Caught 'Em All: Finishing my Pokemon RPG Campaign
I wrote about a custom Pokemon TTRPG game I was running for my friends a while ago here. We were about a year into the game at that point and we just finished our last session on Friday. (April 2023 - November 2025). Follows are my thoughts on the game, pitfalls I ran into, and some thoughts on anyone else wanting to run a similar game in the future.
Why Pokemon and Why Write a New Game?
I chose to run a Pokemon game after one of my players requested it at an event. They were wishcasting and just idly blurted out something they'd always wanted to play. I thought I could make it happen and so started putting the game together.
I chose to write my own system after reviewing the many, many similar projects out there on the internet and finding them lacking. A lot of the PokeRPG projects that exist either focus on single battles (a non-starter), go very complex into official game simulationism (juice not worth the squeeze), or are just blatantly another game system in a Pokemon coat of paint (boring). I knew I wanted something vaguely skirmish wargame-y, could handle 4v4 battles, was Into-the-Odd inspired, and was essentially freeform RP outside of battle. I was primarily inspired by Velexiraptor's Legamon posts here as well as others in the GLOG community to make my own.
The System
I wrote the rules from the ground up (easy) and also statted 257 total 'mons according to those rules (painfully tedious). You can find my finished rules doc here and my dex entries here.
'Mons and Statblocks
I statted 'mons roughly equivalently to their official in-game versions, there's a conversion procedure at the beginning of the list of Moves. I picked 'mons to add largely based on which ones I liked, which ones my players wanted, and which ones would make sense for the biomes we were travelling through (in that order). Writing large amounts of statblocks for 'mons gets tiring pretty quickly, so I would just write 4-5 new ones before every session.
With a few exceptions, all the 'mons in the dex have just the Moves listed in the rules doc. I initially wrote 5 Special Moves for each type and had 2 separate "expansions" where I wrote 1 more Move for each type. This was both good for complexity and bad for complexity. On the good hand, having only 7 or so Moves for each type means that myself and my players did not have to learn the intricacies of the 50 or so Moves that each type has in the mainline games. On the bad side, the vast majority of official Pokemon Moves are boring "you deal damage" type spells so I had to come up with interesting effects and themes myself.
There is not a single list for all the custom Abilities for the 'mons in the dex. For the first 200 or so 'mons, evolution lines have their own unique Ability. I felt that a unique Ability really helped to define a single evolutionary line and make them feel like a legitimate choice compared to other 'mons and tried to keep to that design paradigm. After I got to 200 or so 'mons however, I realized I was just writing the same Abilities with different wording and so started re-using Abilities.
Pokemon are broken down into rough rankings based on their base stat totals. These rankings were what I used to distribute points to their base forms encountered in the wild. I would raise stats by 1 point for each CLS to match the 'mon's base stats in the official games. While these rankings were used a few times to insist on "Little Cup" battles (CLS=1 'mons only) and gave a rough number to compare 'mons on, it ultimately wasn't the most useful. Most Pokemon are going to fall into CLS=3 and even for the ones that don't normally, I wish I had buffed them so as to see a more diverse set of 'mons than the official games. The low stat points of all the 'mons ended up making base stats and leveling up extremely important, as leveling up even once was the equivalent of going up an entire CLS ranking.
The actual stats used worked out well for the game. Merging Attack and Special Attack into a single ATK worked out totally fine. Low ATK values relied much more heavily on the dice roll as expected, and high ATK values benefitted punching through high DEF values also as expected. DEF was just flat damage reduction (to a minimum of 1) and was quite dominant for much of the game but only due to the broadly low ATK values until late in the campaign. Health (HEA) being a flat value based on CLS worked out well. It ensured that all 'mons were able to take a hit or two in combat while also being low enough that focus-fire was able to drop one in a single turn. Speed (SPE) was king the entire way through, being able to run laps around your opponents while they struggle to even get in range is an extremely effective strategy. Special (SPC) being used as the save-stat was a bit of an ugly duckling, it was important for Conditions and could make or break a battle but there were also entire battles that it was never rolled a single time.
If I were starting over, I would write 6 Special Moves for each type and use those throughout the game. I would also write an initial list of common Abilities to use for the majority of Pokemon. Throw out CLS ranks entirely and buff base stat values much higher, by 2 or 3 times their value. If you want to spice things up later, you can always add a single Special Move to each type.
Trainers
The trainer Callings (classes) are very simple and mostly delineate how the players gain XP in sessions. Collectors get XP for seeing 'mons and catching them, Masters get XP for battling and helping their friends, Rangers get XP for helping wild pokemon in Situations and exploring new places and Researchers get XP for learning new things about 'mons and acting on that information. All trainers get a base level of experience when they participate in a battle lasting 3 or more turns. XP can be spent to level up or evolve 'mons that a Trainer has on their team.
Callings worked very well for incentivizing the type of play I wanted in the game. Much like the official games, I wanted players to catch 'mons, explore places, battle other trainers, and learn more about Pokemon. The main problem was the lopsided nature of which Callings got XP. Collector by far got the most: it's very easy to just see a new Pokemon and even easier to insist on trying to catch them as soon as you see them (much like in the games). Ranger and Researcher had a bit of a harder time hitting their XP triggers and lagged behind in XP even after I bumped up the values to compensate.
The starting pokemon and items did not end up being relevant much at all. Starting pokemon are important for character identity but it wasn't super relevant that they be tied to the Callings, I should have just offered from a list of 10 or so. The way items got used in and out of combat didn't make the starting items very useful, I should have eliminated all the battle items from the starting items and only provided exploration tools (fishing rod, glider, tarp, rope, etc).
If I were to run this again, I would tweak the numbers for XP triggers but otherwise leave it much the same. Stealing the way many PbtA games do XP did wonders for incentivizing the sort of play I was looking for. The abilities for each of the Callings did get used in play, though uncommonly. I would throw out starting pokemon and starting items for each Calling and just provide a single unified list for each.
Movement and Battle Design
The largest difference in my hack and the official games is that there's 4 'mons on each side and movement in a 2d space is a major component. Admittedly incorporated movement isn't the weirdest thing anymore with the release of Pokemon ZA but we didn't have it when the game started.
4 'mons to a side was a major concession to TTRPGs being multiplayer. It changed the way Moves and Abilities were designed. Even if you were only running a single player through a similar game, I would still have multiple 'mons on the field for each side. Setting up combos with multiple 'mons (forced movement through hazardous terrain, multiple buffing moves, etc) was a major driver of fun in the game.
I used 11x11, 13x13 and 7x7 battlefields during play. Some of the battlefields had small amounts of custom terrain (cliffs, drop-offs, walls), but it was flat plains the rest of the time. Movement and positioning was crucial to ensure that neither side had a 'mon get focus fired and picked off. The larger battlefields had a bit of a problem in that multiple turns would be needed to even get into range. Larger battlefields also benefitted Speed much more heavily, as you could run further away and get back into range much quicker. Smaller battlefields had the problem of Speed not being relevant at all, you couldn't escape anyone.
As time went on and the basic battle format of just 4v4 got stale, we mixed it up and started putting in restrictions. "Little Cup" (only CLS=1) pokemon was one we used quite a bit, as were permanent weather conditions (raining, sunny, etc). Gyms always had a gimmick or two to spice things up. The gimmicks for battles ended up being extremely important towards the end of the campaign when the players had quite a bit of power packed into their 'mons, the opponents otherwise stood no chance of defeating them.
I would not rip out the 4vsMany nature of the battles or the 2d map if I ran this game again. Both were crucial to capturing the feeling of complicated battle-chess that I was shooting for, eliminating either would result in a different game entirely.
Advancement and Difficulty
Pokemon could advance either by leveling up or evolving. There was a limit to how many times a given 'mon could level up dictated by their CLS rank. Evolution required another form in the evolutionary line. Evolving or leveling up both allowed you to assign a stat point wherever you liked.
Pokemon could also learn new Moves. I allowed every 'mon to learn every Move mainly because the thought of writing huge lists of which Moves a single evolutionary line could learn sounded exhausting. I allowed 'mons to learn as many Moves as they wanted, though I came to regret it. Moves could be taught by TMs (items), by NPCs in the field, or via wilderness shrines.
Pokemon being able to learn every new Move with no restriction was a godsend for reducing the amount of work it took to write new statblocks. It did heavily incentivize just using a few specific pokemon and stacking all of your level ups and TMs on them, a tactic my players used heavily. A lack of Move limit also meant that there was little penalty to just finding a good set of stats and dumping every coverage Move you could find on them, making 'mons feel quite similar.
The combination of the lack of Move restriction and the power of gaining even a single stat point made the difficulty of battles plummet as time went on. Official Pokemon games are not known for their difficulty either but it was getting to the point that I started wanting to elide battles entirely because it would just waste 45 minutes. I had to circle back around to providing beneficial held items and heavy synergy on trainer teams in an effort to provide even a facade of a challenge. The entire 2.5 year campaign still only had 1 single defeat of the players and it was a triple restriction battle: Little Cup (CLS 1), Permanent Poison Rain (Rainy weather + all 'mons gain Poisoned Condition), and Honor Battle (no items used, no replacing knocked out 'mons).
As you might expect, if I were to run this game again I would change the stat paradigm entirely such that gaining stats from level ups was only a small buff and not a major power increase. I would also seek to limit the number of Moves a 'mon could learn to 4 or maybe 6 total. Restricting single 'mons from learning every Move is a wonderful ideal and maybe one day we could reach that world but I still view the prospect of writing that many lists as a special kind of GM torture. Doing the restrictions entirely vibes-based in the moment is an obvious solution, but you'd need to commit and write down every ruling as you made it to make it satisfying from the player end as well.
There's an argument to be had about not changing the difficulty at all. The official Pokemon games are very much power fantasy games and that aspect of them may very well be what your table wants. Many fans of the games enjoy not needing to worry about challenge and difficulty and just want to show off their cool Pokemon, in which case the base rules are probably just fine!
Non-Combat and the World
Phew! I've spent a lot of time talking about combat and not a lot of time talking about anything else (much like the official Pokemon games haha).
I ran everything outside of combat with a freeform RP system. Pokemon could perform actions like lighting fires, putting out fires, making smokescreens, using telekinesis, reaching tall trees, etc as much as it made sense diegetically using the vibes of the Pokemon anime. I watched the first season in prep to run this game and used very similar logic as was seen in the show to adjudicate what Pokemon could do to interact with the world. Anytime I was unsure of the outcome, I rolled a d6 and added a d6 for each positive advantage the players had (sneaking up on a 'mon, distractions, a useful tool, etc). If any of the dice rolled a 1, it was a success. I used that same system throughout the entirety of the game for everything, including catching wild Pokemon.
The out-of-combat aspects of the game were the favorites of my players. I designed the region as I would design any wilderness in a fantasy heartbreaker game with random encounter tables, landmarks, and exploration events. Wild pokemon antics and predicaments were fun vignettes for players to interact with. I ran NPCs very by-the-book using the various trainer types in the official games as inspiration (hikers are gregarious and loud, fishermen are mopey and muttery, criminal gangs are goofy and colorful, etc). I ran NPCs as having their own small adventures in the area, most of them did not challenge the PCs to a battle unless prompted to by RP.
For game structure, I put a Gym in every city and stuck an Elite 4 in the middle of the region. I told my players from the beginning that we were going to be following a similar structure to the games: travel around, collect 8 gym badges, then challenge the Elite 4. We stuck to this plan pretty directly except for a long "vacation arc" into a nearby island archipelago for about 9 months (also very Pokemon anime). There was some amount of back tracking to challenge old Gyms, check back in areas for sought-after Pokemon or just for easier navigation. The Gyms were the main source of cash for the players, I gave them 10,000 pokedollars for defeating each leader as well as 6,000 for defeating their two lieutenants.
Initially I had also planned some faction elements in the game similar to the criminal gangs of the official Pokemon games. After a few too many intrusions on exploration I got the feedback to backseat the gang and their agenda. I took the prep I had for the faction interactions and changed it to be parts of the scenery and random encounter tables which seemed to suit my players just fine.
The campaign started very strong with exploration elements and gradually got worn down as I burned out on the game. We went through several cycles of differing area design as we played and I got feedback from the players, incorporating it into the areas we hadn't yet visited. We took a "vacation arc" to a nearby island chain so that the players could train up some of their pokemon and get some fresh scenery. By the end of that arc, it became very clear to me that battles would hold no further challenge or interesting gameplay unless I stacked the advantage heavily in the favor of the opponents. It was getting to the point where exploration gameplay was also getting impacted, as "we beat the shit out of the problem with our pokemon" was more and more of a default option. The last few Gyms and the Elite 4 went very quickly after we returned from that arc.
Conluding Thoughts
Overall, this project was a great time. I wrote a new game outside of my normal fantasy/scifi heartbreaker comfort zone and ended up running my longest running campaign to date. My players all had a blast and looked forward to playing every week. I spent a lot of this post complaining about various individual aspects of the game but they were dark spots in an overall very bright experience.
In particular, I derived a lot of value from committing to a very long campaign from the beginning and persisting to run even through 2 large re-writes of the base system. I frequently asked for feedback from my players and incorporated (some) of it into future sessions and design. Their enthusiasm for the base material was enough to get me to come back and do necessary refactors when if this was one of my projects I would have scrapped it long before now. It's not exactly mindblowing to suggest "ask for feedback and action some of it" but the nature of the relationship between players and GM means that this simple act never happens at many tables.
I hope you found this write-up useful! I have Jenx to thank for encouraging me to document my games, Lexi for getting me into the Legamon blogwagon, Liches for inspiring me to write up my mid-way report, and all my players for sticking with me to the end!
I'm happy to discuss any aspects of the game or provide suggestions to anyone wanting to run or write their own PokeRPG! I'm @Domicilius in Discord and on Bluesky and I'm happy to be @ mentioned or DMed to discuss further.