Challenge the Orange Islands
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Introduction
The Orange Islands is a community at Smogon that focuses on the actual Pokémon games as opposed to playing competitively against others. As such, the members in Orange Islands have devised many ways to keep their experiences with the games new and interesting. This is where challenges come in. With challenges, players limit themselves in various ways such as using a Monotype team, using only Pokémon received from the Wonder Trade, or even refusing to evolve any Pokémon on their team. These challenges provide an element of difficulty and a flair that the games otherwise would not provide to most experienced players.
Two of the most popular challenges involve restrictions set not by the player, but by his comrades. The Scramble and the Gauntlet Challenges are different from most challenges in that restrictions are requested on the forums and then submitted by other users. These challenges are more inclusive, giving other users a feeling of involvement as they watch a friend struggle through the challenges they've so elegantly devised.
Beware, however, that these challenges are not as easy as they might seem. The Scramble Challange takes a great deal of awareness to meet every requirement. The Gauntlet Challenge restrictions add up incredibly quickly if one is arrogant enough to allow too many submissions. Despite this, these challenges have become popular throughout the Orange Islands and offer the difficulty that experienced players seek, as well as the satisfaction of completing the game in an unfamiliar way.
The Scramble Challange
The Scramble Challange (yes, we know about the typo) started off on Smogon in April of 2010, actually accruing so many replies that the 500 page limit required a second thread to be made in 2011. The main idea of a Scramble Challange is that the person taking the challenge has no control over what Pokémon they end up with. A team of six Pokémon is selected by forum users and each one is given specific limitations. These limitations can range from "X Pokémon must use Y move every time it enters battle" to "Z Pokémon is not able to evolve until it solos this Gym Leader." The whole idea behind it is to add some increased difficulty and to broaden the scope of the in-game Pokémon we use to include those outside the S-tier.
These challenges, at least the best ones, include an element of storyline and are often humorous. The storyline is the entertaining reason that a certain Pokémon has these restrictions, such as a predominantly male Pokémon being overly shy and unable to fight against female Pokémon, or a Pokémon that is so eager to please his trainer that it forces himself into the party's lead spot and tries to take on any type that resists its STAB type.
How to Make Good Scrambles
There are a lot of things that go into constructing a good Scramble, not the least of which is making a solid request post. When making your request post, make sure you've read the first post of the Scramble thread, especially the rules. I know this sounds obvious, but a surprising number of people still forget to include things they should. You'll almost certainly want to set a difficulty for your Scramble, as setting a difficulty gives you the right to reject or request modifications to Pokémon that you think fall outside of your difficulty range. Another thing you can do is set your own personal restrictions on what people can give you. Consider if you want people to be able to prevent your Pokémon from evolving, or to kill them off permanently, or restrict you outside of the use of that Pokémon (i.e. preventing you from using your bicycle) before posting. If you don't want that stuff or other things you can think of, you should post rules in your request post that exclude it. If someone does break your rules or gives you a Pokémon that conflicts with other Pokémon you've already received, you can reject the challenge or request that they change it. It's usually better to request a change first if possible; otherwise, people might be less willing to give you a challenge in the future. Only reject a challenge if there really is no way to reasonably fix it. There's one more thing that you should do in your request post, and that's to list the Pokémon you receive and their associated challenges as you get them. Having all the challenges listed in one place really helps the people giving you Pokémon to avoid giving you conflicting challenges and also helps them to balance out your team better.
Of course, the biggest burden of creating a great Scramble falls on the people giving out the Pokémon. The first and most important thing to do before giving someone a Pokémon is to read their request post and check all the Pokémon they've already received. Keep in mind the rules, requested difficulty, and other Pokémon (especially any with solo challenges) when constructing your challenge so that you don't break any rules or create a challenge that conflicts with one that's already been accepted. The other thing you need to be careful of is to make sure that all the elements of your challenge actually work in the version the runner is playing. Checking Bulbapedia or other info sources can help you check things like the availability of Pokémon, items and moves, locations of trainers, when events occur and so on. Use this information to help build your Pokémon's challenge. If you can't come up with anything, looking at information like this can help you generate ideas.
The most important thing when creating a Pokémon's challenge is making sure it works as you intend it to and that it isn't incredibly boring or frustrating. Coming up with a good backstory is great, but forming a challenge that works is much more important. In the same vein, creativity is less important than functionality. Even if your challenge is simple and somewhat derivative, it'll be better than a unique challenge which creates an unpleasant experience for the player. If you realize that your challenge would be a massive pain to complete or that there's a really easy way to sidestep your challenges, then it's time to rethink it. Remember your goal is to make a fun challenge for the player, not to show off how sadistic you can be. If you find that your first few Pokémon have simple and somewhat unimaginative challenges attached to them, don't worry. Coming up with good stuff takes practice. You'll get better as you give out more Pokémon and do Scrambles yourself.
If you still want some tips, then here's a good one: some of the best challenges force the player to do things differently than they normally would without forcing them down a single path and depriving them of choice. For example, a good challenge of very hard difficulty can involve taking a Pokémon like Lapras. Lapras has lots of ways to defeat opponents without attacking directly, so a challenge that prevents it from attacking directly can work well on it. This forces the player to do things differently than normal, but still encourages them to come up with their own strategies due to the large number of options available to Lapras. Another tip is to use late-game solos to ensure the player actually uses your Pokémon. This is most useful when your challenge is very hard and the runner might be tempted to just not use the Pokémon at all. For example, having the Lapras from the earlier example solo an Elite Four member gives the player the option of either spending a lot of time grinding it at the end of the run, or just using it throughout the whole run and leveling it up naturally, which most people will end up doing. Be careful when giving out solos, though; solos are the challenges that conflict most often with previously given challenges, and they can also be a lot harder than intended if you don't think them through!
The Gauntlet Challenge
The Gauntlet originally started two years ago but fell in activity around the same time that Scramble did. A new Gauntlet 2.0 thread has triggered a resurgence in its popularity and brought the challenge back to life. The concept is that the player is given four or so Rule challenges that must be followed at all times, such as a cost for using the Pokémon Center or a limited BST for Pokémon usable in battle. The player is then given several Event challenges that only take effect at a given point in the game, such as soloing a Gym Leader with a Pokémon caught in the route before that town or beating the Elite Four without using any in-battle healing items. The specific Pokémon used are usually not picked; however, the teambuilding is typically restricted somewhat. It still gives the player a bit more breathing room compared with the Scramble Challange, however.
These challenges are known to look easy yet stack incredibly fast in difficulty. One restriction that may be okay to deal with on its own suddenly becomes a burden when partnered with another restriction. A cost of healing usually isn't much of a struggle until it is also paired with throwing out an item whenever switching Pokémon. The challenges in this example work together to deplete money and to make it far harder to actually heal Pokémon. As a player, one should not take more than three or four Rule challenges, because they stack and only get more difficult to deal with as the game progresses. It is usually okay to take several Event challenges because they do not stack.
How to Make Good Gauntlets
Since Gauntlets and Scrambles are similar, a lot of the same advice applies. However, there are a few additional things to keep in mind. First off, it's important to understand the difference between Event challenges and Rule challenges. Rule challenges apply throughout the whole game, while Event challenges only apply to a brief section of the run. Because Rule challenges apply throughout the whole run, they stack with each other, which means that the more Rule challenges you accept, the harder the run will be. On the other hand, Event challenges stack only with Rule challenges, not each other, so you can take as many as you want without making the run harder overall. As mentioned before, because of the way Rule challenges stack, it is highly recommended one does not take more than four per run. You really, really shouldn't go over this limit unless you want to end up grinding out sections of your run, either by resetting repeatedly until you get a desired result or by intentionally overleveling.
Other than that, most of the same advice applies to making your request post. List a difficulty, list some personal rules if you really don't want to deal with certain things, and record all the challenges you're given in your request post. When accepting challenges, think about how they interact with the other challenges you've already received. If you're not careful, you'll end up accepting challenges that make your run a LOT harder than you initially thought it would be due to how they interact with the challenges you already have. The trick of the Gauntlet Challenge is that you're not taking these challenges in isolation; the difficulty lies in how they interact with each other.
Compared with Scramble Challanges, giving out challenges for a Gauntlet is a bit simpler in that you aren't expected to include any narrative justification for your challenge, but harder in that it requires you think more about how your challenge interacts with the other challenges the player has already recieved. If you don't, not only might you make a challenge that just flat out conflicts with another, you could end up giving a challenge that is far harder than intended. A big offender of this is challenges that give the player's Pokémon a limited number of faints before they "die." This prevents the player from retrying battles over and over until they succeed, which can make many previously manageable event challenges incredibly perilous. Another important thing to keep in mind is to make sure you're only giving out one Gauntlet instead of two. Make sure any extra conditions on your challenge are necessary for the main challenge to work; otherwise, they count as their own challenges, and you could unintentionally go over the two challenge per run limit.
Conclusion
The Scramble and Gauntlet Challenges are unique among challenge runs in that each one is the product of many people coming together. This leads to some of the most complex, interesting, and unique challenges you can do. While they do require a little extra work compared to other challenge runs, if you take the time to do that work, the reward is pretty great. If everyone puts a little bit of effort in, Scrambles and Gauntlets can end up being some of the most fun you'll ever have playing Pokémon.
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