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Message: <blockquote data-quote="Pseudopsyche" data-source="post: 4779750" data-attributes="member: 54600">What D&D could steal from PersonaI've been watching my wife play through Persona 4, so I can vouch for it as an awesome RPG with several innovations worthy of attention.  Some of these elements seem too large a step away from the current game, such as portraying the PCs as mostly mundane people who fight via fantastical avatars in a reality separate from the real world.  Besides, I think this element is mostly a superficial stylistic trait of the game.For me, the key idea behind Persona 4's gameplay is its construction of two parallel modes: dungeon delving and social networking.  On each game day (a key resource), the player must choose whether to spend the day in the dungeon fighting or building relationships with NPCs that inherently augment the PC's powers (in the game's fiction, the avatar's power happens to depend in part on the web of social relationships the PC has developed).  You could import this idea into D&D by using out-of-combat gameplay to govern how precisely a PC grows more powerful.  Suppose that players don't have access to every published feat and power when they level up.  Instead, their selection depends on the NPCs with whom they've developed relationships.Of course, some DMs no doubt already employ such a scheme.  The recent DDI article on the White Lotus Academy even featured arcane powers that were specialties of that school.  But honestly I suspect that most DMs just allow their players to choose freely from among available feats and powers.  The potential here is to use the traditional importance of feats and powers (to the players) to increase the significance of the role-playing choices players make or even the outcome of certain skill challenges.You choose to work with House Cannith instead of the Dark Lanterns?  Your artificer may choose one of their patented attack spells the next time she levels up.  You failed the skill challenge to prevent the assassination of the city's most popular gladiator?  Now he can't train you in those multiclass gladiator feats.In short, for me the key element of Persona is that how you play the game determines how your character can grow in power, not just your XP totals.</blockquote>

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