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Fate of the Teenage Mutant Ninja PAG E S

Turtles, Part 2: Heroes in a half-shell  About me

(player stats)  Games I’ve made

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 July 23, 2016  Stephen Mor ew

G A M E S I’ V E W R I T T E N A B O U T

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Dungeons & Dragons
In my last blog post, I said that I’ve been pondering how to run a roleplaying game based
on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (TMNT). I want my game to have the four main turtles as Dungeon World Fate Fate
player characters, and getting those characters right is vital for the game to work. Core Fate of the Teenage
Mutant Ninja Turtles Feng Shui 2
In this blog post, I adapt the four titular protagonists of the franchise to the rules of The
Fiasco Force and Destiny Genesys Heroes of
Three Rocketeers, the World of Adventure for Fate Core that I am using for the TMNT game.
the Hearth Honey Heist Hubris Box
Write-ups for these heroes, in the form of proto-PCs (incomplete characters that can be
InSpectres Kagematsu Kindred of the East Lady
customised by players), are included at the end of the post, along with PDF character
Blackbird Lasers & Feelings Lord Scurlock Magister Lor
sheets. Feedback is welcomed and encouraged!
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying Masters of
Umdaar Michtim Microscope
Proto-PCs: Balancing recognisability with Monsterhearts Necessary Evil Path nder
Powered by the Apocalypse Predation Primetime
customisability
Adventures Psi*Run Put Away Childish Things
The protagonists of The Three Musketeers (all four of them, including D’Artagnan) are iconic Savage Worlds Set a Villain Sig: City of Blades

characters with distinct personalities, but adaptations have interpreted them in myriad Smallville Sorcerer Swords
ways over the years. When translating the characters to a roleplaying game, it doesn’t
Without Master The Bloody-Handed Name of
matter which interpretation you use, as long as they are recognisable as the iconic
Bronze The Dance and the Dawn The Library The
characters they are based on. When I played as Porthos in a Fate Accelerated Edition (FAE)
One Ring The Three Rocketeers
campaign, my version of the character had no aspects, stunts or backstory in common with
TinyFate Undying Unknown Armies
Michael Porthos from The Three Rocketeers, but they were fundamentally the same
Vampire: The Masquerade Victoriana
character and recognisable as such.
Warhammer Quest With Great Power

The four teenage mutant ninja turtles (Leonardo, Raphael, Donatello and Michelangelo)
have the same issue. They are iconic and broadly similar across most incarnations
(Leonardo leads and Donatello generally does machines, etc.), but the details vary between RECENT POSTS
versions. And there have been a lot of di erent versions. As of the writing of this blog post,
there are six movies, three cartoons, two anime, a live action series, numerous video  Losing the Tether: First thoughts on Sig
City of Blades
games and toylines, and decades of comic issues by at least four regular publishers. Not to
August 18, 2021
mention other strangeness like the concert tour and the licensed RPG.
 A random generator to make D&D
pantheons more believable
Although I have my own preferences, I don’t want to use any speci c version of the January 24, 2021
characters in my game. I want to give players the exibility to interpret the characters how
 What I accomplished despite 2020
they want, drawing inspiration from their favourite adaptations, and having a strong sense December 16, 2020

of ownership over their versions of the turtles. I felt that sense of ownership over Porthos,  Beyond Dwelfs: Even more mixed race
and it was one of the best things about playing him (also, he’s awesome). options for Dungeons & Dragons
5th edition
March 22, 2020
However, there needs to be a balance between giving the players freedom to interpret
 Uncle Step needs YOU… to check out
their characters and restricting them in order to keep the team cohesive and consistent.
RPG Museum!
More than the Musketeers, the TMNT must have their shared backstory to make sense:
January 31, 2020
four pet turtles were mutated by some ooze, then taught ninjutsu by Splinter, a mutant rat
who raised them like his sons. Their closeness is one of the main selling points of the
franchise, so it’s important to retain it.
RECENT TWEETS

Where this balance lies depends on how long a campaign I am planning. For one-o s, I
Stephen Morffew Retweeted
would probably lean to the side of restriction by pre-generating whole characters. For long
Sidney - Taurus Alpha pilot
open-ended campaigns, I’d probably unleash the players to do whatever they wanted, but @SidneyIcarus
I’ll talk more about that in a later post. I think the biggest issue behind the ttrpg
language and jargon discourse is that we
don't have a good 101 to point people to,
For most campaign lengths, though, the balance is somewhere in the middle. I’ll partially because everything is either on twitter
generate the characters, giving players an idea of their main traits but letting them esh (nebulous), g+ (gone), or the forge (rather
hostile to read and otherwise outdated).
out the details by lling in the blanks. (The Atomic Robo RPG refers to such incomplete
characters as “proto-PCs”. I hope the term catches on.) thread

May 31, 2021

Most of the rest of this post will be me talking through the construction of my TMNT proto-
PCs. If you aren’t interested in all of that, the “completed” proto-PCs are at the end of the Stephen Morffew Retweeted
post, along with a downloadable PDF. Jennifer Kretchmer
@dreamwisp

Here it is, friends. A massive compilation of

Aspects: “They’re heroes in the half-shell, and they’re resources, documents, tools, and more

green”
Characters in The Three Rocketeers have six aspects instead of the usual ve in Fate Core.
These six aspects include a Rocketeer aspect (instead of a High Concept), a Trouble, a
Swordplay aspect and a Family aspect, plus two open aspects.

In a TMNT game, I would convert these into a Ninja Turtle aspect, a Trouble, and a Fighting
Style, with three open aspects. Family is certainly a key part of the TMNT franchise, and I’d
recommend that at least one open aspect re ects it in some way, but it’s not relevant in
the same sense as the Family aspect in The Three Rocketeers, which is more about lineage
and social class. That’s important for a Musketeers-inspired game, but not for a TMNT one.

In creating these aspects, I want to shape the characters’ personalities, roles, and ghting
styles without enforcing a speci c interpretation. That is, the aspects should work for
multiple versions of the characters. Sometimes this is easy, sometimes it’s more
complicated, but I’ve done my best.

Ninja Turtle

The Ninja Turtle aspect gives a high-level sense of the character and how they t into the
team. It’s like a High Concept in every way that counts, but it must refer to the character
being a ninja turtle. Given The Three Rocketeers‘ method of counting relevant aspects to
determine modi ers to dice rolls, it’s important to have a ninja turtle aspect so that it can
be used whenever the characters do something appropriate to being either a ninja or a
turtle (vanish into shadows, acrobatic rooftop races, martial arts showdowns with
menacing villains, blocking weapons with shells, etc.). As in The Three Rocketeers, this aspect
is worth +2 instead of +1 when working out roll modi ers.

Leonardo: Dedicated Leader of the Ninja Turtles

Raphael: A Teenage Rebel Ninja Turtle
Donatello: The Smartest Ninja Turtle In The Room
Michelangelo: I Love Being a Ninja Turtle

Trouble

The Trouble aspect represents a personal aw of the characters, which can complicate
their lives (and generate fate points).

Leonardo: I Will Never Be Good Enough

Raphael: Anger Issues
Donatello: Wants To Fix Everything
Michelangelo: Big Goofball

Fighting Style

Since the turtles don’t all use swords, I’ve renamed the Swordplay aspect as a general
Fighting Style aspect. This can cover their trademark weapons and their favoured
approaches to con ict.

Leonardo: The Sword is the Soul of the Warrior

Raphael: First in the Fray
Donatello: Speak Softly and Carry a Big Stick
Michaelangelo: The Nunchuck Is Quicker Than The Eye

Fighting Stunts: “They’re the world’s most fearsome

ghting team”
Fighting Stunts are made of four elements, just like Swordplay Stunts in The Three
Rocketeers. However, whereas the Swordplay Stunts use the elements Appearance, Edge,
Main Hand, and O Hand, the four elements in a TMNT game are Weapon, Shinobi-jutsu,
Edge, and Teamwork. These re ect the four facets of the group, as warriors, ninjas, heroes,
and brothers.

Weapon

The TMNT are trained warriors, each one specialising in the use of a signature weapon.
Since these weapons are all used in pairs or two-handed, this stunt element replaces both
the Main Hand and O Hand elements from The Three Rocketeers.

Katanas: Weapon:1.
Sais: When you succeed with style on an attack and reduce your damage by 1 shift
to get a boost, you can create a Disarmed situation aspect with a free invocation
instead of a boost.
Bo sta : Gain +1 on your next defend roll when you succeed on defence.
Nunchucks: When you succeed with style on defence, you may deal a 2-shift
physical hit instead of gaining a boost.

Shinobi-jutsu

As ninjas, the turtles are trained not only in battle and stealth, but in a variety of other
shinobi arts that they can apply to combat.

Meditation: When you take time to centre yourself and create an advantage named
Focused, gain +3 instead of +2 when you invoke it in the coming ght.
Intimidation: Gain +1 to create an advantage when threatening others, either
explicitly or implicitly (e.g. spinning your sais).
Redirection: Gain +1 to create an advantage when you use an enemy’s momentum
or mass against it (e.g. using your bo sta to trip enemies).
Misdirection: Gain +1 to create an advantage when confounding your enemies by
moving swiftly and unpredictably (e.g. back ips).

Edge

As in The Three Rocketeers, each character gets an Edge for their innate talents, which
re ect their distinctive personalities.

Patient: Gain +1 to your next attack when you succeed on defence.

Tough: Armour:1.
Clever: Gain +1 to overcome actions that rely on scienti c knowledge.
Vexing: Your opponent does not gain a boost when you tie on a defence action.

Teamwork

The TMNT are, perhaps most importantly of all, brothers. They squabble sometimes, but
they are a solid team and they always have each others’ backs… uh, shells.

Responsible: When one of your brothers in the same zone as you is attacked, gain a
+1 to defend when you interpose yourself to become the target of the attack.
Protective: Gain +1 to attack an enemy who successfully attacked one of your
brothers and caused that brother to take stress or a consequence that is still
marked on their sheet.
Supportive: When you ght shell-to-shell with one or more of your brothers in the
same zone, you can take a -1 penalty to attack rolls to grant them a +1 to all defend
rolls against physical attacks.
Useful: Your brothers gain +3 instead of +2 when using free invocations on any
aspects you create as part of a teamwork action.

Filling the blanks

And that’s everything we need to make the TMNT proto-PCs. At the end of this blog post,
I’ve written out what the proto-PCs look like when they’re all brought together. You can
also download pdf versions, which can be printed and lled out by the players.

To turn these proto-PCs into fully edged player characters, each turtle will also need three
more aspects, and at least one other stunt (like normal stunts in Fate Core, but not
referring to Skills). Players can even choose to buy more stunts out of their refresh, which
has a default value of 3.

Regarding the three open aspects, here are some suggestions to help get players inspired.
This is obviously not complete, and since these are only options for players, some aspects
may refer to speci c versions of the characters.

Leo bears the responsibility so that we don’t have to

There’s nobody better than Raph to ght with
Donatello makes the best stu
Michelangelo always makes me laugh (but don’t tell him I said that)
Leonardo doesn’t know how to cut loose
Raphael thinks he’s so cool (but he’s not)
Donnie is such a know-it-all
Mikey is so immature
I look after my brothers
My brothers keep me grounded
I just want to impress my brothers
Loves to make his brothers laugh
I care what my brothers think of me
A little brother trying to t in
Nobody picks on my brothers but me
Splinter is a wise and patient sensei
Splinter understands what I’m going through
Splinter encourages me to ful l my potential
Splinter is the world’s greatest dad
Splinter is super strict
I dread the day that Splinter isn’t with us anymore
April is always there when we need her
We’re always there when April needs us
It’s fun to hang out with April
Casey Jones is even angrier than I am
Never trust the Foot Clan
The Shredder wants us dead
There is good in Karai
We are the only ones of our kind, and we’ll always be alone
It is better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all
Fight with honour
There is always more to learn
Bad guys need to be taken down
Aspirations of superheroism
Afraid of bugs
Am I a good person?
My pet turtle, Spike, keeps my secrets
I wuv my pet cat, Klunk
All my inventions should look like turtle shells
Pop culture geek
I love pizza!
Playing video games is basically like training, right?
I drive the van
Violence is a last resort
Don’t pick ghts, end them
I wish I could be part of the human world
Cowabunga!

Standing on the shoulders of giant… turtles

Before getting to the proto-PCs, I want to acknowledge the other people who have worked
on TMNT Fate characters before me. Richard Bellingham statted the turtles using FAE on
this post at Google+. Josh Burnett wrote up some Fate Core versions at his blog. Kenneth
Holbert statted the turtles as a team in this post at Google+, using the Fate rules from
Masters of Umdaar. (I mentioned Masters of Umdaar in my previous blog post as a good
alternative system if you weren’t using The Three Rocketeers.)

When working on Fighting Stunts, I reached out on Google+ and got some great tips from
PK Sullivan, the writer of The Three Rocketeers. He went and wrote this blog post about
hacking Swordplay Stunts for other systems, and even reviewed my draft stunts and
suggested improvements. Many thanks to him for his help! Thanks also to Jacob
Zimmerman for a stunt idea I took from this blog.

The pro le pictures were taken from fanart by DeviantArt user samuraiblack. In keeping
with my desire to make my TMNT proto-PCs appropriate for as many di erent
interpretations as possible, I did not want to use artwork that was connected with any
speci c versions of the characters. (There is some amazing fanart out there, check it out.)

And thanks to my friend Louis for just talking about the characters with me. That’s
probably the most helpful of all.

LEONARDO

Aspects

Dedicated Leader of the Ninja

Turtles
I Will Never Be Good Enough
The Sword is the Soul of the
Warrior

Fighting Stunt

Katanas: Weapon:1
Meditation: When you take
time to centre yourself and
create an advantage named
Focused, gain +3 instead of +2
when you invoke it in the
coming ght.
Patient: Gain +1 to your next
attack when you succeed on
defence.
Responsible: When one of your brothers in the same zone as you is attacked, gain a
+1 to defend when you interpose yourself to become the target of the attack.

RAPHAEL

Aspects

A Teenage Rebel Ninja Turtle

Anger Issues
First in the Fray

Fighting Stunt

Sais: When you succeed with

style on an attack and reduce
your damage by 1 shift to get a
boost, you can create a
Disarmed situation aspect with a
free invocation instead of a
boost.
Intimidation: Gain +1 to create
an advantage when threatening
others, either explicitly or
implicitly (e.g. spinning your
sais).
Tough: Armour:1.
Protective: Gain +1 to attack an enemy who successfully attacked one of your
brothers and caused that brother to take stress or a consequence that is still
marked on their sheet.

DONATELLO

Aspects

The Smartest Ninja Turtle In The

Room
Wants To Fix Everything
Speak Softly and Carry a Big
Stick

Fighting Stunt

Bo sta : Gain +1 on your next

defend roll when you succeed
on defence.
Redirection: Gain +1 to create
an advantage when you use an
enemy’s momentum or mass
against it (e.g. using your bo to
trip enemies).
Clever: Gain +1 to overcome
actions that rely on scienti c knowledge.
Supportive: When you ght shell-to-shell with one or more of your brothers in the
same zone, you can take a -1 penalty to attack rolls to grant them a +1 to all defend
rolls against physical attacks.

MICHELANGELO

Aspects

I Love Being a Ninja Turtle

Big Goofball
The Nunchuck Is Quicker Than
The Eye

Fighting Stunt

Nunchucks: When you succeed

with style on defence, you may
deal a 2-shift physical hit instead
of gaining a boost.
Misdirection: Gain +1 to create
advantages when confounding
your enemies by moving swiftly
and unpredictably (e.g.
back ips).
Vexing: Your opponent does not
gain a boost when you tie on a defence action.
Useful: Your brothers gain +3 instead of +2 when using free invocations on any
aspects you create as part of a teamwork action.

PDF versions of these proto-PCs are available here:

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles proto-PCs for The Three Rocketeers

Next time: Running a TMNT one-shot

Images used in this blog post were created by samuraiblack and obtained from DeviantArt. They are:

Four Ninjas and a Reporter

Leo

Raph

Donny

Mikey

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JACOB ZIMMERMAN
August 25, 2016 / 8:02 pm

Glad I could help

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