Product– Wares Blade

System- Wares Blade

Producer– Lion Wing

Price– FREE!  here https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/basementgameboutique/wares-blade 

TL; DR-Blast from the Past!  90%

Basics–  WELCOME TO THE 80S!  Wares Blade is a very popular anime inspired table top RPG from Japan in the 80s.  It’s got swords, sorcery, and GIANT ROBOTS!  Let’s look at how you play

Basics- This is a d10 based system. You add your ability score + skill modifiers +d10 roll and attempt to hit a DC.  You do and you succeed.  You don’t and you fail.  Simple as that.

Luc-  Luc is the control the players have over the game.  Luc is a stat that you spend across a game session.  Each Luc you spend gives you an additional d10 on the roll.

Perfect success and total failures- If all dice come up 10, you score a perfect success.  If all dice are 1s, you get a total failure.  That’s the critical success and failure mechanic of this game.

Combat- Combat is like most other d20 systems.  You roll a d10+ your initiative score + a penalty from your armor.  Armor makes you move slower!  Characters with low initiative declare their actions first, then higher initiative declare after.  Going fast means you observe your opponents.  After that, you do what you said with high going first.  Combat is just like the basic actions above for the weapon or magic you are using.  If you strike your opponent’s Battle Number (this is exactly like AC), you hit!  Armor subtracts damage dealt instead of increasing target Battle Number, and heavier armor actually DECREASES your BN!  So you determine damage by rolling the weapons value and then subtract the value of the armor.  Each weapon has a different critical number and when you roll dice equal to or higher than the critical number you add one to the number of dice and multiply it by the weapon damage roll.

Damage- Damage in this game is different.  Characters don’t have hit points, but they do have limits to the punishment they can take.  Characters can take damage up to their constitution ability score.  Then when damage is more than that, they must make a WIL roll (think a wisdom saving throw in DnD) equal to the damage taken or pass out.  When more actions are taken, more WIL rolls must be made or the character passes out.  When damage gets to double CON, the character passes out regardless.

Magic- This is a cast-till-you-pass-out system.  Magic comes in a few flavors with it mostly being monks with magic going into their bodies giving them ninja powers or clerics with magic going out into the world. In both major traditions, it’s very much do anything you can with a skill check as above to see if you can and then a WIL check after to see if you take damage.

Mecha!- It wouldn’t be an 80s anime inspired RPG without giant magic robots.  The magic robots function just like everything above but they don’t pass out as easily.  They have fewer skills, but more skill checks to operate them.  This system works similar enough to everything else above.

Ok, now my thoughts.

Mechanics or Crunch–  This RPG is an interesting view of the past and the past of another country, at that.  I love cast-till-you-pass-out systems, and I love skill based systems that don’t need other subsystems like Attack Bonus being separate from skills.  That said, there are some things we left in the past for a reason.  Leveling up involves a lot more math than most characters are used to.  And it depends on what you did with gold stolen and damage taken being ways to get xp.  That math makes games drag.  So does reverse action declaration.  But, it’s a time capsule that I would open for a bit, maybe not for long though.   4/5

Theme or Fluff– Man this game brings me back.  80s RPGs and 80s anime were something else.  I like the pictures and the game feel.  I can see the Vampire Hunter D in this, and I love it!  5/5

Execution–  This is a good intro to the system, but I’m missing some basic things.  I don’t know if I can do a move and an action on each turn.  It’s a good intro to the game, but it’s missing pieces I need.  But it reads fast, has good art, and good layout.  4.5/5

Summary–  There is some solid here, and there are some things left behind here.  It’s an interesting mix of old systems and anime.  Since it was the biggest RPG in Japan in the 80s, I expect all those things.  There are also some things I just don’t want to have in my games here too.  But there are things from 2nd Ed DnD I don’t want at the table either.  That said, I am looking forward to this.  It might not be a game I play forever, but it will be one I’m glad to get a chance to try.  90%