Wares Blade

ワースブレイド “Wares Blade” (1988) is a Japanese fantasy RPG with a technology component—essentially the power armor popularized in anime shows such as “Mobile Suit Gundam” and “Armored Trooper Votoms”. In the world of Wares Blade these suits (操兵) are magical artifacts which transform the pilot into a giant up to 8 meters tall.

The Wares Blade rules use d10 dice exclusively. When d5 rolls are called for, one rolls a d10 and divides by 2. The ability scores are SEN (sense), AGI (agility), WIL (will), CON (constitution), CHA (charisma), and LUC (luck), and these are randomly determined during character generation by 3d5 rolls. One divides each ability score except luck by 3 to get a modifier from 1 to 5. These modifiers are added to a d10 roll to determine success or failure in most situations. For example, the SEN modifier is used in attacks and the AGI modifier in defense. Physical damage is applied to CON and “life force damage” is applied to WIL. LUC can be used to increase a roll, but it is an exhaustible quantity.

The game has four classes: warrior, sorcerer, priest/monk, and commoner, the last including thieves. Sorcerers belong to one of eight schools, each having 12 spells to choose from, at least in the starter set which covers levels one to three.

Warriors can choose as a skill the ability to pilot the suits (操兵), though they are not for sale and difficult to acquire. All the same the game includes character sheets for the suits with slots for SP (speed), POW (power), ARM (armor), and BAL (balance).

The lead designer for the game was Satoshi Chibi, who also wrote the first novel 聖刻1092 “Seikoku 1092” set in the Wares Blade world. The cover art is by noted fantasy artist Jun Suemi. Plastic kits for the suits were produced: do an image search for “MOクラフト WARES 1092” to see examples.

Box contents:
• Player’s Guide, 48 pp.
• Rule Book, 48 pp.
• Scenario Book, 48 pp.
• copies of “Character Sheet 1”, “Character Sheet 2”, “Suit Sheet”, “NPC Sheet”, “Skill Sheet”
• Character Counters
• Wares Blade World Introduction sheet
• Hobby Japan survey card
• 3 d10 dice

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