BESM/OVA/OverArms: Persona 6

[Malkavian]

I've not even made my character stat-wise yet, so there's that need's doing. Would need to know Power Level though.

Trying to decide whether she's a elemental fighter (martial arts meets fire control, ala Avatar) and a mech pilot, or just a mech pilot. Guess it depends on the PL, and what anyone else involved wants to play?

[Zeth]

If your a mecha pilot then everyone has to be a mecha pilot. Other wise your mecha will sit in the hanger 90 percent of the time while the party does things on foot. I speak from past experience! The power level will be HEROIC. (75 CP) Because mecha eat up a lot of cp. In BESM your character points pay for everything your guy or gal has. Money doesn't really exist like it does in D&D.

[Malkavian]

If your a mecha pilot then everyone has to be a mecha pilot. Other wise your mecha will sit in the hanger 90 percent of the time while the party does things on foot. I speak from past experience!

Easy fix: she wasn't a mecha pilot, but fought as an elemental-martial artist (or whatever) alongside the mecha units of (insert galactic-/world-/realm-based army/freedom fighter group name here).

Depending on thoughts to the above, I'll get something stated up and PM'd over. Likely using the Neko template, but changing aspects to suit a bun.

[Malkavian]

Since this was shelved due to time constraints and my lack of familiarity with BESM, I've come across the ruleset for Over Arms, which is heavily based upon Persona: it revolves around young individuals becoming tied to beings called Anima - manifestations of their souls or spirits - and exploring a mirror/side/sub-realm called the Mirage.

In effect, it's basically Persona the RPG, just with the serial numbers removed.

Anyone ever played this? Wondering how well it'll accurately depict Persona (the read through was pretty telling, but I've neither played nor run it).

[wander]

Since this was shelved due to time constraints and my lack of familiarity with BESM, I've come across the ruleset for Over Arms, which is heavily based upon Persona: it revolves around young individuals becoming tied to beings called Anima - manifestations of their souls or spirits - and exploring a mirror/side/sub-realm called the Mirage.

In effect, it's basically Persona the RPG, just with the serial numbers removed.

Anyone ever played this? Wondering how well it'll accurately depict Persona (the read through was pretty telling, but I've neither played nor run it).

Lol, I own Over Arms! It's essentially the Jojo's Bizarre Adventure rpg too. 

I'd not run it, though for sure would play. The main thing is coming up with fluff for your character and Stand Anima..

Kinda simple system, it feels like it could be broken, though I'm not massively experienced with playing it.

Essentially your PC has five stats and each gets a dice assigned to it (kinda like Marvel Heroic Roleplaying/Cortex Prime) and so does your Anima. GM assigns a dc and you can either have the character roll their single dice, or you can use Anima Points to summon your Anima and get a bonus dice from them to help get a higher result. Rolling high, in general an average action should have a DC of 5, imo.

Fights are interesting in that your rolled Initiative equals the DC to hit your character, so faster characters get a bit of a heads-up.

I'm not experienced with Persona (sounds right up my street, just never got into it with all the other stuff I like ^^) though it can do Jojo for sure. 

[Malkavian]

I love Persona, and would love to keep with the proposed concept for Persona 6 (creative youths who realised their Personas though musical expression working to free the Muses to re-inspire humanity out of it's creative suffocation, and prevent the emergence of the evil nasty - who's name I forget at this present time).

Since I'm still eager to play my Wild Card, Kojima Akari (or Akari Kojima, if you're using the western placement), so wouldn't want to run it. The details I had for her are summarised below:

Kojima Akari
~ The FOOL Arcana
~ Persona: Memnoch
~ Weapons: Dual daggers and/or dual pistols
~ Noteworthy Skills/Traits: Wild Card (originally represented as her being able to have more than one Persona, making her more versatile but at the cost of each one being less potent/specialised, but this obviously wouldn't work for Over Arms); Leadership (would have had Inspire 6 in BESM, but will likely just have her best trait in Social to emulate this)

[TheHangedOne]

Oooh, revived interest?  Hayate Ono is still somewhere in my mind's eye.

[Malkavian]

Oooh, revived interest?  Hayate Ono is still somewhere in my mind's eye.

I honestly think we could run this with Over Arms, and it'd be good to see you involved! Problem is, I'd need someone else to run it if I had a hope of playing Akari. Can't very well have an active character focused on leadership be controlled by the GM.

But would love to resurrect this idea, especially given the awesome plots that people were coming up with before about who the Persona users are (teenagers/young adults), what they're trying to achieve in the Metaverse (save the Muses), and how their Personas manifest and are represented (music/creative expressions).

Even have the button ready for my signature if/when it ever comes back:



And my picture of Akari's ready, too!

[TheHangedOne]

Tomorrow's a free day for me, so I'll happily look up the system. Hopefully we can find someone to run it~

[Malkavian]

Oooh, revived interest?  Hayate Ono is still somewhere in my mind's eye.

Here was the information we saved on Hayate Ono!

Hayate Ono
~ The CHARIOT Arcana
~ Persona: Xenos
~ Weapons: Brawling/fists
~ Noteworthy Skills/Traits: Motorcycle/driving, Natural Brawler (Attack & Defense mastery, Brutal; high Body)

The system itself is pretty simple, so hopefully it won't be that hard to find someone!

Here's the old OOC Thread, if anyone wanted to look. Would need to resurrect it and then update for Over Arms, of course, but yeah... it's still there: https://elliquiy.com/forums/index.php?topic=322675.0

[TheHangedOne]

Ahh, good times. I wonder if we can get a Rummy back in here, too..?

Mhm~ mhm! That's Hayate. As some extra tidbits, he is meant to be inspired by Yankii and Bosozoku culture.


This picture captures the look/feel I'm aiming for, but I'm worried the guy would look way too old.

[Malkavian]

Here's what I presently have, though depending on whether we get a brainiac or not, I might trade HP's die over to INT (which would change INT to d8 and HP to 12).

AKARI KOJIMA
~ CHA: d12, DEX: d10, INT: d6, STR: d4, HP: 16 ~
~ Arcana: The FOOL ~
~ Accuracy: Dual Knives: DEX + 2, Dual Pistols: DEX + 2 ~
~ Damage: Dual Knives: STR + 2, Dual Pistols: INT + 4 ~

MEMNOCH
~ PWR: d12, SPD: d10, DEF: d8, RNG: d4, AP: 12 ~
~ Type: Fighter ~
~ Accuracy: STR + PWR - 1 ~
~ Damage: STR + PWR + 1 ~
~ Abilities: 1. Memnoch can track other Persona users by locking eyes with the target. This effect lasts for a period of 48 hours. ~

[TheHangedOne]

Or maybe this...





Thoughts, Demiurge?

[Malkavian]

I like the top one, personally.

[TheHangedOne]

Works for me! 

[ReijiTabibito]

beats ears

Tell me I'm not hearing things.  An OverArms game, Persona-styled rather than the blatantly obvious JJBA?

[Malkavian]

beats ears

Tell me I'm not hearing things.  An OverArms game, Persona-styled rather than the blatantly obvious JJBA?

Not just Persona-styled, but actually Persona 6 with the OverArms rules.

I've been reading more of the rulebook, and so far my only issue is that, at least until you level up, you do not stand much of a chance clearing higher TN tasks without using your Persona/Anima. But maybe I'm just overthinking this.

[TheHangedOne]

"Bancho" HAYATE ONO
~ CHA: d4, DEX: d10, INT: d6, STR: d12, HP: 16  ~
~ Arcana: The CHARIOT ~
~ Accuracy: Fists of Fury: DEX + 2, Windlass Crossbow: DEX + 1 ~
~ Damage: Fists of Fury: STR, Windlass Crossbow: INT + 6 ~

XENOS, The Stranger
~ PWR: d10, SPD: d12, DEF: d4, RNG: d8, AP: 12  ~
~ Type: Assassin ~
~ Accuracy: DEX + SPD + 1 ~
~ Damage:  DEX + SPD - 1 ~
~ Abilities: 1. Xenos is capable of powering smaller objects by creating and channeling electricity.

FYI, "Fists of Fury" are going off of the 'brass knuckles' example weapon.  Similarly, the Windlass crossbow is based off of Rifle. 

[Malkavian]

Nice! Though wasn't his Persona called "Xenos"?

I went with the tracking aspect for Memnoch, given that he is an early form of Satanael - and therefore locating and, eventually, aspects of controlling, people seemed fitting for the devil himself.

[TheHangedOne]

Yes, though I'm currently debating sticking with Xenos, or making it Guan Yu instead.

[Malkavian]

No idea who that is, but sounds nifty!

[TheHangedOne]

He's most prominently noted from The Romance of The Three Kingdoms. He was an amazing warrior with an unbreakable sense of honor; so much so that he was elevated to deific status, as the god of brotherhood, oaths, and a few other concepts.

[ReijiTabibito]

It depends on the nature of the Task.  TNs for Tasks start at 4, increase by 2 until you hit 8, then increase by 4 until you hit 20.  You've got one die of each size (d4, d6, d8, d10, d12) to assign at start.  Yes, that does mean that even the 'Easy' TN 4 fails close to half of the time for anything not a d12 (where you have a 1/3 chance of failure), and you are almost guaranteed failure if it's your d4 stat.  Keep this in mind, though.  As a character, you only get 4 Stat ups from 1st level to max out.  Given that you can't raise above d12 size, that automatically rules out one of your stats (even if you decided to put it into HP).  Someone who invests all their stat-ups can reach d12 in multiple stats - in either 2 or 3 of your 5 stats (it depends on what you decide to do with your d4 stat).

The other workaround for using your Persona/Anima is to hand out items.  We've all seen the ProZD video about item hoarding, but items are there to be used.  Whether it's the HP or AP items, feel free to hand them out as rewards for combat or other work.

You've got my agreement that, generally speaking, OverArms is better at handling combat than any other aspect of a Persona game (Social Links, time management, etc), which is part of why I think so many people go for the Jojo option, given that Jojo basically is one gigantic action sequence with people talking in between them.


Also, Guan Yu is a major figure in Chinese literature/myth.  He's something very much akin to the King Arthur myths of the UK.  Basically, read Romance of the 3 Kingdoms.

[Malkavian]

Gotcha! Thanks for the info-dump.

[ReijiTabibito]

No problem.  There's one other thing I realized after I had already posted, so I'll put it here.  Since the largest die size is d12, that means by definition, Tasks with TN 16 or 20 cannot succeed without a Junction roll (and thus your Persona).  TN 12 tasks, similarly, will probably require a Junctioning, since you only have 1 d12 stat, and you have to roll max in order to make that.  So there is also that.

I'm not sure if you put it in the thread earlier, but did you play any of the Persona games post-3?