I've been on an anime kick as of late and while I have OVA I have been curious about Big Eyes, Small Mouths and was wondering if anyone here has any experience with it.

Back in 2001-2003 it was mt goto game, but I have very little anime knowlegde -- I just used it as a 'lite' GURPS.

I liked d20 BESM, it had some good ideas in it. I usually just go with Mekton II or Mekton Zeta for my anime kicks.

There's hardly any anime in it. Except for the pictures.

Gurps Lite is an appropriate description for the rules. I might add, they are crap.

There was some anime in it. Some of the perks/flaws reflected anime tropes as did some of the powers and power costs. For example, jumping and flight were much cheaper than in a D&D inspired game.
 
It was alright but had serious problems. Based on old memory:
 
1. It was point buy for powers but was not any where as balanced as Gurps or Hero so a number crunching player could create an unbeatable character.
 
2. The core mechanic was roll under. At higher levels, both sides would be maxed out (due to #1) and always hit and always block/negate the attack.
 
#2 was fixable, #1 would take much work. Though if the GM was careful to review characters and players went in with the understanding to have fun than make a killer character, it was workable.
 
In a way, 1st ed. was better as it was simpler. I've heard that 3rd ed. is much cleaner but it came out much later after GOO went under, published by White Wolf and I've never read it.

I played a couple of sessions way back (I think this was back in the late 90s or early 2000s). Can't say the system made much of an impression on me, but it was just a short lived campaign out of a comic store. Also I like anime, but haven't followed it in a long, long time. So probably not the best just of an anime RPG.

I thought it had some interesting ideas (especially basing point costs based upon the campaign type), but it wasn't anything spectacular.

It was probably my goto game since 1E came out until shortly after Tri Stat DX was released.

I've run Star Wars, Superheroes, Urban Fantasy, Vanilla Fantasy, Uresia, Sci Fi and more with it.

I've found it was an awesome game whose owners apparently hated their fan base and screwed over a great many people on the way out of business. (Speaking of GOO.)

I found OVA and CAH: S2 both games which can do similar things, just as well and with a bit more oomph and elegance.

I loved the game, honestly. The desire to keep complicating it up (re: SAS/DX and 3E) was a huge problem for me. I like 1E. I didn't like 3E.

3E  was just as detailed and complex as GURPS, and I already had GURPS. I didn't need another game doing the same damn thing in the same way. Don't get me wrong--at the time I used GURPS pretty heavily as well.

Quote from: Silverlion;478386I've found it was an awesome game whose owners apparently hated their fan base and screwed over a great many people on the way out of business. (Speaking of GOO.)

Could you expand on that?

It's a generic system that does some things well, it's not really rules light though it claims to be.  The biggest flaw we found was that unless you (the GM) really monitors how characters are being build and under what guidelines the system was ridiculously easy to break.

For example someone with a Strength of 25 (think a D&D level for comparison) mechanically the same as someone with Str 9 and 16 levels of increased strength.  But they cost different points to buy.  In the story the idea is that the Str9 + 16 levels would be someone with a natural str of 9 but something that boosted his str.  But then it broke down when you just made someone really strong, say a Superman type.  End result both characters for all intents and purposes had Strength 25 but one was cheaper to build.

There are all sorts of other flaws like that, that can create characters that are very unbalanced unless the GM carefully sets the parameters on how they are built.

Quote from: TristramEvans;478423Could you expand on that?

Owner went out of business while not paying a lot of artists and authors. And he lied to everyone, saying everything was just fine right up until he shut down.

Quote from: danbuter;478437Owner went out of business while not paying a lot of artists and authors. And he lied to everyone, saying everything was just fine right up until he shut down.

Ah. Seems to be a quite common story in this industry, alas.

Hmm, thanks everyone. Given what I've read, I think I'll stick with OVA.

Quote from: danbuter;478437Owner went out of business while not paying a lot of artists and authors. And he lied to everyone, saying everything was just fine right up until he shut down.

Yeah, pretty much that.


As for OVA? I agree, OVA is what I think BESM might have managed to be (different rules but similar) if the authors didn't take the outliers, who were not playing the game at all and then tried to adapt the game to them. Rather than support the players already engaged.

The sourcebooks varied but Centuari Knights and Uresia are excellent micro settings, worth every penny.

Quote from: Talking_Muffin;478307BSEM: Has anyone played it?

*blurgh*

Sorry. Just threw up a little bit in my mouth.

(seriously, Anime's not my thing at all)