Naruto - The campaign

[Andor]

There has been a lot of back and forth about the 'Narutoization' of 4e and D&D in general.

It occured to me that really you only need to change a couple of assumptions about D&D and you would come up with a world where a Naruto-like campaign structure makes perfect sense.

Naruto is actually very D&D like in that there is a staggering gap in power level between a high-level character and the average man on the street.

The only real mechanical difference between Naruto & DnD is that in that universe the "Chakra" that makes a person a powerful fighter is also the same energy that makes one a powerful magician. Chakra is defined in that world as being a combination of physical vitality and spiritual strength so this only makes sense. As a result all leveled characters are essentially hybrid warrior/casters although you have extremes on both ends from Rock Lee who is a great fighter but has essentially no spells aside from a few self-buffs, to Shikamaru who uses magical abilities almost exclusively (I can recall him throwing one punch.) Effectively all characters should either be gestalt style characters with one martial class and one caster class or similar to the psiwarrior/Bo9S characters.

Other than that you only need to make two changes to a D&D campaign to make a Naruto-like world. 1. Leveling up takes training and money, and 2. There aren't hordes of conveniently inhuman monsters waiting for you to kill them and take their stuff.

This then leaves you with an economic setup like in Naruto where high-level characters are sufficiantly powerfull to be the dominant force in any confrontation between nations, but rather than being profitable leveling somebody up to that high level is actually a very expensive endevour requireing a major commitment of resources on the part of the funding nation. This is also exacerbated by the fact that in the show magic items tend to be either very rare and very powerful, or expendable.

Thus, in that show there are Greater nations, who have the resources to fund the villages that are devoted to training and equipping the high-level characters, and lesser nations who do not. Of course the villages also generate some revenue by hiring out the characters for a variety of jobs, which conviently enough also then provides them with experience.

It actually sounds like a pretty functional setup for a campaign to me.

 

[Ashrum the Black]

Sounds like a blast to me.

I'd love to play in something like that, with perhaps a slightly more adult storyline for the base. Of course you'd need to work on changing the player perception of why they do what they do. Killing things and taking their stuff doesn't really work anymore. Unless you want to play a sound ninja

At that point you'd need to work on impressing upon the players the idea that the good of the villiage, especially those average folks, is why you do what you do. You risk you life to supply them with security and a better life.

(I'm liking this more and more)

Bloodline ablities could be mirrored by feats allowing access to restricted spells, or even simply mirror the dragonmarks in Eberron for how they work rules wise.

I've actually been looking at something similar with mystic adepts from shadowrun. Toss in geas for the hand signs, and you could show a pretty good representation of the naruto ninja. I tossed a prototype of my thoughts into the my current campaign as a trial run. LEt him work security for one of the companies they ran against. He scared the crap out of the players.

Naruto has many yoinkable abilities and scences.

-Ashrum

 

[GreatLemur]

I've actually been thinking about how I'd run a Naruto-inspired game, and my own preference would be to go with Mutants & Masterminds. I'd want my players to be able to create their own powers and fighting styles.

Also, I'd file the serial numbers right the hell off, so I'd end up with something that looked more like Tibetan Jedi in Egypt.

 

[Claudius Gaius]

Considering that "every major character is unique" is a large part of the anime style, I think you'd definitely want to go with a point-buy system. whether its BESM, Eclipse, or Mutants and Masterminds.

A fair number of these sample characters - Notably Cadmel, Edward Elric, Matthew, and Charles Stevenson are pretty much anime characters. They might fit into Naruto nicely.

 

[Alzrius]

The one place where D&D isn't like an anime is in the style of combat.

Someone pointed this out a little while ago, but combat in shounen anime tends to get more higher-powered the longer the fight goes on. Characters start out fighting at their lowest level, and then gradually increase their strength, bring out multiple transformations, and unleash bigger attacks as the fight progresses.

D&D combat works in almost exactly the opposite manner. Characters start out at their most powerful, and then begin expending their highest-order abilities, progressively relying on weaker abilities that can be used more often, until they're basically down to just using normal attacks.

In other words, anime combat is about who can "power up" to the greatest degree in a fight, whereas D&D combat is a battle of attrition.

 

[Andor]

The bloodline thing is a significant factor. In that world you have a whole host of powers that are limited to certain families ranging anywhere from shadow manipulation to predicting your opponents moves to growing weapons from your own bones.

To handle that in D&D you could use either custom prestige classes or custom Bo9S disciplines. In either case the DM would need to let his players generate a lot of their own content, or be prepared to do a metric buttload of prep work defineing what bloodlines exist in his campaign. I'd also control access to bloodline powers by having a 1st level only feat that grants access to one of them. Or you could skip it entirely as while it's a central theme to the Naruto story-arc it is hardly needed to use the campaign structure.

The one place where D&D isn't like an anime is in the style of combat.

Someone pointed this out a little while ago, but combat in shounen anime tends to get more higher-powered the longer the fight goes on. Characters start out fighting at their lowest level, and then gradually increase their strength, bring out multiple transformations, and unleash bigger attacks as the fight progresses.

D&D combat works in almost exactly the opposite manner. Characters start out at their most powerful, and then begin expending their highest-order abilities, progressively relying on weaker abilities that can be used more often, until they're basically down to just using normal attacks.

In other words, anime combat is about who can "power up" to the greatest degree in a fight, whereas D&D combat is a battle of attrition.

Well, there are two ways to handle that. Either ignore it or give in game reasons for saving the best for last.

In the series you have two reasons for not wanting to open with the big guns. One is that everybody operates in teams (or parties ) and you want to keep something in reserve for when they show-up. The second is that allowing your oppenent to see your style also allows them to come up with ways to counter it. A major theme of combat in that world is getting your opponent to tip his hand so you can formulate a counter strategy, while concealing your own powers. (Somewhat mystifingly everyone also likes to boast about exactly how their powers work and why they can't be countered once their techniques have been revealed....)

You would need to come up with some house rules to cover that aspect of combat if you wanted to include it.

 

[Satori]

I always quietly laughed at the "Naru-tards", since this phenomena hit when I was in college...and it's fashionable for college kids to laugh at high school and middle school obsessions.

Then, while I was stuck in a hotel room all day while my wife attended to her cousin's wedding affairs, I watched a Naruto marathon as a "Social Experiment".

Holy crap, that show is addicting.

---

Right, this thread had a point.

Errm...a Naruto campaign would have REALLY powerful PCs but with a lot of survival potential, i.e. Fate Points used to stave off killing blows, etc...

Also, it seems appropriate to give everyone something like DR 2 every other level, since these characters JUST DON'T DIE.

Oh, and Naruto is a shifter with the Gerbil-Displacer Beast attribute.

 

[Luce]

Naruto d20

This fine people had already done a pretty extensive Naruto conversion 600+ pages here:http://www.narutod20.com/

The system of choice is Modern d20, but the document is filled with buckets of ideas. If noting else look at the techniques.

I am yet to find a group to run this, and to me (as DM) some of the techniques seemed underpowered.

 

[Zurai]

Not directly applicable, but I've been trying to think of ways to run a Bleach d20 game in my spare time. Bleach is much more in the traditional anime combat style (build up to the strong attacks) than Naruto (where half the time Naruto just freaks out and goes all Kyuubi on the enemy right from the start).

What I'm doing is looking at a token-based system, where every time the characters attack or take damage, they gain tokens. The more tokens they have, the more "fired up" they are. Once they get "fired up" enough, they can drop tokens and spend certain amounts of reiatsu (spirit energy - a major component of the show; this can be easily replaced with chakra for a Naruto setting) to either use a signature attack like Getsuga Tenshou or to shift into a new "stance" such as releasing their soul slayer, going Bankai, donning Hollow masks, etc. The new stances, in addition to opening up new attacks, offer statistical advantages. One advantage to this system is that combats actually take longer than in standard D&D, ironically.

The problem (which is shared with a Naruto campaign) is that every character has their own unique power set. The 'solution' I came up with for this is to define every stance as a point value, and define all the abilities and attacks of a stance in the form of point costs. Essentially, it's a purely point-buy system similar to Mutants and Masterminds (or at least so I've been told - I don't own M&M myself). Shikai has more points than unreleased, Bankai more than Shikai, etc. Players then pick their own powers for every form their class makes available to them (only Shinigami get soul slayers to release, etc). As an example, Abarai Renji's Shikai would have an "extended reach" ability applied multiple times, while Madarame Ikkaku's Shikai would have "extended reach" once, "bonus to feint checks" once, and "bonus to disarm checks" once. There's a lot of up-front work for the DM, but since it's modular it's less work in the long run than it could be.

 

[Andor]

Well, Naruto style powers aside, I think that the structure of the campaign in Naruto, where the characters are in the employ of a state that is consciously leveling them up at great expense to use against other human powers, is an interesting break from the standard "Get rich quick by killing guys with funny foreheads" campaign model. A lot of the background conflict in the series is generated by the differing goals of the states who would like to see a dividend paid on their investments, and the 'leveling villages' themselves who would prefer not to see all their friends and family die in war, but who nonetheless must serve because their way of life is not viable without economic patronage. It's kind of a twist on the feudal system in that the Knight (I.E. a high level character) is still king of the battlefield, but being a knight is such a full time job that they can't both oppress the peasants and keep up with their training. So the Merchant/political class winds up with the political power by virtue of their control over the purse strings.