Ninja

[ToothlessNightFury]

Can you please change the Ninja to evil instead of neutral?!

Ninja were Spies, Saboteurs & Assassins - they were paid to murder anyone, including women & children!!! Increasing his fate to 2 would also help balance the crippling ability of not being allowed Followers!

Ninja always wore black as well!!!

[caboos15]

Should be noted that ninjas never wore black clothing
http://youtu.be/uxUbKUr6LK4?t=5m
This video explains why :)
As well as some other interesting facts about them

[Fulgur14]

Originally posted by talismanamsilat:

Ninja always wore black as well!!!

Actually, you're wrong here. Ninjas dressed however they wanted in order to blend in. The traditional image of Ninjas dressed in black actually comes from the Japanese kabuki theater. Black clothing was how the stagehands dressed. Unlike the stagehands in Western theatres, which you basically never see, in kabuki theater the stagehands could come on the stage and manipulate the scene, but the audience knew that people dressed in black are not actually in the play and should be ignored. And the playwrights used this convention to dress their ninjas the same way. That way, when a ninja killed someone, it was totally unexpected because the autidnce didn't even realize that this person was actually a character.

http://www.cracked.com/article_18627_6-things-from-history-everyone-pictures-incorrectly_p4.html has more information including what color is best to wear if you want to blend in the dark :)

[Little Nemo]

Storm Shadow from G.I. Joe was white. In the TMNT games we seen ninjas in every colour of the rainbow too. So I don't mind the colour of this Ninja.

But I agree that his alignment should be Evil, and he should have at least 2 fate.

[Fulgur14]

The color leads to another idea: Seeing as the cards and figurines are not physical, how problematic would it be to allow the players to change the color schemes of the characters?
One obvious application is that it's possible in DE for multiple players to have the same characters, but even in normal play, it might be fun to have a choice. The "pitch-black" Ninja could then be there for people who prefer that :)

[Little Nemo]

But that's an extra work for Nomads but in the end it gives nothing. Or almost nothing useful.

[ToothlessNightFury]

Ninja historically wore Shinobi Shozoko which had slits around the eyes. They were black or dark blue for night missions, white for snowy areas & greeny coloured for Forests. At other times they dressed as Peasants, Priests, Monks, or even as Samurai! The whole point is that Nomad have dressed the Ninja in a Shinobi Shozoko and it makes sense to have it black or very dark blue (almost black), not the colours they have used and he most definitely needs to be evil even if he remains with just 1 fate!

[Soltanis]

Doesn't the line "they were paid to kill anyone" sort of make them neutral?

[MeMeMe]

I would say the line "they were paid to kill" would make them evil. They are accepting money to commit murder, that's hardly neutral. But for a fantasy game like this, it's fine being neutral.

[ToothlessNightFury]

No it doesn't mean the Ninja should be neutral. The Ninja was even evil in Talisman 2nd Edition!!!

[Soltanis]

Originally posted by MeMeMe:

I would say the line "they were paid to kill" would make them evil.

Where does a countries Military fit into that. or a Veterinarian for that matter.

Originally posted by talismanamsilat:

No it doesn't mean the Ninja should be neutral. The Ninja was even evil in Talisman 2nd Edition!!!

That was not the reason you gave in your topic

[Fulgur14]

Originally posted by Nemomon:

But that's an extra work for Nomads but in the end it gives nothing. Or almost nothing useful.

I'd say it depends on how hard the recoloring actually is (I think the fans would be more than happy to make alternate color schemes if Nomad would accept them). I disagree with "nothing useful", though. Board games tend to have very static look. A way to modify that look can serve to prolong the lifetime of the game.

Imagine, for example, that beating a game with any character unlocks a new color scheme to go with that character, up to, say, 6 schemes. It would be like mini-achievements, with the additional bonus that you will be rewarded for playing the characters you like. My opinion is that this would improve players' attitude significantly, especially compared to the cost.

As for Ninja's specific look: Ninja, of course, must have a distint clothing, the game requires that he must be recognizable, as everyone else. Dark color would be preferable (but I really want to see white color scheme for the Forstmarch games :D) As for alignment, both evil and neutral can have their proponents (basically it's about what's your opinion about killing in general and assassination for money in particular). But Assassin is evil and Ninja was evil, so I'd say that Nomad should either change the alignment or make a post to explain the changes and the reasons for them.

[Phát Dong]

I disagree. Not all ninjas were hired to kill, even if that is what they are known for today. There were plenty of "good" ninjas, as well as plenty of neutral ones. It's like saying your typical RPG rogue should be evil because they run around backstabbing and stealing from people, without realizing that this is merely a means to an end.

[Marcin Raelian]

Ninjas dont killed for pleasure or for the devil. In fantasy games or mangas many of them fought against demons and mainly worked for the japan rulers.

However sai or kama would be better for him.

[Doctor Beard]

It should be completely irrelevant for the game character whether historical ninjas were considered "evil" or not. The alignment of characters serves their gameplay, not what you'd expect them to be from a roleplaying perspective. Afaik the original Ninja character from the 2nd Edition used to be of Evil alignment. I'd reckon the developers/designers will have had their reason to change that alignment to Neutral for the 4th Edition remake, based on rules and possibilities that didn't exist in the 2nd Edition (although just ouf of curiosity I wouldn't mind if a developer chimed in with the actual thought process behind that change).

I mean, look at the Warlock. That guy looks Evil as hell to me. Yet he's neutral.

There should be a good reason to change the alignment back to Evil and "just because" is not one.

And as to his clothes/color, isn't that entirely up to personal preference? Nomad chose to make him blue-ish, so we gotta deal with that. If you get/make that character for the normal board game you can color him in whatever way you want. There is no reason to patch his ingame color to black just because it'd look more Ninja-like. That aside, even though black is very common color for a ninja's clothes, they've also been portrayed with colors in just about all shades of the color blue, especially in video games.

[Haldurson]

http://monstertalk.skeptic.com/unmasking-the-ninja

Note: the podcast gets more serious after a few minutes.