The Inside Scoop on Gaming

Orcs. Elves. Dwarves. Dragons. Vampires. Looks like we're in for another night of D&D, right?

Wrong. Big Eyes, Small Mouth, the generic anime game that launched Guardians or Order into the small empire it is, has taken a leap into the fantasy genre. A campaign book and an adventure supplement are on the way, but first Guardians teases us with the BESM Fantasy Bestiary, a book of templates for creeating fantastical creatures and characters in the Tri-Stat system used in BESM. Which means you can now play a D&D sy\tyle game, only anime style. Believe it or not, it works.

It also has precendent. A great deal of anime was inspired asmuch by fantasy role-playing games as by fantasy fiction. I have frequently heard Lina Inverse, the sorceress "heroine" of Slayers, described as "a high-level D&D charatcer being played by a munchkin". And series like Record of Lodoss Wars clearly show their D&D roots. More recently, one of the hottest anime shows of the season, .hack//SIGN, revolved around a massively-multiplayer VR computer game from which one player could not log off -- the Everquest from Hell, so to speak.

So it's natural that a generic anime game would want to cover fantasy. BESM Fantasy Bestiary deliberately does not go into very much depth -- each of the races and creatures gets a page or so and the pages are small if densely packed. And every fourth page is a picture of the pervious three creatures. The book is divided into Character Races, Creatures of Myth, Dinosaurs, Faeries and Undead, with a few magic items thrown in at the end for good measure. It doesn;t present a campaign or many playing or GMing tips -- those are for other books. This is a database, pure and simple. And for what it is it does a fine job.

I could not find one creature in this book that had not appeared in some variant of a D&D or D20 book. the difference, of course, is that since the Tri-Stat System is based around character points each race is a template with two examples of a typical member of that race. Each template costs a certain nunber of points to adopt for a character, and then you can customize by spending more points to buy additional abilities. Of particular note is the fact that you can combime templates and buy more than one for a character. Some of these are obviously best suited for NPCs, like vampire tyrannosaurs. But some are workable player characters, if you can stand such inherent contradictions of a dwarf and a High Elf having a child. A significant absence is that of the half-elves and half-orcs that are such popular D&D characters.

The templates are not meant to be balanced, and some are significantly more powerful than others. YOu can have player-character Angels, for example, but they will be very expensive and very powerful even at their weakest. At the same time the limited number of defects many characters make means that some characters can run rampant over a campaign if left unchecked. Said Angel, for example, can't attack the followers of their god, but everyone else is fair game.

Gamemaster and player creativitity should be inspired by these templates, though. Now that there's an official BESM Dark Elf you can play your very own Pirotess. Certain types of BESM campaigns are a lot easier to run now, including modern horror (now that you have a traditional vampire, zombie, and other undead to throw at the PCs), science fiction (ORCS IN SPAAAACE!), and time travel (where there are friendly dinosaurs just dying to eat --- er, MEET you....)

I also liked the price of this book. It's very affordable for the gamemaster on a budget. Hopefully if it's a hit they'll do a Bestiary 2 with more races and creatures. (Although the naming may be unfortunate -- you expect a monster book with a title like "Fantasy Bestiary" and this is as much use for PC templates as for monsters.)

One final note about the art is that all the interior art is in black and white. Guardians of Order has given up on color art for all bu their most important books, and in this case that really is a shame. The art is lovely, but somewhat washed-out in greyscale. Color versions of these illustrations would have raised the cost of the book substsntially, but made it more appealing as well.

Now let's go hunt some orc!

BESM Fantasy Bestiary
BESM Fantasy Bestiary Capsule Review by Michael Hopcroft on 25/10/02 Style: 4 (Classy and well done) Substance: 4 (Meaty) A collection of races and creatures for Big Eyes Small Mouth. Now you can play D&D with anime rules and do a good job of it. Product: BESM Fantasy Bestiary Author: Jeff Mackintosh and Anthony ragan Category: RPG Company/Publisher: Guardians of Order Line: Tri-Stat System D6 Cost: 15.95 Page count: 96 Year published: 2002 ISBN: 1-894525-57-4 SKU: #02-109 Comp copy?: no Capsule Review by Michael Hopcroft on 25/10/02 Genre tags: Fantasy Anime	Orcs. Elves. Dwarves. Dragons. Vampires. Looks like we're in for another night of D&D, right? Wrong. Big Eyes, Small Mouth, the generic anime game that launched Guardians or Order into the small empire it is, has taken a leap into the fantasy genre. A campaign book and an adventure supplement are on the way, but first Guardians teases us with the BESM Fantasy Bestiary, a book of templates for creeating fantastical creatures and characters in the Tri-Stat system used in BESM. Which means you can now play a D&D sy\tyle game, only anime style. Believe it or not, it works. It also has precendent. A great deal of anime was inspired asmuch by fantasy role-playing games as by fantasy fiction. I have frequently heard Lina Inverse, the sorceress "heroine" of Slayers, described as "a high-level D&D charatcer being played by a munchkin". And series like Record of Lodoss Wars clearly show their D&D roots. More recently, one of the hottest anime shows of the season, .hack//SIGN, revolved around a massively-multiplayer VR computer game from which one player could not log off -- the Everquest from Hell, so to speak. So it's natural that a generic anime game would want to cover fantasy. BESM Fantasy Bestiary deliberately does not go into very much depth -- each of the races and creatures gets a page or so and the pages are small if densely packed. And every fourth page is a picture of the pervious three creatures. The book is divided into Character Races, Creatures of Myth, Dinosaurs, Faeries and Undead, with a few magic items thrown in at the end for good measure. It doesn;t present a campaign or many playing or GMing tips -- those are for other books. This is a database, pure and simple. And for what it is it does a fine job. I could not find one creature in this book that had not appeared in some variant of a D&D or D20 book. the difference, of course, is that since the Tri-Stat System is based around character points each race is a template with two examples of a typical member of that race. Each template costs a certain nunber of points to adopt for a character, and then you can customize by spending more points to buy additional abilities. Of particular note is the fact that you can combime templates and buy more than one for a character. Some of these are obviously best suited for NPCs, like vampire tyrannosaurs. But some are workable player characters, if you can stand such inherent contradictions of a dwarf and a High Elf having a child. A significant absence is that of the half-elves and half-orcs that are such popular D&D characters. The templates are not meant to be balanced, and some are significantly more powerful than others. YOu can have player-character Angels, for example, but they will be very expensive and very powerful even at their weakest. At the same time the limited number of defects many characters make means that some characters can run rampant over a campaign if left unchecked. Said Angel, for example, can't attack the followers of their god, but everyone else is fair game. Gamemaster and player creativitity should be inspired by these templates, though. Now that there's an official BESM Dark Elf you can play your very own Pirotess. Certain types of BESM campaigns are a lot easier to run now, including modern horror (now that you have a traditional vampire, zombie, and other undead to throw at the PCs), science fiction (ORCS IN SPAAAACE!), and time travel (where there are friendly dinosaurs just dying to eat --- er, MEET you....) I also liked the price of this book. It's very affordable for the gamemaster on a budget. Hopefully if it's a hit they'll do a Bestiary 2 with more races and creatures. (Although the naming may be unfortunate -- you expect a monster book with a title like "Fantasy Bestiary" and this is as much use for PC templates as for monsters.) One final note about the art is that all the interior art is in black and white. Guardians of Order has given up on color art for all bu their most important books, and in this case that really is a shame. The art is lovely, but somewhat washed-out in greyscale. Color versions of these illustrations would have raised the cost of the book substsntially, but made it more appealing as well. Now let's go hunt some orc!