Mission Planning

So we've got all sorts of stuff created in threads for the mechanics of how combat, adventuring, etc. will work; we don't have a single thread for collated adventure ideas.

I can see a downside to having them posted in the open; if we had the full synopsis and such posted, there'd be no way to work surprises into the story. It could also take away from significant plot twists, and the challenge of exploring and piecing(sp) together a puzzle.

However, I think that for our initial start, having the adventures fully open will let us fine-tune the actual operations of the adventures by having the side panels entirely off the machine. Everyone knows what the input is, can see the function, and then can determine by the finished product if we want to accept the result, which is almost but not entirely quite unlike tea.

I propose we have an idea-off thread, starting here; people can post their titles (tentative or not), their adventure tagline, a brief (two- to three- sentence) summary of events and plot, and then decide as a group which two or three we think we should focus further on for our test-run.

(I also think it'll help drum up activity in this section, which is only going to be a good thing)

 

Lol @ the Hitchhiker reference. Anyway, I think that a Beta Test would be beneficial at this point. We have most things hammered down flat (Thanks to Chain, over here) and we should start figuring things out.
Basic runs generally fall into a few types:

Rescue:
An X is missing/hostage at Y. A Z is offered to whoever can bring X back.

War:
The X and Y are fighting! You are in a group of elite Trainers who are sent to take down Y.

Escape:
You were at/in X when Y happened. You need to get out of/away from X as fast as possible.

Travel:
You are traveling form X to Y. There are many challenges which await you, but you believe that you can get there.

Insert whatever you want to make the scenario instead of X/Y/Z. Anything I missed?

EDIT: Ooh, more! Thanks, Evan!

Stop the Sabotage:
You are at X with the responsibility of protecting Y from Z. They will come at you hard, but you are prepared!

Sudden Adventure:
You are at X when Y shows up (Y is obviously an evil organization, poachers, etc)! They are trying to destroy Z and you must stop them!

 

Just regarding the privacy point, I think we should hammer out, say, three missons in the open, and then maybe we could internally test them before releasing them. From there on, new missons could be developed black box.

 

Well, I think that basic types of Missions should be figured first. Then we can work on more complicated, larger ones.

 

They look good to me, assuming every mission can be categorised into those options.

As for privacy, the use of the PM system is the only viable option for finetuning. All signifigant PMs can be forwarded to all of the mission planning staff. Just a thought.

Perhaps all individual runs can have their own thread, using the following layout:

Map Layout:
Mission Briefing:
Background information:
Items/Pokemon Types recquires: (Such as HM Surf for Foamy Beach, or Fire Types for Lava Mountain.
Reward:
Application Form: (to be filled out and sent to Mission Organiser)

 

I do like that layout, Synthesis. I don't think we should have stated rewards yet, because that'd take a while to get cleared through the Admins and such; I think we should just proceed, hammer things out, and if we do a fabulous job, it lets an appropriate reward (if one is forthcoming) be distributed.

Chain, that's basically what I was thinking; gives us a little variety, assuming we pick one of each different type.

Gliscor: the only things I can think of is a Sudden Adventure and a Stop the Sabotage! SA would be where you're peacefully enjoying a day of X, when suddenly Y show up to ruin the day. You need to stop them from getting/planting/destroying Z, along with a few other Xers who are nearby. StS would be making sure that Team X, trying to destroy Plot Device Y, doesn't succeed. Most everything else I can think of fits fairly well under your general guides.

 

Okay, Evan, I added your ideas. Thanks!

To the rest, Syn's idea should work, but I'd expect it to be used as a title page of a particular run. Maybe we could hire some Beta testers to iron out a few errors in the system? It'd let us figure something out with someone that has no previous relations with the new system.

 

I don't know if these can be actual adventures, but they certainly can be aspects of some that might be fun or entertaining settings. Most of these are of the transportation variety.

Steam Ship
Train - Western Variety, High Speed, or long-distance travel
River Raft
Caravan
Lonely Truck on the Road
Giant Dirigible (aka Skyship)

 

Okay, right there. I totally dibs designing a Mission that involves defending a flying airship. That would be AWESOME.

 

Chain beat me to it.

 

Can we split it three ways and share it? chain will get me when i say it reminds me of Vaan and Penelo

Ok well sorry just copying and pasting my 2 original ideas. the second idea has some interesting bits in it about choosing what random wild pokemon trainers can and should be decided in it.

idea 1

A Team Rocket member has started taking hostages in the local pokecenter, with everyone unnable to heal their pokemon their must turn to the pokemart to get items to be able to heal their pokemon. Unfortunatly they are unnable to gain entry into the building as the team Rocket grunt's partner has also taken over the pokemart. you must first take on the pokecenter and then move onto the pokemart or start with pokemart and go onto pokecenter. Between each trainer battle you can heal eaither using the pokecenter or use the pokemart. the pokecenter is free whereas you must pay to gain potions from the pokemart. The question is, do you folow the path of the center or the mart. Furthermore the Rocket Grunt in the pokecenter has the pokemon Ekans and Sandshrew and the pokemart Rocket Grunt has the pokemon Ratticate and Weezing.


idea 2

A growlithe has been captured by a team rocket grunt and is now going on a rampage through the viridian forest burning down tree's and pokemon alike. once the team or person has caught up with the rocket grunt they must battle. If a team of people going through mission then the Rocket grunt is joined by another grunt who has a electrike with him. You then proceed to have a double battle. To make things more difficult before you get to the rocket grunt you must battle multiple pokemon who are common to forests, ie bugs, and grass mons. Each trainer is also only allowed 2 pokemon that are chosen before the mission. Trainers are also allowed to buy items to help them through the map, these items would be things that you can buy from the same shop, as the national park ie potions. The reward at the end of the mission would be money or coupons to buy more items for the shop, and an invitation to another mission involving team rocket. All pokemon encounters before the rocket fight are rolled by dice, the dice would be out of 9 the 9 are: caterpie, metapod, wurmple, cricketot, weedle, kakuna, Seedot, Oddish, Lotad. If only 1 person then only 1-2 encounters before the rocket grunt, determined by roll. If 2 trainers then 3-4 encounters determined by roll, can also have a double battle, determined by roll out of 3, 1-2 is single battle, 3 is double, then for double battles each mon is rolled individually from the set of 9 mons.

 

Well, I guess I call the Dirigibles of War! Anyway, I could take many more suggestions.

@Kanga: What do you mean? Are those going to be Beta tests?

 

yer those can be beta tests i believe that we have everything that we need to do a beta test now, for either of the 2 scenarios. better to test though would be the second one. more information for it. If we do decide to do a beta testing then i suggest that we get chain started on making some tile maps for us. unless he can give me a link to find the program he used to make the tile maps.

 

I'd like to do the prep work for a Caravan one - the idea was kicking around in my head before HKim threw it out there, but I didn't have much to flesh it out. I'd like to set up an adventure where the Magnet Train is down, which ferries necessary supplies, and so they instead need to cart crates, barrels, etc. on wagons cross-country to a smaller town that needs them. Along the way, they're beset first by bandits, then enraged Pokemon, and finally Team Rocket agents before safely delivering it to the town, and are rewarded with a parade.

 

This sounds like a good one, and we should pick one of kanga's as well, the one that is most different to this. But what we need to when developing a Mission is more than just this. This is like the description you'd hear about at the beginning. The following is a very rough example I came up in inside of 3 minutes to show some of what needs to be done, but lets say for the quoted example:

The caravan passes through, say, a forest, two towns and a canyon, and in that order. From the Encounter side of things, that means four Encounter grids need to be designed (I can do that, but just remember, this is an example) and the Pokemon and their placements need to be discussed. Then, we need to think about ways the Mission can vary, if that's what we're going for. For example, before passing through each "danger area", you have a choice of what to do, say, "scouting the area", which reveals some/all of the enemies in the upcoming Encounter, "fortifying the caravan" which adds defensive bonuses to the carts or something, etc etc etc. The only thing is this doesn't leave much room for the roleplaying (I'm assuming we're still going for the overall D&D-like system) so where that is incorporated I do not know. Inbetween Encounters, obviously, but how it ties in I'm not sure at this point. Maybe the caravan leader can be a stubborn idiot and so the Trainers butt heads with him the entire way.

Anyway, as you can see a LOT more planning needs to be done of these ideas. We can't just throw out ideas and then start testing them (although throwing out ideas is how any great project starts). I apologize if this came over as bossy, I did not intend it to be so. And if anyone wants me to make up some grids for them, shoot me a VM/PM/IM and tell me what you want.

 

Yeah, I think this will work. When will we be able to start this? And, yes. We're using the basic D&D system.

 

Nah, it didn't come off as bossy. My idea there wasn't intended to be anything more than the seed of an adventure, to which there's a lot more work that needs to be done; for that, I turn to my DM's guides that talk about building adventures/campaigns. I was going to get a more comprehensive writeup going and post that, figure out what to add/change/keep, and go from there with building the actual mission.

As to the size, I think for these starter adventures, we should limit it to 3 people adventuring in each mission; this helps things move along more quickly, and makes certain that they have a bit more involvement. I also don't know that the people running them should be in the other missions; this'll let us broaden the pool of people who could be involved, but I'm less attached to that idea - I'd love to give one a try the first time through, but I wouldn't want us to take up all of it, y'know?

 

Same about the guides; that's where I turn. Other than that, three people sounds perfectly fine as a limit. It would prevent people from being excluded. As a rule, we could also replace people if one person has not been online to make things go faster.

 

Well, I don't want to quote from my DM guide verbatim, because of potential copyright issues (even though no money's being made), so I'll try and do brief summaries of adventure building.

a) How does the adventure start? How does it end? What happens in between?
b) For quests, what's the situation, and what led up to it? Does solving it require responding to something happening, or going somewhere? Why do the adventurers care about the situation?
c) Where is it taking place? What sorts of locations or terrain are there? What's interesting or scary besides Pokemon?
d) Who and what is in the area? Is there a villain? Who else cares about the situation, and who of them are helpful, neutral, or hostile?

As far as format goes, it leaves much to be desired, so I want to get it cleaned up as far as getting a general form for adventure synopsis. Anything I missed? Anything that we don't particularly need? I would like to have keywords about the adventure to quickly summarize things, so people can pick if they want mystery, intrigue, dialogue, and the like.

 

A quick summarization would probably suffice for finding which is best for what one wants to participate in. However, I think that the base setup for everything was already posted.