Naruto d20: what's the attraction?
So I kind of dig Naruto- more early Naruto than recent Naruto, when it's become a bit too much Dragonball with ninjas for my taste, but whatever. I want to play games set in this universe, and it seems that many others do as well.
But why on earth do they pick Frankto's Naruto d20 system to do it with? It's a thousand and twenty-four page supplement to another complete, already rather rules-heavy RPG system. Whole bolt-on subsystems interact in complex and difficult-to-predict ways with the existing rules and each other- Chakra, Techniques, Shinobi Skills, Strength and Speed Ranks, the Hostage Maneuver rules, Power Units...it's like d20 Modern with Exalted bolted on. It's insane. I would be ecstatic to play in a Naruto game run in a system that actually makes sense for it, like Mutants and Masterminds. Even D&D 3.5's psionics rules do a far more elegant job of it than that ungodly chunk of rules. What's the deal?
But why on earth do they pick Frankto's Naruto d20 system to do it with? It's a thousand and twenty-four page supplement to another complete, already rather rules-heavy RPG system. Whole bolt-on subsystems interact in complex and difficult-to-predict ways with the existing rules and each other- Chakra, Techniques, Shinobi Skills, Strength and Speed Ranks, the Hostage Maneuver rules, Power Units...it's like d20 Modern with Exalted bolted on. It's insane. I would be ecstatic to play in a Naruto game run in a system that actually makes sense for it, like Mutants and Masterminds. Even D&D 3.5's psionics rules do a far more elegant job of it than that ungodly chunk of rules. What's the deal?