The night was dark and the road deserted, as a lone traveler moved toward the lights of the village lower on the mountainside. He was Tokasi Benkai, samurai and warrior. Gold glinted from the fittings of his katana. The woods hid their shadows. They were bandits, and hungry. They were also five to his one. They attacked. The first went down as the samurai made is lai draw. The second fell under a pear-splittingstroke of the katana. The third and fourth were more cautious, but also were sent onward by the warrior's flashing sword. Tokasi flicked the blood from his blade and turned to face the last. The bandit was also a swordsman, as could be seen by his stance. Tokasi knew that this man would not be an easy victory. But if it was his karma to die this night, Tokasi would meet death true to his code of ... L\ BUSHIDO is a role-playing game wherein players take the parts of characters of varying professions in the world of Nippon, the Japan of Legend. Play proceeds through interaction with the rules and with the Gamemaster, who functions as a moderator. Adventures are organized by the Gamesmaster, who plays the parts of all beings en- countered by the players' characters. With these rules you can adventure in the heroic past of Japan, the mythic Japan of.popular stories, or the fantastic Japan of the old tales and legends. The choice and the enjoyment are yours. This is the players' book and contains the information needed to run a character. It includes sections on character generation and improvement, skills, combat, magic, and the Professions. I t also covers the means of fitting the character into the culture of Nippon. THE LAND OF NIPPON This is the Gamesmaster's book. It contains all the information needed to get him started in developing his own version of Nippon. Sections cover men to be encoun- tered, beasts, legendary beings, battles, treasure, and campaign building. It also includes an introductory scenario. \ BUSHIDO is best played with a Gamesmaster and three to five players, although it can be played with as few as one. All you need are pencil, paper, a six-sided die, a twenty-sided die, and imagination. M Y Sample file
Transcript
The night was dark and the road deserted, as a lone traveler moved toward the lights of the village lower on the mountainside. He was Tokasi Benkai, samurai and warrior. Gold glinted from the fittings of his katana.
The woods hid their shadows. They were bandits, and hungry. They were also five to his one. They attacked.
The first went down as the samurai made i s l a i draw. The second fell under a pear-splitting stroke of the katana. The third and fourth were more cautious, but also were sent onward by the warrior's flashing sword. Tokasi flicked the blood from his blade and turned to face the last.
The bandit was also a swordsman, as could be seen by his stance. Tokasi knew that this man would not be an easy victory. But if it was his karma to die this night, Tokasi would meet death true to his code of ...
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BUSHIDO i s a role-playing game wherein players take the parts of characters of varying professions in the world of Nippon, the Japan of Legend. Play proceeds through interaction with the rules and with the Gamemaster, who functions as a moderator. Adventures are organized by the Gamesmaster, who plays the parts of a l l beings en- countered by the players' characters. With these rules you can adventure in the heroic past of Japan, the mythic Japan of.popular stories, or the fantastic Japan of the old tales and legends. The choice and the enjoyment are yours.
This i s the players' book and contains the information needed to run a character. It includes sections on character generation and improvement, skills, combat, magic, and the Professions. I t also covers the means of fitting the character into the culture of Nippon.
THE LAND OF NIPPON This i s the Gamesmaster's book. It contains all the information needed to get him started in developing his own version of Nippon. Sections cover men to be encoun- tered, beasts, legendary beings, battles, treasure, and campaign building. It also includes an introductory scenario.
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BUSHIDO i s best played with a Gamesmaster and three to five players, although it can be played with as few as one. All you need are pencil, paper, a six-sided die, a twenty-sided die, and imagination.
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FANTASY ROLE PLAYING GAMES You are reading the introduction to a rulebook for something
called a Fantasy Role Playing Game. But what is that? Taken separately, the words themselves give a clear picture of the term's meaning. FANTASY This implies that the Game deals with a world of high adventure, of heroes and villains. of danger and treasureand battle, of victorious life and thedustydeathof defeat.Theeverydayworld is left behind. In a Fantasy Game, we are concerned with individual heroes, in an environment where great deeds must be performed daily.
ROLE PLAYING: To be a Player in a Role-Playing Game, one playsa part just as an actor would. One chooses a role in the Game's world and operates in that environment as if he were really the Character. This is the central concept in Role Playing Games-the Players do not just move pieces around a game board; they also react in the Game by imagining and describing the specific actions performed by the Characters that they control. In turn, everything that happens in the Game is described as if it were really happening. If, in the course of exploring a cave, the Characters find a dragon, Players are told this as if their eyes actually beheld the beast.
The Player (JoeSmith who is playing thisGame) identifieswith his Character (Ito Hasato, orave warrior). Hasato is a unique individual with his own strengths and weaknesses, areas cf expertise or ignorance, dreams, fears, and motivations. When Joe is Playing, he must try to react to every situation as though he were Hasato.
GAME: There are limits placed on the fantasy of the role playing. These are the rules that make up the Game. They govern what Players (or their Characters) can and cannot do. The rules givethe methods for deciding how successful a Character is when he fights, or attempts to be acrobatic, or does anything requiring a particular amount of skill or knowledge. They give the values by which a Player knows how strong his Character is, or how smart. Rules also deal with Things: weapons, armor, tools, or magical items. They tell how they work in the game.
THE PARTICIPANTS AND PARTS There are several individuals involved in playing a Role Playing
Game. Some are "real" (i.e.. inhabitants of 20-century Earth who have existence outside the Game), while others only have existance in the Game's world.
THE GAMESMASTER Every Role Playing Game must have a Gamesmaster, also known
as a Referee or Judge. He describes to the Players everything that happens in the Game as if it were actually happening to the Characters. Using the rules and a series of maps, notes, charts, and scenarios of his own design, the Gamesmaster lays out the Game before it is played. He is responsible for setting up everything that the Characters will encounter while playing, either in advance, or at random during the course of play. When something develops in the course of the Game that the Players should not know about, the Gamesmaster operates to keep it that way.
The Gamesmaster plays the role of every being encountered in the Game. Some of these are not even human! In a typical fast-paced evening, the Gamesmaster may play a wandering warrior one moment and a raging dragon the next.
THE PLAYER Obviously, Players are the flesh and blood people who sit around
and play a Role Playing Game. A Player participates in the Game by pretending to be, and controlling the actions of, one or more Characters, individuals who "live" in the world where the Game takes place.
A Player designs a Character for himself, sometimes using random numbers and sometimes allocating an assigned number of points, to develop a clear model of what his "alter ego" is like. The Player determines the mental abilitiesof the Character, as well as the skills he has studied and how much time he has given to each of them. When the Character is actively adventuring in the Game, the Player decides when he fights and when he flees. He is usually in full control of the Character's actions for better or worse.
It is up to the Player to know how the rules work for the things he has designed his Character to do (combat, magic, medicine, whatever). It is also best if the Player can"think with thecharacter's head." This means to look at a situation in the Game and react properly for the Character, according to his personality and social background. The Player should work out the behavior pattern forthe Character and keep to it as much as possible.
THE CHARACTER Any entity (man, man-like being, intelligent creature, animal,
spirit) that takes an active part in the Game is a Character. Those designed by or under control of a Player are called Player- Characters. All the rest, usually under the control of the Gamesmaster, are called Non-Player-Characters.
In order to determine just what a Character can and cannot do, and how good he is at doing it. he is endowed with certain Attributes, Abilities, Capabilities, and Skills. These values allow the Gamesmaster to arbitrate game situations easily and consistently.
A Character's numerical ratings in the categories described above will be used to determine his success or failure when he attempts some action. The rating represents a number which the Player, rolling the appropriate dieor dice for the situation, must roll less than or equal to, in order for the Character to succeed. The basic number may be modified by the situation, in which case the die roll is compared to the modified number.
THE CAMPAIGN A Campaign is the particular version of a Role Playing Game as
played by a given Gamesmaster and group of Players. No two sets of garners will play in exactly the same way. Characters, especially Player Characters, are all different, and the adventures designed by one Gamesmaster will rarely resemble those set up by another.
The main thrust in a Campaign is designed by the Gamesmaster. Using the rules, he decides on the political climate of the Game- world, the locations of those mysterious sites where great adventure is to be found, the risks and rewards of adventuring, the laws, the customs, the religion, and all the factors that give a fully designed Campaign a feeling of reality that makes for enjoyable play.
The Game is merely the system for playing. The group actually enjoys the Campaign. a never-ending story of heroic adventure. The books you have in your hands are written to allow you to join in those epics. All it takes is some of your time and a lot of your imagination.
READING THE RULES When reading these rules, you should not try to absorb everything
at once. Skim the rules once to get ageneral idea of the system, then read them thoroughly. It is not necessary to befullyconversant with all the details tostart play. Poisons, for example, might not come into play for many game sessions.
Players should remember toavoid any section of the rulesorgame components not labelled as being for Players' use. You will spoil your own enjoyment and that of the other Players if you read the material intended for the Gamesmaster.
We advise Gamesmasters to be familiar with the sections of the rules that cover the things that they have planned for the current adventure. Careful planning of adventures will allow the Gamesmaster to introduce various portions of the rules gradually, as play progresses. This will allow you to familiarize yourself with the details of each section. It will also allow you to begin play more quickly.
Throughout the text the masculine pronoun is used. This is not intended to imply that all Players and Characters are or should be males. It is simply a matter of convenience. We definitelyencourage Players of the female persuasion.
Where formulasorcalculationsaregiven in thetext, results that do not yield an integer should be rounded to the nearest whole number unless the rules specify otherwise. Thus, if a calculation gives 3.2, round it to 3, and round 3.7 to 4. If you get 3.5, round it up to 4.
Some rules are identified as Optional. These are not required for the game to flow smoothly. Some are intended to provide greater detail or more "realism"; others simply allow for an alternate way to handle a game situation. Players and the Gamesmaster should agree on which optional rules will be used for play in their Campaign.
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ON BEING A GAMESMASTER Quite seriously, the first thing to do is to read the rules. Start with
book number 1 and skim through the whole thing, all the books in order. Don’t try to retain all of the details at this point. Try to get an overall picture.
Next look at its specific rules: how they work, what might be left out, and what rules you don’t care for (too sketchy, too complex, boring, etc.). If the rules do not cover something you wanted in the Campaign, then you will need to look elsewhere, either by combining two rulesystemsor by designing the rulesyourself. Many Gamesmasters find the latter course more rewarding.
Never hesitate to call 9 halt in play to look up some rule you are unsure of. The little time spent then will save a lot of time (and emotion) later on when someone questions the events of 10 minutes previous!y as being “different in the rules.” Another suggestion: always let players know in advance if the basic rules for the game have been changed to some variant system. Thisdoes not mean that you should tell them that a weapon or trap not documented in the rule books is lurking around the corner; that is part of your Campaign and the Players can only find out about it by experience. But if you have designed an alternate method of combat, the Players must know how it operates if they are to use it properly.
SETTING UP This is the very heart of being a Gamesmaster: creating the fantasy
“Campaign” wherein the Player-Characters will vie for heroic honors.
First, consider the overall “color” of theCampaign.This is in many ways a question of historical period. In some Campaigns, Gamesmasters have decreed a great mix of time periods, but many prefer their Campaigns to center around a specific time in Japanese history.
Deciding roughly the period in which your Campaign is set will provide many leads for details of dress, weaponry, customs, armor, and the skills and equipment available to the Characters. A bit of research in popular histories or even well-written historical novels will provide a lot of the background you need. If you are designed an “alternate” Japan, you can construct the culture to fit your needs.
Slavish concern for historical accuracy is not necessary. If you want to build a Campaign on Japanese history, do not feel that you must be absolutely faithful to what was. Often, greater pleasure may be derived from a Campaign based on what might have been.
Once you have the background forthecampaign, which can beas diverse or as limited as you wish, it is time to turn to the first in a series of design tasks: the scenario. A scenario is the outline of an adventure in which a group of Player-Characters tries to accomplish some goal. This goal can be fairly open or very specific.
Specific scenarios might be described as “missions:” the Player- Characters havesome task to perform. Rescuing the kidnapped heir, bearing thevital dispatches to the Daimyo, saving the peasant village from bandits-these are classic examples of the specific scenario.
PLAYING THE GAME Once you are comfortably familiar with the rules and have
prepared a scenario (or decided to use the starting scenario enclosed with BUSHIDO), you are ready to invite the Playersover for a session.
Ideally, the Gamesmaster should hold a special “Character Design” session before presenting the Players with their first adventure, or ”scenario.” At this point, he and his Players go over the basic rules to clear up any general questions on procedure, and design at least one Character for each Player.
The usual way that a session in a Role Playing Game runs is as follows: t t the Players select the Characters suited to the scenario and attend to any outfitting they need and can afford. This is also the time when you start filling them in on advance information (if any) for that scenario.
Once these preliminaries are completed, the adventure begins to move. The progress of the adventure is conducted by telling each other what is happening.
You tell the Players what is happening around the Characters, and the Players respond by telling you what their Characters are doing as a result. Players can ask questions, seeking further information about their surroundings or the events confronting them. You can answer with more detail and relevant clues, as well as irrelevant facts that are indeed evident to the Characters but have no bearing on anything important. Players cannot ask for information beyond the reach of their Characters’ senses or knowledge.
Play continues in this way until the end of the session. Basically, only what is stated verbally or in writing is assumed to have happened in the Campaign. This requires honesty and fairly good memories from both you and your Players. As the Campaign evolves, your group will tend to develop its own conventions for describing actions. Newcomers should be briefed on such conventions to avoid confusion.
AFTER PLAY The Gamesmaster’s job includes keeping the Campaign going
outside of the actual playing time. Role Playing Games, unlike most other recreations, do not really
end. The results of one playing session will permanently affect all subsequent sessions.
The main thrust of the Game is biographical, a dramatic creation of the adventurous life of the Player-Character. As Players tackle the really big adventures, gaining resources with each one, their actions will start to affect the development of the whole Campaign. You must monitor this activity and may exert some control over it, as you deem necessary.
As Characters start out in the Campaign, their equipment is not of the best.Theyare not as proficient intheirSkiIIsasonecan be.They are, in short, easy prey for a really hefty challenge. The early scenarios should reflect this. As they advance, the Characters will become a rougher proposition, and the challenges they face should increase proportionately. But there is a point of diminishing returns in all of this. Eventually the escalation will either find a new equilibrium (sort of an optimum “Level of Heroism”) of a type suitable for the Campaign milieu, or the insane “arms race” will continue, until human capability and valor are incapable of meeting the test. You must exercise all your judgement and ingenuity to help your Campaign progresssmoothly to the fully energized, stable level of heroism, and prevent the runaway development of “invincible” Characters and “unbeatable” Monsters to fight them.
There will always remain certain problems that unaided human power cannot resolve. But they are the extremes of the scale. The vast bulk of scenarios will deal with things much closer to center. Like most other potential troublespots in thegroup relationship, this can be resolved by talking about it. If the Players feel threatened by the scenario, not because they are in danger (which is the whole idea), but because they feel they cannot win (i.e., survive), it behooves the Gamesmaster to make sure that he has built an adventure resolvable by good play, or at least brave play, ratherthan a pure deathtrap with no option at all.
The exception is the scenario which has been ”advertised” as a real stinker. If the Players undertook it knowing it to be lethal, then second thoughts are no good. One may be sure that the Characters are having them as well as the Players, but it is a little late for that.
ON BEING A PLAYER The idea behind thissystem isto permitthe Playerto build what he
conceives to be the “ideal” hero. It will soon become apparent that you cannot make the Character above the average in one area without putting some other Attribute below the norm.
We believe that enjoyable Role Playing implies that the Player tries to think like the Character while playing, reacting to events as the Character would react. To do this consistently requires that the Player put some thought into the psychology of his Character.
It is necessary to understand that the essence of Role Playing is autobiographical. Players and Characters are combining to “write” the life history of the Characters, who are presumed to be heroic in stature. A biography may be episodic. with the high points of the subject’s career providing the plateaus in the storyline, but the book never ends until the subject is dead. In a full Campaign, where Players have other Characters operating, the loss of one particular figure ends his story, but there are others ready to fill the gap, with ongoing sagas gf their own, and the overall flow of things is not interrupted.
So let the Players demand the utmost of the Gamesmaster in the challenges they face, and he must keep the abilities of the Player- Character in mind. Apply courage, cunning, and honor in equal parts when playing, according to your Character and the Campaign, and even i f he dies you will win the Game. Because played in this light, you will find it an exhilariting and cathartic exercise in imagination and vicarious excitement.
And that is how to really win in Role Playing: ENJOY!
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Designers: Bob Charrette Paul Hume
U.S. COPYRIGHT NOTICE
Copyright @ 1981 by Robert N. Charrette and Paul R. Hume. All rights to this book are reserved. No part of the book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without permission, except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. Box, cover art and all illustrations are copyrightQ 1981 by Robert N. Charrette. For information regarding this game contact Fantasy Games Unlimited, Inc.: 213 N. Gilbert Rd., Gilbert, AZ 85234
The designers will attempt to answer any questions regarding the game. Please type the question allowing space for the answer on the same sheet and enclose a stamped, self-addressed envelope. Send the letter in care of Fantasy Games Unlimited.
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.... - . . .. __.__._I . II__
1010.0 TABLE OF CONTENTS 0 Requird Materials .....................................
1030 0 The Dice.. ........................................ o-e.1 1~ 0 Character Structure ................................. --.f
i M 8 0 Languages and Literacy .......................... 21 [email protected] Other Statistics ...................................... 21
1061 0 K i .............................................. 21 1m.0 Status .......................................... 22 1063.0 Level ........................................... 25 1064.0 On ............................................. 27
1124.0 Enhancements to Task Points .................... 67 * m i x 1: Spells ......................................... 68
A . Soell Reference Tables ................................. 68 e . SW'l DescrlPtlons ..................................... 68
Commonspells ........................................ 68 Hi+: School of Fire .................................... 70 Mh-do: School of Water ................................ 71
K m d o : School of Metal ................................ 74 f s ~ h l - d o : School of Soil ............................... 75
* m d l x 2: Ninia Gimmick ................................. n A- Makln9 Gimmicks ..................................... 77 8- O-~nPtlon of Gimmicks ............................... C . Chem-1 Compounds ana Drugs ....................... 79 D- NlnlaG.rb ............................................ 79
2060.0 Battles .............................................. 35 2061.0 Player Characters in a Battle ..................... 35 2062.0 After the Battle .................................. 36 2063.0 The Battle ...................................... 38 2064.0 Smaller Battles .................................. 38 2065.0 Seiges .......................................... 38 2066.0 Army Movement ................................. 39
2070.0 Downtime ........................................... 39 2071.0 Jobs for Player Characters ....................... 39 2072.0 Designing New Spells ........................... 41 2073.0 Magical Artifacts ................................ 41 2074.0 Religious Truths ................................. 42 2075.0 Marriage ........................................ 43 2076.0 Travel .......................................... 43 2077.0 Artworks ........................................ 43
2060.0 Group Membership .................................. 43 2081.0 Obligations to the Group ........................ 44 2082.0 Incomes . Fiefs . and Territories ................... 44
?t)90.0 The Advanced Campaign ............................ 46 2091.0 Temporal Power ................................. 46 2092.0 Founding Yakuza GangVNinja Clans ............. 47 2093.0 Founding a Ryu . School or Religious Sect ........ 47 2094.0 Changing Profession ............................ 47
Sample BUSHIDO Adventure ................. inside back cover
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RULES OF PLAY and
PLAYERS GUIDEBOOK
1020.0 REQUIRED MATERIALS To play BUSHIDO. you will need: - paper and pencils - a six-sided die (extras are helpful) - a twenty-sided die (extras are helpful)
(these are available at hobbyigame stores or directly from fanfasy Games Unlimited).
- character representations (cardboard chits will do, but miniature figures are most desirable) - A measuring tape or flexible ruler (the graded section on the chart sheets will serve, but a separate one is more useful)
Many different ranges of numbers are used for determining probabilities in this Game. The die rolls used are always expressed as "xDy." The "x" stands for the number of dice thrown. The "y" stands for the type of die used (Le.. the number of sides on each die). "306" means that you should roll three 6-sided dice, and total their scores to get your result. "xDy+z" means that the number'Yshould be added to the result of "xDy" to get the final total.
The rules sometimes call for odd "types" of dice, such as 03. D10. D100. or D1000. All of these can be generated with &sided and 20- sided dice as follows:
03: Roll a D6. Divide the number rolled in half, rounding fractions up. This gives a result from 1 to 3. D6: Roll a D6. an everyday cubical die. 010: Roll a D20. Read a " 0 result as "10."
020: Roll a 020. To get a result from 1-20, you will need to distinguish between the lower range (1-10) and the upper (11-20). One way is to color one set of faces of the die (0-9) differently from the other so that, for instance, a"red3"would be read as a "3" and a "black 3" would be read as a "13." Another way is to roll a "control die" (D6) with the D20. A result of 1-3 on the control die puts the 020 roll in the lower range; a result of 4-6 puts it in the upper range. 0100: Roll two D20. getting two numbers from 0-9. Multiply the roll of one 020 by 10. and add it to the roll of the second 020 to get your result. Read a result of "00 as "100." D20s of
1030.0 THE DICE
different colors are very helpful for this. The Dl00 is a very important type of roll. With D100 ("percentage") rolls, you can easily determine probabilities that may not be specified in the rules. I f you believe that there is a 75% chance of somethins happening, roll 0100. A result of "75" or less means that the thing happens. A higher result means that it should not.
01000: Roll three 020. getting three numbers from 0-9 Multiply the first by 100andthesecond by10.andaddthemtc the third to get your result. Read a result of "000" as "1000.'
1040.0 CHARACTER STRUCTURE In a sense, any character in a role playing game is just a collection
of numeric values which determine the probability of some game action succeeding or measure the effectiveness of various options (fighting, moving, using Skills. etc.).
However, the raw numbers should be treated as guidelines to the Player in how he portrays his character(s). High figures in a given area define the fields in which the character acts with confidence. In lower scores, his weakness or blind spots are revealed.
There are five major areas in which a Player-Character ir BUSHIDO must keep track of his scores carefully. They arz ATTRIBUTES:
Direct measurements of physical and mental characteristics suct as strength. intelligence. reaction time. etc. SAVING THROWS:
Scores used in die rolls to allow extraordinary or heroic use of ar Attribute, or the use of the Attribute to directly affect the work around the character in a significant way. ABILITIES:
Scores derived from the Attributes to govern such activities a: movement. carrying capacity, healing, learning, etc. CAPABILITIES:
Certain activities (climbing difficult surfaces, swimming, etc which any character can do, but which are not automaticall. successful. SKILLS:
arts, or practical crafts. Learned Skills. trained responses in combat, knowledge, creativt
