The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Disclaimer: This review contains adventure spoilers. If you are a player, why are you reading a review of the GM screen, anyway? :)

The BESM GM Screen is comprised of a 4-panel 6" x 9" screen -- black and white in the interior and glossy and color on the exterior -- and a 48-page 6" x 9" black and white booklet.

THE SCREEN

The glossy full-color exterior features a beautiful wraparound image of a mismatched group of anime heroes. These apparently represent a hypothetical group of PCs, since they are used several times in the adventure illustrations without ever being named.

The screen interior features the following charts:

Combat Flowchart
Degrees of Success
Defense Roll Modifiers
Attack Roll Modifiers
Skill Level Effects
Dice Roll Modifications
Critical Damage
Crash Damage and Falling Damage
Personal Weapons

These make for a practical, no-nonsense GM screen. All are generally easy to read, although the narrow font used for the Personal Weapons table my cause a bit of eyestrain.

The screen itself is sturdy enough not to fall at the first stray die roll and is tall enough to shield a GM's precious secrets.

THE ADVENTURE

This is a two-part adventure, enigmatically named "So, We Have… an Obelisk?". In theory, it is wildly multi-genre, at least insofar as the PCs can come from any sort of dimension and time period and have any sort of power. The story itself combines aspects of post-apocalyptic fantasy, cyberpunk, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Michael Moorcock's interdimensional war between Law and Chaos.

The PCs are literally Guardians of Order (clever, huh?) - special individuals chosen at the point of death from dying worlds across the multiverse to combat the forces of Chaos. Their worlds have been destroyed by a series of disasters spawned by identical mysterious Obelisks, and now they will have a chance to save yet another world from the same fate.

The Obelisks are the property of AmeriCorp, a cyclopean thousand-world megacorp from an ultratech reality. Their source is the Grand Obelisk, the artifact of an unknown alien civilization discovered by an AmeriCorp explorer vessel on a distant planet. Prior to this discovery, the vast distances between worlds meant that every colony had to be self-sufficient. But using space-warping gates created by the Obelisks, AmeriCorp was able to achieve instant travel to all of its holdings.

There were two drawbacks, though.

First, the Obelisk Gates could only be operated by Agents of Balance - individuals branded with runes like those covering the Obelisks and pressed into service by either Order or Chaos. (Guardians of Order are such Agents.)

And second, the Obelisks needed to be fed. Otherwise, they would start devouring that which passed through their gates.

To solve the first problem, AmeriCorp simply made working for the company a dream job for Agents of Balance. To solve the second, they began sending Obelisks to other dimensions, there to devour whole worlds.

Part One

And that's where the PCs come in. Plucked from his world at the point of its destruction, each PC is anointed a Guardian of Order by an unknown force, introduced to his fellow PCs (all of whom are analogs of people from the PC's home dimension), given palm tatoos as a badge of office, and plonked down onto Naru, a low-tech world about to face the same fate as his homeworld.

The PCs arrive near the Obelisk assigned to this world's destruction. Around it are gathered a group of survivors, answering the call of a prophet named "Teacher" who claims that the world's woes are merely a time of trail before a glorious future. In fact, Teacher is Adam Smythe, an Americorp Assistant Senior Manager and Agent of Balance assigned to oversee the draining and destruction of this world. This involves leading a ceremony within a short time of the PCs' arrival that charges the Obelisk with the drained souls of the survivors so that it may complete this process. Unfortunately for Smythe, one member of his congregation is an Agent herself, and her impassioned prayers undertaken at Smythe's instruction have had the unintended effect of summoning the PCs to her world's aid. Now Smythe's followers think that the PCs are angelic beings sent to save them, and Smythe himself will play along for the time being until he learns the truth.

There's really not all that much for the PCs to do before the apocalyptic ceremony. All of the action takes place right there at the Obelisk. The PCs can explore if they like, but the rest of the world is one big vaguely described ruin containing nothing of consequence. Interaction with Teacher's flock may reveal his secret before the ceremony, but Smythe will reveal himself at that time regardless. Assuming Smythe manages to keep the PCs in the dark until the ceremony, he'll send them off on a wild goose chase to be attacked by some mookish demons. Then he'll suit up with all of his previously hidden high-tech goodies and space marine bodyguards and try to finish off these troublesome interlopers.

If the PCs kill Smythe - or at least damage his power armor - the ceremony will be interrupted, and they hopefully will figure out that they, as Agents of Balance, can order the Obelisk to safely disperse the energy it has stored up. (The fact that some of the glyphs on the Obelisk match those tattooed upon their hands may be a clue, along with the fact that the Obelisk will verbally ask for instructions.) If they don't, the Obelisk will explode, possibly destroying the world anyway. But either way, the energy will be released, and that release will create a vortex that will sweep them away to the homeworld of AmeriCorp, and thusly on to Part Two.

Part Two

The PCs find themselves whisked away to the homeworld of AmeriCorp, the power in this dimension. Since the PCs have just screwed up a major AmeriCorp operation, one would think that this would be a very bad situation.

And so it would be, if it weren't for the fact that the PCs are all Agents of Balance. As previously stated, AmeriCorp needs Agents of Balance to operate the Obelisk Gates, and said Agents are hard to come by. With the arrival of the PCs, AmeriCorp thinks that it may have hit the proverbial jackpot.

So instead of a high-tech SWAT team, a slick AmeriCorp representative welcomes the group and tries to convince them to sign up. The potential perks are substantial, up to and including (with some smart bargaining) the re-creation of their homeworlds. But no matter what the PCs decide, billions of lives will be lost. If they sign up, they can get their worlds re-created, but they will be directly responsible for the destruction of manner more. If they oppose AmeriCorp, their own worlds will stay destroyed, and if they defeat AmeriCorp and destroy the Grand Obelisk - which, as Agents of Balance, they can do by ordering it to self-destruct - the citizens of the thousand worlds dependent upon the Obelisk Gates for survival will perish.

And that's it. Aside from a physical examination, no other events are detailed. You get stats on four NPCs (including the CEO of AmeriCorp), an interesting description of the company, and a very general description of the AmeriCorp homeworld. The rest is up to the GM.

That's an awful lot of white space for a published adventure. In fact, the whole thing smacks of a really great idea that grew beyond the scope of its medium.

STYLE

The art ranges from good to great, especially the exterior of the screen and the interior illustrations for Part Two of the adventure.

The writing is clear and concise, with important information and clues appearing in bulleted lists. I was thrown off a bit by the insertion of the NPC stats before, rather than after, the scenario descriptions, but this was a small gripe.

A somewhat larger gripe was the vague description of the terms "Guardian of Order," "Agent of Balance," "Agent of Order," and "Agent of Chaos." All are used seemingly interchangeably, although Agents of Order and of Chaos are obviously opposites. I think that all Guardians of Order are both Agents of Order and Agents of Balance and that all Agents of Order and Chaos are also Agents of Balance, but I'm honestly not certain.

I saw no typos.

CONCLUSION

The GM screen is pleasantly functional, but the adventure should have been either shrunken down to a plot hook or (better still) expanded into a sourcebook. As it is, if you buy the screen hoping to have a timesaving prewritten adventure, you are going to feel horribly cheated. If, on the other hand, you are a do-it-yourself GM on the lookout for a good campaign idea, you may well be pleased. And if all you want is a good GM screen, the adventure won't matter to you anyway.

BESM Game Master's Screen
BESM Game Master's Screen Capsule Review by Dan Davenport on 01/09/01 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 3 (Average) The GM screen is pleasantly functional, but the adventure should have been either shrunken down to a plot hook or (better still) expanded into a sourcebook. Product: BESM Game Master's Screen Author: Jesse Scoble Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Guardians of Order Line: Big Eyes, Small Mouth Cost: $12.95 Page count: 48 Year published: 2000 ISBN: 1-894525-12-4 SKU: 02-102 Comp copy?: yes Capsule Review by Dan Davenport on 01/09/01 Genre tags: Fantasy Science Fiction Far Future Space Anime Espionage Conspiracy Post-apocalyse	*Disclaimer:* This review contains adventure spoilers. If you are a player, why are you reading a review of the GM screen, anyway? :) The BESM GM Screen is comprised of a 4-panel 6" x 9" screen -- black and white in the interior and glossy and color on the exterior -- and a 48-page 6" x 9" black and white booklet. THE SCREEN The glossy full-color exterior features a beautiful wraparound image of a mismatched group of anime heroes. These apparently represent a hypothetical group of PCs, since they are used several times in the adventure illustrations without ever being named. The screen interior features the following charts: Combat Flowchart Degrees of Success Defense Roll Modifiers Attack Roll Modifiers Skill Level Effects Dice Roll Modifications Critical Damage Crash Damage and Falling Damage Personal Weapons These make for a practical, no-nonsense GM screen. All are generally easy to read, although the narrow font used for the Personal Weapons table my cause a bit of eyestrain. The screen itself is sturdy enough not to fall at the first stray die roll and is tall enough to shield a GM's precious secrets. THE ADVENTURE This is a two-part adventure, enigmatically named "So, We Have… an Obelisk?". In theory, it is wildly multi-genre, at least insofar as the PCs can come from any sort of dimension and time period and have any sort of power. The story itself combines aspects of post-apocalyptic fantasy, cyberpunk, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Michael Moorcock's interdimensional war between Law and Chaos. The PCs are literally Guardians of Order (clever, huh?) - special individuals chosen at the point of death from dying worlds across the multiverse to combat the forces of Chaos. Their worlds have been destroyed by a series of disasters spawned by identical mysterious Obelisks, and now they will have a chance to save yet another world from the same fate. The Obelisks are the property of AmeriCorp, a cyclopean thousand-world megacorp from an ultratech reality. Their source is the Grand Obelisk, the artifact of an unknown alien civilization discovered by an AmeriCorp explorer vessel on a distant planet. Prior to this discovery, the vast distances between worlds meant that every colony had to be self-sufficient. But using space-warping gates created by the Obelisks, AmeriCorp was able to achieve instant travel to all of its holdings. There were two drawbacks, though. First, the Obelisk Gates could only be operated by Agents of Balance - individuals branded with runes like those covering the Obelisks and pressed into service by either Order or Chaos. (Guardians of Order are such Agents.) And second, the Obelisks needed to be fed. Otherwise, they would start devouring that which passed through their gates. To solve the first problem, AmeriCorp simply made working for the company a dream job for Agents of Balance. To solve the second, they began sending Obelisks to other dimensions, there to devour whole worlds. Part One And that's where the PCs come in. Plucked from his world at the point of its destruction, each PC is anointed a Guardian of Order by an unknown force, introduced to his fellow PCs (all of whom are analogs of people from the PC's home dimension), given palm tatoos as a badge of office, and plonked down onto Naru, a low-tech world about to face the same fate as his homeworld. The PCs arrive near the Obelisk assigned to this world's destruction. Around it are gathered a group of survivors, answering the call of a prophet named "Teacher" who claims that the world's woes are merely a time of trail before a glorious future. In fact, Teacher is Adam Smythe, an Americorp Assistant Senior Manager and Agent of Balance assigned to oversee the draining and destruction of this world. This involves leading a ceremony within a short time of the PCs' arrival that charges the Obelisk with the drained souls of the survivors so that it may complete this process. Unfortunately for Smythe, one member of his congregation is an Agent herself, and her impassioned prayers undertaken at Smythe's instruction have had the unintended effect of summoning the PCs to her world's aid. Now Smythe's followers think that the PCs are angelic beings sent to save them, and Smythe himself will play along for the time being until he learns the truth. There's really not all that much for the PCs to do before the apocalyptic ceremony. All of the action takes place right there at the Obelisk. The PCs can explore if they like, but the rest of the world is one big vaguely described ruin containing nothing of consequence. Interaction with Teacher's flock may reveal his secret before the ceremony, but Smythe will reveal himself at that time regardless. Assuming Smythe manages to keep the PCs in the dark until the ceremony, he'll send them off on a wild goose chase to be attacked by some mookish demons. Then he'll suit up with all of his previously hidden high-tech goodies and space marine bodyguards and try to finish off these troublesome interlopers. If the PCs kill Smythe - or at least damage his power armor - the ceremony will be interrupted, and they hopefully will figure out that they, as Agents of Balance, can order the Obelisk to safely disperse the energy it has stored up. (The fact that some of the glyphs on the Obelisk match those tattooed upon their hands may be a clue, along with the fact that the Obelisk will verbally ask for instructions.) If they don't, the Obelisk will explode, possibly destroying the world anyway. But either way, the energy will be released, and that release will create a vortex that will sweep them away to the homeworld of AmeriCorp, and thusly on to Part Two. Part Two The PCs find themselves whisked away to the homeworld of AmeriCorp, the power in this dimension. Since the PCs have just screwed up a major AmeriCorp operation, one would think that this would be a very bad situation. And so it would be, if it weren't for the fact that the PCs are all Agents of Balance. As previously stated, AmeriCorp needs Agents of Balance to operate the Obelisk Gates, and said Agents are hard to come by. With the arrival of the PCs, AmeriCorp thinks that it may have hit the proverbial jackpot. So instead of a high-tech SWAT team, a slick AmeriCorp representative welcomes the group and tries to convince them to sign up. The potential perks are substantial, up to and including (with some smart bargaining) the re-creation of their homeworlds. But no matter what the PCs decide, billions of lives will be lost. If they sign up, they can get their worlds re-created, but they will be directly responsible for the destruction of manner more. If they oppose AmeriCorp, their own worlds will stay destroyed, and if they defeat AmeriCorp and destroy the Grand Obelisk - which, as Agents of Balance, they can do by ordering it to self-destruct - the citizens of the thousand worlds dependent upon the Obelisk Gates for survival will perish. And that's it. Aside from a physical examination, no other events are detailed. You get stats on four NPCs (including the CEO of AmeriCorp), an interesting description of the company, and a very general description of the AmeriCorp homeworld. The rest is up to the GM. That's an awful lot of white space for a published adventure. In fact, the whole thing smacks of a really great idea that grew beyond the scope of its medium. STYLE The art ranges from good to great, especially the exterior of the screen and the interior illustrations for Part Two of the adventure. The writing is clear and concise, with important information and clues appearing in bulleted lists. I was thrown off a bit by the insertion of the NPC stats before, rather than after, the scenario descriptions, but this was a small gripe. A somewhat larger gripe was the vague description of the terms "Guardian of Order," "Agent of Balance," "Agent of Order," and "Agent of Chaos." All are used seemingly interchangeably, although Agents of Order and of Chaos are obviously opposites. I think that all Guardians of Order are both Agents of Order and Agents of Balance and that all Agents of Order and Chaos are also Agents of Balance, but I'm honestly not certain. I saw no typos. CONCLUSION The GM screen is pleasantly functional, but the adventure should have been either shrunken down to a plot hook or (better still) expanded into a sourcebook. As it is, if you buy the screen hoping to have a timesaving prewritten adventure, you are going to feel horribly cheated. If, on the other hand, you are a do-it-yourself GM on the lookout for a good campaign idea, you may well be pleased. And if all you want is a good GM screen, the adventure won't matter to you anyway.

BESM Game Master's Screen