New Bleach Classic Game

[3blueeyes]

I couldn't think of a place to post this but as no one has created a thread here, it seemed the less likely area, to be in the wrong spot.

My goal is to start a new Bleach classic game with my kids but I'm very new to the classless system. So, I have story ideas but trying to implement them might be tough. Right now, only 1 kid is committed.

One of the great things about role playing games is, you are creating your own story. It might not fit 100% into the canon lore but we can use the settings to try and have fun and tell our own story. Otherwise know as "creating our own anime filler".

My initial ideas-
1 part season 1 of the Bleach anime and 1 part KotOR. I want to focus on the balance of souls coming into Soul Society and going out. So the early portion will be the importance of sending Pluses(?) back and sending Hollows back and keeping the cycle of souls flowing. I don't want to use Rukia but I'll have an npc performing a similar role. We'll start out small, at level 1, to give me time to learn the Zanpakuto rules.

Early story, my daughter is a young person going to College in Tokyo but lives in an area outside of Tokyo. I want to avoid high school. If Karakura Town is north, I'll have our setting south. I'm picturing her playing an American, who speaks English and Japanese, going to college in Tokyo. In some fashion have her start seeing the spirits around and eventually seeing a Shinigami.

I don't want to have the shinigami loose her powers or give them to my daughter but try to come up with a unique way for my daughter to start playing as a shinigami.

I did mention KotOR, so yes, I do plan on using that trope and also, my kids don't know the story there.

Depending on how far we can keep the story going, my idea is, my daughter's character isn't a young person going to College, she's a shinigami in a gigai. She was sent to the human world on an investigation and in some fashion her gigai was damaged, tampered with, cursed or whatever. Her human life is the role she was sent to play as, for the investigation, but that's why she can see spirits and can access shinigami powers.

I still picture a Rukia like character needed to use the glove to knock my daughters characters spirit out of her body, but it's not really a body. This gigai won't look like a skinless body on the ground.

As far as time period goes, I'm picturing after Sōsuke Aizen leaves Soul Society but before the Arrancar start coming to the human world. Still not sure when to set the game.

Still open for storytelling is my daughter's characters background. I don't intend on her being the leader of the badguys and who's now good. Nor do I want her to be a prior captain. I'm picturing a 10th level shinigami, experienced but not super powerful. She'll have a family in Soul Society but we'll work together to defining them.

That's the basics of my story so far. Now we need to start it.

[maddwaffles]

So I think the balance of souls is really good storyline-wise, and it's a plot thread that was interesting enough for Kubo to construct an entire oneshot around it.

A big thing to keep in-mind is that souls can exist in any of four dimensions, but only two sides of the scale:
Earth, Soul Society, Hueco Mundo | Hell

And remember that big powerful souls crossing this can create an imabalance, and that big powerful souls go to hell, so for there to be a "balance" there needs to be not only numerous, but powerful souls on one side, sufficient to offset the other. This is partly why it's so important that Shinigami get more and more powerful with each passing generation.

Karakura is a part of West Tokyo, but frankly I don't know if the distinction should matter terribly, Tokyo is Tokyo, and Tokyo is a huge setting with lots of opportunity and scene potential. It's actually, to me, a weakness of the source that they focus so much on just a small part of Western Tokyo.

If that's what your daughter wants to do (play a westerner in Japan) I don't see why that would be an issue. I have a friend who plays a Civil War officer who happened to die in Japan, and so he wound up in Soul Society too, it's not a godawful concept, especially when you consider that Kubo seems to think the afterlife only exists in Japan.

"I don't want to have the shinigami loose her powers or give them to my daughter but try to come up with a unique way for my daughter to start playing as a shinigami."

So I don't know if you're far enough into the story yet, but Rukia's powers were supposed to come back pretty immediately, it was the nature of any number of things, but generally it's accepted that one of or a combination of the gigai, and seemingly Rukia's desire to give Ichigo her power, the Hogyokou, and Ichigo's latent fullbring powers of power-swapping (+ a desire to have a blade to protect) that made her power loss enduringly permanent until Byakuya basically took them away. You could certainly do the "stabbing thing" as a catalyst for the PC getting powers initially, but then have said play character pursue something more like what was done with Ichigo and Kisuke in the pit to draw out a latent ability to become a shinigami that was inserted by having the powers for a little bit.

"Depending on how far we can keep the story going, my idea is, my daughter's character isn't a young person going to College, she's a shinigami in a gigai. She was sent to the human world on an investigation and in some fashion her gigai was damaged, tampered with, cursed or whatever. Her human life is the role she was sent to play as, for the investigation, but that's why she can see spirits and can access shinigami powers."

There's potential there too. I guess my chief question is how she's shinigami but also western, since they largely are a region-locked happening.

"As far as time period goes, I'm picturing after Sōsuke Aizen leaves Soul Society but before the Arrancar start coming to the human world. Still not sure when to set the game."

That's a tight timeframe, like less than a month, the dates would be August 6th to September 3rd when both those events happen.

"Still open for storytelling is my daughter's characters background. I don't intend on her being the leader of the badguys and who's now good. Nor do I want her to be a prior captain. I'm picturing a 10th level shinigami, experienced but not super powerful. She'll have a family in Soul Society but we'll work together to defining them."

My chief piece of feedback on this is that 10th level is actually exceptionally strong. 8th level (if you aren't going HARD on some choices to get there sooner, because PCs can frequently pull it off at or around 5th level) is the typical median for a character to start being able to do bankai, and 9th level is the lowest conventional level a captain can be. Most Shinigami in the system would be level 1-3 characters, with the more elite shinigami often being level 4 or 5 in soul society, at least at the point in time where you're at.

If you're handling first-time players, I would advise doing something like, but not exactly the True Hero variant from the 50k download book, as a system where you allow PCs to have a few extra features to place among their levels to sort of flesh out their choices better is a solid idea, especially in such a feats-intensive game where you're trapped between things you'd like to do, and things you feel that you must do.

[3blueeyes]

Thank you for the reply. You have some good information there so it helped get me in a better direction.

"So I don't know if you're far enough into the story yet,"

I bought episode 1 through about 210 on DVD. I think I have through the New Captain story arc but I'm only on about episode 185 or so. I'm not sure if I'll buy more or pay for a few months of Hulu to watch the rest.

I've only watched up to where we are once, so I don't have the story memorized. My kids binge watched the entire anime for free about 4 years ago so they know the story better than me. I have read some of the wiki and other areas so I know where the story goes, just don't know how it gets there.

"I guess my chief question is how she's shinigami but also western, since they largely are a region-locked happening."

It's a 2 part reply.

1.I want my daughter to create a character and I'll give her some options, like a westerner in Japan or a Japanese person in Japan.
2.However, whatever she creates won't be what she is, it will be the role she was sent to play as, for the investigation that brought her to the human world, that she lost the memories of.

This is just me guessing but in anime the appearance of characters seems less important that the characters name. For example, a character can have blonde hair and blue eyes but if their first and last names are Japanese, then they're Japanese. If their first and last names are Japanese but they have a non-Japanese nick name, maybe they're half Japanese.

This basically goes to me not wanting to limit my kids background stories or appearance at character generation but me having to incorporate their ideas as the story progresses. So if my kid does pick a specific hair and eye color, I'll use that by saying she has a parent and or siblings with similar hair and eyes.

For example: "Red hair and a hand-me down robe? You must be a Weasley."

"My chief piece of feedback on this is that 10th level is actually exceptionally strong."

That's a good point. I want her to be a not famous shinigami. Definitely not a Capt or LT level prior starting. With this information maybe level 4 or 5 tops. I need to get studying on the game mechanics better. I don't intend on her waking up one day and all of a sudden fighting Captains. I want her to go through regular level progression. The higher level she was will represent who she was, not what she is now.


"If you're handling first-time players, I would advise doing something like, but not exactly the True Hero variant from the 50k download book"

I went back and read True Hero and I do like that. It might make her to powerful but part of my story idea is having the not-Rukia npc surprised by what my daughter can do so True Hero is a cool idea. I already intended to give her the 40 points at character generation but I'm not sure what having a, heroic attribute, 20 strength or dex will do at level 1.

Part of my story idea on keeping the cycle of souls flowing is to introduce a Quency as a college classmate. Following the Bleach story, the npc will go through protagonist to rival to friend. I picture them agreeing to work together with the quency damaging and holding the Hollows in place while my daughter finishes them off, sending them to Soul Society.

As that story arc wraps up I intended on having the quency self sacrifice, protecting my daughter, in an important battle. Then, have my daughter question her shinigami helper/trainer/friend.

Daughter(talking to not-Rukia): OK, you're a shinigami from Soul Society and you came here, right?

Not-Rukia: Yes.

Daughter: When humans die, we send them to Soul Society, right?

Not-Rukia: Yes.

Daughter: OK, I'm a shinigami in training now, so take me to Soul Society, so I can find our quency friend!

This will finish up our first arc and lead to the Soul Society Search arc where it highly unlikely she'll find her quency friend but she'll start to discover she has a family already there and who they are.

And perhaps start to realize that the jerk professor that keep giving her an "F" is actually an agent of her family's rival clan and the reason she's been stuck in the human world is....

[maddwaffles]

I went back and read True Hero and I do like that. It might make her to powerful but part of my story idea is having the not-Rukia npc surprised by what my daughter can do so True Hero is a cool idea. I already intended to give her the 40 points at character generation but I'm not sure what having a, heroic attribute, 20 strength or dex will do at level 1.

So to clarify what I meant by "like True Hero, but not True Hero" is that the things like the extra Heroic Attribute Feat, Skill Focus, etc. are a little much. I more just refer to the Bonus Feats, and maybe giving the party as a whole the True Hero feature, to make them feel more distinct in the universe. True Heroes and True Villains in Bleach (how I run it) only ever accounts for a handful of NPCs in each arc (Captains, GNC Clan Heads, Organization Leaders, Half of The Espada, Team Karakura, etc.) but if they're important then I definitely give my important villains True Hero in some mechanical ways, particularly in terms of Condition Immunity.

You CAN implement the extra feats on top of the ones that a True Hero score gives (I advocate for the bonus feats on and not the extra ones because they give your players more freedom to build) and they probably won't mess the game up.

To let you know, since you're feeling uncertain, Heroic Attribute is a feature that has a lot of early-game value, but it deteriorates as play goes on, I mostly only ever take it if I need to meet a specific prerequisite at or before a level. If you have 40 Point Buy it has less value in general and impacts play less, seeing as your array can already easily just be 5 18s and 1 10.

Regarding the rest, as long as your kid is interested, I can't see a reason not to go about it. I know how I might personally run and introduce players to this game, but the beauty of GMs is that we don't all go the same way.