Recently, me and my local group have been discussing the idea of playing a campaign based around the Persona series.
How would we go about this? Are there any rules systems, homebrew or not, that would best fit for such a game? What kind of style and mood should such a game have?
boards.fireden.net/tg/search/text/Persona/type/op/
depends on which game you wanna base it on. If you are doing 5, then just listen to the battle theme. That should give you all the information on tone you will ever need.
For a system, I'd suggest a somewhat recent one called kamigakari, with a few key changes for balance. I think the thread that is currently up has those listed by one user.
If you don't mind using the Storyteller System from oWoD, a friend of mine cobbled together a Persona fangame with it. It mixed the fluff for some retarded reason, but you should be able to just ignore that and run things without regard to all the crossover stuff.
I'm pretty sure he's asleep right now, but assuming the thread doesn't get archived then I can message him about it and share the stuff here once he gets back to me. He should be fine with it since our group isn't really putting it to use and likely won't for a while (if we ever do at all).
If you homebrew things, I'd say use the Arcana as the base.
I mean the Arcana is the means by which all is revealed after all.
You could use the Minor Arcana as statistics.
Cups - Love, spirituality, and compassion.
Wands - Passion, desire, and ambition.
Coins - Luck, wealth, and health.
Swords - Authority, strength, and responsibility.
And of course the Major Arcana being used as character archetypes.
For example: Want to play someone career focused, but with a major vices? Your Arcana is the Devil.
There probably is a homebrew system for it out there somewhere, although I'm not sure where someone would find it.
So theoretically, if there was a system built just for persona, how would the persona of each arcana play?
General themes for Persona of each Arcana:
>Fool - Generalists, no specific weakness or strengths. Jacks of all trades.
>Magician - Magically oriented (obviously), they are usually fire oriented.
>Priestess - The flipside to the Magician. Still magically focused, but here dealing with healing and support magic instead.
>Empress - Like the Priestess, the Empress' Personas have healing and support magic, but unlike the Priestess, they will also have offence. Typically associated with ice as an element.
>Emperor - The Emperor Arcana is associated with Lightning and physical power.
>Hierophant - The Personas of the Hierophant are balanced, with no weaknesses, but with no particular strengths either. Whether between the elements, or between magic and physical natures.
>Lovers - Another healing and support Arcana.
>Chariot - An Arcana focused on physically strong Personas.
>Justice - Usually focused on healing and Expel based magic.
>Hermit - Status infliction, specifically mental statuses (such as charm or confusion)
>Fortune - Typically wind based.
>Strength - Another physical powerhouse Arcana.
>Hanged Man - Want something tough? The Hanged Man Arcana is filled with Personas that hang on and keep going when others would die.
>Death - Responsible for the Dark type skills (such as the Mudo line)
>Temperance - As its name indicates, this Arcana's another of the well-rounded types. No particular strengths or weaknesses here.
>Devil - A mixture of negative statuses, and Darkness abilities.
>Tower - Another physically focused Arcana.
>Star - A minor focus on air and ice. Nothing particularly interesting.
>Moon - More physical Personas.
>Sun - As might be guessed, the Personas of the Sun Arcana are focused on Expel and Fire based abilities.
>Judgement - Balancing Light and Shadow, the Personas of the Judgement Arcana have both the Expel and Darkness abilities.
>World - The "fuck you, I win" Arcana. The personas here tend to only appear at the end of game.
>
Monsters and Other Childish Things. It even has rules for social links.
I made a homebrew to play SMT style campaigns. It was a heavily edited 5e homebrew with different classes, gun mechanics, press turn, demon summoning and fusion, item fusion, SP (mana) and generally completely overhauled magic including a kind of magic crafting and "physical skills" which were sort of like magic for STR builds.
It kind of worked but it needs balancing as the numbers get fucked after 4th level (out of 10). My friends seemed to really enjoy it though and none of them had played SMT before. I'll post it once I actually do some of the rewriting but it had a lot of issues I don't know how to fix. Mostly it was a little too crunchy for the sake of being similar to the games systems, combat ended up being only 1 or 2 rounds every time (although I still can't decide if it was a bad thing) and rounds take forever with everyone having a demon.
If you don't care about SMT style and just want a Persona style game do what this user said . It's already got rules for social links. You'd just need to homebrew some Personas.
At that point wouldn't it just be easier to make a whole new system?
Sort of. I basically did make a new system that just used the d20 system and at this point I'm considering even changing that after playing it for a few months. I felt the need to mention it started as a 5e homebrew though because I feel like you can still sort of see it.
I'm really curious about any opinions people have though about the problems I mentioned or just how they would like an SMT TTRPG to play like. I never thought I would get as invested in it as I am but I'm really enjoying making it and based on the number of threads I've see I think others would get use out of it.
I had the vague idea of a SMT style game in savage worlds. For time's sake you'd be limited to only 1 demon to summon if you wanted them to fight with you and would need edges/the equipment to summon, but anyone can have a demon in their possession.
To mimic the dark whispers or whatever you'd simply be limited to taking one of the demon's edges when you advanced, or going with skills/attributes like normal.
This way it'd encourage not sticking to 1 demon throughout the campaign and maybe fusions could happen if you recruit a demon while you already had one? I hadn't thought that far into it yet.
All the groundwork for spells guns and such would be in there already, they'd just need renaming
>and maybe fusions could happen if you recruit a demon while you already had one? I hadn't thought that far into it yet.
What I did was I let players have more than one demon but they can only summon one then I made a few different summoning and dismissal spells. Fusion is easy if you just use a demon list from a game and use the fusion chart from the same game.
The Wild Talents thread that's currently going on has a few suggestions. Go check it out
I've always loved the tarot aspect to Persona; it really tickles my pickle.
Seeing how the symbolic meanings of each arcana are put into "real" world usage is quite interesting.
how "out there" should a single person be able to get?
necronomicon was pretty weird, but what's the upper limit?
Oh, I'd say there's a number of options. After all, Personas can get pretty wild.
It depends on what Arcana you're going for as well.
There's an upper limit?
Imagination, and archetypes to use.
I repeat, there's an upper limit?
I repeat
>Let's not do that.
I mean, not really in all practicality.
What would a player character with the Tower arcana be like, since it's the most negative out of all the cards?
Well, the important part of the Tower is its self-destructive nature.
A character of the Tower Arcana is likely in a slump, or out of work, or struggling with some crisis, caused by their own actions.
But equally, they're likely to be too prideful and arrogant to resolve it themselves. They will need the help of the other PCs and their social links to come to a positive conclusion.
Personas of the Tower Arcana are often gods and beings that have undergone vilification. Alternately, they are beings who cause great destruction and devastation through their actions.
I would assume someone going through a disaster, like a guy with a terminal illness.
Once more my expertise is being called upon. OP, there's only one game that will truly fit the nature of the Persona and SMT series. Monsters and other Childish Things, a ORE system game.
Between the relationship systems, the monster mechanics, and capabilities of underage characters, it just fits so well.
With Persona 5 exploding and the board actually interested in ORE I'm finally going to put together the MaOCT conversion I've been speculating on.
You can extremely easily convert anima into an SMT/persona game
I'd play it, or get a group together for it. It probably wouldn't be too difficult.
>and SMT series.
It's really annoying to me that people keep saying this. Monster and other Childish Things is perfect for Persona. It's HORRIBLE for an SMT style game. There are no systems for guns or hacking which are huge parts of SMT, characters in SMT often are young adults not children and there is no social mechanics other than demon negotiations.
For an SMT style game you are better off using something that already has good rules for gun play and hacking.
So what are some decent names for personas?
take a mythological or nearly mythological figure.
Any of those.
Historical figures work as well, especially if they've seemingly transcended into the public consciousness. I'm talking criminals like Billy the Kid, or famous rulers throughout the ages.
well yeah, but thats what i mean by near mythological. People that have done such crazy shit or are perceived to have, to the point that they are myth's in their own right.
I've always wanted to see a Zmey Wawelski
Which arcana, in your opinion, is the best arcana?
The fool, obviously. Empty, but with infinite potential.
To be a memelord though, ZA WARUDO.
It's the clearly the Devil.