Overview - Next -->
Also colloquially known as "PTR2e"
Hi everyone! We are proud to announce that we've officially started work on PTR2e! The second edition and spiritual successor to our favorite Pokémon TTRPG system!
Over the next few months we'll slowly be releasing development updates to introduce you to what we've been working on.
Over the last few years we've been hard at work creating the Pokémon Tabletop United for FoundryVTT System, which has reached entirely new heights with our version 4.0 release, alongside this we have also been working on what we have called Pokémon Tabletop Reunited, a continuation to the PTU system now that the original developers have abandoned it in favor of a new project.
We've had a ton of fun and lots of great (and often even positive!) feedback when it comes to the changes we have introduced in PTR, however there are a few sticking points that PTR as a project brings, one of the biggest that many of you are aware of is the fractured nature of its rules due to the original development decision to put everything in separate PDFs (rather than say, a single PDF or persistent Wiki or database)
While we love PTR, some of the core mechanics are inherently flawed in terms of their design, and persistently cause headaches both for us as caretakers of the system, but more importantly for GMs and players with confusing rule interactions.
The decision to start work on PTR2e comes from a desire to release a higher quality system and start afresh with all our experiences (and yours too!) to hopefully create a system that'll be even better than 1e!
We will keep maintaining 1e for at least another year; and don't have any plans on dropping support completely, 2e does mean that we won't be focusing on creating more content for 1e like we have been over the last few months; this doesn't mean there won't be any new content, after all we still have some in the pipeline, but it does mean that once our current pipeline is empty, and all the community playtesting and updates are done, we won't be starting any big 1e projects anymore.
We will still strive to maintain the following points for 1e:
- FoundryVTT Core Updates
- FoundryVTT Bugfixes
- FoundryVTT Repository Management
- Playtest feedback engagement
- Playtest updates
- Gen 9 DLC Dex mons
- And possibly more, like a Gen 10 Dex!
Next to this, while every initial member of the PTR2e development team was also part of the 1e team, the teams are separate from each other and both will be accepting members individually and follow their own development cycles, we hope to see some of our community members keep up the work on PTR1e for as long as people want to play the system while we are providing our maintenance support!
We have tons of stuff brewing and are very excited to share everything with you all! We are still in early stages of development both from a rules & foundry perspective but we're making progress in leaps and strides.
First of all, let me tell you a little about some of our main design philosophies when it comes to 2e:
- FoundryVTT First: just like the PTR updates were FoundryVTT First, the 2e TTRPG system will be fully designed with VTT automation in mind, and heavily at its core. We are looking forward to share some of the technical ideas we're working on to make the experience the best we can offer.
- Classless Design: We have decided to take the full jump to a classless system. PTR 1e already was very close to one but never fully committed to the idea, so for 2e we have embraced this idea, allowing players to more easily build a character to the exact specifications they want them to be.
- D20, what's that?: We're also doing away with all the different types of dice rolls PTR1e has; there's so many different type of rolls and checks to keep track of that all have their own way of resolving. Instead we will be changing to a D100 based unified resolution mechanic; this allows us to more closely follow the video games (as they use similar percentile calculations for basically everything) as well as streamline checks to make them easier understandable for our player base. By moving away from the D20 system we're also doing away with certain artifacts from those systems, such as concepts like AC (which manifested as evasion in PTR1e) that have caused lots of frustration at many tables over the years.
- Pokémon-Centric Approach: With the freedom of classless design as well as our new planned D100 approach, we will be able to focus more on mechanics that feel appropriate for a Pokémon setting, be it more in-line with the video games, or give you that true anime feel. Additionally, Pokémon themselves will be "First Class Citizens", meaning right from the get-go we will be supporting Pokémon Mystery Dungeon styled characters and campaigns!
- Digital Documentation: Something we've put in a lot of effort in for 1e has been our Wiki, and as many of you know it is still missing a lot of detail, because there's just so much 1e content to document! For 2e we are striving to make everything easily accessible for everyone right from the start; be it on Discord, our Wiki or Foundry itself.
- Mainline Game Aligned: 2e's mechanics will be a lot more comparable to those of the modern mainline Pokémon video games, due to Foundry doing a ton of math for us we can make use of a lot of data and mechanics from the core game. This of course doesn't mean you'll just be playing a "fangame in Foundry", we're still a TTRPG system, but you'll be able to notice a lot more familiarity with the core games.
Wow. That's a lot; and I still have so much more to say, but I'm gonna stop myself here for now without overwhelming you all too much.
As I alluded to earlier; over the next few months we will be giving regular development updates on 2e and what kind of changes you can expect; the full schedule for all news so-far planned can be found below.
But lets talk a bit more long term; our plan is as followed:
- Release Development Updates to let you all know about our plans.
- Rules creation and documentation as well as initial Data Entry
- Create a private Alpha version using Foundry v12. Our expectation for this to be ready for internal testing is sometime in Feb.
- After we are happy with our work on the private Alpha we'll be releasing public playtests for people to try out the system themselves and to start providing us with direct feedback. These betas are expected to still be missing content; be it in the forms of perks; abilities or other rules and subsystems. Expected timeline for this is a Q2 2024 release but this may be delayed depending on when Foundry v12 releases and the progress on the private alpha.
- 1.0 Release; once we and the community are generally happy with what we've created we'll officially be able to release PTR 2e fully. Now, that'll of course only be the beginning, but hey we're also still really far away from this happening. The earliest we imagine this being ready is Q4 2024, but this will likely be a 2025 release.
I can imagine lots of you are going to be having ongoing 1e campaigns and wonder; will we be able to convert over? We are striving to create a way for you to make the conversion process as simple as possible; however a lot of things will be changing. This means that every character will need to be recreated from the ground up, but considering we'll be doing this with our own campaigns, we're expecting to provide some useful tips and even foundry tools to ease this process once we're closer to the Public Playtest & 1.0 release.
This sounds awesome and all but uh- I want in! and like, right now?
We can understand the enthusiasm in having a chance to have your feedback and ideas be present in the system from the ground up.
The PTR2e team will be working with 2 teams — Developers and Contributors.
Our Developers are the end responsible for decisions on how rules will function and which work will be prioritized, while Contributors are people who help us out in one of many ways, be it creating articles for the Wiki, helping design Attacks, Species, Subsystems etc., doing Foundry coding work or anything else that helps us create the system.
Our Developer team exists out of @asheeon @silverfox3853 , @sajochi , & @titaniumdragoonneo, and will work exclusively on an invite-only basis (from our contributor pool).
Our Contributor team however is open to new members!
Awesome! So you're interested in helping out, well lets cover a few things. First, the types of help we're looking for:
- Programmers - People with primarily front-end web design knowledge in HTML, CSS (LESS) and JS, to help us out with FoundryVTT Development.
- Req: Basic Git Knowledge
- Req: Basic HTML, CSS & JS Knowledge
- Pro: FoundryVTT Macro / Module / System development experience
- Artists / UI/UX Designers - Do you love to create designs or want to help us out with some custom iconography or the like, then we're looking for you to enhance our visual department!
- Pro: Ability to create custom icons for the system
- Pro: UI/UX experience
- Pro: CSS / JS knowledge for realizing your designs / animations etc. within Foundry
- Data Entry, Writers & Translators - Would you like to help us out in maintaining our Wiki and Foundry Journals, entering data, or help us translate the system into different languages, then this is the category where you'll fit in right away!
- Req: Basic ability to work with Spreadsheets & Text processing to input data
- Pro: High proficiency in the English language for writing Wiki articles from Rules
- Pro: Love for some simple menial copy & paste work in the form of Data Entry
- Game Rule Designers - Are you interesting in designing the rules, working on perks and other creating other sub-systems for 2e? Join our Rules designer group to let your creativity flow!
- Req: Experience with TTRPGs in general & Pokemon games
- Req: Ability to take and provide constructive feedback
- Req: Ability to not get (too) attached to your ideas, sometimes your idea may not be the best option for the system going forward, after all.
- Req: Inspiration & drive to work on more than one idea, we're looking for people inspired to help us create an entire system, not people that just have strong opinions about one part of the system.
- Playtesters - Do you and your table want to help test out our latest work before we're making it public?
- Req: Ability to take and provide constructive feedback
- You cannot solely apply for this role; if you're interested in helping out in one of the other roles you will also be able to apply for this role, additionally any of your fellow players/gms that are part of your table can request this role to be able to provide direct feedback instead of having to go through you.
- We are expecting (most of) our Contributors to participate in playtesting the Private Alphas & Public Betas.
We're looking for people interested in helping us create this system for an extended period of time, this doesn't mean we're looking for you to get any given amount of hours in per week, however we are looking for some commitment towards activity for months to come.
Additionally, anyone part of our contributor team can partake in any discussion about the system and participate in our playtesting; even if you signed up to help us out with Data Entry, nothing stopping you from sharing your awesome ideas for possible new rules!
Any and all decisions when it comes to rules or otherwise, have to be approved by one of our Developers before we proceed with Implementation / Internal Testing. It is therefore smart to align with our devs if you have a great idea that will require some time to work out, as we may have some useful insights available for you already!
And finally, we are expecting our contributors to keep any and all talk about unreleased system information within our private discussion channels, especially in the early cycles of development a lot can still change and we don't want to cause any confusion to our wider community audience! So please do not reply to public questions and leave this to our Developers whom take care of posting the public announcements. Linking to announcements or public posts that otherwise answer questions is ofcourse totally fine!
Still interested after all of that? Nice! Well it's quite simple, just send a DM to any one of our developers with:
- Your intention to join the team
- Which of the above 5 roles best describes what you're planning to bring to the table
- The skillset you will bring to the team
- Prior experience in relation to your skillset
- Any cool ideas you may already have and would like to work on
- Your commitment to activity (if temporary; for what duration, or if you're planning to be absent for a long chunk of time, it's smart to let us know preemptively!)
After a quick check on our end you'll hear whether you're a good fit for our team or if it won't quite work out. Either way we're thankful for your willingness to go above and beyond for the Pokemon TTRPG community and we're happy to see you around!
Overview - Next -->