Well the story is mostly open, but the world around moves with the tide. At some point a raid might happen, a revolution etc. You might happen to be there, but you might miss is by a hair, you might meet the attackers before the raid, you might be the one leading the revolution. Everything moves and it is your actions that might change something, mostly your characters fate.
Now about your character. Everyone starts as a student. Students can be from age 10 to age 18. Like it is said on forum, older ones are stronger, but due to some reasons didn't pass the test and are obviously not so adept to some techniques. For example, 18 years old is far faster and stronger than 10 years old, but 10 years old might have adept skills in attack jutsu. Age plays an interesting role here.
Also you can acquire bloodline special bonuses or try and capture one of many beasts in the land and get humongous power up, but bloodlines are random, you might get it, you might not, and capturing a monster is depending on your strength and cunning in battle against them.
There is something I allow every use. To make their own jutsu. You can make two type of jutsus, unique and standard. Unique jutsu you make through story and it usually takes time and training. Sometimes you might fail with it, but keep trying after you get stronger. Unique jutsus will be recorded in jutsu list, but are not usable by any other member because only that character knows how to use it. On the other hand Standard jutsus can be proposed in ideas, along with bloodlines, weapons, enemies etc. That type of jutsu are available to every ninja that uses that type of jutsu (example: you make a advance fire jutsu, and with that every adept fire ninja can, but doesn't have to know it).
🙂
