So I've been considering for a while (read as: the last 24 hours, probably brought about by exam-induced delerium) how to run a ninja-centric Shadowrun game.

I should probably clarify what exactly I mean by "ninja", given that there are so many interpretations. In particular, I'm looking at the sort of ninja presented in The Kouga Ninja Scrolls and its adaptations, or perhaps more familiarly to audiences the main characters of Ninja Scroll (which I believe was inspired by the aforementioned novel, but is otherwise thoroughly disconnected from it). In this view, while ninja are certainly skilled warriors and infiltrators, their primary distinguishing feature is their ninja technique—their ninpou. Characters will possess a small number of these (typically only one, but occasionally more—one is usually most clearly powerful and useful). It is typically this ability and its skillful use or lack thereof that decides battles between powerful ninja.

The problem with ninpou is that the techniques need to be extremely powerful, but not so broad as to render a game unchallenging. Normally the solution would appear to be to simply define a list of available ninpou, but that gets restrictive very quickly—part of what would be interesting about running this game would be seeing what players come up with for their central defining technique. Anyway, that problem isn't the major one—it's a sticky wicket, of course, but mostly requires consideration and imagination by the GM when approving ninpou. The tough part comes next:

How much Shadowrun to use? The rules, I think, would support this kind of game well, but the world might or might not. Cyberware and magic both allow more varied character designs, but they provide alternate avenues of power that decrease the potential "specialness" of ninpou—forcing it to either increase in power or decrease in uniqueness (or both). What do people think? Keep one? Keep both?

Any other thoughts on how to best implement this sort of campaign?

~J

You could always treat such Ninjas as adepts, purchasing powers as adepts do, but not allowing anyone else to be adepts or mages. As for cyber you could reduce the maximum allowed cyber to 1 or 2 points of essence, this would severly decrease the threat posed by cybered operatives while allowing the adepts a full range of powers.

On a side note I never understood why Jubei was considered a Ninja, he didn't seem like a Ninja, more like Ronin. Whilst all the people trying to kill him could be considered Ninja.

Back on track, seems like a cool idea Kage, you going to run this on the forums?

Very probably—it's not my usual preferred mode of gaming, but I doubt there's any other way I'll be able to run it. It'll probably be at least two weeks before I think of starting a recruitment thread, though.

As for Jubei, I generally agree. While he has a number of ninja skills, he doesn't really have any special techniques—he uses wires to keep his weapons at hand, but nothing terribly fancy, he shows competence with combat and infiltration, but… yeah, if he'd spent less time learning to fight and more time developing a special technique, maybe he'd be a clearer ninja.

Though Mujuro was even less of a ninja (he was the blind swordsman).

~J

Actually. What this conversation reminds me of EXACTLY, without the use of any actual ninja, is an anime called "Get Backers". It's a really dumb name, but actually a very descriptive one... It's a show about these two people who "get things back" that were lost or stolen. They're shadowrunners in a different world that's less cyberpunk, or at least the cyberpunk elements are talked about as much. I think people who play shadowrun should watch it.

But anyway, the reason I mention it is this. Everyone is a pretty good fighter, but they all have one special power. No one ever really talks about it as weird that the main character can make lightning or anything, it's just accepted. Other things are a guy who can control two (rather long) strings of monofil, a guy who can control/talk to animals, all sorts of things. It's basically ninja without the ninja stigma attached. some people have 'ware some are more like phys-ads. If possible, I think you should take a look at it before running your game (assuming you don't hate anime, it's kinda cheesy at points).

I'll see if I can't find a fan site or two about it.

I've seen bits and pieces of Get Backers—hasn't interested me enough to bite, but I'll put it on my list (you know, the one that currently overflows my rental service's list software. Damn them and their 200-disc limit.).

I have no particular hate of anime per se, which is a good thing because I tend to spend 4-6 hours a week watching the stuff though it's really better to think of it more as a set of artistic styles rather than a genre. I dare you to find similarities shared by all three of, say, Texhnolyze, Koi Kaze, and Excel Saga that are more significant than "is animated".

~J

For the rules though you could describe some limits to the powers. As in, no you cannot kill any one person with a word etc. That sort of guide the players toward your idea. Also you could limit the world to no magic at all, and just use the adept system as a means for the ninjas to purchase Ninja abilities, with a free hand to use any of the published material.

So, it sounds like you're basically trying to run a Naruto style campaign. I'd differentiate Naruto-style ninjaness from 80s ninjaness for obvious reasons.

The most obvious and straightforward way to go about what you're describing would be to write up some very powerful sterotypical ninja like physad powers (such as the ability to immobilize an opponent by pinning his shadow to the ground with a kunai or something) but make the cost for the first level of the power ~6 points but have subsequent upgrades come at the cost of only 1 point so as to allow for initiation to pay off. That would force the would-be ninjas to specialize. You could have Naruto style specialized ninjas and families and so forth.

i'd go with adepts as well, as that's largely the archtype adepts are meant to fill.

i don't think there's anything wrong at all with setting this in the world of SR. i've often tossed around the idea of asian monastic orders with secret techniques (new powers, spells, and metamagics) passed down through the ages, which is pretty similar to how you describe ninpou.

the ninpou themselves should probably short lists of powers, spells, and metamagics that can be acquired at reduced cost due to special training techniques. ninja must sink at least half, or maybe even all, of their power points into the ninpou, and their first metamagics must be chosen from the list until the list is exhausted. maybe even allow (or, rather, require) ninja to sacrifice one or more power points at chargen in order to gain access to a metamagical technique without initiating. powers on the ninpou list might also not be subject to the limit on the number of levels you can take--if your ninpou includes Improved Stealth, you can take 12 levels at chargen if that's your desire.

To be honest, I've never seen any of Naruto. The primary inspiration for this was Basilisk.

I should probably also include some examples of ninpou, though some are too powerful or esoteric to fit into a standard campaign.

The ability to, through various means, perfectly take the form and voice of someone else. In some versions of this power, other senses like smell, etc. may not be fooled (it's common for animals to see through this), but with humans typically only lack of knowledge the copied person should have or lack of their abilities will reveal the deception.

The ability to merge with walls, floors, the ground, etc., moving through them mostly undetectably.

The ability to manipulate one's body hair to wield weapons, use tools, or stiffen into a short-range weapon.

Immortality. The ability to heal any wound not involving severed body parts, and the ability to reattach severed body parts by holding them in place for long enough. Not actually as game-breaking as it looks in most portrayals, though Genma's version is stronger than most.

Astrology. The ability to predict certain trends of the future. Basically slightly stronger version of the Divination metamagic.

A beehive in your back. Great for swimming.

Certain forms of wind control—your classic "extending the reach of a sword swing by having it generate cutting wind", or otherwise manipulating air to attack people at range.

Anyway, that's the sort of thing that prompted this idea.

~J

I have a slightly different idea. Every Ninja is an adept with a free Spell Knack. Other characters, such a powerful samurai, can be adepts but cannot have a Spell Knack. There are no Magician-Adepts and Magicians are extremely rare boss-type characters.

The ninja spell knack uses its own special skill rather than sorcery and starts with a maximum force of 2. The maximum force can be increased for .5PP per extra force point.
A ninja can also spend karma and PP to learn other Ninpou skills (spells knacks) but can only learn them from a ninja that knows them. This, obviously, requires an investment.

oh, also, i call dibs on a spot in this shit. ninja fo' life.

I second dib's *does the secret Ninja handshake, kills everyone who isn't supposed to know it, then vanishes in a puff of white smoke*

Sits down for a drink. A ninja hides in plain sight.

Since we're not helping anymore:

One is only truly a ninja when he can steal his own pants without knowing about it.\


EDIT: I felt that this post was far too useless so I'm gonna start typing other stuff now. Ok, so here's what I think of your idea. 1) sounds really cool. 2) would be really fun to play. Alright now, about the world; I think you could even leave the SR world how it is now. You can leave the adepts, mages, cyberware, whatever in the game. But I don't think the PCs should necessarily use any of it. I mean, I don't necessarily see a problem with cyberware or adept powers, in fact I think it would be cool to use in addition to the ninpou they will get. I do not think, however, that any of the PCs should probably be allowed to be mages. Spellcasting just seems a bit... unrelated to the ninja PCs. However, I think you should leave it in the world beucase 1) the shadowrun timeline makes absolutely no sense without it; and 2) Mages could make good opponents for the PCs.

Now as for making them adepts or not... I don't really know if they should have to be or not. The way I see it, they aren't really. They're something else.Adepts are well and good, but you're talking about some high power abilities that are beyond what an adept can do. So, what I would suggest is that you make them a new form a magical class. Obviously a good name for this would be "Ninja". But ya know. Here's what I see. I see them using a highly concentrated form of magic that comes from very deep within themselves, after being slowly filtered out of deep astral. Yeah, kind of like adepts, but it's not the same. Here's why: Since these kind of people have been around for as long as we can remember, I think it has always been possible to use this kind of magic since it filters the astral energy so thoroughly. Ic can even filter the chaotic mess that was the down cycle of the 5th age.

Now, obviously there are not many people who have this form of magical ability becuase if there were, people would know about it. So, I think all of the PCs should be these Ninja and can then make a character as per normal with the limitations of:
1) No mages (spellcasting/summoning especially)
2) Limited cyberware. Obviously, sine they ARE magicaly active they need a magic rating, though I don't know what it will do yet.

So, they will primarily be Ninja, but can have some adept powers or cyberware in addition to that. THis is basically so you can keep the whole shadowrun world and have the charactrers be up to par with the rest of people.

If you like this idea, I can work on sorting out some game rules for it, if not, well then I probably won't take the time to (unless i get bored, and then i will regardless).

Ok, I feel alot better about this post now XD

I don't know, personally I prefer the idea that any 5th age Ninjas that had 'real powers' were simply Initates with high enough Magic that they could still pull off their Mojo even during the down cycle.

yeah, i don't like the idea of superadepts, which is basically what that would be. specialized adepts, yes; more powerful adepts, whose power comes at the price of complete loyalty, yes. adepts that are simply better in every way, and are immune to mana warps? ech.

I think mystic adepts would work very well for this setting also, especially with illusion or manipulation spells. maybe even ban combat spells from being chosen.

In that sense, with some liberty on the effect, you could get the leaping in Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon with levitate. And all sorts of other spells. And you would have to choose between adept powers or spell abilities, some ninjas are more about special tricks, others are more about being faster than fast and deadlier than death.

Very interesting concept!

Have y'all ever read The Scroll of Feng?

I would prefer the reduction of everyone elses power as opposed to ramping up the PC's power. SR (especially 4) doesn't handle power past a certain point. Ninja's should be adepts, but their one power, their Ninpou should be outside that. Sort of the central ability that ties them all together. Like the Chinese elements.

i think SR3 handles higher-powered characters pretty well. i've been in a game where a 5,000-karma character had to exert himself to stay alive. the GM didn't even have to pull out a great dragon or anything--some attack choppers, a few initiates, some shedim. or, in another case from the same campaign, a field full of animate vines. high TNs are difficult to overcome for even extremely high-powered characters; dice mods, less so. granted, i wouldn't want to try to run a regular campaign for that character; challenging him on a weekly basis would be really goddamn hard. but the fact that it was possible to challenge such a powerful character through such low-end means once speaks for the scalability of the system. and, heh, since Kage's leading one of the attempts to retool SR3, i don't think he needs to worry about the scalability of SR4.

oh, believe me, parallels were drawn and mockery was made.

Ninja School, Naruto, Wraith of the Ninja....

Alas no one ever mentions one of THEE greatest Anime Ninja Movies of all time. The classic that is Dagger of the Kamui.

Damn I wonder if you can even find it, haven't tried to look for it.

Uh, I didn't like Dagger of Kamui. I though it dragged on almost as badly as Dragonball Z. It was long, overly grandiose, and pretty predictable.

You are right about that, the movie definitely meandered along quite a bit.