flesh to plush

(This is the second part of a three-part entry; read Part One Here)

Ambush Machine Go Brrr

So, how does our character actually function in play? Of course, our first concern is the long-game play of setting up Jealous Wolf. Our early moves are going to be similar to most characters in a typical game of Shinobigami: tentative relationship-building and feeling out the positions of the other characters. Forming bonds is important because of information exchange (when someone with whom you have a bond learns a piece of information, you also learn that piece of information); getting the most out of Jealous Wolf means knowing which of the other characters we're most likely to find ourselves at odds with, and characters' secrets and alliances are important to making that determination. Being able to swap around a skill mid-game also makes for a powerful defensive option, as attacks are defended against using the same skill that the attacker uses: if we know whom our primary target is going to be, we can tweak our skill list to make their attacks easier to dodge (this is in addition to the open-ended tactical question of being able to gain an entirely new ninpo as well).
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I played a fair amount of 2nd Edition AD&D when I was in high school. AD&D is a bit of an odd creature; while it retained many of the "core" features that made (and still make) D&D fairly unique compared to many other RPGs, it was also also bowing to the pressure exerted on it by the inexorable forward march of "trad". In particular it ended up implementing this half-formed skill system in the form of Non-Weapon Proficiencies (NWPs), but it was one that was rarely (if ever) fundamental to the procedural functioning of the game in the way that trad skill systems are (arguably by definition, but I don't really want to litigate "trad" here).
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