How well would the collectable monster genre work in GURPS?

[Disliker of the mary sue]

I been wondering this for awhile now and just got the guts to ask since my curiosity has just been burning on this question.

Basically by collectable monsters I mean such shows such as pokemon or digimon, ect. Where you basically got a little monster(S) that fight other monster with people serving as trainers for these monsters. Just how well would this work in GURPS, the two obvious problems I figured was the paperwork involved in creating a decent amount of monsters if you had to write a template for every single creature, Considering most series I seen had at least a hundred different species and the long runners have somewhere near 600-1000 different species...yeah I think it would take awhile to write those up. The other problem is I thinking since a creature probably be an ally with summonable modifier players would not have much control of the battles since most battles would be between the creatures in these kinds of worlds it would probably consist in game of giving a creature a command and roll something to see if it obeys you, which seems like it would be kind of boring. But Considering my inexperience with the system maybe I am wrong, or maybe their even worse problems that I not thinking of.

[Refplace]

It is very doable though as you say could be kind of boring.
You would want other things to do. However summonable allies would work for most of them. Some builds might need Minion but from the few shows I have seen I would not use that.
I would say summonable for the power and you have to catch and train them so that's part of the PM and you could roll against Professional skill Trainer to give orders and understand some of the tactics to use.

[Mateus]

In a game like these, I would let the player get complete control of the creature during combat. It is the way I handle Summoners in my DF games.

[Walrus]

Suddenly, I'd suggest looking at MA - Gladiators. It contains guidlines for both gladiator campaigns ("monster" PCs) and ludus campaigns ("trainer" PCs).

But don't overestimate the variety of species in such media. I doubt the most of them might suffice as full GURPS write-up. Most are just two lines of "Usual <monster type>*, <lense>**, <attacks or utility skills>", NPC. Only famous ones may have full character lists.

* E.g., the Element for Pokemon: Earth, Fire, Water, Ice, Electricity, etc.
** E.g., speedy, tough, strong, blaster or whatever. I'd suggest looking at Supers templates for inspiration.

[Refplace]

Originally Posted by Walrus

But don't overestimate the variety of species in such media. I doubt the most of them might suffice as full GURPS write-up. Most are just two lines of "Usual <monster type>*, <lense>**, <attacks or utility skills>", NPC. Only famous ones may have full character lists.

* E.g., the Element for Pokemon: Earth, Fire, Water, Ice, Electricity, etc.
** E.g., speedy, tough, strong, blaster or whatever. I'd suggest looking at Supers templates for inspiration.

Yeah a lot of them at least in Pokeman if not others also "evolve" and that could be the base creature plus a Lens or more for multiple steps.

[Faolyn]

It's been awhile since I've watched Pokemon (although I'm currently reading the webcomic Mokepon, so know some stuff) but as I recall, a lot of the critters were fairly similar, in terms of how you would stat them, except for their attacks and weaknesses. You could probably save some time by coming up with a generic "first-stage mammal-type" or "second-stage bird-type" or "third-stage spirit-type" and then mix-and-matching attack and weakness lenses. Like, mons 1 has earth and water attack lenses and fire weakness lens, while mons 2 has water and acid attack lenses and earth weakness lens. Then you just have to do a little bit of tweaking to really individualize them, instead of making each one fresh. Of course, if you're really trying to translate Pokemon or Digimon for real, it might not be so easy, but if you're making your own, it might be worth a shot.

ETA: basically, what they said above, but more generic.

[D10]

Damn this actually gave me a very interesting idea.

Like not so ethical mages that imprison demons and other summons to throw them at arenas for their own fun

Or maybe even a conflict resolution method of a magocratic society

[vierasmarius]

Originally Posted by D10

Damn this actually gave me a very interesting idea.

Like not so ethical mages that imprison demons and other summons to throw them at arenas for their own fun

Or maybe even a conflict resolution method of a magocratic society

You mean a Gathering of Magic users, summoning monsters to fight their duels? Sounds... familiar. ;)

[Flameman]

You mean a Gathering of Magic users, summoning monsters to fight their duels? Sounds... familiar. ;)

And they stand on big Mountains and Islands because of the Mana there? ;)

[Strategist]

If you're a pragmatic GM, an easy way to solve the problem is to let the players design the monsters they then 'catch'. This doesn't work well if you're trying to have the players ultimately Collect Them All, but for something like Pokemon the TV show it works.