The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Big Robots, Cool Starships A Review by Lizard

What happens when the Ultimate Gearhead meets a system known for its dice-lite, rules-lite, GMs-Discretion style of play? Either a disaster or a triumph, and Big Robots, Cool Starships, is the latter.

When "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" was announced about a year or so ago, it was met with a certain level of disbelief. How could any game encompass ALL of anime, which ranges from romantic comedy to hard-edged drama, from abstract philosophy to demons with naughty tentacles? There are two ways any generic system can be designed:'A rule for everything' or 'fast&loose'. Both have advantages and disadvantages. BESM went for the fast&loose approach, creating a system which could, with some imagination, cover a wide range of genres. However, it tended to be stronger in 'light' genres, lacking the detail&grit needed to simulate the feel of more serious anime. One particular concern was the mecha, to many people the essence of anime, were entirely covered in about 1/3 of a page, as the character attribute "Owns A Big Robot".

Well, no more. Using the same concept of 'subattributes' introduced in the Sailor Moon RPG, the OBR ability explodes to book length, while keeping all the simplicity and abstraction which characterized the BESM system in general. In short, you spend a certain number of 'normal' build points to buy a much larger number of 'Mecha Build Points', with which you then build your mecha (or starship, or clockwork golem, or what have you). A complete vehicles design system in 108 small pages, you can create everything from motorcycles to Star Destroyers with this system. I can see how the system can be used to run, for example, a Transformers game, or Bubblegum Crisis, or Macross/Robotech, or Voltron. That's a very broad range of possible campaigns, but the rules support them all about equally well -- a lot of GM control will be needed to get the right 'flavor'.

Compared to GURPS Mecha or Mekton, the rules are simple, even simplistic. However, the BESM system is open enough that and new rules can be trivially added to provide whatever level of detail might be desired, up to a certain point.

My one complaint about the system is that there is no 'scaling' rule -- a hit point is a hit point, an armor point is an armor point. This means that the main gun of the multi-mile-long megastarship in the examples section requres two shots to destroy a measly tank -- and that gun is built with the optional rules that let you exceed the normal design limits. It also means that the sample character in the original BESM, a 15 year old girl, with her 90 Health, is actually capable of taking more damage (after armor) than a lot of Mecha.

The system works as long as you don't mix things too much. You could effectively design, for example, a lot of different wooden ships to model a universe like "Pirates of Dark Water" (not anime, but still pretty cool for what it was) or a fleet of WW2 ships for a historical campaign. What you can't do, meaningfully, is have them mix -- the scale is such that your toughest wooden ship would end up being very close, statwise, to the Yamato...and for that matter, the WW2 Yamato would end up looking a lot like the Space Battleship Yamato.

Of course, the system isn't intended for terminal gearheads or realism buffs -- for them, there is GURPS. In my 'Yamato vs. Pirates' scenario above, the GM would probably rule that "Your cannons bounce off the armor of the unearthly metal monstrosity moving rapidly towards you, despite its lack of sails. The huge guns facing you fire. Your ship is splintered in seconds. Your are clinging to floating pieces of wood. What do you do now?" Any player who whines about "But we have level 5 armor and level 4 weapons and and and..." is playing the wrong game.

Likewise, the GM must be strict about what is and is not permitted, because the rules let you do anything. There are no mass or size limits here -- you could build a cat-sized mecha with the power of an army. (Which is fine, because such things often occur in anime. But GMs must be aware of the potential for abuse.)

There are one or two other minor nits. Some more advice on major themes in Mecha anime would, IMO, have been better than a sample adventure -- does anyone EVER play those things?

Physically, the book is clean and attractive, following the look&feel of the BESM. The art is good enough -- I've seen better, and some of it is reprinted from BESM, but it serves its purpose well enough. The design also wins some points on the readability scale:No goofy backgrounds, no endless full-color plates driving up the cost, no unbearably pretentious paragraphs of narration by the authors favorite PCs.

The small size means the book is easily overlooked at your local gamestore, but it also means it fits nicely in an overstuffed briefcase or backpack.

Summary:If you like BESM and want to model almost any anime series that has vehicles playing a major role, this is a must-buy. If you like mecha and the like, but don't think you should do nearly as much math and engineering to build one for your game world as it would take to design one in the real world, buy this book. OTOH, if you think 'Guns, Guns, Guns' is just too abstract and that GURPS Vehicles isn't nearly detailed enough, you might want to give this one a pass.

Style: 3 (Average)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Big Robots, Cool Starship
Author: David Pulver Category: game Company/Publisher: Guardians Of Order Line: Big Eyes, Small Mouth Cost: 15.95 Page count: 108 ISBN: 0-9682431-3-4 SKU: 02-002 Capsule Review by lizard on 07/29/99. Genre tags: Fantasy Science_fiction Modern_day Historical Far_Future Space Comedy Post-apocalypse Asian/Far_East Generic	Big Robots, Cool Starships A Review by Lizard What happens when the Ultimate Gearhead meets a system known for its dice-lite, rules-lite, GMs-Discretion style of play? Either a disaster or a triumph, and Big Robots, Cool Starships, is the latter. When "Big Eyes, Small Mouth" was announced about a year or so ago, it was met with a certain level of disbelief. How could any game encompass ALL of anime, which ranges from romantic comedy to hard-edged drama, from abstract philosophy to demons with naughty tentacles? There are two ways any generic system can be designed:'A rule for everything' or 'fast&loose'. Both have advantages and disadvantages. BESM went for the fast&loose approach, creating a system which could, with some imagination, cover a wide range of genres. However, it tended to be stronger in 'light' genres, lacking the detail&grit needed to simulate the feel of more serious anime. One particular concern was the mecha, to many people the essence of anime, were entirely covered in about 1/3 of a page, as the character attribute "Owns A Big Robot". Well, no more. Using the same concept of 'subattributes' introduced in the Sailor Moon RPG, the OBR ability explodes to book length, while keeping all the simplicity and abstraction which characterized the BESM system in general. In short, you spend a certain number of 'normal' build points to buy a much larger number of 'Mecha Build Points', with which you then build your mecha (or starship, or clockwork golem, or what have you). A complete vehicles design system in 108 small pages, you can create everything from motorcycles to Star Destroyers with this system. I can see how the system can be used to run, for example, a Transformers game, or Bubblegum Crisis, or Macross/Robotech, or Voltron. That's a very broad range of possible campaigns, but the rules support them all about equally well -- a lot of GM control will be needed to get the right 'flavor'. Compared to GURPS Mecha or Mekton, the rules are simple, even simplistic. However, the BESM system is open enough that and new rules can be trivially added to provide whatever level of detail might be desired, up to a certain point. My one complaint about the system is that there is no 'scaling' rule -- a hit point is a hit point, an armor point is an armor point. This means that the main gun of the multi-mile-long megastarship in the examples section requres two shots to destroy a measly tank -- and that gun is built with the optional rules that let you exceed the normal design limits. It also means that the sample character in the original BESM, a 15 year old girl, with her 90 Health, is actually capable of taking more damage (after armor) than a lot of Mecha. The system works as long as you don't mix things too much. You could effectively design, for example, a lot of different wooden ships to model a universe like "Pirates of Dark Water" (not anime, but still pretty cool for what it was) or a fleet of WW2 ships for a historical campaign. What you can't do, meaningfully, is have them mix -- the scale is such that your toughest wooden ship would end up being very close, statwise, to the Yamato...and for that matter, the WW2 Yamato would end up looking a lot like the Space Battleship Yamato. Of course, the system isn't intended for terminal gearheads or realism buffs -- for them, there is GURPS. In my 'Yamato vs. Pirates' scenario above, the GM would probably rule that "Your cannons bounce off the armor of the unearthly metal monstrosity moving rapidly towards you, despite its lack of sails. The huge guns facing you fire. Your ship is splintered in seconds. Your are clinging to floating pieces of wood. What do you do now?" Any player who whines about "But we have level 5 armor and level 4 weapons and and and..." is playing the wrong game. Likewise, the GM must be strict about what is and is not permitted, because the rules let you do anything. There are no mass or size limits here -- you could build a cat-sized mecha with the power of an army. (Which is fine, because such things often occur in anime. But GMs must be aware of the potential for abuse.) There are one or two other minor nits. Some more advice on major themes in Mecha anime would, IMO, have been better than a sample adventure -- does anyone EVER play those things? Physically, the book is clean and attractive, following the look&feel of the BESM. The art is good enough -- I've seen better, and some of it is reprinted from BESM, but it serves its purpose well enough. The design also wins some points on the readability scale:No goofy backgrounds, no endless full-color plates driving up the cost, no unbearably pretentious paragraphs of narration by the authors favorite PCs. The small size means the book is easily overlooked at your local gamestore, but it also means it fits nicely in an overstuffed briefcase or backpack. Summary:If you like BESM and want to model almost any anime series that has vehicles playing a major role, this is a must-buy. If you like mecha and the like, but don't think you should do nearly as much math and engineering to build one for your game world as it would take to design one in the real world, buy this book. OTOH, if you think 'Guns, Guns, Guns' is just too abstract and that GURPS Vehicles isn't nearly detailed enough, you might want to give this one a pass. Style: 3 (Average) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)