Pokémon-themed Fabula Ultima: an experiment

Disclaimer: this whole thing is 100% unofficial content, I have zero ownership of anything Pokémon related and there is no "secret Pokémon project" behind the scenes, let's be clear! The image above is from Pokémon Let's go Eevee/Pikachu.

Howdy, you wonderful people!

Today's post was inspired by a short Fabula Ultima campaign currently being run by a friend of mine, Alex Grisafi, who is a long-time Pokémon fan and author of the Pokémon Noir role-playing game (the Italian website for this fanmade game can be found here; it is a dark and mature take on the world of Pokémon, including rules for endangered species and more).

Simply put, Alex is running a campaign in which each Player Character sheet represents two entities that cooperate during the story: a Trainer and their Pokémon. The relationship can almost be considered similar to a Persona or Stand and their User in the Persona and JoJo series, or, if we want to stick closer to "monster trainer" games, that between a Tamer and their Digimon.

In terms of Pokémon titles, the closest would perhaps be Pokémon Ranger, where the protagonist has a main Pokémon ally; but anyway, hearing about Alex's game and trying my hand at a Player Character/Pokémon pair has sparked a few ideas (of course my trainer has a Gardevoir as their Pokémon).

PLAYING "POKÉFABULA"
Without further ado, here's my mechanical suggestions for playing a similar game of Fabula Ultima without overcomplicating everything.

• One character sheet. Taking direct inspiration from Alex's method, use a single character sheet for the trainer-creature combination. You might decide to start with a first-stage Pokémon (perhaps evolving once at level 20 and again at level 40?), or go directly for whatever Pokémon you'd love to have at your side.
  Remember that your character Skills might come from the Pokémon or from the Trainer: a Fury + Orator combination might represent a refined Trainer who acts alongside a burly or attack-oriented Pokémon, for instance.
  
• Types. Remove the normal damage types from Fabula Ultima, and use those from Pokémon. Reskin skills and spells from Fabula Ultima to match the effects in Pokémon, and assign them an appropriate type (for instance, the Entropist's Drain Vigor might be given the grass type and become Absorb).
  In general, I suggest you treat anything that deals physical damage as being normal damage.
  Yes, of course this freedom makes it very convenient to start with a Spiritomb or similar strong-typed Pokémon. To which I say, it's very boring so don't do it.
  
• Damage Effectiveness. In terms of Weaknesses and Resistances, I suggest you handle it this way:
  A move that would have x2 effectiveness in Pokémon deals x1.5 damage in Fabula.
  A move that would have x4 effectiveness in Pokémon deals x2 damage in Fabula.
  A move that would have reduced effectiveness in Pokémon deals x0.5 damage in Fabula.
  A move that would do zero damage deals zero damage.
  The reason why I avoid x4 damage in Fabula is that some builds would make fights one-turn affairs, and that's super disappointing in a game where you have one Pokémon and that's it.
  
• Second Pokémon: If you want a second Pokémon with you, look no further than the Wayfarer's Faithful Companion Skill. You can never have more than two total Pokémon with you (one as part of your main sheet, one acquired via Wayfarer).
  
• Limit of Four Active Moves (optional challenge). This might not sit well with some, but can be a very interesting challenge: limit yourself to four "active" options (in addition to your basic attack, I'd say). An "active" option is any skill, spell or effect that requires an action: for instance, every spell would count as an active option, while something like the Fury's Adrenaline or the Weaponmaster's Bone Crusher would not, since they are additional effects that trigger when something else happens.
  Of course, you may still advance in level and learn new skills, but you'll have to "forget" previous active moves.
  Needless to say, if this rule applies to Player Characters, it must also apply to enemies.
  
• (NEW!) Selecting NPC Spells. Some effects (notably most poisoned-oriented abilities) can only be found among NPC Spells in Fabula Ultima, but are pretty common in Pokémon. Because of this, whenever a class would allow you to learn a spell, you may elect to instead learn a spell from the list of NPC spells, tweaking it to suit your needs.
  You cannot learn Devastation until you're level 20 or higher.

And that's it! I hope you find this little post interesting, and if you try building Pokémon/Trainer pairs this way, feel free to share them in the Fabula Ultima Italian Telegram chat or on the Rooster Games Discord server!

Lastly, I want to thank Alex Grisafi once again for sparking this storm of ideas in my mind. If you are an Italian reader, please follow his work on Pokémon Noir and his series of articles on Player.it!