Some trainers travel regions far and wide but others live in one place and adventure out from home. These rules are for the latter type of trainers. You can use some or all of these rules as you see fit.

A Base Camp is a shared location that the players return back to frequently, if not every session. Pokemon Journeys is a good example, Ash and Goh have Professor Cerise’s lab as their Base Camp. Other examples of a Base Camp could be a school, or an actual camp site, a Ranger HQ, or some other kind of home base.

These rules are built around the game following a set pattern of adventures alternating with downtime back at Base Camp. This could be weekend adventures with week days spent at Base Camp, variable length adventures and downtime, or something in between. Without downtime between your trainer’s adventures, these rules are basically pointless!

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Downtime Activities are just that, things that a trainer can do during a section of Downtime. During each section of Downtime the Storyteller will give trainers a number of Camp Points. Trainers will spend their Camp Points on activities they’d like to perform and follow the rules associated with that activity.

The Storyteller can ask the player to give a short description of the activity they take when spending the Camp Point. This can be a short vignette, a quick sentence, or a more involved scene depending on how much of your session you want to dedicate to the Downtime Activities.

The Storyteller should make note of any Activities they aren’t allowing trainers to take during a session of Downtime. A Storyteller might want to temporarily prevent Trainers from doing a particular Activity if they don’t have access to supplies, resources, or facilities. A Storyteller might simply not allow that Activity at all.

No change to core rules required. You might want to limit training to only via this Activity to encourage it’s use and keep Training out of the adventure sections of the game.

The trainer spends their Camp Point for a training session with any of their Pokemon. This follows the core book’s Training session rules.

No change to the core rules required.

The trainer spends their Camp Point to indulge in one of their passions or to treat themselves to something nice. They can also spend the point on a passion of or treat for one of their Pokemon. The Storyteller will award either the Trainer or the Pokemon respectively with a Will point for taking the time to relax.

If the Storyteller feels the Pokemon particularly enjoyed the treat, they might roll a chance dice to see if the Pokemon earns a Happiness. If they really enjoyed it, the Storyteller can just award the Happiness increase!

No changes to the core rules required. This serves as a replacement for buying TMs, which aren’t included in Pokerole by default.

The trainer spends their Camp Point to help their Pokemon try and use their abilities in a new way. The trainer will focus their Pokemon on learning a particular move that’s not on it’s move list, or not available to it at this time. If the Storyteller allows your Pokemon to learn the move, they’ll give you a required number of practice sessions to master it. Once they have, your Pokemon will learn the move!

Be sure to explain how you’re coaching your Pokemon to use this new move. Use their current moves and abilities and connect the dots, or teach your Pokemon to think about their abilities from a different viewpoint. It’s hard work to learn a completely new technique so guide your Pokemon well.

No change to the core rules required, but non core berries are used.

The trainer spends their Camp Point making a nice meal that will boost the Pokemon’s abilities when they eat it. The meal can be a region specialty like a Sandwich or Curry, or something completely different. While the cooking itself takes place at Camp, you can bring the meal with you on an adventure and eat it on the road.

Cooking a meal like this requires one of the below berries. Multiples of the same type can be used to increase the effect at the Storyteller’s discretion, but different types cannot be combined. No roll is required to create a dish with one of the effects, but the berry will have to be acquired on an adventure or Foraged for.

No change to the core rules required. This is a great way to figure out what your players want to do in a future session.

The trainer spends their Camp Point researching or planning their next adventure. Flavorfully this can take the form of library research, meeting with a Pokemon Professor, or spending some time on the Pokemon equivalent of Google Maps. It can also take the form of making preparations, like sewing a camouflage outfit or preparing a kit for a dangerous environment.

The benefit of the research will take the form of a bonus in a challenge the trainers will face in the adventure they’re preparing for. For example, if the trainer was researching a Pokemon’s habitat, they could get a bonus on a Nature roll to track them to that habitat. Alternatively if they were planning their route through dangerous terrain they could get a bonus on Athletics to get past rough terrain. A Storyteller might allow for the research to remove the need to a roll all together if research has been done on a challenge.

Another way a Storyteller can reward a player’s research is they could open up a new door or opportunity for the trainer. Doing some research can reveal a new habitat of a species they were looking for, or net them an invite to an event held by a gym leader. Research should always led to something new to do, or make something they were planning to do easier.

No changes to the core rules required.

The trainer spends their Camp Point hard at work at a part time job. This job can have numerous rewards like connections, leftovers to bring home, or access to tools and resources the trainer might not normally but first and foremost: they’ll be paid! Average pay is 250 Pokedollars, though your Storyteller may want to raise or lower it.

Have fun with what the part time job is, don’t just say you’re working as a Cashier. Pokemon is a world that’s going to have lots of day work available and kind people who are happy to reward a trainer for a day’s work. If you really show how hard you worked through your description, perhaps the Storyteller will reward you with a bonus!

Have your trainer do a normal job in the real world, but change it to include Pokemon somehow and highlight how that’s somehow better or more fun. Or, have your Pokemon training be the skill you provide, guiding your Pokemon to help complete tasks for your paycheck.

No changes to the core rules required. Feel free to expand the available berries as you see fit. If you want to add the berries from the Cooking a Meal section, all of those berries would be common.

The trainer spends their Camp Point surrounded by berry trees, working hard to producing a crop. Public gardens are common place in the Pokemon world where trainers and locals both work to grow delicious treats for their Pokemon partners.

Each time a Camp Point is spend on berry harvesting a trainer gets 8 Yield Points which they use to pay for berries. Trainers can’t take more than their fair share, but the upside is most gardens have some of every berry. The Yield Points required to take a particular berry are determined by it’s rarity.

This is a full homebrew alternate way to increase through the ranking system. The alternate system works like this:

• EXP is required to upgrade Skills and Attributes. The amount required to increase either is based on the amount you currently have. For example, to increase your Lore skill at level 2 to level 3, you’ll need 3 EXP. To then increase it to Level 4, you’ll need 4 more EXP, etc. You’ll need a total of 15 study sessions to max out a Skill or Attribute.
• A trainer can only increase their Skills and Attributes by the amount they would get from their next rank. For example, If Ash is at Amateur rank, he can only add 2 Skill points until he ranks to Ace.
• A trainer ranks up when they can no longer increase their Skills and Attributes. For example, Ash to go from Amateur to Ace, he needs to increase his regular and social Attributes by 2 and his skills by 2.

The trainer spends a Camp Point to head to class or the gym to work on their own abilities. The trainer chooses a single skill or attribute they want to work on and should describe how they do so. For Skills this might be classes, for Attributes it could be going to the gym or otherwise exercising, and for Social Attributes it could be practicing hobbies. However you choose to train, you gain a single EXP for that Attribute or Skill.

Be sure to read the above section as well to understand how that EXP works.