OOC Chat

AtlannianSpy

AtlannianSpy

Alarmed and Strangerous
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Welcome, Welcome. This is our chat thread, discussion place and general fireside, coffeehouse hangout. Unfortunately sending out actual steamy beverages to you is outside of my budget so any coffee drinking will have to take place on a metaphysical level as a manifestation of your inner psyche but that seems fitting. I have a number of questions and other bits and bobs I want to put forward and resolve before we jump right into the IC and I'm sure you'll have some questions as well so this is the time and place, feel free to ask away or chat, conspire and plot amongst yourselves. -Some ground rules first though. 1. Standard RPN rules apply. Obviously. 2. Be polite, or at least civil. I promise you it's extremely unlikely that anything that occurs in this rp will be important enough to be worth making an enemy over, even an internet enemy. 3. Try to stay within the broad vicinity of the topic. Friendly chatter is fine and in fact it usually makes it easier to RP when everyone's talking freely but long derailments make it harder to find relevant information. In general if it's been a page or two since someone mentioned that actual rp that is the purpose of this thread then it's time to get back on track. 4. If I come up with any more rules I'll let you know, the IC will have it's own set of rules once we get that running at the very least. Oh also. 5. Have fun!


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I know things are still under construction, but thought I'd log an interest. Looking forwards to the CS template going up!
 
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In regards to the question posed in the interest check, I think leaving some of the future plot points unsaid and having a more plot-driven narrative might be interesting. It would reflect the way a character (or, more specifically, the protagonist) progresses through a Persona game.
 
Hi guys! Looks like my notification went a bit funny because I thought nobody had posted in this thread Woo! Glad to hear from people, you can expect some lore and background info tonight and possibly a CS as well so stay tuned, there's probably going ot be a few more questions as well once I remember what the hell I was going to ask.
 
Alrighty, A CS is up for those of you who want to get cracking and there's some background stuff that's been added to the overview tab, hopefully giving our setting a little flavour. Let me know what you think.


Also I'm not sure if I said this or not yet but I'm currently planning on all of the characters living in the Sunset Gate Apartment building, mostly so that we they have an excuse to bump into each other regularly since potentially not everyone will be going to the school or whatever.
 
Hi guys just dropping in to give a status update and ask yet another question of you all. Firstly I always intended for this to be a relatively small group, mostly because I struggle to handle large groups of people and taking on too many has probably been the cause of other projects in the past getting too much for me to handle.


Secondly, I've always been fond of the structure of persona 4, in which new characters are introduced one at a time in such a way the each is given time to shine and be developed. Right now we have three CS's that are close to completion, we could potentially do something where we start with just those three (or a few more if some people are already working on CS's) and introduce new players one at a time.


The advantage of this idea is as mentioned, everyone gets their moment in the sun, the three initial characters would still get a segment devoted to them and every subsequent character would get be explored as they are introduced. If a


The major disadvantage is pretty obvious in that people could be waiting around for some time after finishing their characters before they actually get to join in. This could be mitigated n some ways, I could do some character developmenty-world buildy stuff via PM or some other system but that's not necessarily the same as being part of the RP proper.


I think this could potentially be interesting but I have no intention of making people wait around if they don't feel like it's going to be worth it or beneficial to them. So I'm curious to hear from people before I move forward with this. The alternative is that we wait for a few more people and launch all together, the rough outline of our opening act I have could be modified to do either one with minimal fuss
 
Exactly how big is the 'small group' you intend? A typical team in Persona 3/4 is around seven or eight; is this the number you're shooting for? Less, more?


I have no qualms with staggered character introduction, but I would advise some precautionary measures before implementing something like that. First, I would recommend hammering out a full cast, with however many characters you eventually plan to have in the RP, all with completed and accepted CS's. I've noticed a lot of generated interest, but you have to make sure that can be funneled into consistent, dedicated players for the RP. This might also be nice to do before starting the roleplay because then those who would theoretically have to wait for their shot to jump into the RP would have a chance to give input. Second, I'll point out the inherent risk you run initially with a set up like this: The starting three (or however many you choose) players will bear a pretty big load of writing until the rest of the cast is introduced. The potential to fail like this is very high in a landscape of already high RP mortality rates, though I am interested in seeing the success of this one. I would recommend laying out clearly your expectations for post frequency and length to make sure there is no ambiguity in what you hope to see realized.
 
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Nonagon said:
Exactly how big is the 'small group' you intend? A typical team in Persona 3/4 is around seven or eight; is this the number you're shooting for? Less, more?
I have no qualms with staggered character introduction, but I would advise some precautionary measures before implementing something like that. First, I would recommend hammering out a full cast, with however many characters you eventually plan to have in the RP, all with completed and accepted CS's. I've noticed a lot of generated interest, but you have to make sure that can be funneled into consistent, dedicated players for the RP. This might also be nice to do before starting the roleplay because then those who would theoretically have to wait for their shot to jump into the RP would have a chance to give input. Second, I'll point out the inherent risk you run initially with a set up like this: The starting three (or however many you choose) players will bear a pretty big load of writing until the rest of the cast is introduced. The potential to fail like this is very high in a landscape of already high RP mortality rates, though I am interested in seeing the success of this one. I would recommend laying out clearly your expectations for post frequency and length to make sure there is no ambiguity in what you hope to see realized.
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These are great points, some of which I admittedly hadn't fully considered.


Eight is actually a pretty good number I think, I'd be comfortable going as high as 10 or 11 if say, everyone who's expressed interest so far put down a good CS.


The point about the starting players is particularly salient to me since I'm still pretty new to this sight. I can look through people's post history and ask for writing samples but ultimately I don't really feel like I have a good idea of what sort of an rp'er a person is until I've worked with them for a bit. Maybe a set up like this is more suited to a group who have already worked together or at least have a small core who know each other.


That's not to say this can't work with this group of people and I would like to try it out if everyone's enthusiastic, but for me the most attractive aspect of it was the attention it would give to each character which if we're being honest there are probably more flexible ways to go about achieving that aim.


For example, I was considering having a kind of two tiered approach to persona summoning. Initially players would be able to use a device similar to an evoker from P3 to summon their personas but upon confronting their own shadow would be able to forgo the device and call their more powerful "true" persona. It might be easier to have npcs "victims" to rescue and alternate between exploring the shadow worlds of these victims to rescue them and exploring the shadow worlds of party members to unlock their true personas. These npc victims would also be an efficient way to introduce social links. Each one could form a bond with a particular player that would provide a useful power upon completing some sort of personal arc. At that point I might have to ask some of you guys to play these npcs, maybe a one for one setup where if you run the social link npc for another player than they'll do one for you. I'd also be happy to do a lot of them, be tricky to manage all of them myself though.


Thoughts?
 
I have a character CS in the works, but am going to be away for the next few weeks so had been holding off on posting. If you're doing staggered though I will post it sooner and then if accepted can have my character introduced after I get back, which suits me quite nicely. I like the idea of a small group size and having players doing NPCs.


I'd also suggest that we set up a group PM for everyone involved. In my experience it really helps to keep people involved with an RP longterm and makes it easy to organise things.
 
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Got a cautionary tale for you guys;


I had a friend in a Persona RP on another site that planned to do a staggered cast idea much like this. They had an initial cast of people who would go into dungeons saving other characters and all that jazz.


This RP started in 2014. It's still going, amazingly enough. But it took them the better part of a year just to start doing dungeons. And it took them until recently to 'technically' be done with all the character's personal dungeons. In that time, countless members have dropped out and been replaced, only for more people to drop out and be replaced (best guess is because they were all on a massive waiting list). Their core cast got gutted too; there's only a handful of people from those who initially joined the thread still around.


You might think it must be good since it lasted 2 years and is still going, but I would stress the fact that it has been 2 years and they haven't truly started their main plot, much of their original posters are gone and many had to wait years just to get involved in actual Persona action.


That all said, I like the P3 approach idea, but I strongly caution against having people sit on the sidelines while everyone else parties.
 
OKAY


I JUST GOT A COOL IDEA.


what if, to summon your persona, you need an item, but it's different for everyone, it needs to be an object close to them or something of the sort (like a momento, or something). And finding it help them unlock thier persona,and get over thier problems. if you catch my drift.
 
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The social link idea with NPCs sounds like a good idea to me; I would be more than willing to play a secondary character to achieve something like that.


Considering Tarquin's input (which, having never seen a staggered cast idea myself, I wholly appreciate), I might like to call attention to the fact that two dungeons per character could drag out the RP very long. One dungeon per NPC victim and one per true persona realization:


2 x 8 = 16. And that doesn't include facing whatever antagonist or core issue there is to the RP itself (in P3, facing the full moons and Nyx, and in P4, finding the murderer and Izanami). Sixteen dungeons would no doubt take a while to complete, which might lead to cast dropping and replacing as Tarquin described. There would have to be some compromise between the two dungeons, as far as I can see. Either make rescuing the NPCs be more challenging (aka take more time) or place that emphasis on the true persona dungeons. I understand character development is the main idea behind this, but it's important to be practical in the constraints of real life time.


I agree with the idea to introduce a PM for this RP. Every time I've used one, I've had success with it.


As for the idea of personal items to unlock personas, I do not agree. I'm skeptical as to how an item could reliably help them 'get over their problems' in every case, considering each character's personal conflict will be very different. Persona games in general also stress forming strong bonds with others and how those relationships develop the characters. Having an item as a sort of shortcut to development doesn't seem to fit with this.
 
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@Hellkite


While we may not end up going with the staggered introduction we could probably still introduce your character at a later stage if that works better for you.


A PM sounds like a fine idea and I'll most likely Set one up when I'm back on my laptop.


@Tarquin


Thanks for the input. I'll echo what Nonagon said in that a staggered introduction would be largely uncharted ground for me as well so a real world case study is pretty useful. That certainly doesn't sound like what I intend for this rp and it bears considering how to avoid those sort of pitfalls.


@Scrubnoppon


What you're describing sounds somewhat like the items the protagonist receives upon maxing a social link. Interestingly while these trinkets represent a gain for the protagonist it's usually complied that relinquishing the item rather than finding is helpful for the person it belongs to, that they're no longer held back by or reliant on whatever it represents which is sort of the opposite of your idea.


I think Nonagon is right in that objects don't feature heavily as sources of power in Persona. If you'll allow me to put my lit major hat on and he really self indulgent for a bit, objects are I think more commonly symbols for suppressed emotions or thoughts, characters become fixated on items that represent emotions or thoughts that they can't consciously express for whatever reason. Well they do if you like using a Freudian approach to media. A persona supposedly comes from acknowledging suppressed emotions and harnessing then consciously I it's sort of the opposite thing. In fact Shadows which represent suppressed power often feature object like symbols. The cage Yukiko's shadow is trapped in is a pretty good example.


The object of power image could work well in slightly the opposite direction though, using a symbol to express something works as a kind of first step towards consciously expressing it so we could have an evoker like device that summons a weaker, difficult to control version of the true persona, kind of a midpoint between persona and shadow. Once the user confronts their shadow and acknowledges it they would no longer need the crutch of the device and be able to summon their true persona without it.


Wow, excuse the waffling there, I just don't get enough excuses to say Freudian everyday life I guess.


@Nonagon


Yeah when you lay it out like that length starts to be an issue, having personally been in an rp that took over a month in real time to walk the group up a hill the prospect is downright terrifying. Fortunately we have options to address this.


One: Not every social link has to also be a victim. Persona 3 and 4 feature several social links such as dojima, the couple from the bookstore or.... I wanna say Yumiko? the old lady who is death in 4, who wouldn't really work as victims if we were to use similar characters, since our target is roughly "people who want to escape to a virtual world" which is more of a young person thing. We would have to do this anyway in order get a full roster of social links since there's more than sixteen. The issue is that it creates something of a two tiered system, social links that you get to rescue would probably feel more special or substantial than one who is purely a nom combat story. We could compensate by incorporating the non victim npcs into the plot in other ways, have then provide leads or other benefits, but I doubt it would feel quite the same.


Two: We could split the party up at some point. Eight people is two full parties and it would be fairly trivial to introduce a time constraint at some point that would make it necessary, as a result we'd be clearing dungeons at twice the rate. If we went down this route I'd probably need a co GM or some kind of backup otherwise it's questionable how much irl time we'd save.


Three: As you said we could emphasise one or the other. I'd be inclined to say the true persona dungeons sgould be favored as I presume people would be overall more interested in the characters they chose to play as than the npcs they made for the needs of the plot. This would run the risk of making the less emphasised side feel perfunctory or less fleshed out, we could ens up with a ME2 situation where the character specific missions are great and really detailed but the actual main plot feels rushed or unfinished.


We actually have two examples of different approaches to this idea in P3 and P4. In P3 the mystery of what's going on and what's going to happen next is much more central, the characters react to it and are actually all tied to the events of the plot by their histories. In P4 I would say the characters are more prominent, the mystery is almost an excuse to pull them together and grow and their personal arcs and relationships to each other are given much more screen time. It's a great example of plot driven versus character driven story telling.


Wooow that was a long post to type on my phone, I'm also a little sleep deprived so its probably a bit rambling and wild eyed in places so I'm sorry foe subjecting you all to that. It all bears thinking about though to my mind.
 
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