# Shinobigami tags: #game/rpg/shinobigami ![[Shinobigami (cover).jpg|600]] Shinobigami is a ninja battle RPG engineered for exactly one thing: a single four-hour session in which the person most likely to kill you is the friend sitting across the table. It's a deliberately structured, fiction-forward game — Toichiro Kawashima's Japanese original, brought into English by Kotodama Heavy Industries — that leans hard into "ninja battle" media (Battle Royale, if you need a Western anchor): a cast shoved into one situation, a handful of scenes and bloody fights, and somebody walks away the winner. Every session plays out like a self-contained anime episode, opening and closing in the same sitting. ## Setting The world looks like present-day Japan. Underneath it runs the **Shadow War**, a hidden cold war of ninja clans manipulating politics, business, and religion from the dark — a secret society the public never learns exists. The book's term for the concealed supernatural layer of the world is the "World of Shadows," and ninja ("Nightwalkers," "Roof-Monkeys," "Masters of the Art") are the shadow-folk who fight in it. Six powers hold the current balance of that war, and every player character joins one of them at the rank of Chunin: - **The Hasuba Ninja Army** — tech-minded descendants of the Sengoku-era Saika Ikki, who reverse-engineer other clans' ninpo into gear anyone can use; their dream is to unite all the clans under their banner. - **The Kurama Shin Clan** — warrior-monks founded around the fabled Kyoto Eight Styles, who hunt monsters and seal away dangerous ninpo to keep the Shadow War hidden, ever working to prevent the Shinobigami from rising. - **The Lost Ones** — masterless ninja who fled or were cast out of the clans and fight for their own reasons; looked down on, and not really a clan at all. - **The Hirasaka Agency** — a secret intelligence arm of the Japanese government with deep Shinto roots, protecting the nation's interests through spies ("Miko") and political scheming. - **The Otogi Private Academy** — a boarding school for children with supernatural gifts that is secretly an espionage-and-intelligence training ground. - **The Bloodline of Oni** — descendants of ancient oni and tsuchigumo, home to the largest concentration of vampires, shapeshifters, and sorcerers among the clans, and the faction bent on resurrecting the Shinobigami. A player character is a ninja of one of these clans: a **Cover** (a civilian identity hiding the secret life), a **Conviction** from the Six-Fold Path, and — the part that actually does the work — a **Secret** written by the GM that they may never deliberately reveal. The clans exist against a deeper history: the **Shinobigami** ("God of the Shinobi") are the legendary progenitors of all this power, and one failed Oni ritual meant to revive them sealed the city now called **Dejima** — or *Shijima*, "Death Island" — a place overrun with Outsiders that no ninja enters and leaves whole. In a session, the players are less worried about that epic backstory than about their current **Missions**, their rivals' **Secrets**, and the **Prize** the night's scenario is built around, because the conflict that actually matters is between the people at the table. ## Mechanics ### Character Creation Pick a clan and a rank (everyone starts at **Chunin**), a **Cover**, a **Conviction**, and — the centerpiece — your **Secret** and **Mission**. A Chunin gets six **Skills**, four **Ninpo** of choice plus the universally known Close Combat Attack, and a single **Ohgi**, a hidden super-technique known only to its owner. Skills sit on a six-by-six **Skill Matrix**: six categories (Technology, Martial Arts, Stealth, Scheming, Strategy, Sorcery), each a column of skills, with "Gaps" between categories that certain ninpo can bridge to fake a skill you don't have. ### Skill Checks Nearly everything resolves on a **Skill Check**: roll **2d6** and meet or beat a Target Number. If you have the relevant skill circled, your TN is **5**; if you don't, you use your nearest circled skill and add one to the TN per square of distance across the matrix. Two special results matter more than the raw number: a **Critical** (usually a natural 12) succeeds outright and heals you into the bargain, while a **Fumble** (usually a natural 2 — or, in combat, your Plot Value) is an automatic failure with a table of unlucky consequences. The skill matrix is what makes Shinobigami sing: you're constantly nudging your best skill toward the thing you actually need to roll, and describing how that weird skill plausibly gets the job done. ### The Session: Scenes, Cycles, Secrets A session runs **Introduction → Main Phase → Climax**. The Main Phase is a string of **Cycles**: each player, as the "Scene Player," frames a scene of their own choosing — a **Drama Scene** built around one of three checks (a **Recovery** to heal, an **Information** check to learn another character's **Secret** or **Location**, or an **Emotion** check to forge an **EmoBond**) — or a **Combat Scene**. EmoBonds are the social engine: they let you share information (InfoShare), leap into a friend's fight (Incursion), and nudge their rolls for good or ill (EmoMod). All of it is aimed at uncovering rivals' Secrets and grabbing the scenario's **Prize** before the **Climax Phase**, a final all-hands Master Scene battle where Secrets can be revealed to fuel flashback bonuses and the winner takes it all. ### Combat: The Velocity System Combat is the cleverest bit. Each round, every fighter secretly picks a **Plot Value** (1–6, or 0 to fumble on purpose) by hiding a die, then all reveal at once; your Plot Value is simultaneously your initiative (higher acts first) and your **Fumble Value** (higher means you act sooner but fumble easier). You attack with a chosen **Ninpo** — roll the Attack Check, then the target rolls a **Dodge Check** against the same skill. Damage comes in three flavors: **Close Combat** (category chosen randomly, so it stings), **Ranged Combat** (the defender picks where it lands), and **Mob Combat** (sprays Status Ailments instead of Life Points, from Breakdown to Amnesia to Cursed). Lose a single Life Point in a Main-Phase fight and you drop out; in the Climax you fight to zero — or choose to die for a final, dramatic effect. The lone survivor takes the **Spoils of Battle**: information, an emotional bond, or the Prize. ### Advancement Between sessions — the game is built for pick-up one-shots but supports recurring crews — characters earn **Merit**, spent to climb ranks (up the ladder toward Jonin and, eventually, *Toryo*, unlocking the high-rank Advanced Ninpo along the way), to buy extra Ninja Gear, and to take Backgrounds (Virtues and Flaws). Each session ends with a clean slate: full Life Points, no Info, two fresh Ninja Gear. It's a game designed to be replayed forever with new Secrets and new betrayals each time — which is, frankly, the whole point. ## Editions - **Shinobigami** (Toichiro Kawashima, Bouken Kikakukyoku / Adventure Planning Service, 2012) — the Japanese original, a modern-ninja battle RPG that became a hit on the Japanese scene. - **Shinobigami: Modern Ninja Battle RPG (English Revised Edition)** (Kotodama Heavy Industries, 2019/2020) — the Kickstarter-backed English translation, a manga-sized hardcover and PDF; the translation is based on the Japanese second edition. *In the library.* (Four PDF copies — one-page and two-page print layouts — of the same edition.) - **Shinobigami Expansion Book** — the first supplement, in production; per the publisher it carries the few small revised-rules bits as options. ## References - [Official Shinobigami site - Shinobigami](https://shinobigami.com) - [Kotodama Heavy Industries (publisher) - kotohi.com](https://kotohi.com) - [Shinobigami - Modern Ninja Battle RPG - DriveThruRPG](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/297976/shinobigami-modern-ninja-battle-rpg) - [Shinobigami - Modern Ninja Battle RPG - itch.io](https://kotodama.itch.io/shinobigami) - [Shinobigami: Modern Ninja Battle Tabletop RPG from Japan - Kickstarter](https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/diamondsutra/shinobigami-modern-ninja-battle-tabletop-rpg-from) - [Shinobigami (Tabletop Game) - TV Tropes](https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/TabletopGame/Shinobigami)