Steampunk x Pokemon RP

Posting this to gauge interest level before I go all in and work out all the plot details, etc.

As it is, this RP is little more than a premise. I know where I want to take it, broadly speaking, but as I said I haven't worked out the plot details yet.

Feedback would be very welcome!

Disclosed said:

Oh, hey! Now this is pretty intriguing. Nice to see a Pokemon roleplay taking place in an unorthodox setting. I like the position the player characters take as secret service members and, based on what you've provided so far, I'm already pretty excited at the prospect of taking on missions with my Trainer and Pokemon and moving up in rank.

The world-building I appreciate as well, though there doesn't appear to be much attention called to the Pokemon aspect to Sanctum, aside from the brief mention of "people and Pokemon" and "Pokemon battles" in the first paragraph. And later, of course, there are those basic Trainer necessities and 'available Pokemon'. However, I'd appreciate in a later version of the OP if Pokemon played a larger part in the background information.

Speaking of 'available Pokemon', what reason would there be for Trainer's to be limited to eight you have listed? Are these placeholders for now? I'd say the selection you have is pretty random, from my perspective, but I've no clue how you selected those specific eight. Either way, why would characters be limited to any specific Pokemon in the first place? From what I gleaned from reading the provided info, we all come from varying occupations and backgrounds anyway, so we would likely have varying involvement and exposure to different sorts of Pokemon, right? Or do Pokemon differ between missions...?

I'd simply like to see some expansion of the Pokemon aspect of things.

Some other questions I have: How would man-made monsters, like Porygon and Magnemite, fare in this steampunk setting? Would there be a Pokedex or a version of it?

And this is just a small thing but you used a very light grey for the text color. Hate to be a bother but it would be much easier to read if it were made a shade or two darker.

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Damn, sorry about that. I made this while on a dark forum theme, and the fact that not everyone does that rather slipped my mind. >_> Apologies, it should be fixed now.

Very astute of you to note the lack of Pokemon presence; I was going to go into this in the OP, but thought better of it since it was very long-winded as is. Pokemon ownership (trainership?) isn't as broad in this world as it is in others. The idea is that in a rationalist world that fully understands the immense power a Pokemon could have, a licensing system has been put in place to ensure that this power doesn't end up in the wrong hands. So in Sanctum, Pokemon Trainer is a full-fledged profession, requiring the professional license administered by the Bureau of Pokemon Administration. That's not to say that the normal populace doesn't have access to Pokemon at all; all a license does is allow you legal ownership of Pokemon over a certain power level. Pokemon under that bar is free game for everyone. (...which would normally bring me to the subject of illegal Pokemon ownership, but to quote Oak, time and place for everything, yes?)

This also explains why you're not a Pokemon trainer already; it's simply not your line of work. Why you're suddenly assigned a mission to become one is, ahem, classified. ;]

SO YES. Pokemon doesn't thrive as much in this world, but they're there. And they'll play very vital roles in the RP.

The Available Pokemon section were admittedly not made with much thought, but essentially I wanted to change it up from the normal FWG starters, and the ones that I listed all evolve once and are of different types. That's...all, haha. I might change them in the RP's actual release.

I haven't quite thought that as far as Magnemite and Porygon yet. I suppose I could drum up reasons for their presence easily enough, but I suspect they just won't make an appearance.

Thanks a bunch for your input! It was very insightful.

Disclosed said:

You're very welcome! I think I much prefer this darker theme. Very sleek.

Oho, I see. Trainers have a very defined role in this roleplay's society, it seems, which I like. The license system is very smart. And thank you for discerning between Trainer and agent. At first I thought they were one in the same! With that established, having a number of select Pokemon in the beginning makes much more sense. I'd assume they'd be distributed to agents by the Seraph itself?

A blurb on Pokemon, Trainers and their role in Sanctum would be very useful for the final product.

Anyway, I definitely see a lot of potential here, lots of ideas to play with. I highly encourage you continue developing what you have so far.

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Will definitely do this.

And yeah, they're distributed by the agency at the start of the mission. Glad you like the theme, btw! And thanks again.

I would be very interested in joining!

Would there be any area for Non-Agents? Civilians who somehow have possession of Pokemon. Also, how would catching work?

I like this very much. Hurry up and get it going so I can play!

TrubbishGuy said:

I would be very interested in joining!

Would there be any area for Non-Agents? Civilians who somehow have possession of Pokemon. Also, how would catching work?

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Hello and welcome to PC!

I've entertained the possibility of having professional trainers as an attache of sorts to smooth the missions along. It would make sense, after all, to have professional hired guns for when things go south, yes? Ultimately though I think I'm not going to do it because it'd be hard to insert them into the very much agency-centric storyline without making them feel tacked on. But then again, this RP is still largely incomplete; so that, like pretty much everything else on the drawing board, is still up in the air.

Oh, and catching is done through Pokeballs, much like the main series. But Pokeball distribution is limited; you'd have to have a trainer's license to purchase anything other than the ordinary red-and-white Pokeball (and the Premiere Balls that come with them, I suppose). But more on that in a future iteration of the OP.

Emakrul said:

I like this very much. Hurry up and get it going so I can play!

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I'm grateful for your interest, but um, that likely won't be for a good long while. ^^" I'd like to get every mission, every plot detail planned before I launch the real thing, so the story would have a clear direction and so I could pace the RP properly. (And yes, I'm aware that RPs in PC don't normally go very far, but I'd like to attempt it anyway) But seeing interest definitely motivates me to put more time into this, so thank you.

I have too say, this is a very interesting idea! Though I have too say that it took me a bit of time to wrap my head around the plethora of locations and details this new world encompass, but Sanctum is really detailed. This would be an exciting RP to play as an agent of peacekeeping in the city ^_^ I would be very interest in joining! :D

Though a suggestion, can you have it so that WE, the RPers have a freedom of choosing our partner/starter Pokemon? As long of course that they attain the prerequisites of a starter? That would be awesome :3

A side note: Your avatar's not showing up

Parivir said:

Hello and welcome to PC!

I've entertained the possibility of having professional trainers as an attache of sorts to smooth the missions along. It would make sense, after all, to have professional hired guns for when things go south, yes? Ultimately though I think I'm not going to do it because it'd be hard to insert them into the very much agency-centric storyline without making them feel tacked on. But then again, this RP is still largely incomplete; so that, like pretty much everything else on the drawing board, is still up in the air.

Oh, and catching is done through Pokeballs, much like the main series. But Pokeball distribution is limited; you'd have to have a trainer's license to purchase anything other than the ordinary red-and-white Pokeball (and the Premiere Balls that come with them, I suppose). But more on that in a future iteration of the OP.



I'm grateful for your interest, but um, that likely won't be for a good long while. ^^" I'd like to get every mission, every plot detail planned before I launch the real thing, so the story would have a clear direction and so I could pace the RP properly. (And yes, I'm aware that RPs in PC don't normally go very far, but I'd like to attempt it anyway) But seeing interest definitely motivates me to put more time into this, so thank you.

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In that case take your time, and good luck with fleshing it out.

Etherion said:

I have too say, this is a very interesting idea! Though I have too say that it took me a bit of time to wrap my head around the plethora of locations and details this new world encompass, but Sanctum is really detailed. This would be an exciting RP to play as an agent of peacekeeping in the city ^_^ I would be very interest in joining! :D

Though a suggestion, can you have it so that WE, the RPers have a freedom of choosing our partner/starter Pokemon? As long of course that they attain the prerequisites of a starter? That would be awesome :3

A side note: Your avatar's not showing up

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Sorry you had to go through that, haha. I've a mind to include a map of Sanctum and Citadel to make visualization a bit easier. but given my artistic skill (or lack thereof...) that'd likely do more harm than good.

The reason I have pre-selected Pokemon at all is because there'll be quite a few evolutionary lines that are off-limits because plot. I might end up doing a banlist instead, but I'm scared that'll spoil chunks of the story somewhere down the road ;_; I'll consider it, though.

And I'm aware about my avatar xD I'm too lazy to go fix it hurr durr

Hum ...

Now I must say, this is quite the unique piece, innit? Now I may be a newbie 'round these parts and my verbosity threatens to lose any sort of meaning at times, but I sincerely hope I might be able to instill some creative juice--if only a little--through my questions.

Ms. Disclosed already made the point of Pokemon seeming to be tacked onto what was otherwise a free-standing steampunk world, and I'd like to touch on that some more despite that you've already assured us all that it's a work-in-progress. The best time to shed new light on a thing is while there's still time to take that light into account, after all, ah? And just to throw it out there, you can always drop the Pokemon aspect of it if you find it too hard to incorporate: not every RP has to involve Pokemon, and this one already stands strong without them.

Now, in regards to your licensure of Pokemon ownership: you said there are professional Trainers? What is it they do in society? I personally think of something along the lines of a professional athlete when I'm presented the term, really. And "Pokemon past a certain power level" encompasses most anything that's fully-evolved, I would assume, given the sheer volume of species capable of firebreath, electricity, or any other flavor of disaster-waiting-to-happen. With that in mind, what happens if a Pokemon evolves from a free-game species into one that needs licensing? Or are all the pre-evolutions of such things also banned? But then, what wouldn't be banned?

Moreover, where do these Pokemon prowl? Yes, you mention them strutting the streets alongside people, but are these the wild ones or the caught ones? There are certain urban species, yes, but particular species like Cryogonals or Carbinks may seem out of place if they maintain breeding populations in these urban areas, and then it is only to be presumed any banned Pokemon species aren't allowed to just wander about. I apologize if I've misread it, but it strikes me as a quite heavily-industrialized world, although that admittedly does not by itself preclude more wild areas elsewhere, it is only how I interpreted it.

Given the steampunk setting there are two things you could do with the Pokemon element: you could be inclusive or exclusive regarding non-humans. Steampunk technology could well be built around Pokemon in such a way as to utilize them (such as having Magbys as steam boilers or Elekids as power generators) and then have the license being for battling of these Pokemon and not strictly for their ownership. You could even go either the symbiotic tech route where everyone's all generally buddy-buddy or go the darker route where everyone generally treats Pokemon as tools and machines. Alternatively, you could have the steampunk technology exist in such a way as to make humans more self-reliant, and thus alienate them from Pokemon. In such a context the license speaks for itself because Pokemon are destructive creatures and are generally not allowed around the more civilized areas. Just ideas, though, I'm curious as to what route you choose to take.

And do remember: this isn't set up like your standard Journey RP, where the power ramp comes from progressing from Gym to Gym. In this one we're assumed to be top-notch even though we're new, because new as we might be we're still a part of the strong arm of the law that's so exclusive it only has under fifty members. With that in mind, the power ramp has to be considered differently to avoid contrivance: picking up a Goomy may make us less noticeable to anyone watching, but we can't realistically be expected to combat gunmen, bombardiers, or non-steampunk aggressive Trainers with something like that until it evolves. And to be straight, an organization of this caliber would likely opt not to wait for evolution and prefer things like Pinsir or Absol, which have a much more level power ramp. Again, just thoughts.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not trying to tear your idea to ribbons. In fact, I quite like your vision: I've always been partial to steampunk, agencies, and Pokemon, so this one's got me drooling on the keyboard (quite literally, I ashamedly admit)! I am only curious to learn more of this wondrous world you've envisioned! And don't be concerned about the OP going on too long: it's the OP, after all, it sorta has to be long to establish what it needs to. And if we're talking honestly here: if someone doesn't at least skim the RP for its main points, are they to be expected to be particularly committed to its participation to begin with?

Personally, Mr. Parivir, I would look forward to joining whether or not you decide to keep Pokemon as an inclusive aspect (all things weighed, you always have the option of dropping them, after all), and I very much hope to see your idea come to fruition. I'm afraid I can't promise my participation--after all, who knows when it'll be ready; I could well be ... well, I could well be unable to participate at such a time--but I wish this RP the best of luck, regardless, and hope to see a beautiful world built for and by it. Of course, I couldn't blame you for dismissing my commentary, either: you do, after all, outrank me and I may be stepping out of line in addressing you in this manner, buuuuuuut no harm in me saying it, right?

Orx of Twinleaf said:

dismissing my commentary

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Utter nonsense. Your post is incredibly insightful, and this RP will definitely be better for it. I appreciate you taking out the time to write this up.

Orx of Twinleaf said:

Ms. Disclosed already made the point of Pokemon seeming to be tacked onto what was otherwise a free-standing steampunk world, and I'd like to touch on that some more despite that you've already assured us all that it's a work-in-progress. The best time to shed new light on a thing is while there's still time to take that light into account, after all, ah? And just to throw it out there, you can always drop the Pokemon aspect of it if you find it too hard to incorporate: not every RP has to involve Pokemon, and this one already stands strong without them.

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I'm aware of that possibility! But this world was actually built from the ground up with the basic idea in mind being "Pokemon journey in steampunk setting!" It was originally going to follow player characters in their journey from being a newly-licensed professional trainer into--wherever that premise normally leads. And then I started working on the worldbuilding, and my interest shifted from a simple, straightforward gym-to-gym journey, as you aptly put it, to something that in my mind is much grander; hence the espionage POV that the RP takes up. The point I'm trying to make here is this: the Pokemon aspect of things isn't tacked on. It was already an integral part of it from the get-go, and I fully intend to make that much clearer come RP time.

Orx of Twinleaf said:

Now, in regards to your licensure of Pokemon ownership: you said there are professional Trainers? What is it they do in society? I personally think of something along the lines of a professional athlete when I'm presented the term, really. And "Pokemon past a certain power level" encompasses most anything that's fully-evolved, I would assume, given the sheer volume of species capable of firebreath, electricity, or any other flavor of disaster-waiting-to-happen. With that in mind, what happens if a Pokemon evolves from a free-game species into one that needs licensing? Or are all the pre-evolutions of such things also banned? But then, what wouldn't be banned?

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Professional trainers are, in essence, snake charmers, the only difference being that their snakes are powerful, multi-functional beasts capable of immensely helpful feats. The trainer's job is to mold their captured Pokemon into something that would best fit their future role in society; the Pokemon is normally then rented to a company or individual that request their services. Most of the proceeds go to the Ministry of Pokemon Administration, who will then devote resources into looking after the Pokemon's welfare over the course of its lifetime. The trainers are normally paid about a quarter of the Pokemon's earnings (or a one-time lump sum upfront, depending on the work contract), and a bit more for conducting maintenance work, as it were, from time to time.

The above is true for beasts of burden, industrial/transportation Pokemon etc., but there's another, arguably more exciting avenue for trainers to invest their time and resources in: warfare.

Given the level of power that Pokemon could achieve, it would only be natural for governments and individuals alike to exploit their glaringly obvious combat applications, yes? Pokemon trainers are a specialized type of military unit; the Pokemon don't really do most of the heavy lifting, because a Level 90 Charizard isn't as easily replaced as a soldier with a revolver, but they definitely see daylight in times of war. Pokemon of this caliber are also often owned by private sectors or individuals, such as sky pirates, mercenary guilds, security companies, etc.

On the subject of "power level", in my mind it would be an actual number spit out by a Pokedex-like device. The bar separating the wheat from the chaff, as it were, is relatively high: an area normally unreachable without a moderate degree of combat training. Seeing as Pokemon battles aren't quite as prominent in this world as it is in others, it would be very hard for a domesticated Pokemon to accidentally find its way into this area, as its fighting experience--Exp. Points, if you will--is essentially static throughout its entire lifetime. (As an added effect, it is also rare for a domesticated Pokemon to undergo evolution)

(This is also a response to the "what you could do with the Pokemon element" paragraph, though I do quite like the exclusively-for-battling license idea. I might take you up on that if I decide I don't like my system after all.)

Orx of Twinleaf said:

Moreover, where do these Pokemon prowl? Yes, you mention them strutting the streets alongside people, but are these the wild ones or the caught ones? There are certain urban species, yes, but particular species like Cryogonals or Carbinks may seem out of place if they maintain breeding populations in these urban areas, and then it is only to be presumed any banned Pokemon species aren't allowed to just wander about. I apologize if I've misread it, but it strikes me as a quite heavily-industrialized world, although that admittedly does not by itself preclude more wild areas elsewhere, it is only how I interpreted it.

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Answered your own question with the bolded statement.

Though the world is indeed largely industrialized, the world's population levels aren't quite as high as our world, nor the humans so expansive. The world map is something like a choco chip cookie, with the chips being human settlements, and the rest an expanse of wilderness for Pokemon to freely roam. Think steampunk'd Unova (with an increase in city size thrown in for good measure).

The Pokemon present in an urban setting are indeed normally caught Pokemon, but much like an abandoned home would attract vermin, so too do areas of the city lacking in human population usually become a habitat for Pokemon. Examples include disused Steam Hollow factories, Alms back alleys, sewers, etc.

Orx of Twinleaf said:

And do remember: this isn't set up like your standard Journey RP, where the power ramp comes from progressing from Gym to Gym. In this one we're assumed to be top-notch even though we're new, because new as we might be we're still a part of the strong arm of the law that's so exclusive it only has under fifty members. With that in mind, the power ramp has to be considered differently to avoid contrivance: picking up a Goomy may make us less noticeable to anyone watching, but we can't realistically be expected to combat gunmen, bombardiers, or non-steampunk aggressive Trainers with something like that until it evolves. And to be straight, an organization of this caliber would likely opt not to wait for evolution and prefer things like Pinsir or Absol, which have a much more level power ramp. Again, just thoughts.

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You might be top-notch agents, but you are equally inexperienced in the art of Pokemon training/battling as the main series' MCs (though, being highly skilled adults, you'd likely make much more educated decisions than ten-year-old Ash Ketchum would). And why do you start out with an unevolved, probably Lv. 5 Pokemon? The reasoning behind this, much like the reason you're tasked with a mission to train a Pokemon at all in the first place, is not disclosed to you. Characters might find themselves wondering this to themselves over the course of the RP, but as professional agents of the Citadel Seraph, you do as you are tasked! And you ask no questions.

Orx of Twinleaf said:

this one's got me drooling on the keyboard (quite literally, I ashamedly admit)!

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{XD} I'm honored.

Orx of Twinleaf said:

And don't be concerned about the OP going on too long: it's the OP, after all, it sorta has to be long to establish what it needs to. And if we're talking honestly here: if someone doesn't at least skim the RP for its main points, are they to be expected to be particularly committed to its participation to begin with?

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Very fair point, that, but I do have a bad habit of getting veeeerrryyyy carried away when writing premises and such (case in point: this 31347-word behemoth of an OP that's still unreleased). Worry not though, I'm not planning on skimping out on the details of Sanctum; not at all. Instead, I plan to periodically create a series of posts (titled Worldbuilding Notes or smth to that effect) describing a certain aspect of the world, for immersion if nothing else. Hopefully my long-windedness is less of a bother when taken in small ingestions, haha.

Orx of Twinleaf said:

Personally, Mr. Parivir, I would look forward to joining whether or not you decide to keep Pokemon as an inclusive aspect (all things weighed, you always have the option of dropping them, after all), and I very much hope to see your idea come to fruition. I'm afraid I can't promise my participation--after all, who knows when it'll be ready; I could well be ... well, I could well be unable to participate at such a time--but I wish this RP the best of luck, regardless, and hope to see a beautiful world built for and by it.

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And I look forward to having you! Hopefully? Here's hoping for the best.

Right-o, Mr. Parivir, glad to see my rambling didn't fall on deaf ears. Hope everything works out, ah?

And as for that behemoth of a text file: I've much the same problem I'm afraid (except at least I'm not setting up RPs when I do it). I find a fine solution of tomfoolery stirred with hijinks and boiled at a jimmy-rustling temperature to reduce my word count significantly.

Naw, but writing too much just means you really like what you're doing, so it's a good thing. In retrospect. Keep up the good work!