Editing Shin Megami Tensei (section)

==The Mons Element: How to Recruit==
[[File:SMT Demon negotiations.jpeg|thumb|right|100px|SMT Demon negotiations in a nutshell.]]
Recruiting demons in Shin Megami Tensei is a Byzantine process that is something of a meme for just how bonkers it can be. It already depends a lot on random luck, so that right there is a strike against it.

To try and recruit, firstly, you have to strike up a conversation with a demon. Generally, only your protagonist can do this, but some demons can learn skills that allow them to talk as well, at the cost of giving up a precious attack/defense skill slot. Further complicating things, some demons are harder to converse with than others, and the game doesn't tell you this - for example, in SMTIII, you generally can't initiate communications with the Foul or Haunt type demons such as [[Slime]] or [[Ghost]] unless you already have a Foul or Haunt demon with Kinspeak.

Once you're successfully talking, the demon will demand random stuff from you, typically money or relatively common items, but sometimes demanding you let them sap some of your health. You have no way of predicting what items they'll demand, or how many payments they'll take; if you agree to give them something but don't have it, they'll generally get angry and break off communication, whilst refusing to pay something might do the same, or it might make them agree to ask for something else instead - too many refusals, though, and they'll eventually get angry and stop talking to you. Once you've paid them enough, they might either ask you a question - get it right and they'll join, get it wrong and they'll give you an item and leave, and there's no way to predict what the right answer is - agree to join, leave but give you something back, or just run off with all you've paid them!

There's also a chance that a demon might initiate conversation with you spontaneously. If you have a free spot in your party, they might offer to join you. Most likely, they'll ask to trade, asking for a single payment and giving you a payment in return. Due to the fact that this payment is randomly generated as everything from the conversation system is, this can lead to [[what|them asking for an item and then giving it straight back to you]].

Finally, if you curbstomp a demon to less than 10% of its health, it may beg for mercy and offer to pay you with money, healing, or a random "useful" fact if you agree to spare its life. In some games there's a small chance the begging demon is trying to trick you and stab you while your guard is down, usually not a problem if you were winning, but once in a blue moon it can be just the chance the demon needs to cast instant death magic. 

The ''Persona'' subseries mostly moved away from demon conversation in its most successful installments, replacing it with reflexes-based minigames in ''3'' and ''4'', and a fun risk-reward cardgame in ''4 Golden''.  Unfortunately, ''5'' brought it back, and while it lacks the infuriating random elements and sheer overdesigned complexity from previous mainline entries (there's no longer a chance demons will take your money and flee, only a chance they will keep asking for more), it's still involved a very-obtuse conversation based minigame.
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