¶ The Fluffy Bit
¶ The Contest Circuit
Similar to Pokémon Gyms, many cities have Contest Halls where Trainers gather to compete in Pokémon Contests. And similar to how Gyms often specialize in a Pokémon Type, a particular Contest Hall may cater to a specific Contest Type – either Beauty, Cool, Cute, Smart, or Tough. Many Contest Halls, however, host Contests of all Types.
Winning a Contest rewards a Trainer with a Ribbon, and a Ribbon from a prestigious Contest Hall often carries the same weight as a Gym Badge in demonstrating a Trainer’s prowess and skill. Many Gym Leaders are themselves famous Coordinators as well.
Like Gyms, Contest Halls are organized into a Contest Circuit, and there are often large events called Grand Festivals similar to a Pokémon League tournament that require a certain number of Ribbons, usually five, for a Trainer to qualify to compete.
¶ How do Contests differ to battling?
Much like in Pokémon Battles, a Pokémon’s Moves are their main tools in Pokémon Contests. Unlike in battles, however, Pokémon competing in a Contest do not aim to fight each other (except perhaps in certain non-traditional Contest formats!) but instead use their Contest Moves to put on a show, such as creating fireworks with Fire-Type Cool Moves.
Under the re-worked Contest rules there should be no need to maintain separate teams of Pokemon for Contests and Battles, but you can still do so if you want to!
Beauty is often associated with the Fire, Ice, and Water Types. Cool is often associated with the Dragon, Electric, Fighting, and Flying Types. Cute is associated with the Fairy, Normal, Psychic, and Water Types. Smart is associated with the Grass, Ghost, Poison, and Psychic Types. Tough is associated with the Fighting, Ground, Normal and Rock Types. It is important to remember, however, that any type can excel in any flavour of Contest if it's trainer invests the effort.
¶ Contest Stats
Pokémon Contests have their own set of Stats; Cool, Tough, Beauty, Smart, and Cute. These Stats are used to power up a Pokémon’s Moves during Contests. Instead of with flat values, these Stats are calculated in Dice; always a certain number of D6.
The five Contest Stats correlate directly to five of the Combat Stats; Attack to Cool, Defense to Tough, Special Attack to Beauty, Special Defense to Smart, and Speed to Cute. And just like the Stat Ace specializes in a Combat Stat, the Style Expert specializes in different Contest Stats.
Each Contest Stat has two Allied Stats and two Opposing Stats. In the following chart, each Contest Stat is allied with its adjacent Stats and opposed to the other two. These will factor into Contests that are tied to a specific Contest Stat. The most common Contest Variant has one Contest Type the entire time.
¶ How do I gain and spend contest stats?
Pokémon can gain Contest Stats in two main ways: through their Combat Stats and through eating Poffins.
Trainers meanwhile derive contest stats through their Combat Stats and their Equipment, if you are running a Full Trainer Participation Contest.
For every 10 Points of the matching Combat Stat, a Pokémon (or Trainer) has +1 Contest Die in the correlating Contest Stat, up to a maximum of 3 at 30. Combat Stages are never taken into account.
Contest Stats can also be gained from Poffins! Pokémon may consume 1 Poffin, plus one more for every 5 levels they gain, up to a maximum of 6 total Poffins at level 25. Further increases may be gained through the use of the Grace edge.
Poffins each raise one Contest Stat by +1 Dice. Additional Poffins past the maximum of 6 have no effect. It may be wise to designate at least a specific Pokemon per Contest Style, but dedicated Coordinators may be able to make use of their features to capitalise on a more versatile individual Pokemon.
To use your hard earned Contest Stats, when you use a Contest Move of the appropriate Contest Type, you may use up to 3 of your Contest Reserve Dice in that Stat to add the same amount of d6 to an Appeal Roll. Once those Dice are used, they may not be used again in that Contest. Manage your Contest Reserve Dice carefully so that you use them at the right moment!
For example, if you have a Cool Stat of 4d6, when you use a Cool Move you may add up to 3d6 to the appeal Roll. On the following round, if you use a Cool Move again, you may add a maximum of 1d6 since you already used 3d6 of your Cool Stat dice. It’s important to time your extra dice when you think you’ll be able to get the most use out of them!
¶ So how do I actually run/play a Pokemon Contest?
The first step to this is to identify what type of contest it is. There are a number of possible variants, each of which will be listed later toward the end of these rules.
From here, in every contest there are two stages: The Introduction Phase and the Performance Phase.
¶ The Introduction Phase
In the Introduction Phase, Trainers select the roster of Pokemon they will be using for the Contest and introduce them to the audience & judges. The Trainer selects a skill to use from the following list; Charm, Command, Guile, Intimidate, Intuition.
Charm generates Cute Dice, Command generates Cool Dice, Guile generates Smart Dice, Intimidate generates Tough Dice and Intuition generates Beauty Dice. Using the skill that matches the contest type scores you 2 Appeal in addition to the Appeal generated on the Introduction Check. (See Appeal section).
Rather than comparing the total result like you normally would as part of a Skill Check, instead check the results on each die individually. Results of 1-2 on this roll do not do anything, while results of 3-6 generate one Contest Die each, which serves as your Contest Dice Reserve. (In future, this should be able to be handled by automation)
Consider the use of Held Items (such as fashion items) and Grooming to enhance your Introduction Roll.
¶ Appeal
Appeal is essentially your score in the contest, rather than whittling down an opponent's HP.
You earn appeal both on your Introduction Check and your Performance Check. The Introduction Check functions like a standard Performance check for the purpose of scoring Appeal.
There is the Standard Performance Check as well as the Center Stage Performance Check (See Initiative and Position section to determine Center Stage). With both of these, you check the individual dice rolled rather than the total, and score accordingly.
For a Standard Performance check:
- Rolling a 1 generates 0 Appeal.
- Rolling 2-5 generates 1 Appeal.
- Rolling a 6 generates 2 Appeal.
For a Center Stage Performance Check:
- Rolling a 1 generates -1 Appeal (Also known as a Fumble).
- Rolling a 2 generates 0 Appeal.
- Rolling a 3 generates 1 Appeal.
- Rolling 4-5 generates 2 Appeal.
- Rolling a 6 generates 3 Appeal.
¶ Voltage
Voltage represents how much attention each participant is drawing from the audience. Manipulating
Voltage is important to winning Contests.
Each Participant has a “Voltage” Meter, which starts at 0 and gets to a maximum of 5. Voltage is raised and lowered by Moves throughout the Contest. Global Progress Clocks with 5 segments are a good way to represent this visually.
Participants get a bonus to their Performance Check based on the Voltage they had at the beginning of their turn (see Performance Check).
In the event of participating as a Team, the entire team shares the same Voltage Meter.
¶ The Performance Phase
¶ Initiative and Position
At the beginning of the Performance Phase, the Game Master (GM) needs to determine position and turn order. First, determine the letter assignments for each Participant/Team. This can either be arbitrarily assigned by the GM, but it is recommended to assign these based on the Appeal rankings after the Introduction Phase has concluded. If necessary, flip a coin or roll an appropriate die to tiebreak.
In each round of the Contest, there is a turn order determined by Position. The first to act is always the Center Stage position, and the Participant in this slot rolls a Center Stage Performance Check (this functions the same as a Standard Performance Check except for scoring and certain specific move interactions).
Another significant factor to Position is that some Contest Moves have different effects based on who is adjacent to you in the lineup. Specifics are provided in the description of each Contest Move.
Provided are some charts to demonstrate contest lineups for 5, 4 or 3 participant contests. You can follow the general model here if you want to create larger contests, but it is strongly recommended that if you have more than 5 participants, you should condense some (preferably the PCs) into teams.
The charts also illustrate turner order at the top of the column, cross-referencing by Round Number horizontally. There are always a number of rounds equal to the number of Participants/Teams, hence the recommendation to condense.
¶ The Performance Check
During each round of the Performance Phase, each Pokemon may use a Contest Move from their Contest Move Pool, in line with the frequency restrictions of that Contest Move.
Each Contest Move has a base Performance Pool specified in the Contest Move's description. To determine your Performance Check Pool, you take your base pool and add a number of d6 equal to your Voltage at the beginning of your turn, +1 if the Contest Type matches, +0 if the Contest Type is Allied or -1 if the Contest Type is opposed. Then, add any bonus dice you may have from sources such as the the Pokemon's inherent Contest Stats, Features, Edge and Gear. Finally, you may spend 0-3 Contest Dice from your reserves to add as many d6s to the Performance Check Pool.
Once ready, roll your Performance Check and refer to the Appeal section to determine your score. (Scoring should eventually be automated.)
¶ Resolution
To determine the Winner of the Contest, simply compare all Participants' final Appeal scores, and rank them accordingly. Contestants gain XP for their Pokemon equal to the one half (rounding up) of the level of the other participants, multiplied by the Significance Modifier applied to the Contest. It is recommended Contests are given an equivalent or greater Significance Modifier to Gyms or similar events in your campaign (such as defeating villain team officers). In the event that this is a Rotational Contest or the Contest has Team Participants, consider accounting for all Pokemon involved to determine XP.
¶ Types of Contest
¶ Standard Contest
A Standard Contest picks one Contest Stat – Cool, Cute, Tough, Beauty, or Smart – to have as its Contest Type the entire time. Usually these Contests are advertised as ‘Cool Contests’ or ‘Cute Contests’ so that participants may prepare do their best in that particular Contest Stat.
¶ Supercontest
Supercontests are a simple and fun variant of Standard Contests; instead of having one predetermined type, at the beginning of each round the GM randomly decides which Type will be the dominant Type for that Round. Simply roll 1d5; 1 is Cool, 2 is Tough, 3 is Beauty, 4 is Smart, and 5 is Cute. Consider allowing an Introduction Phase for each round of this Contest Type. This pairs well with the Rotational Contest variant.
¶ Festival
Festivals are normally used as the Contest Circuit equivalent of the Elite Four for Gyms.
A Festival is a very intense contest with many rounds more than usual! Simply play them like a Standard Contest or Super Contest until the end and then,the participant with the lowest amount of Appeal is eliminated, and the Contest starts from the beginning with one less participant!
Appeal carries over between each ‘Contest’. When there’s only Three contestants left, the Contestant with the most Appeal Points at the end of that Contest is the winner!
¶ Rotational Contests
Not all Contests involve just one Pokémon per participant. One interesting Contest variant forces a Trainer to perform with a different Pokémon each round of a Contest.
These are simple to run. Before the Contest begins, a Trainer picks a number of Pokémon equal to the number of competitors in the Contest if they’re going at it alone. Teams of Trainers count as 1 Competitors for this purpose (See Team Contests below for more).
During some Rotation Contests, a Trainer may pick at the start of each round who will be making a Performance Check, though each Pokémon may only make one Performance Check per Contest. In other Rotation Contests, you may decide that each Trainer must decide the order their Pokémon will make Performance Checks before the Contest begins. The latter case is quite interesting if each round of the Contest features a different Contest Stat and it’s pre-determined beforehand which Stat goes with which Round.
The Introduction Stage of a Contest works as normal. They pick a Skill to roll to gain Contest Stat Dice. Again,where multiple Contest Types are in play, consider allowing multiple Introduction Rolls, but this is at GM discretion.
The Performance Stage works as normal as well, with just the change that each round sees a different Pokémon making the Performance Check.
Be mindful that each Pokemon's innate contest dice applies to it's own Performance Checks.
As always, consider allowing multiple introduction rolls if varying the Contest Stat used during the course of the Contest.
¶ Team Contests
In essence, Team Contests are just Rotational Contests but instead of rotating through one Trainer's Pokemon, each Trainer brings one Pokemon to the Contest. The number of Team Members must be equal to the number of Participating Individuals or Teams in a given contest. Where this is not possible (say a party of 5 Trainers having to split into two teams), one trainer will need to go again to make things even for the smaller team.
One important rule in a Team Contest is that anyone with a Feature that affects the Performance Stage of a Contest may use it at any time, even to target another Trainer’s Pokémon during their Performance Check. This is so even if a Team has only one Coordinator or Style Expert in a Team Contest, they can use their skills to benefit the whole party and guide them to victory.
¶ Trainer Participation Contests
Many Trainers choose to learn to fight alongside their Pokémon, and they may choose to bring their skills into the Contest Hall too.
In this Contest Variant, Trainers can also use Contest Moves like their Pokemon to make Performance Checks. It may be appropriate to only use the Trainers in place of their Pokemon for such a Contest, as the Contest Moves can represent any manner of things from Cooking to Juggling and more.
Where Pokemon and Trainers are both participating in a contest, this should be dealt with in one of two ways. Either the Pokemon and Trainer both make a Performance Check in a given Round, or the other way to handle it is by making it so they must choose whether the Trainer or the Pokemon will be making the Perform Check in any given round.
It would be recommended that if a Trainer and Pokemon are participating on their own, to have the Trainer AND Pokemon Perform, whereas in a Team/Rotation contest, it is recommended that it become a case of Either/Or. Trainer Participation Contests should only be used if ALL Trainers are able to participate.
The same Contest Dice Reserve is used regardless. When Trainers and Pokemon both make a Performance Check, the Trainer acts first and does not get the benefit of Voltage, acting as a set-up for the Pokemon's Performance Check, which does retain the benefit of Voltage.
¶ Battle Contests
Battle Contests are an amalgamation of traditional Pokemon Battles, and Contests.
It plays out almost exactly like a normal Pokemon Battle, but each time a Pokemon uses a Battle Move on their turn, the Battle Move has an attached Contest Move (with predetermined Contest Type). As a result, you first resolve the Battle Roll before then resolving the Contest Move stipulated by the Battle Move. GMs should decide if the Win Conditions for the Match are Knockout, Appeal or some other criteria.
¶ Musician Hotfix for Contests
Not necessarily the final version, but added to Voice Lessons feat is the ability to spend 1 TP to add the Sonic keyword to a Contest Move the Pokemon knows.