Character Creation

[VySaika]

Here there be rules for making your characters. Feel free work stuff out with me in IRC while you're doing this, and if you'd rather just leave the numbers to me and just tell me what you're wanting, I can build your sheet for you.

The system is Tristat dX, which you can get as a free PDF from the below link:
http://tristat.wikispaces.com/

I'll split the next couple of posts into Mechanics and Background. Starting with Mechanics.

[VySaika]

Mechanical Stuffs!

Power Level: Human/Post Human
Genre: Modern Day - Urban Fantasy
Starting CP: 100
Skill Points: 20
Dice Used: d8s

Stats:
The basic stats belong to the human character, and should have a maximum of 8 in any one stat. If you have a really compelling reason, I may let one go up to 10. Not likely though. Your human characters are just normal people, for the most part.

Now in the Dream World, you can have higher, even much higher, stats if you like. Take these as levels in the Enhanced Stat attribute for your Persona, and like any other supernatural power, they'll only be in effect in the Dream World. I'm going to suggest a loose maximum of +6 to a stat through this ability, but you can go higher if you really want to. Such as if you want to be a skinny geek(low body) in the real world, but have a massive powerhouse persona(very high Body).

Attributes:
Being a persona game, some attributes are simply not appropriate for this setting. The following attributes are basically out of bounds. If you have a really, really good reason for wanting one, talk to me, but I'm not promising anything:

Agents/Servant/Henchmen (you're basically on your own here. Part of the point)
Alternate Form (Your Persona isn't an alt form, it's the power source and SFX of your powers.)
Contamination (We aren't vampires here.)
Dynamic Powers/Power Flux (Too much here. I'd prefer more specific effects)
Hyperflight (Not doing Persona IN SPACE)
Item of Power (you may pick up something along these lines along the way, but you won't start with one)
Own A Big Mecha (just no, alright?)
Pocket Dimension(There's already the Real World, the Dream World and the Velvet Room. No more dimensions)

Also, there are attributes that will work slightly differently:
Animal Summon/Control (Be careful using this in the Dream. The animals there are hardly normal.)
Computer Scanning (Be even more careful using this. Computers in the Dream may be Shadows in the form of computers.)
Exorcism (Hits EP, not Spirit. Also may not instantly destroy Shadows that it forces to 0 EP. Some Shadows, and other Persona users, will be resistant to this.)
Extra Arms/Natural Weapons/Elongation (It's your Persona doing it, not you growing extra limbs/claws/stretching in the Dream.)
Flight/Teleport (very low levels only. You won't need  to be zipping around all over the Dream)
Metamorphosis (Transforming Shadows is cool, this will likely not work against other Persona users)
Mimic Powers (No mimicking skills. Skills are innate to the Character, and the Mimicry is a supernatural Persona power)
Plant Control (See Animal Control and Comp Scanning)

You'll note that there are alot of times where I'm saying that something 'might' not work right. Exceptions are going to be a bit of the rule in a game where all the power usage is going to be done in a place that's created by idle imagination.

Then we come to Special Attack, which gets it's own entire category. Most attacks will be handled through Special Attack, since it's really the most flexible attack form in the game. First off, any attack needs to have an element: Fire/Ice/Wind/Elec/Light/Dark as well as Physical and Almighty. Alot of enemies will use Optimized Armor and the Achilles Heel traits, so elements will play a large role in combat. A couple of these elements have specific things to note:

Physicals: Yeah, while in normal TriStat you can't take any kind of Optimized Armor vs Physicals, you can in this game. However, Optimized vs Physical only offers 15 points/rank instead of 20 points/rank of defense like normal. Physicals are the most common element and are thus worth a little more to defend against. Also, Achilles Heel against Physical will offer 3cp back instead of the 2 for any other element.

Light/Dark: These elements can have normal damaging attacks just like any other. However, ANY attack that uses the Incapacitating special ability must be either Light or Dark based.

Almighty: There is no way to specifically resist or be weak against Almighty skills. It is highly recommended that Almighty skills have the Penetrating(Armor) special ability to better represent it's inability to be defended against properly.

On that note, 1 rank of Penetrating(Armor) drops your damage by 20 for adding a special ability and lets you ignore...20 points of armor. Right. Losing trade, that. So for this game, Penetrating can ignore up to 30 points of armor, BUT will not function against armor that is Optimized against it's element type. (You can make it effectively ITD, but not resistance piercing, basically.)

Skills:
We'll be using the Modern Day - Urban Fantasy skill costs tables. Since Skills are what you know, they are purely the realm of the human character, not the Persona. This means the following things:

No mimicking/stealing skills. Though any power that could make someone forget skills temporarily is still fair game.

At creation, you may not have any ranks in the Skills "Special Ranged Attack" or "Power Usage". You may pick up ranks in these skills later with CP, but not when you start, since at the start of the game, you are still unawakened to your Persona and thus have no special attacks or powers to use.

Please justify your skills with your background. If you have any combat skills to start with, you have some manner of training, though you don't need much just for 1 rank in a couple things. 2 or more ranks in any combat skill, and you definitely have some kind of serious training. Remember that for the most part, until you get your Persona, you're characters are pretty normal folks.

If you have any issues with the pricing of a Skill, bring it up with me and I'll take a look. Skill costs are based on how useful I expect them to be in the campaign, and since Persona is a bit of an odd game, some tweaking may be nessesary.

No ranks in Language are required to speak Japaneese, and if you want it, English. Not alot of linguistics stuff in this game, I'm not worried about charging you for this.

Defects:
Since this can usually get kinda tricky, I'm going to make a list of recommended Defects(note that Defects are never mandatory), as well as a banned list.

Recommended Defects:
Achilles Heel(vs. Element): worth 2bp for most elements, 3bp if you want to be Weak:Physicals.
Burns Energy: We will be using EP, so feel free to scrape some points out of this one.
Less Capable: This is always a good one to make characters who are graceful but not strong, or strong willed but not lucky, etc. Pretty much appropriate for any game ever.
Recurring Nightmares: In a game where the monsters stem from people's dreams? Go right ahead. But in warning, this defect will hit alot harder in this game then it would in most others.

Banned Defects:
Awkward Size. You're a human, you fit somewhere in the range of human sizes.
Confined Movement: This whole story is taking place in one city. Not appropriate for this game.
Diminutive. See Awkward Size
Involuntary Change. See Alt Form up in the Attribute section.
Nemesis. You'll get these during the course of the story, not start with them. You can still have NPC rivals/foes/etc in your backstory, they just won't count as a nemesis unless I decide to give them access to the Dream as well. And even then I'm not giving you points for having an enemy. You're a PC, you're GOING to have enemies.
One Way Transformation: See Involuntary Change.
Owned: You're your own person, not owned by someone else.
Part of Body: You could make an argument for this I suppose, but really it's your persona using all the powers, not your physical self.
Permanent: Stuff's only active in the Dream, and you have full control over your Persona once you master it.
Red Tape: See Owned. No organizations you could belong to are aware of where the action will be taking place.

Derived Values:
We will be using the Energy Points rules, with one exception:

If you run out of EP, you do not pass out. You are simply unable to manifest your persona at all, even for abilities which do not use EP.

[VySaika]

Background Stuffs

The character:

All the characters have a couple things in common. Namely, that they live in the city of Kanazawa, and have at least some reason to at least occasionally go to the Hokuriku University.

Age: Recommended is 18-30. Higher is acceptable with good reason, I'll probably not allow lower.

Background: For the most part, I'd like to avoid backgrounds that have any serious connection to military/police organizations. Other then that, it's mostly all good.

Personalities: While this is normally completely up to the discretion of the player, and with good reason, I require three things of your characters' personalities in this game. First, they be a generally good person. I'm not talking goody two shoes here or anything, just generally decent folks. Secondly, your character will need some level of curiosity. Some drive to want to know more about what's going on, and be unable or unwilling to just stick their head in the sand and ignore it all.

Last is the big thing. I will need, in PM, some manner of deep dark secret for your character. Some part of themselves that they wish weren't real. I think we've all played Persona 4 here, so I think you can understand why. I need fodder for your Shadow to throw at you, since it's a bit uncool for me to make that stuff up myself.

The Persona:

We're going with the "non-main PC from 3/4" design for Personas. You will get an initial Persona, which will eventually give rise to a more powerful form.

So basically, pick an Arcana and an initial Persona, and eventually come up with a second stage Persona. WORLD arcana is, of course, off limits.

There are a few things off limits. Firstly, any persona used by one of the "non-main PCs from 3/4", as well as Orpheus, Thanatos, Messaiah, Izanagi and Izanami. I'd honestly like the PCs here to have Personas who haven't been plot important before, or that simply haven't been used before.

Just pick something you'll enjoy playing, really.

Also, your Persona is more then capable of speaking on it's own, if you so choose. It can't go anywhere seperate from you, but it can add to the conversation if you want it to. Keep in mind two things though: Your persona is you. It's feelings are your feelings, so if you have it suggest something radical, everyone will know that's what the character is really thinking. Secondly, the Persona is the True Self. With very few exceptions, they do not lie. So any words that come out of it's mouth, are coming straight from the character's soul.

[VySaika]

Dream vs. Reality

Okay, this question came up in chat, so I'll throw the answer up here.

Attributes are to be broken down into Persona Traits and Character Traits.

Anything supernatural is a Persona Trait, and usable in the Dream only.

Things like Highly Skilled, Wealth, Personal Gear/Gadgets and the like, are Character Traits and usable in the Real World.

Some of these things will ONLY come in handy in the Real World, such as Wealth, while othes are handy anywhere, like Highly Skilled.