Tenra Bansho Zero

Tenra Bansho Zero is a Japanese TTRPG of samurai, ninja, cyborgs, insect symbiotes and soul-powered mecha, played like a kabuki drama. It suits groups that want loud, emotional, anime-scale stories finished in one long session or a short arc, and players who enjoy rewarding each other for big scenes and bold lines. Characters can roll 20 or 30 dice in a climax, and a karma track stops them from chasing power forever.

It is a poor fit for groups that want a long weekly campaign with steady advancement, a quick read, or a carefully balanced combat game. The English edition runs close to 700 pages, full character creation is slow, and the Aiki, Kiai and Karma economy takes a session or two to click. Most first-time groups start with the sample characters.

What the game is

Tenra Bansho Zero ("Everything in Heaven and Earth") was created by Japanese artist and designer Junichi Inoue, who calls its world "Hyper Asian" fantasy. English sources credit the Japanese studio F.E.A.R. (Far East Amusement Research) alongside him. The English edition, Tenra Bansho Zero: Heaven and Earth Edition, was translated by Andy Kitkowski and published by Kotodama Heavy Industries, the same small press that brought Ryuutama to English.

The setting is Tenra, a planet settled by humans in the far future and now locked in endless war. Its culture looks like Japan's Warring States period, but the armies field Armour (giant mecha), cybernetic Kijin, artificial Kugutsu, Taoist sorcerers and monks with enlightened powers. Much of that technology runs on heart engines, built from the hearts of the native Oni, and the prejudice that justifies that trade is one of the setting's main sources of conflict.

Players are a GM plus a group of protagonists. A session is staged like a play: a Zero Act that introduces each character, a run of Acts made of Scenes, and Intermissions between Acts where players settle their resources and reshape their characters' Fates.

Publication history and editions

• Tenra Bansho (1996/1997): the original game came out in Japan from Hobby Japan at the end of 1996, according to the TRPG.NET Tenra Bansho page. Many English sources date it to 1997. It was Inoue's debut as a game designer.
• Tenra Bansho Zero (2000): after the line moved to Enterbrain, a revised second edition appeared in summer 2000. "Zero" signals a rebuild of the rules from scratch.
• Heaven and Earth Edition (2013): the English translation funded on Kickstarter from August 17 to September 16, 2012, raising $129,640 from 1,704 backers against a $9,000 goal. The PDF went on sale on DriveThruRPG on February 25, 2013. It folds the Japanese core book, its supplement and several mail-order mini-supplements into one set, with errata and designer suggestions, and its layout is by Luke Crane (Burning Wheel, Mouse Guard).

There is no newer English edition. The 2013 PDF is still the current version, and its files were last updated the day before release.

What you need to play

The game comes as two books. The full-color Setting book covers the world, its factions and peoples, and includes manga story pages. The black-and-white Rules and Play book holds character creation, the rules, GM advice and sample characters. Together they run 696 pages in the DriveThruRPG PDF ($12), which also includes a text-only indexed version of both books for easier reference and printing. The same files are sold on itch.io.

Print copies came as a Consumer Edition with slipcase and a Limited Edition hardback. New print stock is now hard to find (one US retailer lists the set at $50 and sold out as of November 2026), so most new players will buy the PDF. You also need a large pile of d6s and plenty of tokens or chits for Aiki and Kiai. One GM running it at conventions reports needing more than a hundred Kiai chits.

Scenarios and support

The book includes sample characters with ready-made Zero Act scenes. Official short scenarios include Tragedy in the Kose Art District, sold for $1.75, and community GMs have shared scenarios such as Lotus Blossom's Bridal Path and Four From Dragonscale. The official site, tenra-rpg.com, hosts free character sheets, play aids and the Emotion Matrix handout, though it has been marked "under reconstruction" for years. There is no active line of new English releases.

Core rules

To attempt something, you roll a number of d6 equal to the relevant attribute (Body, Agility, Senses and so on). Each die that rolls equal to or under your skill rating is a success, and harder tasks need more successes. Normal humans have attributes of 1 to 3, while protagonists and important NPCs start at 4 and climb from there.

Combat uses opposed rolls. The winner of an exchange deals damage, so a defender who wins a melee exchange effectively counterattacks. Initiative matters little, fights tend to last only a few rounds, and wounds grant bonus dice, because heroes and villains fight harder once they are bloodied. Movement is the one area measured in exact meters per round, which some reviewers say can be exploited by long-range flying builds.

Characters and archetypes

Character creation works at three levels. The simplest is to pick one of the book's sample characters and adjust it. The second is to combine archetypes, such as Samurai with Mercenary, or a former Armour Rider who lost their mecha. The third is a full point build from scratch, which offers the most freedom and takes the longest.

The archetypes carry most of the setting. Samurai undergo a painful transformation into near-unstoppable warriors. Kijin replace body parts with cybernetics that eat at the soul. Kugutsu are artificial people, usually sold to warlords as prized possessions. Annelidists host insect colonies that heal others and feed on their host's body. Onmyouji summon shikigami from paper talismans, monks seek enlightenment, Shinobi learn Dark Arts, and Armour Riders pilot mecha that demand an innocent pilot. Oni player characters and half-human mixes are available too.

Signature mechanics

Aiki: fan mail at the table

Anyone at the table, players included, can hand Aiki tokens to a player who does something entertaining, plays to their Fates or delivers a great line. Players can also spend Aiki to bring a character into a scene, or to pay another player to take a new Fate or a different Emotion Matrix result. Aiki is the only way into the game's power economy, so the way to get stronger is to entertain the group.

Fates and Kiai

Each character has Fates, such as a vow not to kill, love for a sibling, or a sworn enemy. During Intermissions, players convert Aiki into Kiai through their Fates. Kiai is the power currency: it buys bonus dice, extra successes, extra actions and other effects. Dice pools have no cap, so a well-built character spending Kiai in the finale can roll 20 or 30 dice.

Karma and the 108 limit

Spending Kiai and taking extra abilities at creation both add Karma, which measures a character's attachment to the world. If Karma is over 108 when a session ends, the character becomes an Asura, an unplayable NPC consumed by their own desires. Players lower Karma by giving up or reworking Fates in Intermissions. A character with fewer abilities starts with lower Karma and can afford to spend more Kiai. This turns "how much do I want this?" into an accounting choice, and resolving a Fate in the fiction becomes the price of a big moment.

The Emotion Matrix

When a character meets a major NPC, the player rolls on the Emotion Matrix to set the starting relationship, anything from rivalry to love. Kiai or Aiki can shift a bad result. Instead of spending time feeling out every new character, the group starts with a strong relationship hook, which can turn a planned villain into a love interest.

What play feels like

A typical session opens with Zero Act vignettes, one per protagonist, that set up their Destinies and the NPCs who will return later. Scenes then alternate between roleplay, where players push their Fates and dice rarely hit the table, and set-piece fights with huge dice pools. Between Acts, the table stops for Intermission bookkeeping: converting Aiki, managing Karma and adjusting Fates.

The tone is melodrama at full volume. Expect tragic backstories, oaths, betrayals and a final duel where lightning strikes as two blades meet. Because players can steer scenes and relationships, plotted adventures with branching paths tend to fall apart. A simple core plot that leaves room for the characters works better.

Running the game

The GM's main jobs are building a simple scenario around the characters' Fates, playing NPCs and villains strong enough to face Kiai-boosted heroes, and keeping Aiki flowing. GMs who have run it recommend the sample characters for first games, a training fight early in the session so players learn the rules, and reusing Zero Act NPCs in the climax. Complex characters such as the shikigami-summoning Onmyouji are best left to players who already know the rules.

The rules are scattered across a long book, so print a summary and expect to look things up. Players with system experience can build much stronger characters than newcomers, and the GM may need to adjust villains or hand newer players extra Kiai.

Campaign fit

The game treats a full story (beginning, middle and end) as something to finish in one long session, or two or three at most. It suits irregular groups and convention tables well. You can bring characters back for another tale, but the book offers no traditional long-campaign structure, and every new story needs new villains and, often, new characters.

Reception and awards

The English edition was nominated for the 2014 ENnie Award for Best Production Values (it did not win). On DriveThruRPG it holds a 4.8 average from 76 ratings, with 7 written reviews and a Mithral best-seller badge as of November 1, 2026, and the publisher marks it as human-created without AI.

Reviews praise the art, the dice pool, the drama economy and how well the game produces anime-style climaxes. Mythcreants (2015) called it fun and bizarre and recommended it for groups with irregular schedules, while flagging Karma bookkeeping, uneven character power and a movement exploit. Deeper in the Game (2013) praised how Fates, the Emotion Matrix and Aiki give players director-style control. The Burn After Running blog, which runs it at conventions, called it a "white whale" of gaming: admired for years, but hard to get to the table.

Where it is strongest

• Big emotional one-shots where every character gets a spotlight and a climax.
• Rewarding players for entertaining each other, with real mechanical weight behind the reward.
• A setting that mixes samurai drama, body horror and mecha in a way few Western games attempt.
• Strong art and production, including manga pages that teach the rules.
• A cheap PDF for the amount of material.

Where it can frustrate groups

• Close to 700 pages, with rules spread across the book.
• Full character creation is slow and math-heavy.
• Karma and Fate accounting can feel like bookkeeping, and burning a Fate can create awkward story turns.
• Characters with similar Karma costs can differ a lot in power.
• Print copies are hard to find new, and there is no ongoing English line.

Content and safety notes

The setting includes slavery (Kugutsu are bought and sold), genocide for industrial fuel (Oni hearts), body horror (Annelidists, cybernetics that erode the soul), child mecha pilots and war atrocities. The art includes frequent fanservice, and one default skill, Pillow Arts, covers seduction alongside reading relationships, which some reviewers found awkward next to child archetypes. Talk through lines and veils before play.

Best starting path

1. Buy the PDF from DriveThruRPG and read the Rules and Play book first, using the manga explanations.
2. Download the character sheets and Emotion Matrix from tenra-rpg.com.
3. Run a short published scenario such as Tragedy in the Kose Art District with the sample characters.
4. Gather plenty of d6s and Aiki and Kiai tokens, and plan a single long session.
5. Try archetype-combination characters once the table knows the Karma economy.

For more on how the game rewards social play, see our article on how designers create social mechanics in TTRPGs, and browse other anime and JRPG-inspired TTRPGs.

Research notes

Last checked November 1, 2026.

• DriveThruRPG: Tenra Bansho Zero: Heaven and Earth Edition (price, page count, release date, ratings, file list, credits).
• Kotodama Heavy Industries on itch.io (contents, book structure, layout credit, rules overview).
• Kickstarter campaign (funding dates and totals).
• Official Tenra Bansho Zero site and its buying guide (print editions, resources).
• TRPG.NET: Tenra Bansho (Japanese publication history) and Kyoto Seika University faculty profile of Junichi Inoue.
• 2014 ENnie Awards nominees and winners.
• Mythcreants: Tenra Bansho Zero Is Fun and Bizarre (December 13, 2015).
• Deeper in the Game: Tenra Bansho Zero Design Tricks (November 12, 2013).
• Burn After Running: Tenra Bansho Zero One-Shots (May 1, 2018).
• Caffeineforge: Tenra Bansho Zero, a Kickstarter Success (March 29, 2013).