Naruto ITP



""That's how you become powerful...but not strong. [He] didn't learn that and neither do you. You take the strength of others then use it to exhaustion. I...this village...the shinobi in it. We borrow the strength of our friends and family, and we make it our own!""

- Motogin Sen, 3rd Hokage of Konohagakure

""Shame on you old man…but your ideal is just as flawed. It only works if they're afraid of something. People don’t want to work together, it’s their nature to want to stand alone, and we’re just like that. Your pathetic little speech about friendship and companionship…it’s all a lie you tell yourself so you can feel better when all your friends are actually dead and gone.”"

- Hazuma Kyo, Amekage of Amegakure, leader of Shoku

Naruto in the Playground is a Freeform Play By Post Game hosted on the Giant in the Playground forums. It began as a "sister game" of sorts when certain Bleach in the Playground Freeform Play By Post (now Bleach ITP Classic) players decided to make a Naruto version of the freeform game they were already in. Originally, the game was set in the Village Hidden in the Leaves, but a growing player base and a desire to expand the setting has caused the game to look beyond the borders of Konoha. Although the game is set in the world of Naruto, there are differences between the game's setting and the setting of the original Manga, such as the lack of canon characters (Naruto himself, for example, does not exist in the game anywhere), different histories, and adjusted geopolitical borders and natures of countries.

The game itself is divided into multiple threads as necessary: a Primary thread and Episode threads. The Primary thread has always been set in Konohagakure itself, and almost every player has at least one character that hangs out in the Hidden Leaf Village. The Episode threads, meanwhile, have taken place in a variety of locations, from a customized version of the Hidden Rain Village to the original Land of Cedars, and tend to have a more limited number of players.

At the moment, Naruto ITP has an Out of Character thread for discussing the game, characters, and general silliness; a Character Registry thread for keeping track of all the myriad characters; a primary Role Playing threadwhere most of the game goes on; and its own Wiki.

The Story So Far:
The story opens on Konoha with various ninja going about their day to day business and the Hokage assigning new genin teams to jounin and, in one case, to a chuunin. These teams met for the very first time and, in some cases, went through initiation ceremonies with their instructors to see if they were truly worthy of being shinobi. Meanwhile, a Konoha missing-nin, Nobu Goro, sneaked into the village to reclaim important lab specimens for later study before a genin named Takeshi and a chuunin went to investigate the lab and were captured. About this same time, the Land of Rain annexed the neighboring country of the Land of Rivers by means of the machinations of one Hazuma Kyo.]]

Back at Konoha, the two prisoners escaped and retrieved help to ferret out the missing-nin only to have the lab collapsed around them. The missing-nin escaped, not without retribution from a chuunin team returning from a mission. Another unknown missing-nin, Kyo in disguise, staged a brutal attack against the Land of Grass before disappearing back into the Land of Rains at about the same time an 'Amekage' was named. Soon there after, the Seven Swordsmen of the Mist were contracted to deal with a dangerous missing-nin by name of Yoshi and after a hard-fought battle were able to claim their prize. In the Land of Grass, Kyo made overtures to the elder of the country for alliance before the Sandaime Hokage arrived to stymie his efforts. Upon his return to Konoha, the announcement was made about the beginning of the Chuunin Exams with various genin teams stepping up to try and become chuunin.]]

Several foreign ninja, some affiliated with villages but some not, then began to filter into the village for the exams for their own purposes, even as the villainous Shoku began to craft their own designs against Konohagakure. Among these actions were missing-nin being hired, tunnels dug underneath the protective barrier around the village, and other little actions such as planting infiltrators. As the Exams began, new conspiracies were revealed as well, especially amongst a clan of summoners who had sent one of their daughters to learn more about the shinobi world. As the first exams ended and the second began, dire news arrived about the assassination of the Sandaime Raikage and a coup within Kumogakure by a warlike faction. But before the Sandaime Hokage could respond, Hazuma Kyo commenced his assault on Konoha itself...


 * Big Bad — Innis Cabal, if only in the sense that he plays a good number of the major villains (and the current Big Bad).
 * A better example of a Big Bad would be Callos de Terran. Biography: evil. Interests: plotting genocide. Occupation: harvesting kidneys.
 * Fan Art — The game has a number of artists, the most prominent among them Kasanip, but other artists include Moon Wolf, Frozen Feet, and Maximum Zersk. Most of the art is character portraits.
 * Game Master — Partly averted. Callos de Terran is the closest thing the game has to a Game Master; he gives the greenlight to approved character ideas and enforces general plot guidelines, but his Number Two Innis Cabal plays and plots most of the major villains, and players are highly encouraged to provide input.
 * Memetic Mutation — MOMO HIJACK! Also, Momo does not like [non chocolate cupcakes.]
 * Any new player who wants to join Naruto ITP must first have their kidneys removed by Callos. No exceptions, no mercy, no escape.


 * Backstory — Depends on the character's creator. Some characters have lengthy backstories describing who they are and where they came from; others don't.
 * Big Bad - Hazuma Kyo, and several have claimed he's crossed over into the Manipulative Bastard catagory
 * BFS — At least three characters are known to swing around large swords; Hoshiko (Daisuijiken), Shiro (Kusanagi), and Itsuki (Seven Section Cross Blade.)
 * Cool Mask - ANBU, The Shoku
 * Cool Sword — Pretty much any named character who wields a sword, except for maybe two.
 * Hoshiko's Daisuijiken is hollow in order hold water, which she uses for her Suiton techniques.
 * Shiro's Kusanagi is etched with tiny seals and channels raw chakra or wind chakra easily, and is a six foot long version of a Chinese Jian.
 * Ryoma's Elder Sword drains the wielder of chakra and brain functions, unless he manages to "tame" the blade; those who manage to do so are able to draw upon the absorbed chakra and brain knowledge stored in the sword. It's also a Western style sword that, despite being battered and rusty, still retains such cutting power that it's deemed worthy to be the weapon of one of the Seven Swordsmen.
 * Kanaye's Doryuuken, a blade made of solid rock which can be modified on the fly into a hammer, a spear, or whatever Kanaye wants.
 * Itsuki's Seven Section Cross Blade, King of Mountains and Rivers is an 8 foot long sword made up of lots of smaller swords and chains; as a result, it is both a BFS and a Blade Whip.
 * Hazuma Kyo's sword is essentially a bladed tuning fork, allowing him to utilize chakra to create powerful sound blasts from the blade itself. The blade also acts like a sword breaker.
 * Elemental Powers — Given that the Naruto ITP setting uses the same chakra system of magic that Naruto does, this should be of little surprise.
 * The Sandaime Hokage and Hazuma Kyo subscribe to this trope particularly hard. Because each, through their own methods, use each of the primary elements of the chakra system.
 * Freudian Excuse — Some of the villainous characters, such as Kyo and Urama.
 * In this troper's opinion, Kyo's 'excuse' doesn't cover most of the things he's done.
 * That's certainly true, but the gist of the Freudian Excuse trope is that Kyo's traumatizing past explains why he's evil, not that his evil is justified.
 * It's this troper's opinion that this trope probably applies to most of the 'good guys' and the swordsmen - really probably all of the villains.
 * Honor Among Thieves - Arguably Yori, former Hidden Waterfall mercenary.
 * May also apply to the Seven Swordsmen; they may be missing nin and wanted people, but they're a very tight knit group and seem to be much better people than most other missing nin.
 * Rape, Pillage and Burn - The Shoku attack on Konoha.
 * Rape, Pillage and Burn - The Shoku attack on Konoha.