How do you feel about made up moves?

[Publications]

I've been working on a fanfiction recently and find the pool of canon moves to be rather limited. To work around this I used existing moves in more creative ways, like turning disable into a stasis. But do you think that if a cannon move is used in a dramatically different way, it warrants its own name?

 

[ShivaDF]

An existing move used in a different way than normal does not require its own name. Generally when you are writing a fanfiction based on in inherently unrealistic concept, making elements of it more realistic is fine. For example, turning two different moves into a combination works, as does using a move for a creative purpose.

However, if you just randomly made up a new move, and its power is on par with Techno Blast and you had no justification, then that wouldn't be good.

 

[bobandbill]

I think it does depend on the move and how it is being used, but generally it is fine to call it by the original move name. There's going to be a number of ways to use a move (e.g. Quick attack to hit a Pokemon quickly, or say avoid an attack or just get somewhere quickly), but I'd still call it quick attack. Likewise, using Flamethrower as a concentrated attack or a really widespread move would be both doable and able to be called Flamethrower.

You could also try and have the Pokemon use two moves together, if you're inventive, and effectively the Pokemon is doing two canon moves rather than just one or the other.

 

[Incinermyn]

I write using Fake Pokémon all the time, so I have a huge pool of made-up moves that only they can use due to what they are. For instance, one of my legendaries is a phantom wolf heralded as the God of Death in my stories and his signature attack called Reaper Fang cannot be used by anyone but him and his minions, which also happen to be lupine fakemon. So, my stance is basically that, if you're going to make up a move (or even a different-type variation of a move), actually create one that doesn't exist. It's just weird to change the name for one that exists just because you've change the effect for the story. But then, if all you're concerned about is Disable, you could just use it like they did in the anime and have it stop the victim from moving momentarily rather than just make it stop using a certain move (yes, that is something that actually has been used in the show several times, so it would be considered canon in that case).

 

[Venia Silente]

Hmmm.... I'm pretty sure we already had a thread where I commented about this issue.

Oh yes, we do. Here's my opinion on the subject. Boils down to two things: 1.- you can be fairly innovative with the moves you have and 2.- if you are going by "canon" there's still a good lot of moves available for you.

 

[SparklingMistral]

I agree with the above poster. You can be innovative with the available moves. There's loads of them out there, so there's loads of possibilities with what's available.

You just have to be careful with it, I think, so that you're not using or creating a bunch of overpowered moves that can OHKO your character's opponents easily.

 

[Publications]

I want to thank everyone for contributing to this thread. It has certainly help put things into my perspective better and I find myself agreeing more with the consensus every time I read one of the posts here. Again, thank you all and hopefully I can make good use of this information.