Pokemon D&D?!

Hey @mikemearls any chance of seeing a D&D licensed game like this? Pokemon Dungeons Dragons Really interesting design.
some of you have asked that we talked
about how to design a better pokemon go

so today we are going to indulge in
something that we rarely do speculative

design

let’s take the pokemon go paradigm and
brainstorm up a game designed in the

same space that improves on it so let’s
assume that our game is in the dnd vain

a swords and sorcery dungeon crawler
because without questions somebody’s

gonna try to make one of those sooner or
later so first off we’re gonna need a

better combat system and a better
character system because in this game

what you’re going to be collecting is
gear not pokemon character equipment has

the advantage of being much cheaper
content to produce which would allow for

a huge Diablo style loot table with some
handcrafted epic gear thrown in which in

turn means that players will have
thousands of things to hunt rather than

just hundreds hunting for cool new stuff
is the main driver of this type of game

after all

but let’s talk about how players will
acquire their gear to fill up those

character sheets imagine this instead of
Po k stops locations would be hidden

caches of treasure like the sites of old
battles that sort of thing

these would be the basic loop pickups
you’d find consumables in them but you

also have a chance of finding gear maybe
not great gear but gear nonetheless the

thing about this gear though is that it
would be level restricted so how do you

level

well imagine if rather than catching
pokemon you fight monsters

we’re in pokemon go you would see a
capturing pokemon here instead you would

find a combat encounter that you could
try your skill that the system here

could be simple that I mean even a basic
turn-based RPG combat system would be

better than what we haven’t go and it
would have the added bonus of being

something that was easier to do while
walking around then trying to swipe

throw a Pokeball if the game has a wide
enough variety of abilities and

equipment finding an encounter that
higher level than you offering awesome

loot and XP for success could be an
exciting strategic experience and if you

throw in the possibility of maybe being
able to set up a couple of equipment

loadouts that you could choose from at
the start of the battle that would

create more interesting uses for the
loot that you find and add a whole new

layer of depth to your planning and if
the company wanted to be greedy they

could also sell additional loadouts lots

I mean you gotta sell the executives on
the projects on

alright next we need achievements in
pokemon go the achievements don’t really

do anything here the obvious go to is to
have achievements reward you with

experience or gold maybe even gear but
we can do one better than that I think

instead what if we also gave the player
quest now it’s very tricky to do local

quests ones that are unique to your
particular Parker neighborhood so let’s

just assume that we don’t have the tech
to do that

that still leaves us with a lot of
options quest to kill 12 ogres collect

20 rat tails find and defeat the Lich
Lord those are all really easy to create

the we can do one cooler remember those
pokay eggs that you had to walk around

to spawn imagine if you had a quest that
said it would begin in four kilometers

now the awesome thing about this is that
if that’s the prerequisite then as

developers we can do whatever we want
with the game when the player gets there

instead of an egg hatching and you
mulching that monster into candy an

event would start maybe you would get
jumped by for Noel’s and you have to

beat them then you’d run into a night at
the crossroads and have to answer his

question correctly or else have to fight
him to then you’d find a wounded soldier

and if you had a potion in your pack you
could trade it for a random loot drop

54

next is the lake of fire which would
require that you have 200 fire-resistant

your equipment or you fail and if you
get through that you reach the lava

Drake which will net you some sweet loot
if you can take it down

that’s what would spawn on your phone
once you journeyed far enough and racked

up enough steps the quest would begin
and then you wouldn’t have to move at

all to proceed further in the quest it
would all just play shockingly like a

video game and pick if you wanted you
could still have eggs which hatch

monsters in this game too because I mean
why not let’s see what else

well if you had enough people playing
you can also tag locations not just as a

poke a stop but maybe adding a little
bit more flavor maybe people could tag

places as taverns wilderness dungeons
adding just that little bit of

granularity would let you do some cool
things when you’re designing quests and

items but i think the last big change
that would have to be added is some

stationery play because while the game
should be played mostly outside it’s

kind of lame that all those awesome
things you find as you wander around

don’t really do anything for you when
you’re stuck at home plus it helps

with accessibility allowing your friends
who maybe can’t get out much to still

get to play with you you could add a
crafting mode where you play a minigame

to enchant loot or craft new weapons for
the sake of argument let’s just call it
a puzzle quest style match-3 thing you
could also add a daily dungeon that you

could play from home one which can
effectively be infinitely difficult

because it doesn’t have a limit to
scaling you would just have to limit it

to being playable once a day or maybe
put in an energy system just to make

sure that the focus of the game was
still together stuff outside
oh and finally there’s the question of
parties and raids both of those things

would be amazing i would have some
safety concerns to address before I

would try implementing them but the
potential is totally there but if you

did all of that you would have a much
more compelling pokemon go style game

because the truth is the hard part of
creating a real world game is the tech

getting the database of locations and
doing the monster distribution well

that’s the big challenge but the game
design that i described here isn’t

difficult at all the costs are basically
negligible when compared with the tech

cost of making one of these things which
is good because pokemon go basically

ensured that we’re going to see more
real-world games and design being such a

small fraction of the cost makes it
really silly to invest all of that money

into getting your texts up and running
and then not invest just a tiny bit more

to create a better actual game for the
player i expect that soon we will all be

out questing anyway thank you for
indulging us in some speculative design

there’s actually a lot of other
important design questions that Pokemon

go raises about real-world games we will
tackle those questions soon I’m sure

until then see you next week

yeah

https://t.co/79iDVQvYUJ

— Kiel Chenier (@KielChenier) August 24, 2016

@KielChenier thanks for that link – can’t comment on what we’re working on or future projects.

— (((Mike Mearls))) (@mikemearls) August 24, 2016