DISCUSSION: New term for PMD stories without actual dungeons/exploring/rescuing

[WanderingKalosan]

Posting here as this topic came up several times on discord channel, too.

We often use "PMD" for stories set in universe where Pokemon exist (usually!) without humans, they can speak English and have their own society/civilasition resembling the human one. (#1)

The problem is, half the people expect more than that when one tags their story with "PMD." They expect actual dungeons, their exploration, rescue teams and whatnot. (#2)

So, the question is, should we try to coin a new term for #1, seeing they are as popular as #2?
And if so, what term do you consider appropriate?

This shouldn't be too much of a problem, but it can lead to potential misunderstandings or incorrect expectations. I myself plan on writing a short story set in #1 and I would like to avoid a negative review based on the point that my story didn't have any mystery dungeons or exploration teams! Don't I know what PMD is about?! Didn't I play one of those games even?!
(For the record, no I don't think anyone here would give me this type of review, I exxagarated just to illustrate my point)

At any rate, my idea was for #1 to be named PNMD or simply PND (Pokémon NO Mystery Dungeon / Pokémon NO Dungeon).
It is short, similar to the original term and therefore easy to get used to, and simple enough for first time reader to figure out "Oh it sounds like PMD but probably somewhat different?"

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

I believe that the term "PMD" is used so ubiquitously because it's the popularity of the PMD games that led to pokémon-only settings like we now have. It's a similar phenomenon to how "D&D" is the catch-all terms for pen & paper RPGs, whether they have anything to do with actual D&D or not. I don't doubt that a handful of readers might be disappointed to find a "PMD" story without actual mystery dungeons, but the conventions of a "PMD" fic were never so much about mystery dungeons to begin with.

Still, I'm a sucker for categorisation and specificity in communication and so on, so I'll give this some thought. Your proposed term "PNMD" is not bad, honestly. It's very peculiar in a vacuum, but it does have the effect of catching people's eye and suggesting itself to be a variant on the PMD convention. Besides your proposal, any alternative would have to be a fair bit clunkier. "Pokémon-Only Setting" for example. Maybe "No Humans." As I think about this, it becomes clear that having to explain "I've created a setting with pokémon as the only natives, like PMD but it's not the PMD setting" is a lot more awkward than just slapping "PMD" on things and asking to be excused for the lack of dungeons. Perhaps "PMDL" (PMD Lite) or "PMDV" (PMD Variant) are similar viable options to your proposal?

 

[canisaries]

Question: how about stories where Pokémon live in a humanless wild and are sentient characters that speak the same language, but don't have elaborate societies, at best having tribes? Are those counted together with #1 or should they just be considered totally disconnected to PMD?

 

[unrepentantAuthor]

To some extent, a setting like that might be ambiguous, wouldn't it? Without a Word of God statement from the author about their intent, such a setting could be dungeonless PMD, post-apocalyptic or prehistoric main setting, or its own thing entirely.

 

[WanderingKalosan]

@unrepentantAuthor Agreed. And yeah, IF we actually go ahead and create such a term, it should be very short and convenient just like "PMD" is. Otherwise nobody will bother using it; PMD is so much shorter and immediatelly recognizable by everyone after all.

@canisaries Good question. I guess it depends how much important are the other sapient species important to the plot / setting. If they aren't I would go ahead and include them in #1 with some author notes about OC species. If they ARE important, then it sounds like cross over between PMD and original ficrion/setting...

 

[lucarioknight56]

I actually wouldn't mind having this alternate categorization, as PMD: Unequivocant doesn't have mystery dungeons or even rescue teams, to an extent. Sure, they do exist at some point in my timeline, but they act more as a law-keeping body against the outlaws more than anything.

I'm not really sure how I'd change the name of Unequivocant outside of dropping the 'PMD', honestly. Sure, there's 'PMND' or 'PND' as you mentioned as ideas, but they honestly don't roll off the tongue like 'PMD' does. And I'm not sure how it could be popularized elsewhere, like on FanFiction.net. PMD may not always be accurate to what the story is about, but it is sort of universal to mean #1.

That being said, I find it difficult to try and integrate mystery dungeons into stories due to their nature. They are honestly rather uninteresting to read about, and I don't think mystery dungeons should be what makes a story PMD or not. Now, if you want to talk about the lack of rescue teams and exploration, that could be argued for.

@canisaries

I was actually part of a role play similar to what you describe some years back. It was called 'The Story of Yewer', if I remember right. Mind you, my writing was in its infancy back then, and isn't much worth reading for my content. But the creator created some interesting characters and settings. I definitely wouldn't describe that as PMD as it didn't really share anything outside of Pokemon-only and occasional language use. It just didn't feel like a PMD story to any extent, and sometimes that's what the defining factor is--a feeling. At least, in my opinion.

 

[Ambyssin]

Speaking personally, if I see "PMD" (or the fully spelled-out) version in the title, I'm generally looking for one of two things. The first being some sort of organization that functions like the rescue teams/Wigglytuff's Guild/Expedition Society. Meaning they're out making contributions to the community in some way... even if said contributions are more antagonistic in nature. The other thing is, well, the dungeons themselves. For me, they don't have to be chaotic labyrinths like the games make them out to be. That'd be a bit... weird to do in a fic, though there are certainly ones on these forums that have pulled it off. You can definitely get away with some sort of surreal location or fantastical landmass and call it a day. If a fic doesn't have one of these, I file it under the classification of "PMD in name only." @lucarioknight56 I still think the classification fits for your story. It's got a guild, the setting has heavy magic inspirations and the environments feel like they could be dungeons, even if they're just forests, mountains, volcanoes, etc.

For what it's worth, Serebii's fic awards have a "Pokémon-Centric" category, which I think is supposed to be for stories that focus predominantly on Pokémon. But I think the category is blurring together with PMD nowadays, so I don't really know. FFN certainly has stories that, say, take place in the Poképark universe (anyone remember those games?), but that's a different spinoff.