The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Hey, this is nice.

"Big Eyes, Small Mouth Second Edition" (hereafter BESM 2nd), as you prolly already know, is a neat little 'generic' game designed to emulate anime (aka Japanese animation) in all its myriad forms. The idea is this: if there's anime about damned near everything, then there can be an RPG about damned near anything anime.

Luckily for you and me, BESM 2nd succeeds at its task, and that means that you and I can play "Magical Pretty Ninja Sailor Girl Mecha-Noriko GZ" now. Or whatever. And it's pretty easy to get there!

"BESM 2nd" effectively collects the previous edition of the game, as well as the supplements "Big Robots, Cool Starships", "Hot Rods & Gun Bunnies" and "Adjective Noun, Adjective Noun" (okay, not that last one), as well as some special goodies from "Sailor Moon", "Demon City Shinjuku", "Dominion Tank Police", "Ghost Dog" (not an anime) and "Tenchi Muyo!"; in addition to compiling all of this stuff, it expands the character creation system and goes to town on it. It's based around the Tri-Stat System, so named because every character is defined by three primary stats.

Get it? Three Stats? Tri-Stat?

Most of what's in here is character-fodder, by which I mean, it's got loads and loads of options for character definition. Build Sailor Moon-type magical girls, sullen giant robot pilots or elves with big-arse ten-foot-long ears. With 179 pages of character creation material (in two chapters), it's easy to find what you want for your character. Booo-yah!

The three basic stats are Body, Mind, and Soul; what they govern is pretty clear. Buy those up with a number of points given to you by the GM. Sharpen the definition of your character with Attributes, both "Normal" (Combat Mastery, Damn Healthy!, Flunkies, Appearance, etc.) and "Special" (Flight, Healing, Own A Big Mecha, Magic or Psionics, etc), then hook up some skills (Electronics, Urban Tracking, Boating, Computers, etc.). Buy back some points with Defects, again "Normal" (Ageism, Nemesis, etc) and "Special" (Cursed, Magical Restrictions, etc.). Lastly, whip up the derived stats (a bit of math is involved, but not much) and....

.....well, then you're done.

Sounds like a lot of work? It's not, really, though any game with this amount of options is going to be a bit involved. But the payback is that you get pretty much exactly what you want this way, and these options work not just on characters, but on mecha as well. Yes, that's right, you build everything from crotch rockets (you know....racing bikes) and cars to giant robots and starships using the same attributes, defects and so on. Oh, sure, some are exclusive to characters and others can only be had by mecha, but most of it is up for grabs. Result: build KITT from Knight Rider! You CAN, anyway. Don't HAVE to.

Fans of the bell curve, rejoice! For the game mechanics are pretty simple: roll equal to or less than stat on 2d6, modifying your roll by difficulty, level of skill, extraneous influence, or what-have-you. Usually you're just taking into account difficulty and skill, though, if at all, so it's not much of a hassle. Got that? If your Mind stat is 6 ("Significantly above human average"), and you're trying to hack into DingusCorp's high-security personnel mainframe (Quite Difficult, a +3 to your roll), but you have the Computer skill at 4, you roll 2d6, add 3, subtract 4 and look for 6 (your Mind) or less. It's no more math than the average dice-chucker is used to. This simple system facilitates dramatic action and derring-do, while still delivering a somewhat-predictable range of results (bell curves do that).

There's a chapter entitled "Expanded Game Mechanics", a slim one indeed but filled with tasty-sweet optional rules -- called shots, Shock Damage, more detailed movement, and so on. Optional all, and pretty well-explained.

The last chapter, "Role-playing in an Anime World", offers up oodles of advice for the GM. I like this part of the game very much; it goes a long way toward helping the GM tell the story he (or she) wants to, as well as popping out ideas and even campaign hooks left and right. Various tips on maintaing the anime style, in the form of "fan service" or cliches (which is really what they are), are fun, interesting and useful.

"Interesting" and "useful" also describe the reference section -- look to it for lists of anime films and videos, books, manga, and web links to various online sources -- and to the featured artists' personal art webpages! Cool! The index is pretty inclusive, has lots of entries, is easy to read and has my favorite entry of all time: "human?, Is the character [page] 16".

So. It's a nice anime game. But how Nice? You know....NICE? Like, to LOOK at?

This book is pretty. It's a digest-sized volume, like unto the thick manga it emulates; there's a color cover that pulls the eye without being too busy or sloppy. The interior artwork is lavish, all in color and nothing short of evocative, professional and diverse. (The girl pictured on page 7 gets 452 Mrs. Rotwang Points. Hubba!) The various artists, however, while credited in the colphon, do not often have their names cited by their artwork, so it's hard to say whose art I like most. I can tell you, on the other hand, that David Okum's artwork does not suit me at all. I don't like it. Sorry.

[Hey. Just had an idea -- how about an RPG based on the artwork of Patrick Nagel? You know, the guy who did the cover for Duran Duran's "Rio" album. Wouldn't that rock? Oh, probably not. Never mind.]

The book's layout is nice and sharp, with clean, legible fonts and clearly-marked section headings. Colored box-outs abound, and are likewise very legible and easy on the eye. On most of the pages, there's a light yellow-colored tint in the lower, outer corner of the page; this is distracting, as it makes it look like a different kind of light is over the reader's shoulder, or that perhaps the reader is creating an annoying shadow on the page. No amount of turning and shifting position will alleviate this, however, as the color is printed. Yuck. Oh -- and if you're American, like I am, you'll come across weird words like "metre" and "armour", and you'll say, "What the--?" That's because GOO are a bunch of Dang Canadians, who have the gall to write the English Language the same way the British (who created it) do. The nerve! Why, we oughtta....umn....aw, screw it.

The new character sheet is superior to the last one -- gone is the big goofy triangle-thing that took up half of your sheet. Bye-bye, big goofy triangle-thing! Now it uses a pretty straightforward series of boxes and fields. It's clean, sharp, and easy to navigate.

So what've we learned, gang? Well, we've learned that "BESM 2nd" ain't perfect, but it does what it wants to do pretty well -- and so can you. We've learned that Dr. Rotwang has the hots for the girl on page 7, that Canadians write funny, and that this little green book is $29.95 ($39.95 in Canada, for all the extra 'u's in "armour", I guess) well-spent.

Thank you, Canada, for giving us an anime RPG we can all be proud to play.

Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Big Eyes Small Mouth (BESM) 2nd Edition
Author: David Pulver and Mark MacKinnon Category: game Company/Publisher: Guardians of Order Line: Tri-Stat System Cost: 29.95 Page count: 279 ISBN: 1-894525-09-4 SKU: 02-101 Capsule Review by Dr. Rotwang! on 08/21/00. Genre tags: Fantasy Science fiction Modern day Historical Horror Far Future Space Comedy Anime Espionage Conspiracy Post-apocalypse Old West Vampire Gothic Asian/Far East Superhero Generic	Hey, this is nice. "Big Eyes, Small Mouth Second Edition" (hereafter BESM 2nd), as you prolly already know, is a neat little 'generic' game designed to emulate anime (aka Japanese animation) in all its myriad forms. The idea is this: if there's anime about damned near everything, then there can be an RPG about damned near anything anime. Luckily for you and me, BESM 2nd succeeds at its task, and that means that you and I can play "Magical Pretty Ninja Sailor Girl Mecha-Noriko GZ" now. Or whatever. And it's pretty easy to get there! "BESM 2nd" effectively collects the previous edition of the game, as well as the supplements "Big Robots, Cool Starships", "Hot Rods & Gun Bunnies" and "Adjective Noun, Adjective Noun" (okay, not that last one), as well as some special goodies from "Sailor Moon", "Demon City Shinjuku", "Dominion Tank Police", "Ghost Dog" (not an anime) and "Tenchi Muyo!"; in addition to compiling all of this stuff, it expands the character creation system and goes to town on it. It's based around the Tri-Stat System, so named because every character is defined by three primary stats. Get it? Three Stats? Tri-Stat? Most of what's in here is character-fodder, by which I mean, it's got loads and loads of options for character definition. Build Sailor Moon-type magical girls, sullen giant robot pilots or elves with big-arse ten-foot-long ears. With 179 pages of character creation material (in two chapters), it's easy to find what you want for your character. Booo-yah! The three basic stats are Body, Mind, and Soul; what they govern is pretty clear. Buy those up with a number of points given to you by the GM. Sharpen the definition of your character with Attributes, both "Normal" (Combat Mastery, Damn Healthy!, Flunkies, Appearance, etc.) and "Special" (Flight, Healing, Own A Big Mecha, Magic or Psionics, etc), then hook up some skills (Electronics, Urban Tracking, Boating, Computers, etc.). Buy back some points with Defects, again "Normal" (Ageism, Nemesis, etc) and "Special" (Cursed, Magical Restrictions, etc.). Lastly, whip up the derived stats (a bit of math is involved, but not much) and.... .....well, then you're done. Sounds like a lot of work? It's not, really, though any game with this amount of options is going to be a bit involved. But the payback is that you get pretty much exactly what you want this way, and these options work not just on characters, but on mecha as well. Yes, that's right, you build everything from crotch rockets (you know....racing bikes) and cars to giant robots and starships using the same attributes, defects and so on. Oh, sure, some are exclusive to characters and others can only be had by mecha, but most of it is up for grabs. Result: build KITT from Knight Rider! You CAN, anyway. Don't HAVE to. Fans of the bell curve, rejoice! For the game mechanics are pretty simple: roll equal to or less than stat on 2d6, modifying your roll by difficulty, level of skill, extraneous influence, or what-have-you. Usually you're just taking into account difficulty and skill, though, if at all, so it's not much of a hassle. Got that? If your Mind stat is 6 ("Significantly above human average"), and you're trying to hack into DingusCorp's high-security personnel mainframe (Quite Difficult, a +3 to your roll), but you have the Computer skill at 4, you roll 2d6, add 3, subtract 4 and look for 6 (your Mind) or less. It's no more math than the average dice-chucker is used to. This simple system facilitates dramatic action and derring-do, while still delivering a somewhat-predictable range of results (bell curves do that). There's a chapter entitled "Expanded Game Mechanics", a slim one indeed but filled with tasty-sweet optional rules -- called shots, Shock Damage, more detailed movement, and so on. Optional all, and pretty well-explained. The last chapter, "Role-playing in an Anime World", offers up oodles of advice for the GM. I like this part of the game very much; it goes a long way toward helping the GM tell the story he (or she) wants to, as well as popping out ideas and even campaign hooks left and right. Various tips on maintaing the anime style, in the form of "fan service" or cliches (which is really what they are), are fun, interesting and useful. "Interesting" and "useful" also describe the reference section -- look to it for lists of anime films and videos, books, manga, and web links to various online sources -- and to the featured artists' personal art webpages! Cool! The index is pretty inclusive, has lots of entries, is easy to read and has my favorite entry of all time: "human?, Is the character [page] 16". So. It's a nice anime game. But how Nice? You know....NICE? Like, to LOOK at? This book is pretty. It's a digest-sized volume, like unto the thick manga it emulates; there's a color cover that pulls the eye without being too busy or sloppy. The interior artwork is lavish, all in color and nothing short of evocative, professional and diverse. (The girl pictured on page 7 gets 452 Mrs. Rotwang Points. Hubba!) The various artists, however, while credited in the colphon, do not often have their names cited by their artwork, so it's hard to say whose art I like most. I can tell you, on the other hand, that David Okum's artwork does not suit me at all. I don't like it. Sorry. [Hey. Just had an idea -- how about an RPG based on the artwork of Patrick Nagel? You know, the guy who did the cover for Duran Duran's "Rio" album. Wouldn't that rock? Oh, probably not. Never mind.] The book's layout is nice and sharp, with clean, legible fonts and clearly-marked section headings. Colored box-outs abound, and are likewise very legible and easy on the eye. On most of the pages, there's a light yellow-colored tint in the lower, outer corner of the page; this is distracting, as it makes it look like a different kind of light is over the reader's shoulder, or that perhaps the reader is creating an annoying shadow on the page. No amount of turning and shifting position will alleviate this, however, as the color is printed. Yuck. Oh -- and if you're American, like I am, you'll come across weird words like "metre" and "armour", and you'll say, "What the--?" That's because GOO are a bunch of Dang Canadians, who have the gall to write the English Language the same way the British (who created it) do. The nerve! Why, we oughtta....umn....aw, screw it. The new character sheet is superior to the last one -- gone is the big goofy triangle-thing that took up half of your sheet. Bye-bye, big goofy triangle-thing! Now it uses a pretty straightforward series of boxes and fields. It's clean, sharp, and easy to navigate. So what've we learned, gang? Well, we've learned that "BESM 2nd" ain't perfect, but it does what it wants to do pretty well -- and so can you. We've learned that Dr. Rotwang has the hots for the girl on page 7, that Canadians write funny, and that this little green book is $29.95 ($39.95 in Canada, for all the extra 'u's in "armour", I guess) well-spent. Thank you, Canada, for giving us an anime RPG we can all be proud to play. Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 5 (Excellent!)

Big Eyes Small Mouth (BESM) 2nd Edition