Hello and welcome to Veeky Forums’s hectic attempt to fix the Naruto setting. Our goal is to make Kishi’s world more fun and interesting, while still keeping its identity. Maybe work on some game rules too if anybody’s interested.
We've settled on a few things so far.
1. Power levels should be fixed to about where they were during the Chuunin Exam Arc. Fights between the most powerful ninja are about technique variety and quick strategy, rather than outright power.
2. The relationship of power between little kid ninjas and grown up ninjas should actually make sense, even if the little kid has a special technique.
3. Politics between the hidden villages should be more fleshed out (this is rather vague, but we haven't had consensus).
4. Many of the bullshit powers (or even entire clans) should be excised and tailed beasts should be far greater threats than they became. Godlike powers are reserved for legendary figures from the past.
5. The setting must decide whether it's modern or it isn't. This is because technology actually has an effect on how effective ninja are.
6. Samurai should also be more of a threat, using brute force and possibly chakra absorbing metals to counteract ninja cunning. Alternatively, they could use chakra themselves in simpler ways.
>and tailed beasts should be far greater threats than they became Fuck off. Their Bijuu Bombs were being fired like machine guns & were destroying mountains. If anything the Tailed Beasts became too destructive. Tone down the Bijuu Bomb or hike up the cost & I'd agree but fuck making them stronger. They're already too fuckin' high on the power levels
John Miller
The bijuudama shouldn't have been a thing in the first place. They should have just been huge beasts with each one having a unique power.
Gabriel Harris
Here's some worldbuilding for you: sandals/shoes/footwear that actually covers the toes
Noah Rogers
You've gone mad. There's not even an in-story reason either. Kishinev just said he likes drWing tores
Chase Nguyen
>Alternatively, they could use chakra themselves in simpler ways. Don't the warriors from the land of iron basically use that chakra blade thing Asuma does to extend their wakazashi into chakra lightsaber versions of whatever the fuck weapon they prefer?
Isaiah Long
I figure they could do that, and have way more of a focus on using chakra to enhance their physical techniques. Shit like doing the chakra-sticking exercise through weapons and armor, sword styles that involve being able to run up walls, and anything with Iajutusu is just "I basically open up a gate for the entire one second I'm doing this move".
I'm with on having them more specialized when it comes to powers. No universal abilities like Bijuudama, but individually unique approaches to the same kind of effects. Gobi shoots pressurized steam or something, Ichibi crushes you with sand, whatever.
I'd also go with making the Bijuu way more alien in mindset than they are in the story. They should be weird and incomprehensible in their motivations to most people, and definitely should have a "ancient spirit that talks in riddles" kind of feel when interacting with people from the modern era. There's no way they speak in common dialects, they've been around for centuries.
Jeremiah King
Bijuu should basically be near-feral natural disasters with the added benefit of being able to tap into the jinchuuriki host's intellect for the cunning to deceive and torment. Mastery isn't a thing, much less befriending them, except maybe by going the Akatsuki route of using that fuckhuge relic to bind them. The only way to "use" your sealed beast's power is to cut loose and hope you wake up again afterward, maybe with one or more seals helping out. You're a bomb, not some superhero!
Noah Mitchell
If memory serves, Asuma's blade thing worked by coating his trench knives in wind chakra. So the Samurai would need to have the wind type and then be trained to use it.
Henry Morris
Or have Lightning chakra and do what Sasuke does. Which is what they do.
Jordan Howard
I think they just have a more generic chakra flow technique that they can combine with whatever chakra nature they happen to develop. Certainly makes more sense than trying to force everyone to use a single element individual samurai may not have a knack for.
Jordan Green
I figure samurai have a really utilitarian view when it comes to chakra manipulation. Ninjas can worry about all these fancy techniques, half the shit we do doesn't even have a name. It's just called "basic training".
The Land of Iron is ninja switzerland partially because of politics, but also because unlike ninjas, their techniques don't get constantly hidden. They have a really high standard of training due to a lack of internal espionage when it comes to combat.
Jonathan Carter
reposting thoughts on Ninja Village populations;
okay thoughts on Shinobi populations for the various Villages(with the idea that the numbers need to be large enough for the term Shinobi World War to have meaning);
Stone- 20,000
Leaf- 18,000
Cloud- 17,000
Sand- 15,000
Mist- about 14,000 in total, but that's split between the two main sides in Mist's civil war, about 8,000 on the Mizukage Faction, and 6,000 on the Rebelling Clans Faction
Grass- 11,000(most numerous of the Minor Villages, a sign of them rising in prosperity due to Mist's decline from the Civil War)
Sound- 9,000(Sound's surprisingly fast growth for a village that officially only existed for about 20 years* partially comes from them absorbing the remnants of several lesser Villages and adopting quite a few Clans that had previously been non-Village aligned, and partially due to Sound having a highly aggressive program to find potential Shinobi among civilians to an extent that most villages haven't bothered with in decades)
Waterfall- 7,000(their relatively high population has to do with never having been invaded)
Rain- 6,000
most other Minor Villages(and some of the largest Independent Clans) number 5,000 or under, while Land of Iron isn't listed due to not having Shinobi(although their Samurai population is probably somewhere between Mist and Cloud numbers)
Brandon Parker
That's all fine, but there should be more to distinguish the villages than their populations of ninja.
Ethan Sanchez
I remember talking with a friend a while ago about trying to rationalize why all of the Raikage's are named A, and we figured a cool idea might be that for matters of security, Cloud ninja in specific positions don't have a name, they have a letter. A is always the Raikage, B is always the eight tails jinchuuriki, etc.
The reasoning behind it we worked with was that to other villages, when your spy gets you knowledge that "G is doing something yadda yadda" you have no idea which G it is, if the current G is the one you have info on, or what techniques they might have. Just an idea.
William Morris
Alright, here's the gist of some of our brainstorming from last year, as it pertains to the Five Great Ninja Villages.
Leaf's great strength is the diversity of their techniques and especially their clans. They stay on top of the ninja world because they are centrally located and because their ninja can perform a huge variety of tasks. Konoha is also generally the most "pleasant" village to live in and work for.
Cloud is the second strongest village and are more straightforward in their methods. They're also super jealous of Konoha, but whatever. They train genin in classrooms and run the village's ninja system like a military. Also racial diversity, if that's your thing.
Stone is the third amongst the five great villages. They have a lot of grunt ninja and place a great emphasis on teamwork and the disposability of the individual. They're also the most underhanded when it comes to things like politics and allying with unsavory characters.
Mist is fourth and is currently in line to go even lower, perhaps dropping out of the five big villages. Yagura rules that shit with an iron fist, so many of the clans are rebelling against him. However, even before he came into power, Mist was always a dog-eat-dog kind of place. Lot of bloodthirst going on, as well as some great kenjutsu specialists.
And then we come to Shitty Old Sand, as the locals call it. Resource poor and stubborn as all hell, no one has ever mounted a successful large-scale assault on Sand because it's in the middle of a huge fucking desert which the native ninja have learned to exploit to their advantage. Suna ninja are also famous for using weird techniques like puppetry. They are staunch allies of Leaf, and their alliance has always confounded the other three.
And for your viewing pleasure, some quality Naruto content
>chakra nature I really dislike the chakra nature thing. YOu have thousands of elements, magma, ice, shadows but only bloodlines can use them. Regular guys are limited to 5.
Some clans specializes in different elements and pass down techniques while academia focuses on fire/wind/lightning based on the country but everyone can learn anything.
Carson Morales
to be fair, most combination elemental releases are kekkai genkai and most (if not all) jonin are only capable of 2 elemental releases.so its not that complex. technically anyone can learn anything that isn't kekkei genkai but each of the respective 5 great nations are most known for their respective elemental releases. and as with most things in naruto, the elemental releases are based off of eastern mythology/religion
Henry Green
Frank should be the next hokage.
Juan Perez
Ninja shouldn't be dressed in fucking ORANGE and also tournaments where you begin 5 feet from each other out in the open are a fucking retarded way to gauge a ninja's skill.
Jonathan Sullivan
>tournaments where you begin 5 feet from each other Now I immagine a REAL ninja arena fight. >Big arena with trees, grass, rocks, whatever >Partecipants can enter >Audience doesn't see no one >Partecipants may begin the fight >Audience still clueless, grass is still green,, nothing moves >10 minutes pass >15 minutes pass >And the winner is Temari! >A group of med nins enter and pull away a bloody corpse from underground. >Temari is nowhere to be seen.
Blake Garcia
Honestly one of the big issues with fixing this setting is trying to keep it kind of what it is while also dealing with the fact that it's ninjas are barely like ninjas. I usually would just write them off as "basically mercenaries, but ninja is the local word for it" but it's a valid issue, because they still try and flavor themselves as ninjas.
Luis Morgan
Like the theory that the current 007 is always code name: James Bond. You don't know what he looks like or who he is, but you know how fucking badass this guy must be, cuz they all are.
Xavier Phillips
Its obviously retcon bullshit, but remember that Kakashi told Narutovhowbthe five kage worked, and somehow forgot to mention "the leader of the neighboring ninja village, the one that just attacked us, is a jinchuriki like you".
Cameron Mitchell
>lel le orange ninja XD Nice falling for the meme. Notice how he's the only one who dresses in orange, and how in the very first chapter he established himself as an attention whore
Angel Rodriguez
The characters in the manga absolutely can do all this sneaking, stealthing and operating operationally stuff. Problem is that if it's not like Dragon Ball Z and somebody gets into beam strungles every other chapter, it won't sell the Jump. That's also why any series that's a pillar of Jump escalates so horrendously.
Zachary Thomas
Sounds like you've never actually read Dragonball. The escalation is perfectly rational, and beam struggles are rare. King, robot army, demon king, alien, alien king, the legacy of all previous cool people, an extradimensional threat with no context, including his transformation (buu actually gets weaker but more focused, eventually past reason, with each transformation. Fat Buu can be dissuaded with conversation, Super Buu can be momentarily distracted, but Kid Buu is a literal one-track mind) You should read Fenzel on Dragonball on Overthinking It. Also you should wwwwwrrrrrrrrread the manga
Luke Adams
You can think of it this way: most ninja hide in trees. Naruto has made himself the tree, which he himself hides behind thanks to clones.
Jaxon Roberts
No wonder the shadow clone is a forbidden technique...
Kevin Baker
Why are you trying to fix this setting? You can't polish a turd, and you certainly can't fix autism.
Brandon Robinson
Because some days you just want to be ninjas that spit fire and run up walls, but don't want to deal with all of the undead or moon people made of trees.
Dylan Bennett
I like how there's multiple types of forbidden jutsu. Some are Chaotic Evil by nature, some are proprietary, some are above the normal pay grade and are only trusted to a few, still more are actively harmful to the user. Clones are weird tho. Clone jutsu is just an illusion, but other clone types are perfectly capable of hitting you. So what makes shadow clones forbidden is that it doesn't really match reward to risk, so you really gotta know what you're doing and the best time to use it.
Parker Stewart
I figure it's a forbidden jutsu half because it's an incredibly valuable tool they don't want getting out there, and half because the whole "equally splits your chakra per casting cost" probably resulted in a whole lot of problems when they tried teaching it to weaker members. It's a gigantic force multiplier, but one that has a serious chance of killing anyone who isn't crazy strong via overuse.
Juan Jones
Because none of these ninjas act like actual ninjas. It's just their word for magic warrior.
Aaron Robinson
Now, here's a question. How the fuck do summons work?
Carson Myers
summons are insanely easy. >1. make blood contract with specific animal (this process may take longer for more powerful animals/spirits) 2. preform hand signs specific to the summoning of said animal 3. summoning jutsu activates
Hunter Rodriguez
Well yeah, but I mean more in how do the summoned animals themselves function? What is the difference between them and regular animals? Where the hell do they all come from? Is there a separate summon dimension, or do the summons just live way the fuck in the middle of nowhere? What about all of the sage arts?
Summons are fucking weird.
Benjamin Phillips
Ninja are now Samurai.
Done.
Jaxon Mitchell
Summons are primordial creatures that are the last of their "kind", and the first of the new "kind." They're the parents of all the little weird horrors that live around, but the last remnant of when the world was full of creatures that were descended from the tailed beasts.
Their "sage arts" are uses of chakra specific to their primordial species, like how in Avatar spiritbending was a thing the lionturtles could do. When you "summon" one, you're actually calling a shadow clone of it.
Elijah Ortiz
summon animals are sapient and are more often than not related to some sort of mystical area (the really powerful ones that is). Think of them as familiars. >Where the hell do they all come from? Some, like Wukong, the toads, and the snakes, come from a specific part of the world and are summoned during the summoning jutsu. >What about all of the sage arts? This is an entirely different question.
It's like you never read/watched the manga/anime.
Nathan Long
...
Ayden Carter
Don't give up user, we can do it! We have the technology!
James Ross
Sure, but there are probably better ways to use it than this. It's not like Naruto has some patent on ninjas doing ninja things. Making a new setting without any of the garbage associated with it would probably be both easier and less time consuming overall.
The only reason to keep trying to fix it is sunk cost fallacy or wanting to keep some characters, neither of which is a particularly compelling reason.
Jordan Phillips
So, this is back from the first thread, but Wu Xing doesn't use Naruto, I just think it does Anime Ninja similar to Naruto very well.
A bunch of different clans of Ninja exist, and for a long time they had a you scratch my back, I'll scratch yours deal going on with the Empire, helping them expand their borders, murdering strange foreigners, all that cool stuff. Then, a few years ago, the current Emperor decided that he'd like to be immortal, and one of the way he would do it is by capturing and enslaving a bunch of sacred summoning animals, most of which the Ninja had contracts with. That failed miserably, and the new Emperor really hates the Ninja because they killed his dad, so the Empire figured out how to make magic resistant soldiers, primitive gunpowder weaponry, magic samurai, and capture summons and turn them into horrible shadow beasts.
Connor James
Have you got a copy of the 2e? I see 1e in the Trove, but I'm curious for my own mechanics-thieving purposes.
Brody Jones
And the 2e file got taken down from Da Annex.
Liam Cooper
Aren't those numbers a little big?
Ryder Walker
Yeah but where do aniamls live? Why the do not involve themsleves in world politics. Can you attack the toad mountain to destroy leaf access to toad contracts?
Jaxon Smith
Animals live in secret enclaves, the locations of which are known only to the animals themselves. They are typically neutral, no reason given. If a human wants to train wth them, they need to be part of the contract. Then the animal will pop back home, then reverse summon the human.
David Hernandez
>tournaments where you begin 5 feet from each other out in the open are a fucking retarded way to gauge a ninja's skill That was just one phase of the exams, the one specifically meant to gauge direct combat. They'd already taken the paper exam (which was actually the intelligence gathering portion for anyone that wasn't a goddamn teacher's pet bookworm) and the field practical (where they all had to survive both a deadly forest filled with giant fauna and the other examinees). The "ninja" part was already covered by the time the tournament rolled around, at that point they were gauging their abilities as soldiers.
Landon Hernandez
All three phases also tested psychological qualities. The written exam had a "make the hard choice and lead your squad to their possible deaths" trick question. The second tested your trustworthiness (don't look at eyes-only documents). The third established that you could lose in the first round but still get promoted based on how you conducted yourself, then let everyone go to train for a month. Shikamaru ended up doing the bare minimum he needed to pass that particular test and get promoted (trick his opponent to paint herself into a corner using trickery, misdirection and guile, then surrending when it was clear he couldn't actually pull off the finishing blow because he was out of gas. Anyone could have done the same, but of course everyone wants to prove they're a huge badass that can win a fight.
Easton Kelly
bump
Xavier Fisher
So, let's decide now. Should samurai have simple chakra manipulation or chakra-absorbing armor? Or perhaps both?
Easton Adams
both is good
Luis Wood
Both but I'd like to think they rely heavily on the chakra absorbing armor
Hudson Cox
I think its because of the shares chakra equally thing. Like, in the past when Hashirama was all "Join my treehouse club!" to the clans, Hyuuga and maybe Uchiha made banning it a condition of joining since they can´t see through them. And -Ramas made a compromise of "We wont teach it in schools or teams" thinking that they could continue teaching it as clan jutsu. Except that they all died over time and ban remained.
TL;DR Eyepower clans went HAAAXX!!! and Senju said "lol k but we can still go fuck ourselves" and compromise was made. Except that they went and fucked themselves over.
Jeremiah Taylor
Sometimes you can just enjoy something despite it's flaws. In fact, most times you can like something despite it's flaws since everything is flawed. Just some people wanna act like they're better than other people cause they are more critical of cartoon ninjas.
