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Some people may have been thinking "Gee, what happened to
that site review that Chris Reid used to write?" Other people
may have been thinking "Hah! I knew he wouldnt keep up
writing that darned site review!" Indeed, there might even be
another group of people, far more numerous than the first, that
have been thinking "Who is Chris Reid, an why should I care
what hes writing?" Have no fear, intrepid reader. I will answer
all of these questions, except for the last one. Actually, I wont
answer the other two either. Instead, I will use obfuscation and
other forms of misdirection to
uhhh
direct your attention
elsewhere.
Thus begins a temporary column called "Stuff I Write to Distract
People from the Fact that I havent Been Writing Stuff."
The subject of todays Stuff column is BESM. No, I didnt
sneeze. BESM stands for "Big Eyes, Small Mouth." It is a
roleplaying game based on anime themes, and as such, the name
is rather appropriate (it has also spawned countless humorous
other attempts to decipher its meaning). If you really do read
my column on a regular basis, you will recognize that I did a web
site review on a BESM site not too long ago. Im not counting
on this, though, so I will go over the basics.
What can BESM handle? Yes. As long as its anime/manga
themed, BESM seems to be able to handle it most excellently. I
havent tested it out much with standard roleplaying themes, but
Im sure it would translate over pretty easily.
BESMs main strength is in its simplicity and smoothness. Even
more so than just about any other system Ive seen, it remains in
the background, adding a bit of chance to the game, but never
interrupting. Character creation is rather easy, and very fun.
After the first couple of times making a character, its very
possible that an extremely in-depth one could be made in a few
minutes. The rules governing character creation, and in fact,
the whole game are very flexible, and can easily take into
account almost any variations a person would likely come up
with. They also have convenient guidelines for different sub-
themes in the game, such as a medieval based one, or a space
opera style.
While the ease of rules certainly lends itself to a more creative
and dialog driven story, the system does stand up to combat
pretty well. In the game that I ran, there averaged about one
combat per game session. The dice rolling was easy, very little
math to do, which let both the players and myself spend that
extra time being more creative about what the characters were
doing. The combat system is not very realistic. Its not
supposed to be so. If youve watched anime or read manga,
youll know what I mean. If you havent, read some and watch
some, then pick up the book.
The simplicity that Ive been raving about, could also be
considered this games one downside. I personally dont think
so, but some players like their games couched well in rules. I
prefer it to read more like a story, much like freeform roleplaying.
All in all, I rate this game an 8 out of 9. I picked it up as a joke,
but I was seriously impressed by the work they put into it, and
how well it turned out. I think youll find yourself feeling the
same way.
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