@Pixie yeah, I did see some episodes with one of his new groups, (IE not Misty and Brock) and I was like,... really they are still doing this?

it felt like the change in his companions was the only change since I had stopped watching

@trogdor Yep! Still. :v I will admit, I love Team Rocket and if they never change that will be fine with me (though I've heard in recent series they actually got competent).

huh

go figure

I thought they were literally only around for comic relief.

@Pixie i quit watching while there were still only like 151 pokemon or whatever number it is

I guess they realized they might be better off with actual villains rather that people who show up just trying to be villains till they inevitably and hilariously lose.

@doppelgreener There's now, uh... [looks at fingers] many. This sums it up.

it was 150 at first I am pretty sure

@Pixie and in digimon, digimon actually die sometimes. like, if you're fighting, your life is on the line and you might lose it.

Gengar isn't all that new really

Digimon, incidentally, has had over 500 Digimon (more now) for many years. I marveled when I was a child. Over 500 Digimon! Pokemon sure caught up.

he might even be in the first 150,.. not sure though

I dunno why they are mixing non new ones in with the new ones

I guess they just gotta get em in while they still rym or fit in some way into the music

@trogdor but then there was mewtwo!

true

@trogdor He is. The Pokerap is often updated to include newer generations of Pokemon. This is a joke video though, the joke being that there are now so many Pokemon that you can't pokerap them all without nearly dying.

XD

@Pixie haha! i'll listen to it later

I am still watching it

It's pretty funny. "But I have a life..." "[sung] Leave it!"

it's 9 minutes of almost exclusively Pokemon names being said pretty quickly with short jokes in between

XD

Yep. xD

I felt like there were too many Pokemon several years ago

now there are even more

I really have no issue with the amount of Pokemon. I still play the games.

I would too honestly

But I have a sentimental attachment to the original 151. Number 37 is my avatar. :P

I just think it's silly for them to expect anyone to memorize all of them or actually catch them all

especially if they keep adding more

I don't mean to say I hate them or would stop playing the games just for the fact that they keep adding more

though to be fair I have not played one for at least five years

I think

it might have been one or two years more or less than that

@Pixie i had no issue with the quantity, i had a problem though with like... a pokemon that is a couple of cogs that look like they had a lobotomy, a pokemon that is literally trash, and a pokemon that is ice creams.

@doppelgreener Ahaha. I also have no problem with those Pokemon. :P But I know it was a bit much for some.

I think I heard that there was one that is even like a set of keys XD

Then again, I love Digimon, which has a Digimon that is just a big yellow poop.

lol

but then I remember the first generation has a pokemon that is a ball with a couple of magnets, two pokemon that are just a white and red sphere, a pokemon that is just three eggs, another that is just a pool of goop, and i'm not sure whether the new concepts are actually strictly worse than those

@doppelgreener the magnet one even has a really stupid evolution

just 3 of them stuck together

like really? come on guys

@trogdor don't forget slowpoke -> slowbro

same for dugtrio

and slowpoke -> slowking

i guess that when there were less of them, these were more acceptable or seemed more believable

but now we have a pokemon that is just an ice cream come come on

@doppelgreener Yeah, exactly. They're quite similar concepts. :P Tsukumogami, basically.

i cannot buy that one

I do like the pokemon games, if I still had one I would play it every once in a while

but I don't even remember what happened to my gameboy/'s and any particular versions I had once

and as with every game I like, I do like it, but I have limited time, limited money, and practically infinite good games I could be playing.

Digimon justifies it because, well, they're literally data, not an ecosystem of mostly wild-animal equivalents with the occasional outlier like Muk or Electrode or what have you. Their digital world overlaps with the human network. When you have a Digimon made out of legos or a train or a big yellow poop? All data.

of course!

Digimon and Pokemon design principles in a nutshell (some strong language).

@Pixie LOL.

awesome.

The newer the Digimon series, the more true this is. xD

yep

even true way back when

what's better than a dinosaur? a dinosaur with A ROBOT CLAW AND SKULL [EXPLETIVE] YEAH [crushes can against forehead]

Oh yes, but...

no wait suddenly i'm remembering atomic robo

Oh wait, that might be fanart.

Haha.

Yeah the other one was fanart. But this one isn't!

@Pixie wow XD

@doppelgreener That's a fusion of 7 or 8 Digimon.

it looks like it.

"how do they fuse?" "data!"

"also, fusion doodad!"

good ol' just being digimon

That's Fusion's gimmick, DigiFuse. But even the first series has Jogress (DNA in the dub), which is limited to two Digimon fusing.

Tamers had Biomerge, which is humans and Digimon fusing, and Frontier had humans who could just turn into Digimon with special items (I think).

Just another of the things that make figuring it out in Fate more complex. In the past (for freeform games), I have basically said, "We're only using normal evolution and Jogress." :P Warp is probably fine at dramatic moments too (it's just skipping stages).

warp = e.g. in training to mega?

@doppelgreener Yeah. In the first season it only happened occasionally, but I think it was normally rookie to mega.

I think one of the hardest things to figure out would be "how long does evolution last? when does a Digimon have to devolve?" Because, although it's when they expend their energy, it's also "just when it's dramatically appropriate." :P Which I'm sure can work nicely in Fate since that's the goal, it's just puzzling out how to make it work smoothly, clearly, and fairly for players.

(It's also directly influenced by food consumption. Empty stomach, no evolution.)

probably just leave it up to the players then! (yourself included)

you can use devolution as the narrative for lots of stuff

you could compel a digimon to devolve at a bad time

Maybe something involving an aspect so it can be compelled- yep. xD

or a digimon devolving could even be used dramatically to help the players

@Pixie this side of atomic robo i've played around with the idea of having, say, extras that are just compellable by their nature.

@doppelgreener That works!

it could just be implicit that digimon can always be compelled to devolve at a dramatically appropriate time.

because they are digimon.

I like that. Much better than trying to track it somehow, I think.

yeah. maybe one day you'll realise some patterns to use to mechanise it, but for now, you would probably be the best judges of when it should happen.

I think my remaining puzzle is trying to handle the scale shift. This question is helpful for times that I wind up with combat between a lower and higher form, but the bigger problem is that the scale can shift hugely at pretty much any time it makes the story interesting, which is likely going to be often. Usually once or more per "episode."

oof, yes

that is a tricky problem at times

dresden files tried to execute it using mantles which had specific weaknesses and places of power, and when you attack higher mantles the possible results you can achieve are limited or annulled

i did not like how the result felt, really

There are good reasons not to evolve when you don't have to: it's tiring, requiring the Digimon to be well-fed and in a good state (and, additionally in Adventure, is triggered by the presence of your partner's digivice and their needing you to evolve). Even if you can do it, if you do it carelessly, maybe you won't be able to when you really need to. That's one thing to my advantage.

If I'm not throwing a lot of fights at them that require evolving, hopefully they won't feel the need to do it. So working plenty of non-fight challenges in would be ideal, to attempt to avoid my players feeling the need to "yoyo" constantly. Also, the humans need to be able to do stuff.

ooo.

>_>

i wonder if devolving should fill in a mild or medium consequence slot if there's one available... or osmething...

but that might prevent you from breaking the rules for drama, so it might be better off having no mechanical something or other, or an arbitrary one if you feel it's appropriate

Yeah. I think working out whether that's necessary would be easier after actually playing it.

mmhm

in the show, as I recall, it didn't last long, and left them pretty unable to do much afterwards

@trogdor Yep. But if the battle takes longer because it's a dramatic battle, it lasts longer. xD

true

but I think they also lost the evolution sometimes in a dramatic moment

I seem to recall that at least once

@trogdor Yes, that also happens.

mk, that is what I thought I remembered

to be fair, I only saw a small handful of episodes

@trogdor They can run out of steam during battle, and one of the big bads even had an attack that caused devolution.

wow

that sucks to fight him then

must have needed to all team up on him without all combining into one super evolution

unless they didn't do that XD

They spent a lot of time escaping and running until they couldn't avoid him any more. They strategized a whole lot because they were also running a rescue mission against another Digimon at the same time, which was their main goal, and they didn't know that one of them was going to be able to pull off evolution to perfect (ultimate) at the time.

did said villain not use his devolution attack on that?

it sounds sorta like the perfect time to use it

@trogdor There were extenuating circumstances both too spoilery and too bizarre to be easily explained. :P