Ronin RPG Review - Honor and Chaos

Welcome to the eternal twilight. Death and horror can be found here in abundance, and you won't have to look far. But there's something different about you. The darkness doesn't like you, or what you represent. A small speck of light. A shred of honor. You won't last long. They never do.

The Ronin tabletop RPG by Slightly Reckless Games is set on the fictional island of Kage No Shima, in a feudal Japanese setting. The world is under a never-ending eclipse, and the terrors of the night, drawn from myths and legends, have come to take hold. Ronin uses the Mork Borg third-party license and was a successful Kickstarter back in 2023. SRG's latest Kickstarter, Rōnin: Densetsu, has just funded successfully, adding new accessories and supplements to the game, and for those that missed it, the pledge manager is planned to open on June 13.

Honor In The Darkness

Ronin uses the Mork Borg third-party license for its rules, which means that the rules for playing are similar, so anyone who's played Mork Borg will pick this up quickly. However, it is also its own entire game, so anyone who hasn't played Mork Borg will still find everything they need here to play. The Ronin rulebook is also as dark and beautifully chaotic as Mork Borg. A never-ending eclipse has darkened the world, bringing madness and terrors with it, and the chaos of the book layout reflects that.

This chaotic layout doesn't reflect the efficiency of how it gets the information across, quite the opposite. The punchy digest-sized Ronin hardcover (or 128-page PDF if you're digitally inclined) delivers the background lore of the setting, details the island of Kage No Shima and its locations, and the main factions that inhabit it, in its punchy first few pages.

Way Of The Sword

The Ronin rules are as light as the background, even for a rules-lite system. There's a single page on tests, essentially just a paragraph saying roll a D20 and add your stat vs the difficulty rating. A couple of pages cover combat, which is also kept super punchy, with the players making a roll for defense when they're attacked, no roll from the GM required. On their turn, there are a couple of attack options, a once-per-combat parry option, and details for fumbles and critical hits.

This simplicity transfers across to enemy details, which has stats for their attacks, armor/hit points, and any special rules they have, and to player characters, who are made up of 5 stats, swiftness, spirit, vigor, resilience and honor, along with their hit points, special rules and equipment.

Most of the stats are used for tests, but the honor stat plays a huge part in Ronin, beyond working out how others interact with you. If your character dies with less than 10 honor, you get a negative modifier to your next character's stats, and with honor 10 or more, a positive modifier. If you commit a dishonorable act, you can commit seppuku, or ritual suicide, by passing a spirit and then a resilience test to regain some honor.

If your character dies, all is not lost, you get 1 chance to win against a powerful demon, being resurrected in success, or dying as normal in defeat. The quickness of character creation should be an indication of how long your characters should expected to survive, and if it's not that obvious, the very first page of the rules is a woe table, where each day, the GM randomly determines a woe that affects the land, and there's only ever 7 rolls.

The Chosen Path

Ronin has 10 different character classes, some drawn from history, others from popular culture. Character creation, and the options including equipment, take up a full quarter of the rulebook, and is by far the lengthiest section. The character class options are:

• Forgotten Ronin - The masterless samurai from history
• Eurdite Samurai - A scholarly samurai
• Drunken Monk - A zen master of the drunken kung-fu style
• Corrupted Shinobi - The elite warriors of the night, the ninja
• Onmyoji - Powerful magic users who harness the spirits
• Bakuto - Gambling tricksters
• Yamabushi - Spiritual hermit monks
• Wild Dancer - A katana and revolver-wielding warrior
• Reckless Sumo - The huge and powerful wrestling martial artists
• Sword Saint - A samurai master duelist

Each character class has some modifications to the 4 stats, special abilities that can be chosen or randomly determined, and starting equipment. You can also opt to not use a class and roll up a character yourself using a slightly different set of rules.

Sometimes Heroes Fight Alone

The Ronin core rulebook ends with details of some common types of enemies and the Blood Rains over the Crimson Jungle introductory adventure, but also currently available are two short Zines. The first, Frozen Tears of the Lady of the Snow, is another adventure for Ronin, and Tales of the Masterless, which contains tables and details for running a game of Ronin solo.

As explained above, because combat (and tests in general) are so simple and don't require rolls from the GM, Ronin plays extremely well solo, and the Tales of the Masterless zine simply gives you the tools to create scenarios quickly. It also provides the tools for the GM to roll up a scenario or dungeon effortlessly to keep the game flowing, and is a fantastic little supplement for both uses.

Ronin PG Final Thoughts?

Ronin is a rules-lite, incredibly thematic, samurai-themed apocalyptic RPG. Players should go into this not getting too attached to their characters, but the speed of character creation and play offset the length of character use. The honor system, resurrection, and subsequent character creation rules play very well into the system, and despite its small size, the book is full of details. It's gloriously chaotic, brutal, and a lot of fun.

Because of how lite the system is, it might not be ideal for first-time GMs introducing first-time players to roleplaying. That's not to say it can't be done, and fans of the setting, or related anime, manga, and video games, will make it work with knowledge of the background. The rules-lite nature does make running games very easy (especially if combined with Tales of the Masterless), but some knowledge of roleplaying games and feudal Japan will make it a lot more enjoyable for your players.

The copy of Ronin used to produce this review was provided by Slightly Reckless Games.