The Lowdown on Anima: Beyond Fantasy

[Tectorman]

I saw the book last Saturday and it intrigued me. I've been glancing through it at Borders a little bit at a time and am still wondering if it would be a good choice to buy.
What I look for in an RPG:
Pre-existing setting that can be easily changed into something else.
I like it when a game comes along and it's already got a backstory and a history, culture, ecology, and other such stuff already laid out. I also like it when it's not a chore but a simple matter to take what already exists and tweak it into something more my style.
Fairness and a lack of trap choices:
A person should be able to take any options that sound right to the character (or monster or villian, etc.) and they should be just as viable as the next list of choices. You should be able to put forth x effort and get y experience points (advancement points, power points, etc.) and they should all add up to the same regardless.
Nothing imposed on personality or roleplaying:
Basically, no alignment mechanics and no dark side points. Consequences for things happening because of character personality should be handled by things in-game responding to the character, not arbitrary mechanics.
Short learning curve and no need for system mastery:
I like to get my "learning how to play the game" done first, then just relax into the character and play. Even if the game has a steep hill to climb, it's fine so long as there won't be a constant list of things being introduced that I also have to get a handle on.

What intrigued me when I looked at the book:
I remember reading somewhere that the classes in the book are replaceable with other classes you can make up yourself and the formula appears to be easy enough to decipher to where I could customize something in short order.
It appeared as though any character could learn to do anything (almost as though it was a classless system).

Based on this, would Anima RPG be a good buy? Find someone to loan me a book and play a quick session before buying? Don't touch it again? Give more information on my tastes; this isn't enough?

 

[Deverash]

I picked this up and I like it alot. This is very much not a rules-light game, however.

Taking your preferences in order:
- The setting is interesting, but very convoluted, and alot of it is optional at that(a lot of hidden things). On the other hand, it's so broad that your going to be making up a lot of details anyways. If you have or have read the Exalted 2e books, there's a similiar level of setting in Anima.

- It's pretty fair. It's a point-buy system, where anyone can do anything if you spend the points. All the classes do is change costs of the points, and their Jack-of-all trades class is actually pretty good at doing just that, which I haven't really seen much. The innate class bonuses (that get added eveyr level) tend to provide a level of detail that hte point costs themselves don't give.

- There is no alignment like system in Anima to speak of. There are a couple of disadvantages you can take which are psychological, and if you Synchronize with the Beryls and Shajads(saints/gods), they have a list of things they want you to do/don't do to synchronize more fully with them.

- Unfortunately, the learning curve is steep, but once you figure out the subsystems, it's pretty even. Every supernatural ability your character can have has a completely different subsystem to it, and understanding one doesn't help you understand the others. On the plus side, I haven't seen any real pitfalls or system-mastery type things in any of them.

- You can probably make up your own classes, but honestly the breadth of the ones in teh book are probably fine. To help make up the slack for a significant number of points you can use your weapon attack and defense skills in place of either your magical attack and defense skills or your psychic attack and defense skills.


The biggest problem I have with the game, to be honest, is the translation/editing. It was translated from French(or maybe spanish? not sure), and you can tell it wasn't done by a native english speaker. Most of the time it was ok, but there were a couple of places that I had to sit and think for a while on what the author was actually trying to say, since the english made no sense. There are also several game terms used that they have two different words for, and they use them interchangably(or, more likely, there were 2 different translators, and they translated the term differently). Again, once you get through it, your fine.

The only other problem I've had with it so far, is that the organization of the book is probably the worst I've ever seen in an RPG, ever. And, of course, there's no index. As an example: If you have both the Block skill and the Dodge skill, they both take a -60. Where do you find this? At the beginning of the section on Weapon Modules(buying profiecy in weapon groups).

Over all, the game is very reminiscent of Rolemaster, but there is just one combat chart for everything that does damage(whether it's a sword or a supernatural attack). There are some great ideas in there, though, and I'm looking forward to actually using this system on Saturday.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

As Deverash's GM for said Saturday game (hi, Dev!) I agree with everything he said. As for the setting, I've torn it out and am introducing a new, very Final Fantasy-esque setting for the game.

Though the system itself seems pretty awesome, and not as complex as you might think at first, he's right about the organization. The organization of the book is horrendous, and I've never wanted an index worse in a book in my life. Even some alphabetization in the spell lists would've been nice.

Character generation, on the other hand, *is* pretty complex, and almost all of the game's charts (and there are plenty in the book) are for various bits and pieces of character or monster generation.

There are some weird rules artifacts in there, like apparently Strength adds to the base damage of all weapons....including Firearms. A few things (the Block/Dodge thing Deverash mentioned is the most important one I found) seem almost lost against the massive wall of text that is the game, but are pretty important. Read the book carefully. And higher-quality weapons are measured in "+5s." But, a +5 doesn't just get you a +5 to attack, it gets you a +5 to attack and damage, a +X to something else, a +Y to something else, etc. etc. +5/+10/+15 for equipment should definitely have some other name.

Also, there are a few things that seem to be missing. There's an Artifact advantage that lets you start with a magical type weapon, but no guidelines on magic weapons in the book. Anywhere. Also, for a 320 page book, there's not much in the way of pregenerated creatures; only a handful at the back. This means some work for the GM.

All that said, it does look pretty flexible and very fun. We'll find out Saturday.

 

[DeadlyUematsu]

Well, it's a good game with crap translation and very flexible character generation.

 

[ProfessorCirno]

VERY rules heavy. Translated from Spanish.

Artist is a cool guy though. Bit of a dirty old man, but what artists aren't?

 

[mgehl]

My reading of that dodge/block thing was that if you invest much more heavily in dodge than block (or vice-versa), and you need the other (an un-dodgable attack), you can block using your dodge at -60.

 

[mgehl]

Back to the original question, I think the character creation system does trap you slightly, but only if you want to go down a specialist route (magic, psionics, summoning, ki techniques as your primary attack). Since a character class is defined by the price you pay for the various skills and abilities, you probably won't end up with a specialist who's effective at his specialty unless you pick a class for that. On the other hand, they do have mixed classes for most pairings of specialties, along with the dedicated classes, and you can always multiclass later on.

Okay, now that I've been sounding more negative than I intended to, I like the game, and I'm thinking about campaign and adventure plots I could use, and once I know which city I'll be living in a few months from now, I'll start looking for people who want to try Anima.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

My reading of that dodge/block thing was that if you invest much more heavily in dodge than block (or vice-versa), and you need the other (an un-dodgable attack), you can block using your dodge at -60.

Hm. Another interesting interpretation. I need to look around and see if there's some sort of FAQ/Errata floating around out there in English.

 

[mgehl]

Hm. Another interesting interpretation. I need to look around and see if there's some sort of FAQ/Errata floating around out there in English.

The company's (english) forum is - Index.

 

[Nightchilde-2]

The company's (english) forum is - Index.

I went to the French site and found a web enhancement with a couple of magic items, a new psychic power, a few new ki powers and a few new monsters.

I had to translate of course, but I found the answer to the block/dodge question. Basically, you can develop both but if, for some reason (say you've developed only Block or Dodge) there's a need, you can use the other at -60 penalty. So looks like your interpretation was golden.