Manifest: Manifestations
Last time, I came up with a setting for this RPG, and took a quick look at what Manifestations might look like. Now, I’d like to take a closer look at some options for these Manifestations. What do they need, mechanically?
In gen 1, Pokémon had four stats, HP, a Level, a Type, four moves, and a name. More was added in later gens, but gen 1 started the whole fad, so it can’t be the worst place to start. we also need to keep things simple if there are going to be up to six fighting at once, so we don’t get out over our skies.
That said…
One of the things I always found interesting about Pokémon as an IP was its devotion to the idea1 that there were multiple ways that your Pokémon was “powerful.” First was the natural Pokémon hierarchy: a Caterpie was naturally weaker than a Charizard, and the Legendaries were capable of shattering mountains while Pidgy’s were busy gathering seeds.
Second was the Pokémon’s level. A high-level Venusar could take down a low-leveled Charizard, even though the Charizard had multiple benefits stacked in its favor, including fire-beats-plant type supremacy.
Thirdly, and largely the purview of the cartoons/comics: how much you loved your Pokémon mattered. Pikachu tackled creatures that far outclassed their abilities, but because Ash cared so much about Pikachu, because they were friends, Pikachu still sometimes came out on top.
While Friendship is a stat utilized in the Pokémon games, it’s not2 utilized as a constant stat. Friendship can make a difference, but it doesn’t matter in the same way stats, moves, levels, and types matter. I’d like to explore the alternative.
And, I’m not particularly a fan of “natural hierarchies” as anything to aim for, so let’s just focus on Training and Friendship as two significant stats. There is precident for this kind of system, as Lancer has two “HP” tracks in Hull and Heat, and Multiclassing has been in D&D for decades.
We can play with this in the game-narrative too. Emotions can be felt at different intensities, and can either control or be controlled by you. This maps pretty neatly onto these two stats.
So, Manifestations will have a Bond level, or how connected they are to their Agent. A higher Bond means that they are less likely to act out, behave uncontrollably, or cause major issues. The second level is their Tier, or how much energy/power they have as a matter of course. Low Tier Manifestations are smaller, subtler, and less capable of affecting the world, while higher Tier Manifestations are stronger and able to cause significant property damage. Think Evolutions/Digivolutions in Pokémon/Digimon.
As for stats, we could use simple copies of any number of systems: Attack, Defense, Speed, and Magic; Str, Dex, Con, Wis, Int, and Cha; or anything else, really. Since stats are flexible, we can let them be shaped by the other systems as we invent them.
As for Type, well…Manifestations are embodied emotions. that makes for an easy parallel to Pokémon and Type. Your Pokémon could be fire, grass or bug type; your Manifestation could be anger, sad, or happy type.
What do these different types mean? we can figure that out later. Right now we need to decide if they mean something.
Because your Pokémon’s nickname doesn’t mean anything mechanically, and the emotion your Manifestation was born from could be handled the same way. Any emotion you can think of could be your Manifestation’s type and serve as so much color, rather than another stat.
Alternately, Type could be the same as Class in other RPGs. An Anger Manifestation could have bonuses to certain actions or access to special abilities that others don’t.
I’d like to start with that idea; having Type be another interesting choice for players to make.
Pokémon has 18 different possible types, and each Pokémon can have up to two. That is too complex for the style of RPG I want to make. With players controlling up to six Manifestations, action will need to be quick and simple. I’d rather not have players get bogged down looking at charts to figure out what bonuses they get for which actions/targets.
So let’s start simple: Manifestations have a single Emotional Type, and this Type affects how they function and interact mechanically. Can they have sub-types? Possibly, but they all have at least one “main” emotion.
How many emotions are there?
Too many. Do a quick internet search for “Emotion Wheel” and count up the number of emotions and sub-emotions there are. Add to that the emotion-words that are really mentioning the same thing, like angry and mad, and the emotions that are multifaceted, like romantic-love, familial-love, pet-love…and things get complicated again.
If we pick one — say, this one — and look at the center, we can see six “core” emotions: Fear, Anger, Disgust, Surprise, Happy, and Sad. Michtim uses five emotions as stats: Joy, Love, Grief, Anger, and Fear. The movie Inside Out used Joy, Sadness, Fear, Disgust, and Anger. Five to six emotions seems to be the generally accepted “core” number.
Alternately, we could take the Robert Plutchik route, and put eight emotions on four spectrums: Joy — sadness, anger — fear, trust — distrust, and surprise — anticipation. Spectrum-stats are used in systems like Lasers and Feelings or Honey Heist, and using two or three different spectrums, having a Manifestation swing back and forth, might make for an interesting dynamic.
So, here are a few Type options
- Surprise, Joy, Sadness, Anger, Fear, Disgust
- Joy–Sadness, Anger–Fear, Surprise–Anticipation, Trust–Distrust
- Fear, Grief, Anger, Delight
- Joy–Grief, Anger–Fear
Numbers 3 and 4 are mostly simplified versions of 1 and 2, and fully extendable. Every other emotion I thought of could be reasonably placed in one of those four “core” emotions. Shame is like grief, anxiety is like fear, envy is anger, as is contempt and disgust. Pride and love are delight.
I considered having five core emotions for number 3, but none of them felt right. Surprise feels like a subset of Fear to me, and Disgust too close to Anger. Peacefulness, perhaps? Acceptance? The problem with that is I don’t want players to have the option to play a stoic emotionless character. The point of roleplay isn’t to have five sunglass-wearing trenchcoated stoic-one-liner-spewing bad-asses all trying to out toxic-masculine each other. The point is to feel.
Now, if it turns out that having a Peaceful emotion doesn’t encourage that kind of play, I’ll add it back in, but for now we have some obvious emotions in number 3. Fear, Sadness, Anger, and Happiness are in every list, so let’s start with just these four types. Whether they are used as distinct stats or spectrums can be explored later.
Next time, I’d like to take a little closer look at what impact these emotions could have in this game.