Premise
Ninjas are people that, for whatever reason, are able to perform superhuman feats, and they’ve waged a hidden war for ages that spans into modern times. Very much like a social deduction board game, though in the format of a tabletop roleplaying game.
Core Mechanics
2d6, Roll at or Above a target number. Characters technically have access to all skills, but the ones they “know” are more like what they’re best at. They’re arranged on a grid, with every space away from your nearest “known” skill increasing the target number you need to roll. (Starts at 5)
Quick and Dirty Character Creation
Pick you Clan, which determines what Skills and Ninpo (special abilities) are available to you. Design your Ohgi (ultimate ability), pick your equipment.
The Game Master will determine your Mission and Secret.
What It Does Well or Interestingly
This is how you do a player vs player game; character elimination doesn’t happen until the end of the session, and fights before the end of the session are literally 1 turn only. Somebody can grievously wound you on that turn, but you have room to recover for the final battle.
When a character takes damage, they lose access to some of their skills (but not their ninpo; loss of skills just makes ninpo less likely to hit if they call for a roll!)
Potential Pitfalls
It may be tempting to run this as a Player Versus Enemy game, and there is some support for that, this game’s real strength is it’s Player Versus Player support.
Game Masters will need to pay special attention when assigning missions and secrets; these are the key to giving a player a way to “fail successfully” by making likely to achieve one if the other becomes impossible.
Sections to Pay Attention To
The English edition of the game has a FULL text transcript of the game being played from beginning to end! Read this if you need a better idea of how to run/play this game!
Final Thoughts
This is a very unique game, and should be played by the book at least the first time. This is also good for folks who want to branch out a little bit, and like social deduction games.
