The Ninja Problem

"Are you watching, Neji? I was saving this ace-in-the-hole to use against you. See what you have to look forward to?"


You know, I really didn't expect to have so many of these. Hell, after I wrote about Paladins I sort of thought that was the end of it. It turns out that there are a lot of classes or character concepts out there that bring baggage along, though. I don't think any of them are bad, really. As you've seen, a lot of this stuff comes from misunderstanding, or even poor writing on the part of game designers. With Paladin, most of the problem is that we carry around a lot of notions about what a Paladin is supposed to be. If there's a single concept that has this problem even worse, it's the Ninja. forgive today's funky format a little, because we're talking about a character concept that not only spans game editions, but even game settings and rulesets. Ninjas exist in a metric ton of games, including ones like Legend of the Five Rings which are all ABOUT the concept.

Our big trumped-up and "false" ideas of ninjas actually come from a long fucking time ago. The eighteenth century, to be exact. Mercenaries and spies became popular in Japan during a period of unrest in the 15th century. By the time Japan was unified by the Tokugawa Shogunate in the 17th century, most of these "Shinobi" had faded into obscurity. However, the legend was so compelling that it stuck around, embellished with stories of superhuman abilities like invisibility or walking on water. Just like most "Medieval torture devices" like the Iron Maiden were invented in the Victorian age to shock people and not for real use, the concept of Ninja were largely invented after the fact too.

You can see why. Ninja survive as a concept because they're so fucking cool. Agile dudes with hidden weapons and neat tricks, fighting with shadow and magic. Even the whole black pajama look is kinda cool. So naturally, we want to play them. Developers want to include them. Here's...sort of where our first problem lies.

When something is included in a game, it's largely because that concept can't easily be emulated somewhere else. Take PF's Swashbuckler for instance. Without that class, how would you be able to play a charismatic fighter who uses agility and a single weapon? You could play a bard or rogue and not use several of your abilities. You could play fighter and give up the benefit of your off hand. You could multiclass. None of those options are exactly good ones, so Swashbuckler exists, with special abilities themed toward the concept.

Everything we know of ninjas, from reasonable, realistic abilities to the fantastical magic ones can be emulated by classes that already existed in 3e. However, people expect cool ninja shit beyond simple equipment and feats, so 3e added several. The first was a bizarre and arguably overpowered prestige class in Oriental Adventures called Ninja Spy. It wasn't hard to get into and sought to cram as many iconic abilities as possible into ten levels. It gave you a ton of utility but slowed down your sneak attack progression. The same book also has Shadow Scout, which is another version of Ninja expressed as a prestige class. The kindest thing I can say about this class is that it exists. There's virtually nothing it provides that you can't get easier somewhere else. Oriental Adventures also has ninja weapons and  several iconic pieces of ninja gear like flash paper and eggshell grenades.

You'd expect that from a book called Oriental Adventures so I'm going to forgive that. Then later, there's even more of it in Complete Adventurer, including a Ninja base class which reads like an alternate rogue. Their version of Sneak Attack, called Sudden Strike, even removes sneak attack's ability to use while flanking, cementing their position as ambush strikers and also incidentally making the class completely worthless when compared to rogue. Finally, in Book of Nine Swords, one of the (blessedly wider-themed) classes includes Shadow Hand techniques, which are even more ninja crap.

You probably see where I'm going with this, but in case you don't, another problem is that a big pile of weird ninja shit is immediately included in every game which has even the barest hint of Asian content. You want to play a ninja, and immediately you're drowning in crap you feel like you should take even when you could play a ninja quite well just taking bard, rogue, or even wizard.

It guides us toward ridiculousness and silly behavior in a lot of ways, two things that are ironically quite against actual ninjitsu. There's a lot of very silly stuff out there themed toward ninjas, like the Mamukigama in Rokugan D20's Way of the Ninja splat. In case you didn't know, that's a long chain with a Kama attached to one end, and a live snake tied to the other. You whip it at people and it bites them. Normally I forgive Rokugan since it's a setting where ninja and ninjitsu are extremely important, but I'm never gonna forget that one.

So you want to play a ninja without being an absurd cartoon character whose antics annoy the rest of the group. All you need is a healthy understanding of what a ninja is supposed to be at its core, which you can then embellish with all the fantastic magic or cool gear you can find. I thought what I'd do is go over the four major things Ninja were used for in the 16th century and give play advice based on that. Yes, I'm using wikipedia. If someone can find me a copy of the Bansenshukai I'd totally use that instead, but wikipedia says it was written in 1676 so I'm not holding my breath.

Espionage and Sabotage. This is going to be 90% of your ninja, just like playing a rogue. A ninja's bread and butter is deception and information, even moreso than a rogue. They were mercenaries, meaning the theme of your character shies away from your typical party rogue, even if you can fill that role just fine. Costumes and cover identities will always be a part of a ninja, since to have been noticed is to have failed, even if you did your job. A rogue wearing black leather armor will probably never have the information gathering ability of someone wearing a secretly armored kimono or artisan's outfit and saying they're a simple painter. You can get into and out of a lot of places simply by looking like you're not important, and ninja thrive on this.

Assassination. Being mercenaries during a time of unrest, they were called upon to do things a military would need. Not much to say here, other than your average ninja is going to be a little more hardlined than a thieves' guild style rogue and willing to do whatever it takes.

Countermeasures. This is another interesting paramilitary thing they were called on to do, one that I don't think a typical fantasy thieves' guild gets into. They were hired out to counter other ninjas, so you could easily work a perceptive, defensive nature into a character as well.


With that out of the way, let's get down to the root. There's one major problem with ninja: The silly shit. The silly weapons, the silly equipment, the silly black pajamas and the silly notions about how you should be acting. I'm gonna try to solve this with an analogy to much-maligned Anime, Naruto.

I bet a lot of people left like, right after that line.

Anyway, first off we have to sort of forgive the show for being mostly about fighting, because it's a shonen anime. However, if you actually watch some of the show, you can see the seeds of how ninja should be acting everywhere. The winners in a fight frequently use deception or secrets to their advantage. During the Chuunin exams, Naruto wins against Neji(a much better fighter than him, let's be real) by repeatedly faking him out, ending in a "wounded gazelle" gambit with a shadow clone that knocks Neji out cold. When Rock Lee fights Gaara, Rock Lee nearly triumphs over an essentially invincible opponent because he knows secret, forbidden techniques he's only allowed to use in defense of his personal philosophy.

Before I make my point, let's move momentarily over to Ruroni Kenshin and the character Hannya. Through the entire anime, he uses disguises and subterfuge to manipulate events. When forced to fight, his final secret is that the tattoos along his arms are an optical illusion, making it seem like his arms are bending and stretching. He nearly wins against Kenshin until the samurai thinks to use his sword to measure Hannya's arms.


What am I getting at? What's the key to all of these ninja I discussed? You sure can get away with a lot of silly shit if you remember the core of the character: Deception. Be subtle with motives and actions, use deception and cleverness to get ahead and the rest basically doesn't matter. You can approach this concept from so many places and use so many classes or builds: that's why it's so compelling. All you need to do to turn an eyerolling concept into a cool one is to be subtle and wield deception as your weapon. This works great in a group willing to let the rogue do planning. Hell, I never advocate deceiving your friends OOCly, but you don't HAVE to tell them you're a ninja. See how far you can go describing and playing your character before they get it.

The semi-arrogant reveal of your plan is a really fun one, and subtlety, preplanning and deception let you pull that out a lot. If you want another example of this, I'll paraphrase the story of where the black ninja outfit came from. I'm not entirely sure if it's truly where the concept came from, but it's such a neat story that I'll believe it anyway.

If you don't know what Noh theater is, it's a kind of traditional Japanese stage play. It often has helpers wearing all black against a black background who are assisting with the visuals of the play: like stage hands but in plain sight. There was a Noh play once where a character was killed in the final act by one of these stage hands: Or rather, someone the audience THOUGHT was a stage hand. They saw him and dismissed him. They didn't believe he was part of the play until he acted.


I think I'll leave you with that as today's best piece of advice. A ninja's victims only know the truth when it's far too late. Keep that in mind and you can probably use all the eggshell pepper grenades, poison blow-pipes and floating shoes you want.