You are a jujutsu sorcerer in modern Tokyo. Human fear becomes curses, official reports can be wrong, and every technique has rules that someone can exploit. Your job is to understand the situation, choose what you are willing to risk, and live with what follows.
Choose your start
Cursed Tokyo has four game starts, each built for a different way into the same campaign:
- First Assignment — play Ren Akiyama, a ready-made original sorcerer, and learn the system through an immediate field mission.
- Transfer Student — create an original sorcerer who already has jujutsu training and enter Tokyo Jujutsu High through evaluation, social friction, and field responsibility.
- Unregistered Sorcerer — create an original outsider who survived curses before the official jujutsu system found them, then decide how to respond when that system arrives.
- Play a Canon Character — choose Yuji, Megumi, Nobara, Maki, Toge, Panda, Nanami, or Gojo. Their project sheets define the starting capabilities, relationships, and knowledge; their decisions belong to you. Nanami and especially Gojo are advanced choices because their competence changes what kinds of problems remain challenging.
You can start playing if you know six things.
- Say what you do in the fiction. Do not start by searching for a button on your sheet. Describe the action, method, and goal.
- Roll only when the outcome is uncertain and failure matters. The core roll is 2d6 + one Approach vs a Target.
- Your Approach comes from how you act. Force is direct power, Control is precision, Insight is reading the situation, and Presence is nerve or influence.
- Cursed Energy pays for meaningful jujutsu. It is a reserve, not a fee for every punch, dodge, or flourish.
- Strain and Conditions are different. Strain is overextension. Conditions are concrete injuries or lasting complications.
- Techniques have limits. Creative use is encouraged, but a technique does only what its established rule allows.
The mission loop
Most sessions move through the same rhythm:
- A problem appears. You receive a mission, discover a disturbance, or notice something ordinary people cannot.
- You investigate. Learn what changed, who is at risk, where cursed energy gathers, and which assumptions may be wrong. Useful clues are not automatically hidden behind rolls.
- You choose a method. Fight, lure, seal, evacuate, retreat, call for support, negotiate, prepare a countermeasure, or exploit a rule.
- You resolve meaningful uncertainty. When failure would change the situation, roll.
- You carry the result forward. Spent Cursed Energy, Strain, Conditions, discoveries, relationships, and mission fallout can persist after the scene.
One example
In @Missing file, @Missing file reaches an empty maintenance platform where several route markers seem to contradict one another. He does not attack the signs or immediately use his technique. He studies the layout, dust, and access points to decide whether the station itself is misleading him.
The action uses Insight against Target 9. The immediate stake is whether Ren recognizes the contradiction before moving deeper into a bad route. He rolls 7 on the dice + Insight 2 = 9. He meets the Target, so he gets the intended result: enough evidence to know the directions cannot all describe the same physical route. That information changes his next choice.
The important part is not the arithmetic. Ren described a method, the risk was clear, and the result changed what he could safely do next.
You control your sorcerer
You decide your character's actions, priorities, and voice. The world can pressure you, injure you, mislead you, or make your choices costly, but it does not decide what your character thinks or chooses. Your sheet records the state that should persist: Approaches, Cursed Energy, Strain, Conditions, technique, abilities, equipment, affiliations, and relationships.
