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[MagBurst + Persona] - Delusions are Power. Burn Your Dread! [Non-PCs welcome.]
21stCentury
Call me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered User regular
Call me Pixel, or Pix for short![They/Them]Registered User regular
alternate title: Friendship is Magic. Let's explore magic mental disorders!
This is a first for me. Actually, this is many firsts for me simultaneously, so excuse the relative roughness of this OP.
What I have in mind is a campaign emulating the setting of Atlus' excellent series of video games, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.
Here's the "specs" for this "campaign".
RPG System: Magical Burst (3rd draft)
Medium: Probably IRC for actual "Episodes", with some IC banter and such between games in this thread, possibly.
Number of players: I'm looking for at least 4 players, but more is not a bad thing. Reserve characters are handy in case real life comes in the way of some players.
Schedule: Will depend heavily on those who are interested's schedules. Thinking of having two sessions each week, maybe more or less depending on how I can handle it/players' schedules. Do note that I'm in the Eastern Timezone.
Game Style: Will be more about RPing than dungeon crawling. The system I'm using is adapted for "monster of the week" more than for dungeon crawling. It's light on rules, so if you're looking for a game where you roll a lot of dice and get +3 swords of caring, this might not be for you.
Other Notes: The system will be adapted, but it's a bit obvious from the title.
Any question will be answered if possible. This post is subject to change. Do check it every once in a while
Well, I should also mention, this is my first time running a game, ever. It's also my first time running a game over the net and my first time running a game on CF, so if I made some gross misapplication of etiquette, please tell me before calling mods, forming a mob and running me out of town. Thanks.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Game Data
1.1 Intro, Specs and FAQ
1.2 Game Mechanics
1.3 Character Sheets and Character Chart
Episode Guide
2.0 Episode 0: A Strange Contract
2.1 Episode 1: Persona & Shadow[/ur]
2.2 Episode 2: Consequences
Recap - Persona and Shadow Arc
2.3 Episode 3 [Forthcoming, I swear
What is Magical Burst?
Magical Burst is an independent RPG system. It's themed after Magical Girl series with a bit of a dark twist. It's heavily inspired by a series called "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" which I hear is pretty messed up. It's rather light on rules, light on dice and it includes power-ups from relationships. The whole setting and system is designed to start as a "by the numbers" magical girl "show" and growing more and more unsettling, dark and messed up as time goes on and as magic mutates the characters and their surroundings.
The goal of all Magical girls is to obtain 13 Oblivion Seeds from youma, thus giving the girl one free wish. Of course, there is a lot of risk in doing so. Firstly, magic is very unnatural and will usually frighten people. Secondly, magic will tend to change and corrupt those who use it or are affected by it and their surroundings. Thirdly, fighting Youma is dangerous in itself and may lead to death or worse. That is not to mention all the possible secrets of the world that may be unveiled.
The system is currently in its 3rd draft and you can find a bit more information here. This blog post includes a link to the PDF of the game as well as PDFs of character sheets and tokens.
A more complete write-up will be available shortly.
What is Persona?
Persona is a spin-off series of video games developed and published by Atlus. Set in a modern world setting, it usually tells the story of ordinary teenagers with mystical powers derived from ancient mythological figures investigating strange and supernatural events which eventually lead to the saving the world from destruction anonymously.
The games themselves use a tarot motif and, at least the 3rd and 4th games, feature "life simulation" elements such as relationships between characters powering them up. I only played Persona 3 and 4, so I can only comment on those. They both feature a lot of mythological symbolism, the main source of danger is a type of being known only as "shadows" and there's Jungian symbolism.
All you need to know about the tone of the Persona games is that it's usually dark, you usually don't have much of a clue about what's really happening until the very end, lots of hopelessness and also the effects of the supernatural events on ordinary people (hint: It's not pretty)
What will Persona Burst be like?
The campaign will be about a group of young adults (you guys) given power and awareness of the supernatural crises happening around them in the city of Aldenville (I'm a foreign and not good with names. Is this a good name?). They will fight threats unknown to everyday people, befriend others, and peek behind the veil no one sees, hopefully finding enlightenment. It will also be a tale of people driven by the possibility of getting a wish granted, a tale of rivalry and a tale of revelations.
What do we need to do if we want to join?
For now, just think of a character concept in terms of name, personality and reason to accept The Power of Persona.
You don't need to post anything, just think about it and post !Sign in: [character name], followed by your schedule (Be sure to mention which timezone you're in)
Relationships!
So complex, so anime.
It's only when a man tames his own demons that he becomes the king of himself if not of the world.
All cultures have grown out of myths. They are founded on myths.
What these myths have given has been inspiration for aspiration.
~Joseph Campbell, "Power of Myth, Mythology and the Individual"
All cultures have grown out of myths. They are founded on myths.
What these myths have given has been inspiration for aspiration.
~Joseph Campbell, "Power of Myth, Mythology and the Individual"
This is a first for me. Actually, this is many firsts for me simultaneously, so excuse the relative roughness of this OP.
What I have in mind is a campaign emulating the setting of Atlus' excellent series of video games, Shin Megami Tensei: Persona.
Here's the "specs" for this "campaign".
RPG System: Magical Burst (3rd draft)
Medium: Probably IRC for actual "Episodes", with some IC banter and such between games in this thread, possibly.
Number of players: I'm looking for at least 4 players, but more is not a bad thing. Reserve characters are handy in case real life comes in the way of some players.
Schedule: Will depend heavily on those who are interested's schedules. Thinking of having two sessions each week, maybe more or less depending on how I can handle it/players' schedules. Do note that I'm in the Eastern Timezone.
Game Style: Will be more about RPing than dungeon crawling. The system I'm using is adapted for "monster of the week" more than for dungeon crawling. It's light on rules, so if you're looking for a game where you roll a lot of dice and get +3 swords of caring, this might not be for you.
Other Notes: The system will be adapted, but it's a bit obvious from the title.
Any question will be answered if possible. This post is subject to change. Do check it every once in a while
Well, I should also mention, this is my first time running a game, ever. It's also my first time running a game over the net and my first time running a game on CF, so if I made some gross misapplication of etiquette, please tell me before calling mods, forming a mob and running me out of town. Thanks.
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Game Data
1.1 Intro, Specs and FAQ
1.2 Game Mechanics
1.3 Character Sheets and Character Chart
Episode Guide
2.0 Episode 0: A Strange Contract
2.1 Episode 1: Persona & Shadow[/ur]
2.2 Episode 2: Consequences
Recap - Persona and Shadow Arc
2.3 Episode 3 [Forthcoming, I swear
What is Magical Burst?
Magical Burst is an independent RPG system. It's themed after Magical Girl series with a bit of a dark twist. It's heavily inspired by a series called "Puella Magi Madoka Magica" which I hear is pretty messed up. It's rather light on rules, light on dice and it includes power-ups from relationships. The whole setting and system is designed to start as a "by the numbers" magical girl "show" and growing more and more unsettling, dark and messed up as time goes on and as magic mutates the characters and their surroundings.
The goal of all Magical girls is to obtain 13 Oblivion Seeds from youma, thus giving the girl one free wish. Of course, there is a lot of risk in doing so. Firstly, magic is very unnatural and will usually frighten people. Secondly, magic will tend to change and corrupt those who use it or are affected by it and their surroundings. Thirdly, fighting Youma is dangerous in itself and may lead to death or worse. That is not to mention all the possible secrets of the world that may be unveiled.
The system is currently in its 3rd draft and you can find a bit more information here. This blog post includes a link to the PDF of the game as well as PDFs of character sheets and tokens.
A more complete write-up will be available shortly.
What is Persona?
Persona is a spin-off series of video games developed and published by Atlus. Set in a modern world setting, it usually tells the story of ordinary teenagers with mystical powers derived from ancient mythological figures investigating strange and supernatural events which eventually lead to the saving the world from destruction anonymously.
The games themselves use a tarot motif and, at least the 3rd and 4th games, feature "life simulation" elements such as relationships between characters powering them up. I only played Persona 3 and 4, so I can only comment on those. They both feature a lot of mythological symbolism, the main source of danger is a type of being known only as "shadows" and there's Jungian symbolism.
All you need to know about the tone of the Persona games is that it's usually dark, you usually don't have much of a clue about what's really happening until the very end, lots of hopelessness and also the effects of the supernatural events on ordinary people (hint: It's not pretty)
What will Persona Burst be like?
The campaign will be about a group of young adults (you guys) given power and awareness of the supernatural crises happening around them in the city of Aldenville (I'm a foreign and not good with names. Is this a good name?). They will fight threats unknown to everyday people, befriend others, and peek behind the veil no one sees, hopefully finding enlightenment. It will also be a tale of people driven by the possibility of getting a wish granted, a tale of rivalry and a tale of revelations.
What do we need to do if we want to join?
For now, just think of a character concept in terms of name, personality and reason to accept The Power of Persona.
You don't need to post anything, just think about it and post !Sign in: [character name], followed by your schedule (Be sure to mention which timezone you're in)
Relationships!
So complex, so anime.
21stCentury on
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This section is specifically for those who don't want to read the full rules to Magical Burst or simply don't want to be potentially spoiled (The document does include a lot of stuff I might draw upon, so not reading some stuff might be best if you want to be consistently surprised)
So, if you don't want to read the full 50-page document (And I understand the sentiment, we live such busy lives (myself excluded, of course) ), you might want to read just this post. Also, this post will detail the few mechanical changes. (Note: They are mostly cosmetic).
Character Creation
This is a very light system, so character creation is mostly about personality and character concept and only slightly about rolling die and jotting down numerical values. The only real constant is that your character signs a contract to get powers in exchange for the possibility of a wish if he/she does the work well enough.
What you need to keep in mind, for now, is that there are 4 things to figure out about your character:
*His/Her Name
*His/Her personality (Might want to summarize it a bit)
*Why are you signing the contract?
*What do you want granted?
There's more to it, but we'll get to it when doing the character creation.
Now, in terms of numbers, you have 2 sets of attributes: Normal Attributes, for everyday interactions and Magical Attributes, those of your Persona. (You'll notice, if you read along, that I changed the names to something more persona-y)
Normal Attributes
*Guts, which is your ability to get pumped up. Will be used when fighting in non-magical ways, for example. Also used for physical challenges.
*Courage, which is your ability to remain calm in stressful situations.
*Charm, which is your ability to socialize with people.
*Intellect, which is your knowledge and ability to figure things out.
Magical Attributes
*Ethos, which is based on your positive emotions. Ethos is about your confidence, it's about how people like you, it's about friendship and love.
*Pathos, which is based on your negative emotions. Pathos is about channeling anger, it's about causing jealousy, it's hate, it's violence.
*Logos, which is purely neutral. Logos is just your magic aptitude.
Resolve is your capacity for damage in magical battles. The base resolve starts at 18 for everyone.
Relationships are a bit complicated. They can be used in various ways during the game and allow you to get various bonuses
A relationship map will be used. Each relationship is linked to a magical attribute. Ethos are normal friendships, Pathos are rivalries or friendship that arise from battle, Logos are relationships that arise from Supernatural involvement. Each relationship is, however, considered a positive. If someone's your enemy, don't add them as a "pathos" relationship. PCs can and will have relationships with each other, and they can be different (IE John might think his relationship with Jill is Ethos, while Jill might see her relationship with John as being Logos or even Pathos.)
Playing the Game
A session is called an episode. The structure of an episode is roughly...
*Introduction: The PCs establish where they are/what they're doing and the GM (me) throws some sort of hook. For example, mysterious disappearances linked to Shadows.
*Investigation: The PCs try to solve the hook. For example, use magic, contacts, etc. to learn more.
*Climax: The PCs find and combat the episodes' main threat.
*Aftermath: The denouement and immediate consequences.
Challenges are pretty much always done by rolling 2d6 and adding it to the proper attribute. When rolling for a magic challenge, anytime you roll a 6, you take a point of overcharge, roll another die and add it to the result. There's no limit to that, so if the bonus roll is a 6, take another point and roll again. In magical challenges, you can also intentionally take a point of overcharge to add a dice and can add up to 3 die.
Overcharge is a neat concept in this game. It's the consequence of using magic. Think of it as radiation. Each magical attribute can accumulate overcharge. You accumulate it by taking certain actions (such as signature moves), rolling "too well" or to roll better results. However, accruing overcharge has consequences of its own.
Moves are actions you can take during the main phase, and during battles.
*Disrupt or help. You can roll your Guts or Intellect against their Courage to disrupt someone else' actions and force them to change the attribute they'll use in a challenge. You can also help someone and give a +1 bonus to someone's actions, +2 if you have a relationship with them. Only one person can disrupt or help at a time
*Locate someone/something. Roll for intellect. Get a high-enough result, you get a lead. Roll a bit low and you might get a lead and a penalty (like suspicion from whoever you're looking for). Depending on what you're looking for, you might need more leads.
*Eyeball a fella Read a person. Roll for intellect. Higher results and you can ask the GM (me) more questions, such as if they're telling the truth or how you could get them to X.
*Read an enemy. You roll your support stat. Might let you learn their weaknesses, why they're being dicks or how to dodge their attacks, for example. This is also how you can read other Persona users (but only while transformed).
*Dominate. You roll Guts. You can steal their stuff, scare them into spilling the beans or, if you roll high enough... kill someone.
*Bond. Roll charm. You can affect your relationships by bonding, repair them, get new ones, or change the attribute they're linked to.
*Run Away. Roll intellect (Might also accept guts), roll well enough, you get clean away, just succeed and you might be chased away.
Using Sorcery, or your magic powers can be as simple as rolling your support stat. If you succeed by only a slim margin, you have to choose between subtlety or getting the result you want.
Using Magic for non-magical things is okay, but if you incur any overcharge, you'll automatically transform.
Note: When outside of battle, the magical stat you use (Because support is meaningless outside of battle) has to be suitable for the action and character.
Battles
At the start of each round you pick one of your attributes as the Offense attribute, one as the defense attribute. The third will be your support attribute.
Initiative order is simply ranked from highest effective Offense attribute to lowest. You can take a Reckless action by adding to your effective rank and taking a penalty to your defensive attribute equal to it.
Attacking is fairly simple, compare attack roll to defense roll. Overcharge on the offense stats adds to the damage done. Damage is simple 1d6 + half the offense stat (rounded down) + overcharge. There are 3 "special" methods of attack.
-Attacking multiple targets: It's a normal attack, but for each target after the first, your Attack result and damage take -2 (can't fall below 1) and you have a -1 penalty to your Defense next round.
-Signature attacks: Works like a normal attack with an added effect, always incurs 1 point of Overcharge
-Team attacks: Any number of Personae can do a team attack. You need to hold your turn so that all those involved attack at the same time. You must also all have a relationship and use the same attribute for Offense. A team attack gets a bonus of +2 to the result and damage on both attacks.
you can do a clash if you haven't acted yet and get attacked. winning the offense vs offense roll will negate the loser's attack and damage it. You can clash when someone else is attacked and doing so can remove strain from a relationship.
You can cover someone who's being attacked but hasn't yet acted by rolling your support stat. Succeed well-enough and you even take half damage. This can remove strain from a relationship.
If you ran out of resolve, you can attempt to Revive your Persona by doing a support roll.
You can also Hold your action until after someone else. Useful for coordinating clashes, team attacks or to prepare to cover someone.
Normal humans (which include people with personae with 0 resolve) always go last and die from any hit enhanced by magic. good luck.
Relationships in play
They can get damaged by various ways. If a normal person if affected by a PC's magic, mark down a point of strain. Relationships between PCs take a point of strain whenever they feel like they should. If PCs fight each other, it's one automatic point of strain. if a relationship reaches 3 points, it's broken and the PC loses 1d6-3 points of resolve. The relationship needs to be repaired before it counts as one again.
You can sacrifice a relationship to get better results on a roll or regain resolve. The strain, in this case, represents the PC burning away their ability to relate to someone.
On the other hand, by Bonding successfully, you can take out points of strain or even add a "charge", a "bonus" point that can be used instead of taking a point of strain.
Fallout
Lastly, dealing with overcharge. Use too much magic and bad shit happens. you can remove overcharge at any point, but if you reach 6 or more points on an attribute, you're forced to deal with it immediately or right after the "scene" wraps up.
1 overcharge: Can be removed at the end of a scene for free.
2-3 overcharge: Can be used to cause a distortion.
4-5 overcharge: Can be used to cause a "flare" of magic.
6-7 overcharge: Will cause a change in you.
8+ overcharge: A burst will happen. don't let that happen.
Also, you can't deal with overcharge in chunks, if you deal with overcharge, it's all or nothing. Fallout depends on the affected attribute
Experience and Advancement
You get XP for each episode and can spend XP to raise attributes, resolve or get a new signature move or magical effect.
+1 XP for participating in a session
+1 XP for defeating a shadow
+1 XP for building a new S. Link
+1 XP for getting closer to your wish without magic (You can also change your wish if necessary)
Also, each player can award +1 XP to the player of their choice.
For 5 XP you can buy an Advance. Pick an Advance from those below, but you can only take a given Advance once. If you take all of the available Advances, you can start over.
+1 to a Magical Attribute
+1 to a different Magical Attribute
+1 to a Normal Attribute
+1 to a different Normal Attribute
+4 to Base Resolve
Gain a new Magical Effect or Finishing Attack
And that's Magical Burst in a nutshell.
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Silas Brown as Ryan Marble (Tuesday - Friday 9:30 PM - 3:30 AM, All day Saturday)
The Anonymous as Bradley Allen, (anytime except 11pm-9am AEST)
Capfalcon as Marcus Porter, (after 7:30PM "pretty much any day I don't have work.")
Rawkking Gooddguy as Melanie Court, (subject to change) (anytime but Sundays)
Simulacrum as Amy Something (Subject to change) (Available from 11:00 am to 4pm pst. Monday through Sunday)
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!Sign in: Ryan Marble
I'm available for gaming shenanigans (gamanigans) Tuesday - Friday 9:30 PM to - 3:30 AM EST and just about anytime Saturday.
Players (cont.)
Player: @Marshmallow
Name: Joscelin Wright Personality: eclectic, composed, and fairly unmotivated. He has a lot of fear about his future, but lacks the wherewithal and drive to do anything about it, ignoring his unease about it when he can, and getting morose and lashing out when he can't. Why Sign?: Bored of regular life Wish: To get a do-over and get my life back on track. Persona: Dormath the Plaguehound Resolve: 22/22 Element: Decay Effect: Magic Boost - Ethos Power: Super Athleticism Effect: Magic Shield Effect: Swift Action Weapon: Staff Special Attack: Decrepify: Debilitating Attack [Logos] Guts: 3 Ethos: 7 Courage: 7 Pathos: 6 *** Charm: 8 Logos: 7 * Intellect: 5 Changes: Maddening patterns on Persona Gender swapped: Now a girl! Pallor: With a slight greenish tint S. Links Attribute Strain Notes Parents [Pathos] XXX They push him to succeed and he resists, but still likes them well enough Coffee Shop Coworker [Ethos] 000 He works and spends a great deal of his time at a coffee place, mooching drinks and wifi. Hawk [Logos] 0XX There's a predatory bird that nests near his apartment, he's taken a shine to it and leaves meat scraps out for it. He'd be pretty pissed if anything threatened it or its home Stephanie Melpomene [Ethos] 000 Ambitious, if a bit self-centered Girl he met in a dream. She Friendzoned him. Seraphim [Ethos] 0XX Strange Angel. Formerly Don Douglas, dead guy. Now a litteral angel. 31 XPPlayer: @Zandracon
Player: @Simonwolf
Player: @Vagrant_Winds
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I'll post up a sub, if you need it, though.
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What does that mean? I'm quite new to this forum, the slang is lost on me somewhat.
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I've had a link there since I started the thread... No one noticed it, though, not even you.
Also, you gonna sign up or not?
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I'll make a character, and, if you have room later, I'll jump in.
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Can you post a general schedule, please?
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is that an official sign-up?
If so, maybe you'd like to give me your character name in bold, lime print, like Silas, or rather, Ryan Marble did.
Check out my site, the Bismuth Heart | My Twitter
Bradley Allen, available anytime except 11pm-9am AEST.
Marcus Porter, Available after 7:30PM pretty much any day I don't have work.
It, uh, may be a little wonky for the next few weeks, as I transition from work to school, so just giving you a heads up.
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Character name still not known, I'd like to think about what type of character I'd make for this for a few days if we have the time, and that includes picking an appropriate name for him or her. Melanie Court as a placeholder I suppose.
EST time zone with a very flexible (currently unemployed) schedule (what with me posting at 5:44 AM :T). Busy on Sundays due to commitments to another game.
I assume this is probably not first come, first serve but you picking some people out?
I will be picking people out based on their schedules, but aside from that, it might be first come first serve. I'm going to keep this thread open at least a week before taking the pick and I'll try to include as many people as possible. I know how people sometimes flake after the first session and I also assume it might not be up to par for some (you know, this being my first time and using an indie system that's also not yet finished). So, you know, If I only get 4 people (And, well, I kinda did), I won't be satisfied. Too risky to end up with, like, just 2 players.
So yeah, at least until Saturday, I'm recruitin'.
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Available from 11:00 am to 4pm pst. Monday through Sunday.
In other words, it's now-ish or never-ish if you want to play-ish.
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Good news is that we can probably squeeze a good 3 hour session on Wednesday nights (9:30 PM to 00:30 AM, Eastern) and a longer one on Saturday nights (8:00 PM to whenever, Eastern). I don't know if it's worth keeping the Wednesday night, but at least we have Saturday nights going well.
Bad news is, well, simulacrum can't play with that schedule. I wish she(?) could play with us, but it doesn't fit the schedules. Sorry, simulacrum.
So, is that a good-sounding schedule for everyone else? Get me your feedback, if any.
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Now I just need to figure out what Melanie is wishing for.
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Oh, no, I should've been clearer. I have something in mind, I'll send you a PM later, but we'll be having a short session to make the characters this Wednesday.
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I can't wait to see what you cook up, 21stCentury.
Oh, it won't be just me, I have something in mind specifically to get the creative juices rolling.
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But, hey! I'm able to stop earlier than expected, with my last day being the 10th.
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Oh, no, it's not a bad time. It just means we'll have to push that to satudray. On the upside, it might mean we'll have enough time to play after rolling.
Also, it leaves me more time to get ready (I'm a slacker, hehe)
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Alright, we had a nice session last night and I feel it set the mood well. Now, we need to do the last step in character creation: The first relationships.
Simply put, we will build a relationship map for all characters.
This is the map so far.
It's pretty much empty. Of course, it'd be silly to think that all these people have no relationships at all, so what we'll do is, one at a time, we will add S. Links.
Pretty simple: Save the image, add a S. Link, give a short description and pass it to the next player. We won't go in any particular order. When it's your turn you can either add a new character and link him/her to your character OR link with another character. It would be good if every PC had at least one S. Link with another PC.
A short refresher on Relationship attributes:
Also, you can't have a relationship with The Mysterious Man. Not yet, at any rate.
We will each have 3 turns to add to the S. Links, including me. I will go after you 4. It might be handy to call a relationship before drawing on the map to avoid concurrent relationship maps.
Go!
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(p.s. next person to save the file as a JPEG will have their doorbell rung every night at midnight. Don't let it be you! :P)
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Can we get an example of a logos relationship? Seems kinda hard to define, especially at this point of the game.
And yes, two PCs can have different relationships with each other. Read the post :P
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