So You Want To/Write a Mon Series: Difference between revisions

 

== '''The Basics''' ==

 

 

Mons series are very toyetic and lend themselves toward trading cards, action figures, and most of all video games. Seeing as how the most successful Mons series are video-game-based or else heavily video-game-friendly, we'll be referring to your Mons series as a game for the rest of this guide. If you're starting with a story or comic first, just imagine we're discussing your inevitable video game adaptation which will sell a million copies and make you a household name, okay?

You need collectible creatures and an impetus to scrounge up a bunch. Everything else is details, and you can get some amazing details out of Mons games. This is for the structure of the game or mechanics of the setting, by the way; for flavor, story, and what ''kinds'' of monsters you'll have available for collection, check out the Writers' Lounge.

 

 

Note that in non-game stories, the "many" or "one" approach is entirely up to you based on the story you want to tell, and you don't have to worry about multi/single-player stuff at all.

The ''Pokémon'' approach is the safest for games in part because it lends itself very easily to Crowning Moments of Awesome--leading an unlikely team of aberrations to victory is perhaps an inherently wonderful feeling. It also allows you to be more experimental, including a few "weird" beasts that might be intolerable in a one-monster-at-a-time game. The Monster Rancher approach has its benefits, though, such as having a much more intense connection to the monsters you raise, and room for much greater depth in monster stats and growth. The Battle Network style is rare and may be a borderline case of Mondom, but being able to raise a single monster like a [[Western RPG]] character has a certain untapped potential, I think.

 

 

From there you need to decide about how many monsters you'll want in your game, if your game will be bisected or not, and features like trading or sharing. You can have a Mons game without trading, you just have to think of other ways to dole out beasts in interesting rarities.

* [[Boss Battle]]: Even if they're not bosses ''per se,'' an elite trainer or high-level threat that tests your entire team is always a great chance to test your players and really give 'em a chance to shine. If you want gym-leader-alikes, you'll need boss battles of some kind. In ''Monster Rancher'', though, pretty much ''every'' fight is a boss fight, and they just get progressively harder as you go along. Either way works, just make sure the player gets catharsis. In a Mons game, beating a boss challenge is definitive proof the player's collection is getting stronger, and a proper boss fight results in a euphoric "we did it!" rush like no other.

* [[Character Level]]: A handy measurement of power, and common to nearly all Mons games. While there are exceptions, such as Monster Rancher, even they have stats which are rated by level for a quick comparison of how good a beast is in a specific stat. That, and watching numbers get higher is a known fascination among gamers. Probably a good idea.

* [[Com Mons]]: If collection is especially heavy in your game, you'll need Com Mons to pad out the selection and make more desirable or powerful beasts harder to catch. That said, Com Mons don't have to be complete junk. Further, in games like ''Monster Rancher'' where getting new monsters is difficult and switching out unlikely, it would do you well to nix the idea of Com Mons entirely and make every beast at least a little useful.

* [[Duels Decide Everything]]: In fact, they don't have to! Admittedly, to paraphrase John Hodgman, the first thing you'll want to do if you get a domestic monster is to find another one and make them fight, but much like how [[Western RPG|Western RPGs]] like to remind us that non-violent or differently-violent solutions to problem are possible, you can show the world how mons can solve conflicts peacefully. Hopefully this will be in a less-boring manner than most Pokémon not-battles.

* [[Elemental Powers]]: Another damn-near universal trope, and it's hard to argue against. They're relatively simple to add and can make for a great deal of tactical importance. That said, Elemental Powers are not necessarily...

* [[Experience Points]]: Generally the reason random encounters are tolerated even after you've caught everything in the area. If you have character levels, you're gonna need a way to increase 'em, and since "everybody goes up one level at this milestone" is a little... anticlimactic... alternatives are gonna have to be very clever.

* [[Improbable Power Discrepancy]]: In most collectabeast games, this is in place so you don't have to spend hours and hours leveling up that new monster you got just so it'll be ready to stare down the next gym leader analogue. If your game is going to be less linear than ''Pokémon'', you could be experimental and have the "towns" all have roughly similarly-low-leveled beasts in unique varieties, thus allowing you to collect a diverse bunch of beasts before assaulting better-entrenched and more dangerous areas where there's less civilization to back you up.

* [[Olympus Mons]]: Much like how you don't strictly need Com Mons, you don't strictly need Olympus Mons in your bestiary. There's a definite advantage to it, though, since it means there's a greater variety of power levels and levels of utility, making your monster list more interesting. On the other end, collectabeasts which are ''vastly'' superior to everyone else will be disproportionately represented in the endgame or multiplayer regardless of what you do to make 'em difficult to catch, so making Olympus Mons a little less uber or Com Mons a little less terrible has a certain appeal.

* [[Serious Business]]: While this is a flavor question, it's universal enough that it's worth getting out of the way as ''optional.'' Are mons the heart of the setting, or are they just a means to an end? Will your mon-user protagonist fight non-mons or non-mon-users in addition to the inevitable opposition? Will having non-mon gameplay elements be cool, or will they violate [[The Law of Conservation of Detail]]? It's up to you to decide.

 

== '''Pitfalls''' ==

 

* [[Level Grinding]]: Hoo boy, level grinding. It's everywhere, pretty much a bunch of people hate it, pretty much a bunch of other people can't go ten minutes without filling a bar of some kind or the shakes start to come back. It's a real balancing act. While a little grinding is useful to test out your Mons and give rare Mons a better chance to show up, too much will utterly kill the flow of the game and threaten the interest of your players. There are ways around it, of course. Personally, I think one key is to make experience point drops ''significant.'' Look into [[Leaked Experience]], too.

* [[Promotional Powerless Piece of Garbage]]: It is not unheard of, and in fact very common, for a game of mons to have ultra exclusive mons available only by [[Nintendo Hard|nigh impossible challenges]] or by special events. Whether or not you should add a mon or so (or several) to the list of exclusives only released through promotional means depends on many factors, and how well recieved doing this depends on the mon in question. For instance, it can be enticing to get a mon [[Olympus Mons|who is an absolute powerhouse in the games]] as a bonus and attract more people to the event in question. If the event is particularly exclusive, it can help increase its rarity and ease the players [[Game Breaker|on its powerhouse potential shaking the meta game a little]], adding one of many secrets only given to the most devoit of your players. On the otherhand, if the mon is pretty yet [[Com Mons|rather usless]] if not [[Awesome but Impractical|overshadowed by pre-existing (not to mention more common) mons]], it becomes a waste of time to go after and will more than likely be [[The Scrappy|the next vendor trash mon]] whom players would sooner buy a gameshark to nab in their game if [[Last Lousy Point|they only need it as far as their mon-log is concerned]] than go to the event to get it. Then there is the event itself where you have to make it interesting to make it worth it for people to pay attention to, and give plenty of time and preparation both for your players and yourself to prepare. Don't fall for the disaster of releasing a wifi-connection event spur the moment, where few people were aware it was happening, fewer had bothered to connect with you and everyone else who heard it ran out of time to set themselves up for it. The promotion can be as big or as small as you want it, but organization and a fitting theme is a must. Maybe you'd like a small wifi-session online to encourage [[Socialization Bonus|the connectivity and trading aspects of your games]]. Or maybe, for the commercial-minded, you'd like to host a mini-convention of sorts for your players to physically gather to (which by the way it wouldn't hurt if there were other freebies, too). More so, keep in mind that if you plan to release mons exclusively through promotional means, ensure that these events reach out to as much of the globe as possible. [[No Export for You|Your players will thank you for it.]]

 

== '''Potential Subversions''' ==

 

 

== '''Writers' Lounge''' ==

 

* The majority of the story's focus will be [[A Boy and His X|The Player And Their Mon]] and the training of said mon(s) to reach their fullest potential and be the strongest (either strong enough to overcome whatever goal their is or the strongest ever). Depending on the mechanics you have behind it that define how much of the mon's stats you monitor and grow or what you do with them, you can potentially expand on the relationship you, the player, have with the mon, your partner. The most common theme is friendship, especially if your character and/or mon are the good-hearted type, and depending how much you integrate your mon's affection to your tamers in-game or story-wise, [[The Power of Friendship|you can work with a sub-plot that shows that a strong bond with your mon enables you to tap into your greatest strengths]]. For the reverse, you can also [[Deconstructed Trope|deconstruct the idea]] of why [[Fridge Logic|a mon would mindlessly follow a trainer who]] [[Defeat Means Friendship|horribly pounded the crap out of them on-sight when they first met]] by showing the trainer [[Level Grinding|strengthen their mon through grinding]] while ignoring [[Unfortunate Implications|the underlying problems]] with this training regimen, ending with either the mon [[Stockholm Syndrome|giving in to this treatment]] to mindlessly stick with this trainer (for better or worse) or [[The Dog Bites Back|get fed up enough and turn on them.]]

 

=== '''Potential Motifs''' ===

 

** And then there are the tamers themselves, who also can have just as many different motifs to their designs as the mons could. A key rule differing a tamer's motif to a mon's is that, more often than not, a tamer's motif will usually determine the kind of mons (or if just one mon, their evolutions) they'll have on their team. Some of them are a bit more subtle in their connections with their mons, as with a lot of characters like Digimon's digidestined, Pokemon's trainers, Yugioh's duelists, etc, but a lot of them can make it incredibly obvious what kind of mons they're inclinded to train, which if handled with care, can cook up a nice idea for a unique appearance for them (such as a character who uses fire-type mons having a heavy fire motif in his fashion sense and possibly his appearance). A motif tied to their mons don't necessarily have to limit to just appearance, but can also link them based on personality or even the mon's reputation (such as if a mon's species was notable for being hot-headed for no apparent reason, or was so highly praised that they are common insignias for noble blood). Then there are some who collect mons with less important things in common (such as collecting all mons with beady eyes or who have yellow and black stripes).

 

## ) the location - Does the series primarily take place in a tamer's world or the mon's world? Are they similar or vastly different? Do they constantly travel between worlds, or does the series focus primarily on one or the other? Is one or both of these worlds set in a world like ours or an entirely different world?

## ) the mons and their relationship to the tamers - Are the tamers used to the mons, or were they a recent discovery? Was it a fad that your trainer jumped in the bandwagon on or something that, by a stroke of fate, caused your trainer to stumble in on it? Are the mons like pets or like partners to the trainer? Are the mons friendly to the trainer, hostile and dangerous to them, or shades of both?

 

Among other notes. Some common plots in other existing mon titles include:

** [[Bandwagon Technique|The mons are part of some popular game or the latest fad]] and the trainer is either [[New Meat|a newbie who lived under a rock of the whole thing]] [[Veteran Unit|or a notable veteran]]. [[The Chosen One|Perhaps the trainer is destined for great things that unravel as the story goes on]], or perhaps they uncover an underlying, sinister plan underneath the fanfare. Perhaps the mons are used by corrupt trainers for their evil schemes. Or perhaps there was something dark behind the origins of the mons themselves.

** The mons are a powerful force otherwise unknown to the world, and when an equally powerful force causes mayhem to the human world, the trainer-to-be stumbles on the mons to fight back. It could be that this force was a dark entity, or it could also be that this force were [[Not So Different|other trainers who are otherwise no different from the main character, who had found their own mons]] [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity|but misused them by forgetting the simple fact massively-godly-powered-beasts trained to kill are not toys]].

 

== '''Departments''' ==

=== '''Set Designer''' / '''Location Scout''' ===

 

 

=== '''Props Department''' ===

 

* Depending on if a mon comes first or their location does, their design should reflect the same vibes as their home world, even if only subtly. If your mons are a collection of robots, for instance, they may reflect a theme that makes it clear they are some form of artificial life, and may be more understandable that they live in equally artificial locations than not. If mons are portrayed like embodiments of the elements, however, they may live in more natural areas where there are hardly any signs of artificial "eyesores" that exist, and usually have hubs themed after each element that exists among the mons (example, a dark shadow and a dark part of the world, or a fire imp and a volcano). If your mons include both of these types and more, their world may be just as varied as they are. In the end you decide what's right for your mons, and if you decide a mon expy of [[Transformers|Optimus Prime]] thrives in a homeworld set in a forest where there isn't another robot or computer in sight, then go for it.

* The humans who command the mons also can have various preferences in fashion sense, but unless there is a particular reason why the character is so vastly different from others, it is usually recommended that they at least stay consistent with each other. For example, it can be incredibly jarring for one character to be a robot when the rest of the cast resemble the kind of people you see around your neighborhood, and especially weird if said robot was the only robot in a setting where robots otherwise don't exist. It is easier accepted as that character being particularly <s> weird</s> unique if there was a reason for this, such as said robot actually being a cosplayer of a robot mon, the robot came from the future (or another dimension entirely), it was the first to be released out of others in development, etc.

 

=== '''Stunt Department''' ===

 

** Pokemon is an example of universal moves having priority over unique moves. Pokemon can learn moves such as Toxic, Return or Frustration, which are moves that are learned by nearly any pokemon, and although they have moves that more limited groups can learn, such as Thundershock or Water Gun, these groups are still quite wide and apply to more than one family of mons (in this case, Thundershock is a common move among electric types, while Water Gun is a common move among water types). There are more powerful moves that can be learned by an even smaller pool of mons, but still remain that there is usually more than one family of mons who can learn it one way or another. Out of the majority of the moves in the Pokeverse, only a small handful are unique to specific mons (some of the uniqueness [[Retcon|being changed over the generations]]), such as Milk Drink being available only to the cow mon Miltank, Sacred Sword being unique only to the musketeer-motif trio of Cobalon, Terrakion, Virizion and Kledeo, or Chatter being available only to the parrot mon Chatot.

** [[Monster Rancher]] is another example that plays the exclusive move factor much more straight, as every species learn a list of signature moves unique only to their species or the subspecies whom their own species is dominant of. For example, a Tiger who is a hybrid of a Naga learns the same moves as a pure Tiger because they're both primarily Tigers. The exception include rare cases or systems involving a monster fighting alongside or in place of another monster as aid, allowing the primary fighter to temporarily use an attack that was exclusive to their aid.

* Besides the attacks themselves, there is also the matter of whether your mons should [[Calling Your Attacks|call their attacks]], or simply attack. There are many reasons for and against this that many of the titles may either ignore or [[Lampshade Hanging|call attention to for lulz]]. On the pro side, you can think of creative names for the abilities your mons can use that better define the attacks, whereas it would've caused abilities like that awesome Calypso's Wrath attack be known by a general description like "that one watery move that causes the sea to crash onto you", or cause named attacks to be [[All There in the Manual|only known by the few, proud, dedicated of fans you have]] otherwise if they weren't named. It can also help identify your mons better through their signature attacks if their names and appearances weren't memoriable enough. On the con side, however, if it takes particularly long for the character to charge up and launch the attack simply because [[Transformation Sequence|the obligatory move-intro scene of awesome or the reciting of the attack name]] [[Rule of Cool|made it so]], it can be annoying ( [[Narm|or hammy]]) otherwise, and in some cases the timing involved from naming an attack to ''actually doing it'' can bring up questions such as "[[Fridge Logic|If my opponent is announcing they will stab me with a sword as The Poke of Doom, why don't I use that to my advantage and just shoot him from a distance?]]" or "[[Talking Is a Free Action|Why don't I attack them while they're showing off?]]"

 

* Speaking of which, [[Power Trio]] of [[Mon]] Genres (game version) are:

** ''[[Monster Rancher]]'' is the modest contender of all three, it was largely set on a world of [[Medieval European Fantasy]] and basically a [[Slice of Life]] [[X Meets Y|meets]] [[Mon]] genre.

* ''[[Kamen Rider Ryuki]]'', is [[Toku]] series with some aspect of [[Mon]]. The [[Henshin Hero|Henshin Heroes]] become stronger after get their contact monsters, can use their body parts as equipments, and summon them. It's deconstruction, the monsters have no loyalty to their masters and will ''eat them'' should the contact card is destroyed. The same thing would occur if the monsters aren't well-fed, meaning you must continue fighting to feed your mons, even if you want to quit - and more mons you have, it's just harder to feed them all. Oh, there's another way to get around this, the mons also [[I'm a Humanitarian|eat humans]]. At least one Rider is more than happy to lets his mon eat random people, it help cover his murder anyway.

 

 

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[[Category:Write A Mon Series]]