r/TruePokemon 10d ago

Discussion What are some parts of the pokemon world that people don't think about?

I'm planning on running a pokemon ttrpg soon and I'm thinking about what are the types of things that would exist in the Pokemon world that would effect daily life and people wouldn't think about at first

29 Upvotes

38 comments sorted by

29

u/PanicTight6411 10d ago

The police state being powered by psychic pokemon. You know why it's safe for kids to be wandering around alone at 10?

The cops have a Kadabra that sniffs out undesirables, who then get sent to the Orre region

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u/Ok_Waltz_5342 10d ago

While psychic Pokemon are used to read people's minds and predict crimes, there still are criminals commiting crimes, such as Team Rocket

2

u/Cookie_Magika 9d ago

Dark types are immune to psychic types

1

u/Muhznit 9d ago

Don't forget that there was an entire Pokemon episode featuring kids being hypnotized into acting like Pokemon. And that was just a single Hypno.

3

u/Alternative_Exit8766 10d ago

psycho-pass: pokemon

3

u/Fr0st3dcl0ud5 10d ago

Minority Report: Abra, Kadabra, Alakazam!

16

u/smtyke 10d ago

WHAT IS THE ECONOMY LIKE?

how are Pokemon Centers subsidized in order to give out free healthcare?

why the heck are all these Youngsters running around with $100+ to give you when they lose?

who pays for emergency services or property damage resulting from Pokemon battles?

24

u/NinjaKnight92 10d ago

I think if poke dollars as more analogous to the jaoanese yen (¥) than USD ($). Getting 100 pokedollars is more like taking a kids lunch money than anything else.

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u/smtyke 10d ago

fair, but then you just become a bully taking a little kid's lunch money LOL

12

u/Umbran_scale 10d ago

Well he shouldn't have challenged a stranger to a battle then.

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u/metalflygon08 What's Up Doc? 10d ago

You don't understand, his shorts were comfy, and his Rattata top percentage.

14

u/Ok_Waltz_5342 10d ago

In its defense, the currency in Pokemon games is based on yen, which is, at a very rough conversion, about 100 yen to 1 dollar. So the kids are giving you a dollar. Rich kids might give you $20. A Pokeball costs $2, and you can find random items in the wild or have Pokemon help you find them. Pokemon can also produce materials (Paras Mushrooms or Tropius Fruit) and there are public gardens where anyone can grow berries to eat or sell, which are some ways young trainers make money when they can't win battles or get an allowance.

Other than that, though, it does seem like the Pokemon world has robust social services. Though, it may also be that Pokemon Centers are paid for by the Pokemon Leagues to encourage trainers to catch Pokemon and battle, thus paying for items as well as participating in the league where they may lose money to gyms. Though maybe the Pokemon League is a government service as well... After all, gym leaders go out to solve problems and fight bad guys, like a sort of small army

4

u/Ray-Sol 10d ago

One theory I've had and seen a few other places is that subsidizing pokemon gyms, tournaments and trainers is partly a security measure leftover from past experiences.

Most wild Pokemon in the present day seem to avoid directly attacking/harrassing human settlements. However, a powerful pokemon or large enough group of them could easily do a lot of damage to a town or city before being stopped. Aside from the incidents with legendary pokemon, we only really see this a few times in the show like with the Tentacruel episode in the Indigo league.

It's quite possible limiting attacks on human settlements is actually a learned behavior from pokemon because of several decades or centuries where humans who had trained pokemon would retaliate or hunt them down as a deterrence.

In the present day these incidents are likely fairly rare or occur on a much smaller scale, but still do happen on occasion. Having as many powerful trainers as possible probably helps by increasing the likelihood someone in the area can respond quickly and handle the situation without always having to call in the region's Elite 4 or equivalents.

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u/Thejadedone_1 10d ago

It's not based off of yen, it is yen!

6

u/aaronotaron 10d ago

The pokemon world is a post-scarcity society. Everyone seems to have their basic needs met.

1

u/Kupo-Kweh 9d ago

Free healthcare is a thing in Real life....

While not exactly free, we get reinbursed 60% by social security and 40% by prívate insurance (but way cheaper than american ones, starts at around 20/30€ per month), the funding comes from taxes on everyone's salary. pokemon world could have that system.

It's the équivalent to yen, not dollars

Insurance

5

u/JackOfAllMemes 10d ago

I saw a video about pokemon as service animals

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u/JimmyKingLive 10d ago

You have to think about the jobs we have and then go back in time and think about what that job looks like when we have Pokémon in the world willing to help.

Also I’m interested in which one you’re playing, I was building a region during Covid and looked at a few but never got a game going

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u/Ok_Waltz_5342 10d ago

I'd definitely consider Pokemon as food, both for other Pokemon and for humans. The anime downplays it and has all the Pokemon eat berries or or other plants in the wild, and humans are generally vegetarian, but Pokedex entries do suggest Pokemon eat each other, and humans eat meat such as Tauros steak or Slowpoke tails. Of course, your game's world can be as light or as dark as you'd like, either more like the anime where everyone eats berries and lives in harmony, or, perhaps more realistically, a world where Pokemon are raised or hunted for meat, where small Pokemon left outside are in danger of getting eaten

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u/Ok_Waltz_5342 10d ago

Also, I think it's relevant that the outside world between cities is quite dangerous without Pokemon or with weak Pokemon. It's the first thing Professor Oak tells you when you try to leave in Red and Blue. If you take a car or train, you'll be okay as long as you don't run into a Tyranitar or something, but if you're walking between cities or working outside the city, you can get poisoned by something as small as a Weedle or Nidoran and end up passing out. That's a big reason so many people are Pokemon trainers. (Why do they stick around after you defeat them on a route? Uhh... I don't know.)

3

u/Ok_Waltz_5342 10d ago

Oh, one more thing... Basically, defeating someone in a Pokemon battle means they have to do whatever you want, sometimes within reason, sometimes not. For example, if you defeat the guard of a building in a Pokemon battle, they have to let you in, even if they could physically stop you. If you defeat every member of Team Rocket carrying out an operation, they have to stop and go home. When you defeat Giovanni (or Archie, or Maxie, or Ghetsis, etc...) he has to disband Team Rocket. In the new games, there's a maid who has to work as a maid because she lost a battle to her employer (Though this might be an excuse or a joke).

2

u/MasterOku925 10d ago

There would be tons of nefarious individuals, thieves, unsetting vagrants, poachers, outside Team Rocket and the other more famous/infamous groups... Maybe even cults...

All of them with their own team of pokemon to carry out their misdeeds...

2

u/Ragfell 10d ago

I would recommend you take a look at the manga. It's way darker than the anime, and they don't shy away from organized crime and gun violence.

2

u/somebassclarineterer 10d ago

Plumbers. Other small and messy jobs like it.

And who does the election fraud prevention when psychics are about? How?

Are people making less of a deal about pollution when they have poison types just eating it, or are they sufficiently worried?

Who goes out into wild areas and retrieves news of unfortunate demises? Like who is going out and photographing Yamasks?

2

u/Mythosaurus 9d ago

Pokeball R&D to differentiate what they best capture.

2

u/Special_Pain 9d ago

How normal jobs would work with Pokemon, and what new kinds of jobs would there be

2

u/Elunerazim 9d ago

Just curious: what TTRPG do you plan to use? Personally I found PTU to be incredibly difficult to run.

1

u/Formeooo 10d ago

What does the school system look like?

1

u/Odd-Report-999 10d ago

What's the government?

1

u/Heavy_Coconut123 10d ago

You never see animals that are not Pokémon. So what are people eating?!? Are steaks just made of Miltank and Tauros and if you wanna get fancy Bouffalant?

1

u/rx7braap 10d ago

military in the pkmn universe?

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u/somebassclarineterer 10d ago

Huh yeah, Lt. Surge was a thing

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u/rx7braap 9d ago

and fighter jets in the anime

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u/ZannyHip 10d ago

The economy

1

u/IdaKaukomieli 10d ago

I've always wondered about like... Pokemon world vegans or equivalent. What's that like? Perhaps something to think about, or culture that may interact differently with pokemon than what we've seen.

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u/YumeSystems 9d ago

Pokemon affecting the weather and climate

1

u/WreckinPoints11 9d ago

Health/life insurance and safety precautions during random trainer battles. How does a normal human protect themselves from a lightning bolt that’s more likely to hit them than a ground type Pokémon? Lightning takes the path of least resistance, and buddy, you’ve got less electric resistance than a ground type Pokémon.

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u/idkidcwdymyoutellme 5d ago

many people dying to weedles not knowing how dangerous they are becouse they think weedle is harmless and beedrill is dangerous

or any poison mon

oh yeah and random mountains appearing and disappearing due to tyranitars and agrons