Persona's Back Cover wrote: Imagine if you could simply announce a character concept to your group and that would be enough--that would be character creation. Imagine if you could change your character at any point during the game. Imagine if you could buy the skills your character needs at the exact moment he needs them. Now imagine that I'm not talking about a namby-pamby freeform storytelling game. That's PERSONA.


Discover the character that you want to play as the game progresses.

Every die roll is an opportunity to develop character.

Built in customization allows a group to shift narrative power from the GM to the players and vice versa.

Complete list of modifiable character traits, or Fragments, to choose from.

Pragmatic advice (from one of the game's original creators) offered throughout the text.

As a guinie pig for some of Tim and Mike's many creations, I have to say that persona was definitely their best. On the fly character creation was a great way to jump start any game at the drop of a hat. Taking the time to make characters, NPCs and all the book thumbing that slowed down many other games we tried (and enjoyed) is gone.

To emphasize a confusion/dislike I had, is assigning skills or traits on the fly. At first it seemed untrue to character building. But as I got used to the game, you realize that your character had these abilities all along, but because you haven't "rolled" for them yet, you haven't assigned them a number yet. Also, this allows the party to be more cohesive. Many times, characters don't mesh or overlap. In persona, your character is fluid enough that he can change instantly. You don't have to trudge through several sessions building up points or just start from scratch.

In any case, Persona is one of the best systems I've played under. It's greatest advantage it had in our group was the big decision of what system do we want to play tonight. The question now becomes, who wants to GM tonight.

Hey all...I'm Mike, one of the orginal co-designers of Persona. I'm also the person who is babbling inanely at you in all the "Mike Says" boxes scattered throughout the text...the gruff and loveable hardened roleplayer "who just dosen't put muh' truck in all that fancy-smancy roleplaying theory, consarnit"

Which really isn't much like me at all, mostly - I'll usually debate roleplaying theory till the cows come home. But I think that too much theorizing detracts from the main point I want to make to you - Persona is a really playable game. Really. So playable that even your angry "I'll never play another homebrew roleplaying system in the world" gamers might be converted to it.

The thing Persona is best at is a standard pick up game. I'm totally not kidding you when I say this is how my Persona game startup times look:

[3 minutes] I explain the setting for the game.
[4-10 minutes] People come up with character's and describe them (and, if I'm looking for a fast/funny game, these descriptions could literally be as short has "some sort of super cyborg ninja"...but cool characters are the heart of any Persona game, so some thought isn't entirely unwarrented)
[begin playing]

And if you have to explain the system to people, that's an extra 10 minutes max - (plus maybe five minutes dealing with the question 'So you're saying I buy my skills *after* I roll? Isn't that cheating?').

As far I am concerned, Persona makes pick up roleplaying possible for me. If my group had to spend an hour making up characters every time we wanted to just try out something different, we'd loose all motivation.

So if you're planning on a pick up game one of these days, I encourage you to try out Persona. I mean, this game is so fast, if you don't like it after 2 hours, you still have time to play a totally different game.

Mike

Haven't had a chance to read it yet, but it sounds like a good game-length treatment of something I slipped into Fudge 11 years ago... :)

http://members.dsl-only.net/~bing/frp/fudge/fudge7.html#sec7.41

A couple questions about the format. Are you only offering the print pdf by email request because you plan on selling it? And if not, then why not just offer a link on the website? Bandwidth issues?

Thanks,

Chris

I think that this is a cool idea but...

1) I think it will get unwieldy fast -- once the number of fragments gets large, it will be impossible (or just unpleasantly slow) to run the damn game. My suggesion here is to have an "expiration date" on Fragments. Either a certain number / session "dissolve" back into the CP pool, or all those that aren't used for 1 (or 2 or whatever) full sessions dissolve. When fragments dissolve, they just give you their purchase CP back, so they aren't exactly "lost" at all -- they come back whenever you need them. They are just no longer narratively important for the character. This also means that "character advancement" doesn't need to exist at all -- characters merely adapt as appropriate to the situations at hand.

2) The rules about extra dice are just silly. Get them out of there.

3) It seems to me that the sample difficulties are very very high. Is this intentional? A guideline for difficulties would be very useful.
I also find the comment that difficulties represent character definition, not difficulty, to be very important, and I think it needs to be emphasized more -- generally speaking, you won't fail unless you want to. Difficulty is a matter of how much the character is invested in the challenge.

4) Spending points to "block" interesting scenes seems totally counter productive. Interesting scenes are good. Also, just losing two character points seems wildly contradictory to the nature of CP in the game. Perhaps the 2 CP could shift to the blocked character, rewarding them in "character coolness" for their inability to do their cool scene.

5) I find "mike's notes" not particularly helpful. I know how to make this more like a normal RPG. I don't need some fellow cutting in and telling me all over the place.

6) Why do talents and equipment take more CP? Wouldn't it be easier to go 1 for 1 on CP, rather than 2 for one with strange mods?

yrs--
--Ben

ejh,

Hey, good ideas get recycled all the time. :-)

I assume that you have some experience then with on the fly character development. How did this change the way players looked at their characters?

One of the things that I tried to emphasize in the Persona text was the notion that a player will constantly think about where he wants to used his unspent points. In other words, a player might be thinking to himself, "where do I want to take this character in terms of development?" And I'm not just talking about skills in the traditional sense here either.

A very powerful take on Persona Fragments gives players the ability to create things out of thin air. Because Fragments are used for everything from combat skills, to comrades and enemies, to an emotional link between a location and a character, by purchasing a Fragment you can really direct the flow of play. Doing this on the fly, or just in time, can create some interesting plot twists. For example, a character might be an Arthurian knight, fighting to save his dearest love. Well, there's nothing stopping the player from spending a boat-load of points to suddenly discover that his boring old sword is really the cousin of Excalibur. Bam, the story goes off in a wildly different direction. This of course works with any genre.

What's important to me, when I play Persona, is that I have the feeling that I, Tim, don't know exactly what kind of character I'm playing. It's a mystery to me. It's not until I purchase a Fragment that I know how my character would handle a particular type of situation.

Regards.

Chris,

The email request format serves mostly as a means for me to gauge interest. Given time and depending on what I decide to do with the game in the future, I may just post the print version alongside the html one. But for now, flood my inbox. :-)

Regards.

Ben,

Let me take this point by point:

1) From chapter 6: "When you are rolling 6D6 and have well over 500 Character Points, the average Challenge isn't really a challenge. Do not be afraid to set a character aside and begin again, tabula rasa. A blank sheet gives you the chance to discover a new set of personae, and a different person altogether. If the group decides to end a campaign and start another, you may try bringing an old character back, but throw away your old character sheet. Do not try to recreate a character. Discover him again."

I think putting an expiration date on Fragments is a interesting idea. In my mind however, a character is defined for the length of a short campaign, at which point all of his Fragments expire so to speak. Then, if the group decides to start up a new campaign with the same characters they do so from scratch. Of course players could just buy up similar Fragments, but they aren't limited in this way.

And please notice that I said short campaign. I agree with you. Over the long haul a Persona character needs to be reset, or else you run the risk of making challenges very predictable and boring.

2) Ahh, you've hit on one of the great Persona debates. It was Mike and Ben vs. Tim in the design phase. This is also the reason I included the Mike Says box wherein he recommends ignoring the rule. However, I'm still not convinced. Can you give me more details? Why do you think it's a "silly" addition?

3) Sample difficulties weren't really set intentionally high. For the most part I wanted to make sure that there were enough interesting things going on in the examples so as to show off the system. Let's face it, if all of the examples had DRs of 2, they really wouldn't be very helpful examples. On the other hand, speaking from experience, you really do want to have DRs around the example numbers. Remember, the point is to force players to purchase Fragments. It's not going to happen on every roll, but in order for the game to progress, it has to happen on many of the rolls.

As for difficulty representing character definition, you're right on. Let me just clarify by saying that you won't fail unless you want to most of the time. You are also limited by character points, especially if you're the type of player that likes to spend them as soon as the GM dishes them out. In such cases, it's easy for a spend-happy player to get left in the lurch. He'll be stuck making harder DRs, waiting for the other players to spend all of their points before the GM gives out a new supply.

4) I really like the idea of giving the "blocked" character a reward, instead of punishing the "blocker." This of course, would encourage players to interject with scene requests. There is however an abuse factor that may crop up. Player thinks, "Hmmm... I need some points. How about I just request a totally outrageous scene that I know someone will block?" Social contract would go a long way to prevent this though.

I'm going to think some more on this. Actually, this is one of the few rules that received a lower amount of play-testing than all the rest. So, I'm very open to suggestions.

5) I'm wondering if others wouldn't appreciate a few designer's notes however.

6) Not really sure what you mean here. Maybe you misunderstood.

All Fragments are purchased at the ratio of 2 to 1 except for the two Fragments discounted in Switch #3--they're 1 to 1. The purpose here is to allow a group to emphasize certain Fragments that coincide with their collective goals/preferences.

Or maybe I misunderstood your comment?

Regards.

fleetingGlow wrote: ejh,

Hey, good ideas get recycled all the time. :-)

I assume that you have some experience then with on the fly character development. How did this change the way players looked at their characters?

A few things:

First, your requirement for an email to get the print PDF will probably limit your feedback since a good number of people on the Forge like to download a PDF and look over it carefully a few times before making any comments.

Second, as i'm not one of the afformentioned careful readers anything i say will be based on a single read-through.

The Fragment list seems superfluous. Why not simply provide some guidelines instead of building an artificial (seems that way to me) breakdown of ways to describe a character?

The resolution (3d6) doesn't seem to fit. Why use it at all? Why not simply decide on a difficulty and just require that many Fragments? Or perhaps roll Fragment number of d6's (similary to Universalis).

Why do you get points for things like Fear? They are an integral part of the character and could just as easily be advantages as disadvantages. If you have a deathly fear of dogs then when you are running from them the burst of adrenaline should probably help instead of hurt you...

Why can't you assign your own Wounds and stuff?

I also second the idea of 1 CP per 1 Fragment level. It seems kind of silly to do a 2 to 1 just so you can then offer a special discount... I would think that focusing on a single (or pair of) Fragment type(s) could be handled through Social Contract.

That's what i get from my first read. I just thought i'd make the comment that this seems very similar to Ralph and Mike's Universalis except that you have a traditional GM/Player split going on.

Thomas

Thomas,

Let me just say this: I don't really want to make this into a discussion of delivery methods. I understand that by requiring an email to get the print version, I will cut off some people, but that's the choice I made. And just to satisfy everyone's curiosity, the print version isn't really suitable for easy print jobs at all. In fact I made it up as a booklet, suitable for binding at a place like Kinkos, as something cool for all the people involved in play-testing. It looks pretty good if you ask me, and anyone who wants it is welcome to request it. Otherwise, the web site isn't going anywhere and you can peruse at your leisure. Still, I appreciate the input. Enough said on that.

In a way, the Fragment list is that set of guidelines that you're talking about. Of course a GM or the players can modify that list by creating new Fragments or deleting existing ones. Out of curiosity, can you be more specific on why you think the list seems superfluous? I might be better able to address the issue if I had a few examples to work with. Or maybe you'll convince me to change it. :-)

The Fear Fragment again points to using the Fragment list as a set of guidelines. You get points for Fear because it's supposed to be implemented only as a hindering addition to your character. Of course if you don't agree, then there's nothing stopping you from making an adrenaline rush Fragment, or the like. However, I think it's nice to have the option of positive and negative Fragments. There's very little a player can do to gain points on his own. The negative Fragments address that issue in a small way. To be sure, negative Fragments are in the minority in Persona.

As for the GM-awarded Fragments, all I can say is that the game was designed as a GM/Player split experience. Mechanically, this is expressed, among other places, in the Fragment list. A player gets ultimate control over the development of his character from an internal/relationship/emotional connection standpoint and the GM can impose situational Fragments on the character. Wounds are definitely a situational Fragment, and so they squarely fall within the realm of GM control. You might make the argument that the emotion Fragment, for example, is something dealing with emotional control and so should go to the player, but really I don't think so. As written, it's situational and serves also as a GM awarded bonus. Now, whether this choice is good or bad is of course a matter for debate, but at least now you know where I'm coming from.

Onto Fragment costs. Yes, you could handle a focus through social contract, but if I can easily emphasize that focus through mechanics, then I'll do so. If you still don't believe me, then I'd suggest giving the game a whirl. :-) In practice, the 2 to one ratio really isn't any sort of mathematical hassle.

And as for the similarities to Universalis (a game I love), all I can say is, "no." Well, it's not entirely dissimilar, but the focus is wildly different. In Persona, the focus is on character development, specifically on the development of your very own character. No one else can touch that character, and any change in the world that you affect though Fragment purchase is only in relation to your character. So, really there's a certain lack of freedom as compared to Universalis. At the same time you have more freedom to develop your character as you see fit without the influence of others mucking it up.

Even the dice serve character development in a way. They're a tool of luck that can play a role in how your character turns out. For instance, if you roll high when trying to seduce the local noblemen, then you may not ever purchase that seduction Fragment. This is a feature. Really. It works to keep the player on edge. Although the player may have a solid concept in mind, the situation and the luck of the dice work to take that concept in different directions. It's not that a player has to abandon his concept, but rather the specifics are always in flux. Besides, isn't it nice to know that you may succeed just because you got lucky?

Regards.

Hello, I'm not really much of a writer so I'm gonna try to keep this brief.

I really dig persona. It has already been said before, but I'm gonna repeat it. This game is absolutely wonderful for pickup games. I know that having it around was the difference between a night of gaming and a night of pointless character gen for a one shot game.

My personal favorite aspect of the game is its ability to let a group of players try out a world. I don't mean play testing a new setting, but it is good at that too. I mean that persona makes it easy to jump right in to a cool setting without the need to know what you are getting in to. By allowing the players to get to know the way the game world "works" before they have finished character gen persona makes it possible to play the character you want to play when you want to play them. This can apply even if a player makes a completely wrong character for the world he is playing in.

For example, say you make a character for a cyberpunky game with the PCs forming a small gang out to protect their turf. As a initial concept you may decide to play a cool runner wannabe who is more flash than substance, call him lip. Now suppose that the game takes an unexpected turn and Lip finds himself running with the corps way more than street trash. In most games, Lip is almost guaranteed to be a fish out of water. After all, no matter how "cool" you made Lip he just isn't gonna have the skills to carry him in the new environment. This is perfectly fine. It can be a lot of fun to play this situation. But I think it is cool that the Lip's player can, in persona, decide that this whole corp thing is just right for Lip. Hell, Lip can be a natural. Given a couple of pointers form a butler bot and an avoidance of spending points too soon Lip can very easily turn out to be a regular socialite!

Well, thats my poorly written case in point. I hope it makes some sense, because it isn't getting rewritten.

Two more things.
I strongly believe that the different costs of the different fragment types is a good thing. Relationships and personas are clearly the most interesting and least useful fragments that a player can take. Also, they are not generally helpful.
This brings me to my second point. Fragments do not have to give bonuses or negatives just because you spent/received points for them. The reason you get points for fear but spend points on "good at getting away from objects of fear" is because the fear fragment is a overwhelmingly negative thing. The level a debilitation associated with flaws is not on the order of freezing when you try to walk across that narrow bridge. Its more along the lines of fainting. In general, flaws are very bad so you get points. They are never worth what you get for them but they can be fun. I suggest that if you want to take a "hindrance" as a minor thing that you either make it a non-point based part of your character. If you really feel the need, spend some points on it. One of my favorite characters of all time had a fragment representing her rampant drug addiction. I spent points on this. I am glad I did.

Alright then. That is at least two overly long under thought out rants for this evening. Not bad considering my intention was to say "yay persona!" and go to bed. Once again, everyone needs to give this game a try. And feel free to bend and break the rules as you wish. It takes so little time to get a game started you'd be foolish not to.

Kainesh,

Right on; thanks for reminding me. I should have mentioned your comments on Fear in my previous post. If I can just expand a bit...

Graininess is a bit weird in Persona. Or really, it's just not a very grainy system. There's only a -5 to +5 range on all Fragments. As Lee (Kainesh) said, when you take a fear Fragment, or really any Fragment for that matter, you aren't taking a low-level hinderance or a passing talent. Right off that bat, your character is at the substantial level. From the fear Fragment description on a level 1 fear: "even thinking about the thing you fear sets your teeth on edge, possibly dizziness or vomiting in its presence." I'm not talking about your run of the mill phobia. This is a serious, vomit inducing, hinderance. And really that's the philosophy throughout the game.

Of course this only exacerbates the lifetime problem of any Persona character. The recommended fix is to keep campaigns short, but you could take Ben Lehman's suggestion and place an expiration date on individual Fragments if that better suits your taste.

Regards.

ejh wrote: The only variation on it I'd like to see is a probabilistic rather than points-based version, i.e. instead of "you spend your points to find out things about your character" it's "you roll to find out things about your character, perhaps spending points to affect the outcome."

I'd like to chime in with more than "This is intriguing, and I'd like to run a session", but I need more time to absorb it.

For me, I 'got' this much quicker than I have other Narrativist games. Somehow the idea of "player narrates aspect of their character in response to challenge" clicked with me much better than the way other games in this vein do it. This may be a mental block I have with games like Universalis, though. But I think it's explained well in Persona.

fleetingGlow wrote: Ben,

Let me take this point by point:

1) From chapter 6: "When you are rolling 6D6 and have well over 500 Character Points, the average Challenge isn't really a challenge. Do not be afraid to set a character aside and begin again, tabula rasa. A blank sheet gives you the chance to discover a new set of personae, and a different person altogether. If the group decides to end a campaign and start another, you may try bringing an old character back, but throw away your old character sheet. Do not try to recreate a character. Discover him again."

2) Ahh, you've hit on one of the great Persona debates. It was Mike and Ben vs. Tim in the design phase. This is also the reason I included the Mike Says box wherein he recommends ignoring the rule. However, I'm still not convinced. Can you give me more details? Why do you think it's a "silly" addition?

3) Sample difficulties weren't really set intentionally high. For the most part I wanted to make sure that there were enough interesting things going on in the examples so as to show off the system. Let's face it, if all of the examples had DRs of 2, they really wouldn't be very helpful examples. On the other hand, speaking from experience, you really do want to have DRs around the example numbers. Remember, the point is to force players to purchase Fragments. It's not going to happen on every roll, but in order for the game to progress, it has to happen on many of the rolls.

As for difficulty representing character definition, you're right on. Let me just clarify by saying that you won't fail unless you want to most of the time. You are also limited by character points, especially if you're the type of player that likes to spend them as soon as the GM dishes them out. In such cases, it's easy for a spend-happy player to get left in the lurch. He'll be stuck making harder DRs, waiting for the other players to spend all of their points before the GM gives out a new supply.

4) I really like the idea of giving the "blocked" character a reward, instead of punishing the "blocker." This of course, would encourage players to interject with scene requests. There is however an abuse factor that may crop up. Player thinks, "Hmmm... I need some points. How about I just request a totally outrageous scene that I know someone will block?" Social contract would go a long way to prevent this though.

I'm going to think some more on this. Actually, this is one of the few rules that received a lower amount of play-testing than all the rest. So, I'm very open to suggestions.

5) I'm wondering if others wouldn't appreciate a few designer's notes however.

6) Not really sure what you mean here. Maybe you misunderstood.

Ok. Most of my complaints seem to be simple matters of opinion. I do feel like it unites some of the weaker aspects of "traditional" GM/Player gaming with Player-empowerment aspects. I think my biggest problem is the use of dice, it seems that the system employed here just doesn't mesh well at all with the rest of the system.

Of course most of this is just my personal impression, so feel free to ignore them.

Thomas

Ben,

Whoa. Now that's one long post. Let me see if I can tackle the whole thing.

Fragment Expiration:

As I said before, I like your idea of putting a time limit on a Fragment. Then I thought to myself, "man this seems familiar." As it turns out, there was some discussion going on about this exact issue back in the day within the original play-testing group. I believe the suggestion then was to allow players to trade in Fragments as a way to both regain CPs and to keep your character fluid. The way we hashed it out (before forgetting to give it a try), a player was only allowed to trade in X number of CPs at any one time, so as not to break a character entirely.

Let me explain with more detail. Basically, instead of starting the game with 35 CPs, you would receive let's say 25 CPs and 10 play-around CPs. Any Fragment bought using the pool of 25 was a permanent addition to the character. Likewise, anything from the play-around pool was a temporary purchase. The player was allowed to trade in temporary Fragments whenever he wanted and get something more suitable for the situation. Of course, a player could always swap in permanent points for play-around points if he liked the Fragment well enough.

This is of course very different from expiration dates, but I think it was an effort to address the same concern. In some ways however, I like the expiration dates better.

You made a comment about serial novel style play. In defense of the way the system stands now, I'd argue that Persona can model this exceptionally well. You just have to be willing to throw out old character sheets at the end of every "episode" and start fresh. I don't really feel that this is counter productive in any way either. Just the opposite. It encourages players to abandon a closed or locked mindset. If a player simply carries over the character concept from one session to the next, without any CP restrictions dictating how he has to begin that next episode, then you've opened up the door to some pretty expansive character development.

Dice:

I see what you're getting at now. Basically, by increasing the number of dice, you're increasing the numbers rolled. Higher dice rolls equals less of a need to purchase new Fragments. Or the GM could scale DRs up, but this is artificial and unsatisfying.

Right?

I like that train of thought, and I would tend to agree with you. However, getting rid of dice thresholds as they're called creates problems in other areas of the game. The most obvious, is that the dice will only really matter in the beginning of the game. As Fragment totals rise, the randomness factor will be overshadowed by boatloads of Fragments. Actually, I think I wrote an email about this a few months back...

Here we go:

Tim's Previous Email wrote: I can think of two situaions in which randomness matters.

1. When character with little or no Fragments in a given area wants to make an attempt at doing something. In this case the dice give him an, albeit small, chance of success. This is also assuming that he wants to spend his Char Pts on something else. The three dice mechanic helps him, and depending on how many total char pts he's earned over the course of the campaign, the Dice Thresholds could significantly increase his chance of success. Meaning that the longer a player particiapates in a Persona campaign (when Dice Thresholds are used), the better his character gets at "unskilled" activities.

2. Dice matter most in all of Perona when two equally "skilled" opponents (read, opponents with the same or similar Fragment totals) go head to head. In this situation the outcome of the dice roll basically determines the winner. The Three Dice Mechanic is a stagnent bonus; without Dice Thresholds it's a perfectly even match (also assuming netiher purchase additional Fragments). However, with Dice Thresholds, the character who has been around longer and therefore has a higher Dice Threshold, will have a significant advantage over the more inexperienced character. Very cool. This means that an eight year old and a forty year old can have the same skill level, but experience will beat out youth in most situations. Even better, Dice Thresholds are a built in motivator for players to show up to game night without being overly harsh.

Thomas,

Hey, I'm not looking to ignore anyone at this point. Please don't feel turned off just because I argue against your opinion. I'm just an advocate. But really, criticism is what this is all about.

You said that you felt like Persona "unites some of the weaker aspects of "traditional" GM/Player gaming with Player-empowerment aspects." Is this a good or bad thing in your mind?

And then as far as the dice are concerned... could you please explain to me again what your specific problems were? I'm gleaning from your original post that you'd just as well use no dice. Why exactly do you think that a diceless system would "mesh" better with the rest of the system? Any thoughts on the use of dice as a character development tool?

Thanks and regards.

Ben,

I forgot to talk about sample DRs. Whoops.

Yeah, point taken. 10 might be a bit high for beginners. I need to take another look at my examples and maybe think about including some explicit guidelines.

On the other hand, after a little while 10 doesn't seem that crazy to me. After all, players do start the game with around 35 CPs and it's possible to really make those points stretch. If you are buying Fragments exclusively for a particular situation your point economy goes way up. Also, keep in mind that you aren't just buying specific Fragments for a specific situation, but you can also try to buy Fragments that will give you a Modifier bonus right out of the gate. Suddenly 35 points is a lot to play around with, and level 10 DRs can quickly come into play.

Regards.

Andrew,

Hey, thanks for the compliment. It's always nice to see a smiling face in the midst of a critical discussion.

Interestingly enough, I kinda see Persona teetering on the Simulationist edge. There's a whole heck of a lot of emphasis placed on the exploration of character. For example, when a player purchases a Fragment, he has to ask himself how that Fragment will affect the character in the future? Or moreover, how would this character react in this situation? This seems very Sim to me.

In a sense, the player discovers the character that he's playing as a direct result of playing the character, and only by playing that character.

But then of course, that development, those choices, always come in the face of a challenge. It's the nature of those challenges that can really shift things into a Nar mode of decision making. Combine that with scene requesting rules and I think there's a lot of room for Nar play.

This is actually something I'd like to discuss in more detail. I've never been very good at identifying what style of GNS play a game encourages, but I tried to think about GNS while writing up and designing Persona.

Thanks and regards.

Greetings All,

I'm Ben, one of the original co-creators of this game, I'd thought I'd chime in here with some of my thoughts on the discussion and maybe something about running persona.

First things first, the dice. The dice have always been a sticky situation. We have moved between many different systems, and I agree that none of them ever seem to quite work. We started with a 1d6 + fragments mechanic originally. This proved to be basically unworkable. When you sit down to play a game, you want some chance to succeed is stuff, if even you are totally unskilled. Similarly, there is nothing quite like the thrill of rolling your dice and getting that great roll. You get a 24 of 3d6, and you know that whatever else comes of this roll, it will be really really cool. :) Some of you evidently don't agree with this :). I understand, I am a die-hard Amber (diceless) fanatic myself, but for most people to end up playing the game, they need dice, and that is at least one reason why we originally designed Persona to have dice. That being said, dice are fiarly superfluous to the game, if you don't think it adds anything, don't use 'em (a cop-out suggestion if I ever heard one). That being said, I've never actually used the particular dice changes that are in the rules tim published. We've only ever used graduating dice types, i.e. start with d6s, then d8s, d10s, d12s, and then, heck, even d20s and so on! The intension with the dice was to make sure that even with a higher-point character you could count on your dice being able to win you that really great roll.


On the difficulty note.... When I think about it, you are right in that 10 seems a little high for a standard difficulty. Certainly, we've never sat down and thought about what difficulties we would set for Persona in a sterile world. The difficulties were always made on the fly, and tailored the power level of the character/group. That being said, as I think about it, 10 was a fairly regular target number, and sometimes things would go a lot higher.


I'd like to put in a note on the "get poitns for fear" thing. I really think these are necesary things. The purpose behind them is to let you write stuff down in a mechanical way about the disadvantages of your character, and since players need a reword for limiting themselves, we gave them CPs. That being said, we note in the descriptions of the fragments the possibility of situational modifiers. For instance, Fear acts at level x1 if you are running from it, while if you are trying to face the incarnation of your fear (like a giant spider) it acts at level x -3. So, if Rupert has fear spiders at level 3 (terror) then he gets a +3 bonus to run from the giant spider. If he attempts to stand his ground and fight the giant spider he acts at -9 to all his rolls. As mentioned before, all the negative fragments are meant to be quite serious. You would probably never take fear for spiders unless you had been trapped in a casket with a few hundered of them, for instance (ok, that was a little extreme, but the fragments were never meant for something that was not an integral part of your character, which you probably don't need me telling you).

Designer comments (The Mike Says boxes). I really like these, of course, that may be because of my history with the system and my knowledge of the disagreements that each of those boxes provoked. Mike and I are really not narritivist roleplayers or theoreticians, we want dice, we want simple rules, we don't want to have to ask for scenes, and we made the game. Tim, however wanted to write it up, and we didn't, so he gets to put whatever he wants in there :). Once that was done, however, mike and I realized that the message seemed to have drifted fairly far from where we would have put it, hence the mike says boxes. Just thought you might want to know the history. As to weather or not they add anything... I like to think they do, but I can really see where they might confuse the message and interrupt the flow.

Finally, on the different costs (2 per level for most, 1 per level for one or two fragments). I think this is really great. it encourages people to think about getting those cheaper fragments. Additionally, the cheaper fragments, as we originally envisioned them where Comrade and Persona, two fragments that have significant down sides. With Comrade, if your friend is in trouble and you are not actively working toward helping them (even if you can't help them at all) you get a level x -1 modifier. And you don't get the good modifer until you are back to back (in a very tense situation, not the average scene). So originally the point break was to offset the more balanced effects of those two fragments (item for instance, could rarely be construed to have a negative effect on rolls, so it is worth 2 per level).

Ok, I'll stop now... Hope some of that made sense.

-Ben (bernard, not the other one :P)

Welcome to The Forge, Ben/Bernard.

alessan wrote: ...but for most people to end up playing the game, they need dice, and that is at least one reason why we originally designed Persona to have dice.

alessan wrote: That being said, dice are fairly superfluous to the game, if you don't think it adds anything, don't use 'em (a cop-out suggestion if I ever heard one).

Hey Ben!

Ben Bernard wrote: That being said, dice are fiarly superfluous to the game

Ben Bernard wrote: When you sit down to play a game, you want some chance to succeed in stuff, even if you are totally unskilled. Similarly, there is nothing quite like the thrill of rolling your dice and getting that great roll.

Thanks for your comments, Andrew!

I have to disagree, though :).

One of things about designing systems, whether they're RPGs, or even computer languages, is that when the designers loose track of the goal of the system and put in parts catering for other people's desires, the whole design looses it's way; looses sight of it's goal or purpose.

I feel that this example is heading towards what Persona should be like; something like a "diceless" game in the conventional sense. But I also feel you need some randomness, to drive uncertainty and "chaos" into the story flow, otherwise it becomes boring and tame.

Ok... A couple of things. I've not got much time, so this may seem aprupt, feel free to ask for clarification.

Dice: The best dice mechanics (in my mind) either mesh with the setting or are completely seemless. The 3d6 w/ stacking (i define exploading dice as rerolling without adding to the previous die) seems to be a pretty inelegant solution. It seems to be at least a little jarring, mainly due to the probabilities involved. That may be intentional, but any stacking dice system using a 1dX has a 1/X chance of rolling above X and a 1/X^2 chance of rolling above 2X. This means that there isn't really a signifigant chance to roll above 10 (if that's standard difficulty.) It seems like it doesn't really fit. It feels like you just tried some stuff, found something that sort of worked, and then left it alone since it wasn't all that important anyway.

My suggestion would be either to use no dice or dice based on Fragments (where you can always buy more Fragments, roll more dice, and add them post facto).

Fragment List: It seems like breaking Fragments down beyond Positive/Negative is more work than it's worth. As i understand it there is no mechanical difference from one Fragment to another. The only thing that a list facilitates is focusing on a category, but it seems artificial to me.

That's it for now, i hope you find something useful somewhere in there.

Thomas

Greetings,

Good point on the dice. I obviously want there to be dice, but its always better when the dice mesh well the the system and you described exactly what happened with the system (we found something that worked, and left it).

On the fragment list, I have forgotten to chime in on. I would disagree with the notion that you don't want a list. I fear free-form things where you just sort of "make up" your powers. When I play, especially persona, I want some ideas of where to go with the fragments, of what I can puchase. Having the descriptions there also gives an indication of what we expect each fragment / level to be. For instance, excalibur is a 3 point item (I believe, looking it up now). When mike and I first wrote the fragments down, we wanted to use them to impress upon people that the idea was to play badass characters, excalibur is within your point reach, so take it! Similarly, if its just some sword, its not worth spending your points on. If you spend points on a fragment, it should be an important part of your character, and therefore powerful and interesting in its own right. If there was no list, I think people would be inclined to do things like: yeah, I've got some talent with a sword, umm... level 3 then...

I hope I'm making sense :)

-Ben

Ben and Andrew,

I know that I departed from the original concept that Ben and Mike came up with when I wrote the game. This was a choice that I made when I decided to take on the project. I would tend to agree with Andrew. When I wrote Persona I wasn't trying to cater to any specific type of player. The "Mike Says" boxes were my only nod to to the masses, or to some sort of "traditional" RPG style--whatever that is. Otherwise, I tried to express the potential I saw in Persona as best I could at the time. I believe that if you make a game as good as you can on it's own terms, then that game will find an audience eventually. Likewise, if you always try to design games in some sort of "comfort zone" then you'll never really get anywhere new.

That being said, I don't think the issue by itself is particularly on topic for this thread. On the other hand, I'd be happy to discuss it in another thread. I'm sure I could even dig up a couple of old threads on the Forge that tackle this exact topic to get us started. (Ben, you might be interested in these just for you own sake.) If someone wants to get the ball rolling, I'll follow.

Regards.

Thomas,

Two things about the Fragment list from your post:

First, there is a mechanical difference from Fragment to Fragment. Remember, that each Fragment has a different range of available levels. The Comrade Fragment for example, maxes out at +5. On the other hand, the Item Fragment ranges from -1 to +4. This is a big difference when you think about it. And it's not just a mechanical difference either. If you have a level 5 comrade and a level 4 item, they're both at their respective maximums. But that comrade is always going to mean more to you then the item. If I was going to do anything with the Fragment list, I'd go back and take a much closer look at how each range weights the Fragment in respect to all the others.

Second, even if it seems artificial, I think listing out Fragments by name and limiting the influence of each is a good idea. In one respect the categories or names act as guidelines, and as a means to encourage uniform char discovery across the many players (players, not characters notice). By agreeing on a defined list of Fragments, the group can decide how they want to explore their characters, or maybe even what type of situations they want their characters to be thrust into.

What I'd like to do is clearly set out some rules (with plenty of examples) for customizing the Fragment list. Although I think that even the "combat" type Fragments for example, can be applied to non-combat situations, illustrating how adding or subtracting specific Fragments to the list can focus play would really open up the game. So, if the group chose a list with a majority of internal or emotional Fragments, you can see how that game would be wildly different from a game using a list comprised of primarily relationship and physical Fragments. The Fragment list, like discounted Fragments, might even change from session to session.

Does that idea make sense? It does in my mind anyway.

Regards.

Ok. I see your point on Fragment lists. Even though i may disagree, it's more of a personal thing than something concrete. I just don't like lists for stuff like that. I see the advantages that they can provide, but i tend to believe that most of that can/should be handled by Social Contract. At this point i don't believe i really have anything to add in terms of Fragments.

However, i would like to discuss your dice mechanic. Have you considered anything else? A game always seems much more polished when you have a dice mechanic that meshes well.

Thomas

Thomas,

Sounds good to me. Let's talk dice.

I thought I'd start out with a bit of history on what has already been covered in terms of dice by Persona before getting into what I hope to accomplish with dice in the future. Ben already did a nice bit of summing up. I thought I'd just spell it out here for the sake of completeness.

1) Persona debuts with a 1D6 mechanic. There's no dice thresholds, but the dice explode.
2) We tried 1DX, where X was determined by the total number of CPs your character had (dice thresholds).
3) Then we added two more base dice, so it was 3DX. 3D6 was the default and we usually ended up playing most sessions with only D6s, unless someone complained or reminded the GM.
4) I started working more closely with the Persona text and concluded that using all of those different sided dice was pain. The system as it stands now was developed. However, at this point there was a major division between the dice threshold advocates and the no dice threshold people.

All in all, things haven't really ever changed drastically from the original idea. Still, I think that I came to see dice as essential tools in Persona.

For one, I believe that randomness in Persona can have a big effect on the way unskilled characters develop. While a newbie player is going to have enough CPs to succeed at whatever he wants, (a) he still needs to choose how to represent his character with Fragments and (b) successful die rolls are going to significantly influence his choices. Similarly, when a player gets a really low die roll on a check his character is unskilled at, that player may be tempted to alter his character concept to include a new area. In this way, the dice help to shape a character in unskilled, or maybe more precisely, undefined areas. The advantage of doing this randomly is of course that the player will be in for some surprises.

So why not have players roll only when they lack any applicable Fragments? Consistency for one. Moreover, even in areas where a character is well defined, a die roll (low or high) may supply the one or two points necessary to force the player into making a decision about his character's Fragments.

Here's another way to put it. At the start of a challenge, Player rolls some dice. He either gets a "lucky" result or an "unlucky" result. If he get the "lucky" result, he doesn't have to buy any Fragments and the game proceeds with the character succeeding. If on the other hand, he gets the "unlucky" result, then that player must make a choice. He can either buy enough Fragments to ensure that his character succeeds, or he can let his character fail. Character development is a result of that initial choice and the specific Fragments a player chooses to buy (or not buy).

You'll also notice that it's very important for the die roll to come before a player is allowed to purchase Fragments.

Here's a wild idea I just came up with. This is off the cuff, so bear with me:

What if I used a mechanic similar to Fudge (No Fudge dice. I'm just referencing the concept), where a die roll could result in a positive or negative number? It might even be weighted towards the positive, or negative--I don't know. Let's make the numbers easy for now. How about a player has a 50% chance of getting an "unlucky" or "lucky" roll. If the result is positive, he succeeds by a degree equal to the excess of his DR. If the result is negative, he of course must buy X number of Fragment levels in order to succeed, where X is equal to the degree of failure. I suppose you could make it even simpler by getting rid of the degree of success, but I'm not sure I like that.

Ex: DR=10. Player rolls dice, and gets a positive 3. He succeeds by a degree of 3.

Ex: DR=10. Player rolls dice, and gets a negative 4. Player already has 2 point of applicable Fragment levels. He needs to buy 2 more Fragment levels in order to succeed.

Thoughts?

Regards.

Tim,


hmmmm...... dice........ I agree with everything you said, until your wild idea :).

I'm not entirely sure what you mean by "degrees" of sucess. What seems to have happened in your examples is that the dice are now only +1 or -1 results and there is no exploding or any other numbers available. There are 2 big problems I can see with this:
1) negative dice. I really hate these. It may be just a persona thing, but if I roll dice, and suddenly I fighting the dice instead of them just helping me as much as they can, I begin to totally hate them. Take for an example Vampire. A 1 on a dice takes away a success... There is nothing more frustrating in the world than to roll 3 successes and 4 ones, thereby not only failing, but also botching the roll in the process.
2) What about the variable effect of persona. One of the great pieces of Persona is that the fragments apply unevenly based on how appropriate the fragment is. Therefore, if I am striking a blow at my adversery, I get to add my adversary fragment, but if I am fighting him in a 1:1 death match where only one man will leave, I get to add soem multiple of my fragment level. Suddenly, in this situation, the die roll becomes meaningless (you'd always overwhelm any negative result). The obvious solution to that is to only have fragments count their level, but this gets rid of a good aspect of the game IMHO.


So, I guess I'm really wanting some additional examples and explation about this dice idea of yours :)

-Ben

Ben,

Whoa. Somewhere in my explanation we had a disconnect, or maybe I just need to explain myself a little better.

First of all, modifiers, dice explosions, results other than +1 or -1: these are all still in. Forget about the Fudge dice. I knew as soon as I mentioned them, I was making trouble for myself. Forget about the Fudge dice.

I haven't worked out the specifics yet, but what I'm advocating is a system that allows for both negative and positive results. The negative and positive results can be of any value. So you might roll a -2, or a -5, or even a -9. Same goes for positive. Just like in Persona now, you can roll a +1 or a +28,345 as long as you keep getting those explosions.

A degree of success is just the difference between what you rolled and the Difficulty Rating. So if I rolled a 17 and my DR was 10, then my degree of success is a 7 (17-10=7). Same in the negative. Ex: DR=10. I roll a -5. My degree of failure is a 5 (10-5=5). The degrees tell the player how awesome his character is, or in some cases how badly his character fucked up.

Now I add in Fragments. Let's use the same examples. My degree of success before Fragments is 7. I have 4 points of applicable Fragment levels. Furthermore, let's say that my 2 point Fragments is being used in a particularly appropriate way and gets a (x2) modifier. So 4, plus the extra points that I get from the modifier, equals 6. Now my degree of success is 13 (7+2*2+2=13).

For the negative result: Degree of Failure = -5. I have 4 points of applicable Fragment levels, plus 2 after the modifier, equals a new Degree of Success of 1 (-5+2*2+2=1). If I wouldn't have had enough Fragments to bring me into the positive I'd either fail or I'd have to buy more Fragments.

Does this make more sense? Moreover, please notice that I'm specifically not mentioning how to accomplish this with dice. This is all still in the, "do you think this sort of system would work well?" phase.

As for your aversion to negative results, all I can say is: can you think of a way to accomplish the above without creating that feeling of frustration? Your comparison to Vampire, I think, is not entirely fair. I'm not suggesting that the player rolls X successes, but then ends up losing anyway because of a handful of 1s. I am suggesting that the result is always only positive or only negative. So it's not as if the mechanic swipes victory away from the player just when things were looking up, but rather the player will know right away if he succeeded or failed.

The only thing I can imagine creating a real sense of frustration is making the player roll exploding negative dice. Hehe. Actually, that's kinda funny in a twisted sort of way.

Regards.

Thomas,

I think I overlooked an intriguing suggestion you posted earlier:

My suggestion would be either to use no dice or dice based on Fragments (where you can always buy more Fragments, roll more dice, and add them post facto).

Ok, new idea. Judging from the lack of response to wild idea #1, I'm guessing people have at best a mediocre response to it.

Ben, your idea of fighting the dice got all mashed up with what's already been said and I came up with wild idea #2.

What if every time you rolled the dice, the result was "negative?" I'm putting that in quotes, because as you'll see in a minute, it's not the same sort of negative I was describing up above.

Basically, I was thinking that the purpose of dice rolls is to both judge how well a character performs, and (mostly) to encourage character discovery through Fragment purchase. So how about this:

A challenge is initialized, but instead of the GM announcing a Difficulty Rating, she chooses the number of dice the player will roll. In the end this serves the same function as a Difficulty Rating however. A low number of dice means the challenge is easier (less character discovery). A high number means the a harder difficulty (more need to buy Fragments).

Ex: Sarah is GMing. Jon gets his character into a challenge situation. Sarah thinks that this scene has the potential to really develop Jon's character, or to force Jon to make some serious character-based decisions. Sarah chooses, let's say, 3 dice worth of difficulty.

The next step: player rolls the dice. Now, the way I'm thinking about this there won't be any exploding or stacking dice. You just roll all the dice the GM gives you and you add them together.

Ex: Jon takes up his 3 dice, rolls them, and gets a 6, 2, and 1. He does not re-roll the 6, but instead adds up all three for a total of 9.

But instead of the total being a positive number, it actually represents the number of Fragment levels a player has to come up with in order to succeed. So, if a player rolls a 1, he has to have 1 Fragment level. If he rolls an 11, he needs 11 points. You can add existing Fragments, or purchase new ones. And of course, modifiers apply.

Ex: Jon needs to come up with 9 Fragment levels to succeed. He has 4 points already, from Fragments he purchased on previous challenges, and one of those Fragments even receives a modifier! So his total is now 6--still 3 points shy of his goal. So now Jon has to either buy three more levels, or choose to fail.

This way a player is always discovering character, or at least he's always up against a real challenge. Of course, if he rolls well and has enough applicable Fragments to see him through, he won't need to buy any new ones, but pressure is always on.

I like this idea a lot more than the one I presented above. Thoughts?

Regards.

Ok. Sorry it took so long to get back to you. Let's take things in the order they come.

+/- Dice. If you use this system then you don't need any sort of DR. You can just assume that the DR for everything is 0 since the rolled modifier is your result. I think this might work out rather well. To keep things simple i'd advocate the use of only two dice. For this example i'll use d10s. They need to be different colors (this is not a d10-d10 though) and you choose one to be positive and one to be negative. Roll the dice, 10s stack, whichever result is higher is the one you use, if they are the same then assume 0. This gives you a 9.1% chance of rolling a 0 result. You could even have more negative or positive dice in order to weigh the result in a given direction. If you want a negative result to be more common roll two negative dice and one positive, etc. You might want to let positive values give you CP back, that would provide a mechanic other than "The GM says you get some CP now."

My nebulous earlier suggestion. What i meant was this: instead of your Fragments being a modifier to the roll, they are the number of dice rolled. Such that you roll Xd6 where X is the total applicable Fragment value. This could get cumbersome if you get above 8 or so dice. Anyway the idea was that you either have to have a certain total (the value of the sum of your dice must be at least 20 or whatever the DR is), or that you have to have a certain number of successes (4,5,6 are successes, you must have 4 successes, or whatever the DR is). In either case you can still use stacking dice. The key here is that if you don't have enough successes you may purchase a Fragment level after the roll, roll it, and add it to your original roll.

Your final suggestion, that dice produce DR is workable. I'm not sure i really like it, but i can't put my finger on why. It seems to directly produce the feeling that Ben was complaining about: it feels like the dice are hurting you rather than helping you. Now, i don't have a problem with that myself, but there's something about it that just doesn't sit right.

Thomas