Tommie Cobb has spent two years writing D&D 5e rules for the shinobi world of Naruto Uzumaki and his son Boruto.
Based on the long-running manga and anime of ninja clans and villages working for and as part of feudal countries, the unofficial fan project is an RPG that spans to nearly 330-pages.
There’s also an accompanying community Discord to join, ask questions and talk about the series.
Naruto 5e: Shinobi Handbook is a large project which credits a host of playtesters and 100 fans who’ve helped out.
It helps hugely to know the anime but you don’t need to. The RPG begins by introducing the basics of the RPG through character generation and then clans.
In the mythology of the world, ninja clans are bloodlines and strongly disposed to inheriting the same supernatural power as their ancestors had. For fans, this means favourite ninjas can be recreated or emulated, the Aburame clan combats insects, and the Akimichi clan are big eaters with body control.
Clan abilities are divided into Ranks, mimicking the mission assignment scale used in the series. So characters do not possess all the feared abilities of the Leaf’s ninjas straight away.
The ninja are also shaped by their character classes and the RPG taps into canon to find a healthy source of options. Characters can be Gentjusu Specialists, Hunters, Intelligence Operatives, Scouts and the all-important Medical Ninjas.
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Chakra Points are used to determine just how long these warriors can use their superhero-like powers in combat or on missions and the game even incorporates an elemental advantage system. That’s to say that Fire powers have the advantage over Wind, which has the upper hand over Lightning and so forth.
It’s a tightly packed fan RPG, reaching that 330-page count despite using small text and coping the D&D template’s economical format. Illustrations come straight from the animation.
Given the space constraints, there is a bias towards the Leaf village, from where the main characters in the series are based, but the other villages are not missing entirely. There are stats for Samurai, for example.
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