#besm adventures

[legionofmyth]

Big Eyes Small Mouth by Dyskami Publishing Company

Dive into the world of Big Eyes Small Mouth (BESM 4E) by Dyskami Publishing! 🌟 Experience the ultimate anime-themed RPG with endless creative possibilities. Perfect for anime and RPG fans alike! #BESM #AnimeRPG #TabletopGaming #RPG #DyskamiPublishing

Big Eyes Small Mouth by Dyskami Publishing Company What is it? BESM 4E Big Eyes Small Mouth (BESM) 4th Edition is an anime-themed tabletop role-playing game designed to capture the diverse and dynamic styles of Japanese animation. Set in a flexible universe that can accommodate various genres—from high school romance to epic fantasy and mecha battles—BESM allows players to create and explore…

[talenlee]

The Nemuranai System

Alright, in Oriental Adventures‘ expanded 3e books –

Wait wait wait don’t go, hang on.

Content Warning: This is going to discuss some books that are, very simply, quite Orientalist, in the classical Edward Said sense. Not nakedly racist in a slursy way, just racist in how it simplifies cultures in the names of telling a particular form of story. If you don’t wanna mess around with that, y’know, probably want to avoid it.

Anyway, there’s this system in the Rokugan books for handling gear. Specifically, the idea is that as a character in the Rokugan setting levels up and accumulates experience, rather than going to a magic store and picking up new swords and armours that are part of an ongoing escalation of gear in a marketplace that is constantly creating an increased demand, rather that player characters themselves, by dint of being powerful and cool and renowned, start to affect the gear they’ve been travelling with the whole time. The spirits of their equipment awaken and become powerful in response to the person who owns them being powerful.

This also is transitive – if someone powerful gives you their sword with its awakened spirits, it can be a powerful item thanks to them conferring it, but not as powerful as if they had it, or if you take something off someone that was powerful, it won’t work for you and will just be a sword. This association, this effective transformation of gear into a social improvement, where you have to convince spirits in the equipment that you’re worthy of how cool they are, is interesting in that it both serves as a way to disincentivize theft and looting, but also means that player characters are going to get equipment that’s explicitly coded to them as they level up and fitting the way they want to do things.

This system for the ‘spirits of the item’ was known as the Nemuranai system, based on the word ‘nemuranai’ which I think translates to ‘not sleeping.’ I don’t know if this is a full-blown hilarious translation mistake in an early guidebook way, but it might be and I’d leave it to someone who knows Japanese properly to ask.

The number of books that were put out for 3.5 really is hard to hold in the mind. In a time when ebooks were just starting as a market, in a time when we didn’t have the same obvious massive front-end surfaces like DriveThruRPG and its subordinate DM’s Guild. The OGL came along at just the right time, in the same vein as other Web 2.0 stalwarts, to be a thing that resulted in a lot of people creating a lot of material the whole time.

Like me!

Anyway, that meant that not only were you getting unique lines for D20 like Warcraft and BESM but we also saw the rise of D20-ified existing games, like D20 Rokugan. I’ve talked in the past about how great Rokugan was because its creators didn’t give a stuff about Wizard Supremacy (even if they didn’t appreciate the scale of the problem). The D20 Rokugan books included books about handling magical spells and items, in a setting that didn’t really have a lot of those things.

And make no mistake, I do not have any illusions about what real Samurai or real Asian adventures in the same vein as the Dungeons & Dragons ouvre are. This is not really about Actual Asian Adventures, this is about the vision of Samurai adventure media made and distributed and remembered and replicated in the west. There, people aren’t questing and finding ancient swords (which is ironic because of all sorts of things to do with palingenesis), but instead, it’s about inheriting old swords. Notably, nobody kills people and takes the sword off them unless they’re someone bad.

This is what Nemuranai was trying to address.

I really can’t underscore how important your equipment was to your character in 3rd edition. Gear was so important to how a character functioned that when you built a character higher than level 1, there was a table that showed the appropriate amount of magical gear you started with. There were functions of how a character works in 3rd edition, like your access to weaponry with an appropriate set of bonuses, your ability to absorb or escape damage, and even your ability to engage on multiple platforms. Around level 9, everyone flies, and if you don’t pick up a way to fly around that level, even for a little bit, you are going to be in trouble as encounters are sculpted assuming you can handle an enemy just flying away and pelting you with ranged attacks.

What’s more, gear is so important that if you level up manually, and follow the tables that generate treasure and gear — distinct categories, make no mistake! — then you wind up with a character whose budget is larger than these characters who were made at a higher level, because you were expected to lose some money through the course of operations by things like selling gear or consumables, like potions and wands and scrolls or stuff you crafted for yourself (oh hi, Wizard problems, why are you here)?

Looting is a big part of the game, in that there’s a big pile of tables for it, but it’s also a meaningless part of the game in that as long as the DM is doling out rewards appropriate to the table. What this meant in my experience was players constructing wish-lists, hoping for particular items, or the DM using that level-by-level budget to construct a chain of items to give to the players. It’s there, I did run the game using the loot tables sometimes, but it wasn’t an interesting tool to use and it relied heavily on preloading, adding an accountancy element to the interesting thing (designing meaningful combat encounters).

And then you throw this game into a different thematic space, where ostensibly, ‘people don’t loot.’ Which doesn’t break the game, because the looting and the loot tables aren’t… that… important. The gear is, but the way you get the gear, it turns out, isn’t.

Look, Dungeons & Dragons, in every edition, is a modular game system of exclusions. There’s a body of opinion about D&D that thinks the idea that players don’t have an exhaustive, comprehensive vision of the rules, is a sign of a problem in the game, which is completely unhinged. The nature of a class system is to make it so that there’s ways the game can sequester operations. Don’t have a Barbarian in the party? Then nobody needs to track Barbarians. You’re not using the encumbrance rules for anyone? Then nobody needs to worry about them. If you are using them, they interact across all people.

There’s a vision of how this is a sign that there’s something wrong, or broken in how D&D works, as opposed to literally structural to the entire design methodology. If a thing is not present in the game, its operations aren’t necessary, and therefore, any new thing can bring its own operations with it. Now this is a design approach that is volume-heavy. There’s a reason you can print a dozen monster books and still not really have a reasonably varied ecology for a real world scale, because every one of those monsters is a discrete module that lets you pull it in and out. There’s a reason that building real estate is in a bonus supplementary book and the core rule book has optional content like ‘the fighter.’

Check it out on PRESS.exe to see it with images and links!

[mana-junkie]

Cangames 2024: Hard Luck & Trouble (A BESM Event)

The Princess and her entourage are on route to a mountain resort for a much needed vacation, but when things start to go wrong… they go really, really, really wrong. This year for Cangames 2024 I decided to run the 1st edition of Big Eyes, Small Mouth. The adventure I will be running is called “Hard Luck and Trouble”, which is partially inspired by Final Fantasy XV which I have been playing on…

[hotcupoteckla]

So, I like different editions of the game and they give different Vibes.

1st: The Beta Run, the old Fallout Game & Diablo style of play. It IS just Dungeons & Dragons, but if you're witty or clever enough you can break the DMs expectations and win the loot.

2nd: thac0 and the gritty art & relevancy of Every Rule Ever that you need to know all conditions that apply? Fuck yes, you're in the Dark Souls version where there is Deep Lore & some Role-playing available, but combat is deeply involved, and everything that spent time specializing has become relevant in later levels and your skill generalist is the support as intended. You need to know what you have with you at all times and you get minions that mean something to the story so you can build influence in an area and become the Dark Souls Boss. Rules Lawyer Haven.

3rd-3.5e: Did you want EPIC QUESTS?!?! We have the place for you! Steampunk? Check! Samurai? Check! Fucking wicked ass magic items that are regularly everywhere and everyone you meet has been an adventurer at one point? CHECK, MY FRIENDS! You don't need to worry about that BESM system over there, or that D20 modern system over there, just stick with us and you can live out your Human to Hero Final Fantasy Pokémon dreams right here, buddy!

Why yes that means out focus on Role-playing has diminished the coolness of survival type styles of games, but we do have lots of undead available in our rules for your Gunslinging Dark Tower Action Man to take them out on the regular. Leveling from 1 to 20? Why? You're super powerful at level 5! Minions are meaningless? Why, of course they are! They just follow you around, and I mean you can have them if you wanted, I guess, but this is YOUR STORY, so don't you want more Epic Quest?

4th ed: Hey guys, I hear Warhammer is having a revival of sorts and everybody's into painting all of a sudden, why don't you try out OUR EFFICIENT Non-Rules Lawyering,(Not stolen from the Star Wars Minis) 100% No RolePlay Encouraging, We Only have Battles on the Table Now System?

Elminster? Who the fuck is that? We don't care- I mean, here he is! Check out his minifig stats! Put him up against...*rummaging in box noises* Strahd! And his 3 delicious Vampire Babes! And check out these Eberron Steamjacks!

Did we say it was Non-Rules Lawyering?! We LIED! All of your Worst RP Friends ever (BroGrammers Galore!) will both Complain ceaselessly about this game WHILE Insisting On Only Playing This System, because while it SUCKS ASS FOR RP, it makes SENSE for Minis, that they live for. Minis & Cards.

Aka Hey man, I heard you like Warcraft & Starcraft? Well we put plastic pewter in your Warhammercraft/Starcraft.

5th Ed: Hey guys, um sorry about that mess back there. Did you guys miss role-playing? Oh, I see we're making podcasts now, that's nice, let's make a rules set for you 😉 😀 I mean, we gotta put these Rules Bits in there so the 4th ed and 2nd ed guys are willing to buy our books again, but yknow, this edition isn't about that. It's about sitting at the campfire with your friends and having fun Magic stories to um... to be nostalgic about, and come up with to make memories with um... hey are you guys hearing that? *checks bushes, 👀 Critical Role hitting a jackpot with a slot machine* huh, well as I was saying, what? *Witnesses Acquisitions Incorporated making a whole supplement book crossing the camp* "HUH. As I was saying, while we can't specialize and expect to make a prof-" *Vox Machina, Fool's Gold, Legends of Avernus, Dimension 20 & Dungeons & Daddies making specialized systems as mini games to fix bad rules, making bank*

"HEY, STOP THAT. YOU CAN'T JUST TAKE OUR NICE RULES FREE GAMES AND MAKE ACTUAL MONEY OFF THEM. WE CAN'T, SO YOU CAN'T EITHER"

rp groups who are doing well: "Hey WotC, we tried getting hired by you, and you said we didn't have the business sense to make it in the industry, and you made it be a free access license because that was the terms you bought it from TSR."

WotC: "Well, we'll see about THAT!"

Yeah, different Vibes in each edition.

Anyway OP, If you can find a set of 2nd edition, it might be more your style, but I do agree that it's weird the developers feel the need to include Bad Rules in order to make a profit, when after all, they could just remove the rules and make a minibook revolving around survival and make more money that way.

It's often remarked how D&D 5e's play culture has this sort of disinterest bordering on contempt for actually knowing the rules, often even extending to the DM themselves. I've seen a lot of different ideas for why this is, but one reason I rarely see discussed is that actually, a lot of 5e's rules are not meant to be used.

Encumbrance is a great example of this. 5e contains granular weights for all the items that you might have in your inventory, and rules for how much you can carry based on your strength score, and they've set these carry capacities high enough that you should never actually need to think about them. And that's deliberate, the designers have explicitly said that they've set carrying capacity high enough that it shouldn't come up in normal play. So for a starting DM, you see all these weights, you see all the rules for how much people can carry or drag, and you've played Fallout, you know how this works. And then if you try to actually enforce that, you find that it's insanely tedious, and it basically never actually matters, so you drop it.

Foraging is the example of this that bothers me most. There's a whole system for this! A table of foraging DCs, and math for how much food you can find, and how long you can go without food, etc. But the math is set up so that a person with no survival proficiency and a +0 to WIS, in a hostile environment, will still forage enough food to be fine, and the starvation rules are so generous that even a run of bad luck is unlikely to matter. So a DM who actually tries to use these rules will quickly find that they add nothing but bookkeeping. You're rolling a bunch of checks every day of travel for something that is purpose built not to matter. And that's before you add in all the ways to trivialize or circumvent this.

These rules don't exist to be used, that is not their purpose. These rules exist because the designers were scared of the backlash to 4e, and wanted to make sure that the game had all the rules that D&D "should" have. But they didn't actually want these mechanics. They didn't want the bookkeeping, they didn't care about that style of play, but they couldn't just say, "this game isn't about that" for fear of angering traditionalists. And unfortunately the way they handled this was by putting in rules that are bad, that actively fight anyone who wants to use that style of play and act as a trap to people who take the rules in good faith.

And this means that knowing what rules are not supposed to be used is an actual skill 5e DMs develop. Part of being a good 5e DM is being able to tell the real rules that will improve your game from the fake rules that are there to placate angry forum posters. And that's just an awful position to put DMs in (especially new DMs), but it's pretty unsurprising that it creates a certain contempt for knowing the rules as written.

You should have contempt for some of the rules as written. The designers did.

[aeroteaka]

Because no one has asked. Here's a complete list of games I've got settings and plans to run. At this point it's just a complete bucket list of things I'd love to run and hopefully some day will. Stars help me I know there will just be more over time. If anyone is ever curious I can typically answer questions about them to.

1. DnD 5e: Brawl of The Gods

2. Lasers and Liches 5e: Demon King Live

3. Genefunk 2090 5e: What is a Soul

4. Wendy's RPG/DnD 5e: Dungeons, Dragons, Drive in, and Dives

5. Star Wars 5e/3.5: Catch me if you can

6. Legend of the Five Rings: Isekai Online

7. StarsWithoutNumbers: StarLight Brigade

8. NewEdo: Long Night with Neon Lights

9. Cyberpunk Red: Rock And Roll And Logistics

10. Astir Amour: Pugna Magna Machina

11. Avatar: Kora Edition

12. Avatar: Kihoshi Edition

13. One Ring 2nd: Balrog Hunting

14. Vampire 5th: The party after

15. Lo-Fi Bards: Tale of Two Schools

16. SCP: New Facility

17. BESM 3rd: Mechandrots

18. Wrath and Glory: High with cards

19. Through the Breach: Asylum

20. Demon The Descent: Paradiso

21. Jinkies: Broken Down in Paradise

22. EverQuest: Supernaturals in Maurader Town

23. Suburb and Snazzles: Not stuck at home

24. City of Mists: Stories from a Steam Powered Giraffe

25. Exalted: The DragonBloodeds Wish

26. Tales From the Loop: Time and Time again.

27. Fellowship: Bizarre Adventure without JoJo

28. Invisible Sun: Here for a short time not a fun time.

29. Champions: Heroes of Kyoto (My Hero Academia)

30. Lancer: Mecha Bug Brawl

31. Hunters 5th: How is this not the apocalypse?!

32. Blue Rose: Court of The Roses

33. Thirsty Sword Lesbians: Battle for the Brothel

34. Bunkers And Badasses: Lords and Ladies of Badass Duchy!!! Eat it Suckkaa!!!

35. Pathfinder 2e: The Demon Lord can Do That?

36. Exalted: Schools Days

37. Changeling: It doesn't have to be a Dream

38. Dresden Files: This shit is still local

39. Ryuutama: Winter Harvest

40. Mouse Guard: Nights in the Hedges

41. Ars Magica: Eternal City Forgotten to Time, spanning the ages, across the stars. Only those of the highest orders may hope to hold a candle to the might of this world -The title goes on several more paragraphs-

42. Dragon Age: Deep Pockets for the Lord's of Fortune

43. Etherscope: Punch some Nazi's

44. Dungeon the Dragoning: Outlaw Star

45. Fate of the Norns: Hard Nights in Valhalla

46. Mage The Awakening: -The GM Regrets this Already-

47. Bubble Gum Crisis: Neo Tokyo's Finest

48. 13th Age: Melian Dream Mansion

49. Pokemon 5e Homebrew: Scottish Circuit

50. Iron Kingdom Unleashed: Welcome to the Bayou

[emj-tolj]

               An Adventure Hunter’s Media Guide #6

Of course anything in the realms of fantasy cartoons is on my Adventure Hunter’s media list. But I am picky. Record of the Lodoss War is perfect to feed my Adventure Hunter’s cravings. It is anime but its not your typical whiny sailor moon bullshit. Being anime its is several parts and each part is rather short, which for me is a downer. But it makes up for it in story and action. It may not be for everyone, specially if you are a costume-history nazi. But it IS fantasy after all. Despite the BESM factor I really do love Lodoss War and it really does curb my Adventure Hunting appetite 

[askmalal]

Favorite role playing games of the Primarchs.

Lion: Pendragon

Second: Empire of The Petal Throne

Fulgrim: Any Hentai module for BESM

Perturabo: The one you hate? That one? Perturabo loves it.

Jaghatai: Legend of the Five Rings

Leman: Pugmire

Rogal: The most complex example you can imagine... preferably one that requires a program or app to calculate character sheets.

Konrad: Vampire: the Masquerade (of course; classic, he’s flayed Storytellers alive for running requiem)

Sanguinius: In Nomine

Ferrus Manus: Space: 1889

Eleventh: Whatever -I- like, Eleven likes...

Angron: My Little Pony: Adventures in Equestria

Guilliman: Cthulhu Invictus

Mortarion: Hey, what’s that thing Fulgrim likes, with the tentacles?

Magnus: Ars Magica

Horus: Claims credit for whatever game it is you love the most. Munchkin and Min Maxxer in all. GMNPCs far more important to the story than you.

Lorgar: Has read “The Truth About Dungeons and Dragons” and therefore avoids role playing games. Even as a Daemon Prince.

Vulkan: No Thank You, Evil!

Corvus: Prefers Werewolf: The Apocalypse LARP (MeT), and exclusively plays a Corax...

Alpharius: Ninjas and Superspies

Omegon: More one of those random people who looks for open games at the local shop, joins claiming no knowledge of the game, and then does something specifically to annoy you.

As for the Dark Gods? All of us prefer Call of Cthulhu. It’s a great time for a good laugh... I particularly enjoy the campaign they wrote about me.

[beowulf22121]

BESM (Big Eyes Small Mouth) did this with their adventurer class. It's a d20 system compatable 3.x d&d style take on anime settings as a game system.

What type of anime?

Yes.

Giant mech pilot, samurai, wizard, and "gun bunny" are classes you could play all right from the core book.

The adventurer class is just "here's some points, buy whatever skill you can, save points up for later if you want." but overall it's got something like 14% fewer points as a trade for building the class so freely.

I've never met a minmaxer who didn't immediately fall in love with the idea of the adventurer class.

there should be a dnd class that doesn't actually have any class features and instead just grants a feat at every level

[tenander]

2, 5, 14, 17!!!

2. What’s your favorite ttrpg system?  Which other ones have you tried? 

ATM it’s definitely FFG’s Narrative Dice system. Not because of the dice (*gasp*) but because of everything else. It’s an intricately balanced system with a lot of really clever tricks that has a to me very satisfying amount of crunch without ever becoming obnoxious.

I’ve played, oof, a lot of systems. I don’t think I remember them all, but  the major ones aaaare Call of Cthulhu & Hexer von Salem, Storyteller System (primarily Vampire the Masquerade), D&D (from AD&D to 5th), Pathfinder, Kult, Fading Suns, Deadlands, Earthdawn, Das Schwarze Auge, Battlelords, BESM, Westend Star Wars, Legend of the 5 Rings, Cyberpunk 2020, Shadowrun, FFG Star Wars and of course my own game All Things Cast. There were a few years where my partner and I would check out all kinds of different systems but never get proper groups going, and there were other systems that we played maybe one or two games in that didn’t leave enough of an impression on me.

I also LARP’d an itty bit with different systems.

5. Tell me about your most recent OC! 

If we’re talking most recent character I’m playing in a game, that would be Voi Oruka in FFG Star Wars. Voi is a Nautolan and the only son of the leader of Glee Anselm’s leading criminal empire Riptide. Raised as a good and proper Young Boss, he accidentally A Forcepower and once he realises it is that, he takes it as a sign that he’s supposed to do more with his life than become a mafia boss. So he runs away to learn about the Force and about his purpose. Also, the life of a crime boss sucks and he doesn’t wanna. Voi is headstrong and likes stabbing and punching, and his view on life and ethics is just a tad screwy due to his upbringing but he’s a good egg at heart who just wants to do something meaningful with his gift.

If we’re talking most recent character who may one day be in a game (once I finished writing it), that’s Yukiro. Yukiro is first general of a clan that once existed to fight a terrifying demon horde, won, and then didn’t know what to do with themselves, so they instead devoted their lives to a rivalry with a once allied clan. But now the demon lord is coming back, and they gotta find more allies to fight him once more, so Yukiro goes out into the world to scout himself some badasses. Yukiro is a soft boy who’s really into theatre and music, and is kind and gentle to most people, but for the sake of his clan (and the world) he puts on the air of a typical strong, reserved samurai most of the time.

14. Tell me about a piece of impressive game mastering you’ve witnessed! 

Look, most game mastering is really impressive! As a GM myself, I know very well how much work goes into it, how difficult it is to keep up with your players, how many goddamn spoons it takes to be both prepared and flexible, to think of adventures and NPCs and places and voices and plot points and the PCs’ strengths and weaknesses and desires and the players’ strengths and weaknesses and desires, to learn the system and adjust the system and game the system and improvise rules you forgot and provide the mood and the atmosphere and the materials and *BREATHES* game mastering is impressive by virtue of being game mastering, and I appreciate the absolute fuck out of all the people willing to sit in that chair again and again and give their all so that their friends can just... enjoy themselves. (Asshole GMs excluded of course.)

17. What’s something you think you could improve about the way you play tabletop RPGs? 

I need to stop trying to control everything. I’m not sure if it’s a habit that comes from somewhere inside me, a sign of trust issues or if it’s a side-effect of many years of playing with very passive players which put me into a constant instigator position that I now can’t let go of, but it’s not making for a better game or table for me to always have to have the reigns. I also would like to not laugh at my own jokes quite so much. It’s obnoxious and I never plan to, but as soon as I sit down... Things to work on.

[legionofmyth]

The Dyskami Publishing Fundraiser portions of the FNCS | Absolute Power RPG | #TTRPG Discussions

A 93 minute video created from the original 6 hour livestream. 📢 Our attempt to promote and signal boost The Dyskami Publishing Fundraiser one more time. See the video description for all of the details. #TTRPG #TTRPGFamily #TTRPGCommunity #RPG

Including some donations given outside of the stream, and a couple of donations directly to the Indiegogo campaign, we raised over $500 dollars. 🙏 THANK YOU! 🙏 Dyskami Publishing Game Bundle Fundraiser: https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/dyskami-publishing-game-bundle-fundraiser/x/27293218#/ Join this channel to get access to Members Only…

[cyberkevvideo]

BESM Returns!

To be honest, I didn’t think I’d ever return to Tumblr, but this is still the best place to put this article.

BESM, aka Big Eyes, Small Mouth, is an anime RPG originally created by fellow Canadian Mark MacKinnon, who was also the publisher, editor, and owner of Guardians of Order, has announced that he's back and now working with White Wolf on a new edition of the game after 10 years. Guardians of Order went bankrupt a decade ago when the US/CDA exchange rate was even more garbage than it is now. Unfortunately, to stay relevant and competitive, Canadian companies had to pay their freelance writers in American funds. You can see how that would kill your budget really fast. Didn't help that this was the start of when people were pirating anime and RPG books. White Wolf bought the game license, but wouldn't buy the different anime licenses. This meant that they didn't get the Sailor Moon, Hellsing, Trigun, other any of the other anime books. They also weren't too worried about the Neon Genesis license that Guardians had, so we never got that book, sadly. I still own every book, and love the system. Wasn't that big a fan of the d20 system conversion, but I did like 2nd and 3rd, with 2nd being my favourite of all of them. 1st Ed was fine, but it was fairly unbalanced with what it had to offer. No release date as of yet, but I've already been in contact with the author. It was good to chat again after a decade. I like D&D, both its current edition and all the previous editions I’ve played, and love other the systems that I’ve played throughout my life (Rifts, Shadowrun, etc), but BESM was my jam. Everyone has a system that they like and enjoy, and BESM was easily mine. I loved the adventures, the versatility that let you literally make any character you wanted, fulfill any crossover fantasies you had, etc. I absolutely can't wait. I’m so hyped for this. It’s my childhood reincarnating itself. I’m just hoping the current edition holds up.

[genericpuff]

omg finally someone says it

do you know how many times i've seen people be like "I MADE A SAILOR MOON HOMEBREW IN D&D, YOU CAN DO IT BY MAKING [insert very specific D&D races and multiclasses here that might come close to matching the "vibe" of Sailor Moon if you squint"]

and then i'm over here like... BESM. You want BESM. Or something like BESM that's explicitly designed for anime settings.

I will preface this, BESM specifically is very old, outdated, and not a lot of people play it these days, but the basis for it is basically exactly what people don't realize they're looking for when they restrict themselves purely to D&D.

In BESM you can make cat girls, androids, volleyball players; you can make a campaign about afterschool club shenanigans, you can make a campaign about mechas fighting in space, you can make a campaign about cooking competitions; and best of all, it's a LOT easier to learn for newbies to the tabletop scene overall because UNLIKE D&D, BESM is entirely homebrew, there's no lore-based handbook to read on, you don't have to spend hours reading up on pre-established gods and races and political storylines, you don't have to restrict what you can do with your character according to their race or class, and there are only THREE STATS TO ROLL FOR.

Of course, there were loads of flaws to its simplicity and elasticity. It put a lot of the onus on the GM to create *everything* without a template to work off of like you'd have with Curse of Strahd or Storm King's Thunder. The three-stat rolling system made combat a toss-up and complicated decision making regarding what to roll for. Too much player freedom can be just as devastating to a fun campaign as too little freedom. Plus with its character building system, you could definitely argue that a lot of the "defects" you could apply to your character for extra skill points haven't aged well simply due to often being based on real life disabilities (when it wasn't borderline ableist tho, it did make for fun roleplaying scenarios you would see in anime, like playing an android who could shoot lasers out of their eyes but didn't have enough RAM installed so would forget things in between sessions, which is... literally just me LOL)

BUT all its flaws aside, I sure as shit wouldn't have been able to homebrew my Undertale x Deltarune campaign in D&D 5e... so I didn't, I used BESM 2nd Edition Revised. And my partnee definitely wouldn't be able to run his currently ongoing and very fun Pokemon campaign in D&D 5e. It does use some of the systems of D&D's stat system, but all of it is run off a publicly available homebrew model built specifically for Pokemon tabletop games that uses some of the rolling stat systems from D&D but is removed from all the restricted genre settings of D&D.

BESM is very much a product of its time and it's certainly been improved upon in other tabletop roleplaying games. But that's the overall point of why I mentioned BESM in the first place - there are other tabletop roleplaying games.

Stop forcing yourself to conform solely to D&D because you've been convinced by Wizards of the Coast that the only "good" tabletop roleplaying is exclusive to D&D. That's just so they can sell you more overpriced "adventures" and accessories and toys. They are a massive corporate company, they don't give two shits about player freedom, that's precisely WHY they've built such an empire around themselves as the "only way" to roleplay while simultaneously ruining their own gameplay experiences through increasingly limited gameplay options.

You don't have to jerryrig Goku into a human athlete who multiclasses between Barbarian and Warlock, there are tabletop games that actually will let you play your goofy OP alien guy, and contrary to what WotC fanboys would have you believe, it won't cost you three separate installments of $29.99 to play.

Also reading thru mothership’s rules vs dnd’s rules and my god. What were they doing in dnd land?

[rpggeeknation]

Anime in RPG

Inspired and borrowing from this reddit: https://www.reddit.com/r/rpg/comments/3v20ph/anime_manga_that_would_make_a_great_rpg_and_the/

My Hero Academia:

AMP, Masks, Savage Worlds: Supers, BESM, OVA, Fate, Mutants and Masterminds

Cowboy Bebop:

Technoir, Edge of the Empire, Traveller, Savage Worlds

Hunter x Hunter:

Fudge, Anima: Beyond Fantasy, Final Fantasy RPG

Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure:

Marvel Heroic Roleplaying, Fate, Savage Worlds, Mutants and Masterminds.

Soul Eater:

Better Angels

Berserk:

Stormbringer, Sword of the Iron Throne, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, D&D 5e, Zweihander, AD&D

Psycho-Pass:

Technoir, GURPS, Eclipse Phase, Cyberpunk 2020

GATE:

GURPS, Palladium

One Piece:

Hero System, Fate, Mutants and Masterminds, D&D 5e, Wushu

Fairy Tail:

Hero System, Fate, Mutants and Masterminds, D&D 5e

Black Lagoon:

Apocalypse World, Savage Worlds, Fate

Fullmetal Alchemist:

GURPS, Fate, Anima Beyond Fantasy, Sorcerer

Slayers:

D&D 3.0

Gundam:

Mekaton

Trigun:

Deadlands, GURPS

Bleach:

Scion

Naruto:

Mutants and Masterminds, Exalted, BESM, D20

Those were just the concepts liked the most as well as Anime I am familiar with. There were concepts I liked but just wasn’t familiar with the Anime, as well as Anime I am familiar with but didn’t quite like the concept.

I’d love to hear some good ideas for running Dragon Ball, Tokyo Ghoul, various Magical Girl Anime (Sailor Moon, Cardcaptor Sakura, etc.), Blue Exorcist, Ghost in the Shell, Darker than Black, Vatican Kiseki Chousakan, Black Clover, Tiger and Bunny, Drifters, Assassination Classroom, Attack on Titan and Inuyasha. As well as more ideas for Bleach. 

If anyone has any ideas for any anime in RPG either to add to the ones on the list or to add ideas from my idea wishlist send me a message.

Also, send me a message if you wanna run one of these and are looking for players. I will play in any of those games, bt would be especially hyped to play anything set in My Hero Academia, One Piece, Fairy Tail, Bleach, Fullmetal Alchemist, Blue Exorcist, Black Clover, Assassination Classroom, Attack on Titan, or Inuyasha.

Also my discord is  ButterPanda888#8681

[pretendtobeanelf-blog]

Originally uploaded to Facebook 03 June 2018

Remember when I was talking about BESM all the way back in March? Well, they licenced a few of them actual animes to put out combined fan guides/RPGs. It's a veritable hit parade of "cool" late 90s-early 00s anime, you've got your Lain, Dominion Tank Police, a whole bunch of Tenchi books. And then there's Trigun, which I actually saw out in the wild once and decided to have a browse. It's REAL bad you guys. Most of the book is given over to a very dry episode and universe guide. Then you get to the rules, and not only is it based on the BESM d20 conversion (Which is a super busted ruleset anyway) but they give you stats for all the canon movers and shakers. Like Vash here. I'm pretty sure he was functionally level 30+. You do get this problem with licenced settings, where they lay out the assumption that the canon characters are going to be the best around and your PCs are going to be absolute scrubs. This results in one of two outcomes, either they really are super far out of reach which means that you're adventuring in a universe where you can't actually meaningfully interact with the marquee characters, or the designers didn't understand their own rules and it turns out to be relatively easy to build characters who can completely destroy the canon best fighters. Rare is the game that tries to strike a balance, or says "yeah, your dudes can totally stand shoulder to shoulder with the guys from the show, no biggie."

[brettpostscript]

Joe's Apartment 9595

1 part raunchy Insect adventure, 1 part obscure Aqua Teen Hunger Force reference. Add a helping of BESM and sprinkle in some "miniatures" I bought for $1 and the perfection was complete.

[shopontheborderlands]

New Stock at The Shop on the Borderlands!

Original D&D Creature Compendium £22

B/X D&D Creature Compendium £22

AD&D 1st Edition Creature Compendium £22

D&D 3rd/3.5th Edition The Quintessential Elf £10 RESTOCK Wrath & Rage: A Guidebook to Orcs & Half-Orcs £22 RESTOCK Ultimate Prestige Classes Vol. 1 £14

D&D 5th Edition Volo's Guide to Monsters £40 - £41.99 BRAND NEW, RESTOCK Explorer's Guide to Wildemount (Critical Role) £40 - £41.99 BRAND NEW, RESTOCK Tome of Beasts Pocket Edition £12 RESTOCK Scarred Lands Player's Guide £24 RESTOCK Campaign Case: Creatures £54.99 BRAND NEW, RESTOCK Campaign Case: Terrain £54.99 BRAND NEW, RESTOCK

Beneath Beneath Collection (in four volumes) - Beneath: The Inverted Church, Beneath Player's Handbook 2.0, Pleasures and Pestilence, The Spire and the Sound £75

Iron Kingdoms (d20) Iron Kingdoms Character Guide £30 RESTOCK Iron Kingdoms World Guide £50 RESTOCK Monsternomicon Volume 1 £18 RESTOCK

d20 Modern Modern Player's Companion £19 Mecha Compendium £22 - £30 RESTOCK

Starfinder Starfinder Core Rulebook Pocket Edition £19 RESTOCK

Call of Cthulhu Investigator Handbook £37.99 BRAND NEW, RESTOCK

GURPS GURPS Basic Set Third Edition (softback) £18 RESTOCK Steve Jackson's Man To Man £35 RESTOCK GURPS Bio-Tech £18 RESTOCK

Champions Champions Uiniverse £15

Savage Worlds Savage Worlds (revised edition) hardback rulebook £18

Earthdawn The Adept's Way £16 Creatures of Barsaive £18 RESTOCK Denizens of Earthdawn Volume One £16 RESTOCK

Robert E. Howard's Conan The Pit of Kutallu (quickstart rules + adventure) £7.99 BRAND NEW

BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth) BESM Second Edition softback rulebook £50 RESTOCK BESM Third Edition hardback rulebook £67.50 RESTOCK BESM Role-Playing Game Fourth Edition hardback rulebook £49.99 BRAND NEW, RESTOCK Dramatis Personae £29.99 BRAND NEW, RESTOCK Tokyo Sidekick £8.99 BRAND NEW, RESTOCK BESM Dungeon £40 BESM Fantasy Bestiary £36 Uresia: Grave of Heaven £30 The Slayers (Book 1) £35 The Slayers Next (Book 2) £35 The Slayers Try (Book 3) £30 BESM Space Fantasy £30 Big Robots, Cool Starships £31 RESTOCK Centauri Knights £16 Big Ears, Small Mouse £14 RESTOCK Cold Hands, Dark Hearts £28 Cute & Fuzzy Cockfighting Seizure Monsters £30 Hearts Swords Flowers £40

Rifts Vampire Kingdoms (World Book One) £10

Mork Borg Mork Borg hardback rulebook £33.99 BRAND NEW, RESTOCK

News from the Borderlands

Our lead item this week is Heorot - Roleplaying in the World of Beowulf Beastslayer. It's a brand new Kickstarter-funded rules-light RPG based around the Anglo-Saxon legend of Beowulf (as well as the odd piece of Norse mythology) and written by Fighting Fantasy legend Jonathan Green. Lovely illustrations, including some from the late Russ Nicholson.

Anime RPG fans are well catered for this week since we have a nice collection of BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth) in, including some rare supplements that we've not had before.

And here's something of an oddity that we've not had before either - White Wolf's Street Fighter RPG (yes, as in the video game series).

And possibly even more of an oddity - the RPG based on Ralph Bakshi's 1977 animated film 'Wizards' (Mark Hamill's film debut).