Plan on GM'ing a SMT/Persona campaign soon and i've never actually been a GM before.
My biggest fear is the players not really having much to do or being bored through most of the sessions. Any advice on how to prevent this? It doesn't have to be directly related to SMT.
suck it up and realize it's probably gonna suck dick because you need actual experience to understand the nuance of hosting an event where you hold a group of people's attention for 3-6 hours.
What system will you be using?
Monsters and other childish things, it's been suggested in a few other threads i've seen on Veeky Forums before.
That's true, haven't thought about it that way before.
Something like this needs player initiative. The protagonists of those stories are almost always driving themselves forward even in the face of outside demands and deadlines.
Also, don't designate a "main character" or formalize things like Social Links. It doesn't work in a tabletop environment. If there's a Persona style Wild Card, every PC should be a Wild Card.
I'm going to try and give each player an important hand in the plot so there isn't a singular MC, but I have a feeling they'll designate their own leader anyway.
I was just thinking about how great a SMT rpg could be. I fucking love everything about the settings of SMT I and II.
There's quite a few systems you could use for old school SMT. Savage worlds in particular.
In japan they have an official SMT tabletop but it's never been translated to my knowledge.
How about running a game with its intended setting to begin with?
If you have no experience running games, you're only making it far more difficult for yourself by trying to adjust it on the fly.
This is good advice, honestly.
If it was some other property which maps well to tabletop I wouldn't agree, but Persona would need a skilled GM who knows their shit to adapt well. It's not something you should cut your teeth on.
As a first time DM you're bound to over estimate how much material you need prepared per session. Encourage in character player interaction with each other and you're workload lessens incredibly.
But the most important attribute a DM can have is to make things up on the fly. Your players WILL do something you couldn't have predicted.
GMing for the first time a system or setting that you probably have no experience playing with yourself is usually recipe for disaster. Don't worry though, if things get boring make them go to sleep, they have a long day tomorrow.
Since Persona 5 was released, it seems we have so many of these threads on Veeky Forums, usually by /v/ people who have never played a tabletop. Go cut your teeth on D&D, Shadowrun, Traveller, Star Wars, or one of the other entry level, large playerbase games with a lot of material readily available for novices. Don't play some niche setting with a niche system.
A few thoughts, then, since I've played Monsters and GM a weekly game using the One Roll Engine.
>Challenge Level
One key thing to understand about keeping a game in the ORE both challenging and fun is to keep an eye on your dice pools. Statistically, a dice pool of 4d is a 50/50 shot at getting at least one set, and that's about as low as you should go unless you expect the character rolling to fail. A pool of 5d-6d is fairly reliable, and 7d and up is extremely formidable, not just because you almost certainly WILL get a set but you'll very likely get a quite good set or more than one. Characters with dice pools of 7d or higher shouldn't just be using them to make simple rolls-- they should be facing penalties, difficulties and attempting multiple actions because they have the dice to handle them. This in turn makes them more formidable. If it's a player, encourage them to try riskier moves. If it's an NPC and especially a villain, make sure they're more than just regular mooks.
>Fighting Boredom
I ran a Persona game (not using MaoCT, which I actually regret missing out on) and it fizzled in large part because I made the game about the plot that I wanted to tell instead of the stories of the characters themselves. A good RPG experience is one that's driven, where at all possible, by the players and their characters. Become a fan of the characters; as a GM, you should want them to do cool stuff and arrange situations where they can. If your players feel awesome they'll have a good time regardless of how inexperienced you are.
>Be a good listener
Also, listen to what your players want and how they're feeling. When you start GMing it's going to be tricky to dial in your style and work out how the tasks you've set up unfold, so get feedback from your players.
>Rely on the rules, but don't be a tyrant
Thankfully the One Roll Engine is super easy and flexible, so it's good for a new GM.
Using this user's great post as a diving board here are some suggestions on what you should focus on:
>Create a threat that drives itself.
This is pretty unintuitive, but I think using P4 as an example might help explain it. Even if you have a main antagonist, they should be hidden from the players. There should be no particular person they're gunning for. The way I'd do it is to have something that looks like a natural occurrence be the main threat: People are getting pulled into this other world in a way the PCs can maybe predict but have to deal with themselves. P4 really did great at this, but try to aim for people the PCs care about, first, since you won't be able to aim at the PCs themselves.
>NPCs
Focus on developing these over developing stories. Just having a personality and a quirk for each, and a web of relationships among some of them, will let you work out what you need during the game. make sure they're not fucking annoying unless you want your players to hate them.
>Themed Dungeons
MaOCT is a great choice for Persona mechanics, but it's not a dungeon crawler system because it doesn't care about equipment lists and such. You're going to need to create dungeon-y situations yourself, using NPCs and the dungeons themselves. Also make sure they don't run on for too long. You don't need to grind in MaOCT.
>Themed Dungeons
This is an excellent point. Remember to play to the strengths of the system and the platform. More than just MaOCT, tabletop gaming offers so much more flexibility in the kind of scenarios you can engineer than a video game can, so do not try and replicate the experience of Persona (and SMT in general) dungeons, because it won't be fun. Instead, explore more fully the idea that dungeons are the result of a host's psychological state (as in P4 or 5), or at the very least are physically impossible places (as in P3) with distorted laws of nature. In a tabletop game, there are a lot more ways to interact with the world than in a video game.
As far as actually running a dungeon, as the user above said, there's no need to map out every inch of the dungeon on graph paper. When I've run ORE games with dungeon crawling or exploration aspects I generally create a map as a flow-chart linking interesting areas together. That way I can ask the players "the corridor forks left and right: which way do you go?", and allowing them to backtrack to previously explored areas freely. It's worked quite nice and would serve a Persona game well.
Am I the only one who is confused by Arcana?
Particularly when it comes to Persona; are you stuck as that one thing forever? I thought that the purpose of the whole fortune telling thing that you do with the Arcana was to move on and end up as The Fool.
The way I'd do it would be to have each character attached to a specific Arcana, with each of them having a unique Persona but with the ability to summon other Personas of that arcana as "assists", in a sense. That way you get the best of both worlds: a unique persona that grows along with you and the ability to assemble a roster of powerful allies as well.
That sound's reasonable.
Maybe give it a connection to your person or character theme. Like a person's persona is Vishnu and the can summon a Garuda.
Sure; in the recent Persona games personas of a given Arcana are linked either through shared mythology (such as the Justice arcana being Judeo-Christian angels) or shared tropes (such as the Magician being a lot of trickster types).
Not OP but can any of you experienced anons tell me what's so great about Monsters/ORE? Seems like it could be fun for something along the lines of a Pokemon/SMT/Jojo rpg.
I'm eternally looking for something simple to transition my lazy and inexperienced group out of 3.pf.
Cut the Persona part. It won't work. Just go full on SMT. Allow them to choose a "starter" demon, and then go from there. Treat it similar to the games. Levels increase stats (think more like DnD there, not SMT. You don't want them increasing every stat a tiny bit per level, make them gain more but less often), increase demon capacity, all that stuff. This sounds like in needs its own system honestly. Especially for combat.
Speaking about ORE in general, it's a really fun and fast system with a lot of flexibility that can be spun into a lot of different settings. To date it's been used in cosmic horror (Nemesis), gritty WWII superhero action (Godlike), bizarro modern-era superheroics (Wild Talents), iron age fantasy on a world structured around two giant humanoid figures (Reign), noir (A Dirty World), demon-powered supervillain antics (Better Angels) and, of course, Monsters and Other Childish Things.
It's nice because it lets you divine quite a lot of information from a single dice roll, it has an interesting flow of combat and lends itself very well to modding. It also handles tricky mechanics like multiple actions and locational damage in very elegant ways. And it can be taught in all of ten minutes.
For Monsters and Other Childish Things, it's cool because, in part, it's very unique. Half of it is very much about the adventures of a school-age kid, and works well for all ages therein. You can win a confrontation as easily by tackling someone and beating on them A Christmas Story style as you can by laying down a sick burn that throws them back on their heels. It's got mechanics for your social bonds, which can help you out but require that you put in the effort to maintain them. And then you add in the monster system which is just wildly imaginative and adds a layer of magical realism and comic horror (by default, monsters are supposed to be really horribly awful creatures that just so happen to be your best friend).
>SMT/Persona campaign
>putting them together in a single sentence
So do you want SMT campaign or Persona campaign? Make your fucking mind up, you can't have both.
Thanks for all the replies so far, i've been noting them down.
It is a mix of both, not wholly one or the other.
Given the VAs in the English dub of Persona 5 it is entirely possible Strange Journey, Persona 5 and Doom 4 all happen in the same universe.
>It is a mix of both
No, it fucking isn't.
Persona is "black and white" morality conflict, SMT is "everyone is a faglord" morality conflict. Which one do you want to focus on?
>Given the VAs in the English dub
That doesn't matter
That depends on the characters the players wind up making. I doubt they'll make anything that isn't persona standard but I won't take the option from them.
Is your game going to be pro-choice (players choosing between numerous available agendas) or not?
Pro choice. I'm going to give them things they can do, but I also encouraged them to think of their own agendas and work on those.
Then it's SMT-based. So plan accordingly.
Also, if you want something that can be considered a good games that pulls off the mix between SMT and Persona themes, consider checking out Devil Survivor 1.
It's basically "what if an average Persona crew got involved in an SMT conflict".
Devil Survivor 2 is also pretty much a Persona crew dumped into a rapidly degrading SMT situation.
The problem with DS2, in my opinion, is that it ditched the classic SMT themes and just went full-on Persona.
I love me some DeSu.
I was thinking about it, but wasn't sure how the players felt.
The death clock might be an interesting addition.
Quick suggestion regarding damage in MaOCT/Persona:
One way to model resistances in combat would be as follows: normal Persona skills inflict Width in Scar damage (or Killing damage in other ORE games). If you hit a weakness, you inflict Width in Shock and Scars, whereas if you hit a resistance you only inflict Width in Shock. This allows you to tactically use resistances to your benefit by being able to sling less-lethal damage at targets that you don't want to just shred to pieces with elemental force (such as potential allies).
Also/instead, you can model Press Turn and One More by letting a player use a second set they rolled as an attack if they hit a target's weakness.
Example:
Player declares an attack with her Persona's ice powers. She rolls 6d and gets the following result:
1,3,4,4,7,7
This yields two sets: 2x4 and 2x7. She hits her target with 2x7, but the target has an ice weakness; this means the attack inflicts 2 Shock and Scars, and the player is allowed to use her 2x4 as a second attack in that same turn.
I feel like this is pretty balanced. It's definitely reminiscent about how One More and Press Turn work, but it doesn't turn the entire fight into "hit weaknesses, kill them before they can move". A player can still only launch as many attacks as she has Sets, and it keeps the "One Roll" part of the One Roll Engine intact.
Man if I had a copy of Monsters on me right now I could probably write up a proper Persona conversion in like an hour.
The one thing I remember about this game is all the female characters had pretty ridiculous knockers.
Midori a cute.
You are probably thinking of DeSu2 and its "gravity tits".
There's this demography of people on Veeky Forums that I won't ever understand: people Who play a new videogame, or read a new autistic sjw "fantasy" book or watch a new anime and then istantly decide to regurgitate it in part or completely into their players's mouth as if they were mama-penguin feeding It's brood.
Go create your own settings and plots you dung beetles.
>people can only have fun the way I see fit, REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE
>>quotes the exact opposite of what I said then calls me faggot
Your Family Tree is a straight line isn't it?
>High Concept
I'm going to piggyback some suggestions as well, hoping they make sense. When you're making a Persona-themed game, you need to be a bit aware of the source material, and that more or less every game in the series had a higher concept or theme surrounding it. Persona 3 had the main characters as explorers of a sort, Persona 4 had the investigation team, and Persona 5 had the Phantom thieves.
A higher theme to your game would likely make it pop, and be a touch more interesting to play.
Read this. Or at least make sure you understand some of the Jungian stuff; it will help much more in devising scenarios and character types that fit the feel.
Yeah that sounds like a good idea, i'll try and think of something.
I was planning on having an original setting but asked the players what they wanted to play, and they all requested this. I'm fine with it.
Will do.
What happens if you One More on a set that's all the same (say five 4s). Do you roll a second set?
If it were me, I'd say you roll a number of dice equal to the width of the set you picked and work with that.
If you rolled a 4x5 and nothing else you wouldn't get another hit, but that's fine because a 4x5 is a ridiculously powerful attack, AND you're dealing Width in Shock and Scars so your damaged is doubled from hitting a weakness in the first place.
Getting One Mores wouldn't be a sure thing with this rule, but rather a nice bonus on top of dealing a bunch more damage (and knocking the target down)
T. shithead who never played Persona 2
Persona 1 and 2 have nothing to do wtih Persona in its modern iteration.
...
Honestly, DeSu1 is pretty fucking superior to Persona in terms of storytelling.
If it was Persona, Midori would never grow out of her "magical girl justice" nonsense, Keisuke would still be a fag with a JUSTICE boner etc.
One of the major themes of storytelling in Persona is accepting the others' uniqueness - both admirable traits and flaws - and helping the others change and overcome their flaws.
It was present there in P3, it was especially prominent in P4, and while I haven't played P5 yet, I'm fairly sure it's there too.
The very first thing DeSu does when it finishes with introduction is it metaphorically slams the characters against the wall and tells them "either you change, or you die".
There is no hand-holding here. There is no casual relaxedness of Persona where you can take your time and are required to waste it on superfluous shit like homework. You don't need to tolerate bullshit and waste your time on Social Links and "growing close".
"Either you cooperate, or you die". "Either you cease with your drama queen bullshit, or you die". "Either you take responsibility for your choices, or millions die because of you". And, yes, "either you change, or you die".
DeSu1 doesn't fuck around.
Sadly, DeSu2 lost a lot of aspects that made DeSu1 unique.
I don't see how this is superior instead of just like, different. They're clearly going for completely different things with their stories, and the narrative structure and themes reflect that.
>Midori would never grow out of her "magical girl justice" nonsense
To be fair, without that, we would never have gotten the best Black Frost in any game except maybe Heeho.