PTU ramblings

Pokemon Tabletop United is probably the worst TTRPG system I have ever played.  It has been a while, and I think I blocked a lot of what this system is like from my memory, but I'm trying to dig it up to lay bare my gripes.

For one, it has a clear problem with not being able to decide what it actually wants to do--does it want to simulate a realistic-feeling battle?  Does it want to accurately simulate the workings of a Pokemon video game?  Does it want to create a simplified version of Pokemon battling meant for tabletop play?  It can't decide, so it tries to do a little of everything, yet also is afraid to be any of them, and wants to cling to being its own thing entirely.

Another problem it has is not so much with the system itself but rather with the rulebook.  Many rules are poorly worded, and many are impossible to even locate.  Many of the sections of multi-page pseudo-tables are practically unreadable.  Much of the information seems out of order, introducing concepts before you actually know what to do with it.  And the sheer fucking size of it!  The core rulebook alone is over 500 pages!  It's laid out like you're supposed to read it cover-to-cover, and yet also you're supposed to be unstuck in time so you can understand the concepts it's talking about before you have any idea what they mean.  So instead you end up skipping the sections that don't seem relevant in order to read it in a way that actually makes sense, but whoops, some crucial fucking rule was in the middle of the segment about how to implement rock-launching hand-cannons or someshit.

Nothing in the game is intuitive.  Nothing.  It uses a bunch of terminology and mechanics from other well-known RPGs, but then they're just different enough from established conventions that you'll try playing and find you're completely wrong about what the rules are.  Or, if you've never played a tabletop RPG before, you'll run into some terms that seem like they would mean something that just makes sense regardless of your experience, then WHOOPS that's not how that works at all.  If you're a person who is familiar with Pokemon video games, many of the moves and abilities just don't do anything like what they would do in the video games.

The system suffers from bloat in nearly every aspect.  Too many rules.  Too many different stats, skills, etc.  Both edges AND feats, for some fucked-up reason.  And yet, there's also so little.  You may find yourself stuck choosing from a list of things you absolutely must take one of, and yet there are only a few options in that particular subcategory of a subcategory in the first place, and you only meet the requirements for two of them--neither of which you actually want in the first place.  Maybe there will be a class feat you want, but to get it you have to take 5 different other features and edges that you don't want for any other reason than to get that one class feature.

There are also TONS of trap options.  Good luck trying to get anywhere if you don't pick one of the training style classes.  Don't like any of them?  Think they don't fit the kind of character you'd like to play?  Too bad.  There are so many options that you end up thinking there are a million different things you can do, then you get into the game and it turns out you were supposed to be ignoring all of that because it's basically just flavor and a few cheap tricks to pull.  The game was designed for people who have followed its development since way back in the PTA days and learned how to make a minmaxed, competitive character.  If you're not using a planned-ahead "build", you've already doomed yourself to mediocrity that will make you useless in comparison to those who do.

And there's so much more I could say.  The bizarre damage base system.  The puzzling base relation system.  The many ways in which the injury system is fucking retarded and "fixes" a problem which is not even objectively a problem and does it in the most retarded possible way.  The fact that attempting to play this with pencil and paper would result in the death of a fucking forest from all the character and Pokemon sheets you'll be printing out.  But, fuck it, I don't want to spend any more time ranting.  Maybe I'll return to this and create a more coherent rant that is based less on my foggy memory and rambles a little less.  But for now, just fuck it.  Fuck it all.