REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRLS

Not too long ago we offered folks a chance to run their own adventures at the Ninja Island Correctional Academy — the Leverage-based game you can use to create your own characters and have adventures.

But of course, once you’ve met the REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRLS, you might want a chance to just be THEM for a while, so here are a bunch of ways you can do that!

The Leverage Game

A complete set of five character sheets, detailing each of the girls for use with the REFORM SCHOOL NINJAS hack of the Leverage role-playing game from Margaret Weiss Productions.

Masayo of course is the Ringleader, Eri the Jock, Ritsuko the Nerd, Millicent the Teacher’s Pet and Yumi of course, is the Kook. It’s like the game was designed for them!

Trying to describe each of the girls using this ruleset was really fun. Yumi and Masayo needed the Versatile array, while Ritsuko, Eri and Millicent were better-represented by the Focused array. Figuring out where the Role d4s went was also an interesting way to define the characters; Millicent of course is the least Nerd-y of all the girls, but it took some time to realise that Eri’s stern character makes her least suited as a Teacher’s Pet. One thing I love about the Leverage system is that you have to suck at SOMETHING — I often find a character’s weaknesses make them more fun to play than their strengths. And these girls definitely have weaknesses.

But that’s not all! Perhaps you’re a fan of the stripped-down, simple and fun gaming provided by the amazing Old School Hack. Look at this!

Old School Hack

Here are all the girls again, this time with Talents and Inherents and Limitations all their own. Just roll some dice, pick some weapons, and you’re off. Few game systems can beat Old School Hack for zero-prep excitement. Just hand out the character sheets and adventure writes itself!

Many of the girls’ Talents come from the basic Old School Hack, but there’s a few originals here and there. Eri and Masayo were the easiest to stat up this way, perhaps because they’re the most combat-focused of the girls. Millicent was really hard — so much of her character has to do with how she affects others with her personality and her huge attitude, it was tough to translate. In the end I gave her a “Paralyze” power because I think she just punches some people when they don’t give her the appropriate amount of respect.

This set of character sheets includes a sixth NINJA GIRL, the indomitable Ayako. Ayako was always one of our favourite NINJA GIRLS, even though she’s not in the comic yet. But she’s a joy to have around, as long as you keep her well-fed.

Anyway, there’s two ways you can be a REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRL! Old School Hack and Leverage are two of our favourite games these days — they play VERY differently, but they each excel at what they do. We hope you have fun imagining new adventures for the girls — let us know where they end up!

Ever have a friend who kind of scared you? I had a couple of friends growing up who were so smart that talking to them could be really intimidating. I mean, we were good friends, so of course I knew they didn’t mind, but I always had the impression that our conversations only required a small portion of their available brainpower.

I loved those conversations, and still love talking to friends like that. Of course it’s stressful, but keeping up with my scary friends helped me learn how to think. Scary friends can really teach you a lot. I’ve had scary friends in a variety of categories — people who were way better writers than me, or better actors, or better at running businesses or handling tough situations, or whatever. Sometimes being with those people is inspiring, sometimes it’s upsetting, but I’ve always been glad of those friendships.

The character of Eri, like Masayo and Ritsuko, is named after a woman I know. The original Eri is one of those scary friends. Maybe “friend” is a strong word, but Eri was a senior student at the dojo where I studied swordsmanship in Japan under Sugino Yoshio Sensei, and we practiced together regularly. Practicing with Eri was an exercise in awareness. She was fast and precise, and her kiai (the “hiyaaa!” sounds swordspeople make) could shred nerves.

But Eri’s real gift lay in convincing me that my life was truly on the line. There was just something in her steady gaze and remorseless advance that made me feel like I was really fighting for my life, that if I didn’t give EVERYTHING I had to this moment, that she was going to cut me down with her wooden sword.

The REFORM SCHOOL version of Eri is even scarier. EVERYONE is kind of afraid of Eri. As you might imagine, that’s kind of how she likes it – when people are frightened, they don’t press you for awkward details or try to get all tangled up in your life. Of course, she’s a lonely, awkward teenage girl who’d like nothing better than a best friend to listen to her fears, because, yes, scary girls have fears, too. But you’d have to be pretty persistent (not to mention possess only a limited sense of self-preservation) to press Eri enough to get through the scary.

But is all that effort put into being scary wasted? Is it even entirely unhealthy?

Eri’s stern manner pushes her friends, making them step up their game and face their own fears. She’s a scary friend to have, but those who get to know her appreciate that scariness. Maybe scary friends are the best sort of friends to have.

Tell us about your scary friends in the comments!

Last weekend the REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRLS took a trip to Montreal, where we played a fantastic game session at the home of the Chatty DM, Phillipe-Antoine Menard.

The girls were sent out with a very broad mandate: Punish those who break the laws of Ninja Island. Off they went, with only the vaguest notion of what the laws of Ninja Island WERE, but determined to succeed.

We played the REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRL edition of Old School Hack. This game had been run once before at a Boston Game Day last year, but with a completely different scenario. Last year, the girls found themselves sentenced to a night’s worth of watching over the ancestors in a creepy pagoda full of dead bodies. Which obviously went terribly wrong, and there were plenty of memorable moments. In Montreal, the girls were sent out of the Academy and into the only town on Ninja Island, Docktown. Docktown may not quite be a wretched hive of scum and villainy, but it’s not far off the map. Before too long the girls were involved in the troubles of a crew of pirates, suspicious sushi chefs (try saying that three times fast) and Lord Pan, the gangster ruler of Docktown.

One of the lovely things about Old School Hack is how easy it makes running games without any prep, and this evening was no exception. Lord Pan didn’t even exist until half-way through the game, but three-quarters of the way through, it was clear that the only way this story was going to resolve would be if the girls could find a way to take down Lord Pan.

“What a minute!” I thought, and then said, “What game is perfect for taking down smug rich bad guys? Leverage, of course!”

So midway through the game we switched game systems, and used the REFORM SCHOOL NINJAS game to complete the story as the girls pulled together a plan to take down the big gangster.

And down he went. Millicent convinced the sushi chefs to contribute their astonishingly sharp knives, Eri summoned an army of hooky-playing kids in the mah-jong parlour, Yumi interfered in the gangster’s love life, and Ayako (you may not have met Ayako yet) got the gangster’s guards rip-snortingly drunk. But it was left to Masayo to lead the assault, and straight in they went.

Gangster had a gun, but he was no match for five determined ninja girls, one angry lover, and a thousand violence-prone hooligans.

New characters were created, puppets added and in general it was blast. Everything great gaming ought to be — spontaneous, hilarious and ultimately a coherent story. You can’t ask for more.

It was definitely the most Canadian game I’ve ever run: an Anglophone DM with a bunch of Francophone players, and fair bit of Japanese at the table besides. Somehow we all made it work, and I learned a bit of (incredibly rude) French in the bargain!

The Leverage game has been posted here previously. The Old School Hack one will be coming. If you use these games to tell your own stories about the REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRLS, tell me about it!

Introducing the REFORM SCHOOL NINJAS role-playing game!

It’s based on the fantastic Leverage RPG from Margaret Weis Productions. I first got introduced to the Leverage RPG at PAX East last year, and fell in love. It does a great job of helping a group tell very Leverage-y stories. As GenCon neared, I got involved in a plot to run an epic mini-campaign over the course of the convention (we called it a “conpaign”). My fellow plotters and I decided somebody should run a game with the REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRLS, using the Leverage system. It was a TON of fun, but I could see a few ways in which the system didn’t exactly fit the milieu.

No more! This document outlines how to use Leverage to run thrilling “Don’t Get Expelled!” adventures at the NINJA ISLAND CORRECTIONAL ACADEMY. The roles of Mastermind, Hitter, Thief, Grifter and Hacker have been swapped out for Ringleader, Jock, Kook, Nerd and Teacher’s Pet, some Talents been swapped around and created, and whole “First Day” character creation process provided. It’s a first draft sort of thing, so I’d love to hear any feedback you have about the game.

You’ll need a copy of Leverage in order to play REFORM SCHOOL NINJAS, but that’s no hardship — it’s a great game!

But wait! There’s more! REFORM SCHOOL NINJAS includes all sorts of details about the Academy itself, including who’s likely to start picking on you, and which teachers are likely to help out (answer: not many). If you wish your high school memories included more sorcery and swordfights, look no further!

I thought I’d drop the “GIRLS” from the title, since, technically, you can play any gender you like. But the girls all make an appearance in the rulebook, and later on I’ll provide them all statted out in case you want to use them in your own games.

The art you’ve seen so far on this project was all done by the lovely and talented Claudio Pozas. He did the character designs, and collaborated with me in putting the story together. Claudio and I have worked together on multiple projects for years now, going back to the nineties! We’re old school.

So I knew he’d know exactly what I meant when I said, “One of the NINJA GIRLS is a blonde princess with her nose in the air.” Meet Millicent, the least likely ninja girl, you’ll ever meet. Claudio found just the right combination of pirate girl, ninja girl and stuck-up girl for Millicent.

But Claudio wants to be an illustrator, rather than a comics artist, and now that the project is largely fleshed out, we’re looking for a penciller/inker/all-in-one artist to come on board and create the actual book itself. The script is done, but we need one more creative genius to join us so that we can complete the full project, and bring REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRLS to the world.

Contact me if you like the sound of this (I’m “barsoomcore” on both Twitter and Gmail) and introduce yourself!

 

“Wait, some total stranger’s going to be drawing ME? I. Don’t. Think. So.”

 

 

Pay no attention to her. Seriously, she’s harmless. Mostly.

I remember my older sister making Randy Keen back down. The coatroom of College Heights Elementary School, awash in winter parkas and dripping snowboots, may not have been the most epic location ever for a showdown, but to me, terrified and all of nine years old, it was the OK Corral, the Death Star trench and the shark pool in Live and Let Die all in one.

She’s eleven months older than me, and as very young children we were often mistaken for twins. But she’s always been more athletic and self-confident than me, and never allowed anyone to push her around. Or her little brother, if she happened to come upon someone giving him a hard time.

I’ll just say Randy was unprepared for the righteous fury that landed on him, and he never bothered me again.

Ritsuko doesn’t have a little brother, but if she did, she’d be just as fierce in defending him.

Like Masayo, Ritsuko is named after a woman I actually know. The REAL Ritsuko is a robotics engineer with the most hilariously cackling laugh I ever heard.

The not-quite-so-real Ritsuko is also (based on poster sales) the most popular of all the REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRLS. A fact which would surely grind Millicent’s teeth, were she ever to find out. The grenade-hurling, goggle-wearing, flying-monkey-accompanied-by Ritsuko is always greeted with chuckles and delight, and a “Oh, she’s AWESOME” sort of reaction.

Funnily, Yumi, who’s the “girliest” of the GIRLS, is actually the least popular.

It makes me wonder about how women usually get portrayed in media — especially, say, on magazine covers — and how different that seems from what people actually admire in women. When I think of awesome women I think of Ritsuko the robotics engineer, Masayo the school manager, my wife, my mom, and of course my sisters, standing up for me when I’m not strong enough to do so for myself.

And of course, I think of the REFORM SCHOOL NINJA GIRLS, who I hope will embody enough of the traits of great women — of great people — that they can be heroes to the folks who come across them.

Just like my big sister has always been a hero to me.