[System] Dice Mechanics & Statistics

[astralprogenitor]

While it's been altered and pared down for ease of GM-less play, Pokémon Expeditions relies heavily on the core of Pokérole 2.0 to form the basis of its mechanics. If you're interested in tabletop systems, give it a look - it's a great system and while we've had to alter quite a bit to fit the needs of this shop, it's a great foundation in general!

That being said, this thread details all you'll need to know for this shop, including what all these statistics mean and what you can do with them. Take your time and read everything carefully, though once you've had time to digest it all feel free to come and ask us (or a fellow player!) for clarification on anything that's unclear. New game systems take a little while to get used to, and we're here to help you!

 

[astralprogenitor]

Pokérole, and subsequently Pokémon Expeditions, is based on what is known as a d6 system. Unlike other tabletop RPGs you may be familiar with, such as Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder, this system only uses one sort of dice: the humble six sided one! Attacks and dangers have small, if not preset, amounts of damage, and there's actually very little math involved in the system at all, making it pretty easy to play with once you have the hang of it. That doesn't mean that there's no depth in it, of course, but you don't have to worry about a lot of numbers stressing you out while you're trying to craft a fun story!

Knowing what kind of dice to use is only half the battle, of course, and your stat sheet(s) are the other. Each statistic on the sheet - attributes, socials, and skills! - will have a set number of dots. These are represented by filled and empty dots, detailed more in the sections below. When it's time to roll dice, you'll look at these dots; the number of filled dots is the number of dice you'll roll for whatever is asked of you. For instance, if Alain Basswood was on an expedition and came across an encounter that asked him to roll dex + evasion, he would roll three (3) dice for dexterity and one (1) die for evasion, giving him a total of four (4) dice to try and overcome the obstacle at hand. He might later come across a task that asked him to roll dex or str + athletic to overcome a physical task; he would take his pick of dexterity or strength and his athletic score, stating which he was doing in the post he was rolling. More than likely, he'd choose strength - being higher than his dexterity - for a total of a whopping nine dice to roll! Note: dice rolls should almost always be a combination of attribute or social plus a skill, with only super simple tasks having only an attribute or social. Tasks will never be only skill!

Now you know how many dice to roll, but how do you know what it means? This system works on a simple success/failure idea. Every time you roll a die, you'll look at the number: if you get a 4, 5, or 6, that die counts as a success, and if you get a 1, 2, or 3 that dice is a fail. For any given action, you'll roll your dice, then count up the number of successes you have. Compare that to the difficulty rank of what you're trying to overcome; if you have at least the required number of successes, you complete the task successfully! That's the core of the dice mechanics in the game, and the method that will be used to complete all obstacles your characters encounter. Even pokémon battles rely on this core idea - detailed here(LINK).

Difficulty rank will always be on a scale of 1-5 except in extremely niche, rare cases; if you'd like to roll dice for your own roleplays and writing, this is a good overview of what each point represents:

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Required Successes​	Difficulty Meaning​
1​	Troublesome. Not something done all the time.​
2​	Challenging. Some kind of obstacles or problems in your way.​
3​	Hard. The conditions of the situation are placing you at a disadvantage, or you're really out of your league.​
4​	Insane. The mere idea of trying this is ridiculous.​
5​	Almost impossible. Logic dictates that this really shouldn't be possible by most human standards.​

 

[astralprogenitor]

Attributes​

Attributes represent your character's physical abilities. All human statistics are rated on a scale of one to five dots, with one being barely any of that attribute and five being nearly superhuman. Each stat represents a basic concept: strength is raw physical prowess, dexterity is speed and flexibility, vitality is toughness and endurance, and insight is perception and the sixth sense of being able to feel connections with others around. As such, no attribute may be less than one, as it would, more or less, imply the character was dead!

More information on all of these stats can be found in the character creation thread. There are two stats missing from that page which are pokémon exclusive: Special, representing how powerful their otherworldly or energy based powers are, and Will, representing the inner force that lets pokémon tap into some extra-special abilities!

Pokémon statistics are a little different, as their physiology is, obviously, different than humans. Unlike humans, who always use the human scale of one to five, a pokémon's attributes will be marked with up to ten icons: ⬤ and ⭘ are familiar, representing filled and unfilled but attainable dots. The third, however, is ⮿, meaning this pokémon can never attain that level of attribute. In this way, you can see a pokémon's abilities right now, what they could be, and how they compare to a power level up to twice as strong as the strongest human for every capability!

For instance, a small, but very energy rich pokémon might have attributes that look like this:

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Strength​	Special​	Dexterity​	Vitality​	Insight​
⬤⭘⮿⮿⮿ ⮿⮿⮿⮿⮿​	⬤⬤⬤⭘⭘ ⭘⭘⮿⮿⮿​	⬤⭘⮿⮿⮿ ⮿⮿⮿⮿⮿​	⬤⭘⭘⭘⮿ ⮿⮿⮿⮿⮿​	⬤⭘⭘⭘⭘ ⭘⮿⮿⮿⮿​

You can tell from this that the pokémon is pretty physically frail, but they'd pack a punch with something like a thunderbolt or a psybeam! However, you can also tell that this particular pokémon, while they might be able to build up endurance, is never going to be particularly quick or strong!

On the other hand, a hulking brute of a pokémon might look more like:

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Strength​	Special​	Dexterity​	Vitality​	Insight​
⬤⬤⬤⬤⭘ ⭘⭘⮿⮿⮿​	⬤⭘⮿⮿⮿ ⮿⮿⮿⮿⮿​	⬤⭘⮿⮿⮿ ⮿⮿⮿⮿⮿​	⬤⬤⬤⭘⭘ ⭘⮿⮿⮿⮿​	⬤⬤⭘⭘⮿ ⮿⮿⮿⮿⮿​

This pokémon is already almost as strong as the strongest possible human, and it could go even further! However, it's pretty sluggish, and it's never going to be hurling fireballs or bubblebeams around with much efficiency.

In this way, you can always tell a pokémon's potential, helping you plan out how you might want them to advance. In addition, pokémon may get stronger or have higher potential as they evolve - don't be surprised if their potential goes up as they grow! Bathing in a power well can also increase potential, at the cost of being able to evolve.

Socials​

Social attributes, or just "socials," dictate a person or pokémon's ability to socialize in different ways. Unlike physical capabilities, socials are always rated on a one to five scale, for human and pokémon alike. This is because, at its core, the system is based on comparison to human abilities, and social functions beyond human capability are a little hard to work with! After all, how are you going to get cuter than the cutest thing?

Like attributes, no social can be less than one. Having zero would imply an inability to even be terrible at that social skill, which just doesn't make any sense.

In depth information about each social can be found in the character creation thread.

 

[astralprogenitor]

Skills​

Like attributes and socials, skills represent a part of what your character can do. However, these represent your character's learned abilities; these are things they might have been trained for specifically or that they've just learned over time in their life. This makes for the primary difference between skills and the others - skills start at zero, representing the character has no real practice or training in that area of expertise.

Typically all rolls are made of a skill and either an attribute or social. Any character may attempt any roll, even if they're totally untrained in that skill! You'll just add zero (0) for the number of dice your skill add - so if you were asked to roll evasion + dex and your character had zero (0) evasion and three (3) dex, you'd just roll three (3) dice!

All characters have slots for skills listed as "-----". These are slots for special and unusual skills that you may be able to learn, and should be filled in with the names of those skills when they're acquired!

 

[astralprogenitor]

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