[After Sundown] Campaign Chronicle: Personaverse AS
Posted: Thu Jan 16, 2014 6:51 am
The time has come to recount the tale of the After Sundown game I ran for a group of friends. Because why not? Spoiler blocks will be used to separate out detailed information about NPCs and Personaverse background.
A bit of background. I'd been thinking about using a modified version of the Shadowrun 4e system to run a Shin Megami Tensei: Persona game for a while. However, when time came to actually run the game, I figured I'd give After Sundown a shot. Characters were created as for an Origin Story, but by the end of the first game session everybody had picked up a supernatural type template, so I actually had the players create their character + persona before the game ever started--they just didn't get to use any of the "supernatural" bonuses to their stats or powers until they acquired them in-game.
For those who have played the Persona games, I picked up the continuity of the game shortly after the events of P4 Arena, but set the game on Iwatodai so that the students could attend the school from Persona 3, Gekkoukan High. Events from the Persona 2 duology were dubiously canon, but (spoilers!) Nyarlathotep was a major villain for the game, and Philemon made an appearance as well. You can skip down if you don't care about an explanation of the Personaverse.
Essential Background:
The Personaverse:
In addition to the standard character stats for After Sundown, each character for the Personaverse AS game was given an arcana affinity, aligning them with one of the major arcana of a standard Rider-Waite tarot card set. Players could choose their arcana, but since only one of them was well-versed in tarot interpretation and symbolism I wound up offering to assign them with explanations of my choices; if they player disagreed they were free to pick something else.
I made some other changes to the AS rules. PCs created as an Origin Story and were then given some bonus skills and backgrounds, but not as many as an In Media Res character would get because I wanted high school students to have fewer overall points distributed than established supernatural entities. (Ultimately, I think everybody had more than enough points anyway.)
Major rules changes: Persona-users were treated as normal humans in possession of superpowers--not actually a vampire or other inhuman monster, regardless of the supernatural type of their persona. This meant that they were not affected by AS's monster weaknesses, so someone with a "vampire" persona still functioned in sunlight and nobody had a weakness to particular materials. Also, I stuck everybody on the Lunar power cycle, regardless of persona type. If I were to run the campaign again, I'd probably still eliminate the "your powers are disabled" weaknesses, but I would've kept the material weaknesses, because it's in-theme for the games that PCs become supernaturally vulnerable to certain things because of the nature of their persona. It also would probably have made the PCs feel less...invincible.
Also, I let people pick different master passions if they really wanted to.
Dramatis Personae:
Momoko Hirata//Lotis (Dryad): Cute, popular, well-adjusted high school girl, at least on the surface. Joined a cult with her father during the latter part of Persona 3's timeline. He and his friends successfully committed suicide...while she and some others held off the cops with sniper rifles. But she got mental health treatment and they released her and she's perfectly normal and fine, okay? Her Persona, Lotis, "manifests as a delicate pink lotus with a myriad of tiny perfect pink hands, clasped together with their fingers intertwined to mimic the shapes of petals. The hands in the center are vivid yellow, and those ones sway a little as they reach upward. Lotis opens and closes with a gentle breathing rhythm when she's pleased but when she isn't pleased she tightens up and oozes." Momo started the game with some Song of Swarms powers as her bonus abilities and consequently was full of wasps. Master passion: Loneliness. Arcana: The Moon.
Mitsuru Tayama//The Great Bambino (Fallen): Star baseball player and recent transfer student. Charismatic and popular, but modest about it. Excruciatingly polite. Nicknamed "Tobasuko" (Tobasco) for the "heat of his pitches." Ultimately kind of unhinged; Tayama-kun had some...interesting life priorities. His Persona is a baseball player dressed in pristine white, armed with an enormous bat. Master passion: Greed. Arcana: The Chariot.
Kuroki Sumeragi//The Dark Wizard (Khaibit): Amateur "ghost-hunter" in the school newspaper club. Conspiracy nut with an eidetic memory. Extremely socially-awkward (he had a background called "I Don't Know How to Handle This" which became sort of a running joke--it was the "what is the most socially-awkward thing I can do in this situation" background). Nevertheless, he was desperately searching for friends...he just didn't really seem to know how to make them. Lots of science-type skills and a contact in the police force (uncle, homicide squad). His Persona was described as "a tall spindly figure in dark black robes, his face is constantly obscured in in the shadow of his wide wizards hat. When he uses his powers his eyes glow, revealing he has golden irises with hourglass pupils. In his hands he wields a black staff, appearing to be made of shadows." Master passion: Despair. Arcana: The Hermit.
Koki Tsutsui//Anturo Vipunen (Frankenstein): Freakishly tall and gangly--6'7", but distressingly thin, to the point where he looks rather unhealthy, just skin stretched over bones. Koki's dream is to become a champion sumo wrestler, and he actually comes from a ninja family. Soft-spoken in that way that everybody pays attention when you do have something to say, because it's probably important--no wasted words. Bound by solidarity ethics, Koki was dependable and trustworthy to the end, and, unlike some other PCs, could be counted on to have a moral compass that didn't point off in some whacked out direction. Master passion: Loneliness. Arcana: Strength.
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Session one was basically getting the gang together. The four PCs found notes in their locker inviting them to join "S.E.E.S.," some kind of school club run by the guidance counselor, a persona-user named Chris Hayes.
Chris Hayes:
Anyway, Hayes gathered the kids and begged them to hear him out--they had the potential to be superheroes, if they wanted to! What high school student doesn't want to be a superhero, or at least think about it? Hayes pitched S.E.E.S. (the "Specialized Extracurricular Execution Squad") as a kind of detective club that solved mysteries and hunted monsters. Momo had been involved in weird, cultish activities before, so she was no stranger to the idea of the supernatural; Sumeragi leapt at the chance to do some "ghost hunting"; and the other two kind of got dragged into it by their enthusiastic classmates and the promise that this club would look very good on their college applications someday. The other major hook was the promise to unravel the events of five years ago--everybody remembered that something really weird happened in Iwatodai when they were younger, but the details were incredibly fuzzy. The PCs agreed to go looking for a shady character known only as Shinshiro--allegedly he'd been involved in some break-ins in the area, and the police had been unable to track him down.
Sumeragi hit up one of his contacts, his homicide detective uncle, and learned that there had been some "mysterious deaths" in the area--10 or 20 people. The only consistent detail is that every victim owned an electric window fan. Some of the neighbors had reported robberies where the only things stolen...were electric window fans. The PCs picked up Shinshiro's trail and tracked him to a warehouse supposedly owned by the Kirijo Group...full of window fans. Which Shinshiro had been stealing to save their owners from fan death. Shinshiro, as it turned out, was a paranoid conspiracy freak. Of course, the real reason people had been mysteriously dying was because shadows were creeping around the city again...and there were some in the area, to boot. The PCs fought their first combat against Cowardly Mayas before they'd even gained their persona powers; everyone manifest a persona for the first time fighting a bigger shadow that showed up after the Mayas had been defeated.
Shadows:
Shinshiro:
With the PCs established as "superheroes," session two set the tone for future sessions by having Hayes dangle rumors in front of the PCs and letting them decide what to investigate. Also, Momo and Tobasuko argued vehemently that the club needed to be renamed, because they really didn't want to be part of an "execution squad." Thus, S.E.I.S. -- the Specialized Extracurricular Investigation Squad -- was formed.
"If you take a hot bath in a totally dark room, the spirits will grant you one wish."
"A strange man has been hanging around the Paulownia Mall at night. He has been seen speaking to small audiences and entertaining people by playing the saxophone."
"Shadows and the Kirijo Group are somehow linked. Kirijo has reportedly created a number of anti-Shadow weapons. The whereabouts and nature of these weapons is unknown at this time."
So the players/PCs were left to debate what major mysteries to solve...and which obvious rumors were worth further investigation.
A bit of background. I'd been thinking about using a modified version of the Shadowrun 4e system to run a Shin Megami Tensei: Persona game for a while. However, when time came to actually run the game, I figured I'd give After Sundown a shot. Characters were created as for an Origin Story, but by the end of the first game session everybody had picked up a supernatural type template, so I actually had the players create their character + persona before the game ever started--they just didn't get to use any of the "supernatural" bonuses to their stats or powers until they acquired them in-game.
For those who have played the Persona games, I picked up the continuity of the game shortly after the events of P4 Arena, but set the game on Iwatodai so that the students could attend the school from Persona 3, Gekkoukan High. Events from the Persona 2 duology were dubiously canon, but (spoilers!) Nyarlathotep was a major villain for the game, and Philemon made an appearance as well. You can skip down if you don't care about an explanation of the Personaverse.
Essential Background:
It is 2015. Approximately five years ago, a rash of mysterious deaths and disappearances accompanied the increasing prevalence of sufferers from a disease known only as "apathy syndrome," which reduced its sufferers to near-catatonic states. At the peak of the nightmare, doomsday cults were all the rage, with demonstrators on every street corner waving signs and proclaiming the end of the world, sure to come by the end of the first month of the new year.
But then...nothing happened. January 31st came and went, and the fog lifted. The doomsayers disappeared. Life went on as normal. No one really remembers why the end seemed so certain, so imminent; most people have forgotten all about the disappearances and the paralytic sufferers of the mysterious illness. Maybe you remember some things. Maybe you don't. You were, after all, just a child at the time, and odds are you only remember if someone who disappeared was important to you.
It's April. The new school year started only a week ago, and students are all finding new extracurriculars or settling back into their old ones. And at the end of the school day, you found a note in your locker—an invitation to join a new club.
You have the opportunity to make a difference.
The fate of our world lies in the hands of those with the potential.
S.E.E.S
Please consider joining our club—dedicated to a future where light chases away the shadows.
FIRST MEETING WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8TH @ 6 P.M.
AT THE SHINSHOUDOU ANTIQUE STORE
Surely this will look good on your college applications, right?
But then...nothing happened. January 31st came and went, and the fog lifted. The doomsayers disappeared. Life went on as normal. No one really remembers why the end seemed so certain, so imminent; most people have forgotten all about the disappearances and the paralytic sufferers of the mysterious illness. Maybe you remember some things. Maybe you don't. You were, after all, just a child at the time, and odds are you only remember if someone who disappeared was important to you.
It's April. The new school year started only a week ago, and students are all finding new extracurriculars or settling back into their old ones. And at the end of the school day, you found a note in your locker—an invitation to join a new club.
You have the opportunity to make a difference.
The fate of our world lies in the hands of those with the potential.
S.E.E.S
Please consider joining our club—dedicated to a future where light chases away the shadows.
FIRST MEETING WEDNESDAY, APRIL 8TH @ 6 P.M.
AT THE SHINSHOUDOU ANTIQUE STORE
Surely this will look good on your college applications, right?
The Personaverse:
Having played a Persona game, or any Shin Megami Tensei series game (hereafter abbreivated as "SMT"), is totally unnecessary for participation. The short version is that the SMT universe is much like our own, but with the addition that magic is unambiguously real and creatures generally referred to as "demons" exist—not that the average person is aware of either of those things. Note that the SMT universe refers to literally all supernatural and mythological creatures save Judeo-Christian angels generically as "demons," whether they're classical fiends, Lovecraftian horrors, mischevious fey, vengeful ghosts, or even divine figures in other religions (Odin, Izanagi, Vishnu, et cetera). However, some games in the series also divide "demons" up into families based on their type, so for the most part After Sundown's classifications as mentioned in the section on playable and non-playable types are going to accurately describe whatever you are or encounter.
Persona users, the protagonists of the series, are essentially spirit-channelers, like possession mages in Shadowrun; their bodies are supernaturally strong and resistant to injury in part due to the presence of the Persona, and they can call upon the Persona to use magic or perform other feats of strength. Your characters do not initially have access to any of their supernatural powers, nor do they have any certain knowledge of supernatural "stuff" (while you can certainly play a character whose hobbies include the occult, some or all of what they've read in books may not be true).
Aesthetically, you are creating not one, but two characters. One of these is a high school student; the other is a mythological figure or creature that serves as your character's Persona. If you want an idea of what sort of concept is suitable for your character's Persona, you can check out various internet resources (Google "list of personas" and you'll get some listings for personae that have appeared in Persona 3 and 4). Note that a Persona, even if it shares the name of some mythic figure, might take a form that is inspired by that figure as opposed to literally being that figure. Check out the design of Persona 3's Orpheus for an example—he's a lot more than just a Greek dude with a lyre.
Persona users, the protagonists of the series, are essentially spirit-channelers, like possession mages in Shadowrun; their bodies are supernaturally strong and resistant to injury in part due to the presence of the Persona, and they can call upon the Persona to use magic or perform other feats of strength. Your characters do not initially have access to any of their supernatural powers, nor do they have any certain knowledge of supernatural "stuff" (while you can certainly play a character whose hobbies include the occult, some or all of what they've read in books may not be true).
Aesthetically, you are creating not one, but two characters. One of these is a high school student; the other is a mythological figure or creature that serves as your character's Persona. If you want an idea of what sort of concept is suitable for your character's Persona, you can check out various internet resources (Google "list of personas" and you'll get some listings for personae that have appeared in Persona 3 and 4). Note that a Persona, even if it shares the name of some mythic figure, might take a form that is inspired by that figure as opposed to literally being that figure. Check out the design of Persona 3's Orpheus for an example—he's a lot more than just a Greek dude with a lyre.
I made some other changes to the AS rules. PCs created as an Origin Story and were then given some bonus skills and backgrounds, but not as many as an In Media Res character would get because I wanted high school students to have fewer overall points distributed than established supernatural entities. (Ultimately, I think everybody had more than enough points anyway.)
Major rules changes: Persona-users were treated as normal humans in possession of superpowers--not actually a vampire or other inhuman monster, regardless of the supernatural type of their persona. This meant that they were not affected by AS's monster weaknesses, so someone with a "vampire" persona still functioned in sunlight and nobody had a weakness to particular materials. Also, I stuck everybody on the Lunar power cycle, regardless of persona type. If I were to run the campaign again, I'd probably still eliminate the "your powers are disabled" weaknesses, but I would've kept the material weaknesses, because it's in-theme for the games that PCs become supernaturally vulnerable to certain things because of the nature of their persona. It also would probably have made the PCs feel less...invincible.
Also, I let people pick different master passions if they really wanted to.
Dramatis Personae:
Momoko Hirata//Lotis (Dryad): Cute, popular, well-adjusted high school girl, at least on the surface. Joined a cult with her father during the latter part of Persona 3's timeline. He and his friends successfully committed suicide...while she and some others held off the cops with sniper rifles. But she got mental health treatment and they released her and she's perfectly normal and fine, okay? Her Persona, Lotis, "manifests as a delicate pink lotus with a myriad of tiny perfect pink hands, clasped together with their fingers intertwined to mimic the shapes of petals. The hands in the center are vivid yellow, and those ones sway a little as they reach upward. Lotis opens and closes with a gentle breathing rhythm when she's pleased but when she isn't pleased she tightens up and oozes." Momo started the game with some Song of Swarms powers as her bonus abilities and consequently was full of wasps. Master passion: Loneliness. Arcana: The Moon.
Mitsuru Tayama//The Great Bambino (Fallen): Star baseball player and recent transfer student. Charismatic and popular, but modest about it. Excruciatingly polite. Nicknamed "Tobasuko" (Tobasco) for the "heat of his pitches." Ultimately kind of unhinged; Tayama-kun had some...interesting life priorities. His Persona is a baseball player dressed in pristine white, armed with an enormous bat. Master passion: Greed. Arcana: The Chariot.
Kuroki Sumeragi//The Dark Wizard (Khaibit): Amateur "ghost-hunter" in the school newspaper club. Conspiracy nut with an eidetic memory. Extremely socially-awkward (he had a background called "I Don't Know How to Handle This" which became sort of a running joke--it was the "what is the most socially-awkward thing I can do in this situation" background). Nevertheless, he was desperately searching for friends...he just didn't really seem to know how to make them. Lots of science-type skills and a contact in the police force (uncle, homicide squad). His Persona was described as "a tall spindly figure in dark black robes, his face is constantly obscured in in the shadow of his wide wizards hat. When he uses his powers his eyes glow, revealing he has golden irises with hourglass pupils. In his hands he wields a black staff, appearing to be made of shadows." Master passion: Despair. Arcana: The Hermit.
Koki Tsutsui//Anturo Vipunen (Frankenstein): Freakishly tall and gangly--6'7", but distressingly thin, to the point where he looks rather unhealthy, just skin stretched over bones. Koki's dream is to become a champion sumo wrestler, and he actually comes from a ninja family. Soft-spoken in that way that everybody pays attention when you do have something to say, because it's probably important--no wasted words. Bound by solidarity ethics, Koki was dependable and trustworthy to the end, and, unlike some other PCs, could be counted on to have a moral compass that didn't point off in some whacked out direction. Master passion: Loneliness. Arcana: Strength.
--------------------------------------------------------
Session one was basically getting the gang together. The four PCs found notes in their locker inviting them to join "S.E.E.S.," some kind of school club run by the guidance counselor, a persona-user named Chris Hayes.
Chris Hayes:
Chris Hayes//The Illithid (Deep One). Hayes is distinctly not Japanese, at least, not if you ask Japanese people. His father was U.S. military, his mother was a scientist of some sort. The blonde hair and blue eyes really made him stick out as a kid, to say the least, and he had kind of a rough childhood, not that much of that came up for a while. One of Hayes's major defining traits, being treated like a "gaijin" because he didn't "look Japanese" despite being born and raised in Japan was blatantly borrowed from the character of Lisa Silverman from the Persona 2 duology. Master passion: Hunger. Arcana: The Star.
Sumeragi hit up one of his contacts, his homicide detective uncle, and learned that there had been some "mysterious deaths" in the area--10 or 20 people. The only consistent detail is that every victim owned an electric window fan. Some of the neighbors had reported robberies where the only things stolen...were electric window fans. The PCs picked up Shinshiro's trail and tracked him to a warehouse supposedly owned by the Kirijo Group...full of window fans. Which Shinshiro had been stealing to save their owners from fan death. Shinshiro, as it turned out, was a paranoid conspiracy freak. Of course, the real reason people had been mysteriously dying was because shadows were creeping around the city again...and there were some in the area, to boot. The PCs fought their first combat against Cowardly Mayas before they'd even gained their persona powers; everyone manifest a persona for the first time fighting a bigger shadow that showed up after the Mayas had been defeated.
Shadows:
The major adversaries of Persona 3 and 4, shadows are fragments of the human psyche--specifically, they're personae that have gone berserk and killed their "people." I put together stats for shadow adversaries from scratch by mixing and matching appropriate AS powers, although their primary discipline was--you guessed it--Play of Shadows. All Shadows had an Orphic power source and were vulnerable to wood and sunlight.
Kyo "Shinshiro" Matsuda//Deathscythe Gundam (Android) actually held down a day job as an appliance repairman. What he really liked to do, however, as poke around in dangerous places and try to uncover "the truth" about mysterious happenings in Japan. Stuff like the cults from five years ago, sure, but also things like fan death. Shinshiro was nicknamed "Ghost-kun" by the PCs because a) he introduced himself by making a bunch of spooky noises at them from the rafters of a warehouse where he'd stashed his stolen fans and b) because he wore a white trenchcoat all the time. He wound up becoming a somewhat useful NPC contact in the sense that he knew or at least claimed to know about a lot of weird stuff that was going on, but he was about as likely to blame Nazi occultists as he was to provide real answers. Double spoiler: There really are Nazi occultists running around.
"If you take a hot bath in a totally dark room, the spirits will grant you one wish."
"A strange man has been hanging around the Paulownia Mall at night. He has been seen speaking to small audiences and entertaining people by playing the saxophone."
"Shadows and the Kirijo Group are somehow linked. Kirijo has reportedly created a number of anti-Shadow weapons. The whereabouts and nature of these weapons is unknown at this time."
So the players/PCs were left to debate what major mysteries to solve...and which obvious rumors were worth further investigation.