KINTSUGI

KINTSUGI

You're mutant. You're ninja. You love pizza. Nothing gets through this life unscratched.

Kintsugi is the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, so the cracks become part of the piece instead of something to hide. This game borrows that idea for a #1pRPGjam 2026 entry (theme: Fractured), and turns it into a one-page RPG for 1 GM + 2 to 5 players.

Everyone follows a Code nobody fully understands, in a sewer, led by a sensei who happens to be a rat. You start with one thing written down: your Bond to the Code, drawn as a single crack on a paper plate (or a drawn circle, if you're out of plates). Everything else about who your character is gets written in as you play.

Roll 2d6 when the outcome is actually uncertain. The higher die is how well it goes. The lower die is what it costs you, no choosing, that's just the deal. Roll low enough and the crack forks instead of extending, and now there are two live wounds where there was one.

There's no health bar and there's no finish line. The vessel just gets more itself the longer you play, until it stops looking like a character sheet and starts looking like a fracture pattern you can actually read. If you're playing on a real paper plate, you can break it along the lines you drew and glue it back together afterward. Gold pen optional, purely for the theatrics.

Comes with a quick job generator and some GM prompts, mostly so nobody has to stare at a blank page trying to figure out what to press first.