Showing posts with label Anime. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Anime. Show all posts

Thursday, May 27, 2010

Big Eyes, Small Mouth d20 (and SAS d20)

Why BESM d20?

Well again, it seems like a logical next step.
My conversions to BESM Tri-Stat version went so well that a conversion to BESM d20 seems logical. Plus I have done numerous d20 conversions so far and Silver Age Sentinels also has Tri-Stat and d20 variants and are very close to Mutants and Masterminds (with SAS d20 and Mutants and Masterminds both written by Steve Kenson).  So yeah, it seemed logical.

Plus despite that fact that Guardians of Order are no longer with us, the "Anime d20 SRD" rules were released as open gaming content. So if I wanted to I could release an anime d20 supplement or an entire new rule book using the rules of the OGL.

The other advantage to using this set of rules it is fairly easy to convert Unisystem to BESM and BESM to BESM d20. I can also convert d20 Modern or M&M to SAS d20 and SAS Tri-Stat. And both SAS and BESM d20 are built on an odd mix of d20 and Tri-Stat, so in the end it seems that BESM and/or SAS d20 stats should write them selves by now.

Well…

What happens is I get some interesting differences depending on if I start fresh, convert from Unisystem, convert from BESM Tri-Stat, or even from one of the d20 games. I will not bother with the details here (mostly they end up being differences in saves and amount of skills) but all of them are close enough for me to feel there is a good sense of "inter-system reliability" and that was sort of the point of this long experiment; can I represent certain characters more or less the same way under multiple systems.

So when looking at this conversion I am going to be focusing on BESM d20. I am grabbing things from SAS d20 as well since the systems are largely compatible. (nitpick: and by "largely compatible" I mean "powers were cut and pasted from one version to the next" with BESM 2, SAS, BESM d20 and SAS d20 I figure I have paid for the same blocks of text now four/five times). BESM d20 seems closer to D&D3.x and SAS d20 closer to M&M, but that is to be expected. I am also freely dipping into "BESM d20 Advanced Magic", but more on that later.

Overview
A lot of what is in BESM d20 can be found in BESM and SAS d20. A lot. So much that I wish I had just one omnibus edition with say a d20 conversion chapter. Almost all the attributes have the same (or similar) point spread across all the systems and to convert to d20 from Tri-Stat is often just a matter of doubling the points. BESM d20 includes rules for converting the D&D and d20 Mod classes to their point system so I am not at a lack of choices. I did notice right away that BESM d20's Dynamic Sorcerer is not 100% compatible with SAS d20's Costumed Wizard; and similar inconsistencies have popped up. There are also minor balance issues between the SAS classes and between the SAS and BESM classes. Converting the lot to Unisystem might help, or might make things worse. So my first conversion rule is giving any character an extra 5 "fluff" points to spend as they see fit. I found that these points usually balance everything out well. See defects below for more on this.

Levels, Classes and Hit Points
Ok, lets get this out of the way now. BESM d20 and SAS d20 both have levels, classes and hitpoints. I typically find that people can deal with one, but not the other, and rarely both unless it's D&D. On the surface level can convert roughly to M&M's PL, rough enough that I am going to say it's fine and not worry about it. But Hit Points do not work with M&M's Damage system. On the other hand levels do not work well with Unisystem.

And then there are Classes.

While some don't like this, I think it works well in terms of Anime, but less so for Supers. Ok for the most part these can be ignored since they only decide what powers a character will get and when, what Hit Die, attacks and saves. BESM d20 offers a classless option which should work fine for the class haters out there. Also BESM d20 deconstructs the D&D classes by what they get with points to show their relative merits (useful for anyone playing D&D). We can convert the Classes to archetypes but we are still stuck with levels. It is d20 after all.

The Classes in BESM d20 seem to work better for me. The SAS d20 classes felt too restrictive. One thing I wanted to do was stat up my son's favorite female super heroes Fire and Ice, but the closest thing that seems to work is "Adventurer" with maybe some "Acrobat"? Not very satisfying.
At this point I go to my d20 Modern and Mutants & Masterminds conversions to get an idea of what level I want. I have a basic understanding of their skills, so I can work backwards from that point. I also have knowledge of what types of magic (lower case m) they can do, so I can work backwards from that point as well. In the end I think I want to use the lowest possible level (so I have room to work up) and given them the 5 fluff points. Willow comes out to about level 13 and Tara level 12 total.

Magic and Dynamic Sorcerery
Like BESM, BESM d20 has a "Dynamic Sorcery" power, "Dynamic Powers" in SAS and BESM 3.0. This is used in BESM d20 to emulate the power of wizards. Its roots are in Anime of course to mimic the special magical effects of characters that are not really Vancian-style wizards. Witch Hunter Robin for example could have dynamic sorcery limited to fire. Using Dynamic Sorcerery is one of the benefits (and one of the problems) of BESM (either Tri-stat or d20).

Dynamic Sorcerery is primarily used for improvised casting. It is bought in levels and how many levels you have decides on what it is you can accomplish. It's not cheap, 8 points per level in BESM d20 (4 points per level in BESM 2.0 Tri-Stat, 20 points per level in SAS d20), but limitations on powers (like the fire only stipulation for Robin above) drops it to 4 or 2 (or 2 and 1, or 15 and 10) points per level. Ranks in the power determine what level of spell you can cast. So to cast a 0-level d20 cantrip you need 1 rank of Dynamic Sorcery, to cast a 9th level d20 spell, you need a Dynamic Sorcery rank of 10. The parallels between this and Cine Unisystem's Magic/Sorcerery should be obvious. Buffy's Sorcery includes Telekinesis, d20 BESM has TK as a separate 4 point per rank power.

So Dynamic Sorcery is a way to do spells and on the spot magical effects.

Now BESM d20's "Magic" attribute ("Power Flux" in SAS and BESM 3.0) also allows the character to perform magical feats, seemingly similar to Dynamic Sorcery, but they caution using the two together. Magic then becomes a descriptor and then the extra 10 points per rank are used to buy other attributes/powers. This makes it most similar to M&M's "Magic". Then to power those magical attributes/powers, the character must pay some cost from their Energy Points (like Essence in WitchCraft) So a Techno Pagan then could buy Magic and use the points to buy Mechanical Genius or to be a Super Scientist. BESM d20 Magic then in Unisystem terms is a means to buy Supernatural Qualities. In this respect BESM's Magic + Energy Bonus is most similar to Classic Unisystem's The Gift + Extra Essence and Essence Channeling.
Magic becomes a means to buy other powers, that can sometimes be called spells, sometimes called powers.

Willow then could have a level of Magic, use the points to buy TK and use the associated Energy Points to power her TK OR she could do it with a level in Dynamic Sorcery. Tara would do the same to power her Empathy and the Sight qualities, but those "feel" more like magic and less like dynamic sorcery. BUT keeping track of Energy Points is not how Cinematic Unisystem works (otherwise it would have Essence) so, I am going to limit how Dynamic Sorcery and Magic are used together (as the rules suggest) and treat them much the same way I treat Sorcery and The Gift. Separate, but equal (and not in a Kansas Board of Education way).
Magic and Dynamic Sorcerery are also known as Power Flux and Dynamic Powers respectively in other Tri-Stat books (SAS and BESM 3.0).

So which one should I use to represent the magic I want?
Good question.

I have spent a lot of time working this out and the truth is for d20 BESM I want to go with Dynamic Sorcery. It's more cinematic in it's feel, it's parameters (in d20 anyway) are a little better defined. Thanks to "d20 Advanced Magic" it is also a better choice in terms of multiple spells. Plus at this point in my game Willow and Tara are whipping out spells left and right. For a BESM d20 "Willow and Tara" or "Charmed" game, I would say each witch character gets a special power with the Magic descriptor added on and then Dynamic Sorcery as well. To use TK they use their Dynamic Sorcery with a power level equal to that of their power level in Dynamic Sorcery. Sure it's expensive, but cheaper than buying DS and TK at the same time.
Note: BESM d20 vs. SAS d20. I am further making my options for BESM d20 over SAS d20 clearer here. The Dynamic Sorcerer in BESM is much more powerful than Costumed Wizard of SAS d20. Not only in terms of points given (twice as much for BESM) the cost for the dynamic sorcery power is 8 points per level compared to SAS's 20 per level. Now the arguement can be made that BESM is way overpowered. But this can be controlled though the use of the character points. In the end BESM d20 has a closer fit for me and what I want to do.

Powers into Qualites
Again the basic conversion is divide the BESM d20 power cost by 2 to get the Unisystem quality cost, unless the BESM one is 1, then it stays 1. There is so much overlap between BESM d20/SAS d20 and Mutants and Masterminds that whatever works for one will work for the other.

Defects into Drawbacks
If BESM d20 and SAS d20 have one edge over their d20 brethren then it is in the use of Defects. The issue here is that both games use point systems along with levels, so defects give you more points. This makes it sometime unwieldy for other d20 games, it makes it perfect for converting them into Unisystem Drawbacks or Mutant & Masterminds.
Again, as with Powers, divide the Defect points by two to get a Unisystem equivalent, with some rounding. 1 point defects remain 1 point, 2 points = 1 point and 3 points = 2 points. Most defects never go beyond 3 points. Now if you remove the "fluff" points option I have above then it is possible to convert them on a one to one basis; keeping in mind that a Unisystem character should never have more than 10 points in Drawbacks.
Since all the drawbacks are "scaled" in BESM and SAS they can be converted more on an as-needed basis too.

Skills
Skills convert on a 1 for 2 basis, so every one rank of Unisystem gives you 2 ranks of d20. That works fine as a base, but the two games are not powered the same. So to get a level based on Spell power, you end up with a higher level character (Willow is 13th level here) and a lot more skill points to spread around. Fortunately there are a lot more skills in d20.

Silver Age Sentinels vs. Mutants and Masterminds
I have mentioned it above quite a bit, but I'll detail it here. These two games have a lot in common. Yes both have Steve Kenson's name on them, yes both are d20 (and thus maybe not interesting to Unisystem players) and yes both are about superheroes.
But what you don't get from reading one or the other game is how well they can work together.
When doing my conversions I have decided that in my d20 Supers game, SAS represents my Silver Age (1956 - 1968) while M&M is the modern age. So I just roll back any dates of the characters back 40-30 years, where necessary.

The great thing is that this has brought greater definition to my "Superhero World". It is a mix of Mutants & Masterminds, with SAS as part of it's history and elements from BESM where needed. No cute and fuzzy fighting seizure monsters, well, not yet anyway, but there are dragons and some other magical beasts.

Willow and Tara in BESM / SAS d20
Why always these two? Lots of reasons. But here are my salient points.
- I am interested in how witches in particular will convert. I don't really care about demons, vampires or other stock creatures; every game has those.
- Eden has Willow and Tara sheets on their site (used to anyway), this allows people not overly familiar with Unisystem, but d20, to make judgments on my conversions.
- I like Willow and Tara. If want to do all this work on converting then you can pick your own characters.
Now I also use them as "out of the box" characters. That is I try not to make up any special rules regarding them. I have another character I use that for. But the idea here is take something that I know very well (and most people here have some idea about) and see if I can re-create them using another system.

Instead of using "The Dragon and the Phoenix" canon/timeline, I am going to be using my "Willow & Tara: The Animated Series" timelines; so the same as BESM 2r. Truth is, vampires and demons, especially the kind that show up on TV are not much of a threat to humans that can leap tall buildings in a single bound.

I don't feel the need to post their full stats (unless anyone wants them), but here are their levels.


Willow D. Rosenberg
Female Human
Classes and Levels: Student 2, Adventurer 2, Dynamic Sorcereress 9 (13)
Strength 9 (-1), Dexterity 11 (0), Constitution 11 (0), Intelligence 18 (+4), Wisdom 16 (+3), Charisma 17 (+3)
Student (to cover her time during 1st and 2nd seasons), Adventurer (starting in 2nd season and into 3rd where she 'buys' more tech and magic skills) and finally Dynamic Sorcerer. I'll make her a Student 4, Adventurer 2, Dynamic Sorcereress 7 (level 13).
Compare this to her d20 Mod incarnation who is a Smart Hero 5, Occultist 1, Mage 7 (level 13)


Tara A. Maclay
Female Human
Classes and Levels: Magical Girl 3, Student 2, Dynamic Sorcereress 7 (12)
Strength 12 (+1), Dexterity 9 (-1), Constitution 12 (+1), Intelligence 16 (+3), Wisdom 18 (+4), Charisma 16 (+3)
Magical Girl (to cover her time before meeting Willow and to power her Sight and Empathy) and then Dynamic Sorcerer. Maybe a level of Student in there too.

Her companion is the ghost of her dead mother (or grandmother if you want her to start earlier). She also has MKF as a companion, and in true anime fashion Miss Kitty is a talking cat. I could also make her a Magical Girl 5, Student 2, Dynamic Sorcereress 5 (level 12). Compare to her d20 Mod incarnation, Dedicated Hero 6, Mystic 6 (level 12).

I'll say they pick up the bulk of their Occult Knowledge while they are students.

While I am not as thrilled with these versions as I am the BESM 3.0 or the Mutants and Masterminds ones, they are still pretty good.

What gets me about BESM d20 is the huge amount of untapped potential here.  There is just a ton of stuff in this book for the taking.  Same with SAS.  Speaking of SAS, the best super-hero history I ever read was in the pages of SAS.  They are the same in both the d20 and Tri-Stat versions (another grumble).  SAS looks like it should mix well with M&M but I guess they are really too close to each other that their differences are more obvious.  It's a shame that SAS never really got it's due. It does read like a rough draft of M&M at times.

Is BESM d20 Anime?  Well I guess I have to ask, what is Anime?  BESM d20 is a good d20 version of BESM.  I am not convinced though it taps into that collective known as "Anime" as well as BESM 2 or 3 does.  I have played more BESM d20 than BESM 3 so to me it came off more like "Cartoon Cinematic d20".  Which is in itself not so bad.  I have mixed BESM d20 and D&D3 and gotten something a bit more cinematic. I have also mixed BESM d20 with d20 Star Wars for some really weird stuff, but all of it fun.

As I wrap up BESM (all versions) I have to reiterate what a shame it is that we lost GoO.  I know companies come and go all the time and each time something unique to the industry is lost.  Not to say there were not issues with GoO; there were plenty, and they were hardly a model of how to run a business.  It is just too bad that what they provided to the game industry is now gone.

Wednesday, May 26, 2010

Willow & Tara: Big Eyes, Small Mouth 3.0

Willow and Tara in BESM 3.0 

Yes I know, I did these both for BESM 2nd Ed. But I went with a slightly different version here. The 2nd Ed versions were based on a idea of mine to do a Animated series to feature the girls as high school foreign-exchange students to Japan. In this case I am going strict the Dragon and the Phoenix, or rather in this case, my 3rd Season, "Generation HEX" conversions. Given the style of game that Generation HEX has become (low-powered supers/magical girl in a modern supernatural occult dramady) then oddly enough the BESM 3.0 stats work rather well.

The differences are mostly do to the changes in the systems, but also to reflect where the characters were at that point in my games.  These are certainly older versions of Willow and Tara than I had in BESM 2r.

BESM 3.0 makes more use of their multiverse (which sadly we won't be hearing more about) so there is a Universe line now on the character sheet.
Despite all thee differences though (and the change in mechanic) these are obviously related games. The conversion from BESM 2r to BESM 3 is easier than say the conversions between AD&D 2 and D&D 3.

The BIG thing here though is my shift from Power Flux/Magic to Dynamic Powers.   Now some of the BESM guys mentioned to me in the past that this might make them much more powerful than the numbers would suggest.   But I wanted to try it out.  Plus they had become "mages" in my Season 2 arc, "Season of the Witch" and this is supposed to represent them at the beginning of my Season 3 arc, "Generation HEX".   They might bee a tad powerful, but I think that is fine really.

I will say this. Dynamic Powers are so ripe for abuse it is not even funny. Yeah I see why it is there.  I have watched enough anime now to get it.  But it should still have something more to guide the player.  BESM d20 was a handy guide for this, as was True20 believe it or not.

Name: Willow D. Rosenberg
DAM Multiplier: 5
Genre: Modern Occult/Shojo
Universe: Mine

BODY 4 HP: 70 ACV: 8
MIND 12 EP: 115 DCV: 8
SOUL 9 Armor: 0 SSV: 14

Attributes Level Cost Notes
Dynamic Powers +5 +195
(Depletes -1, Backlash -2, Concentration -2)
Energy Bonus +2 +4
Features (Ambidextrous) +1 +1
Features (Attractive) +2 +2
Item (Dolls Eye Crystal) +1 +40
Tough +1 +2
Wealthy +2 +10

Skills (Attributes) Level Cost Notes
Acrobatics +2 +4
Biological Sciences +4 +8
Computers +6 +12
Cultural Arts +1 +3
Intimidation +1 +2
Languages +3 +6 English, Latin, Greek, French
Occultism +6 +18
Physical Sciences +5 +15
Seduction +1 +2
Social Sciences +6 +12
Street Sense +2 +4
Writing +1 +1

Defects Cost Notes
ISM (Jewish, Lesbian Wicca) -1
S.O. (Tara) -1
Phobia (Frogs) -1

Other Stuff: (Items, Equipment, Power Templates, whatever else is needed)
Dolls Eye Crystal. Provides 1 extra level of Dynamic Powers.


Name: Tara A. Maclay CP:
Template(s): DAM Multiplier: 5
Genre: Modern Occult/Shojo Universe: Mine

BODY 4 HP: 75 ACV: 7
MIND 11 EP: 130 DCV: 8
SOUL 10 Armor: 0 SSV: 15

Attributes Level Cost Notes
Companion (witches cat) +1 +2 MKF II, see below
Dynamic Powers +4 +155
(Depletes -1, Backlash -2, Concentration -2)
Energy Bonus +5 +10
Features (Attractive) +2 +2
Heal +2 +6
Sixth Sense (Magic, Empathy, the Sight) +3 +6
Tough +1 +2

Skills (Attributes) Level Cost Notes
Acrobatics +2 +4
Biological Sciences +4 +8
Computers +2 +4
Cultural Arts +2 +6
Languages +3 +6 English, Latin, Japanese, Gaelic
Occultism +6 +18
Performing Arts +2 +2
Riding (Horses) +3 +3
Seduction +1 +2
Social Sciences +2 +4
Street Sense +2 +4
Visual Arts +3 +3
Writing +2 +2

Defects Cost Notes
ISM (Lesbian Wicca) -1
S.O. (Willow) -1
Impaired Speech (stutter when nervous) -1

Other Stuff:

Miss Kitty Fantasitco II. Black & white cat familiar (Companion) 120 points
M: 2 (20 points) B: 2 (20 points) S: 3 (30 points)
HP: 20 EP: 35 Arm: 0 ACV: 2 DCV:2 SSV: 4
Energy Bonus 2 (4), Heightened Senses (sight and smell) 2 (4), Power Flux Magic 2 (26 points), Sixth Sense, Empathy 1 (2), Super Senses, Magic 2 (4), Telekinesis, Any 2 (16)
Skills: Occult 5 (10), Acrobatics 2 (6), Stealth 4 (12), Urban Tracking 5 (5), Wilderness Tracking 5 (5)
Easily Distracted (things that distract cats) -2, Unique Defect, Lazy -2

This version of MKF is more of a witch's cat than wise cracking side kick.  I think she should still talk though.

Tuesday, May 25, 2010

Dracula: Big Eyes, Small Mouth 3.0

So if I am going to do Buffy, I should at least add one of the greatest vampires ever.
Dracula, in one form or another, has appeared in a number of anime.  So it seems natural to include him here.

This build is roughly based on the vampire build in the BESM 3.0 book and on my own Mutants and Masterminds version.

Dracula BESM 3.0

BODY 15
MIND 10
SOUL 14

HP: 145 ACV: 16
EP: 120 DCV: 14
SSV: 29 Dam: 5/9

Attributes Level Cost Notes
Attack Combat Mastery +3 ( +30)
Combat technique (brutal, critical strike, lethal blow, lighting reflexes) +4 (+8)
Defense Combat Mastery +1 (+10)
Features: Appearance +1 (+1)
Heightened Awareness +1 (+2)
Heightened Senses (hear, smell) +2 (+4)
Mind Control (humans, depletes) +2 (+13)
Mind Shield +3 (+6)
Resistance +1 (+2)
Regeneration +1 (+10)
Special Defense (ageing 2, disease 2, freezing water 2, freezing cold 2, lack of air 2, poison 1) +11 (+22)
Special Movement +2 (+4)
Super Strength +4 (+32)
Tough +1 (+2)
Weapon Fangs +2 (+3)

Skills Level (Cost) (Modern-day Occult setting)
Acrobatics +2 (+4)
Climbing +2 (+4)
Cultural Arts +3 (+9)
Disguise +1 (+2)
Etiquette +3 (+3)
Foreign Culture +3 (+3)
Languages +4 (+8) English, Latin, Romanian, Turkish, German
Occult +3 (+9)
Performing Arts +2 (+2)
Seduction +5 (+10)
Sleight of Hand +3 (+6)
Social Sciences +3 (+6)
Stealth +3 (+6)
Street sense +3 (+6)
Urban Tracking +2 (+4)
Wilderness Survival +1 (+1)
Writing +1 (+1)

Defects (Cost) Notes
Achilles’ Heel (Wooden weapons) (-2)
Bane Sunlight (-2)
Bane Mirrors (-2)

Notes: Can move about in the daylight, but is very weakened. When sleeping or in his crypt he appears to be completely dead. Dracula lies in his coffin with his eyes wide open and can see everything even in his torpor.

Dracula here is a vampire at the top of his game with 145 Health Points, the same I put Buffy at.  With these stats they would go toe to toe for a while.  Same as in Unisystem.  But for an Anime Vampire Lord I am thinking he should be a bit more powerful.  That at least is the one thing consistent in all the Anime version of Dracula I have seen; he is a complete bad ass.

Monday, May 24, 2010

Anime RPGs: BESM 3.0

I was eagerly anticipating the release of BESM (Big Eyes, Small Mouth) 3rd Edition. Of course, by the time it was ready Guardians of Order had gone belly up and the rules were now being released by Arthaus/White Wolf. My anticipation was tinged a little with stress. What had happened to the game I had just recently become very fond of and what was going to happen now? And of course, would I be able to convert Willow and Tara to the new version given how much fun I had with BESM 2nd Ed Revised?

Well, many of my fears were put to rest, only to be replaced by new ones (and a couple that just never seemed to go away).  I'll detail those all below.

Briefly here are my comments on the system and the book.

The book is very attractive and one of the most colorful RPGs I have seen in a long time. It reminds me of Mutants and Masterminds in terms of color. It is a thick tome, and now sized to fit well on my shelf. The Niko Geyer artwork is great and really captures the feel of the game well. On the other hand I have seen all this artwork before, maybe not in color, but certainly in other editions of this book. Now I understand that money was very tight at GoO and the art is great, so I am willing to cut them some slack here.
The text though also has the same problems. There is text in here that I am now reading for the 5th or 6th time over (BESM 2.0, BESM d20, SAS, SASd20, Tri-Stat core). Some of this text still has the same problems as it always did (Dynamic Powers in particular).

I do like what is new. The analysis of anime, maps of Japan and Tokyo, and the overview of Shôjo anime. The section about the anime multiverse is also rather fun and full of ideas that can be used for any game. Especially as a way to run those pesky crossover sessions.

The new game mechanics are now a Roll-over; 2d6 vs. Target Number. Makes it very much in feel with Unisystem. No Success levels as such, but a very loose difficulty class system similar to many d20 based games. It was reading over these rules in fact that help re-tool my dice mechanic for Unisystem that I have come to call The Chicago Way .
But otherwise, it is still mostly the same BESM. We still have our 3 Stats, Body, Mind and Soul. Still have attributes, defects, and skills. There are different scalings for the game depending on how you want to play it.
Like M&M the powers are all effects based. So if you wanted to make a Pyro Girl, for example, its not a matter of choosing levels in pyrokenesis, but choosing a particular power and have it act like it. This could be Elemental Control (Fire), Power Flux- Fire or something else.

That gets me to a big issue. Magic.

Magic has always been an issue in BESM. There are basically three magical powers. The first is the easiest. Pick a power and call it magical. No big deal really.

The second is Power Flux, which used to be called magic. The idea here is pay for this at 15 points per level and you get 4 points per level to buy any other power temporarily. For that loss of 11 points per level you gain flexibility. So every power in the book then becomes a spell that your magic using character can use. So lets take the power Invisibility as an example.  The power says you become invisible, it does not say how or why.  Since its results or effect based then the Invisibility power can come from magic, be a spell cast by Power Flux, or be a cloaking device of a super-science item. Power Flux does not just have to be magic, it can psi powers, super-science, or just about anything else. For people starting out in BESM I say go with Power Flux. This is what I usually do for starting games and my Teen Witch below uses Power Flux.

Then there is Dynamic Power. Dynamic Power used to be Dynamic Sorcery, but the name change didnt help clear anything up. It is bought like Power Flux (including some of the exact same text copied and pasted in). Now the idea here is to be able to replicate all those kewl powerz you see in anime that the characters just seem to think of and they get. The really weird stuff. The trouble is the power as written is ripe for abuse and it is not very clear. Turning to BESM d20 you can get an idea of what it can do there, but none of that is here. So there is no telling what a person with 3 levels in this can do say differently from what someone with 3 levels in Power Flux do.

The BESM d20 version has Dynamic Sorcery (its equivalent) casting D&D type spells with restrictions on how many, which ones and how often. But nothing like that here. IF I am going to use Dynamic Powers I am going to have to figure out a way to convert over the magic in BESM d20 Advanced Magic for some guidelines.

The designer, Mark MacKinnon, says a lot about this power in and outside of the book. Things like this power is balanced if you know how to use it and It's a mature role-playing tool for mature role-players. If you don't "get it" when you read the description, then it's not for you. Well Mark, you seem like a good guy and I do really like BESM but I am calling BULLSHIT on that one. I have been playing for 30+ years, writing games and playtesting new games non-stop since the mid 1990s. Players, mature or not, still like guidelines, thats why they are called core rules. I don't want to kick you since you have left this biz but please, don't insult my intelligence.

I do understand it, and frankly, its not really my bag. I have some witches I use it with and others I use Power Flux with. In the end, I am finding I still like my own systems better. I appreciate the desire to tell a good story or to give GMs their freedom, but sometimes even the best GMs need a guide.

Though I should not *have* to do this I am going to take my cues on proper leveling from BESM d20 Advanced Magic. There Dynamic Sorcery goes to 10, to make life easier I am going to limit it to 5 levels in BESM 3.0 (level 6 is the realm of Gods). This will correspond to 1 BESM 3.0 level equaling 2 BESM d20 levels. Not perfect, but it is a guideline. Similarly Ill say 1 BESM 3.0 level of Dynamic Powers is roughly equal to having 2 levels of Magic/Sorcery. Its not perfect, but it works well enough.
Still though, I am unhappy with this power as written. Its a cool idea, but not as it is now. Ill revisit this when I do the BESM d20 conversions.

More Mechanics
The rest is very familiar. The main feature of the system is still the Tri-Stat, or Body, Mind and Soul. All skills, attributes and defects as well combat roles are made with these three in mind. They range up to 12, but cannot go over. A quick and dirty conversion from Unisystem would be to add two Unisystem Attributes to get one Tri-Stat stat, so as an example take Strength + Dexterity to get Body.

Unisystem = Tri-Stat
Strength + Dexterity = Body
Intelligence + Perception = Mind
Constitution + Willpower = Soul

Attributes and Skills convert pretty much as is. BESM 3.0s new mechanic is such that the chances of success for a character is about the same as their Unisystem counter-part. Many of the Attributes are nearly the same as Unisystem with minor name differences; Tough vs. Hard to Kill for example.

BESM 3 Skills are now part of Attributes, but otherwise mostly unchanged. Skill Levels range 1 to 6, with 0 as unskilled or unable to use this skill and 5 representing the human maximum in most cases. Unisystem has a lot more Drawbacks for characters than BESM has Defects.

Basically, if I wanted to run an Anime-based game in Unisystem, I would start with the rules that seem to be the closest (WitchCraft RPG, Army of Darkness, Ghosts of Albion) and then add in BESM 3 material as needed.

Teen Witch
Here is a way to get a Unisystem-like witch into your BESM game. Use this template to start out your character. It uses Power Flux as I mentioned above and I went with a more anime-feel to it.

You were living a fairly normal crazy teen-age life. Worrying about school, boys, clothes, boys, popularity and boys. That is till one day you discovered your grandmothers Book of Shadows hidden away and since then nothing has ever been the same. You see ghosts, your cat now talks to you (and gives you advice!) and what worse now all these people are after you; rival witches, government agents that cant apparently tell the difference between you and a vampire, oh and not to mention you have a midterm in a couple of weeks!
College? You just want to make it to the prom!


Value Points Stat
+1 +10 Soul Stat or Mind Stat (choose one to work with Magic)

Value Points Attribute
+1 +2 Companion (Familiar, 120 points) OR
Divine Relationship (Spirit)
+1 +2 Energy Bonus (+5 Energy Points)
+1 +1 Features: Attractive (cute)
+1 +18 Item Book of Shadows restriction:
Unwieldy, easily lost, cannot learn new spells without it -2
+2 +26 Power Flux Magic (8 Flux Points)
restriction: Activation (lesser) -1, restriction: Depletes (lesser) -1,
restriction: Spells must be learned (moderate) -2)
+1 +2 Sixth Sense (One Aspect)
+2 +4 Skill: Occult (+6 points in Modern Occult Horror)
+1 +2 Super Senses (Magical) (uses same
Stat chosen above)
+1 +8 Telekinesis (Any)

Points Defect
-1 Marked (witchs mark)
-2 Nemesis (Usually a rival witch or investigator)
-2 Skeleton in the Closet (Magical family/history)

Total: 60 Points

Book of Shadows (40 points worth, 20 CPs, -2)
Common Spells (spells use same stat as chosen above)
Value Points Attribute
+4 +8 Environmental Control
+1 +8 Flight
+2 +6 Force Field
+2 +8 Healing
+4 +8 Illusion
+1 +2 Telepathy (minor)

Notes on the Template
The Teen Witch chooses one Stat, typically Soul or Mind, and uses it as the basis for all of her magical powers. All Spells in her Book of Shadows will use this Stat instead of the Stat listed. Eg, a Teen Witch that uses Soul as her Stat will use Soul and not Mind when using Telepathy as a spell. Her Super Senses also use the same Stat, but Game Masters can rule that Telekinesis can remain as it is.

For this I choose to use Power Flux as I had with my BESM 2r builds.  I wanted to see how it fared.  I dod like how it works.  Power Flux is "magic" and the powers bought are "spells".  So somewhere in between Ghosts of Albion and WitchCraft RPGs.  I tried out Dynamic Powers too, but more on that later.

Paths of Improvement
To advance the Teen Witch can improve her stat of choice, add more points to her Power Flux Magic (to increase her power), her Energy Points, or to her Item Book of Shadows (to represent more spells learned). Other choices are picking up both a Companion Familiar and Divine Relationship Spirit of Grandmother/Mother or increasing her Occult skills.

Buffy in BESM?
Well believe it or not, but Buffy owes a lot to the likes of Salior Moon and other Magical Girl or Shôjo anime. Buffy, Faith, Willow and Tara (even Anya and Cordelia) could all be considered magical girls with Xander as the comic relief guy and Angel as the mysterious stranger; its practically anime cliché. These stories are typified by a young girl, normally high school age, which gains or learns of her magical powers. Other girls often join her and they battle evil monsters, evil wizards (almost always older and male), demons and things from somewhere else. Common themes include friendship and the power of love and saving the world. Stop me if you have heard this all before.

Witches and magic I have discussed, vampires, werewolves and all sorts of monsters are more than adequately covered. Can you do a Slayer?

Sure. Why not.

Since BESM is effects based, we can use this to our advantage by describing what happens to a girl when she gets called: Increased strength and speed, increased health, quick healing, sense vampires, prophetic dreams, boatloads of enemies. Unisystem does a fantastic job of capturing this I think. But any game that can feature vampires should be able to feature their hunters. Again, we are going to have to look at the effects here.

Vampire Slayer Template
You are the One, the one girl born to rid the world of vampires, demons and other supernatural threats. You are the Vampire Slayer.

When you are called you get the perks, the increased strength, speed, stamina, fast healing and like Neo you now know Kung-fu. Of course this all comes with a price. You have a stuffy old guy watching you, and not in a creepy way, but in a you better train or you are dead way. Plus every vamp in town now wants to kill you to make a name for himself.
Whatever.
You have the talent, the skills, and damn, these new boots were made for kicking ass!

Vampire Slayer Template

Value Points Stat
+2 +20 Body Stat
+1 +10 Soul Stat

Value Points Attribute
+2 +20 Attack Combat Mastery
+6 +12 Combat Technique (Brutal, Critical Strike, Hard Bodied, Lethal Blow, Lightning Reflexes, Precise Aim [Stake through the Heart])
+1 +2 Heightened Awareness
+1 +10 Defense Combat Mastery
+1 +3 Melee Attack
+2 +8 Massive Damage (Vampires; Demons)
+1 +10 Regeneration (5 health points per round)
+2 +4 Sixth Sense (Vampires, Prophetic Dreams)
+1 +8 Superstrength (+1 damage)
+5 +10 Tough (+25 health points)

Points Defect
-3 Nemesis (vampires, demons and others supernatural bad guys)
-2 Skeleton in the Closet (Slayers have secrets)
-2 Unique Defect, Obligation: kill vampires

Total: 110 Points

Obviously not a point for point conversion, but a very serviceable for a typical Modern Occult powered game.

NOW BIG CAVET here. I can run a Cine unisystem game in my sleep these days, I am still getting used to BESM. I'd wagger that you could speed up things in BESM once you know it all better, but I still think Cine Unisystem is the fastest combat system around. BESM combat reminds me a lot of Classic Unisystem combat, very deadly.

What strikes me though here is how well the fit is between the BESM system and what you might want to do with a "Buffy-style" game. It's not going to be everybody's taste I know, but it is fun and one of the better conversions (in terms of how much the end product captures the feel of the original) I have done.

The BESM guys tell me that this build is a combat machine and may in fact be closer to Buffy in Season 3, not at the start of her game.

Now to do this proper I'll need to read over the combat sections in BESM some more to understand how the Slayer would work. Basically run "holo-deck" simulations. I put the characters in a variety of situations and simulate the combat in Excel.

Now one thing to consider is this. The Eden Slayer is 15 points, as is the Vampire (with a soul, Witchcraft or GoA). Their abilities parallel each other.

BESM's Vampire is 110 points. So is the Slayer. I'd like to move some things around, but I would like to keep this parsimony between the two templates if I can. To me that is worth more than a slightly over-spent character.

Of course one could very easily point out that BESM's vampires are more powerful than Buffy's, and they would be a 20 Point vampire in Unisystem. So doing the math the Slayer in relative strength should be about 80 BESM Points. Does that make sense?  If the 110 point slayer is closer to 3rd Season, then the 80 point  Slayer should be closer to 1st Season.  15 points per season to upgrade then?

About those points. Sure it seems a lot, but I typically* run a 300 point BESM game, gives me the same feel as my Unisystem game. So 110 points off the bat doesnt seem like too much to me. Figure in Unisystem a Slayer spends 75% to 100% of her Quality points on just being a Slayer. So to me it feels the same.

*Typically is a misnomer. I have only run a handful of games, none of any length, but my builds are always aimed at 300 points.

New Unisystem Quality
So now we have seen what BESM gains from Unisystem. What can Unisystem get from BESM? Well quite a bit it seems. Let not even get into Mecha, Giant Robots or Kaiju, lets look at things that could sneak into a Unisystem game unnoticed till its too late!

Cat Girls
Ah Cat Girls. Why do they fascinate us so? Or is that just me? Anyway, with Bast running around, talking cats and other general weird stuff, why not a Cat Girl. We can do this one the opposite of the Slayer, take a BESM Template and reverse engineer it as a Unisystem Quality. I am going expect this to come out around 15 points, but that is only based on guess work. Lets see.

Nekojin (Cat Girl)
15-Point Quality
Prerequisite: Can only be taken at Character Creation
You are a Nekojin, commonly known as a Cat Girl. Some people see you as a demon type, others think you are more like a werewolf, but you know the truth: You have no idea what you are! But you do know that you are not evil (well, most of the time), and you are sure you are not a mindless killing machine (unless cans of tuna count) and the only thing you torment is this toy mouse one of your human friends gave you.
Despite your ears, tail, fur and cat slit eyes, people find you cute. Must be that you still look like a kitten.

* +3 to Dexterity and +1 to Constitution. These bonuses can raise the your Attributes above the human maximum of six. (+4) Dexterity can max out at 9. Other attributes can also go over the human max to 7.
* You get one level of Attractiveness and one level of Acute Senses (Low light vision) and one level of Acute Senses (Hearing). (+5)
* Fast Reaction Time, Situational Awareness. (+4)
* +2 to Acrobatics and Kung-fu (cat-fu?) skills. (+4)
* Natural Weapon (Claws) Strength x 2 damage (+2)
But these perks come at a price, you are not exactly human remember.
* Supernatural Form: Not Human. Sorry Kitty, you dont look human. A big hat and head to toe covering might hide that, but why would a cutie like you hide all that? -2
* Mental Problem: Easily Distracted. Must make a Willpower doubled roll to avoid being distracted by the things that distract cats (string, mice,) -1
* Mental Problem: Mild Cruelty -1

15 points. Not bad. Its a tad high for White Hats, but Heroes can use them and in a Cine Unisystem game they will end up being combat characters.

Thoughts
I like BESM.  I wish more people did too.  Despite it's flaws (and it still has them) it is a great little game.  I like what it can offer other games too.  There are a lot of mechanics I have adopted over to unisystem, some fluff as well.  There are some great ideas on how to run a multiverse game that I think should be essential in an GM's guide for a "universal" game.
The biggest tragedy of BESM 3.0 is it's wasted potential.  ArtHaus/White Wolf go it on the death of GoO and promptly did nothing with it.  I get it in a way. BESM is not their product, not their line and really not in the same genre of their games.  But I think it would have been great if someone had picked it up and expanded it some.  Mark and GoO had some great ideas for the future of BESM 3 and it is sad that these will never come to pass.  The loss of GoO and BESM is more than the loss of one small company and their game in the industry; it was the lost of something very unique.

I want to spend some more time with BESM this week and look into their heirs apparent to the Best Anime RPG title.

Thursday, May 20, 2010

Anime RPGs

My first Anime was Akira.  I remember hearing a lot about it in college and I finally watched it, but I was not all that impressed.  Sure I liked the whole neo-Tokyo vibe that pervades so much Anime and it had style, but the story left me flat.

Then, a change happened.  I was teaching at night so I had my days free.I also had a NetFlix account.  Ao I began to get anime, and flankly a lot of it was so good I even dragged my wife into them.  I do admit I sought out what had been considered some of the best, Witch Hunter Robin, Cowboy Bebop were our faves.  We also enjoyed the Witchblade anime as well as some that were even less than family fare.

What I liked about them were obviously the stories and in many the humor, but also the style.  Anime have a beginning, middle and an end.  Obviously due to their manga origins.  Some TV shows in america seem to go on ad nauseum.   It is a style I would want to duplicate in an amime based RPG game.  Get in, tell your story, and get out to let others have the stage.

It's a style more than a system thing.  You could do high action anime D&D (and some claim that is what D&D4 is) or even horror.  But all the same I sought out various games.  Here is a breif run down before I get into details.    For this I even have new "label" for these threads; Anime.

BESM
My first Anime game.  I started with 2nd Edtion and quickly found out that there was a 2nd Edition revised.  What was great about BESM was it was a primer on all things related to Anime.  I learned what "Fan service" was, even if I already had an idea, the history, the conventions of anime (not Anime cons) and in there was also a pretty slick system.  There were parts I didn't like, but that is fine.  BESM + Unisystem in my mind was  a great mix.  I picked up BESM d20 (which I really liked to be honest), Silver Age Sentinels (using the same system) and a bunch of the splats to go with it.  I also bought BESM 3, which I really did like a lot, but never could find anyone to play with.  I like BESM, it is very easy to write for, I just wish there was a market for it.

Mutants & Masterminds: Mecha & Manga
I love M&M and was really looking forward to this.  To me anime and supers are of a similar breed.  Both typically have comics or cartoons as their storytelling medium, so that gives them a lot of surface similarities and similar stories are often told.  Astro Boy and Superman are more alike than different.   But while I like M&M, Mecha & Manga left me a little flat.  It is a great book to add to your normal M&M game and it is a great book to add to a BESM game for other ideas.  But I think I was expecting more.

OVA
This is a new one to me, but not a new game.  I just got it and I like what I see so far. The system is very different that BESM, but it has some good character creation guidelines that I think would work nice with any game.

Cartoon Action Hour Season 2
AKA CAH:2. Another new one for me.  Like OVA I have not gone over it much other than to print it out.  It is not really an Anime RPG, but a Cartoon one.  But I am not going to let that stop me.
It also has some great character creation ideas and a series creation worksheet that is great for every game really.  Of my recent purchases (OVA, BASH and CAH:2) this one is my favorite so far.

Heart Quest
Heart Quest is a Soujo Anime/Magna RPG using the Fudge RPG. Why did I choose this one? Well a lot of what goes into Shoujo can be found in Buffy as well and visa versa. There is even a very anime looking Buffy-like character on page 43.
It is obvious from the start that while the mechanics are mostly the same to other Fudge games, the tenor is very different. HQ only has five attributes in what looks like an odd cross of Unisystem and BESM. In fact, the holds up that Fudge Universal Translator theory well since HQ looks like it could convert to BESM in a snap. Skills are the same, mostly, as are the Gifts/Faults. Magic becomes a Supernormal Power, so more inline with Buffy here.
Where HeartQuest has the most to offer is half-way through the book with different Shoujo genres. Teen Romance can add lighter feel to a younger Junior High or just starting High School set game and has some good advice on how to deal with relationships and sex on a more mature level.
The chapter on Magical Girls shows the connection between and obvious debt owed to Sailor Moon by Buffy. Here again is advice on how to run a game where a group has magical powers, fighting against some evil, and yet still trying to live a normal life. In fact all seven of the types of Magical Girl games they suggest can be done with the Buffy rules. Extending the TV theme farther it is easy to see shows (and thus Buffy or Now Playing rules adaptations) for most of the Magical Girl types. Team: Sailor Moon; W.I.T.C.H., One Girl: Buffy, Witch Hunter Robin; Rivals: Winx Club, Psychic Girls: Twitches; Witch In Training: Kiki's Delievery Service, Sabrina the Teenage Witch, 8th season of Charmed.
Charmed and my Willow and Tara series has run the gambit to include all of these at one point. The book goes on to describe Historical Romance (great for Ghosts of Albion game), a sample setting for the three different genres and some sample characters. There is also a sample bibliography and resources not to be missed.
There is also another Fudge game actually called Shoujo Anime that covers similar material. The bibliography in fact is identical. Which is fine for Fudge I guess, but a little odd all the same.
I also have a post about Fudge/Fate coming up sometime soon.

Bounty Head Bebop
A game using the Inverted 20 system.  I reviewed it here.

Open Anime
This one just came out from Battlefield Press.  Looking to buy it here soon.

Random Anime
I have never been able to find a copy of this game, but have wanted to try it out.

I'll detail some of these games in, well, detail, as the weeks progress.  I'll start with BESM since that is where I started.  I am most looking forward to OVA and CAH:2.

Looking at any Game through the Anime Lens
What happens when you add a bit of Anime to your games?


Well some things change that is certain. Obviously the easiest answer is, it's the same game only there is more of it. Black Cat above notwithstanding there is more to it than that.

I'll try to detail that when I deal with each game, but the idea is this is something different.  I in fact separated out my normal Unisystem-based Willow and Tara game (the Dragon and the Phoenix universe) and my anime based Willow and Tara the Animated Series.  They had a lot of things in common, but enough differences that I was compelled to make them different worlds.  With doing things Anime or Manga it is ok to break the rules that are often the sacred cows of the normal worlds.  For example, in the Marvel Universe Iron Man is Tony Stark, but in th eMarvel Manga universe it Toni Stark who is the Iron Maiden and the Hulk is a 70 ft tall Godzilla like monster. Small changes, but there are a lot like that.

Wednesday, December 2, 2009

Witch Hunter Robin for BESM

Earlier I did Robin for the Witch Girls Adventures RPG, which you can see here, http://timbrannan.blogspot.com/2009/08/witch-hunter-robin-for-witch-girls.html

Now here she is in another fave of mine, Big Eyes, Small Mouth



It is Robin Sena, the titular character of the awesome anime series Witch Hunter Robin for BESM. Sadly BESM is out of print and Guardians of Order out of business.   I had hope that Arthaus would continue the game, but no chance.  I liked BESM, it had a lot going for it.  I should post something about BESM and GoO sometime.  Until here is our twisted little firestarter.

Robin Sena

Race: Witch

Occupation:Witch Hunter / Witch
Age: 15 (in 2002)
Gender: F
Height:5'1"
Weight: 105#
Eyes: Green
Hair: Auburn

Mother:Maria, dead
Father:Toudou, dead.
Grandfather(maternal): Juliano Collegrie, priest and high ranking officer of Solomon HQ.
Allies: Amon, Nagira, hunters from STN-J
Enemies:Rogue witches, rival hunters

Body: 4 Mind: 6 Soul: 8

Health Points: 70
Energy Points: 70
Shock Value: 14

Combat Value: 6
Defense Value: 4

Skills
Computers 1x2 = 2
Artisan 1x2 = 2
Driving 2x2 = 4
Police Sciences 3x2 = 6
Unique Character Skill 5x2 = 10 (Occultism)
Urban Tracking 1x3 = 3 Attributes
Appearance 2x1 = 2
Damn Healthy! 1x1 = 1
Organizational Ties 1x3 = 3 (Great Power, Solomon, STN-J)
Dynamic Sorcery 4x2 = 8
    One Discipline (Pyrokinesis)
Magic 4x4 = 16 (40 magic points left)

Defects 
Awkward 1x-1 = -1
Marked 1x-1 = -1
Nemesis 2x-1 = -2
Sensory Impairment 1x-1 = -1 (Vision when using magic)
Skeleton in the Closet 1x-1 = -1

Thursday, September 24, 2009

Review: Bounty Head Bebop

“You know the first rule of combat? Shoot them before they shoot you.” - Faye Valentine, Cowboy Bebop.

Back in 1998 a new Anime appeared on the scene, something new called Cowboy Bebop. It dealt with the lives and misadventures of a group of bounty hunters in the solar system of the future that looked more like the wild west. There were guns, and terra-formed planets, a corrupt government, the mobs and of course lots of criminals. The crew of the Bebop spent their time doing jobs, keeping their ship together and avoiding starving. While this made for a great show in and of itself, the really cool thing about this were the characters. Larger than life, with secrets, agendas and a history of development that lead them to where they were at that point.

In other words a perfect setting for a Role Playing Game.

The game, Bounty Head Bebop, obviously takes some cues from the series. (AN ASIDE. I understand that this game was supposed to have been an officially licensed product, but I do not have anything to support that with. So instead of explaining all the time why they are the same, let’s just say they are cut from the same cloth and move on from there.)

Bounty Head Bebop (BHB), is a game where you can spend your time flying around a terra-formed solar system hunting down “bounty heads” for fun and profit. The game itself is a slick little RPG with a fun cinematic feel to it. It does what it says on the tin, and does it well.

BHB uses a system called the Inverted 20 system. Basically you have a Target Number (often set by the GM, with guidance), that is modified by ability, skill and or difficulties, your job is to roll that score or under (and different things happen if you hit the number or roll under). The die mechanic is really that simple. Anyone familiar with d20 will catch on fairly quickly despite the roll under mechanic. Now I will be honest, I am not a fan of roll under systems, but I think it works here. To me it seems that Anime based games work best as roll-under. Maybe it is all of those years of BESM or maybe it because it just provides me with a different feel.

Like other d20 games you attributes that despite the name changes look familiar, skills, various edges and flaws, all which work like GURPS. No need to reinvent the wheel, they work fine. Everything is point buy and you spend XP to raise them, like Unisystem.

Details
BHB does something REALLY nice here. Puts in a Character Creation Summary so you can get an overview of everything you need to do. Figure out everything in order.
Attributes look familiar if you have been playing any game at all. They are scored from 1 to 5 for starting characters, but can go up.
Imitative and Movement are derived. As are Saves, Wounds and Vitality points. All pretty simple to figure out.

Skills are next and they are divided up into General, Combat and Specialty. General skills are your everyday skills and like d20 are tied to a specific attribute. Combat skills allow you to fight. Want to be better at aiming or hitting with your fists, then improve the skill. Specialty and Advanced skills are those that you can’t do unless you have a level/points in them. Advanced skills are like advanced sciences.

Edges and Flaws work like GURPS or any other point buy system, though there are no points. You start out with 3 Edges and get up to 6 with 3 more Flaws. Edges can be bought with XPs and Flaws bought off. The list is pretty typical, your Hard to Kill, various “Gun Fu” moves, various pilot and criminal related Edges too. The list looked good and nothing jumped out at me as not being there. There are also various new Psychic/Feng-Shui powers too (details in a bit). And some computer related ones, with the promise of new book dedicated to hacking and the net (for your own “Radical” Edward Wong Hau Pepelu Tivrusky the IV). Now you don’t need to take any Flaws at all if you don’t want, but I think that might be missing the point of this game really. These characters are yes over the top Anime characters, but they also have issues.

Feng-Shui gets it own chapter and it is the province of the Inuit Indians (yeah, that confuses me too, but I’ll go with it). None of the powers seem out of control, so no anime style Ki based special fx here, but a lot of good solid powers. Danger Sense, Locate Objects, manipulate objects, things like that. More power masters can influence minds or regenerate their bodies. There are seven areas of power (spheres) you choose one and you progress through it. It reminds me of the pschic powers from AFMBE’s “Enter the Zombie”. Given that, an ability to bend bullets might be cool in this game. Of course with power comes psychotic episodes. Do it too much and you WILL go crazy, just like they said.
Given this chapter I can see, and hope that the cyber book works the same way.

A money and equipment chapter follows. Money, though very important to the focus of the game, is game mechanic rather than collected. Similar to D20 Modern in a way. And of course lots of guns, spaceships and other things you need, like food and permits. While money is always going to be an issue, since that is the primary motivation of the characters, doing the system like this was a nice cinematic way of dealing with things.

A chapter on “doing things” follows after that. It is your basic rules chapter, but most things are handled with the same mechanic, so this chapter breezes by. I appreciate transparency in my games. “You can do this and this is how you do it.” BHB takes the basic d20 system and really streamlines it to it’s barest essentials (even more so than True20) yet nothing seems lost. Thus this chapter is very short.

Combat is more involved, since the bounty heads aren’t likely to go quietly. The combat chapter is again, easy to read and uses the same simple mechanics. Skills and your rank in them are what is important here. This sets it off from the d20 crowds and puts it back into GURPS/Unisystem territory. In a neat twist you can use the same “to hit” roll as a damage roll, thus speeding up your games. There is logic in this and I like the effect.

The Setting Chapter both pleased me and irritated me. The solar system is the setting with a nearly uninhabited Earth and terra-formed planets and moons. Briefly object hits the Moon, destroys it, sends Earth into chaos where meteors rain every day. But some of those rocks were used to jump gate tech to allow quick travel throughout the solar system and was a key element in terra-forming.

Now humanity is all over the system. There is a real wild west feel to the plaents. Mars is the center of human population now, Venus is like a giant mob controlled Vegas, the moons of Jupiter have food production and so on and all have their own hazards. There is a Solar System wide police force, but they are few, overworked, underpaid and spread too thin. This gives us lots of crime and the opportunity for bounty hunters (like you!) to capture bad guys and bring them in for fun and profit. Mostly for profit.
What irritated me was that this chapter was so short. Sure, I know it is so I can later buy the Mars book or the Io book, but it just touched the surface. Yeah I could go back to the anime (or other shows, Blake’s 7 comes to mind) for ideas. But I was enjoying reading when it was over.

The book has a very nice index, a character sheet that looks familiar to us all and a summary page on how to spend XPs. But the coolest thing is the included adventure in the back. Gets you and going on your first Bounty Head hunt in no time. The adventure itself is good, and even shows you what can be done with the system in terms of story. Sure this could have been a simple bounty hunt, but this one has moral layers and corruption and the hosts of a “Big Shots” like show (nice touch).

What Did I Like?
Simple system, very easy to figure out. Plus it was also easy to figure out what to do with the game. Concepts came with every page (more or less).
The book itself has a nice simple layout and it is easy to find everything. Plus it “reads” well too. The text is concise and gets right to the point.
I also like the Luck and Surge points, which are basically like Drama Points or Hero Points.

What Didn’t I Like?
Still not a fan of roll under mechanics. They seem wrong to me. Would have loved more setting information and some basic computer hacking rules.

Other Notes
Art. The art is nice, but a lot of it is used again throughout the book. Pictures of some of the planets would be nice, what does Venus Vegas look like? How about the domes of Mars? That sort of thing.

What Can I do with This?
Well there is basic premise, go out and hunt bad guys. But there are plenty of other ideas.

The Stainless Steel Rat: Play the bad guys. Sure hunting them is fun, but wouldn’t it be more fun to be the bad guy or the mobsters avoiding the SSPB and the Bounty Hunters?

Reservoir Dogs: You get pulled into a heist gone really, really wrong.

The Usual Suspects: You bring in your small fry bounty head only to uncover that maybe, maybe the most notorious criminal mastermind might be involved or even one of your marks.

Witch Hunter Bebop: Let’s combine Sunrise’s two best anime ever, Cowboy Bebop and Witch Hunter Robin and make a game where you need to hunt down marks using their Feng-Shui powers illegally.

Firefly: Yeah it has a game and I really like Cortext, but I’ll be blunt here. There is nothing in Firefly that Cowboy Bebop didn’t do first and better and with a better soundtrack. You can do the same here. Plus the solar system of BHB makes more sense.

Who should get this?
If you like Anime or space adventures with bullets rather than lasers then this is your game. If you want to do something like Traveler but don’t want the overhead of the system or the mega-plot then this is your game. You might be able to do “Star Wars” or “Star Trek” but we have better choices for those games. This would be perfect for “Buck Rodgers” or “Flash Gordon” though and of course “Cowboy Bebop”.

Wednesday, August 5, 2009

Witch Hunter Robin for Witch Girls Adventures

Here is one that I have wanted to try for a while.


It is Robin Sena, the titular character of the awesome anime series Witch Hunter Robin for the Witch Girls Adventures RPG.
Robin Sena
Witch Sorceress

Body: d4
Mind: d6
Senses: d4
Will: d10
Social: d4
Magic: d12

Life Points: 8
Reflex: 10
Resist Magic: 15
Zap Points: 24

Skills (Rank)
Basics d6 +2
Computers d6 +1
Drive d4 +2 (Vespa, bike)
Science d6 +2
Streetwise d6 +1

Casting d12 + 4
Focus d10 +5
Magical Etiquette d4 +3
Mysticism d6 +3
Spellbreaker d12 +3

Talents
Mysterious
Urban

Heritage
Prodigy

Magic
Elementalism 2
Mentalism 2
Offense 5 (all fire based)
Protection 3

Signature Spell: Zap (manifests as fire)

Equipment
Glasses, Vespa Scooter, Messenger Bike
Occupation: Witch Hunter / Witch
Age: 15 (in 2002)
Gender: F
Height: 5'1"
Weight: 105#
Eyes: Green
Hair: Auburn

Mother: Maria, dead
Father: Toudou, dead.
Grandfather(maternal): Juliano Collegrie, priest and high ranking officer of Solomon HQ.
Allies: Amon, Nagira, hunters from STN-J
Enemies: Rogue witches, rival hunters

Ethnicity: European/Japanese
Languages: Japanese, Italian, English

All in all, I like it. I think what WGA now needs are more elemental based powers/spells that manipulate the elements to do different things. That way we can get at something closer to Avatar or W.I.T.C.H. Yes there is an elemental section, but it is not quite what I need at the moment. I'd do a new Elemental magic and rename the old elemental to "Nature Magic" or something.
Here are the stats I did for Cinematic Unisystem (Buffy, Angel and Ghosts of Albion): http://edenstudiosdiscussionboards.yuku.com/sreply/43111/t/Witches-.html