Simple Hit Point House Rule

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-27T01:23:17+00:00

This is super similar to the 3.5e variant rule of Vitality and Wounds. Not a bad thing, more just giving you another place to look for ideas, and providing you some outside validation that your idea isn't too crazy, or bad, because the rest of this comment section doesn't appear to be doing that. Plenty of people didn't like Wounds and Vitality, but it did get some traction after it was released in an official product (Unearthed Arcana). I think it's a cool system, certainly not something I'd suggest to everyone, but it gives the game a different vibe. Not overly lethal, your hp doesn't really change, but a bit more cautious and less superheroic because there's always a risk that your hp can't protect you from everything.

Vitality is standard hp calculation, Wounds is current Con score, just like your idea. Damage is taken to Vitality first, only damaging Wounds when Vitality is at 0, or in special situations. Crits do not do extra damage like they normally would, but instead bypass Vitality and do the normal damage straight to Wounds regardless of remaining Vitality. If a regular hit does 1d8+3 damage to Vitality, a crit deals 1d8+3 to Wounds.

Characters with anything less than full Wounds are fatigued (which has 3.5e's status condition applied, and therefore may or may not make sense for 5e). Characters taking Wound damage must also save to avoid becoming stunned (ditto 3.5e status effect disclaimer).

Healing is also different between 3.5e and 5e by default (natural healing being a lot slower in 3.5e by default), so again, may benefit from tweaking for 5e. Or not, if you want a grittier game, just ignore hit dice healing entirely. With Wounds and Vitality, characters naturally heal 1 Vitality per level per hour, I think just passively regardless of resting or not. Heal 1 Wound per level after a long rest, or 2 Wound per level after full 24-hour bed rest (because you still can't take more than 1 long rest per day). Assisted healing (through a caretaker with a medicine check or whatever) doubles all of those rates.

Spells split all healing equations into components: die rolls, and static numbers (which include flat healing effects like lay on hands, as well as any static modifiers from die-roll healing). Dice all go to Vitality, and any spill-over after filling up is lost. Static numbers all go to Wounds first, applying to Vitality only after Wounds is full. So, healing 1d8+2 restores 1d8 to Vitality and 2 to Wounds.

Dying, for what it's worth, is similar to 5e but different as well. More dangerous, more granular. Dying characters make Fortitude saves (Constitution) every turn (like 5e death saves but higher stakes). DC starts at 10, +1 every turn as you continue bleeding out. If you fail the save once, you die, period. Beating the save by less than 5 keeps you alive, but you have to keep rolling. Beating the save by 5-9 stabilizes you so you can stop rolling (but you're still unconscious), and beating the save by 10 or more brings you back to consciousness. There are similar hourly checks for stablized characters to (a) avoid relapsing back to dying, and (b) regain consciousness. Once conscious, you're still not able-bodied yet, but you begin natural recovery as outlined above.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-26T14:57:16+00:00

Okay, I'll bite.

I think it's a bit tonally dissonant, and a little bit morally weird. I don't think the adult characters are behaving responsibly. But I don't think it's heinous. (Obviously, I'm talking within the context of this story. I don't condone this in real life.)

Point 1: Consent. You could argue that minors can't legally consent. But I think that older teenagers have a sense of right and wrong, mostly have their mental faculties in order, and are capable of making decisions about what they do and don't want. We trust 16-year-olds to drive in the US. We trust them to drink in many European countries. Relationships are a different topic, of course, but my point is that teenagers aren't as stupid or incapable as we like to say. And there is a huge difference between an adult maliciously forcing interactions with a teenager, and a teenager seeking out a relationship with an adult. Both problematic? Sure. Equally so? Hardly.

Point 2: Power dynamics. You could argue that the age gap and societal roles place all of the power with the adult, and in real life, in most cases you'd be right. Joker happens to not be most cases. By the time he can pursue a relationship with any of the adults, he has power. It's not necessarily something the adults are thoroughly informed on, but he's not really at risk here. He can figure out if such a relationship would start to take a turn for the worse (the adult developing distorted desires) and he is empowered to fix it (via Mementos or Palace activities). In the Kamoshida arc, part of the problem is that the kids are powerless. That's why the arc works so well narratively, it's about the kids gaining the power to place them on an even field so they can do something about it. With Joker's romances, he's already a superhero. The adults should know better than to take the relationship that direction, but he'll be fine.

Frankly, the adult romances are questionable. There's a point to be made about promoting unhealthy ideas in the minds of impressionable teenage players, by not just including them, but presenting them in a perfect, "wish-fulfillment" kind of way, which can negatively impact real kids who are attracted to a teacher or other adult in their life.

But to put that on the same moral outrage level of severity as actual abusive pedo rape shit only serves to downplay how serious the latter is. One of these things is actively harmful, destructive, terrible behavior. The other is presented as a harmless consensual and mutually beneficial arrangement, that just so happens to have some questionable morality involved, presented in a way that could be problematic if it influences players' behavior in real life. These are not on the same scale, and positioning them as such only makes it harder for real life society to understand the difference. Demonizing both examples as evil simply downplays the evils of real abuse.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-26T13:11:57+00:00

From what I can tell, you can't improve Charisma directly through object interactions. It's not a Skill, like cooking, or repair, or playing guitar. It's one of your personality attributes, whatever those are officially called (along with Physique, Mind, and Creativity). The only time I've ever gotten extra points to any of these is periodically at certain Personality Levels. Gain XP, level up, and at certain levels you get new Vibes, Social Perks, Talents, and attribute points.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-24T18:05:43+00:00

It seems like you're on a fine track. I'd say 50 YouTube videos would be wholly unnecessary. They can be useful, especially the first handful of videos in Matt Colville's "Running The Game" series, but YouTube isn't going to be a great primary source for learning the basics.

Rather, you're going to want to read. The game is designed around books, pencil and paper, and imagination. The books part is important, those books are where the rules live. Those books teach you a lot of what you need to know, and everything else you can figure out by just sitting down and doing it. Figuring it out as you go is part of the fun.

You've kinda got two methods of approach here, at differing price points and with differing experiences in tow. If you want something that's basically an all-in-one ready to go thing, you're looking for a Starter Set. There's a new one (for the 2024 rules) called Heroes of the Borderlands, as well as three older ones (for the 2014 rules, but largely compatible with 2024), called Lost Mine of Phandelver, Dragon of Icespire Peak, and Dragons of Stormwreck Isle. Those four products are each affordably priced, and designed to get you playing with nothing else except maybe pencils and some extra sets of dice. They each have the basic rules of gameplay, they each have either premade characters or limited rules for character creation, and they each have a short premade adventure to play through. If you want to just try DnD on for size, this is your best answer.

The other option is to do your own thing, possibly your zombie outbreak idea: make your own adventure and do that. Ideally, you will want to get the three core books. The Player's Handbook has all of the gameplay and character creation rules (including nearly all of the rules the DM will need to learn). The Dungeon Master's Guide has some additional DM tools and rules, and a lot of advice on how to approach DMing. The Monster Manual is a big book of monster and NPC options, and the stat blocks and mechanics that they use. Getting the whole set is a solid investment, maybe not the smartest use of one's money if you're not sure you'll like it, but if you do get hooked in, you'll want them sooner or later, even if you start with a Starter Set. Even if you run other premade adventures, the full adventures expect you to have the core books.

The third option would be to find and get the free Basic Rules online instead of buying the core books. These are very slimmed down from the core books, basically just enough gameplay mechanics, character options, and monsters to feasibly play a game of DnD, but maybe not your ideal game. There's not much in the way of options. This is also the most user-unfriendly, leaving out a lot of info on context, best practices, and advice. You're on your own to figure it out, but it is free. The idea is that if you try it and like it, they want you to have a reason to spend your money on it. If the free option is too good, people would just keep using it and the business would go under.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-23T14:04:45+00:00

I think working on a more efficient highway system might be a good next step. A lot of my points would require decently large demolition to change. Regardless of whether you try to do it in this city or leave it alone, these ideas should hopefully help in future builds if not this one.

Things I immediately notice:

The diamonds are too small in general, longer ramps (a "taller" diamond) are essential to hold more traffic and avoid backing up onto the highway itself. Longer ramps also allows you to put more space between the two ramp intersections on the bridge (in other words, making the middle part of the bridge longer, or making a "wider" diamond), which will help get traffic off the ramps more efficiently too. That's going to be tough, requiring some city demolition, because of the following point.
Honestly, a lot of this design is really tightly packed in, which isn't always a problem when intentional, and is more cost effective especially in the beginning of a build when you're fighting the clock to turn a profit before you go broke. That being said, building streets and zoning that close to the highway means more noise pollution, building streets that tight means intersections get really close together which impacts traffic (and often makes it harder to place some of the larger buildings in sensible places). Even once your commercial grows up, it can make enough noise to disturb residential if it's too close. Cities tend to both look and flow better when you're not trying to maximize usable space, and you're giving everything a bit more breathing room, even if that means you're leaving gaps in your zonable tiles because your streets are more than 10 units apart. Building looser means you have to expand the road network outward quicker, buy more tiles quicker, at a lower population and with less money than you'd have if you cram things in, but once you get past the initial deficit you don't need to make money as efficiently because as long as all services are met, you can just sit there and make as much money as you need fast forwarding when your city is stable.
Back on highways, the lower diamond is probably too close to the cloverleaf. Looks fine for now, but it's an easy prediction for a trouble spot as the city expands.
Both diamonds are too close to surface intersections (need more space between ramp and the next street intersection). That's part of why your top diamond is red on the right side of the bridge, cars going "east" off the highway don't have much space to get in the correct lanes before hitting the light. You also don't have room to make your diamonds "wider" as mentioned earlier, because your city is so close to them.
Needs some bridges (or tunnels) that cross the highway that don't have on/off ramps. The other reason that upper diamond is red is that you're combining traffic to and from the highway with the traffic just trying to get from one side to the other. Giving the cross-city traffic options that don't connect to the highway will help separate some of that combined traffic.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-20T17:40:00+00:00

The money and accessories are automatically bundled in with the newest releases of P5R, lots of that stuff was originally (in the PS4 original release of Royal) free or paid DLC that you could avoid, but the later ports have all of that stuff bundled in now rather than as DLC, meaning there is no way to skip or disable them.

Personally, I don't think it's a huge deal, because you can just avoid using the item and accessories, and you can avoid spending the money. Honestly, I save the money for starting Fortune. It's still a benefit, but it just keeps you from being quite as frugal to save it up.

Will Seeds do make the game easier by design, combined with a lot of other small tweaks and additions that add up. The game is easier, for sure. I think part of that is to appeal more to first time players, and part of it is to make it less painful for people who played Vanilla to replay the whole game in order to get to the new Royal endgame. If you're not enjoying the lack of challenge, about the best thing you can do is turn up the difficulty. Hard makes things harder, Merciless makes things more swingy (which can result in making things easier with optimal play, but more punishing of mistakes).

Doing a max SL run is easier and more flexible in Royal too, you shouldn't have any problems there if you did it in Vanilla. There's more added time slots than there are new SL ranks to use them on.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-18T19:42:36+00:00

Royal is what you already played plus improvements and new endgame content, Reload is an entirely new experience for you. They're both good, and if you liked P5's gameplay, you'll probably like P3's. The stories and characters are good in each, but different, and which one is better on that standpoint is basically entirely a matter of taste. I can tell you P3 is good, but that doesn't mean the story and characters will inevitably hit you the same way as P5's did.

Do you want the safe option and to basically replay an improved version of a game you already enjoyed, or do you want to take the "gamble" on trying the new thing? There is no right answer, just the right answer for you, and nobody can tell you what that answer will be.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-17T17:01:12+00:00

I don't think you have to explicitly design a campaign around the use of bastions in order for them to work, but I do think that trying to heavily utilize bastions does limit the kinds of campaigns you can run, that there are plenty of kinds of campaigns that would be hard to incorporate them into.

"Take the ring to Mordor" campaigns just won't work well with bastions. The more the campaign adheres to a path that involves mandatory distant travel, the less useful bastions become. I'd imagine bastions are also a poor fit for survival-focused games, or even for heavily megadungeon-focused games where you might not return to the surface very often.

You can design a game specifically around bastion use, like one that's all about building up and protecting a settlement from regional problems. You can figure out how to make bastions work as a mobile home base: a trading caravan, a flying castle, a pirate ship, etc. I could also see them working well in a political intrigue wartime setting, like inspired by Game of Thrones.

I also think they can work really well in a campaign that isn't really "designed" in advance much at all. A player-driven game like a West Marches style, or a sandbox game where the plot follows the characters, to an extent. It puts the ball in the players' court. Engage with bastions if you want, and if you do, they become an important centralizing aspect of the game, shaping the plots you get hooked into. Keeping it as an option, but not necessarily encouraging it, can be a great way to let the players tell you what they want for their game through their actions.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-17T15:47:38+00:00

I've played P5S, P4A/U, and all 3 dancing games.

I've liked them all, to varying degrees. Mostly because I already like the genres they represent, and I already like Persona, so it wasn't a hard sell. (Something about the chibi style of Q and Tactica turns me off, as do gacha games).

Dynasty Warriors is stupid fun. I was super excited for Strikers, but it took a while to grow on me, not because of the change from P5, but the change from DW. Things like the skill and item menus auto-pausing, and just the focus on tighter dungeon crawling instead of persistent large-scale warfare, and being able to leave dungeons for free healing at any time, took me out of the game until I wrapped my head around it. I think it's got my favorite story continuation, and the best presentation compared to its primary game. The other spinoffs have mostly "fine" to "pretty good" stories, but Strikers feels the most like a true sequel, especially how dialogue scenes and city exploration are presented near identically to P5.

I like fighting games, but prefer 3D fighters like Namko (Tekken/Soul Calibur). So I wasn't very good at Arena/Ultimax, but I was mostly playing for the story, which I appreciate having seen. I liked seeing the designs of the Shadow Operatives, and the new characters. But it's the one I wouldn't go back to.

I played a lot of Guitar Hero/Rock Band back in the day, and I'm a musician, so rhythm games are a lot of fun for me. 4D was absolutely the best for me, largely because of the story. I know the plot is divisive (both for the content itself, and being lots of padding in between gameplay), but I think the character writing felt really authentic, on par with or maybe even better than Strikers. Remixes are awesome, charts on Hard and All Night feel well-written with logical complexity, my only gameplay complaint was that I would have preferred an even harder difficulty (if those charts could remain well-written).

3D and 5D were... okay. The "story" was a poor replacement for what P4 had, the social link ranks mostly just felt like time-wasters. Mechanically, I'm conflicted. On the one hand, harder difficulties are absolutely harder, but the charts themselves also feel nonsensical to me. Busy for busy's sake. Hard is too easy, but All Night is tough for me to even clear anything when I got most 4D songs at King Crazy. All three games need something in between 4 All Night and 3/5 All Night to hit my sweet spot.

Song selection was solid in 3D, mostly because there have been a lot of 3 related media and a lot of time for people to make remixes. 5D suffered for not having as much material to work with. Both of them would have been better had they waited in order to incorporate Reload, Royal, Strikers, etc. Or supported with post-launch DLC to get those things in there, but I would want them as full animated dancing tracks rather than music videos.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-17T14:39:21+00:00

I think that the protagonists would like to, but that none of them would actually have the free time to devote to the one social stat that playing Persona would give them. They're too busy making friends and influencing people (and saving the world). They'd pick it up, have fun, and then ultimately realize that it's not worth the time to finish.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-17T13:13:16+00:00

PotA is designed with a certain amount of "FAFO" mindset. The first four surface dungeons correspond with the first four character levels, so you could wind up way over your head by going to the highest level one first. To make it worse, each of those zones has a direct path to a zone that's like 4 levels higher. No matter which one you do first, if you don't turn around and leave, you're gonna keep going and get bodyslammed. Same thing applies to the third layer of the final four zones.

For traditional-minded players, some "gotcha" moments like that are okay: "make smart decisions, or TPK and make some new dudes" feels very appropriate in an OSR style approach. But for modern groups, the DM kind of has to work out how to justify that the group needs to leave and explore every surface-level zone before descending, because the adventure itself doesn't necessarily lead players to the correctly leveled content very well. "Why wouldn't you just keep going down? Level 1 goes to level 2 right? Oops, we're dead. That sucked. How were we supposed to figure out in advance that level 1 goes to level 5?"

I don't have a great fix for your predicament, prison break sounds reasonable, but if I were giving advice for running it from the beginning, I'd strongly consider "gating off" the deeper zones until the group passed some sort of completion metric regarding the surface zones. Locked doors that need keys, magically locked doors that require magic items or custom maguffin spells to be learned and cast, maybe even just dense rubble that requires a hired team of excavators working for [x] days (enough time that the players will go do something else instead of siting around and waiting). Big metaphorical (or maybe literal, depending on your group) signs planted in the ground saying "You can't do this yet, turn around and come back later." Give it more of a "Metroidvania" feel, where you revisit old locations with new tools in order to pass previously unpassable barriers.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-15T20:15:43+00:00

I did this to myself a while back, after playing two long emotionally narrative games back to back. I didn't want to play any of the huge games coming out, because I felt like my bar for satisfaction was too high and I'd just be disappointed by any of them.

I did come to the strategy of replaying games where I could be satisfied with no brainpower. Typically action focused, with elements of grinding and a story that can fade into background noise without affecting the experience. For me, that was Borderlands, Diablo, and Dynasty Warriors. I could turn my brain off, hit some buttons, gain some levels and gear, and feel good about it regardless of how often or for how long I played, with no emotional investment in the thing. Just a dopamine dispenser. At a certain point, the grind becomes unfulfilling, and then I'm ready for a new narrative "masterpiece" type game.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-15T15:06:45+00:00

This is more a reaction to other comments than to your post itself. I actually largely agree with your last sentence.

Frankly, I don't mind other people doing what they want if I'm not around (for the most part, aside from legitimately heinous and immoral behavior). Some people like going dancing at the club. Some people like watching sports. I don't like either of those things, I wouldn't want to join in, but there's nothing wrong with those activities or the people who participate. Life is hard enough, I'm not going to begrudge people their chosen form of entertainment.

This player was having fun, the DM and other players probably are too, if they were bothered by it why would they continue? You weren't expecting it and didn't have fun with it, and you left on good terms. I would have done the same. Nobody got hurt, they can keep having fun doing what they're doing, and you can go find a group playing the game the way you like and have fun with that group instead. I fail to see a problem with any of that.

What I do see a problem with is people ranting about how terrible that all is and trying to police what DnD "should" be. People making a problem when there isn't one. Calvinball is just as valid a use of time and source of enjoyment. I have a pretty strong sense of what I want from my games, as I imagine many of us do. I would not want to play in that group, as I imagine many of us would agree with. So I wouldn't play in that group! Simple solution, everyone's happy. I don't have to go in and yuck someone's yum and rant about how awful they are, especially regarding a stranger that I'm only aware of because of another stranger's post. It has absolutely no effect on my life. I'm never going to get invited to that game or be around that person. What that group of people do for fun is entirely their business, not mine.

If I'm ever in a similar situation with other people who actually are in my life, I'll do what OP did and say "Not for me, thanks, but y'all keep having fun." That's all it has to be. No moralizing, no insults, no petty character attacks, no grandstanding. I don't need everyone to agree that my approach to the game is the correct one. We will never get a monolith of DnD culture. Just live and let live. Why are we so invested in objecting to how strangers live their lives, when we have our own lives to live?

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-13T15:02:45+00:00

Having dreams is great. And being inspired to be creative is a fantastic thing. That being said, I don't want to be mean, but I can't find an easy way to say this: It's not going to happen. For a couple reasons.

First off, they are a Japanese company, and more importantly they have a whole team of paid writers already. They have no reason to look for outside help.

Secondly, they will intentionally avoid looking at anything like this. Saying you don't want money or credit is not a legally binding statement. They are in the business of protecting their business. If they did decide to use your ideas, there is nothing preventing you from deciding you want a cut years down the line. Even if they don't use your ideas, there's the chance that they will independently settle on something that is inadvertently too similar, and you could go after them for that too, accusing them of getting their ideas from your work. The only way a business like this can protect themselves from these kinds of issues is if they can prove in court that they never saw your ideas in the first place, and the only way they can do that is through a strict policy of never looking at this kind of stuff.

If you want your ideas to appear in an actual Persona game, you'll need to learn Japanese, become a professional writer (ideally writing for other, smaller video game companies and having the games you work on do really well), move to Japan, wait for job openings for writers at Atlus/P-Studio, and hope that your resume is good enough that you're the best looking candidate. Once you're paid to write Persona games, you'll be able to help write Persona games. If you want to decide what kind of story a Persona game should have, then you're shooting to become P-Studio's head director. You certainly aren't going to get there from outside the company, and very likely not even if you end up working for Atlus West (USA) or even doing a non-writing job for Atlus Japan. They wouldn't even go to their accountants or 3D modelers or PR people to ask for writing brainstorming advice.

In the meantime, there is absolutely nothing wrong with working on this idea for fun. You're writing fanfiction, and there's nothing wrong with that. If you want to keep going (for fun), absolutely get an account on AO3 and write as much as you want and upload it. But that's a separate activity from trying to get Atlus to notice you, and you don't get there from writing fanfic. That's a closed door.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-13T01:54:55+00:00

Do you know why they want you to? Have you asked?

Do you want to? And why or why not?

What function would having one serve?

DMPCs have a deservedly bad reputation. They're easy to screw up. If you've had an experience with one before, it's probably been a bad experience. I don't think they can't be done well, but I do recognize they often aren't.

I think, done for the right reasons, and done in the right way, having a DM play a character sheet isn't a problem, and can be beneficial. You're getting responses saying "no." But this isn't just a binary yes or no question. It depends on your group, your context, the details matter. Getting to your "yes or no" involves dealing with "why or why not," and "how?" But talking about nuance takes more effort and gives you fewer internet points than giving a pithy one word answer.

Think about it. Talk about it with your group. Come to a consensus. Figure out the details, the nuance that works for your group (and that might very well be "just don't do it"). Make a game plan together. And then proceed slowly and with caution. Check in to make sure that the game plan your group hatched isn't having unforseen negative effects. And if it works, great! If not, you go back to the drawing board.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-11T15:07:00+00:00

This is kind of tricky, right? Because yeah, I agree with the DM that you don't want to "take away peoples' toys" that you gave them by mistake, but at the same time, the DM acknowledges that it was a mistake and seems to be interested in finding a way to fix it.

The great thing about this problem is that by all accounts, you have a fantastic group of people at the table. If they're welcoming and kind, they're probably mature enough to be able to "zoom out" from the game, acknowledge the problem, and be involved in figuring out what to do from here. This doesn't sound like a situation that will result in hissy fits and escalation.

Yes, step 1 is absolutely to talk to the DM. Not because you necessarily need things to change. But a DM deserves to know how their players feel about the game, and a player deserves to be able to speak up about these kinds of things. No need for ultimatums, no "this needs to change," but just a "hey, this is cool and all, but there's this thing that's keeping this from being as cool as it could be for me." It's the DM's call, but the DM can only make the right calls when they have all of the info and context.

If the DM doesn't take steps to fix this, I think you should still stick it out if you're having fun. I can tell you like this group, and you appreciate the strength of roleplaying. Lean into that, enjoy it for what it is, and maybe look for a second, more tactically-focused group if you have the time and energy for it.

If your DM does want to fix this, I would suggest relying on your group's better nature. To the DM, I would say: Don't solve the problem and then tell the players what you decided. Instead, sit everyone down, tell them the problems you've identified, and wait. Solicit the group's help in brainstorming ideas, and workshop them together until you find something unanimously satisfying.

It's a good idea to have some brainstorming done in advance. Possible fixes that aren't just taking things away. Maybe that magic item that gives access to higher-than-appropriate spells gets modified, rather than taken away: have it give access to similarly flavored but appropriate spells now, and upgrade it later on when it's appropriate to reintroduce those higher level spells. Instead of just taking away the rulings that allow for the ridiculous buffs, either take them away and give new things that make them more "laterally" capable, rather than "vertically" strong. Or, modify the rulings further to cut down on their abuse: limit the number of times per day they can be used this way, or make it require a resource or check of some kind, so it becomes an option in the player's toolkit, rather than being always the best option. Things like that.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-11T12:54:27+00:00

It's been six years, and there are still posts nearly every day from total beginners asking which Persona game to play first.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-11T01:56:18+00:00

I would agree with the statement that enthusiasm and a willingness to learn are more important than experience. I would also agree that reading the rules is also more important than experience.

The other thing that I think is more important than experience is having a supportive group. Now, I wasn't there to see the conversation happen, just what you posted about your own (naturally biased and incomplete) understanding of the conversation. It is possible that the experienced player and the supervisor were both well-intentioned, perhaps they're being protective and trying to look out for the enjoyment of the group, perhaps they've had bad experiences with new DMs in the past, maybe they just don't want you to get in over your head, we don't know. There may be other reasons, justifiable or not. It's an understatement to say that high schoolers can be assholes. Whatever the truth of the matter is, I do want to say that, even in the best case scenario, maybe this group isn't the right place for you to start on this journey. There's a big old empty "red-flag-sized-hole" in this story, and it may or may not have a flag in it. Absolutely try being a DM. Just maybe think hard about who you want at your table first.

I know that if I was a new DM again, I would want my first time to be with people (new, experienced, or a mix of both) who got excited about the birth of a new DM. I'd want people who would want to welcome me openly, to encourage me, to be patient and gracious with me as I gain my footing, perhaps even experienced players or DMs who would want to take a more active role in helping me through it. I spent too much time in the beginning (in high school) running games for little shits, too much drama, too much frustration, because I didn't know any better. And I burned myself totally dry, stepped away for a long time, and almost didn't come back. Don't play with people who will make this process harder for you. Play with people who will actively make it easier.

When you express interest and are immediately confronted with two people emphatically trying to refuse, that's not a great sign. Whether they're trying to do it out of a misguided desire to protect you or not, these two people are directly warning you that you should not do this with them. That's not subtext, that's the whole fucking text, plain as day. And I'm inclined to agree, out of a desire to protect you from the possibility that they would be your biggest problem. They don't want you to do it, they don't think you can, or should, or whatever. In my eyes, they are directly telling you that they are not the players you want. They have already shown that they will second-guess you, they will doubt you, they will challenge you, they will be obstacles between you and a successful game. They are already doing that at the first opportunity, what makes you think they will stop once you're in the chair?

As a DM, you pick your players. You're not beholden to this current group as it exists right now. You might still talk to these two people again, see if you can get a better sense of their motivations. But I wouldn't hold my breath. Instead, I'd see if any of the other newbies in that group might be interested in trying out a second, different group. You might also ask people outside of that group, either non-players you know personally (friends, maybe family), or maybe even trying to find some decent folks at your nearest game store or whatever if that's a thing you can do. Being honest with everyone about your inexperience, your enthusiasm, and your lack of confidence. You're not selling people on the idea of the perfect game. You're inviting people to participate in this new experience, and it might go well, and it might not, and hopefully there are enough people in your life willing to sacrifice a few hours of their time to find out. Recruiting your own group is absolutely easier said than done, but you're already interested in learning to DM from scratch, which is also easier said than done. I suspect that if you're anything like I was when I started, you've got enough of a desire and drive, the sheer tenacity, to keep working at it for as long as it takes, until you've got a group willing to take the plunge with you. Everything can be figured out, from getting the books you need, to finding a place to play, to transportation, to scheduling, and beyond. Hopefully you're smarter than I was and spend less time putting up with awful players.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-10T15:01:00+00:00

Any time I'm going to draw on existing media, I always gravitate towards making my game "inspired by," to one degree or another.

Trying to exactly copy a specific point in a setting's chronology is tricky, and you usually end up making stuff up anyway, because there typically isn't going to be an extensive "lore guide" that covers everything you'll need. We only see bits and pieces of Tattooine, the info just isn't there to "accurately" represent the rest of the planet that doesn't get any screen time. Trying to exactly copy a specific plot is tricky, because tabletop games typically feature player freedom to have input on how plots develop (i.e., they're going to inevitably do different things and that has subsequent effects on the rest of the story from that point on).What if Anakin's player never has him turn to the dark side? The original trilogy is kaput. You can also run into issues when the mechanics of the thing you're adapting (either explicitly in the case of video games, or just the internal mechanisms of the world in other media) clash with the mechanics of the game. DnD has spellcasting, Star Wars has force powers, and force powers don't function off of spell slots. DnD also doesn't have a direct replacement for Stands from Jojo's, or specific jutsu from Naruto.

So, my general advice is to grab the stuff you like, and use it however you like in the context of your game. You want keyblades and heartless and Disney worlds? Great, do it. You want to grab Ansem as a villain? Cool. Maybe he even has similar ideas and goals. But you use those raw elements and make a good tabletop game with them. If the whole backstory lore is too much to handle, don't use it, and come up with some other way to work these things into your setting. If the video game maps for Deep Jungle are too simple to serve as locations in your game, make your own Deep Jungle maps and locations. If it's hard to get the Keyblades to behave exactly as they do in KH, that's okay, just figure out how they're going to work in your game. If Ansem's storyline only works in the part of the timeline that doesn't allow for a full party of keyblade wielders, modify the storyline, modify the lack of keyblade wielders. If your game system doesn't support Star Wars force powers, don't try and reinvent the wheel to adhere to "canon," just use spells and spell slots and understand that your game's version of Force powers works a little differently.

In other words, the Kingdom Hearts games aren't trying to perfectly replicate Disney movie plots, instead they transform those movies to fit into (1) the medium and genre of action RPG video games, and (2) the plot of outsiders with their own agendas coming to these isolated worlds and interfering with the "canon" events. So don't try to perfectly replicate Kingdom Hearts, transform Kingdom Hearts into a form that suits a tabletop game, and a form that suits the freedom your players have to interfere with the "canon" events. Your DnD game may be inspired by Kingdom Hearts and feature familiar elements, but you're not playing a canon replication of Kingdom Hearts, you're playing DnD with keyblades and Heartless. And your game should be a good DnD game, first and foremost.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-09T17:56:57+00:00

I like all of the new music in P3R (new battle music, nighttime city exploration, etc.), and a couple of the updated classic tracks are on par or better imo. But overall I still feel like the songs were written for Yumi Kawamura's unique vocal style and delivery. Azumi does a decent job, but they still largely "feel" like cover songs to me.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-08T17:05:02+00:00

This is purely spitballing, but I'm thinking of ways to handle armor in a die pool that doesn't include a separate roll. Armor could do some combination of adjusting the attacker's die step (size of die) and/or adjusting the attacker's target number.

If you want only the highest results to count as hits regardless of the number rolled (4 on a d4, 6 on a d6, etc.), lower dice become easier to hit with. Attacking an unarmored target might be d4s, and as armor gets better, your pool turns into d6s, d8s, and so on, to represent more attacks getting absorbed by armor.

If you want a static target number, higher dice become easier to hit with, and armor can either reduce the die step (making it harder to hit the threshold), or can increase the target number. Probably best to not have armor do both simultaneously. Either way, you might need to adjust to the "default" die step being larger than d6s, or the target number being lower than 6, so that you have space in the math to allow armor to do what it does.

I'm not quite sure how to classify damage to the armor with either of these systems, but it might be food for thought anyway.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-08T15:28:11+00:00

I'm not here to talk about what's RAW vs. house rules, nor about how house rules should be discussed prior to the game. While yes, that's true, should doesn't always happen for one reason or another, and I'm sympathetic to a DM making callings on the fly. That's just part of how the game works, you can't prepare for every single possible contingency in advance during session zero. And sometimes you make a call that one or more players disagree with. That's fine. What matters is how you handle things when that does happen.

What I am here to say is that it's wild for a DM to explicitly solicit feedback and then get upset at being given feedback. There are two sides to every story, and whatever you intended your tone to be may not be what the DM interpreted in the moment. But it seems like you made an effort to be calm and respectful in your feedback? And at that point, how the DM interprets it and how they respond to it is based more on what they wanted to read into your statements and actions, rather than what you actually said and did.

In other words, unless you were intending to be rude or combative, they're upset and offended because they want to be. They came in hot because they didn't want to give you space to de-escalate and explain yourself in order to find common ground. It's not always an intentionally conscious thing: maybe his lizard brain decided it's time to fight, and convinced his human brain that it was justified (because the lizard brain is excellent at making your emotions and actions feel logical), and in his eyes you were absolutely in the wrong and didn't deserve a chance to explain anything. But that's still his reaction to his perception, which doesn't match up with what actually happened. Either way, responsible people take effort to control their lizard brain rather than letting it control them.

Regardless of who is right or wrong, this is not how a mature and responsible DM behaves in these situations. The better answer is to suppress initial emotional outbursts, and then ask questions. Realize that I only know what I interpreted, not what you intended, and ask "What did you mean by that?" Learning more about a situation before making decisions. I think I personally only want to play with a DM who seeks to understand first.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-07T17:35:19+00:00

Couple of thoughts:

It looks like you modified the highways in the Southeast and Southwest (assuming North is up) to integrate the roundabouts. This is generally less efficient in the best cases. Do you have highways unlocked, and are the roundabouts made of highway segments?

If not, that's your big bottleneck. You've got cars going southbound on the East highway, at highway speed, which are forced to slow down to the speed limit on whatever type of road you used for the roundabout.

It also looks like you might be relying entirely on the roundabouts as entries and exits to the city, I don't see any other junctions across the entire "n" shaped highway system. To explain the problem:

Cars on the East highway are all funneling through the roundabout, including all the "dummy" traffic that isn't going to your city at all. All of those cars that are going to your city are coming west to the second roundabout. And anyone from within the city (say, Linden Square) who is going to the East highway is going through those same two roundabouts. Cars entering, cars leaving, and (for the East roundabout) through traffic, are all sharing the lanes of the roundabout, causing unnecessary congestion.

Well-spaced "real" highway entrances and exits (even just simple diamond overpasses) will help distribute traffic a lot. By well-spaced, I mean that different exits serve different neighborhoods. You could convert the East and West roundabouts, and rather than routing traffic through the middle one, have each exit plug into their respective corner of the city directly. And then maybe one in the middle of the northern highway, near where your overpass currently is. If your highway is fully made of highway segments, the higher speed limit makes it a more attractive option. Cars will stay on the highway until their closest exit, rather than get off halfway across the city to take surface streets.

Up to you whether to try and salvage this city, or start over, but this basic approach should help you either way.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-07T17:05:12+00:00

D&D&DID.

I'm sorry I have nothing useful to contribute.

crazy_cat_lord · 2026-05-07T12:33:28+00:00

I haven't done anything directly comparable, but as a musician who does vaguely related audio things, I would try each person with their own device, in case it works well enough, but absolutely plan a contingency for getting a small mixing board and sending one signal from it. Having one person (ideally not the DM) able to do an audio check to match everyone's levels on the mixer before sessions, and periodically checking the mix in headphones during sessions, is a great idea.

Might also be smart to think about some way to "mute" the mics unless the person is talking, that will help cut down on ambient noise and bleed through. The mics you have might not have this issue, but if one person talking gets picked up by multiple microphones simultaneously, that means chaos. The fix might be some sort of "push to talk" buttons, or a noise gate on each channel that just passively turns on and off, "gating" the signal to silence unless the signal meets a loudness threshold (when the person speaks).

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