If I blogged here about writing my first setting and twisting Fate accelerated rules to suit how I want to game? I would get a huge kick from feedback and it would spur me to do more instead of letting it fall into the dust history of my notebooks.
OK so i shall drop my first post a little bit of an overhaul of myself. 20+ year vet of RPGs, avid wargamer, married father of hmmm many kids (Ill get back to you post census), student and Sunday school teacher at my church. So you see I have buckets of spare time, I know what your thinking but i am injured and waiting for the results of tests and then more tests so I am stay at home dad, chasing after kids gives you ages spent in school and sport field car parks.
I have never published anything that being said I was somewhat of a prodigy as a youth even as far as having an agent take a manuscript and ask for editing, sadly I was not a prodigy at sticking to things back then and well it never moved again (much to my lovely mothers anger).
I love to think on my teach hence why I volunteer to teach teenagers doctrine of my church. I love running games and often I have felt there needs to be more given to the DM to help - advice and tables is not enough sometimes.
So Ill move on - Ill provide a more detailed version of my pitch etc with my next post. When i look at designing games etc (or settings as that I have done many times) I tend to mind map in a similar way that Rob (our exalted overlord) provides in his how to write a free rpg blog post (which thank you Rob that's rather my bible now when it comes to this), my version is a train starting with a cause and affect running in both way sometimes, its rather chaotic to explain so Ill do my best here.
first train
Ninja + Giant city + demons + Zaibatsu + Corrupt or destroyed holy order
Now this got me thinking I wanted the group to design not only their characters, I wanted them to design their group and its holdings. This then presented another problem ninja groups must battle against something and also i wanted the theme of an endless asian Shogunate era city.
Second train with a bit more detail - this required me getting to a computer and hammering some fiction - it got the juices flowing and soon my notepad was covered in gibberish.
Techno city (but presented as a traditional shogunate city) very advanced technology but the people like to remain traditional unless it provides an easy to remain totally traditional. There are huge factories controlled by computer that make wood etc with cornucopia machines. + Great Emperor dies without heir + Before death creates the Great Zaibatsu out of leading families, Each Zaibatsu controls one important industry to keep the city running. + Priests run civic matters and the security + terrorists attack the Priests - destroying them to an almost useless level. Zaibatsu initially come together and blame the coordinated attack on the various shinobi groups. + Quickly the Zaibatsu fear a growth in their rivals powers and soon a cold war of inactivity begins. + The Zaibatsu working together overthrew the priests blaming the attack on urban legend. Now however they wait quietly each to terrified to act in fear of civil war and destruction to the world they know. + Shinobi are not urban legend but an ancient order of secret police that helped the Emperor police rival families. + Players know nothing of the Zaibatsu involvement and are the Shinobi.
Sorry Ill write are more detailed post later today, Ill just answer Onix's question. The fact that the Zaibatsu are responsible for the destruction of the Priests is not common knowledge and something I want to bury in the setting with a tonne of red herrings to add to the confusion.
Okay so a little hair brained in my approach and if anyone has bleeding from eyes, ears or nose I do apologize. Moving on I am thinking that the technology is so advanced that it appears as magic - or the act of pacified spirits and that the priests are the keys to much of this technology. However the Zaibatsu do have access to their own technology it to is considered "family spirits".
Moving to the Shinobi I am thinking of giving them some defined roles or style. These would be the following Traditional Clockwork - The only technology believed to not have spirits attached Alchemist Sorcery - The use of nano clouds yet this use corrupts the individual as they become more and more spirit like (ie assimilated into the basic AI underlining the whole of the "city".
Sorry this is a small one but this did take a long time to work out. I also had to be careful not to get to the keyboard and change everything.
Maybe the terrorists never existed and it was all set up by the Zaibatsu. The priests were always having an eye on the criminal activity of the corrupt Zaibatsu and therefore had to be removed. Aftar the attack the Zaibatsu blamed the Shinobi to get rid of the only group possibly rivaling their power. Ten Years later the fragile peace between the different Zaibatsu houses is crumbling, due to misstrust and envy. The Shinobi retreated to secred bases habourging the last living priests.