Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM) hit the scene in a big way in 1997. (Best role-playing game awards count as "big way" for me.) It was then left to languish for a while, although a related game -- Sailor Moon -- was produced. It languishes no longer. Guardians of Order, after hiring David Pulver, has taken on an aggressive publishing schedule which includes further licensed games as well as continued support for BESM.
This supplement is the first supporting piece to be published for BESM. And boy!, is it a doozy!
So what is Big Robots, Cool Starships (BRCS) anyway?
BRCS is a set of much-needed rules for making "mecha" -- a term which is defined rather broadly here as "all those cool almost-always-mechanical-but-not-necessarily-so devices that fill anime like cheap cologne fills a room". (I paraphrased a little.) (OK, a lot!) It had the design goal of being compatible with the Tri-Stat system of BESM, of keeping things as simple and elegant as BESM and of being able to handle the vast majority of cool "technology" seen on our anime-soaked video screens. Talk about a tall order!
So how well does it fill this order?
It accomplishes backwards compatibility by basically inventing a set of sub-mechanisms around the two BESM attributes "Owns a Big Robot (OBR)" and "Cybernetic Body". OBR is redefined to include large technology that isn't necessarily a robot -- it could be a motorcycle, powered armour, spaceship, or even a house. Cybernetic Body isn't redefined at all. Both, however, are modified to become a pool of points called "Mecha Build Points" which are used to string together "Mecha Sub-Attributes" and "Mecha Defects" which define the capabilities of the device/vehicle/whatever. The numbers that come out of the system are compatible with Tri-Stat. A slightly enhanced combat system is also added which adds a bit of flavour to mecha combat.
It keeps the elegance and simplicity of BESM to a lesser extent. BRCS is, after all, larger than BESM proper. There is bound to be some complexity. (This is especially true when making the weapons for your mecha.) Still, the complexity is only in relation to BESM. BRCS is far less complex than any vehicle construction system covering the same breadth that I've ever seen. (Only Silhouette is in the same league, but its use of cube roots, etc. in calculations puts it out of the running for simplicity awards.)
This leaves open the question of breadth: how good is the coverage? The answer is "very good". In a quick binge of play-testing the system, I created the Soyokaze from Captain Tylor, the Knight Sabers' powered armour (and a motorcycle) from Bubblegum Crisis and Eva 01 from Neon Genesis Evangelion. Of these, the Soyokaze was a cakewalk (once I figured out the weapons rules -- an additional five minutes of reading) and the Knight Sabers' gear was a bit fiddly (it took a lot of weapons options to get the flavour right). The only one which was actually difficult was Eva 01, and that only because I had to kind of fake out the endurance rules a bit given the oddity of the Eva power feeds. And even with that bit of difficulty, it still took less than an evening to assemble all of the above devices -- the same evening that I learned the rules.
Summary
Big Robots, Cool Starships is a wonderful (and badly needed) addition to
Big Eyes, Small Mouth. It fleshes out the technological side of anime wonderfully and yet keeps the hallmark simplicity and elegance that highlights the appeal of the Tri-Stat systems. This is a must-have purchase for anime role-playing fans.
Style: 4 (Classy and well done)
Substance: 5 (Excellent!)
