Persona Tabletop RPG

>Official Discord Link: discord.gg/aWZMuZP

>Dropbox: dropbox.com/s/t02qopw556wlk2m/The Velvet Book (Draft 0.4)_HQ.pdf?dl=0

>What's this?
For about four months now, I and a group of mostly /tg posters have been working on The Velvet Book, a mod for Monsters and Other Childish Things that converts the game into Shin Megami Tensei: Persona. While not finished it is fully playable!

>Features
--Build your Persona any way you want with complete freedom of design. Playtests so far have included a unicycle robot, glam rock Medusa, and English highwayman Dick Turpin riding a half-horse, half-motorcycle

-Using Monsters and Other Childish Things' Relationship system, we have a fully integrated and fleshed out S.Link system that also incorporates the Arcana in meaningful ways

-Rules for going to school, managing your time, running away from trouble, dealing with difficult school friends and all the other stuff one expects from a Persona game.

--A Shadow Compendium with 33 ready-to-fight enemies pulled right from the Shin Megami Tensei playbook

>This Thread
Ask questions, give suggestions, post comments, whatever! We're also looking for more playtesters, so hop into the Discord to set up or join a campaign.

And here's the Velvet Book itself. There's a higher quality version in the dropbox link, but this is perfectly readable.

These are the character sheets, though our players have cooked up a number of digital sheets as well that work well for online games, whereas these are optimized for live-table play.

Here's an example of a Major Shadow built with the rules we've worked out for GMs to create boss encounters. Major Shadows have Gimmicks, which allow them to alter or manipulate otherwise standard rules to create unique combat scenarios (such as King Frost's ability to summon a blizzard when he enters the fight, and then summon powered up Jack Frosts to back him up).

I don't have any questions, but cool stuff good work

Thanks! It's been a lot of fun working these details out and even more fun watching the playtests go on and collecting data. Response from players and GMs have been very positive, so clearly we're doing something right!

I might actually be able to get my weeb ass friends to play this as well everyone loves persona

If that's the case then they should be pretty happy with this; by all accounts of the playtesters it hits all the important notes of the Persona games.

One thing to note is that it is a _true_ mod of MaOCT, so you'll need it as the core book, at least for the GM role. But that's okay because MaOCT is a real cool book that you should read anyway.

I have maoct from my ill fated attempt at running a roll20 game of it where all the players dropped out

I have maoct from my ill fated attempt at running a roll20 game of it where all the players dropped out

Fuck mobile sorry for double post

Sorry to hear that. I finally managed to get a game of MaoCT going with a group of friends and holy shit its been a blast.

I like the Gimmicks that bosses in the Persona version have, I actually started using that in MaoCT to keep fights a little more interesting.

If you haven't seen the current draft of the GM chapter (omitted from the rest of the Velvet Book), here's the list of Ready-to-Play Gimmicks from it.

Thanks, this looks neat. My players in MaoCT steamrolled the first "boss fight" they got in, so I told them that in future sessions I would give enemy monsters skills and abilities they wouldn't have access to, and they were ok with that.

Combats not really a big focus in my game, but when in happens I want it to be good.

>Genderfluid Lover
Huh. Perfectly on-theme for the Arcana actually, not sure why I never thought of that idea before.

One of the things that we're striving to do with The Velvet Book is to assemble an encounter budgeting system so that a GM can set-up a fight at a certain challenge level that takes into account variables such as how many players are on the field and how much their Personas have grown. It's still being tested obviously but the current tests are promising.

One of the things that we've tried to do with the Shadows in the Velvet Book is make each of them a unique encounter of their own. For instance Valkyrie, pic related, is extremely durable and quite strong, but on-top of being a powerful direct attacker, her "Recruit the Fallen" Useful allows her to bring back defeated Shadows as allies to attack or distract players. She therefore has dual roles of being both a direct attacker and a squad leader.

Every single Shadow in the Compendium (we're at 33 so far, 3 for each Arcana, meaning we're about halfway done) has a unique ability like this. It's honestly one of the most fun parts I've had with this game.

bump

I'd be interested to see some of the more "boss-like" Shadows statted too, like the Full Moon shadows or tips for making Shadow Selves.

Has anyone here listened to the Drunk and Ugly podcast mentioned onbthe first page? Would you say its worth listening to?

I've listened to it, its all right. I did it before I started running my own game and it was nice to see an actual game in action but I mostly found myself wishing I was running it instead.

They have a bunch of different campaigns for MaoCT and it took me a while to find one I found remotely appealing.

We have Shadow Mitsuo from P4 if you're interested.

I like it. Interesting and dynamic fight that well enough copies the mechanic from the game.

Is the persona series really that interesting to make a game out of it?

Listened to it a for a long while, but I've gotten a bit tired of some of the people there. Wish they still did MaOCT or something like it. Their superhero stuff was real tired, and that Nate fuck really needs to get a grip

It's a good mix of style and interesting stuff. Why the doubt?

Better question is why not

>tfw I realized P5 was jrpg psychonauts
this seems neat

OP here, I like it and it does a few things that are a very nice way of integrating Persona into MaOCT, such as having the characters incur Shock to the relationship connected with their Persona when they evoke them, which is a really nice way of putting limits on Persona usage. I also really like the sound and music that the GM put into things. But the overal sound quality was kind of off-putting and the game really plays more like MaOCT with a hint of Persona added to it. So it's good inspiration for this project but I wanted to go a bit further.

bump

it is, play if you can

I got it on steam and the game crashed and deleted my save.

It ruined it so badly for me that I'll never finish it now.

Thanks for your response, OP. The reports of your faggotry were greatly exaggerated.

You could ask this about any media product, but in short, yeah! It's a game about high school students weaponizing their subconscious to fight existential threats born from the psychological maladjustment of the human race. It's got some real meat on it, and you can take that basic premise in any number of directions.

bump

Would you prefer your group's Personas to be from anything, or do you want them to follow a theme? Or come from the same mythological source?

Honestly, that's more of a DM decision. Personally I would prefer something that ties the party together like how Persona 5 all has famous thieves that eventually become trickster characters, usually deities. It's cool

Based on our playtests it's best for players to have some kind of unified theme in their Personas. What we've found is that having very broad or non-existant thematic or mythological criteria can actually be kind of hard to work with because players WANT their Personas to be part of a theme so it winds up in their court as to what that theme is.

Some examples of themes we've had:

-Explorers
-Greek Mythology
-Medicine
-Rogues and Killers
-Constellations
-Death

Could you expand on what Death means? Like famous people who have died in famous ways? Or more like the interpretation of what Death is in different cultures?

Actually I was mistaken, the game I was thinking about wasn't Death it was Revenge. Personas include The 47th Ronin, Edmond Dantes and King Tut, pic related (courtesy of one of our awesome Discord members)

That's pretty cool actually. I would join in one of those campaigns, but I'm already kinda drowning in games and other responsibilities so I don't think I'd be able to anytime soon.

I've also never played a game of Monsters or anything so I don't have very much experience with it. Tried to make an adaptation of Persona in it's own campaign a little while ago. It didn't work out well, but it gave me enough ideas so that I could start making my own thing that is actually working out pretty well.

Who is your persona, Veeky Forums? Mine is John Henry.

I've wanted to make a Persona game using the Norse gods & myths for the basic... cult like aspects of it but I'm not sure what should be the catalyst of the game.

I've just been sort of inspired by the idea of The World Tree, and that the PCS are able to travel up and down it. Players start in an extremely dangerous position, one of the Roots.

OP here, what I'm working on presently is a guide for GMs in creating their own Persona World.

The first thing you need to answer is :

>What is the nature of the Other World?

You've got the basics of it, the World Tree. Now figure out why it's there. What purpose does it serve? Is it an inherent part of the human condition (as in Persona 4 and 5)? Or is it some kind of unnatural phenemona that needs to be dealt with (as in the Dark Hour in Persona 3). How do the players get there? What affect does it have on the real world? In P3, the Dark Hour presented an immediate, existential threat to the human race. In P4, the Midnight Channel mostly just endangered individual people, but given enough time could be a serious problem for the whole world. In P5, the Metaverse isn't inherently dangerous unless it's misused. So ask yourself, how can events in the World Tree affect the Real World?

Calamity Jane

Last time I was in a Persona game I used Bellerophon post-fall as a Tower Persona.

As for me, personally, fucked if I know, mate, I'm not honest enough with myself to give you an actual answer.

Leroy Jenkins

I'm sort of intending for The World Tree to just sort of be a representation for the world; with like each branch and root being sort of like a miniature universe full of monsters and other beings.

Generally beings stick to their own little branch on the Tree, but something has happened to pull the PCs and other's from their place and now they have to climb up the tree.
I'm just not sure what that was.

So then it's like the Dark Hour in Persona 3-- a phenomena detached from the normal human condition that the players can explore.

The question you need to address then is "Why do the players need to enter the World Tree?" Is there something to be gained from it, or do the players need to avert some kind of crisis?

Well the beginning of their journey up the Tree is motivated by fear. They start off at the roots, which is an awful place to be, full of aggressive monsters, shadows and general negativity.

Aside from demons and an immortal dragon hunting them, I'm just going to assume that everyone would want to go home. Where it is safe.

First and foremost check with the GM. Even if he doesn't have a specific requirement for your Persona's origin, ask about themes that would be present in the campaign so you can have something fitting.

I had my group pull from the Ars Goetia because of various reasons tied to my campaign's plot. Working in other sources would've required some rewriting and changing of details that are crucial to the plot I have so far, but with sufficient justification I would've allowed it.

Allowing free reign with Personas would be well-suited to one-shots and shorter ventures, though.

I am a GM for this system, and I gotta say, its been fun creating encounters. Mechanically, something like a music rehearsal or talking shit to the school bully functions the same as combat.