Shinobi Village
Shinobi no gyoson (lit. “Ninja Fishing Village”)

Inspired by an imaginary anime series, Shinobi Village is a game about a remote island village where everyone is secretly a ninja.

Inspirations:
-	Naruto by Kishimoto Masashi
-	Tampopo by Juzo Itami
-	Kungfu Hustle, Shaolin Soccer, and God of Cookery by Stephen Chow
-	scene framing guidelines inspired by Microscope by Ben Robbins
-	resolution guidelines inspired by Mouse Guard by Luke Crane and Dogs in the Vineyard by D. Vincent Baker

Background 

When the “ninja republic” of Iga was destroyed in 1581, the surviving shinobi scattered to the four winds. According to legend, a band of Iga refugees settled on remote Neta Island, living as ordinary fisherfolk but secretly training their children to be ninja.

Fast forward 400 years to the present day. From a very young age, everyone on Neta Island is still trained to be a ninja, and village life is very much the same as it has always been. However, the rest of the world has moved on, and now the shinobi must as well.

Following the big-screen success of My Nanna is an Ninja, the Unagi family (led by Granny Unagi) has moved to the main islands to work in the movie industry, selling their home to the Ika family, a modern Japanese household looking to abandon the cities for a quiet rural life. 

Thanks to these newcomers, the inhabitants of Neta Island can no longer live in isolation. The surviving enemies of the Neta ninjas—as well as cell phone service providers—have been alerted to their location.

Shinobi Village is a comedic, action, romance anime series about what ensues.

Characters

Shinobi Village is an ensemble game, meaning that each scene of play will feature a somewhat different group of characters. Some may be the same as character used in the previous scene and some may be other characters brought in as needed. This allows you to eventually play out a number of different that cover everyone in the village or at least a significant subset of them.

All of the character in Shinobi Village are named after specific kinds of neta, i.e. the toppings used in sushi. There are a limited number of possible characters in the game—32 to be exact—because there are a limited number of people on Neta Island, even with the arrival of outsider families and ancient enemies.

To make things easier, the characters are divided into families by the first letter of their ninja names. For example, all characters whose names start with the letter H are related through birth or adoption. Marriage makes things a little more complicated, since Japanese women (even ninjas) typically don’t change their names when they get married, so a married woman’s name will reflect their natal family rather than the one they married into.

Below is a list of all the characters in the game, with traits inspired by the fish or other creatures that they take their names from. If you decide you absolutely have to introduce another character (try not to!), there are plenty of other sushi ingredients available to choose from.

Ninja Families:

House Hamachi
Grandfather Hamachi (yellowtail) – timid and easily surprised, father of Hatahata
Older Son Hamo (daggertooth eel) – big mouth, tall and boney, brother of Hatahata
Wife Kurodai (blackhead seabream) – fast swimmer, sister of Kani & Kazunoko
Younger Son Hokkigai (surf clam) – boring and forgettable, brother of Hatahata
Wife Sazae (conch) – loud, loves pearls, sister of Sake, Saba, & Shako
Daughter Hirame (halibut) – always camouflaged, agile 
Daughter Hotatagai (scallop) – free-spirited but wary

House Kajiki
Grandfather Kajiki (swordfish) – swordfighter, incredibly fast, loner, father of Kurodai & Kazunoko
Grandmother Mekajiki (marlin) – great swordsman, tenacious, mother of Kurodai & Kazunoko
Older Daughter Kani (crab) – armored, adaptable, sister of Kurodai & Kazunoko
Adopted Son-in-Law Shako (mantis shrimp) – uses a spear, brother of Sake, Saba, & Sazae
Daughter Karei (flounder) – sneaky, quiet
Son Kohada (gizzard shad) – social, loves children

House Maguro
Brother Maguro (tuna) – warm-blooded, adaptable, nephew of Mekajiki
Sister Madai (red seabream) – lucky, grinds his teeth, niece of Mekajiki
Husband Uni (sea urchin) – quiet, spikey hair, son of Unagi
Son Masu (trout) – dislikes the ocean, difficult to catch, grandson of Unagi
Daughter Mirugai (long-neck clam) – likes digging, welcoming, granddaughter of Unagi

House Sake
Older Brother Sake (salmon) – always traveling, good jumper, brother of Shako
Wife Kazunoko (herring roe) – firm and unyielding, has it together, sister of Kani & Kurodai
Daughter Sayori (halfbeak) – forager, cousin of Suzuki
Younger Brother Saba (mackeral) – indiscriminate eater, good eyesight, brother of Shako
Wife Hatahata (sandfish) – loves sand and mud, very lucky, sister of Hamo & Hokkigai
Son Suzuki (striped bass) – elegant, very successful, cousin of Sayori

Outsider Family:

The Ika Family
Divorced Mother Ika (squid) – sparklingly beautiful, has money from divorcing cheating husband, but wants to learn to fish and farm vegetables, becoming self-sufficient
Daughter Ikura (salmon roe) – sometimes fancy and sometimes plain
Daughter Iwana (char) – loves cold weather, glad to be out of the city
Son Iwashi (sardine) – homeschooled by his mother, wants to meet other kids

Ninja Enemies:

The E-Ninjas
Brother Ebi (shrimp) – hipster techno-ninja, thinks Neta Island is so outdated and lame
Sister Engawa (halibut fin) – hipster techno-ninja, thinks Neta Island needs to modernize

The Poison King
Ancient Immortal Fugu (blowfish) – banished from Neta Island, master of pressure points

The Movie Star
Granny Unagi (freshwater eel) – famous for My Nanna is a Ninja, lives in Tokyo now, mother of Uni

Scenes

Players take turns being in charge of scenes. One player goes first, setting up the first scene, and then it flows clockwise around the table.

To set up a scene, you need (a) at least one character, often more, and (b) a situation.

Choosing characters to be in the scene involves the current player picking 1-3 characters off the list of all 32 possible characters, and often the other players may chime in to suggest other characters who might be in the scene. But the current player should at least choose 1 character to be in the scene, whether they want to play that character or not.

Situations can be chosen in a number of different ways:

1.	Sometimes the nature of a specific character will suggest a situation. For example, the current player might want to see a scene in which Granny Unagi comes back to Neta Island to see her son Uni. Then you play out that scene and see what happens.

2.	Sometimes a situation will be suggested by something that happened in a previous scene. Perhaps Hatahata and her son Suzuki said in a previous scene that they were going down to the beach to collect shellfish, and now the current player wants to see what happens when they reach the beach, where the Ika children are also playing.

3.	Sometimes the current player might want to see a scene that explains something that happened in a previous scene. If Karei tells someone that her parents had a fight, maybe the current player wants to see a flashback scene to see what the fight was about.

4.	If none of these are the case, the current player should consider proposing a scene about the day-to-day things that various people do on Neta Island, inspired by the list of suggestions below:

a.	Ninja training (secret from outsiders!)
b.	Fishing
c.	Gathering shellfish
d.	Repairing boats and nets
e.	Building and repairing houses and other structures
f.	Harvesting wood for building things
g.	Gardening
h.	Cooking
i.	Eating
j.	Drinking
k.	Cleaning
l.	Gathering firewood
m.	Trading goods with other residents
n.	Swimming
o.	Playing
p.	Gossiping
q.	Telling stories
r.	Taking care of ill people
s.	Ninja stuff like sneaking, fighting, climbing, jumping, throwing
t.	Outsider stuff like talking on the phone, watching TV, playing video games, reading novels, being homeschooled, using the internet, and so on
u.	Ninja families trying to welcome the outsiders, while keeping their skills secret
v.	Outsider families trying to get to know the strangely traditional Neta Islanders
w.	Ninja families slowly being dragged into the modern world

Of course, all of this stuff is made more interesting by the fact that nearly everyone on Neta Island has advanced shinobi training. They try to keep this hidden from outsiders, but when people are on their own, they can’t help but use their ninja skills when they are fishing, cooking, or gathering firewood.

Also, the Neta Islanders know that they should probably learn more about modern ways of doing things, since being a ninja is not necessarily a lucrative existence. More families are thinking of moving away or at least opening up trade with the main islands, perhaps getting cell phones, that kind of thing. So those kinds of issues can bring complications as well.

Scenes should be relatively short. The game Microscope suggests that each scene be framed around a specific question, which is a good thing to try here. “What will Kohada think of Iwashi’s cell phone?” is a good question. So is “What will happen to Madai’s boat in the storm?” Once the question is answered, the scene ends. Many other things can happen in the scene, but one main focus of the players in playing the scene is on answering the question.

During the scene, each player can portay a character, but if there are not enough characters in the scene, the other players can describe the environment the scene takes place in, animals and plants, the ocean, tools and items, the weather, and other details that add color and “character” to the scene without being specific characters.

Resolution

Shinobi Village includes a gesture-based resolution system for helping structure meaningful interactions between characters, whether they’re significant conversations or fights. Any player (whether playing a character or not) can initiate using the resolution system by gesturing toward another player.

The basic hand gestures are based on paper-scissors-rock but have different meanings:

-	Fist (like “rock”), indicates firmness and defensiveness
-	Palm (like “paper”), indicates flexibility and openness
-	Knife-hand (like “scissors,” but with the two fingers closed) indicates precision and incisiveness

These beat each other just as they do in paper-scissors-rock:
-	Two of the same symbol is a tie or a block, which often happens
-	Otherwise, palm overcomes fist, knife overcomes palm, and fist overcomes knife

Most of the time, players do not throw hands randomly but trade gestures back in forth in an exchange. For example:
-	Player 1: (leads with knife) I probingly ask Shako where he was last night.
-	Player 2: (overcomes with fist) He stares at you sharply, but stays silent.
-	Player 1: (blocks with fist) I say “I saw you sneak out. Where did you go?”
-	Player 2: (blocks back with first) “None of your business, outsider.”
-	Etc.

However, at the end of an exchange, players are sometimes called on to throw hands, not randomly, but based on how their character feels at the end of the interaction. For example, the interaction above might end with both players throwing fists, indicating that they are at a stalemate of stubbornness. But different situations have different outcomes.

For Important Conversations (including Relationships and Romance)
-	Take turns swapping gestyres over the course of a conversation or interaction.
-	Block with same sign, reverse it, or allow them to open you up.
-	Wrap it up after a little while.
-	At the end, throw hands based on how you feel at the end of the conversation.
-	Result shows how things changed after the conversation, if at all.

For Accomplishing Important Tasks:
-	Same as conversations, but often with physical and concrete results rather than (or in addition to) emotional results.
-	Players not playing characters in the scene can use gestures on behalf of the environment, weather, fish, dirt, vegetables, etc.

Fighting
-	Declare your intentions: what is each fighter hoping to accomplish?
-	For simple brawling, just throw hands up to three times, narrating results for each pass.
-	For more serious combat, hold one hand close to your chest (as your defense) and the other extended (as your attack, directed at a specific other player). Measure attacks vs. defenses. Can also go up to three rounds.
-	Compromise based on relative position at the end.

Ending a Session

Shinobi Village primarily tells a series of anecdotes about the people on Neta Island, excerpts from their much longer and more complicated lives. This means that you can stop playing whenever it feels right, after a set time limit or just when the players start to get tired or run out of creative energy. Sometimes you’ll have a perfect scene to end on, other times it may be more like a cliffhanger that hints at other scenes to come, whether you ultimately end up playing out those scenes or not.

In a multi-session game, you may find it useful to keep track of things, either keeping notes about what’s happened to specific characters or writing down each scene question and a quick summary of the answer, so you can go over these in between sessions or check them as needed.