Naruto D20 Episode 1.25: AKA Dow Finally Does A Good
So at the end of session 1.2, I let the characters go off and “train,” which basically consists of the players selecting a jutsu that their characters have literally never even heard of, and rolling a die to see if they can “learn” the jutsu with no instruction or prior knowledge of the jutsu’s existence.
^^literally my reaction after realizing how dumb it is that that’s the process for learning techniques.
Like, I let it slide in session 1.1 because the players selected techniques that the characters could feasibly have heard of, and could practice on their own, but then my players selected some highly specialized techniques for session 1.2′s training time and it just felt…wrong? I guess? And it’s wrong for a few reasons:
One, there is no way that you can learn how to do something if you don’t know that something exists and you have no one showing you how the something is done. Like, that goes for everything. Allowing players’ meta-knowledge to affect gameplay is like DM cardinal sin number 4. Player knowledge and character knowledge should always be kept separate. No exceptions.
Two, you lose out on so much roleplaying ability. Like, the source anime and manga’s training sequences were arguably better than some of the fight scenes at times. Naruto spends like over half his time training, and the immense payoff that you get from watching him finally succeed only comes from watching the episodes of him struggling and working to get a new skill or technique to work. And the payoff was usually awesome.
So I decided to fix breaking DM cardinal sin number 4, by breaking cardinal sin number 3: I retconned the last third of session 1.2
^^Basically how I started this session.
Let me preface what happened next by saying that yesterday, I literally lost my job and became homeless so I did not have anything planned. I was fully expecting this to crash and burn. But it honestly turned out to be the best session we’ve had yet, and I would even go so far as to say I enjoyed DMing this session more than playing some of the sessions I’ve played. I know the two experiences cannot necessarily be compared 100%, but today’s mini-session was honestly so fun and very refreshing, and the two players I had with me today (the third is currently MIA and I just hope that he is doing ok) agreed.
Basically, my stipulation for learning techniques became that you had to roll high enough on a knowledge check for ninja lore to see if your character knows of the technique. In addition, you had to have someone who knew the technique teaching it to you, or you had to have had enough experience watching the technique being performed to try and learn it on your own, but the second way would come with a penalty to the learn check. Finally, instead of just rolling and you either got it or you didn’t, you had to put in the work to learn how to do the thing. In other words, you actually had to train your character. Roleplay over rollplay.
I’m gonna need to copyright that phrase.
And I mean, at the end of the day, the roll to learn the technique is ultimately what dictates whether or not the technique gets learned. But, regardless of the roll’s outcome, the character would literally be expending eight hours of their time trying to learn this new skill, and while I could just jump ahead eight hours, the chance for character development and interactions during that period would be completely lost.
Zaki, played by B (who has given me permission to tag him @baumguy), decided that he would spend his time training by going to his grandmother’s dojo to work on his swordfighting. His grandmother, Kisagana, who is the daughter of the Akatsuki member Kisame, has long since left her mentoring days behind her, but she does have Mutsumi, a young Chuunin who is working to take over for her when she does decide to step down as sensei of the dojo. @baumguy rolled well enough on a knowledge check that his character had heard of the technique he wanted his character to learn enough to ask about it by name, and Mutsumi had the necessary knowledge to train him to perform that technique, which meant that all the prerequisites I had set for learning a technique were met, and the roleplay began.
@baumguy kicked it off with a successful learn check, so from there it was just a matter of some good old fashioned sparring. Now, I hadn’t prepared any of what was going to happen, really. I just gave her one or two basic character traits. She began by demonstrating the technique, and then had him attempt to recreate what she showed him. He would practice for a bit, Taijutsu rolls indicating how well each attempt went, and when Zaki needed some pointers (rolled poorly on an attempt to perform an aspect of the technique enough times in a row), she stepped in and offered them.
It wasn’t by any means a necessary interaction. Poor rolls didn’t have permanent consequences, because he had already rolled well enough to perform the technique, but it gave a process that would normally just consist of a simple learning check much more life, and allowed Zaki and Mutsumi to grow as characters, playing off of each other and allowing different aspects of each of their characterizations to shine through.
By the end of it, Zaki had pretty well mastered the technique, but just to keep him from getting too inflated of an ego, Mutsumi let him know that he still had lots of room for growth and improvement:
Meanwhile, Tamotsu and Rin (played by J from the RWBY campaign in which I play Iris) shared a moment at Ichiraku Ramen, learning a bit about each other’s histories and Tamotsu was able to get a better idea of where Rin was looking to improve. The thing about Rin is, she has a bloodline that canonically in her backstory is difficult to control, but she knew no Chakra Control techniques at all. This simple fact not only made Tamotsu, a descendant from a clan also famous for an incredibly difficult to control bloodline (so difficult that only Tamotsu himself had mastered it, and even that required the chakra of Yamato, the last surviving host of Hashirama’s cells, to be introduced into Tamotsu when his bloodline activated years before), the ideal teacher for Rin to study under, but it also meant that he had to start with the bare basics of Chakra Control for Rin:
This training came quite naturally to Rin, so her training consisted of a simple explanation followed by a demonstration, after which she was free to practice as she pleased. Tamotsu had something to take care of, and left her to her training, promising to return in the evening to see her progress, which he did and found her sitting at the top of the tree, having mastered the technique, adding it to her repertoire.
For Rin, the roleplaying was more about establishing rapport between herself and the person she will likely spend a lot of time training under directly, not to mention go on missions for. So yes, there was a different learning style involved, but that also comes with the nature of the technique itself. Some techniques can be learned without extensive hands-on training, while others are learned best with someone to oversee the entire learning process.
I’m not going to pretend that I’ve in any way perfected the style of this campaign. I know I still have lots to work on, and I know that we’ve really only just begun. But I feel for the first time like I have a shot at creating a story and an experience for my players that is not only enjoyable and fun, but also deep, rich, and at times surprising. I know I surprised myself with how well this session went.
And while I know I still have to find out what our favorite squid boy Maindo (played by M, also from the RWBY campaign) got up to while Zaki and Rin were training, I’m much more confident moving forward in my storytelling ability and just general comfort level with not having every little detail fleshed out before a session. And even with these minor interactions that seem meaningless in the grand scheme of things, I feel like I’m still able to move the overarching plot forward. I’ve got some big things planned for my tiny ninja friends. I just can’t wait for them to see what’s in store.
So, I know I forgot my takeaways from 1.2, but as far as 1.25 goes, I’d just say I learned to relax. DMing does not have to involve nearly as much planning or stress as I was initially putting into it. While major characters do need to be developed fully for combat situations and such, minor interactions don’t necessarily require a lot of prior planning, and it’s quite possible that planning more might have made the interactions feel less genuine or fulfilling.
I’m still learning this whole thing. And probably will be the entire campaign. But hey, I know for a fact that both my players and I had fun this session, and in my book, that’s 99% of what matters.
Now thanks to the whole real life thing (you know, the unemployment and homelessness bit), I am very exhausted after driving so long with so little sleep, so my bed now calls. But I always feel the need to gather my thoughts on sessions before I go to bed, just so I can make sure I remember all the things I want to document. That now complete, I await the sweet gift of the Sandman until tomorrow morning (or afternoon, who knows, I’m exhausted)
(Can you tell I’m excited for Christmas?)
