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BrainParasite posted:Yay! It looks like Steamtunnels And Stabbings has its first play tester. A Mazes & Monsters LARP where you play a dangerously unbalanced gamer LARPing their M&M character? Yes please!
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Feb 10, 2015 20:48
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Glorified Scrivener posted:First; I admire that you've created something, appreciate your zeal for your own creation and your kind condescension in pointing out my wrong thinking, but I've read through your thread and kickstarter page and playing your game is way, way down on my gaming bucket list, right after running Fatal and then getting myself killed during a LARP in a steam tunnel. But, thanks - though you might want to soften the sell a little if you don't want people to think you're a self promoting heel, as I do! This is going to replace Jimbozig's stern moral disapproval of all possible pirate play as my Strike! anecdote of choice.
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Feb 10, 2015 20:51
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I would rather eat a live monkey diagnosed with AIDS than play Strike! Was that enough? Because I ain't eating that monkey, I'm just trying to express how edgy and/or angry I am.
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Feb 10, 2015 20:56
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I would rather eat a live monkey diagnosed with AIDS than play Strike! wh-what if the monkey was a 1:1 solid chocolate replica of a monkey, like some kind of great Bizarro Easter treat would you eat the monkey then i need to know for market research reasons 
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Feb 10, 2015 21:00
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:I don't know how those work in 4E, but I like what you're describing a lot, actually. The only reservation I have is what happens at high levels when a simple Agi spell is no longer useful: spending psionic points then becomes mandatory in order to use skills at a competitive level, so it's real important that the math ends up working out here. Conversely it would also be good to have something to spend SP on even at level 1, if for no other reason than to get people used to the system. How about if domains can "ascend?" Let's say a character's max SP growth is fairly shallow, but instead of just getting more expensive things to spend SP on, they instead get to "ascend" a couple of domains so that everything they encompass costs less SP, or that you get more bang per SP spent. Like, if you ascend the Fire domain, everything gets bumped down a tier. Agi gets replaced with Agilao as the baseline, Maragi is gone, Maragilao costs as much as Maragi used to. Then you'd get access to some awesome poo poo like Prominence at the top end. Hassou Tobi would be a top-end Swords domain skill that requires that you ascend the domain to get it, and God Hand would be the same for Martial Arts. You'd maybe be able to ascend two or three domains by max level; maybe you get your first ascension at the start of tier 2, your second at the start of tier 3, and maybe you can ascend one final domain when you hit max level as a capstone (though maybe there are better capstone ideas). Some feats/passives might have "must have at least one ascended physical/magical domain" as a prerequisite. Hyper Crab Tank posted:Here's a thought: why shouldn't you be able to have a fire spell that also inflicts poison? I realize there is virtually no precedent for this in the source material, but I also think like, a Garu spell that also silences or confuses, or even Poison Agi, sounds pretty cool. You touched upon something else, which is differentiating the physical domains to be more than just Cut/Stab/Bash. I think that's something that should apply to all domains in one form or another. Even if you don't go the route of splitting Bash into two separate domains for instance, give all them something special they do other than just be a particular element. Experiment a little outside of the established box. I'm oddly resistant to "fire spell that inflicts poison" somehow and I'm not sure why, so I'm sure I'll get over it. I'm definitely looking for ways to diversify individual domains, though. I'd rather have character building involve picking a small number of versatile domains instead of picking a large number of really specialized ones, if that makes sense. One example of an idea I have that I'm not completely sold on is that I've got these Mind and Corruption domains. Mind encompasses "mental" status effects and kind of boils down to crowd control. It's got your Pulinpa, your Tentarafoo, your Marin Karin. Corruption has the "physical" status effects or "damage" status effects, but there aren't a ton of those, so I thought maybe it'd be the mirror of the Inspiration domain and include the whole -unda spell line. One thing I'm trying to do is seeing if I can stat out existing Persona characters using this "domains" approach and using that as a guideline. Like, let's look at Kanji. Bludgeon domain is obvious, as is Electric. He's also randomly got Rakukaja and Matarukaja thrown in there. Does that mean maybe a few -kaja and -unda spells should get scattered around to other physical and magical in case nobody wants to grab the whole Inspiration/Corruption domains? Or did Kanji also pick up the Inspiration domain and just didn't grab too many skills from it? He'd be able to do that under this system. You've got room for four domains by the time you get to max level, and Kanji's skill list (not counting the Golden Social Link and bike skills) only requires three. The same is true of Chie, though she has a mix of attacks that are traditionally "cut" attacks and more bashy/martial artsy skills. Maybe to completely stat her out you'd need Martial Arts, Swords, Ice, and Inspiration (though she only took Tarukaja from that). Yukiko can probably be statted out with just two and she's awesome (Fire and Recovery). Naoto, though, she's a tricky one. For the Golden version of Naoto's Persona, we're going to need: Light, Dark, Almighty, Swords (Vorpal Blade, Blight), Fire (Agidyne), and Wind (Garudyne), and that's before getting into Social Link (Inspiration for Heat Riser) and Bike (Bufudyne, Ziodyne, Myriad Arrows) skills. Harrow fucked around with this message at 21:07 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 21:00
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Ningyou posted:jesus gently caress dude calm down Yeah, probably for the best to take a break from the forums for a while. I think it's cool what Jimbozig is doing, that he's got supporters, that the game is funded and that other people are enjoying it. People should play the games they enjoy. I also think that; Jimbozig posted:So you've got a slew of assumptions here that you probably aren't even aware that you're making. Is a pretty condescending way to lead in to a pitch for his game. If it's agreed that replying to that with some sarcasm, then agreeing with his major points is anything besides silly, then yeah it's time for me to take go away from the thread/boards for a while. For the record Jimbozig - I don't really think you're a heel. I do think you could possibly soften up your sell a little bit and maybe not use the exact phrase "you probably aren't even aware" It makes you sound arrogant. Anyway, always happy to be quotable, see you all at some future period.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:03
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Ningyou posted:wh-what if the monkey was a 1:1 solid chocolate replica of a monkey, like some kind of great Bizarro Easter treat But how would it be a live monkey if it were made of chocolate? Also angry goon on goon fratricide makes me sad, have some boss battle music to cheer everybody up.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:03
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Davin Valkri posted:But how would it be a live monkey if it were made of chocolate? Magic, nanomachines, or radiation. Though they're all the same thing where nerdgames are concerned 
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Feb 10, 2015 21:08
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I would sooner abrogate a contract than play Strike
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Feb 10, 2015 21:18
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Holy crap, Lois, this game of Strike reminds me of when I tried to play 4e! *Insert hilarious non sequitur*
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Feb 10, 2015 21:33
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So, uh, how would you handle the MC in your Persona rpg? DMPC? Not have it come up? Just let them swap character sheets at will?
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Feb 10, 2015 21:35
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Rockopolis posted:So, uh, how would you handle the MC in your Persona rpg? DMPC? Not have it come up? Just let them swap character sheets at will? Not have it come up, probably. I think my rule would be "either everyone's a Wild Card or nobody is." So I might include some optional rules for switching Personas and gaining new ones if you wanted a game like Persona 1 and 2, where everyone could switch Personas, but the "base" game would assume everyone has one Persona that changes forms as the character levels up (by confronting their fears and weaknesses).
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Feb 10, 2015 21:40
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Rockopolis posted:So, uh, how would you handle the MC in your Persona rpg? DMPC? Not have it come up? Just let them swap character sheets at will? I think there was discussion of not having an MC and just not worrying about the fusion/collection aspect of the game and I honestly think that's a good way to go for a narrative-focused game. Crafting your own custom persona that represents something about your character and growing that should satisfy the charop urges for a lot of people, with this talk of domains and other growth. P1 and P2 just had everyone as wild cards which is fun in its own way but involves the whole complication of fusion and capturing demons and whatever, and trying to balance all that out would just be nuts.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:43
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Glorified Scrivener posted:Is a pretty condescending way to lead in to a pitch for his game. If it's agreed that replying to that with some sarcasm, then agreeing with his major points is anything besides silly, then yeah it's time for me to take go away from the thread/boards for a while. No worries, dude. If I wasn't prepared to be verbally poo poo on occasionally, I'd have retired from SA years ago. As for what I meant by "penalties that aren't tracked" I simply meant narrative things like "...but the evidence was destroyed" or "...now Jerkface McBadguy knows you stand against him" that could be consequences of a fight but without being something you have to write on a character sheet.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:46
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Regarding a Persona RPG, I'm also interested in help with character stats. My current idea is to take Persona 4's social stats and use those as the only stats, because your Persona is where most of your powers come from and it's made by your personality. So every character's stats would be Courage, Diligence, Knowledge, Understanding, and Expression, with no physical stats at all. HP would pretty much represent your will to keep fighting more than your physical health (your Persona protects you using your will to go on, and once it can't anymore, the next hit KOs you), so it would probably be determined mostly by Courage and Diligence.occamsnailfile posted:I think there was discussion of not having an MC and just not worrying about the fusion/collection aspect of the game and I honestly think that's a good way to go for a narrative-focused game. Crafting your own custom persona that represents something about your character and growing that should satisfy the charop urges for a lot of people, with this talk of domains and other growth. P1 and P2 just had everyone as wild cards which is fun in its own way but involves the whole complication of fusion and capturing demons and whatever, and trying to balance all that out would just be nuts. If I include "everyone's a Wild Card" rules, it'd probably just involve giving players more chances to build custom Personas, but each individual Persona would have fewer opportunities to be versatile. So, instead of ending up with a single Persona with four or five domains, you'd have three Personas with two domains each and you'd be able to switch between them via some mechanic. You'd build them the same way, maybe flavored in some way to feel like Persona fusion but without actually being that. Maybe there would be opportunities to fuse two of your Personas together into another custom Persona with some of the qualities of each. It'd be an alternate form of progression, mostly. Harrow fucked around with this message at 21:55 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 21:48
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I think one of the biggest strikes against Persona fusion, aside from the whole "building attachment to your Persona" thing, is how intrinsically complex the process is. The video games hide a lot of that from you, but the whole process end-to-end is a lot of clunk on paper. Just figuring out what Persona you get and what skills you can inherit is completely non-obvious. There is a pattern involving levels and what arcana the original Persona are, but the rules are different between games and is not easy to grasp from observation. It comes down to trial and error. In paper terms, this sounds like a massive table of some kind. The process gets compounded if you want to support triangle spread, cross spread, and other special fusion modes. Which brings up another point: if you're not creating your Persona from scratch, you need to provide and stat up a shitload of existing ones just to have something to fuse. Then you need a drop system that makes sense... in the games new Persona just pretty much fall into your lap while you're fighting stuff.
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Feb 10, 2015 21:58
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Ningyou posted:wh-what if the monkey was a 1:1 solid chocolate replica of a monkey, like some kind of great Bizarro Easter treat I would like to say yes but then I look a the Reese's egg in my freezer from 2014 and have to admit to my failures. 
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Feb 10, 2015 22:00
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moths posted:A Mazes & Monsters LARP where you play a dangerously unbalanced gamer LARPing their M&M character? Yes please! A Mazes and Monsters TRPG would be a game where you're an insane nerd who thinks they are their M&M character, and have to survive as long as possible in college without getting taken away to a sanitarium/prison/death.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:08
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The Vosgian Beast posted:A Mazes and Monsters TRPG would be a game where you're an insane nerd who thinks they are their M&M character, and have to survive as long as possible in college without getting taken away to a sanitarium/prison/death. That just sounds depressing, and possibly offensive 
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Feb 10, 2015 22:20
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Alien Rope Burn posted:I would like to say yes but then I look a the Reese's egg in my freezer from 2014 and have to admit to my failures. Monkey is actually delicious and you should try to eat a non-chocolate one regardless of whether you're going to play Strike or not
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Feb 10, 2015 22:21
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I remember some blog that was reverse-engineering the M&M "rules" from how it was depicted in the movie. I wish I could find it again.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:22
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If you wanted a non-depressing version of that idea, you could try to sort out if D&D is just urbex with magic and monsters or if urbex is D&D with flashlights and cameras.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:27
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Yeah, Wild Cards are something it's totally cool to skip, considering the different dynamics of a singleplayer video game versus a group playing a TRPG. It's just that when you're building on having a Persona representing the true self, well, what's it mean for the odd one out who just picks whatever is handy? Are they just a born politician, or are they the the token sane person surrounded by a pile of one dimensional caricatures? Is there not actually a consistent pattern? Rockopolis fucked around with this message at 22:36 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 22:28
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Rockopolis posted:Yeah, Wild Cards are something it's totally cool to skip, considering the different dynamics of a singleplayer video game versus a group playing a TRPG. Maybe that's what the Fool Arcana is for in this, then? I'd been looking for a place for it--I'd been considering using it for some sort of party-wide thing--but maybe what you're describing would be perfect for a character with the Fool Arcana. My character/Persona creation process sort of starts like this: 1. Come up with who your character is. Name, age, backgrounds, all of that. 2. Pick an Arcana that fits who your character is. It should fit their strengths, weaknesses, etc. Don't build a character around an Arcana--just find the one that fits the character you've already come up with the best. One rule: each Arcana can only be used once. No repeats within the party. 3. Pick a mythological figure, deity, monster, demon, "classic" literary character, legendary hero, or anything along those lines to be your Persona. Try to find one that fits your Arcana the way your character does. (Alternatively, switch steps 2 and 3: make your character, pick a myth/legend/character/whatever they identify with, then pick an Arcana that fits them both.) 4. Pick two domains that fit what your chosen Persona can do in its origin story/myth/legend/whatever. Or pick domains that are symbolically appropriate, in the extremely likely case that your chosen Persona's origin character doesn't have any/many supernatural powers. For an example of picking appropriate domains, let's go with Yukiko's starter Persona, Konohana-Sakuya. In the myth where that figure originates, she's connected to cherry blossoms, which are a symbol of spring and life. She also gave birth in a hut to which she set fire. So, Konohana-Sakuya the Persona starts with the Healing and Fire domains. This fits for her ultimate Persona, Amaterasu, too--a creator goddess linked to the sun. Healing and Fire. It's worth noting that the games themselves don't always strictly limit a Persona to the powers its mythological/legendary origin would suggest. Chie's Persona, based on the female warrior Tomoe Gozen, has physical attacks, which makes sense... and ice magic. For some reason. Yukari, from Persona 3, has Io, a Persona based on a mythological character who was a Naiad, a river nymph. She probably would have had water magic if it was an option, and I think they wanted to give ice to Mitsuru to go with her stoic personality, so Io kind of got wind magic because that's what was left. So step 4 up there isn't written in stone. The game breaks from myth/legend often enough that if a player wants to, I can't really fault them. When the game does so, it's usually to fit the character, rather than the Persona, like giving Mitsuru ice or giving Yukiko wind (air is often an element associated with intelligence and inspiration). Giving Chie ice never made a ton of sense to me, but it's probably just to round out the elemental selection for the first four characters, and it's notable that she stops getting new ice spells after Bufula (or Mabufu in Golden) anyway. Harrow fucked around with this message at 22:53 on Feb 10, 2015 |
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Feb 10, 2015 22:46
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I would suggest asking players to also provide a little bit of backstory regarding when and how their persona awakened. I mean, that fits within "background", but it's something worth emphasizing because I think it ties in with the whole "overcoming personal emotional challenges" advancement thing. I'm thinking mainly of how Persona 4 treats the process as crossing a personal emotional threshold and learning to accept and embrace your inner darkness. Your mileage may vary, but I prefer that over it just being a matter of using the right piece of technology (i.e. evokers) or just straight up being granted the power to do it for no real reason.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:56
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Hyper Crab Tank posted:I would suggest asking players to also provide a little bit of backstory regarding when and how their persona awakened. I mean, that fits within "background", but it's something worth emphasizing because I think it ties in with the whole "overcoming personal emotional challenges" advancement thing. I'm thinking mainly of how Persona 4 treats the process as crossing a personal emotional threshold and learning to accept and embrace your inner darkness. Your mileage may vary, but I prefer that over it just being a matter of using the right piece of technology (i.e. evokers) or just straight up being granted the power to do it for no real reason. Either that, or the first session should include the awakening scene for everyone. I could see people wanting to play it either way.
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Feb 10, 2015 22:58
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Comedy option; use the Maid system. Sure, confronting your inner darkness and all that jazz is good, but it pales in comparison to bumping up your relationship numbers with the
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Feb 10, 2015 23:12
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Rockopolis posted:Comedy option; use the Maid system. Sure, confronting your inner darkness and all that jazz is good, but it pales in comparison to bumping up your relationship numbers with the You go and have
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Feb 10, 2015 23:16
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...but not for any of those other groupies. Given how Maid is so adversarial. In fact, those moochers can die in a fire. MC-Sempai and those sweet, sweet Social Links are all yours. I'm pretty sure if I ever played a Persona rpg, I'd end up playing Jacket. The inner darkness, the school uniforms, the varying Personas and improvised melee weapons, the mute MC...the awakening is totally just Igor asking "Do you like hurting other people?"
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Feb 10, 2015 23:36
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Goddammit, stop channeling White Wolf's Persona the Evocation/Awakening/Shadow whatever and creeping me out! 
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Feb 10, 2015 23:49
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Rockopolis posted:...but not for any of those other groupies. Given how Maid is so adversarial. In fact, those moochers can die in a fire. MC-Sempai and those sweet, sweet Social Links are all yours. So what's Jacket's starter Persona? Cockatrice, the rooster-headed beast that kills with a look? Give him a bunch of physical skills and the Mudo line and we're good to go.
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Feb 10, 2015 23:56
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So what I'm getting from this is, I should at least watch a Persona LP. Which game should I start with? Is there an ongoing narrative? Are there some good Let's Plays of them?
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Feb 11, 2015 00:03
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There's a great LP of 3 in the LP Archives, written as the main character's blog.
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Feb 11, 2015 00:04
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The Persona 4 anime does a pretty decent job of telling the story of the game. Just keep in mind that Persona 4 The Golden (the one on Crunchyroll) is all the side story stuff they added for the PSP version.
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Feb 11, 2015 00:06
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paradoxGentleman posted:So what I'm getting from this is, I should at least watch a Persona LP. You can start with any of them. They take place in the same continuity but each story is independent, so you can start wherever. (The one exception is Persona 2, which is actually two games that tell one story.) If you like narrative LPs, there's one of those in the archive. There's also an LP of Persona 4's Vita rerelease, Persona 4 Golden, on the archive that isn't narrative. I'm not sure how it is, since I haven't read it, but the game's great so it can't be all bad, right? If you have some way to play PS2 games, PSP games, or PS Vita games, you can play any Persona game in one form or another. The first one is kind of clunky, even for its time, and Persona 2's combat isn't great (though the story is excellent), but 3 and 4 both hold up quite well. And yeah, the Persona 4 anime is pretty okay, all told. I don't know if I like the decision they made to have the Personas do all the fighting--in the games, the human characters fight with weapons and only use Personas for special attacks--but in general, it tells the story well and it's plenty entertaining.
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Feb 11, 2015 00:08
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Some of my favorite LPs are narrative based, but am I still going to understand the mechanics of the game if I watch those?
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Feb 11, 2015 00:12
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paradoxGentleman posted:Some of my favorite LPs are narrative based, but am I still going to understand the mechanics of the game if I watch those? Yeah, probably, though the videos of the battles in the Persona 3 narrative LP are gone because they were on Vimeo. There's also a narrative LP of Persona 3 Portable which uses the (not technically canon but who cares) female protagonist added for that version that still has its videos up. I haven't read that one, though.
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Feb 11, 2015 00:14
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If you just want to know the basics about anime men turning their emotional issues into monster battles, any LP should do. Persona 4 Golden came with a neat extra feature about the basics of Carl Jung's theories of psychology, which is where the terms Persona and Shadow come from. that's a bad LP though don't read it
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Feb 11, 2015 00:16
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Really Pants posted:If you just want to know the basics about anime men turning their emotional issues into monster battles, any LP should do. Persona 4 Golden came with a neat extra feature about the basics of Carl Jung's theories of psychology, which is where the terms Persona and Shadow come from. Any LP with a running tally of senpais can't be all bad.
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Feb 11, 2015 00:24
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paradoxGentleman posted:So what I'm getting from this is, I should at least watch a Persona LP. I've only played Persona 4, but my understanding is that Persona 1 and 2 are different beasts entirely, and the stuff that's interesting you would mostly be in 3 and 4. (Also, this line of conversation just reminded me to check out the trailer for 5 and god drat.)
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Feb 11, 2015 00:24
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