Greetings.

Over the course of the last year I have been developing a combat-oriented RPG with a theme inspired by a generic Ninja setting that totally does not take from the popular Ninja anime, because that's a licensed IP.

I decided to make my own game because I wished for a tactical combat system that:

• is easy to learn but hard to master,
• allows maximal character customization without locking anybody out of any content,
• feels tense and stressed the party's teamwork and communication skills,
• is deadly but full of tools and options to avoid disaster,
• and does all of this without dice rolls.

If you are interested in such a game, then I present to you Ninja Combat RPG.

This is a brief overview of how its combat works:

Combat takes place on a square grid. Players have a collection of cards, written by the players themselves according to specific progression rules, that represent Techniques available to the characters.

In combat, players are not allowed to talk except for literally stating what the targets of their actions are, or unless they expend an action to talk freely.

At the beginning of a combat round, each player chooses two cards to use that round. Then, in reverse initiative order, each player reveals a card (giong twice around the table). Most actions resolve at the end of the round, so high-initiative characters can react to other characters' actions. When everyone has played both cards, the cards are resolved and another round begins.

This is an example card as it is found on the handbook - the card handled by players only needs to show the relevant numbers. Since players write their own card, they'll hopefully remember how their technique works, and can write on the card whatever they want to help them remember.

(FIR is the Fire attribute score, more on that later)

Fireball (Base)
Spit a fireball on a target square.
Attributes: Fire.
Chakra: 8
When you activate this technique, mark a square up to 6 FIR/2 from your position.
At the end of the turn, inflict a point of Stress to everybody within a circle of radius 2 FIR/5, around the target square.
For a Customization, increase or decrease:
The Chakra cost by 2 and the range by 4
The Chakra cost by 5 and the area of effect radius by 2

NPCs play by exactly the same rules, except that the GM does not choose which two cards to play, instead drawing them randomly from a small deck unique to each NPC. (Those decks are at most 5-6 cards big and re-use cards between NPCs, so don't worry aspiring GMs - no crafting a hundred unique decks)

Most combat encounters are objective-based and do not require defeating the opponents. Nonetheless, characters may be removed from combat in the following way:

Characters do not have HP. Instead, there is a Stress meter, ranging from two boxes for beginner characters to 6 or 7 for deadly foes. Low-impact techniques inflict a point of Stress, and each point of Stress makes everything more costly and less efficient for the character. Taking stress with a full meter results in a Knockout, removing the character from play until the end of combat.

However, truly damage-dealing techniques are always able to inflict a Knockout immediately. One does not simply tank damage from a ninja - they must be dodged or blocked, by the receiving character or its allies. This is always possible, since actions resolve at the end of the round - for example, one can simply walk out of the splash radius of a Fireball before it lands. Unless some other technique holds them in place...

These powerful techniques are expensive, which means that it is only effective to use them if the player can know for certain that they will connect.

There are also rules for hand-to-hand combat, morale and illusions, but I can't copy the whole handbook in this post. These rules (and the progression rules) do use a few d10 rolls, but these are the only instances of dice rolls in the whole game.

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The other half of the game is progression. Characters develop by using their Techniques.

When a technique has been used three times in combat, it is ready for a Customization: its numbers can be tweaked. My Fireball can become a little more powerful, but also a little more expensive. This does not give me an objectively better Fireball, but it gives me a more specialized tool. The player writes the card with the new Fireball, but also keeps the old one - they may now use whichever fits the situation best.

Whenever a Technique is customized, its corresponding Attribute score may improve: the player rolls 1d100, and if it is above the current score, they gain 1 point. Attribute scores contribute directly to the power of a technique: thus, the same card played by different characters will feel very different.

By completing missions, characters acquire Credits which may be spent to recover from Stress, to acquire Variants of techniques they already know or to learn new techniques altogether, as well as to help with progressing both Techniques and Attributes.

As you can see, then, the character is not really defined by its character sheet but rather by the techniques it collects and customizes in play. The character sheet fits on an A5 page, and is mostly empty space for notes and Traits, plus the attribute scores and their divisions by 2, 5 and 10.

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Any feedback is appreciated. If there's any interest in this game, I'll translate the handbook in English (it's in Italian right now) and make it available here.

Comment and earn a secret Technique Variant from your village!