand next to each other on the affinity wheel posted below.
Each type naturally boosts one of the 6 character stats. You will be locked into the boosts that your type gives you, however you may also choose more boosts at character creation, that will take you to 3 boosts total. This means choosing one extra boost as a two type cultivator, or two as a monotype. The only further caveat here is that you must have at least 1 boost in the 4 qi stats, and at least 1 boost in the 2 remaining Mind stats (intuition or influence).
-A boost in influence or insight will give a straight +1 in stat at game start (with default being 1)
-A boost in Body, Spirit or Mystic, will increase the growth rate of that stat by 25% by the base gain as you allocate qi growth to it.
-A boost in Qi Pool will mean, as you gain Qi you will earn an extra 15% times the base gain to be applied to the stat of your choosing.
*All values are subject to hotfixing, if I find it super unbalanced/unfair.
**Buffs will be applied additionally multiplied by base growth, not compounded.
Qi types boost the following stats at character creation accordingly:
Ice - Mystic
Bug - Influence
Ghost - Mystic
Dragon - Insight
Flying - Spirit
Ground - Insight
Water - Qi
Poison - Mystic
Psychic - Insight
Fire - Spirit
Normal - Influence
Rock - Body
Grass - Qi
Dark - Spirit
Fairy - Influence
Electric - Qi
Fighting - Body
Steel - Body
The type affinity wheel as mentioned above:
Moves:
Finally, every cultivator has moves. These obviously scale with your power, but this is how you will focus your stats into actual techniques. Please pick one ability, a body spirit or mystic art to begin. This is part of the soft system in the game, so you can feel free to create something so long as it's relatively simple and go with that just clear it by me.
Failing this, please draw inspiration from pokemon actual moves, so fire punch for body art, flamethrower for spirit, will o wisp for spirit something like so. If in doubt discuss with me, you will gain more abilities as you progress.
Character Creation Form:[/SPOILER]
If you wish to play, please ask me to create a role pm for you in the discord and then I will ask you to fill out the below form.
Character name: [Name]
Species: [Human, or BASIC pokemon, preferably of 3 stage line]
About: [Little about personality and vague background, very short is fine. The worldbuilding is purposely small to make it accessible so just contact me if you want to build out further.]
Type: [1-2]
Boosts: [Insert 3]
Ability: [Insert either simple pokemon move, or custom ability and describe if custom]
Character name: Timmy
Species: Human
Physical Description: Timmy is slightly below average height at 5 foot 8 and thin. He has shaggy blonde hair and green eyes that tend to dart around, often struggling to make eye contact. His skin is pale, but the journey on the Stormy Sea and being above deck in this sun has given rise to many freckles on his face. As a bronze without any mythic items to his name, he wears a standard explorer's guild birgandine armor.
About: Timmy is a young cultivator with little experience. Growing up, he was never very powerful as a cultivator, often lagging behind his peers. Despite this, he has always dreamed of joining the explorer's guild, the most prestigious agency of cultivators for hire, who take on contracts of all sorts to help the common folk, nobles and even rulers.
In their biggest recruitment drive of all time, he has now found himself on a ship to the new continent. He suffers from imposter syndrom in his new job, as he realises if not for the new great mission to go to and explore the unknown continent, his dream was unlikely to ever by fulfilled. This leads him to having a nervous disposition, but ultimately he is eager and ready to give his all to finally prove himself to his superiors.
Type: Electric and Fire, which are positioned next to each other on the wheel.
Boosts: I must take spirit and qi, as these are the boosts that fire and electric apply by default. My third must now be from the mind stats, as each character must have at least one mind stat boost. I will take Insight. This means my boosts are spirit, qi and insight.
Ability: Firebolt, a basic spirit art which uses the typing of both fire and electric to should an electrified fireball at enemies.
What types will my Pokemon character be?
It will be the full typing of its final evolution. For example a larvitar would be rock dark type, as it draws from tyranitar. If a pokemon evolves into multiple different types in the end, you may choose the typing and species it will inevitably become/
Can I cross specialise into a third, or more affinities?
Short term no, part of the system is that you specialise in certain types of qi. Once you expansion into learning all types the purpose of specialty typings would unfortuantely lose its meaning..
Can my character learn x move?
There is no limitation on the abilities inside the typings your character can learn, game learnsets are not relevant here. You can use either of your types to do anything so long as your stats match it, and even use dual types at once!
My character as a boost on Qi Pool and Body Art - how do these boosts stack?
Assuming a boost of 15 percent for qi pool and body art, they would work in combination should you be increasing yourm body art stat. For As mentioned above these do not compound. Therefore, if for example you gained 100 qi and invested it into body art, it would be the base 100 + the 15 boost from qi pool + 25 from body art. This would add up to a total total of 140 gain for body art (which would also be reflected in a 140 gain in qi pool).
