ONIX MAN STRIKES AGAIN, BRAD GARRISON GANG RUNNING RAMPANT
Even in the midst of his reign of terror, the terrorist known only to the public as The Onix Man broke his cover and, with the assistance of a few accomplices, laid waste to a Gainsboro City Pokemon Center, bringing the damage total somewhere near $30 million. There are also eyewitness reports of him leaving the scene following a full-scale incineration of an entire city block. Police are questioning this development, as The Onix Man typically prefers to smash structures and normally focuses on roads and infrastructure. It is unknown if he possesses any fire-type Pokemon.
His reign of terror is compounded by riots, looting, spreading the police force thin. This has unfortunately led to a sudden resurgence of the entire Brad Garrison gang. This is a disappointing development after the continuing efforts of the Gainsboro Police Department, working under the direction of League Detective Darren Walker. The recent reappearance of The Onix Man seems to have pulled Walker back to this case. It was reported that him and his Braviary were in pursuit of the wanted terrorist, in addition to other police officials. The two accomplices who assisted in the destruction of the hostage situation and destruction of the Gainsboro Pokemon Center have been arrested and taken into custody. It is believed that they will draw in the Onix Man.
PLAYERS
- Manda – Elliana the Ganguro
- Hannah – Naartok the Eskimo
- Nate – Katsuro Moriko
- Charlie – Carl Person (THE CATMAN)
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Alright just finished listing to this campaign while studying for finals. I’m doing the comments like I do for a creative writing group I’m in so if they suck tell me I’ll go back to the short rambling paragraphs. Maybe Spoilers?
Notes during the APs:
Ah the NOSTALGIA!!
Sound effects are awesome. So good.
The battle are a good representation of pokemon fights. (Looked up the rules during a coffee break, seems like y’all fixed most of the problems stated in the APs).
Amanda’s Japanease is hilarious because of how much you can tell she hates it.
So off the rails; so much fun.
The M. Day Shamalon – don’t make me remember that shitty movie.
CHAOS!!! Matt how hard was it to keep everything in check. You sounded super tired.
Comments:
Characters are pure insanity. The Maid Character Creation definitely helps a lot. It help ramps the setting to appropriate levels of silliness, I only wish there could have been a few stress explosions.
I love how everyone (except Nate and Sean) has some form of god-mon. Joey and Maximus (“Top Fucking Percentage”), Ganguro and Ninetails (“When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail; when you have a fire god everything looks like tender”), Catman and Rollcage (Literally destruction and property damage personified), Nartoc and the cubchoo Iji (Oh My God! The cuteness it hurts), Brad and Primeape (Super Sayan Toni Jaa). It made for some awesome battles.
Nate’s idea for the future campaign: Way to make Pokemon Grim Dark, but I can’t wait to listen to it if you post it. The idea really drove the point home of how powerful and dangerous the -mons are and how terrifying it would be if they got out of hand or used for nefarious purposes (I mean look at the power and destruction caused by the relatively tame/”weak” pokemon used in this campaign). I’m guessing there will be a different way to create characters? Maid could work for what you described, but you would have to get rid of a lot of the silliness or alter the silly things so they have serious consequences.
Character Comments:
Ganguro’s sobbing was both annoying and funny. It didn’t seem too long or too annoying. Amanda did a good job being the annoyingly endearing girl, who happened to kick lots of ass when push came to shove.
Catman… is a Charlie character not much to comment about other than the the pure insanity he brings. Which is always fun to listen too. I did like how he out-thank everyone that one time, he is so dumb he’s smart.
Joey, I’m torn. I loved the gangster voice but the heroic voice grew on me, so maybe try to combine the two if you use this character again. I like how the GMPC came in did its shit and stayed out of the PCs way, even if it was an accident. Maximus was awesome. I want to play pokemon again just to make a “top percentile” rattata.
Nartoc had some great fish out of water moments. The “whats a pokeball” thing really helped nail home this for me. Hannah’s cubchoo was so fucking cute, oh my god. It literally hurt to listen to her describe its actions, that is how adorable it was. That is amazing.
I wish there was some more from Jackie Kidd, but Sean as mentioned numerous times before is super busy. I would have like to see how he would have reacted to the “AMERICA BIRD” that attacked Catman, since he is the resident “bird trainer.”
Mori was strangely quite, I didn’t really get much out of her. Maybe if she had used her Eevee it could have helped make her pop a little more. As of right now I can only get a very small grasp of who she is from the small amount of interaction she had with the PCs and NPCs and what was written in her character page. (That being she is reserved and seems to have a black/white morality system but doesn’t react too strongly when someone does a grey action.)
Random Notes:
Best Exchange (Nate to Amanda): “Does it fit as a phone key charm?” “No it fits on your ankle.”
Best Quote (Charlie): “”When you have a hammer everything looks like a nail; when you have a fire god everything looks like tender.”
I look at Mori’s stats page. Mori is Ennis from “Baccano!” odd but fits description. That said after you explained and hinted at the future of the character, Mori makes the picture her own giving it an ominous feel. (Of course this is only if I have correctly guessed what she will end up like in the future).
Side Note: If Mori is Ennis does that mean Catman and Ganguro are Isaac and Miria?
Funny sessions guys, keep up the fun.
Haha yeah. The pokemon sessions have the most editing work done to them to add SFX, music, and remove excessive rules talk. I basically reserve all that work for those and for another mini-campaign that we’ll be posting in a few months.
I don’t actually remember a lot from that game. This could be due to how I was tired, but it also could be due to how I ran it back in. . . March, I think? It was a while ago. Nate basically gave me the city description and NPC list and said “I want to play in this, why don’t you run a few sessions?” Fortunately the game pretty much ran itself because the plot was “CATMAN IS DESTROYING EVERYTHING.” The game is so off-the-walls and crazy that I didn’t really try to control anyone. I just let them say what they were going to do and put an obstacle / pokemon in the way. It all worked out pretty well so I’m happy.
There were. Stress explosions happened when trainers lost battles. When Catman lost, it triggered his stress explosion, Racing, causing him to throw his Onix into the nearest sewer and race around in the underground. I think his plan was to mitigate damage by not being on the city surface, but sewers are not Onix-sized so he just did a shitload of damage.
Eliana (the ganguro) was supposed to be a more experienced trainer. Nate had run a one-off for a few of his friends set before these games (which was sadly not recorded) wherein Gainsboro City was inadvertently destroyed by Catman once before. This campaign is set 5 years after that, so she’s a more experienced trainer, having 8 badges (but unfortunately not the right kinds, so she can’t go to the Pokemon League). Onix was allowed because it was a base Pokemon with 1 evolution. I’m really not sure why Maximus was allowed at all. Backstory or not, that Rattata is crazy. Admittedly, I use my other Pokemanz more often and reserve Maximus as a last resort.
We actually have played one session of the campaign and then a lot of other things happened. Due to popular demand, we might pick it up again. It will get a lot more down-to-earth but it will still have all of the Saturday Morning Cartoon aspect. As Nate describes it, it’s just a logical progression of villain motivations: Team Hydro or whatever wants to flood the world so that water-type Pokemon will be superior, which is the basic serial villain goal. The untold part of it is that we’re going to Water World (but uh, less terrible).
Speaking of more srs sessions, there is one lined up (which has been lined up to play for probably 6 or 7 months) which Nate has described as “Saving Private Ryan, but with Pokemon.” Characters who have been made are still via the MAID system, because it’s really just a series of prompts on which you can build a complete character. Just be less silly in connecting the dots and you’ve got a person.
Mori gets a lot more screentime in the following session. In this, she was drowned out by all the insane characters because goddamn they are all so pretty and colorful. In the following session she begins her plan for the new super team and is basically the catalyst for plot.
We have plans to start playing again some day, and when we do we will start posting sessions again. In the meantime, if you’re running through old games, check out our Engine Heart one-off. That is silly, serious, and all around just good. It was the first and last set of games that Jeff ever ran, and they are wonderful.
It was actually a matter of me not being able to find a picture to fit the mental image I had for her, then inevitably coming across something on the ‘nets that worked. I hadn’t seen enough of Baccano! (only about two episodes of it) to see Ennis introduced, so I didn’t actually know what the image source was. I do know it was one of those images I marked as “good tentative image, but keep searching for something else.” Only I forgot to keep searchin’.
Guys, it was amazing. You should really do a campaign where the trainners go beat the Elite Four. Really, think about it.
I think this whole campaign had been written out. We just got busy with all of our main staples and then started half a dozen new campaigns and this just kinda fell by the wayside. Enough people have asked for it that we’ve considered it a few times, but the spot we left the campaign in wasn’t exactly the best one.
Maybe you could start a new campaign. I would like to see the ratata trainner again, ha! And the cat-onyx-man.
I was thinking about the system and I had some ideas to adapt the ‘level’ idea. You could make the scale roll + the level of the pokemon and compare the results. For example: Ratata lv 10 with d6 attack would roll 1d6+10. Levels could be gain with xp. The cost for the next level is the actual level. So, lv 2 to 3 would cost 3 xp. From 3 to 4, would cost 4 more xp, so on and so forth.
About the moves, maybe you could make a scale for them too, like 1d4 for tackle and 1d20 for hyper beam. And the HP could be the highest value of the HP die (4 for 1d4, 8 for 1d8 etc). When an attack breaks through the defense, you would roll the damage of the move.
I don’t know, just thought these while listening to the podcasts. I would be very glad to see new pokemon games.