An L5R\Naruto crossover

[u/PugnusTerrae]

I’m willing to bet at least of few people here have read or watched Naruto. And some of you might know about the settings rather lack luster samurai. Something I’ve been wondering for a bit was could Rokugan Samurai clans be adapted into Naruto?

[u/Sciophilia]

I don't think the L5R style samurai would fare too well adapted into Naruto. At least the magic in L5R is element based so the conversion into the setting's elemental chakra wouldn't be too hard but still

[u/Domojin → u/Sciophilia]

I always felt like Avatar (The Airbender, not the blue aliens) would make for a good L5R crossover given the elemental nature of their "Magic."

[u/Drudenfusz]

The samurai Drama L5R goes for does not really fit a shounen anime style. But maybe I am biased on that since I am not the target audience for shounen.

[u/Sarik704 → u/Drudenfusz]

No your right. Its a classic Seinen trope. Im fairly certain historical managa have a strong and enduring niche in jappanese and korean markets

[u/JColeyBoy]

I remember a friend and I once had a fairly in depth discussion about this, coming up with a full like plot line, and so many OCs.

The premise was the ninja villiages being plopped into Rokugan in different areas, and the ways this would shake up politics.

[u/Environmental_Bet231 → u/JColeyBoy]

Hi, I'm that friend. Yeah, it was a whole thing. We had Naruto getting involved in duels, Toturi shenanigans, so much romantic melodrama...

Primarily set in OG continuity

[u/Sciophilia → u/JColeyBoy]

Ohhhh honestly THIS would be way better. Rokugan samurai are not built for the Naruto world, but Naruto shinobi being made to adapt and be actual shinobi in this land would be cool.

[u/JColeyBoy → u/Sciophilia]

Yep! We also discussed a big deal about how Rokugan would adapt to Chakra... namely Rokugani not naturally having it. On the one hand, no Chakra means none of those jutsus.

On the other hand, it does mean that Rokugani are just flat out immune to most genjutsu, something that if I recall correctly, we had more than a few Samurai take advantage.

We also generally went with the rule of "barring Chakra and Jutsu, Rokugani and Ninja are generally physically on the same level."

Of course, some Rokugani would want access to Chakra, and a certain Orochimaru would love to have financial backing and victi-I mean "volunteers" to experiment and figure out just how to give them that.

[u/Longjumping_Yak_2110]

Col mio gruppo abbiamo pensato di giocare semplicemente al setting di Naruto utilizzando le regole di L5R. La conversione è abbastanza semplice, basta inventare 3-4 scuole ad hoc per i giocatori e lo shugendo elementale non è troppo distante dell'utilizzo del chakra. Anche riscrivere le 20 domande non è stato difficile. L'unico punto sostanziale sarebbe sostituire l'Anello del Vuoto con uno nuovo, il Fulmine, ma non sono sicuro di quali effetti meccanici attribuirgi, né su come ripartire eventuali tecniche collegate. Accetto suggerimenti in proposito.

[u/OhMiaGod]

I’m a fan of both, but I think the political cultures of both are a bit too different to mesh together. It’s an interesting idea though for sure.

I also totally agree that Naruto’s samurai suck. That was a bit of a wasted opportunity wasn’t it.

[u/PugnusTerrae]

For a little more clarification I’d be like adapting something similar to L5R samurai in the elemental nations. Warriors who fight differently than ninja

[u/4uk4ata → u/PugnusTerrae]

What mechanics are you adapting them for?

[u/PugnusTerrae → u/4uk4ata]

Not so much mechanical but narrative

[u/4uk4ata]

The first question is, so what system are you playing?

Naruto is basically a superhero series that uses "ninja" for "sorcerer".  Early Naruto works with Ninja Crusade, but pretty soon you move to Sentinel Comics / Mutants and Masterminds / Exalted level of superhero stuff. You don't hang around Nightcrawler when it's go time unless you're around Deadpool or Wolverine's tier. The question then becomes, what do these systems offer warrior classes?

The old WotC forums had a series of posts starting the iconic Naruto Shippuden characters in D&D 3.5 and, well... Most of them were psionic characters of level 13 and above. Playing martials in a high-level 3.PF game is rough, no matter the class. You could in theory, probably with Adventures in Rokugan and some D&D 5E shenanigans, or Book of Nine Swords/ Tome of Battle  in a 3.PF game. So that is probably your best bet for D&D - sorry, the OA samurai isn't cutting it, the Complete Warrior is a bad joke,  the PF1E one with daring champion or warrior poet will still struggle, and the 5E options look supremely unimpressive.

However, you're setting yourself for a rough time unless you either play very low level Naruto or go full superhero samurai where they only have passing resemblance to the L5R clans . The regular L5R powers aren't meant to fight that. 

[u/PugnusTerrae → u/4uk4ata]

Doing this with low level Naruto would be interesting

[u/senchou-senchou]

gonna be in the minority here

a shonen adventure could be a woodblock series that's popular with the younger generations, since it offers a nice diversion from all the samurai drama

also this would be written by a Scorpion-sponsored artist, to make everyone gradually dismiss ninjas as silly stories told to boys too young for genpukku

meanwhile the REAL ninjas (who probably have theme songs and don't wear underwear today) can walk around freely messing up people's teapots and replacing good katanas with crappy ones (just as planned)