4 Cool Mechanics from Tenra Bansho Zero

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Awhile back, I wrote about some of the games from Japan that we in the English speaking world now have access to. All of them were unique in their own ways, but none quite as much as Tenra Bansho Zero.

It has some of your standard fare you could expect out of most TRPGs. Things like dice pools, class based character creation, and combining attributes and skills together for rolls. But that’s all basic stuff: Tenra Bansho Zero offers a great deal more, such as a unique setting based on the Warring States period of Japan, as well as this set of really cool mechanics they call “The Karma System.”

1. Fates
Fates are simultaneously one of the smaller parts of Tenra Bansho Zero, and the heart of everything that makes it unique. In short, they’re what your character cares about, be they other characters, their attitudes regarding certain subjects, or things they simply refuse to do.

Every Fate is rated from 2 to 5, which signifies how strongly a character feels about the given Fate. Most importantly, each Fate is also known to all other players. Motives aren’t kept secret here.

This isn’t necessarily a novel mechanic on it’s own. In fact, many narrative-based games have similar mechanics to this. Though how it integrates with everything else is what makes it noteworthy.

2. Aiki
Aiki are tokens given to players who roleplay well, either by being entertaining to the rest of the group, or following their character’s Fates. These can then be used for various temporary bonuses and effects, such as gaining extra dice or temporary skill points, or calling another character (player or NPC) into the current scene.

What sets this aside from similar systems in other games is that Aiki can be awarded by ANYBODY, not just the GM. Your aim when acquiring Aiki isn’t just to entertain the GM, you’re also trying to entertain everybody at the table!

Additionally, Aiki are used to acquire more Fates, as well as for making Fate Rolls, which is how you acquire our next topic: Kiai.

3. Kiai
Kiai is functionally very similar to Aiki. Everything that you can do with Kiai, you can also do with Aiki. Though a character with higher rated Fates will be able to turn a few chits of Aiki into many times more points of Kiai, making Kiai a much more effective way of improving a character or gaining dice bonuses.

Fate Rolls are the only way to generate Kiai, and they can only be done under certain circumstances. The first of these being that the player needs to spend an Aiki chit to make the roll. The second being that either a character’s Fate must be immediately relevant to what’s currently going on in game, or it needs to be during the Intermission phase of the game.

The player then rolls a number of d6 equal to their character’s Empathy attribute, and each die that shows a number below the rating of the Fate being rolled for generates one point of Kiai.

While Kiai can be more numerous than Aiki, they do have one drawback: every spent point of Kiai eventually converts into Karma.

4. Karma
Karma is gained in many ways in Tenra Bansho Zero. First and foremost, it’s gained during character creation: every template for building your character has an associated Karma cost. Karma is also raised when acquiring certain weapons and equipment at any point in the game. (Most notably: Soul Gems. Powerful magic orbs used as ammo for certain weapons, or embedded into people to grant them mystical powers.)

Spent Kiai also converts to Karma during the aforementioned Intermissions; breaks in gameplay where major, off-screen developments can happen. It’s also worth noting that everything mentioned thus far easily makes it so that two characters, even at character creation, can have wildly different Karma values.

If a character’s Karma is ever 108 by the end of an intermission, they become a monster that is obsessed with their Fates known as an Asura. At this point, the GM takes that player’s character sheet, tells them to make a new character, and it becomes entirely possible that this character is now an enemy to everybody at the table.

This then begs the question: can one lower their Karma? And if so, how?

Once again, Fates are the answer.

Another event that happens during Intermissions is that players can change and eliminate their character’s Fates, causing a decrease in their total Karma, as well as a shift in what the character thinks, feels, and believes.

And thus the cycle is complete: your Fates grant you power, that power grants you Karma, and letting go of your Fates is what releases you from the dangers of Karma.

So with all that said, we have the four components of Tenra Bansho Zero’s Fate System.

This set of rules is one of the things that makes Tenra Bansho Zero a truly unique game. It rewards players who use their character to affect the world around them, or to at least entertain those also playing. Additionally, it provides a vehicle for characters to be more dynamic.

The Fate System in Tenra Bansho Zero shows us, above all else, how even if we can identify and describe an individual game mechanic, it’s the sum of all these mechanics that make a game what it is.

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Aaron der Schaedel isn’t really an expert on Japanese TRPGs, he just knows a lot more about them than your average person. He also wants to encourage people to try out and learn more games, and has compiled a list of helpful advice on the subject, which you can find here.


Pic Reference: http://www.tenra-rpg.com/

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