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I like role playing system rule books. If a company releases a "core rule book", chances are I will get it. My bookshelf is filled with rule-books for role playing games I know that my D&D-obsessed players will never let me game-master. One of those is a colourful book, smaller than normal, with the letters BESM brightly emblazoned on the cover. Big Eyes, Small Mouth is an role playing game design to simulate Japanese cartoons (known as anime) published by Guardians of Order (GoO). It used GoO's own in-house rules system which they called tri-stat. Later, GoO published a second game using the same system called Silver Age Sentinels which was based around superheroes.

However, anime is a restricted market, and the superhero genre has been saturated with games lately; not good when you want to make sales. Well, it looks like marketing people at GoO has decided they want a bigger market penetration, so they have taken the Tri-Stat system, stripped way the anime and super-hero pretensions, and released it directly. What's more, they are giving it away. You can download from their web-site for free, or buy the rulebook for a low cost of $10.

This review is of the PDF I downloaded. Living in New Zealand (which is in the South Pacific, east of Australia) it takes a while for books to arrive here but I will pick up the paper version when it makes it to our shores. The PDF is a pretty standard affair, 2.37Mb with the major heading all being bookmarked. It doesn't use hyperlinks in its indexes or its "see page 56 for details" references, which is a slight nuisance. Also if you want to print the thing on a double sided printer, print from page 2 onwards and print the first page stand by itself, otherwise you get the page numbers in the wrong place. The presentation is pretty standard two column stuff, all black and white aside for a few of colour pages which are advertisements for GoO products. The text is readable, well edited, and seems free of error. I did notice the contents refers to a section as "What is Tri-Stat DX only $10" when the page itself is "Why is Tri-Stat DX free"; an understandable page substitution inconsistency in the downloadable version. The PDF version has absolutely no art in it, but it has plenty of boxed tables, and far too many lines running all through it. This is basically a reference book, and it certainly looks like it.

The easiest way to describe the tri-stat system is to say it is a simplified version of Hero Games's hero rule system. Both are point-based systems, where characters are generated (and also gain experience) by spending points to purchase their skills, special powers, and basic abilities from a large shopping-list-style selection. Both systems describe the more fantastical elements of the character by their effect rather than their source. Where as the D&D game has individual magic spells such as Fireball and Magic Missile, Tri-Stat has them all grouped together under special attack. As a result, a magician's magic fire spell, a genetically enhanced soldier's personally mounted auto-cannon, and a mentalist's power to pick up large objects and hurl them at you by the power of though alone all use the same game system mechanic.

Under the tri-stat system, characters are defined by their stats, attributes, skills, and defects. The stats represent the basic capabilities of the character. Since the system is called tri-stat, it shouldn't be too surprising to you that there are only three stats: Body, Mind, and Soul. Skills represent the character's skills and knowledge. Attributes represent the character's special and unique abilities, from the mundane (wealth) to the fantastic (flight, fireballs, and invisibility). Defects represent the characters failings and hindrances. Buying defects gives more points available to buy the good things but, unlike GURPS and Hero, defects aren't necessary to have an effective character.

The main game mechanic involves rolling a couple of dice and comparing the result to a total check value determined from the appropriate stat, averages stats, or total of stat and skill. If the result is less than or equal to the check value you succeed, otherwise you fail. The more you roll under that check value the better you succeed, and more you roll above the check value the more disastrous your failure was. An interesting twist to the system is that the type of dice you roll is based on the power level of genre or game setting. A normal human campaign may use a D6, while a matrix (first movie) campaign might use a d8, and a superhero campaign uses a d12.

The rulebook is not intended to be someone's first rulebook. It appear to be aimed at people who have role played before, and intended for those GMing their own setting but haven't quite made up their mind what game system to use. It has no examples, but does have a reasonable amount of advice for GMing the system, and also sections about the design goals and principles behind the decisions that the designer made. I really appreciated these sections, as I had in the past been a little apprehensive about the small number of stats, but after reading these sections I can understand now why the designers made it that way.

All in all, I have no hesitation recommending the Tri-Stat DX core rules, considering you can download it for free. The paper version of it is also very good value (except for those who already have BESM), especially if you like to GM custom settings and you need a game system. It is a simple to play, well play-tested system easily adaptable to multiple settings, although it does tend to favour the cinematic style over gritty realism.

Style 2: Bland presentation and generic names makes a dull reference. (They renamed Gun-Bunny to Combat Technique). Some bits are quite readable. I think the weapon descriptions from Feng Shui have spoiled me.

Substance 4: A nice system which is very flexible. Excellent value for money.