Bushido: Role Playing Adventure in Samurai Japan

by Robert N. Charrette

First appearing as a box set with two staplebound books, Bushido was later re-printed as a single 140-page perfect-bound book. "Flashing bladework, brave warriors, martial mastery, wise priests, honor, stealthy assassins, demons, magicians, spirits, war -- the stuff of Legends, the Legends of Japan. BUSHIDO is a role playing game that allows you to adventure on the Misty Isles of Nippon. Players in BUSHIDO design their characters to suit the profession they choose. A skill system is used to determine the character's success in both martial and peaceful endeavors

Genres: Fantasy

140 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1981

About the author

Credited on some German editions as "Robert N. Charette".

Reviews

[Andy Horton · Rating 4 out of 5]

Re-read to prepare for a games convention where I used it to run a feudal Japanese take on Skakespeare’s The Tempest.
Old, old game. Noted for its impenetrably dense text and unintuitive layout. Badly needs an index. But still a good system, and on reading I can see how it was intended for immersive campaign play. Far less culturally appropriative or orientalist than many other early takes on this material.
The game went very well, with players leaning into both the setting and the source play. Though the issue with poor index and layout was summed up when it took us five minutes at one point to find the rules for arrow damage.

[Malum · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lot of thought and research was put into this game and there are some really neat ideas here, but it was made far more complex than it needs to be. For example, skills are rated on a 1-100% scale. Rolling a d100 for skills (like in Call of Cthulhu, for example) seems to be the easiest way to resolve skills like this, but that's not what you do here. You have to first divide your skill score and then roll them on a d20 for some reason.

[Arthur B · Rating 4 out of 5]

Somewhat involved system, but rewarding, deep, and respectful treatment of the cultural subject matter involved. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...

[James · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the best RPGs ever written, would still be quite playable today and seems to be in print. I own several editions.