This question goes out to both player and GM alike. If a player, have you ever run across ninjas (one or many) in any of your the games that you've played in? If a GM, are you guilty of using them? I use the word guilty, because the two times that I've used them I received mixed reviews from my players. From glee (the anime/movie buff guy) to groans (the writer who digs on the dystopian feel of the world). I suppose it didn't help that I went so far as to not only write them as such, but I also called them 'cyberninjas'... what can I say? Its cheesy, but I'm a sucker for ninjas.

Ninja stories welcome... I have a couple I'll share later in this thread.

Ninja PCs just never work out. They just boil down to a sam/phys ad in black pajamas...

The real ninja is more like a face or covert ops guy but instead it seems like you always end up with a guy in black pajamas with a Katana (which ninja don't use), some throwing stars and a grapple gun.

Nooooooo! Ninjas are cool.

I wish I could say 'Don't give my GM any bad ideas' but since Toshiaki is the one who pointed this poll out to me...well...-cough- ...it's a little late.

Scratch hangs her head.

Who are the ninjas??

I had to pick 'I AM a ninja!' I've had a succession of ninja characters, first heavily cybered, then magical after I discovered the wonderful world of Physical Adepts. I love 'em. If fact, the character I have now is the first non-ninja in a loooong time.

Clearly if you see them, they weren't real ninja.

…

~…

I was really trying not to tell this story, I swear, but...

About a year ago I was GMing and a player in the game I was running (I actually took over a campaign because the previous GM had a conflict or something) had a phy-ad path of the magician/ninja character concept. Well, the concept was creative as far as ninja characters go and so we flushed out some details of his organization and that was that until... The group went on a run that ended somewhat poorly, we're talking some folks ended up on live action news poorly. Two other runners were caught and the rest were hiding. The ninja character decided to turn to his clan for help, they were incensed that he was associating with people who seemed to be amateurs and making a lot of noise himself. But, all things being equal he himself hadn't actually been caught or identified on camera so they took him back in. So, since this guy needed to initiate at this point, the clan head tapped him for an assassination to prove himself worthy of the honor. If he succeeded, he would initiate in the group with an ordeal. If he failed... Well that wasn't an option. The character was given intel on the target, including his night habits and which clubs he would frequent, and was told to leave a ceremonial dagger behind once the deed had been accomplished. Beyond this, he was left to his own devices.

For whatever reason, the player gets it into his head that he needs to dikote some throwing knives to kill his target. It turns out, he only has the money to coat one.
His plan is to stake out one of the clubs and wait. Once he sees the target, he's going to kill him by throwing the dikoted knife at him. I say fine, he dikotes the knife, and I set him up in an alley behind a popular night spot. He takes the initiative to climb a fire escape, cast and then sustain invisibility, and then casts and sustains stealth. So he's one story up at this point.

Turns out that the VIP/Target always takes the back exit out of a scene/event and that his car was conveniently stashed near the fire escape our hero had planted himself on. Well, his first problem is that he's sustaining two spells and while he's aiming at the target mitigates the penalties, he has no bonuses, so making a one shot/one kill with his throwing knife is going to be tricky. His second and third problems are the two bodyguards that accompany the VIP. Our faithful ninja hasn't planned on how to deal with them yet. So, he drops stealth and keeps invisibility, giving himself a little better odds to hit with his knife. He has surprise on his side, the opposition is flat footed. He makes the throw, hits the target, but uses a karma re-roll to get himself more successes. Then the bad news starts coming in. First, he only got one more success, not so bad. Second, I suddenly remember his character's strength... a 3. The target doesn't soak all the damage, but soaks enough that he can easily get into the car on his turn. Third, in the next non-surprise round one bodyguard starts firing blind (with the appropriate +8 penalty) at the area he thinks the attack came from and rolled one success. We all think the ninja will dodge this easily but he doesn't roll any successes, he has to use his last kp for a re-roll. He gets it on the second try. Fourth, now the ninja player is mad, so he DROPS invisibilty so that he can cast an acid bolt without penalties. He nails the BG who shot at him but take moderate stun on the drain... It all went to hell from there. His character was pummelled with gel rounds, taken into custody once Lone Star arrived, and a few days later mysteriously died in custody. Looking back on it, I might have given him more advice on how to take the challenge on but at the time, the group was of a street level, live and let die attitude so the result seemed appropriate. I think only two of the six characters actually associated with one another outside of runs.... But I digress, the ninja player didn't get the most out of his character and I was 50/50 on whether it was the metagame construction of the character that was the problem or he simply didn't make the best use of what he did have in the situation I gave him. Oh well.

if there are any doubts as to the coolness of all that is ninja-- i suggest you check out



click me!







*edit-- fixed it-- that was supposed to be .net, not .com


*runs away crying in shame*

Porn sites have articles posted on it? Yehaa!

Our GM tried to force a "ninja" npc (complete with ruthetium and katana) on us once. Second we were out the door and away from the johnson, the entire team intoned in unision: "I turn around and shoot the ninja".


I think he got the hint

Do you mean ninjas as in the actual group/organisation from the Underworld sourcebook, or just people that use the concept as a focus for their powers or skills? Yes to both of the categories over here.

I'm playing a Ninja in my current game of SR. Though she is fairly well cybered up, she has very little visible ware. She's got her VCR 1 and three datajacks, but aside form that, everything is subtle ware and Bioware.

I find that it's how you play them that matters. if you play a Ninja who just happens to prefer using an LMG or Panther, you're doing something seriously wrong. You're also doing something wrong if you leave a sea of bodies in your wake. You're supposed to be the one no one can predict. Use every weapon you have, not just the easiest to kill with.

And please have a personality. There are plenty of non-verbal-chop-your-head-off-if-you-look-at-them-wrong Street Sams out there. Don't think that being a Ninja absolves you of having an identity. Don't worry about the stereotypes. In fact, I play up to them. I wear a close fitting light suit of armor that completely covers my head body and hands. Whenever my character is questioned about looking like a ninja, I happily point out that similar outfits are worn by SWAT, HRT, SEAL teams and others executing a strike against someone they'd rather not have visit their family for revenge. But no one's ever thought to look at the back of her neck under her hair where her clan's tattoos are in Kanji script, or why if her past says she worked for Renraku Seattle and went to the arcology for college, she doesn't have a single picture piece of cloth, or letter from those days around her home or truck. In short, have a real story that can really be picked apart by someoen who's perceptive and objective enough to work it out on their own. but make sure that your

One last thing. For god's sake, have a REASON FOR RUNNING THE SHADOWS!! I can't stress enough this one. If your Ninja clan footed the bill for your million nuyen cyberware, why is it that you need to run the shadows to keep quality soy in the house? Don't just be in Seattle "to take care of clan business". Have a goal. Again, in my character's case, she's scouting and recruiting local talent for a hit on San Francisco(Post YotC for my game). She's one of several ninjas in the area working on behalf of the child emperor to retake the city and deliver Saito's heart on a platter. But rather than use all japanese genin for the work and basically say to Saito the emperor wants him dead, they've beent asked to work their ways into the Seattle and Denver underworld and find quality people who can do the work for them.

Since I consider Runners to actually be "Ninjas" just without the Clan structure of the historical version, I'm unable to choose a satisfying answer among those given here ...

Note to GMs: Your PC ninjas make AWESOME turn coats. Master says to solve this problem that happens to be your group. Fireworks ensue.

Ninjas have so much personal significance for me. They also represent so much in terms of public perceptions of martial arts and the things that people expect to find in that arena.

So, I love ninjas. I use them as much as possible, all the time, especially since in my mind Shadowrun is still all about the 1980s.

Like, right now someone else is GMing and I'm running an 80s movie ninja. My whole shtick is doing things right out of "Revenge of the Ninja" starring Sho Kosugi, and spouting Tadashi Yamashita lines ("Hear the onry sound of axe cutting ail, it has much say tuu yuu!") when I run out of Sho Kosugi lines.

The thought that I leave this thread with: ASHIDA KIM, the man who never realized the early 80s were over.

http://tinypic.com/1o6np1

Our GM has, with all due respect, so completely worn out the ninja angle in our games that not only has it lost all meaning, but it's physically painful to play. On the other hand, his 80s ninja PC is pretty cool and pretty lethal, I'm just personally bored with them and yearing for something else.

First, I'd like to clarify my vote.

I voted "No. I wouldn't mind a ninja encounter." only because "Not that I know of." wasn't one of the choices.

Secondly, although my character isn't a ninja (i.e., he has no training in Ninjitsu, and as a gaijin ("foreigner"), isn't likely to have been trained as one, although he does speak Japanese), his counterpart in the comics might qualify as one, although he, like my character, is English by birth.

He--the comic-book character, that is-- doesn't exactly run around wearing a shadow suit (or whatever it is that you call the traditional uniform of a ninja--at least as it's always represented on film), but he is an accomplished master of disguise (hensojutsu), swordsman (iaijutsu and kenjutsu), and archer (kyudo), as well as being well-versed in at least three martial arts styles that I was able to identify--koppojutsu (ninja bone-breaking techniques), taijutsu (ninja unarmed combat techniques), and atemi waza/dakentaijutsu (the ninja art of striking the vital points of the human body).

Edit (02/10/2005): I talked to my group's GM (he posts here as "Sahandrian") earlier, and we switched my PC's Martial Art to Ninjutsu.

P.S.: He (my GM) doesn't use the Flaws for Martial Arts, so The Foreigner doesn't have to worry about the "Day Job" (used, in this case, to represent service to the Clan) or "Hunted" (being pursued by other members of the Ninja clan for leaving) flaws.

--Foreigner

In fact in my story line i have the Oni-do going at it with another ninja clan.....I call it ninja wars.

Much better. Ninja's with the dayjob flaw working at McHugh's.

Ninjas are fun to use both as PC and NPCs whether they are Hollywood incarnations, pseudo historical spies, or mystic masters of the five elements. Deadly assassins of the night moved by the unseen hands of oyabun or Emperor can only add to the game. And their classic antagonism with Samurai makes it even better.

Yes, Sho qualifies as Too Many.

Depending on how things go, if you wanted to add even more factions to the mix you could have a schism in the Oni-do's ranks. Maybe one side wants to improve metahumanities lot in Japan and retire into society, whilst the others want to carry on killing people for phat stacks of cash and take a more Darwinian view of things- only the strongest survive, I managed to fight my way up to this position so they can as well.

Another fun thing is having a read through the drecription of the Imperial Japanese Regalia. What with all the myths and legends they have, this is just tailor made.

At bullshido.net there are some people with quite a lot of martial arts background and knowledge. This is in very stark and clear contrast to places like shaolinwolf.com and emptyflower.com and Martial Arts Planet where there are a lot of people who are 1.) full of crap and 2.) hide/posture behind forum ettiquette and unquestioning attitudes. However, it is precisely because anything at bullshido.net can be challenged that although you need a thick skin and some patience to get to the good stuff, there is some very good stuff there. Many very skilled and experienced martial artists hang out at bullshido.net after being disgusted with other forums.

I would point out that it was people from bullshido.net who punked Ashida Kim...they came up with a large sum of money for his challenge and called Ashida Kim out on his own forum. Ashida Kim subsequently backed down on his own forum and deleted it, and restored it only relatively recently. This kind of aggressive pursuit of frauds and BS artists is not something commonly seen in online martial arts communities. Furthermore, this is not the only investigation that has gone on at bullshido.net; there are even now some investigations and exposes in progress. An online community which comes together to do something like that is something extraordinary, in my opinion.

Bullshido gives a bad first impression but I wouldn't spend so much time there if there wasn't real gold there as well. In contrast, many other martial arts forums and online sources tend to cause me pain because of the silly things that people say and take seriously in some cases.

Furthermore, the site director is working on making the site more credible to first-time visitors by making more footage of forum members engaged in hard-contact NHB style training matches against each other available on the site. The purpose of these videos would be to showcase a relatively realistic style of training (compared to what goes on in a typical McDojo) and also to show that there are members on the forum who practice what they preach rather than just mouth off.

I assume it's this story.

A true ninja would never use free webmail.

~J

I always assumed a true ninja wouldn't say he was a ninja all over the effing web.

All these little details.

~J