As an anime fan, I’ve been into Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM) since it was first published in 1997, The first edition was slim, fast, easy, good looking and fit pretty much any type of anime game a person could want to play. In the main book, there were some good rules, and a small amount of background. The background wasn’t enough for anyone who hadn’t seen massive amounts of anime, but I had, so I was fine with it. There was also some very decent art. It was all in black in white, but gorgeous anyway. All in all, I was very excited and pleased by the first edition BESM.
The supplements for it, Big Robots, Cool Starships and Hot Rods and Gun Bunnies were both artfully done, and really fleshed out the two anime genres they covered (mecha and modern action, respectively). Both continued the tradition of easy readability, excellent substance, beautiful art and overall coolness. Also, in the supplements sample adventures were provided, and although I never used them, they gave me a good idea of how to run campaigns. Also, HRGB introduced a skill system which made BESM’s easy, three stat system even nicer.
Now, Guardians of Order has released BESM second edition. WOW! The first thing I noticed(besides the leap from 96 to 288 pages), and all the people I’ve shown the book to have noticed, is how beautiful it is. It is a stunning and attractive piece of work. Every page is full color, the front has a beautiful picture on a pleasant shade of green. The art inside is simply fantastic. There’s no other way to put it. Most of it is higher quality than anything I see in real anime (though not most manga) and it’s all in bright, full color. The page headings are in nice colors, there is different shading for different pieces of the book all the way through (red for this type of heading, green for this type of description, etc.)
On to content. The book starts off with an introduction on what anime is and what role playing is. For most of us, this is just the same old, same old, but nicely written. The first chapters (and most of the book) are focused on character creation. There are many easy to read charts giving you step by step instructions on making a character, and advice for the GM all the way through. In the old game, character creation worked by each PC rolling 2d6 and adding 10 to it to divide between his stats and then having 10, 15 or 20 attribute points, depending on how powerful the GM wanted the characters to be. In the new game, they simplify everything and just give each character a bunch of points which can be divided among stats and attributes as the character pleases.
BESM’s basic system works like this: Each character has three stats, Body, Mind and Soul. Each of these stats is rated on a scale from 1 to 12, with 4 being the level of an average human adult. BESM takes into account the fact that almost all anime characters are above the levels of an average human adult, and most characters don’t have any stats at 4. The stats are the determinant for most actions, and also determine Health Points (Body Soul x 5) and Energy Points, which are used for making extraordinary anime feats and for magic (Mind Soul x 5). Combat stats are also derived from stats, with Attack Combat Value being the average of all three stats, and Defense Combat Value being ACV minus 2. (On a side note, this is cool because it makes it so that everybody hits more, which makes games a lot more interesting).
To make checks, a player rolls 2d6 against whichever stat their desired action falls under. So jumping across a hole would be Body, drawing a map of a cave would be Mind and stuff like convincing the mayor of your innocence would be Soul. The player tries to roll underneath his stat, perhaps modified by the GM for the difficulty of the roll. Skills can modify this, with each level in a skill reducing the die roll by one, and therefore making it easier to succeed.
Combat works in much the same way, only using the Attack and Defense Combat Values.
The other main parts of characters are their attributes and skills. Attributes are kind of like a replacement for character classes in some other games, and they are where BESM 2nd Edition is far, far superior to the original. The original had a list of about 26 attributes, and 12 defects, which can be used to buy more attributes.
The new book has over a hundred different special and normal attributes and defects. Attributes give characters certain abilities, and as players buy more levels of an attribute(usually to a maximum of 6), they are more powerful. For example, a character with level one of the speed attribute can move 1.5 times as fast as a normal human; a character with level six of the speed attribute can move 6 times as fast.
Normal attributes are those which a “normal” human could have, like agility, speed, focused combat and the like. Special attributes are, well, special. Things like magic, super speed, having a big mecha, having a secret power attack and stuff like that are all special attributes. The fantasy genre book that was never made for BESM 1st edition is included here, with all sorts of attributes geared towards fantasy and ancient Japan game settings. All of the attributes from HRGB and BRCS are also here, as well as new ones for horror genres and I don't know what else.
One thing I’d like to note is the revision of the magic system. In the first edition, magic and psionics were very disappointing. There were some vague descriptions of freeform magic systems where pretty much anything went, and the GM had to decide how much EP spells cost to cast. In the new game, if a character wants magic, he buys a level of the Magic attribute, and gets ten “magic points.” The player can spend these points on any other attribute, and therefore create anime-like spells. For example, if a character wanted a fly spell, she could buy level one of the fly attribute using magic points, and that would become a spell. It sounds kind of quirky, but it works very well. Casting costs are also resolved, with the EP cost of a spell being equal to how many magic points it cost to buy.
The sheer number and variety and coolness of the attributes cannot be put in this interview, and besides, anyone who likes anime should buy this game and just read it themselves. Character creation is very, very fun, and once you know the book and have an idea of what kind of character you want, it is very fast (about 15 minutes for me) as well. There are many attributes for combat, if your characters want, as well as many for atmosphere and just powers.
There are also a much larger number of defects, though I didn’t find them to be that much more innovative. Many of the defects from HRGB and BRCS are recycled here. Still, there are some very cool new ones and some good suggestions for “unique defects.” The book recommends and I agree that each character should have at least one defect. They make the game much more interesting, and make characters seem more like anime stars.
Skills are like attributes, but they are for just one thing, like cooking or driving, and modify stat rolls. Each skill also has the nifty option of adding a specialty, that the character performs one level better in his skill than he actually is. There are a huge number of skills, including combat skills. Combat skills were introduced in HRGB and they make combat more fun. Basically, there are things like Ranged Attack, Ranged Defense, Firearms, Melee Attack, Melee Defense, and things like that. When a character is using those weapons or defending against those weapons, he subtracts his skill level from the roll. This is a lot like being proficient in other games, and prevents characters from missing as much as they seemed to in 1st edition.
The skills are organized nicely and there is a great little chart that gives the per-level cost of each skill in creation points for different genres. This reflects the fact that in a military campaign, swords just aren’t as important as guns, and cooking is almost useless. There are many different campaign genres given, and just about any game I can think of can fall under one of them.
The rules have stayed almost exactly the same for anyone who owned all three of the original books. They are organized very nicely, and are deliciously simple. There are some expanded combat rules which are nice if you want to use them. There are also some new rules about blowing things up (useful because this sort of thing happens very frequently in anime), a dropping of the Type-A armor from the first edition, and a really nifty chart that gives many different weapons, their damage, range, weight, etc. Although lots of anime has some bizarre, different weaponry, most of it could be adapted from this chart very easily.
The GMing chapter is very nice, and gives lots of good advice on making the role playing experience more like anime. They encourage a lot of description using things like triple takes, flying colorful backgrounds, theme music and closeups and stuff like that by both the GM and the players. They also give advice on NPCs, minor flunkies, and many other things.
Chapter 6: Roleplaying in an Anime World is the background chapter that was missing from the first edition. It is really nice, giving all sorts of anime conventions (like nosebleeds and white haired effeminate swordsmen) that a non-otaku might not know about. It also gives a description of many of the common anime genres and suggests movies that would be set in this genre. This is nice and up to date, being released last year, and includes Princess Mononoke.
Overall, this book is one of the best RPG products I’ve ever purchased. I’ve played different BESM campaigns in the sci-fi/mecha setting, fantasy/ancient Japan setting and the modern action drama setting, and all of them worked beautifully. Guardians of Order is a great company that makes really great products. This is probably their crowning achievement.
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