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I really like rpgs with lots of robots and mecha and really cool gadgets, I'll admit it. But, I also despise having to crunch numbers to figure out tonnage, armour weight and fuel tankage. Nothing kills the fun of having my Ultra-Ninja Mega-Power Cybermech leap from a cliffside while unleashing a swarm of Viper missiles than having the G.M. point out "Oh, I believe your fusion generator will overheat from a manueuver like that..lesseee..how many kilowatts does that unit put out? Whats your tonnage?" See, it's already making me chafe.

Ah, but look! David Pulver and Guardians of Order brings us the Big Robots, Cool Starships supplement for Big Eyes, Small Mouth; the first supplement for that game system. Those of you who pay attention to such things will remember that David Pulver also authored GURPS Mecha, another fine book on the mecha genre, as well as a whole slew of other fine game products.

With BRCS, Pulver takes all of his great ideas on how to use mecha in rpgs and makes them amazingly accessible to those of us who love using BESM's rules lite approach to gaming. In BESM, you could have characters with cybernetic bodies or who owned Big Giant Robots, but there were only very vauge guidelines on how powerful to make them or exactly what their game impact would be. BRCS fleshes out these options with an easy to use point based system similar to the one used in normal character creation. With this system, you really can make your mecha (or supercar, or submarine, or whatever..it's very flexible)exactly as you and your players imagine them. Need a 500 ft. steampunk robot to fight off the Warrior Women of Venus?? Easy. A set of cyberarmor that is suprisingly self-aware and shrinks to fit in your pocket when unneeded? Real easy. A steamboat?? Still easy, and you'll find it useful for assigning stats to vehicles in modern games and even giant monsters for fantasy.

My only qualm is the Red Planet, Blue Helmets campaign seed included in the book. I like David Pulver's imagination, but Mounties on Mars?? I plan to use the Cybermech Damocles setting, which was included in GURPS Mecha, which is also a Pulver setting, but a ton more cinematic in my opinion.

Overall, Big Robots, Cool Starships is a joy for those of us who love to flesh out outlandish vehicles for our games but hate keeping track of fuel consumption and vectors and the like. With a quality supplement like this, it seems that Guardians of Order is on a roll. Keep it up, y'all.

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