FAQ

If you've got a question that wasn't answered anywhere else, go ahead and check here. If your question isn't answered here, go ahead and ask.

Do I have to RP as a trainer?
You don't have to be a trainer - you can be a breeder, researcher, or any other class of person you can come up with. However, we are not allowing people to RP as only a Pokemon. You may RP as any Pokemon your character owns, but you do need a humanoid character. If you really want to RP wild Pokemon, you can request permission to use the Wild Pokemon account once you become an established member of the community.

Can I RP as a canon character?
The answer isn't no, but it isn't really yes. We would prefer more original characters to canon, but if you really want to, we're not going to stop you. Our RP is taking place about the same time as Black and White, so 10 years after Generations II and IV and 12 after Generations I and III. So keep this in mind when doing a canon character. They're going to be older, and you can't use a character from Gen. V since they're all in Unova. Also make sure no one else is playing that character - Red and Ash are counted as the same character as are Gary and Blue.

Also, since these are established characters, they're going to already have teams set instead of just starting out. It doesn't have to match to either the games or Anime, but it can if you want. With characters like Red/Ash, you really can do whatever you want (but if you use the name Ash, you should probably keep Pikachu). If they're characters like Brock or Misty, you'll have to mostly keep to their main type but you can have a few extras of other types too. You'll also have some leeway on character class - Brock can go as a gym leader or breeder or specialist, Blue/Gary can be a trainer or gym leader... and since there's 10-12 years that have passed, you can make some changes as long as you make it make sense as to why a particular character is one thing rather than the other.

The one thing we won't allow is a gym leader from another region to be running a gym here. They can still be classed as a gym leader, but you can't move Brawly to Dolomite Town or something.

If you want to RP a canon character, message admin with a quick application - what character you want, what version of the character you're using (if there's a major difference between game and Anime), what Pokemon you want on your team with levels included, whether you're going to be classed as trainer, breeder, researcher, etc, and then make a quick character profile. You don't have to make it completely detailed, but at least include a few words about their personality and history. Once you get accepted, you can post on the profile board and PC box.

Can I make a character related to a canon character?
Since we are going to allow people to RP the canon characters, the answer is mostly no. If it's a really minor character, okay. But for any major character, we're not going to do that unless we have someone RPing the canon character and they're okay with it. What you can do is have your character having met the canon character and even be friends with them or worked with them - for those applying to play a canon, keep this in mind. The admin will try to keep track of those associated with canon characters so we can let you know about them.

Is there a certain format I have to follow for my profile?
Not really. It should include name, age, species, gender, appearance, personality, and history though. You can use a picture in place of appearance if you like, and you can write as much or as little as you like for each section. If a list of words works best for you, do that. If you want ten paragraphs on appearance, you can do that too. Even if you're not entirely sure on your character yet, just a basic skeleton will work and you can add more as you figure your character out.

How can I start with extra Pokemon?
Special permission. While we're new, we are allowing people to start off as higher level trainers (one character per person) with more Pokemon (up to six), and the first five gym leaders also get extra Pokemon. We're not setting a limit on these - just be reasonable. If you apply as a canon character, you can also start with more. If you want two or more characters with multiple, higher level Pokemon, or we're past the promotion stage, you'll have to message an admin with an application similar to for the canon characters, but you'll also have to tell us why we should let you start off with extras.

How do I get items?
Mostly, you find them. We'll set up a shop eventually. It'll just be a list of prices and you can post what you're buying and then add items to your PC Box and subtract the money. The more active you are, the more likely you'll find items. They'll just appear in your box, so just check. You can find any kind of item, even Master Balls, but that's extremely rare.

What about TMs?
TMs can only be gotten from gym leaders and researchers who have TMs in their inventory. Those are essentially unlimited and they can either give you the TM, and they'll also function as move tutors and can teach moves upon request. Other players can act as move tutors, although they won't be able to give a TM for a move.

How do I become a move tutor?
You'll need to be an active member and then, you just ask. Just mention what move you want to be able to teach and you'll probably be allowed to get it, especially while we're just starting.

How does breeding work?
We're still figuring this out ourselves. We'll most likely have a board where you post the two Pokemon that you want to breed and if successful, you'll end up with an egg (or five). You'll also be allowed to give your Pokemon to a breeder for better chances at a successful breeding. We'll also set up a section for finding breeding partners OOC.

When you get an egg, it'll hatch eventually. We'll send a message to you when it hatches and the more active you are, the sooner it will hatch. There's not a set number of posts you have to make, it'll just be when an admin decides it's long enough. If you feel it's taking way too long, message admin. It is possible we lost track.

Why isn't this Pokemon available?
Because we're taking our sweet time adding things. We're also not making every single Pokemon available in the wild. Some will be special event only and breeding from people who already have them. In the OOC section, the Site Talk board has a thread called "Pokemon Availability." You can go there to request that a Pokemon be added to the wild and see what Pokemon are not going to be available in the wild. And you can request that a certain Pokemon not be available in the wild.

Fifth gen Pokemon will only be added slowly, and it will probably be a few months before you see them in the wild or available as starters. This is only because not everyone's had a chance to play them yet, so we want to add them slowly so people don't have a huge pile of Pokemon they may not be familiar with. It'll give people more time to play the games and even for those that can't play the games (or are slow at them), they'll only have a few unfamiliar Pokemon at a time to deal with.

How do battles work? Do we need to know Pokemon's stats?
Battles can be done in several ways. They can be played out on the boards, or if it's taking too long or you really don't like that aspect of Pokemon RPs, feel free to quickly message your battle partner and decide who's going to win and skip over it, although please make note of what Pokemon battled and who won each battle so experience can be given out. If you're either attempting to play it out or decide via messaging who's going to win and you can't decide, you can message Admin and we'll decide the winner. Also, if we see a battle with god-moding, we'll likely step in there too, possibly without warning.

Stats are completely unnecessary. Levels are only there so we know how strong a particular Pokemon is and when it can evolve. Other than that, we just generalize everything - certain Pokemon are really strong, some are fast, etc. It's too much work to assign numbers to everything, plus, you can't have something crazy unexpected happen either. The attacks are the same - we just know that flamethrower is stronger than ember but we're not actually using any numbers. So when deciding who wins a battle, it's mostly just level and type advantage (both for Pokemon and trainer types). Admin may use other factors such as evolved vs unevolved and field advantage.

So what's the point in battling?
That's what you do with Pokemon. But you don't have to battle. You can collect them or chase them off your lawn with a pitchfork or whatever else you want to do. Plus, if we ever have a plot going on, if you have all your Pokemon nice and strong, you can go kick some ass.

Can we get legendaries?
Yeah, but they'll be hard to come by. We'll probably throw one of each out there at some point that'll just be available for anyone to catch. After that, they'll probably only be available through breeding, although if there's enough people on the site, then we'll release wild ones again.

When the legendaries are released, we'll work out egg groups and such for breeding. Most likely it will be that they can only breed with other legendaries or Ditto, but maybe not. Might actually assign them to egg groups, but that seems like more work, plus we want it to be hard to breed them.

How do I get Ditto?
He may be harder to get than a legendary! Breeders can start with a Ditto, and it's even possible for breeders to breed Dittos (but it's hard), but that's the only way new Dittos appear in our game, so if you don't start as a breeder, you'll have to trade with one to get a Ditto. But it's difficult to breed Dittos to get a Ditto - as two Dittos together can produce any Pokemon and not just Ditto. So they might produce a lot of eggs, but it could be anything. A Ditto and a non-Ditto will give whatever the non-Ditto parent is, however.