S
shurai
Guest
I have several things to say about BESM which hopefully will be useful to you and others:
One, as an anime fan, I find it a delight to read the book, make characters, and play the game. It's great fun. As far as critiques go, the game presumes that balance is provided by sane players and a fair GM, rather than by a carefully-constructed rules set. It absolutely requires more mature players than D&D, which is often seen as a disadvantage. One of my favorite features of the system is that a person's proficiency at combat is equally determined by all three of the game's 'ability scores' (Body, Mind and Soul) equally, which I think meshes with most anime philosophy on the subject pretty well. Subject to GM-approval a character can really implement all the anime-esque abilities, powers, and quirks they want. That's really the system's greatest selling point: When playing the game, it just feels like anime.
Two, I don't know what people mean when they say the game is low-level . . . I believe a 40 point character (which is, I think, about 'high level' according to their table-o-suggested point values) can probably destroy a large city once a day and have enough character points left over to be well-rounded individual. The game, like most other point-based systems, designed to be GM-configurable in the PC power level department. To be completely honest, I think you'd need the Epic Level Hanbook to represent the kind of power a GM can choose to give his players in BESM's highest suggested power level.
Three, the game is absolutely designed to be customizeable, almost to a fault. You're supposed to write your own setting when you play, so the lack of source material is considered a feature. That said, it can be an awful workload to write your own campaign setting from scratch if you're a stickler like me. : ] On the other hand, the game is aimed at people who want to play what the really already know by exploring an anime setting or genre they've already experienced, probably in great detail.
Four, the logic regarding armor class or lack thereof is incomplete. Vash is an example of a dodge-freak, it's true, but I think what we're watching when we see him dodge hundreds of bullets is, in fact, a man with an ungodly pool of hit points and probably some kind of damage-reducing armorlike ability soak a few damage here and there, and dodgey stuff besides. Every character can spend Energy Points during combat to increase his health points if he needs to. In-game the GM can easily describe this as a Kenshin-like burst of agile speed that evades and weaves among his foes, while in reality the character is spending EP to keep his HP from falling. The real question oughtn't be "Why can't I dodge multiple attacks per round by default because I see anime characters doing it all the time?" but rather "How survivable is my character compared with the anime characters I'm trying to emulate?"
Five, I've run some numbers and in the end, we see almost precisely the same results as in D&D: The Heroes, while fighting many lesser foes, usually get hit a couple-three times every round. The single defense roll seems less significant than it is because it's easy to forget that it never goes to waste: You always use it to prevent an attack, and never spend it defending against an attack that would have missed in any case.
Six, check out the Fast Play Rules, which really include the core of the system. Things have changed a little in more recent editions than the one they're based on, but they are a good introduction to the game: http://www.silveragesentinels.com/pdfs/fastplay.pdf
Seven, uh, wait, I'm done. Heh. Wish my backspace key worked. *sweat drop*
-S
Edit: Whoa, really went on for a bit there. Trimmed it down some.
One, as an anime fan, I find it a delight to read the book, make characters, and play the game. It's great fun. As far as critiques go, the game presumes that balance is provided by sane players and a fair GM, rather than by a carefully-constructed rules set. It absolutely requires more mature players than D&D, which is often seen as a disadvantage. One of my favorite features of the system is that a person's proficiency at combat is equally determined by all three of the game's 'ability scores' (Body, Mind and Soul) equally, which I think meshes with most anime philosophy on the subject pretty well. Subject to GM-approval a character can really implement all the anime-esque abilities, powers, and quirks they want. That's really the system's greatest selling point: When playing the game, it just feels like anime.
Two, I don't know what people mean when they say the game is low-level . . . I believe a 40 point character (which is, I think, about 'high level' according to their table-o-suggested point values) can probably destroy a large city once a day and have enough character points left over to be well-rounded individual. The game, like most other point-based systems, designed to be GM-configurable in the PC power level department. To be completely honest, I think you'd need the Epic Level Hanbook to represent the kind of power a GM can choose to give his players in BESM's highest suggested power level.
Three, the game is absolutely designed to be customizeable, almost to a fault. You're supposed to write your own setting when you play, so the lack of source material is considered a feature. That said, it can be an awful workload to write your own campaign setting from scratch if you're a stickler like me. : ] On the other hand, the game is aimed at people who want to play what the really already know by exploring an anime setting or genre they've already experienced, probably in great detail.
Four, the logic regarding armor class or lack thereof is incomplete. Vash is an example of a dodge-freak, it's true, but I think what we're watching when we see him dodge hundreds of bullets is, in fact, a man with an ungodly pool of hit points and probably some kind of damage-reducing armorlike ability soak a few damage here and there, and dodgey stuff besides. Every character can spend Energy Points during combat to increase his health points if he needs to. In-game the GM can easily describe this as a Kenshin-like burst of agile speed that evades and weaves among his foes, while in reality the character is spending EP to keep his HP from falling. The real question oughtn't be "Why can't I dodge multiple attacks per round by default because I see anime characters doing it all the time?" but rather "How survivable is my character compared with the anime characters I'm trying to emulate?"
Five, I've run some numbers and in the end, we see almost precisely the same results as in D&D: The Heroes, while fighting many lesser foes, usually get hit a couple-three times every round. The single defense roll seems less significant than it is because it's easy to forget that it never goes to waste: You always use it to prevent an attack, and never spend it defending against an attack that would have missed in any case.
Six, check out the Fast Play Rules, which really include the core of the system. Things have changed a little in more recent editions than the one they're based on, but they are a good introduction to the game: http://www.silveragesentinels.com/pdfs/fastplay.pdf
Seven, uh, wait, I'm done. Heh. Wish my backspace key worked. *sweat drop*
-S
Edit: Whoa, really went on for a bit there. Trimmed it down some.
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