itch.io

For what it's worth, you are not the first to ask about this. Either my explanation on the Tests & Checks page in the booklet isn't clear enough, or Fudge dice have really gone out of style! 

The key thing to understand about Fudge dice is that you are not calculating a number to determine the outcome; there is no DC and bonuses are not numerical -- it is a much simpler bell curve of success / fail / other.

Trainer bonuses are, in essence, another dice in the pool. Let's say you're doing a Smarts check. If you roll two fudge dice, and you get ++, that's a Super Effective Success on its own. If you have a single + bonus on it, that makes the roll +++, which is still Super Effective. So yes, to your question, if you are a Scientist with ++++, and roll --, it is still just Super Effective. It is up to the table to add flavor on the fact that you still over-succeeded despite messing up. But all that's need to truly "Pass", is one + (after all dice are combined). You are trading worse odds on all Charisma and Brawn rolls, and passing up other Bonuses, to ensure Smarts are always your time to shine for the character you want to role play.

What I don't think I mention, but preeeeettty sure I did on the podcast, and is standard in most TTRPG's, is that the GM can always make difficulty adjustments if necessary. So if you're rolling Smarts on a check that might solve an impossible fusion energy related equation on a chalkboard, and it feels very anticlimactic to just let the Scientist automatically succeed, the GM can add a - to the check. If you are injured, and normally your Swiftness is neutral, but last session you broke your leg, the GM might say all Swiftness checks for that player get a - while you heal.

Yes, this approach requires a good, free flowing GM who is not a dick. Some players and GM's really prefer more rules and statistics, because tactical fairness is an important part of the experience. But for me the place for that here is in the Pokemon Battles.

So, to your other question, yes -- natures, abilities, IVs and EVs were all left to their defaults in Pokemon Showdown or picked by the players. I noticed that the vast majority of people who play Pokemon can and will ignore these systems entirely and still enjoy the experience, myself included. So it's optional flair/management. Again, depends on the level of tactics that is important to your unique table of gamers.

I would take a look at this Expanded Rule Set if that's your jam. Super cool.

Levels are covered on the Leveling section; in 20 Sided Stories we started at level 5 and used a d4 in between episodes/encounters. I would then adjust the possible upcoming trainer and wild battles to what felt fair or interesting for the current party; normally the same levels, some a little lower, some a little higher.

Sorry for the essay, but this page gets a lot of hits per day now. So hope that helps you and future trainers passing through!

No you're correct, the class is what determines trainer stats exclusively. It isn't numerical like, say, DnD where every stat has a value. You have (+) bonuses and (-) disadvantages as determined by your class, and every other stat is neutral.

Wow. This is incredibly comprehensive and well done. Looks to be an ideal expansion for more long form campaigns, where my base set I think is more suited for one shots / limited runs / casual players and kids. Excellent work and thank you so much for sharing.

This is just about the best comment I could ever hope to receive. I am so happy you found such inspiration in my work. Thank you so, so much for these kind words, friend. They are cherished.

Heya. If you mean developing something that uses dice instead of Pokémon showdown, not at this time unfortunately. I certainly tried when developing the system but there was just no way in my opinion to retain both the pace and mechanics of Pokémon battles without it. Other fan made systems try, and I encourage you to test those out! But they are going to be compromising on one or the other; either a very crunchy pace or different/less faithful mechanics.

No rush. Go ahead and post a link here and I can add it after reviewing.

Sorry this took me so long. I originally could not find the plain text draft. But I eventually found what was either an older version, or enough had changed between the draft and the final PDF that I might as well just go through and reformat everything manually. So I did!

There's a new zipped folder included in the itch.io download with .pdf and .txt plaintext files, as well as an accessible Google Doc.

Yes! I think I have an older plain text version lying around. I will make sure all the text is in sync and updated and then get back to you.

I consider the design open source. So long as you're abiding by the CC license, you are free to do whatever you want with it :)

Holy crap that's awesome. Thank you.

Many thanks :) I'm bad at marketing.

Unfortunately no, sorry. It was very much conceptualized as something to play with a group. I also don't have any experience with solo TTRPG's.

Thanks for the feedback. What's interesting, is this is exact arc I myself went on when writing and recording this (it was very specifically made for the Marvel-themed season of 20 Sided Stories). I found myself exhausted by Marvel lore, which is why I encourage in The Rundown section for any reader to adapt the rules to their own setting. Again though, I do appreciate the observation. It's good to hear our ideas need not be bound by the media that inspires them.

Ha, thank you so much!

Sorry for the delay, Itch didn’t notify me for this one. Yes, rolls are modified by a Trainer’s Stats and Class. Additional or Subtracted points essentially can be treated as another dice in the pool. So if a Trainer needs to pass a Brawn check and rolls a (-) Failure, but has (++) on their Brawn stat, that roll becomes a (+) Success.

Thank you so much! Yes it is very much designed to be role-play focused. If you get a chance to run a game, I wanna hear all about it!

Great question. You're not the first to ask so perhaps I should make an amendment. Controversially, I'll often avoid tracking health in my role playing games entirely. I like to limit how much players look down at their sheet as much as possible, to make sure they connect with one another, and have a sense of performance freedom with their improv. I usually save the risk of death for later in the story.

That said, The Power Grid is intended to have a bit of a Rock-Paper-Scissors structure; Offensive < Defensive < Tactical < Offensive, and so forth. The attacking character will roll with an Offensive skill and the defending character will have to quell the attack (Combat), or withstand it (Durability). Speed replaces initiative, but you can also make a case for Intelligence with a player who can predict the fight and form a plan. Regarding health and damage, Durability is the Skill you'll want to lean into the most. You can treat this as the amount of hit points a character has, and if an opposing roll supersedes it, then consider that skill temporarily lowered. You can also combine this with Reality to measure their ability to recover, and where to roll death saves when the time is nigh. Quite a bit of time has passed since I ran the game, but there are some examples of this in action during the 20 Sided Stories finale.

Essentially, turn order and moves come from Tactical, with fights being a series of opposing Offensive vs Defensive rolls. In the case of tie rolls, defending always wins, or you can add a personal trait into the mix. At the end of the day though, I see the stats as modular building blocks that purely exist to help players with their role play. For example, I let Eric/Scry use Combat offensively from time to time; he didn't have raw strength but he knew how to deliberately dismantle enemies. Mahsa's powers specifically came from her Personal Traits, so I leaned into those much more for her.

This emotionally-driven style is not for every group, so of course if you find your way to be more satisfactory, fun, or specific, by all means, mod away!

Correct! +/- 0 on all rolls unless they have some advantage or disadvantage. I believe I ran a game of Fate before developing this but it still didn't hit quite what we were looking for in terms of flow. But that is where I got the idea to use Fudge dice. Since all my systems have been largely for 20 Sided Stories, designing in-house allows us to lean into exactly what works for our style, format, and narrative goals without being hindered by any pre-existing mechanics or ideas. 

Sorry somehow I was never notified for this message. On 20 Sided Stories we simply used a Google Doc. Pokemon Showdown has an import/export feature. It is a little clunky since it is  just raw text, but so long as you label things you can just copy/cut/paste back and forth and it should work seamlessly. If you are referring to the character and pokemon sheets, you should be able to open up the PDF's in something like Adobe Acrobat. No need to print! Just duplicate the file for new uses.

A sensible question. Dragons are not only among the wisest of mythical creatures, but in Pokémon they are relatively difficult to train, earning XP slower. So the idea is that Dragon Tamers must be really skilled to attune themselves to that pseudo-legendary status, and thus benefit greatly from forming a bond.

Basically, if someone can tame a freaking Dragon, they’re probably pretty smart and REALLY connected to the one they caught. 

Amazing! I'm here if you have any questions.