A cinematic, tactical TTRPG that will make you feel like a badass, shonen anime character. You play as Operatives from the Devil Division, kicking the piss out of grotesque Devils and Monsters all over 199X Tokyo. Detect. Detain. Destroy.
These are a work in progress and deliberately slimmed down. They are not feature complete and they're not a full picture of what the two main books will contain. That said, there's still 100 pages of content in here and more than enough to get a real feel for how the game plays. Dig in and enjoy.
It's a game that will make you feel like a badass shonen anime character kicking the piss out of grotesque Devils and Monsters in 199X Tokyo.
Why 1990s Tokyo? The bubble burst in 1991. A generation that organised its entire identity around institutional loyalty discovered the institution had lied. Tokyo compresses human spirit at a scale nothing else matches: millions of lives stacked in towers, packed into carriages, threaded through narrow schedules. The city teaches people to keep moving. The stronger the fear, the stronger the Devil.
Night Shift: Devil Division is a standalone* TTRPG that uses the Draw Steel engine to deliver fast, punchy, grid-based combat built around combos, teamwork, positioning, and big signature techniques. Triumphs build momentum across operations, so pushing deeper makes you stronger and risks more, exactly like the best shonen arcs: the longer the night runs, the more dangerous everyone becomes. Momentum is each Operative's individual resource, earned through the pressure of a fight and spent on their most powerful techniques. Adrenaline is the Squad's shared pool, fuelling clutch saves, last-second tactics, and cinematic reversals when things get desperate.
*You do not need a copy of Draw Steel to play this game.
Five Kegare Schools. Multiple Classes Within Each School.
Endogenics (NDO’s) Imprint Kegare into the body itself through Breath Styles: Water, Fire, Thunder, Wind, Stone, REDACTED, and the forms that branch from each; Serpent, Smoke, Sound, Mist and Metal to name a few.
Exokinetics (XO’s) Project Kegare into external forms: Blood Arts, Shikigami summoning, Exchange Rhythm, Frame-Step manipulation and REDACTED.
Baselines carry no Kegare. Division gear, human conditioning, and the tactical advantage of being invisible to anything that hunts by Signature. Pick an operating style: Hunter, Breaker, Sentinel and start Tojimaxxing.
Hybrids carry a Devil pattern threaded through a human nervous system. Weapon forms, animal aspects, abstract manifestations of contained power and a contested claim on their own identity.
Contractors build a roster of detained Devils through The Vault, trading payment in blood, labour, secrets, or worse for fragments of their pattern. Devil pact techniques embodying a range of phobias and fears.
Every Devil is born from a fear, a negative emotion, or a piece of bad juju that Tokyo has been swallowing for decades.
Common fears produce Mooks, disposable, pack-hunting threats that overwhelm through numbers. Cultural and primal fears produce Grade B and above: city-level disasters with their own agendas, sapience, and factional affiliations. Some Devils talk, bargain, and lie. Some have been waiting in the UT ZONE for decades, watching the city above them get worse.
Detainment turns an enemy into an ongoing relationship, with demands, loopholes, and consequences. A devil in The Vault is worth more than a dead one. The Division expects its pets.
Every operation follows the same escalating structure: Detect, Detain, Destroy.
You find the devil first; surveillance, informants, Devil Radar readings, field investigation. Then you make the call: detain it for the Vault, or put it down. Detainment is harder, more dangerous, and pays off in Vault Techniques, pact relationships, and Clearance. Destruction is clean but final.
Cinematic Mode covers the operational texture of the job; extractions, cordons, crowd management, cover maintenance, and investigation under pressure. Engagements are the tactical grid fights: alternating turns, positioning, forced movement, and techniques that build toward Momentum. Chase Sequences handle pursuit through Tokyo's streets, rooftops, train platforms, and the UT ZONE.
At the end of a successful operation, the squad converts Triumphs into XP and chooses to keep pushing or go On Leave. Triumphs make you stronger each Engagement, so delaying On Leave means more power and more risk. When the squad finally stands down, the 24-hour window opens: Stamina and Restorations fully restore, and each Operative picks a Leave Activity. Training Arcs advance techniques. Vault Visits open pact negotiations with detained Devils. Persona Style life sim activities: Ryokan trips, batting cages, konbini nights, karaoke, amusement parks whatever keeps an Operative functional.
DIVISION is the player-facing core: operative creation, classes, rules, and everything that happens between deployments. If you're sitting at the table, this is your book.
DEVILS is the Duty Manager's operational toolkit: the full devil roster, non-devil enemies, engagement design, Vault Techniques, Buddies, and everything needed to run a night that the squad won't forget.
DIVISION
Everything you need to run Night Shift: Devil Division is in this book. Character creation to campaign management, the full rules of engagement, and the operational context of 199X Tokyo.
Building an Operative The Basics establishes the rules foundation. Making an Operative and Life Path cover character creation and the background systems that shape who each Operative was before the Division got hold of them. Schools delivers the five full operative types at every level, with dedicated tactical guidance for each; how the role functions in an engagement, what the squad needs from it, and how to play it effectively rather than just correctly. Loadouts covers Division-issue and field-acquired gear.Commendations tracks your squad's standing reputation with the organisation. Complications are the personal variables that make Operatives interesting to play.
Running Operations Tests covers the dice system. Engagement is the full tactical rules: initiative, positioning, forced movement, conditions, Momentum, Adrenaline, and how a fight actually plays out on the grid. Chase Sequences is its own dedicated chapter: pursuit through Tokyo's streets, rooftops, train platforms, and the UT ZONE. Negotiation handles structured interactions with sapient Devils, NPC contacts, and anyone the squad needs something from.
Between Operations On Leave is the 24-hour window between deployments: Training Arcs, Vault Visits, and On Leave Activities that keep Operatives functional and the world moving without them. Rewards covers XP, Clearance & Signature advancement, Commendation payoffs, and what the Division actually gives back.
The World Kegare is the definitive in-book account of the corrupting force that makes everything in this game possible: what it is, where it came from, what it does to the city and the people in it. Tokyo and the Division covers the operational geography of 199X Tokyo: the wards, the infrastructure, the UT ZONE, and Red Crow's position inside a government that tolerates the Division because the alternative is worse. For the Duty Manager is the Director's chapter: running operations, building Devils, managing the escalating consequences of a city that is steadily getting worse.
DEVILS
The second book is the Duty Manager's operational toolkit. Everything needed to build, run, and escalate engagements lives here, alongside the full devil roster and the systems that make detained devils an asset for growth.
Running Engagements Devil Basics covers how stat blocks work and how devils think and behave. Building an Engagement and Running Engagements are the Duty Manager's paired design chapters: how to construct a tactically interesting fight, how to keep the map live, and how to run devils as active threats.
The Roster Devils is the full catalogue, organised by Level and Threat Level. Common fears produce Mooks: disposable, pack-hunting, and dangerous in numbers. Cultural and primal fears produce the grades above: sapient, agenda-ed, and in some cases patient enough to have been waiting in the UT ZONE since before most Operatives were born. Dynamic Terrain turns Tokyo's operational environments into active participants in a fight. Mundane Threats covers the non-devil problems a squad will run into: civilians, rival agencies, and everything else the city throws at them. Hostile Humans provides stat blocks for when the opposition wears a human face like Yakuza, Cultists and Rival Operatives.
Vault Techniques Each detained devil carries techniques that Contractors can access through pact negotiation, and that any operative can learn given the right Clearance and a sufficiently unpleasant arrangement with something that should probably be left alone.
Buddies Usually Hybrids, though at higher Clearance, top dog Operatives that fight alongside the squad. Ongoing relationships with demands, moods, and their own read on whether this particular operation was worth their time.
Lore Devils of Fear is the inhabited account of where devils come from, what they are, and what Tokyo's specific geography of dread has been producing for the last forty years.
The Operative Starter Set drops a brand new squad into 199X Tokyo on their first night in the Division. Pressure readings have been spiking across Kabukicho for three weeks. The Division's first response team didn't come back. Now The Shinjuku Operation is your squad's problem.
This is a self-contained campaign taking Operatives on their first deployment, from Level 0—using simplified mechanics and pre-generated characters—all the way through to Level 3, by which point the full system is open and the squad knows exactly what they're doing. Experienced players may skip straight to Level 1 and hit the ground running. Everything a squad needs to sit down and play the same night.
Duty Manager Screen Four panels of the most-referenced tables and rules in the game, kept upright and in arm's reach so the night keeps moving. The player-facing side puts 199X Tokyo across the table. The Duty Manager's side keeps conditions, power roll results, Momentum triggers, and operational structure off the floor and in front of you where they belong.
Crystal Maggie 199X Dice Set Four dice; two d10s and two d6s, produced in collaboration with Crystal Maggie and designed around the Clear Craze that swept 90s Japan. Translucent resin, period-accurate aesthetic, dice set built specifically for Night Shift: Devil Division's dice economy.
A2 "On Leave" Poster It's a fucking poster, what more do you want from me?
Chase Sequence Cards
A deck of reference cards covering the actions, manoeuvres, and obstacles that make up a Chase Sequence. Everything the squad needs to run a pursuit through Tokyo's streets, rooftops, and train platforms without breaking pace to flip through a rulebook.
A prized possession. Something kept out of sight because it's worth too much to leave where anyone can find it.
The Division keeps its most valuable assets locked away.
The VAULT is the all-in collector's edition for the backer who wants Night Shift: Devil Division in its most complete, most physical, most permanent form. Both books bound in faux leather limited edition covers. A BackerKit exclusive slipcase. The VAULT box itself; a collector's object before you've even opened it. The Lenticular Duty Manager Screen, a player-facing panel that shifts as the night moves. The Red Metallic VAULT Dice Set. The Chase Scene Cards. The Operative Starter Set. And a VAULT Exclusive Devil that exists in no other tier, no other print run, nowhere else.
Draw Steel is built for tactical, heroic, cinematic fantasy, and we are aiming that same tactical-cinematic core at a modern anime urban horror response unit. Expect clear combat roles, decisive movement on a grid, and abilities designed to create hard choices every round. No boring turns. No sloggy combat. You'll feel like a badass anime protagonist bashing devils through buildings, into ceilings and through the floor (leave them like Yamcha after the Saibamen).
We love Draw Steel and did extensive research on what people love about the system and books. We also looked hard at the sticking points (literally read every Reddit post and comment) and built something that addresses them.
Devils as recurring characters and assets, including Buddies -- detained Devils that fight alongside the squad
Rewards shift toward Vault Techniques, Loadouts, Commendations, and Clearance progression
SRG signature layout and design philosophy; stylish, dense, and easy to navigate
Individual operative resource (Momentum) and shared squad pool (Adrenaline) -- easier to track, more tactically interesting
Downtime as On Leave -- Training Arcs, Vault Visits, Leave Activities, and the world moving without you
Chase Sequences -- a full dedicated chapter so you can run, leap, and tear through Tokyo in pursuit or retreat
Simplified optional negotiation mechanics for Operatives who want clearer stakes when dealing with sapient Devils and NPC contacts
Fear-typed damage and enemy weaknesses spread across the full devil roster
Banter between rounds: brief exchanges of taunts, threats, and probing dialogue keep the pace cinematic
When an Ascendant Technique is used for the first time, hit your chosen 90s banger, trigger a flashback showing how it was earned
Every class includes dedicated tactical guidance -- how the role functions in a squad, what the engagement needs from it, and how to play it effectively
Friendly shipping means you don't have to pay additional customs charges and fees when your game is delivered. We are able to ship friendly to the following locations:
We will also ship friendly to China. Unfortunately we cannot ship to Afghanistan, Brazil, Haiti, Iran, Iraq, Kazakhstan, Mexico, North Korea, Russia, Syria, Ukraine, Yemen or PO Box addresses.
Estimated Pricing
The following price table shows our estimated shipping cost. Actual shipping and taxes like VAT, GST or sales taxes (where applicable) will be charged in the pledge manager. Do not add shipping or taxes to your pledge.
EU Zones
EU Zone 1: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Netherlands, Poland EU Zone 2: Denmark, Finland, France, Sweden EU Zone 3: Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain EU Zone 4: Belarus, Bosnia And Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Faroe Islands, Greenland, Holy See (vatican City State), Iceland, Ireland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Macedonia, The Former Yugoslav, Malta, Monaco, Montenegro, Norway, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland
VFI Zones
VFI Zone 0: China, Hong Kong VFI Zone 1: India, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, Taiwan, Thailand, Vietnam VFI Zone 2: Indonesia VFI Zone 3: Bahrain, Israel, Kuwait, Oman, Saudi Arabia, United Arab Emirates
US Tarriffs
If US tariffs on Chinese goods remains at the current rate of 20%, we will cover this additional cost ourselves. If tariffs increase by the time goods ship from China, we might unfortunately need to pass some of the increased cost on to backers receiving their pledges from the US fulfilment centre, in the form of an additional shipping fee. This will be taken in the pledge manager as a separate, later charge to the rest of your pledge.
Please note: these rates account for likely cost increases by the time we ship but these rates could be subject to change due to potential future supply chain challenges or factors beyond our control. Some specific destinations (e.g. islands and overseas territories) may be subject to higher charges.
We always try to "Scotty" our timelines and give ourselves some breathing room to account for any delays in production. This has meant we've stayed mostly on schedule in previous projects and when something out of our control does happen we communicate with backers as transparently as possible.
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