Pokemon Racing

For a long time, I've been wondering if we could create a URPG activity that would be possible between any number of people and would not require a ref. An activity that can be done in a short time frame with URPGer's Pokemon.

Truly brought this idea up and I think it's a great one. Originally we discussed Bug Races, but it's probably more inclusive to expand it to Pokemon Racing.

The idea is simple. The first Pokemon to cross the finish line wins. Of course, since this is the URPG, the order which you cross the finish line matters as well.

More specifically, a Pokemon must travel 25 spaces to reach the finish line.


Pokemon Tiers

Pokemon will be classified into three tiers based on their speed. Tier A, Tier B, and Tier C. Tier 1 are the fastest while Tier 3 are the slowest (initially). Different Tiers start at different speeds.

Tier A - Speed 3
Tier B - Speed 2
Tier C - Speed 1

To determine what Pokemon fall in what category, just check the Ultra Dex on Monbrey's site and see what color your speed is.

Green - Tier A - Speed 3
Yellow - Tier B - Speed 2
Red - Tier C - Speed 1


Turn Order

Each Pokemon gets 1 Action per a Round. The initial turn order is determined randomly. Each round after, turn order goes from lowest speed to highest. Turn order is changed at the end of each round.


Actions

Every Pokemon has a number of options for their action that round.

Accelerate - Increase Speed by 1
Slow - Decrease Speed by 1
Attack - Decrease Speed of one other Pokemon by 2
Pass - No Action Taken

Note: Speed can never fall below 1.


End of Round

At the end of the round, the results of the round are determined.

For Pokemon moving at Speeds 4 or lower, they advance a number of spaces equal to their speed.

(For random lore reference, 1 space = 100 meters).

For Pokemon moving at Speeds 5 or higher, the trainer must roll (d100) in order to determine what happens.

Speed 5
- 21 to 100: Advance 5 Spaces
- 1 to 20: Lose 1 Speed, Advance 4 Spaces

Speed 6
- 41 to 100: Advance 6 Spaces
- 21 to 40: Lose 1 Speed, Advance 5 Spaces
- 1 to 20: Lose 3 Speed, Advance 3 Spaces

Speed 7
- 61 to 100: Advance 7 Spaces
- 21 to 60: Lose 2 Speed, Advance 5 Spaces
- 1 to 20: Lose 5 Speed, Advance 2 Spaces

Speed 8
- 81 to 100: Advance 8 Spaces
- 21 to 80: Lose 3 Speed, Advance 5 Spaces
- 1 to 20: Lose 7 Speed, Advance 1 Space

Speed 9
- 100: Advance 9 Spaces
- 41 to 99: Lose 4 Speed, Advance 5 Spaces
- 1 to 40: Lose 8 Speed, Advance 1 Space

Speed 10
- Advance directly to Finish Line


Example Round

There are four players: Felly, Prince Vultan, ATLiam, and Truly

Felly uses Flygon, Speed 3
Prince Vultan uses Scolipede, Speed 3
Liam uses Starmie, Speed 3
Truly uses Clauncher, Speed 1


Initial Turn Order
- Felly rolls 88
- Vultan rolls 57
- Liam rolls 25
- Truly rolls 49

Ergo, the turn order is: Felly (Flygon), Vultan (Scolipede), Truly (Clauncher), Liam (Starmie).


Round 1
- Flygon Accelerates, Speed increases to 4
- Scolipede Attacks Flygon, Flygon's Speed decreases to 2
- Clauncher Accelerates, Speed increases to 2
- Starmie Accelerates, Speed increases to 4

End of Round Speed
- Starmie, Speed 4
- Scolipede, Speed 3
- Flygon, Speed 2
- Clauncher, Speed 2

Total Spaces Advanced
- Starmie, 4 Spaces
- Scolipede, 3 Spaces
- Flygon, 2 Spaces
- Clauncher, 2 Spaces

New Turn Order

(In cases of a tie in speed, the Pokemon who went last gets priority.)

- Clauncher
- Flygon
- Scolipede
- Starmie


Round 2
- Clauncher Accelerates, Speed increases to 3
- Flygon Attacks Starmie, Starmie's Speed decreases to 2
- Scolipede Attacks Starmie, Starmie's Speed decreases to 1
- Starmie Attacks Scolipede, Scolipede's Speed decreases to 1

End of Round Speed
- Clauncher, Speed 3
- Flygon, Speed 2
- Scolipede, Speed 1
- Starmie, Speed 1

Total Spaces Advanced
- Starmie, 4 Spaces
- Scolipede, 4 Spaces
- Flygon, 4 Spaces
- Clauncher, 5 Spaces

New Turn Order
- Starmie
- Scolipede
- Flygon
- Clauncher

Play continues as normal until the end.


Victory

Once a Pokemon has traveled at least 25 spaces, they cross the finish line and may no longer take an action or be attacked.

Since distance traveled is determined at the end of the round, in cases where two or more Pokemon cross the finish line in the same round, the Pokemon which traveled the farthest distance overall wins the tiebreaker. In case this is a tie, the fastest Pokemon wins. In case that is also a tie, the Pokemon who went earlier in the turn order that round wins.

Play continues until all Pokemon cross the finish line.

Pay for participation will be similar to FFA's. The better you placed, the more you win. I'm open to suggestions on amounts.



What do you guys think?

 

Looking at the Speed and turn-order system, I think ties could be eliminated by having the winner be determined as "whoever crosses the finish line first."
And, potentially, to hell with the rest-- or finish it out, up to you.

The system as it reads now has all moves taking effect at once, and all Racers moving at once. The turn order is determined by the initial rolls and whoever went last. I think this is a mistake, and will actually lead to confusion-- taking care to calculate everybody's changing speed as the Round progresses, and applying the final results all at once.

I think a better way to do determine turn order would be to let the Fastest/Frontmost Racer go first. It may seem counter-intuitive-- doesn't the Fastest Racer already have the advantage? But since advantage can be so quickly lost in this game, the order would still chance quite a bit, as people are quick to sabotage the race leader.

"But Truly," HKim rebuts on AIM, "As much as speed changes in a turn, that will just confuse people." But I say, "Nooo, Harry!" because we'll solve that easily: instead of everybody's turn happening at once, have them all happen one at a time.

To show a short example,
Starmie, at speed 3 takes its turn to Accelerate, changing to speed 4, and moving 4 spaces.
Then Scolipede, speed 3, attacks Starmie, slowing it to 2. Scolipede doesn't move, having attacked. (in the system as written above, Starmie would have its speed adjusted, and would only move 2 spaces instead of 4. Here, the speed change does not affect Starmie until its next turn.)
Clauncher, speed 1, moves, not gaining or lowering its speed.

Next turn, Scolipede has the highest speed at 3. It attacks Starmie, slowing it from Speed 2 to 1 (as you can't have a speed lower than 1). As it attacked, it doesn't move. (The speed change will take affect this turn, not next turn, as Starmie hasn't taken its turn yet.)
Starmie, ties with Clauncher at Speed 1, but still goes first, having a higher Speed Stat in the URPG-Dex. It Accelerates, changing its speed to 2, and then moves 2.
Clauncher, Speed 1, moves.

Writing it out, it seems there are some things I haven't thought of-- like, which takes priority, Speed or Race Position? The former will make a pokemon's stats more important but the latter could make races more static or more uncertain. The example above doesn't take into account the position of each racer, so that's a flaw...

But the idea is there. Let the people winning go first. And chances are they won't be winning for long anyway.

 

I like the idea, just needs more refining.

Truly: I would think that your comments with speed makes it even more confusing, having to go consult something else equal more confusing.

I feel like all actions should be taken, and then the movement part does.

And your current plan is for it to play out like a XY Public Open battle for sends? If so, agreed.

Really, I think what Harry has written right now is pretty good. I would think it just needs to go to the playtesting part.

Oh, idea. Have the Pokemon have to reach the 25 exactly,no going over.

EDIT: Whoops, I misread it. The Dex will already be open. Ignore that point, but it still stands.

 

As it stands currently (and I could be missing something), it seems like there is absolutely no advantage to sending anything other than the fastest Pokémon you own (to start with three and hopefully win tiebreakers against other people's fastest Pokémon). It feels like either there should be some advantage to being slower or to some other attribute that would make other things more viable. Just a thought.

Possibly more on this later.

 

I like it how Harry had it with everyone doing an action first, then moving. We could have different ways of doing it and Truly's way could be one as well, but I prefer Harry's just because it's more simple.

With pay, do we want to do what we do with FFAs? .5k (or 1k) to the last three then .5k more adding up? What's the minimum amount of people needed for a race? 3? 4? Is it like an FFA where we can have as many participants as we want?

Also, what Ash said. If there's no advantages to slower Pokemon, then we're going to see a lot of Jolteons and Accelgors. Maybe after 4 or 5 rounds faster Pokemon wear out, like their stamina needs a round to rebuild, while slower Pokemon don't need an extra round to gather themselves and then could either get ahead or catch up if needed. Maybe it could be every 3 rounds super fast Pokemon (like Jolteon, Accelgor, Starmie, Gengar, etc..) need to rest, and every 6 rounds medium fast Pokemon (like idkwhat atm) need to rest, but the super slow Pokemon (Slowbro, Wobbuffet, Scrafty, ect) don't need to rest, or maybe they rest every 9 rounds. Idk, just ideas.

/my 2 cents

 

Thank you everyone for your responses and feedback.

I think the idea has merit and could work. Unfortunately, I do not have the time to advance this idea further. Is there anyone here interested in taking over this project?

If not, I'll close this thread and we'll shelve it for another time.

 

Okay, shelving the idea. Thanks for your input guys!

Thread - Closed