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So recently when I had enough money to spare I bought it again from the Hero Games web store. (No shipping and handling fees or state sales tax, kids!) Keep in mind, this is not the original NINJA HERO. The original book for HERO System (4th Edition) was written by the great Aaron Allston and was both a master list of martial arts styles for HERO System and a guide for creating martial-arts action genre campaigns and characters of both realistic and “wild” power levels (the Wild Martial Arts campaign would probably be called Wuxia these days). It is a classic book in its own right, but Steve Long later created The Ultimate Martial Artist for HERO (both 4th and 5th Editions) and its information supplanted the martial arts data in NINJA HERO. Thus the “new” NINJA HERO is more focused on the campaign-design aspects of running a Martial Arts genre campaign in HERO System. It is written by Mike “Susano” Surbrook, creator of the Surbrook's Stuff website. He is a highly engaging writer whose style, like Allston's, is in contrast to the perceived dryness of most 5th Edition HERO books.
Chapter One: Fists, Feet & Furious Action starts by establishing five subgenres of Martial Arts campaign: The Realistic campaign (which is exactly that), the Cinematic game, the Wuxia (pronounced 'woo-she') campaign, the Video Game setting, and the Anime setting. The differences between these are a matter of tone and power level: The Cinematic game is technically possible in the real world but PCs can have little edges like Damage Reduction, Autofire punches and so forth. Bruce Lee's movies would qualify here. The Wuxia setting is characterized by exotic martial arts techniques and might involve outright supernatural elements. The Video Game setting involves characters with practically any conceivable background or abilities, and thus characters have all the powers of superheroes but in the context of some scenario that requires them to fight each other in tournaments. The Anime campaign takes all the weirdness of the Video Game and Wuxia settings and “turns everything up a notch.”
Like other Hero genre books, this one also goes over certain “genre elements” that identify a story, in this case including things like Ch'i (qi, ki), the internal energy that powers certain exotic martial arts disciplines, along with other tropes like evil mandarin eunuchs, martial-arts school signboards (which an evil martial arts master will usually despoil as a means of dissing the characters' school) and of course ninja. There is also some attention given to the religions of the East given their influence on martial arts schools, namely the Buddhist Shao-lin Temple. The discussion of religion leads to a sidebar of the Chinese Hells, including among others, “Toxic Bee Hell”, “Mouse Bite and Cut-Penis Hell”, “Barbed Wire Net and Brain-Eating Grasshopper Hell” and “Extra-Cruel Burned Brick Hell.” In discussing how the Martial Arts genre interacts with other themes, the book indicates it works well with broad themes (including both Comedy and Tragedy) and not so well with Mystery or social commentary. In using the genre with other Hero books, the Martial Arts genre fits best with Dark Champions (which is also an action-oriented, semi-realistic genre), and somewhat with Fantasy Hero (the Wuxia and Anime settings already ARE martial arts fantasy, and bringing such themes to Tolkienesque settings would be odd but not totally implausible). It's implied that a martial arts focus is rare in Galactic Champions characters because those characters are too powerful to need such abilities. But of course that discounts the Karate Kid.
Chapter Two: Training For Perfection gives rules to use in making martial arts characters. Again, one needs The Ultimate Martial Artist to get expanded rules for Martial Arts Maneuvers and the main list of martial styles. This chapter focuses on character conception and the types of special abilities a martial artist would have. In addition to presenting the usual archetypes of these stories- including of course Ninja, along with The Obligatory American and the video game-inspired Kung Fu Goddess In A Tight Dress- NINJA HERO reviews martial artists' Characteristics, Skills, Talents, Powers and Disadvantages.
The Powers in particular are highly imaginative. For instance the “rage meter” of some video game characters is represented by an Endurance Reserve for certain other Powers, which only recovers through an Absorption ability- the end result being the more damage a character takes (or the more he gets hit, anyway) the more power he gets. There are also a lot of wacky Ch'i abilities, including not only the expected Video Game Energy Blasts but a rooting technique based on Density Increase, and other powers like Healing and Telekinesis. In reviewing Disadvantages, Surbrook says that examples include Rivalry (based on the promotion of your master's school) as well as Social Limitations for being either a secret Ninja or a Eunuch. In case you really wanted those last 10 points.
Then the chapter closes with a list of Package Deals, which are essentially the 5th Edition versions of the packages from Allston's original NINJA HERO book. These include martial arts masters, Samurai, the Chinese “knight-errant” adventurer, and the Buddhist Warrior-Monk. And the Ninja.
Chapter Three: Blood & Steel is about combat. Specifically it's about running all those little elements of flash and style that distinguish martial arts media and keep the game from being just “OK, I have an OCV of 8. What's his DCV?” Specifically the book stresses roleplaying one's actions in combat. “Cries of 'Grass Running Stance,' 'Sword Energy,' 'Hadoken' and 'Roaring Lion Bullet' should be part of the standard dialogue in any Ninja Hero combat.” (One of the NPC heroes in Chapter Five does in fact have the Incantations Limitation on her Multipower.) Generally the author says that the PCs should not be discouraged from declaring wild stunts, and usually he should just let the stunt be resolved with a single-action die roll.
Chapter Three also goes over the HERO game mechanics in order to reconcile them with the genre tropes of martial arts combat, such as encouraging a “mook rule” for no-name goons to be taken out with a single hit (that way you can simulate the characters wading through platoons of men without bogging things down much). This is especially important when using the option of the Multiple-Power Attack in 5th Edition rules, which encourages the versatility of the martial artist but also adds to combat complexity. But this rule also allows for the video game-style Combo attack, which is simulated here by having the PC design a specific combination of maneuvers and naming it something like “Super Vegita Big Bang Attack.” There is also the option for the martial arts staredown, where two characters (usually samurai) face off against each other before drawing weapons. In game terms the winner of a staredown gets a combat advantage against his opponent in the first phase (Surbrook does mention that in the traditional samurai staredown, losing the contest meant that the loser just walked away, but he also says that video-game designers have added various taunts and features because they think 'anything worth doing is worth over-doing').
The rules for martial arts combat include the interesting option of the “Sucker Attack” (you Hold your action until your foe is about to move, then Block or Dodge the attack in such a way as to position Enemy A to attack Enemy B with his action) and also the Video Game version of Missile Deflection, called the Contest of Power: A character attacked with an Energy Blast blocks with his OWN Energy Blast and they meet in the middle until the superior attack (determined by a higher damage roll) pushes back and hits somebody.
Chapter Four: Enter the Gamemaster is of course about gamemastering NINJA HERO. This is framed first in terms of the elements noted in other Hero Games genre sourcebooks for designing the rules of a campaign. In terms of power level, Surbrook gives some tools for measuring how powerful a PC should be for a subgenre: A Realistic character can fight two, maybe three foes at once, a Cinematic character could fight large numbers but would still be vulnerable to bullets, a Wuxia or Video Game martial artist would be able to take out “a virtual army of foes” and an Anime character is usually threatened only by another Anime character. This gives the GM an idea of the kind of foes the PC group would be facing in a given battle even when the scenario is the same for two different campaign types- for instance, compare The Seven Samurai to Samurai 7.
Elements of morality, realism and other Hero System campaign features depend largely on what country is producing the imaginary movie of the campaign: Surbrook, like Allston, compares Chinese martial arts cinema to the Japanese and American and finds that Chinese heroes tend to fight both exploitation by foreigners and corruption in their own system, the American heroes emphasize both the common-man background of the characters and the fact that they are exceptional just by knowing martial arts, while Japanese stories tend to be bloody tragedies where the heroes' honor usually requires them to make the best of a no-win situation.
For creating adventures, there is another little random plot generator like in some other Hero genre books, and there is brief discussion of various story themes, like the obvious “The Competition” and “Protect the Defenseless” to the more specialized “Loss, Retraining and Confrontation” where the PCs are thrashed by a master villain, they learn either the secret technique he uses or a counter-technique of another school, and come back to fight him with his special advantage negated. And as in some other genre books, there is important discussion of game “disconnects”- i.e. where genre logic doesn't account for the pragmatic logic of players in the game, so that for instance in the movie the characters, even if evil, usually allow their opponents to get up and recover from being stunned, whereas PCs rarely allow such a thing. In this case characters who have an “Honorable” Disadvantage should have that played up by the GM, or PCs can be penalized by fewer Experience Points, bad Reputations, or the like. (In this example, Surbrook also mentions that the Video Game genre is a major exception to the rule, since you're supposed to do a finishing move on the foe as soon as he's stunned.)
Then Chapter Four goes on to more of a game-mechanics focus. It reviews the sorts of Disadvantages that are particularly common for martial arts heroes – or are especially bad news for them. (Becoming Enraged is a great example of the latter, at least in the 'face' culture of the East.) There is also a sidebar for the stats on objects that characters in martial arts stories commonly break. Then there is some detail given to martial arts villains- Surbrook says that the key to making a good villain is to make him distinctive, and there are at least three ways to do that: By making him visually distinctive, making him psychologically distinctive in his behavior and motives, and/or to make him dramatically distinctive by his place in the campaign (for instance, by his connection to a PC). This section discusses the common motivations and archetypes of villains, and also discusses their power level. Usually for instance when characters fight a major warlord or crime organization, the “Big Boss” is usually powerful enough to threaten the entire PC group by himself (and thus the fight with him is the climax of the story) while his lieutenants are each a match for a single PC, possibly having a certain “edge” that can be quickly neutralized, with PCs going through various fights to get to the master villain. Finally, Chapter Four goes over some of the other NPC types encountered in these stories, like the PCs' martial arts master or the shopkeepers of the town.
Chapter Five: Deadly Enemies & Flashing Steel goes from page 84 to 146, and thus goes over a lot of ground, intending to provide “a wealth of resources for the Ninja Hero GM.” It starts with a few floorplans for setting up martial arts fight scenes. It then gives one example each for campaign settings of each type described in Chapter One: The Realistic campaign is set in “Sun King” France (well, before Louis XIV, but 'Swords of the Sun King' sounds better than 'Swords of Louis the Thirteenth'), the Cinematic game is “Saturday Morning Kung Fu Theater”, the Wuxia game is inspired by Once Upon a Time in China (between the decline of the Manchus and the Japanese aggression in the 1930s), the Video Game is, of course, based on a worldwide tournament, and the Anime campaign is based in Ancient China (before major contact with Europeans, and with a lot of Chi powers and monsters).
Then the book presents NPCs for each genre, starting with Ninja. These range from named NPC ninja to generic examples going up to the 145 point Genin to the 873-point “Disgustingly Powerful Ninja.” From there you get two examples each for each subgenre in this book, plus a writeup of the legendary Wong Fei Hong- probably based on the Wuxia movies more than the real guy. Then you get writeups for the Chinese vampire, including the “hopping vampire” (so called because it is bound by its funeral garments and has to move by hopping) and the Chinese ghost, which has a Power Framework based on her extremely long hair, which she can use for entangling attacks or flip around for use as a razor weapon. There are also legendary magic weapons like a “ghost cutting” sword. Finally, there are a few brief ideas for story seeds, centering around the conflicts surrounding the PCs' martial arts school. There are three appendices, one for a brief glossary of martial arts media terms, one for an extensive list of Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Thai and Vietnamese names, and a Bibliography including manga and anime series and prominent films of particular artists like Bruce Lee, along with a sidebar about martial arts video games.
SUMMARY
While NINJA HERO does in fact contain a lot of ninjas and ninja information, its emphasis seems to be on the wilder sorts of Martial Arts campaign, especially those set in China. (Surbrook's original project was to be called 'Wuxia Hero', but since Hero Games wanted a new Ninja Hero title, this book is the result.) Thus the book, like the genre, goes all over the place. And like the subject genre, it ends up being very entertaining despite the mishmash. Its respect for the genre thus makes it a pretty good recommendation even for non-Hero fans (like a lot of their other sourcebooks).
Style: 4
This book is written with a winning style and a lot of variety.
Substance: 4
NINJA HERO is a definitive source for running campaigns in the Martial Arts genre.
