Nuzlocke Advice What drives you away from a documented Nuzlocke?

[sky_]

This is an interesting thread! There's a lot mentioned here that I don't mind (coloured text, storyshots, even some grammar mistakes) but that's just personal taste. As someone who (very very briefly) tried to write a storyshot with characters and plot, I think it can be done but to do it well (which I don't think I did) is harder than it initially looks. Trying to work around screenshots, where characters are placed and weird game choices (the fangame i was working with had wild tonal shifts/was very dark even to start with, in what I now think was a badly executed way) can mean that you may feel quite restricted in terms of writing style and what to say. I don't want to put anyone off writing them or to say that it's all the games' fault if a storyshot run needs improvement. I do think though that it's worth weighing up which medium to do a run in very very carefully. Though of course, I've seen some very good and intriguing storyshots.

What honestly turns me away (though if I had the time and energy I would try to comment on as many runs as I could anyway) is when a run is set in a game and region that I don't know about, and the run does not explain or set the scene very well. This goes for any run in any genre, but especially commentary runs. This doesn't mean pages and pages of description are needed, but if a run leaps forward into a game I know nothing about - especially non-Pokemon games - then I will literally not be able to follow what's going on.

 

[Skarmizard]

A weirdly specific thing I'm not a fan of: wedlockes that have two Pokémon instantly madly in love the minute they're paired. It's just not realistic, and I'm not just saying that because I don't believe in "love at first sight". IRL relationships (mostly) aren't like that-I'm pretty sure they have a slow buildup.

In fact, why does a wedlocke have to be love-centered at all? Can't the Pokémon just be good friends or have some other kind of relationship? I mean, I know it's called a "wed"locke, but I'd love to see it done in other ways.

(Note that I don't mind wedlockes in general, I just would love to see the topic explored in a unique way.)

 

[Trollkitten]

In fact, why does a wedlocke have to be love-centered at all? Can't the Pokémon just be good friends or have some other kind of relationship? I mean, I know it's called a "wed"locke, but I'd love to see it done in other ways.

I have been considering doing a 'wed'locke that's not based on romantic attraction, but I've already got a long list of projects to work on, and that's not really very high on the list.

 

[Tai-Wind]

ok this isn't an entire deal breaker necessarily but it definitely sours my view of the run and it's very hard to recover from it in my eyes; gary's raticate.
i see this a lot even in non-nuzlocke fandom circles and quite frankly i would prefer not to. i never liked the base urban legend to begin with for the record, but if a nuzlocke does it it tends to take me out of the story more than anything. i guess the term i'm looking for is "immersion breaking"; having the protag accidentally (or worse, on purpose) kill the rival's raticate just reminds me that this is a pokemon fanfiction i'm reading on the internet.. but the difference (in how to use a pokemon urban legend) between this and, say, the ending of the OG comic's fire red chapter where mew was literally in a truck at the end, is that mew in a truck was a throwaway comedy gag, whereas the rival's raticate dying ought to be a serious moment that either is played as a comedy gag, or if it's actually supposed to be a serious moment, like i said, breaks immersion. certainly doesn't have the intended effect of "shock value" or whatever the kids are using it for these days. that's not to say it can't be done well, and like i said it's not a complete turnoff; there's a comic currently running that pulled the trope and i genuinely enjoyed how it made the rival develop as a character and how it affected his relationship with the protagonist. but this is, from what i've seen, an avenue rarely explored among people who use this trope.

 

[Swablu]

Something very specific for me is comic artists using the Unown font. I find it impossible to read, so I just gloss over the speech bubbles that contain it and hope the artist or someone in the comments has translated it down below. People tend to use it for mysterious visions or legendary pokemon dialect, which I get, but I wish they'd just use a different legible font, or the same one in a different colour or font weight or something. It's not a deal-breaker for me all the time but if I'm reading a comic with a lot of it using Unown font for important dialogue, I'm more likely to just stop in frustration.

 

[Alba Corbina]

WRT to the "screenshot runs shouldn't have plots" thing. I can't draw. At all. A comic run might work better for the story I have in mind, but it's just not in the cards unless I spend years learning how to draw first. But one thing I can do is mess with my screenshots using photo editing software to get them to better fit the plot I have in mind.

One dealbreaker for me is scenes when a trainer is considering quitting because a whole bunch of pokemon have died but the team is all "It's fine! Don't quit! We're all totally okay risking our lives so you can win some shiny bits of metal!" It makes the pokemon feel less like characters and more like props the author is using to make the plot keep going. It's also kind of annoying because it absolves the trainer of any future deaths; they're only doing what their team wanted, after all.

If a writer/artist has ended up with a run they're trying to adapt into a story that had a massive amount of deaths, they should find ways to find non-fatal ways to remove "dead" pokemon from the narrative. That way the trainer doesn't look so callous if they keep going.

 

[Force Gaia]

My major one is turning the run into something unrecognisable: it's a crossover with another franchise, the world of pokemon is twisted beyond plausibility (post apocalyptic, all virtual, etc).

A minor turnoff is where there's no trainer, and the run is seen as a group of friends (a la mystery dungeon). I'm a bit flexible on this depending on execution, but I'm a bit of a traditionalist.

Ideally I want to see something creative done within the bounds of the game setting: add lore to make your hook work, expand in game landscape so that it functions as a believable world, bake the challenge rules into the narrative.

I'm here to see the games I love improved upon, not turned into something completely different.