I backed it. I have no history with any previous BESM. From what it looks like, I'm hoping for a quality generic system. Should drop any day now, I think.

BESM is best!

This is why publishers rip people off. Because they know the cattle will gladly trot into the slaughter house to be bled out of their money again.

I enjoyed the 1st edition but to be  honest I don't need a detailed system for Anime. I run my Military/Cyberpunk anime games with a homebrew Barbarians of Lemuria hack these days.

Well that is the thing really. BESM is not a system for playing anime style sessions. It is a toolkit like Gurps, Amazing Engine or d20 Modern. It just happens to play off the anime theme. But even that they play fast and loose with and even put out Big Ears Small Mouse which is for emulating cartoon animal adventures like Rescuers, Secret of Nimh and especially Rescue Rangers with its kitbash rubberband tech.

You can strip off the anime theme and its still a perfectly viable system for playing about any genre and theme. BESM Historical Wild West? Totally do-able.

BESM is basically a generic RPG with anime-inspired art, rather than a game with mechanics designed to support the conventions and tropes of anime. It's not that far from GURPS or HERO, but lighter.

Quote from: Doc Sammy;1085345Anyone who wants to make Mark C. MacKinnon a pariah and permanently blackball him from the industry over financial misdeeds from a decade and a half ago instead of giving him one more chance to bring back BESM and possibly even redeem himself in doing so can go fuck themselves.

You fuckers who want to make Mark C. MacKinnon are part of the cancer that is killing the RPG hobby, right up there with RPGnet, Jessica Price, ConTessa, and the Neo-Bolshevik fuckers at Onyx Path.

Do our hobby a favor and either shut up (don't like it, don't buy it) or get in the grave with Stan Lee, GG Allin, and Vladimir Lenin.

There's a difference between trying to destroy someone's reputation and prevent them from working anywhere forever because of some innocuous political difference, and someone who literally strung people along with promises of money when he knew he wouldn't be able to pay, never suffered any repercussions in any other part of his life beyond going out of business, never even tried to make amends, and is now brazenly trying to reopen the doors and go back to doing the exact same thing as if nothing happened.

If you want a good example of the cancer killing the hobby, look in the mirror.

Many people go into financial hardship. Many people go out of business. However, it takes a special kind of... person, to completely abandon everyone and disappear. Sure, we all handle stress differently. Why should I trust someone who runs when shit goes sideways?

My spidey sense says this is not going to end well. I appreciate second chances, but just the fact that he's weaseling his way back in vs. a public apology and ANY explanation of how we can be assured he won't do it again... Sorry, there are like 10 ways to get a 2nd chance and this ain't one of 'em.

Mark C. MacKinnon does not seem very trustworthy here nor does he appear to be remotely concerned about his past actions.

However... If Mr. Mackinnon has the balls to reach out to us here on theRPGsite, join this thread and make his case? I would listen. That is literally the only chance he has to get me to back this.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1086096For those of you deeply into anime, what has changed significantly in the genre in the past 2 decades since BESM 1e came out?

How would a RPG include those new changes?

Anime is considered to be in a renaissance period at the moment, with titles and entirely new genres coming out all the time. Probably one of the most notable is the rise of the Isekai genre, one I'm not super into myself, but that has spawned a number of best selling titles. Isekai basically meaning "Another world" and is about people from the real world being typically sent to a fantasy world of some kind. From the obvious "Sword Art Online" where people get stuck in virtual reality, to Re:Zero where a normal guy goes to a Fantasy world, but with no powers beyond the ability to come back to life a day earlier every time he's killed. To "No game no life" where a brother and sister are sent to a fantasy world where all conflicts are settled through some kind of game.

You also have the Shonen genre having expanded far past what it was in the original versions of BESM,  Fairy Tale, Hunter x Hunter, my personal favorite Jojo's bizarre adventure, and excellent western/eastern mash ups like "My Hero Academia" to say nothing of the return of Dragon Ball in "Dragon Ball Super".

Then critically acclaimed horror action fare like "Attach on Titan" which would make an excellent RPG in of itself and Devilman Crybaby.

There is way, way more out there than that, I'm just scratching the surface, but there's been enough change in the Anime landscape to address and give advice and ideas on how to gamify a lot of it.

That being said, I pledged to the Kickstarter and have the 4th edition beta and I have mixed feelings over some of it. The system is fine, and the changes are good, but it's setting material and game advice is reprinted from 3rd edition and that irks me since it's exactly NOT addressing the Anime renaissance that's happened since the last edition came out in 2007.

Quote from: Orphan81;1111139...The system is fine, and the changes are good, but it's setting material and game advice is reprinted from 3rd edition and that irks me since it's exactly NOT addressing the Anime renaissance that's happened since the last edition came out in 2007.

Which makes me suspicious that it's a cash grab. However, I do hope I'm wrong and you all get the awesome game you pledged for.

Quote from: Orphan81;1111139Anime is considered to be in a renaissance period at the moment, with titles and entirely new genres coming out all the time. Probably one of the most notable is the rise of the Isekai genre, one I'm not super into myself, but that has spawned a number of best selling titles. Isekai basically meaning "Another world" and is about people from the real world being typically sent to a fantasy world of some kind. From the obvious "Sword Art Online" where people get stuck in virtual reality, to Re:Zero where a normal guy goes to a Fantasy world, but with no powers beyond the ability to come back to life a day earlier every time he's killed. To "No game no life" where a brother and sister are sent to a fantasy world where all conflicts are settled through some kind of game.

You also have the Shonen genre having expanded far past what it was in the original versions of BESM,  Fairy Tale, Hunter x Hunter, my personal favorite Jojo's bizarre adventure, and excellent western/eastern mash ups like "My Hero Academia" to say nothing of the return of Dragon Ball in "Dragon Ball Super".

Then critically acclaimed horror action fare like "Attach on Titan" which would make an excellent RPG in of itself and Devilman Crybaby.

There is way, way more out there than that, I'm just scratching the surface, but there's been enough change in the Anime landscape to address and give advice and ideas on how to gamify a lot of it.

That being said, I pledged to the Kickstarter and have the 4th edition beta and I have mixed feelings over some of it. The system is fine, and the changes are good, but it's setting material and game advice is reprinted from 3rd edition and that irks me since it's exactly NOT addressing the Anime renaissance that's happened since the last edition came out in 2007.

True, but that is a Beta version, so the final full release version may be different.

Also, keep in mind that Mark MacKinnon is very much an old-school anime fan of the 90's and early 2000's. A lot of the oldtaku from that era still love anime, even if they have not kept up with the trends.

Easiest solution to regain trust would have been crowdfunding for a reprint. BESM doesn't really need a fourth edition. People just wanna hold books in hand, like comics (or boobies ). And at this age of anime popularity there's probably a large market for "booby holding" BESM books.

Its hard to trust someone who when given money for projects then fails to deliver and instead fritters off to work on other projects than the one he was payed for. Trusting this joker is just about begging to get ripped off somehow.

What's the alleged official status of the project?

And I agree a new BESM (or any other All-Anime RPG) needs to address each era of Anime and the major genres within Anime so players who want to play Macross to  players who want to play Pokemon to players who want to play this year's hit anime can all use the system via "setting" or "anime era" tweaks.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1111496What's the alleged official status of the project?

And I agree a new BESM (or any other All-Anime RPG) needs to address each era of Anime and the major genres within Anime so players who want to play Macross to  players who want to play Pokemon to players who want to play this year's hit anime can all use the system via "setting" or "anime era" tweaks.

Original BESM covered about everything with its expansion books.
Macross? yup. Big Robots, Cool Starships
Any given racing show? yup. Hot Rods & Gun Bunnies
Pokemon? yup. Cute and Fuzzy *Cockfighting* Seizure Monsters
Rescue Rangers, Nimh, etc? yup. Big Ears, Small Mouse
Vampire Hunter D, Nightwalker, etc supernaturals? yup. Cold Hands, Dark Hearts
Fantasy? yup, BESM Fantasy and Beastiary.
Space fantasy? yup. BESM Space Fantasy.

This and they did a few straight up anime adaptions via Tri-Stat. Sailor Moon, Tenchi Muyo, Dominion Tank Police, Demon City Shinjuku.

And alot of the supposed 'new' anime is just old anime themes with a fresh coat of paint. If even that. And several of those themes are not exactly original to anime either.

Quote from: Spinachcat;1111496What's the alleged official status of the project?

I backed at the level where I got both the normal version and the naked version of the system and all the pdfs.  The last update I got about the status of anything was on Oct 4th and this is what was said.

QuoteWe wanted to give you a brief update of where we are with the Kickstarter fulfillment.

Fourth Edition Line
Great news! Layout and covers have been completed and we are waiting for approval from our licencor, White Wolf Entertainment, before we can send the titles below to press. We are this close! Shortly after the printing proofs are approved and we have actually begun the manufacturing process, we will send advanced PDF links to all backers at their pledged levels.

BESM Fourth Edition (352p)
BESM Deluxe Limited Edition (352p)
BESM Naked (144p)
BESM Primer (16p)
BESM Game Screen and Adventure (32p)
BESM Character Folio (24p)
BESM Dice
We are thrilled with the visuals of our BESM line branding. Strong, distinct, and consistent. We are aiming for clean, elegant, and refined, using a color that is vastly underused in the gaming industry: white. The front and back cover spreads for several titles, as well as the dieline for the dice box, are at the bottom of this update.

Stretch Goal: PDFs of Earlier Editions
Check! Links to download the 16 earlier PDFs have been sent to backers.

Stretch Goal: Dramatis Personae
The final draft for Volume #1 has been turned in and it's great. Next, we move onto final revisions and layout. We plan to send out PDFs of Volume 1 at the same time as the BESM Fourth Edition PDFs. Volumes 2-4 are in progress as well and will be released digitally as they are available. Art is finished already for all four volumes.

Stretch Goal: Acquire Anime License
We have had preliminary discussions, but not firm yet. Even if we confirmed a deal today, we likely wouldn't announce the title until we had a stronger understanding of scheduling and production.

Stretch Goal: Tri-Stat Community Content
No change from last update. We are on track for an early 2020 launch still. Once BESM is completed, we'll be spending addition time preparing to debut this for fans and creators everywhere.

Stretch Goal: BESM Adventures #1
No change from last update. We are scouting a few writers for this project, but nothing is firm yet. It's important to have BESM 4 finalized before we turn too much attention to this first volume in a planned line of adventures.

I did get the e-mail with the links to all the old stuff.  I think my brother got the beta version, but I haven't asked him about any of what's in it.