How to Create a Studio Ghibli D&D One-Shot

Ready to design the Studio Ghibli-D&D mashup of your dreams? Check out this video to learn how you can incorporate elements from movies like Spirited Away, Ponyo, and Howl’s Moving Castle into your next Dungeons & Dragons campaign. Borrowing themes and ideas from the pop culture you already love can be a great starting point for creating your own stories.

You can watch the video above, or keep reading for a full transcript. Hopefully this inspires you to build your own Ghibli-inspired creation!

What Makes a Studio Ghibli Movie?

There’s no feeling quite like the one you get while watching a Studio Ghibli film. From the opening seconds, they manage to create feelings of comfort and wonder. This is thanks to the beautiful visuals and heart-warming music, immediately evoking some kind of contemplative peacefulness. 

While everything from Studio Ghibli seems to be perfectly suited for a game of D&D, not much of it is translatable to the medium of a TTRPG. So that’s my goal for the day: to look at what elements and tricks Miyazaki consistently uses across his movies so that I can make a Studio Ghibli one-shot. And hopefully you can use it to create your own.

Even Miyazaki Borrows Ideas Sometimes

When I’m creating a one-shot, that desire usually comes from a really random thought I had or some pre-existing media that I want to explore. I’ve done a Magical Wild West one-shot and even a Ratatouille/ Dark Souls one-shot. If you’d like to play through one of those adventures, feel free to join us for a D&D session.

Once I have the weird theme down, the story will usually just pop into my head. But since this time we’re working backwards, we have to look at a couple of example Studio Ghibli movies in order to create our story. I spent literal hours trying to deconstruct the Studio Ghibli movies to see if there is some common story thread across all of them, but NO. Maybe it’s there, but I am not that smart.

Do you know what Miyazaki’s main story inspiration is? Existing media. Out of the 22 Studio Ghibli movies, at least half of them are based on other works. HE IS A HACK. He borrows a lot of his ideas from older folk tales and stories. For example, Ponyo is just The Little Mermaid!

Wait—before you go writing that hate comment, please know that I’m a huge Miyazaki fan. While he does adapt some of his films from other works, that doesn’t detract from the amazingly creative work he and his team does. They do a phenomenal job of translating the previous media into animation and they always bring in elements that are uniquely Studio Ghibli.

Use Ghibli-Inspired Story Elements

Just like Miyazaki does, we can use plot points and themes from pre-existing media as a shortcut to create our story. This is just for a game, being derivative isn't bad. So, how do we determine which piece of media to borrow from? For some reason, in my sleep-addled state, the movie I chose to work with is E.T. Now I don't particularly like E.T. In fact, I've never seen it and have no desire to.

But the vague plot of “alien gets stranded on Earth, befriends humans, shenanigans ensue, and then alien goes back home” intrigues me. I think that having a loose understanding of the plot is helpful in this case. It allows for us to modify the story into something that is more worthy of Studio Ghibli.

While the plots of Studio Ghibli movies differ drastically, there are some commonalities for most of them. To help you develop your one-shot, you can use pick and choose what you like from this list of Studio Ghibli elements: 

• Many of his films are coming of age stories, focusing on a young protagonist who must go on an adventure in a fantasy world. 

• And often, the worlds are unexplained. Not in a lazy or haphazard way, but so that the tone and atmosphere can come to the forefront. By removing explanations for every occurrence in his movies, Miyazaki creates a feeling of mystery, which enhances how fantastical everything feels.

• The goals are often simple. In Howl’s moving castle it was for Sophie to turn back into her young self, in Spirited Away it was for Chihiro to return back home with her parents, and for Ponyo it was to turn into a human.

• Oftentimes the conflicts in the movies are not directly from an antagonist. Instead, they come from intangible forces like nature, self-doubt, or even war.

• When there is an antagonist, they might end up joining the heroes on their adventure.

• There are also a few recurring themes like shintoism, anti-war messaging, and environmentalism.

These are all things that mean a lot to Miyazaki. So here feel free to incorporate what you feel passionately about, so long as you think that your players would be comfortable with the topics you want to tackle. You don't need your plot to be overly complex.

Prep Your One-Shot’s Plot

With all of this information, my one-shot is starting to take shape. I know I loosely want to take the plot to E.T. and I’m intrigued with themes of Shinto, so I think I’ll make my stand in for E.T. be some sort of Kami. So now, I do one of my favorite parts of D&D … research.

My big stack of books is completely unnecessary, but I love doing research … and wasting money. This can also take the form of you searching keywords on the internet. The whole point of this is to just get more inspiration and flesh out what the specifics of your story could be. This might not even be necessary for you, but since I want to include Shinto themes, which are from a culture that I am not well versed in, I want to be sure that I’m properly representing the religion. So, with my research done, my loose story begins like this:

We start with a little flashback. There is this 104 year old woman who is telling a group of kids (our protagonists) about the magic surrounding their little town. Every 100 years, the old Torii gate outside of town opens up to the spirit world, allowing them to come out and visit Earth for a sort of migration period to a different town. She says she saw this herself 99 years ago, but everyone believes the old woman is just doing some classic rambling.

From here we flash forward one year into the future. The gate is supposed to open that night and the kids (hopefully) want to go see it. Once there, they see an amazing assortment of Kami come out of the gate, heading out into the world. Once it looks like the event is over, one last Kami emerges, looking scared and alone.

This Kami would have the ability to cause plant life to flourish or wither away. But because it is so young, it doesn’t have strong control over its powers. Perhaps it naturally leans into its destructive tendencies at the start of this one-shot. I took inspiration from the Yokai Amabie, so I guess I’ll continue the plagiarism and have my Kami look like a weird baby duck. And basically, the rest of the story is them trying to return this Kami to its kind.

Is it original? No. is is good enough? Yeah sure, as long as the players are having fun.

So, now that we have our story, we can move onto the setting. 

Create Your Ghibli-Style Setting

Perhaps as you were coming up with the plot, you already had an idea of where you’d like your one-shot to take place. If so, awesome just go with that. But if you are having some trouble it might be helpful to keep in mind a few things since the location and time period can enhance your story. And some settings can ruin your story. It would be pretty hard to have a classic Miyazaki romp in Victorian England since most kids were doing grueling work for hours on end. 

Just like their stories, Studio Ghibli is very diverse in their settings. It has no unifying location or time period. Howl’s moving castle is set somewhere in Europe in potentially the 1900s, Spirited away starts in modern Japan but then goes to a spirit realm reminiscent of Taiwan, and Ponyo takes place in a modern seaside town in Japan. 

This means that for your one-shot, the setting can be anywhere, which can be pretty overwhelming. But how does Miyazaki choose a setting? A lot of Miyazaki’s inspirations come from places that he has traveled to. So to get the proper inspiration for this one shot, I'm doing the same. I'm traveling to Venice…

Hahaha no, I'm just kidding, I'm a poor college student who spent the last of my money on these books. So then, how do we find a setting? I am so sorry, all my tips just boil down to “google it,” but hey, it still works in giving us inspiration.

After my quick google session, and a walk or two, I’ve decided that I want my location to be in modern day Shirakawa-go, Japan in the winter time. I really wanted a winter aesthetic since no Studio Ghibli movie has had that. Also it is currently over 100 degrees here so I am in desperate need of some snow, even if it is only in my imagination. Cool, now that we have our story and setting, time for the really fun part.

Psst…want to join us for a game? You can do that here:

Create Action Scenes

One of my favorite features of Studio Ghibli movies is how few classic action scenes they include. Instead, they manage to turn what would typically be mundane tasks into nerve-racking, epic feats. And I want to replicate this.

That’s not to say that there are no action scenes with the characters, because there are plenty of amazing set pieces. But notice that these are still not traditional combat like we would normally find in D&D. This is because the protagonists in Studio Ghibli movies are not very impressive. They are quite consistently normal humans.

If D&D has taught me anything, it’s that humans are lame. They can't fly or breathe fire! This makes Ghibli characters relatable but not very applicable to a traditional game of D&D. But I’ll cover how to fix that in a later section. To create fun action scenes for your PCs, you need to create a sense of urgency or peril. This should be informed by your plot or setting. 

I mentioned earlier that the Kami in my one-shot is not well adjusted to using its powers. So, as an example of how a plot point can influence the action: if provoked, I could have the Kami get scared, losing control of his powers and causing some destruction. The mundane, Studio Ghibli-esque task is trying to calm a crying baby. But by having the consequence for this be the destruction of the nature around them, there is an added sense of urgency. If this occurred around a group of civilians, perhaps near farmland, this could lead into another intense scene where they have to hide from angry farmers. This is where the feeling of peril would come in.

Setting can influence the creation of an action scene. Since my one-shot takes place in a mountainous and snowy region, I could have a dangerous snowstorm hit the PCs. They would have to avoid it, imitating those classic Miyazaki running scenes. Perhaps if they get stuck in the storm, the Kami would have to use its powers–  for the first time showing how its abilities can be used to help people. 

…And Add Some Moments of Calm, Too (Think Howl’s Moving Castle)

Those two examples are how my plot and setting helps me create intense scenes, but these moments will look very different depending on how you've built your one-shot so far. If you still want a more traditional action set piece, consider putting a powerful NPC at the center of the action. You might place this in the background while the less powerful PCs have to react and just survive. This dwarfs the PCs, putting them in situations similar to Studio Ghibli protagonists. But be sure to not make the PCs feel incompetent. 

Since this is a one-shot, I would suggest having two to three purposeful action scenes, or just tense scenes. Luckily, they are not combat oriented, so they should be short enough to get done in the one-shot while still keeping your players engaged. I actually think these have the potential to be more engaging than combat, which can be kinda monotonous.

Also, be sure to leave room for periods of calm. Studio Ghibli shows how important it is to give room to just appreciate a small moment or reflect on something. One of my favorite scenes in any movie is Sofie sitting out with Markl by the water. It’s such a simple scene, but it allows for a moment of humanization and comfort. This is of course dependent on what your PCs do and are interested in, but it's important to provide the space for these moments.

Select Miyazaki Mood Music

Now, onto music. This has the ability to drastically change the tone of a scene. Music can make us feel sad, heroic, or at ease. We can harness the music of Studio Ghibli in order to evoke emotions.

Joe Hisaishi works alongside Miyazaki to make sure that every scene is accompanied by the perfect song, often orchestral or instrumental. We can't really do that. So how can we get a similar feeling for our session?

Take a look at Spotify or your music playing app of choice. There’s tons of Studio Ghibli playlists already available. Just find a playlist that you like and keep it in your session notes near a tonally appropriate scene. Or make your own playlist if you want to and have the time. 

What Game System Should You Use for One-Shot?

Alright, the title of this video and post might have been misleading. I actually recommend using the Kids on Bikes system for a Studio Ghibli setting, not D&D. 

Wait, wait, don't leave! I can explain myself. Kids on Bikes (KOB? Can I call it KOB?) is about normal people facing off against powerful unknown forces. Which kinda sounds like Studio Ghibli to me … We just need to put a Studio Ghibli coat of paint on the KOB mechanics.

The combat system is really flexible and since all the players are squishy humans, that allows for more moments of running away than brawling. Which while less epic, is more in line with how most Ghibli characters deal with conflict. THERE'S EVEN A POWERED CHARACTER, which is perfect for my one-shot since I’m doing a ripoff of E.T.! And most Miyazaki movies have a side character with some kind of power, so it works out. I found a digital version of the rpg book for just $9.

But if you don’t want to learn a new system or worry about your players having to learn, that’s totally fair. So here are some quick thoughts on how to twist D&D mechanics into an appropriate form.

Re-Skin D&D Stuff to Fit in a Studio Ghibli World

For the type of one-shot I want to create, none of the D&D classes work for a Miyazaki protagonist, so my PCs will have to play as a modified commoner. Here is my version of what I think a Ghibli PC would be. I raised the AC because the main characters rarely get hurt in their movies. Not because they are tough, but mostly out of sheer luck. Higher AC will represent being lucky. I’ll boost the speed a bit because the characters are almost always running. As for the ability scores, your players can roll these like they would for a normal character sheet.

To be faithful to the typical characters in Miyazaki movies, I would prioritize Charisma since they are mostly just adorable and/or cool kids, then wisdom (emotional intelligence), then dexterity (since always running), and then intelligence and constitution, finally dump strength. Let them choose proficiency in one of the wisdom skills and for dex saving throws.

This could be different for your Ghibli campaign since there are some powerful Miyazaki protagonists like Princess Mononoke or Ponyo. But having my PCs be relatively weak helps add to the feelings I want my one-shot to elicit.

Also, give your PCs a powerful companion. They can be a reskin of a D&D monster or a character made from a normal character sheet. Every mundane group of PCs deserves their own Ponyo or Calcifer or Howl or Totororo or Calcifer or Haku or Calcifer. I really like Calcifer…

In addition to that, feel free to give them some cool but relatively mundane magical items to make up for how mechanically dull their characters might be. I have DREAMED about giving a player a cloak like Markl’s.

After that, the rest of the design is just remembering that this is not a typical game of D&D. There really are no challenging, epic battles. You wouldn't throw 3 Beholders at Chihiro, at least not without giving them a way out, or ensuring that your players also know this isn't a normal game of D&D and that they probably shouldn't try to fight everything. And that’s what the next section is for. 

Getting Your Players Ready to Enter a Ghibli World

Clearly this is not a typical game of D&D, your PCs are potentially playing as a bunch of commoners. 

So before playing the game, and probably even before writing the one-shot, you should tell them what to expect and ask if that is something they would be interested in. Let them know that this one-shot is modeled after Studio Ghibli movies. The PCs are going to be playing normal people who deal with very human problems with magical elements woven throughout the story. 

If you explain that and your players are excited, then you are finally ready to play your one-shot.

Get In Touch With Us!

If you made your own Studio Ghibli-style one-shot or plan on making one, please tell me about it in the video comments! I would love to hear about any of your ideas. And feel free to ask me any questions about it! 

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