Early Naruto was great, and it's a shame they kind of threw away some of the better parts of the world building fairly early on.
Seals are cool. For a magic system, it's elegantly designed. Twelve hand symbols based on the Chinese zodiac and modeled after Buddhist/Hindu Mudra, combined in sequences. Short sequences produce simple effects, while long chains of hundreds of symbols produce elaborate ones.
Certainly better than its rival Bleach's "Spell with a number to hammer in the idea that there's a system behind this magic but it's bland and boring!"
It's fun and marketable, since kids were running around, performing the hand symbols and excitedly memorizing new techniques as new chapters were released. Sasuke performs the "Great Fireball Technique"? Suddenly, you've got kids performing Tiger→ Ram → Monkey → Boar → Horse as fast as they can.
My only complaint, outside of this system being quickly pushed under the rug by the forty+ other magic systems that ended up appearing in Naruto, is that the long, elaborate techniques were just too long and elaborate, and more to show off the ridiculousness of high level practitioners than anything else. The fun part of this system is the audience's ability to participate, memorizing the twelve seals and the combinations needed for different techniques, and being able to practice them with speed and precision.
Altogether, it's almost like a mini-game, and it's something I wish I saw more of in other magic systems.
I agree, and feel that in more ways than one, a lot was lost from the series as it went on. In my opinion, it happened before the transition to Shippuuden, specifically when the three Sanin were introduced. Don't get me wrong, a lot of the powers in both series were super cool, and many could be applied in many different ways, but as things progressed, it became more about whose power could cheat better. I could go on, but this is clearly an /a/ tangent. Back on topic: With such a system, you could have a Stat associated with hand signs (and maybe a rare/expensive feat allowing for single handed signs, a la Haku) determining how many signs you can make, and thus the tier of technique you may cast. >cont
Robert Morgan
Not only that, but stats associated with Chakra pool and control. This is important, because of what was established early on in the series about balance. Sakura was really weak in power, and slow with her hand signs, but she could control her flow like a boss. Naruto had tons of Chakra in reserve (due to Kyuubi), but didn't have the knowledge of signs nor the ability to control his flow (due to the seal). Sasuke... he was always kinda cheaty. He knew powerful fire-style techniques for his level (even ignoring the ones he learned using his Sharingan) had the speed to perform the signs, with his control being only a little below average. Plus, his pool was large enough to use a technique like Chidori/Raikiri twice, even as a novice! So with these things in mind, a starting, low-level character should have a limited number of points they may distribute between the three areas; pool size, technique, and efficiency. Casting would come down to knowledge of the signs, the speed to form them without getting wrecked, the efficiency to nor screw up, and having enough available energy in the first place. It all sounds extremely complicated, though. Maybe it could be streamlined? Then there's the issue of the possible combinations. With even techniques that use just two hand signs, you already have 144 different combinations.
Eli Watson
>Certainly better than its rival Bleach's "Spell with a number to hammer in the idea that there's a system behind this magic but it's bland and boring!"
At least the incantations were interesting.
Joshua Davis
I don't want to discourage you or sound like a nay-sayer, of course. This sort of thing sounds really awesome, even if the source series is dead to me now. As a side note, I really liked the idea of Doujutsu (Byakugan, Sharingan, etc) but in execution they were all incredibly cheaty, especially Rinnegan, where you're pretty much god.
Daniel Peterson
This post is thoughtful thorough and inciteful. Furthermore OP is not only well informed but open to dissenting opinions. ...This is Veeky Forums, right?
Landon Rodriguez
Early Naruto was great, and it's a shame they kind of threw away some of the better parts of the world building fairly early on
yes, i agree. it was sad watching it get cringy, less campy, and tooo edgelord.
doesnt shadow run use pools? i think it has a magic system you are aiming for. d20, would be like concentration checks, just to cast the damn spell.
David Turner
I certainly would like to see a magic system in a game not entirely about magic with more depth than "What's your CL and what's your Casting Stat?"
Juan Garcia
Naruto was great before they changed from ninjas to karate wizards
I stuck around cuz NaruxHina is the sugary sweetest ship in anime
Brandon Jenkins
>that one hand sign that's literally impossible to do with your hands They were suckering us in.
Aiden Moore
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Luke Richardson
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Justin Brooks
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Christopher Adams
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Oliver Ross
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Asher Wood
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Ethan Clark
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Brayden Cruz
The end
Eli Collins
I actually really liked the Kido as a concept even if the execution left something to be desired
Kido was broken up into three types >Bakudo for barriers and seals >Hado for offensive abilities >Kaido for healing Each spell is numbered with difficulty increasing as you go up Practitioners need to recite long incantations to get the full effect Or can shorten or forego the chant for a diminished effect and less control The more you master the system the more power you can get out of the Kido even without an incantation
Josiah Foster
THis is the greatest thing I have seen in 48 hours.
Nicholas Barnes
I always thought Exalted's Charm system would've worked well with Naruto. The actual storyteller engine is bad at it but the Charms could work.
Parker Mitchell
Naruto is confirmed to be a world where you marry your childhood crush. So the next generation after Salad & Boruto will be the true God Child.
Angel Rogers
I smell forced drama in the future between Bolt & Salad
Nathan Robinson
One thing that I've discovered is that if done poorly, depth just becomes tedious.
For example, D&D's material components.
On one hand, they're quite interesting, because they instantly add flavor to a spell and put a restriction on their usage, but the way they're handled in the game (largely ignored until your spell component pouch is taken away) is just the natural result of people not wanting to do a lot of unnecessary bookkeeping.a
The weakness in material components is that what the individual components are rarely ever matters, and with other more important aspects of a spell to memorize, it's rare to find a player who knows even half the material components for his spells without looking them up. They're just not well integrated into the spells, and are ultimately just a touch of flavor that are almost always ignored.
Though, there was one time where material components ended up being pretty important to our story. We were trapped in a cave in, after having been stripped of everything except our clothes. With a quick browse through our spell lists, we discovered that with a little bit of gauze and smoke, one of us could assume Gaseous Form and escape to get help for the rest of us. Cue one of us fraying his clothes to produce gauze while the rest of the party had ripped off their shirts and were furiously rubbing them in hopes of producing smoke.
David Rodriguez
This.
And really twelve symbols isn't enough to build spell effects that aren't Hawaiian.
Nathaniel Hughes
Friendly reminder that Veeky Forums once tried to rebalance and revivify the Naruto setting. Maybe we can resume work on it here.
if you remove all the rinnegan shit and the sharingan shit after the three tomoe then they can be reasonably balanced
Joshua Smith
I loved the idea of Sharingan as the thing that let you copy others' jutsu, like how Kakashi used it when it was first introduced. In the early days, Naruto was all about knowing different jutsu. Kakashi was hyped up as knowing all of the jutsu and so he could defeat anyone.
In some ways it feels like it shows what a high level 3.5 game is about- it's not how strong you are that really matters, it's how egregiously you abuse your abilities that wins fights.
Camden Richardson
I don't think a static stat alone for handsigns would work as well as something tactile players can play with. Consider cards drawn from a deck with various handsigns on them that they combine into making a jutsu that is applicable in the current situation, based on their jutsu lists.
There's also the fact that certain techniques can be stacked and used in conjunction with one another. I forget her name but she has the seven pronged sword that can shoot fireballs and one of the things she did was use one spell to bind three of harribel's fraccion and then another to cause it to explode.
Not only that, not all the kido are listed so there is plenty of room to make up shit in between, that and I like the concept of it from the names to the fact you have to recite the incantations and what not to make them even stronger
Charles Butler
The incantation is what i like the most in terms of game mechanics it would mean taking two or more rounds to cast at full power making the zanpakuto the more effective option in combat However someone who speced into Kido would be able to fire off a more powerful Kido or multiple weaker Kido with a short or no incantation in other words reducing casting to a standard or full round action
Not everything needs to be usable in the heat of battle. In fact, there should be a stragetic use of full incantation versions of a spell versus using the short version.
I imagine most defensive kido would look different if use use the long incantation like Danku for example: let's say that just using the short form lets you use a shield that just covers you but doing the long version lets you designate a space that has a really strong defense because its partially disjointed from reality or some shit like that.
>Not everything needs to be usable in the heat of battle True Kido works a lot like I like magic to work, it takes time to be used effectively making its use in combat rather limited unless you have someone to run interference or you are so good at it that you can fire off a spell without the preparation required
Daniel Gray
That an magic isn't just relegated to a select few people. I mean, if you're going to come up with spells for war fighting why wouldn't the fighter know them
>B-but t-then h-he wouldn't be a fighter!
Bullshit. And if you're all caught up in weeaboo just palette swap someone like Genryuusai with Gandalf and bam everyone's happy.
Carter Foster
>come up with spells for war fighting why wouldn't the fighter know them Exactly minor offensive and defensive spells can be learned fairly easily but more powerful spells are mainly for outside of combat or are used by the Masters of the Art
Kevin Morgan
Agreed, hence why I like the idea of spells having different layers of affects you can access.
You might know the spell that lets you become invisible but someone who is a dedicated master of spells could do something more like make a whole area become invisible or something
Xavier Garcia
That's why I always liked Mages magic system If I had to pick how I would build a magic system it would probably look something like Coiling Dragons Profound Truth of Laws
Profound Laws are divided into Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Lightning, Darkness, Light. There are also the four Edicts which are Life, Death, Destruction and Fate. To train in the laws one has to have an elemental affinity with that law. But to train in any of the Edicts special conditions have to be met. The more you understand the laws the more you can do in that Law, you can also combine the laws into more creative Techniques
Here's the Profound Laws of Earth as an example Laws of the Earth tend to have a very strong material attack, but a weak soul attack.
1) Essence of Earth
2) Profound Mystery of Strength
3) Profound Mystery of World Walking
4) Profound Mystery of Vitality
5) Profound Mystery of Gravitational Space
6) Profound Mystery of Throbbing Pulse of the World
Brayden Harris
Yes, but is it a good idea to hard regulate all magic into categories like offense, defense, and healing or generic fantasy elements?
Aiden Allen
I think Offense and Defense work better as sub categories Like you have Offensive Evocation like Fireball and Defensive Evocation like Wall of Flame
Liam Wood
You might like this, it's the hindu interpretation of the five classic elements
>typing on my phone In the last hour i thought about a possible system, let me show you what i came up with.
As from someone proposed you have 3 stats that determine your style of jutsu usage: chakra pool, controll and efficiency. To use a jutsu you have to pay seals and/or chakra. Seals you get out of your deck, chakra is one of your stats. Every character has it's own jutsu list. Every jutsu has a number attached to it: > needed seals Number of seals you need to get best use of your jutsu. If you have all of them, your jutsu gets stronger by either giving you more dices to roll or by gaining an additional effect. For every seal used you roll a d6. Every 5 and 6 counts (like in sr). If however you dont have enough seals you can pay from your chakra pool. Two points equalls 1 seal. You can pay up to the maximum of possible seal usage, but you wont get the additional effect. The efficiency lowers the barrier of needed seals for the additional effect.
But how do you get seals? So, i really like the idea of using cards. You have a deck that you can build as you like. It contains the following types of card: > seal It works as one of the 12 possible seals. There is no distinction.The number of seals one can hold is limited by controll > action cards Special actions which can need seals and/or chakra. They allow all kinds of stuff, like drawing cards, switching cards with other players and so on. The number of actions one can hold is limited by efficiency > consumables pills, scrolls, shuriken and more. They either need mana like scrolls or they use basic stats as thai jutsu does > thai jutsu actions They are like seals, but for thai jutsu. The number of cards one can hold is also limited but im not really sure how.
Thats all for now. You also need stats like constitution, strenght, agility for thai jutsu, Initiative and so on, but i didnt think this through yet. Feel free to leave suggestion, brainstorm, etc. no native speaker, sorry
Hudson Kelly
Actually, Japan in general was pretty big into the belief of eugenics being a thing before the modern ages of advanced science and genetics. They are still a family focused society with one's heritage being a thing of importance, at least on the emotional level.
A large number of modern day manga/anime writers still often use it as plot devices because it is easy to digest for the average young demographic.
Cameron Stewart
aw shit nigga, i quit at the beginning of shippuden but this is great
Lucas Stewart
>suffers through the fillers >quits at shippuden
Nolan Richardson
I rewatched the Land of Waves, i.e. the beginning of Naruto, a while back and fuck it's a great battle shonen story arc. The enemy is threatening, powerlevels jumped drastically from the introductory episodes but were still absolutely grounded on the rules those first episodes presented and the drama somehow managed to be quite refined for an ultimately silly boy's action adventure. Missed Potential - The Manga. Fuck Kishimoto and his publisher for squandering a cool concept
Colton Gonzalez
This is why it is a gateway anime of the worst kind.
Ian Myers
Why do all the female characters get shit on so badly in the manga, god damn
Austin Walker
Kishi said he doesn't/didn't know how to write female characters, what no one told him is that you just write characters, their gender doesn't matter
Brandon Bennett
Well, all the things Naruto did wrong, HunterXHunter did right. It even ramps up powerlevels in a sensible manner.
Too fucking bad about how it'll never ever finish.
Jayden Kelly
Not this meme again m8. That'll make a good character but not a good female character. Good female characters will be definitely feminine, like Buffy. Good characters that just happen to be female end up like Rey Skywalker.
Jace White
Could be worse though, you could be Bleach, where you introduce a ton of really interesting morbid rules involving life and death to your setting only to just completely ignore it in favor of a DBZ, but stupid plot.
Nolan Thomas
Right and you can expand on it from there, all the women of naruto until Tsunade/shippuden have basically no real character
Jacob Edwards
How stupid do you have to be to be "DBZ- but stupider"?
Because I love DBZ but it is fucking stupid as hell.
Aaron Wood
If this were a show, I'd watch it. 10/10, exceptional.
Luis Nguyen
DBZ was stupid AND fun, bleach is more stupid and worse of all boring. Ichigo's by the end of the anime is a soul reaper, hallow, quincy, with bankia, and gives up his powers to beat the not real BBEG, but then gets them back with no consequences.
Ayden Harris
The problem with Naruto is that it exchanged lower powerlevel ninjas with high powerlevel wizards. When was the last time there was a stealth/spy/assassination mission in Naruto? It very quickly devolved into direct combat despite there being a nation that focuses on direct combat that had that covered if Kishimoto really wanted to explore that.
Naruto is shit as a ninja story, 4/10 as a fightan wizards story.
Adrian Cook
I remember enjoying the beginning of Naruto. I watched it when it was new and liked it despite not really being an anime fan. I only saw it up to where Orochimaru got his arms psychically amputated though. A friend had just that much on bootleg DVD.
Benjamin Moore
Yeah some of the characters do not even fight physically, they just use forms of magic. It's a shame how Kishimoto didn't really know how to write a story or a threat without ridiculously ramping the powerlevels up constantly. There are points where it just goes completely silly even if you treat everything as fightan wizards. Naruto is goddamn dumb but it's a wild ride, so in a certain level an entertaining read. Shame that it could never be more than that.
Juan Phillips
>I remember enjoying the beginning of Naruto. I enjoyed the beginning of it too, but I stopped reading when Sasuke didn't die in the battle on the bridge against the ninjas with the big sword and the needles. I knew that character was gonna be trouble and would develop the worst kind of fanbase, so I bailed early, and judging by how the series went and how the fanbase grew, I'm glad I bailed.
Nolan Thomas
Really it should have ended after the Pain arc. Naruto's character arc was finished, Pain was a great final boss, and most of the plot threads aside from Sasuke could have easily been wrapped up. Hell it would've decent fit what was left of the story's thematic arc too. After the Kage summit was when things really started going downhill, the plot and power levels just got more and more ridiculous until there was no way anyone could take the story seriously.
Bentley Hall
That seems fine, although some jutsu effects (especially genjutsu) might be hard to portray in an adversarial game.
Andrew Peterson
well it's certainly better than this
Sebastian Kelly
>Naruto d20: The Scrolls of Knowledge is an accessory to the d20 Modern roleplaying game
Christian Hall
And for those talking about Bleach earlier
Bentley Rivera
It occurs to me that I can't actually remember if anything happens or not between the Land of Waves mission and the start of the Chunin exams. I think it might have been Jiraiya training arc? Or was that during the Chunin exams before the finals?
Land of Waves > Chunin Exams (and Jiraiya training) > Tsunade/Itachi arc > Sasuke Retrieval Arc > Good Filler with characters other than team 7 (except that one with the bloodline that straight up controls chakra like DBZ characters, I like Lee and Tenten, but that was pretty stupid, except for the Lee vs Guy fight which was pretty cool).
Kevin Bennett
Anything with Lee and Guy is great Say what you will about late series Naruto but having Guy be the only dude other than the First Hokage to hang with Madara was fucking awesome
Michael White
That's true, Guy opening the 8th gate and his fight with Madara was one of the best moments in the series. Aside from Kakashi and Obito's fight it was the only point in the final arc where I actually felt hype for something.
Josiah Foster
>since the Chuunin exams, hype up the 8 Gates as a tecnique that is guaranteed to kill you >eleventy billion years later >Guy finally opens the 8th gate >he doesn't die because Naruto Jesus magic More people needed to die after Neji
Jackson Wright
>When was the last time there was a stealth/spy/assassination mission in Naruto? Basically all Sasuke does after leaving the village is a long term assassination mission.
Joshua Cook
Uh, iirc we were going to do Cloud next. They're the out and out most powerful village, as well as the most militarized. They've got a good relationship with both of their jinchuriki and they take more care than most to persecute rogue nin. Cloud is also the third part of the three-way balance between themselves, Rock, and Leaf. Their training method is to extend the academy until you become a chunin, but genin can still take missions as extra credit.
Nolan Ortiz
We should probably get an IRC channel to dsicuss this stuff in
John Parker
I doubt many people will actually want to discuss it.
Henry Martin
Well, I do.
Justin Reyes
Then make the thing. I'll join you, but I don't know how to do that stuff.
>Several game settings and alternate magic systems (or tech systems) alredy use picto graph sequences for abilities. >They make a hell of alot more sense than animal zodiacs. >This system is nothing new
>...
>People actually discussing things happily on tg
Well it is blue moon season. Nice to see positive threads once and a while.
Wyatt Turner
You guys are making me want to watch Part I again.
Noah Perry
I'm just waiting for naruto and bleach kai so I don't have to sit through useless parts of it
Ian Roberts
That was spectacular.
Leo Stewart
>Basically all Sasuke does after leaving the village is a long term assassination mission There is still a lot of flashy, upfront fighting and less pocketsand sha-sha-sha going on.
Nathan Edwards
That mini episode was amazing
Joseph Bennett
How does that throw even work?
Caleb Hall
Classic stuff.
Ethan Barnes
Could you please explain what you mean with adversarial game?
Luke Thompson
I think he means where you're facing specific opponents who could be catered to/cater around specific gimmicks. If you use genjutsu and they fail to stop it it's OP, and then that entire character's skills are wasted. Basically a saving throw that when abused, is annoying, and when exploited, is boring.
Kayden Bell
So I read the 1d4chan page and my god that's awesome world building. Kishimoto takes notes son.
Brayden Stewart
How is a good character who's female not the same as a good female character?
Chase Miller
I think you mean Hinamori Momo iirc. Pretty bland character but a badass at Kido.
Also remember that moment when Rukia weaved two incantations together, one for a binding spell and one for a hard-hitter.
In game mechanics you could allow that so instead of casting for 3 actions, binding, casting for another 3 in order to blast while the target might already have escaped the bind you could go ahead and cast 6, bind and immediatly blast the round after.
Adrian Fisher
1) Switched up the order of replies. 2) forgive me for i failed to get rid of the tripcode.
Ryder Morgan
Momo would be a good example of a low level character training Kido to make up for their deficiency in close combat Which makes sense because Momo is supposed to be relatively inexperienced compared to other Shinigami But then you have guy's like Yamamoto who can fire off a Hado in the 90s with no chant while still being a beast up close In essence a higher level/more experienced character who has had time to invest in both System wise I would do a point buy character creation to allow for many permutations for possible combat styles
Jaxson Reed
I'm actually working on a system for this right now. I've done some pretty successful homebrew on Veeky Forums in the past. I can bang out some last stuff and post a quick and dirty skeleton system if anyone is interested.
Carter Sanchez
I am
Joshua Edwards
Okay, let me type out some last stuff before I post it.
