GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 12: Ninja

[b-dog]

Since GURPS DF does not want to make any worlds for DF based on real world myths it is good that there is Pathfinder. Now there is a place to play GURPS DF Ninjas!

Here is an adventure path for an oriental DF world:

http://paizo.com/pathfinder/adventurePath/jadeRegent

Here are some pictures that are based on the modules and look cool!

http://paizo.com/image/product/catal...O9053_500.jpeg

http://paizo.com/image/product/catal...O9054_500.jpeg

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by b-dog

Here is an adventure path for an oriental DF world:

http://paizo.com/pathfinder/adventurePath/jadeRegent

Here are some pictures that are based on the modules and look cool!

http://paizo.com/image/product/catal...O9053_500.jpeg

http://paizo.com/image/product/catal...O9054_500.jpeg

Paizo makes really good stuff, so I'm glad to see this. I haven't seen any of their adventure paths, but I've checked out some of their rulebooks. I find the rules material a bit too dense (Pathfinder is just one too many steps away from 1st edition AD&D, which is where I got off the D&D train) but I like the art and production a lot, at least.

It'd be a real bonus if it sold a few more copies of DF 12 in the process, too. :)

[mhd]

I'd say that even their first adventure path already had a ninja in it…

(And apparently his hot bard sister is now taking some adventurers to the Old Country, judging from the blurb of this AP…)

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by mhd

I'd say that even their first adventure path already had a ninja in it…

(And apparently his hot bard sister is now taking some adventurers to the Old Country, judging from the blurb of this AP…)

Nothing wrong with hot bard ninjas.

Oh, sister. Nevermind. It would be better if she was a ninja.

[b-dog]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

Paizo makes really good stuff, so I'm glad to see this. I haven't seen any of their adventure paths, but I've checked out some of their rulebooks. I find the rules material a bit too dense (Pathfinder is just one too many steps away from 1st edition AD&D, which is where I got off the D&D train) but I like the art and production a lot, at least.

It'd be a real bonus if it sold a few more copies of DF 12 in the process, too. :)

I think that if you would have included some Asian monsters to fight and Asian magic items to find then it would have helped GURPS Ninjas a lot. A book on the Forbidden East would help sales of GURPS Ninja I think too.

[RyanW]

Originally Posted by Toadkiller_Dog

Oh, sister. Nevermind. It would be better if she was a ninja.

She doesn't look like a ninja, which means she's a good ninja. :)

[Peter V. Dell'Orto]

Originally Posted by b-dog

I think that if you would have included some Asian monsters to fight and Asian magic items to find then it would have helped GURPS Ninjas a lot. A book on the Forbidden East would help sales of GURPS Ninja I think too.

GURPS Dungeon Fantasy 12: Ninja wasn't meant to be an Asian sourcebook. Japanese monsters, Japanese cultural skills and discussions, and non-Ninja magic items would have been out of place. There are by my count 17 new magic items in the book (with sub-types), a whole new class of mundane items (the ninja suit), three new poisons (blinding gas, mind fog, and paralytic slime), rules for turning grenades into blowpipe powders, and 10 new mundane items. So it's really not lacking "Asian" magic items, just "non-Japanese ninja inspired" magic items.

Now, it's not like those things are bad - it's just that thematically tight books are easier to write, easier to slot in, and cheaper. This is why DF 14: Psi is about Psi, not Psi + astral travel adventures + Elder Things + treasures you might find in the Mountains of Madness. DF12 was contracted to be a short book on running ninja, not a sourcebook on Japan. That's why it's $5 and has two templates in it and lots of magic and mundane things to support using the ninja in game. Had it been more "complete" book, it might have sold better, but it would have been a much, much larger book. In practical terms, I don't think I'd have finished it yet. Much too much writing and researching!

[Kromm]

Besides which, in a fantasy context – and indeed, in an RPG context – ninja stopped being "Japanese" or even "Asian" a couple of decades ago. These days, fantasy needs ninja or ninja stand-ins to be taken seriously. That's why Peter Jackson turned Tolkien's elves into freakin' ninja, for instance, and why you have glorified ninja showing up under the label "assassin" in Diablo II and in fact as far afield as Borderlands 2 . . .

[Tyneras]

Originally Posted by b-dog

I think that if you would have included some Asian monsters to fight and Asian magic items to find then it would have helped GURPS Ninjas a lot. A book on the Forbidden East would help sales of GURPS Ninja I think too.

http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG30-6006
http://e23.sjgames.com/item.html?id=SJG30-6037

[mhd]

Well, AD&D 1st edition had its assassin, and mostly there's no big difference between it and the early ninja archetype, maybe apart from the exotic weapons. (And things like Assassin's Creed show that they're easily added into the western archetype via clockworkpunk.)

Although a lot of other ninja concepts clearly mix it up with some blatant superhero/mutant archetypes, e.g. in "Shinobi - Heart Under Blade".