I have a nostalgia for the anime rpg system known as Big Eyes Small Mouth as I was a young lad when I first got to play the game. Back in the day we primarily played west end game’s D6 system but around the time anime begun to get bigger in the American Midwest, we wanted something that was more attuned to the themes of anime than d6. Since BESM seemed to have anime in mind from the jump, it was easier to consider those themes with the rules lite game. We spent countless Saturdays playing both its 1st and eventually its second edition. 3rd edition came out while I was in college and by that time I had a different friend group. The new edition is now available in PDF Form for kickstarter backers and I wanted to take an opportunity to create a character – as that is one of the best ways to go about learning a new game.

Just this Weekend, I received the final PDFs for the successful Kickstarter of Big Eyes Small Mouth 4th edition. I am super excited because I love working on concepts and ideas for games – even if I don’t get to actually play them. The new edition has some positives and negatives and I wanted to give my first impressions of the game. Later this week I will begin posting some concepts, ideas and content – beginning with my first 4th edition BESM character.

First impressions are positive with some elements being mixed… particularly on presentation. The book has a theme of purple and a hot/electric pink. I think it looks GREAT but I believe some will find it garish. The colors problems only compound (in my eyes) when in side bars, some use a yellow background and some use a green background…so some pages have yellow and green boxes with hot pink and purple general layout. It looks really odd when put together…

Speaking of which, as an anime game, Big Eyes Small Mouth needs to have artwork to set the tone as to what prospective players and GMs can expect. BESM 4th edition has some absolutely incredible artwork to be found within its pages. Seriously this stuff reminds me of the very best that Anima Beyond Fantasy can dish out without the meta plot. Unfortunately the game also had to reuse quite a bit of older artwork.

The game uses both new and old artwork to try to share the different types of anime and worlds one can expect however the old anime art sometimes comes from as far back as 2001 with the second edition. The old artwork is not bad in my opinion however art has changed in over 10 years and that extends even to how people create art as consumers and even hobbyists. The proliferation of drawing pads and art tools have made it so that many can get studio quality presentation from home. Because of this, the old 2000s art just stands out and looks completely outclassed in many cases (almost every case) when compared to any of the new artwork.

Finally – I wanted to touch on something I noticed the other day. One cool aspect I thought about BESM is that in the GM section, they give a lot of good advice but I feel like some of it is also a bit out dated. For example, one aspect that stood out to me like a sore thumb was when they mention genre elements in the gm section. Many times they explain tropes and common themes to help GMs when designing games. Unfortunately I don’t believe it has changed much since the release of BESM 3rd edition in 2006. This is a problem because new tropes become popular all the time. The section does not mention one of the most popular tropes of the mid 2010’s anime: Isekai.

Isekai anime really took off and while it has always been around, it did not quite hit its stride until this current time frame. Oddly, Yaoi and Yuri aren’t even mentioned in the game (though there is a great effort in the beginning of the book that talks about inclusion which I like to see). To summarize – while the game has good efforts to describe some elements to consider when designing your game, I don’t think its kept up with anime of the times. The elements that are here are about timeless as ever; however I would have wanted to see more recent examples of popular tropes described here.

So the game’s presentation can be a little messy in spots. It also may not be the most up to date as far as some considerations are concerned (still calling racing themed characters hot rods). But what about the game play? Upon reading the game rules, the game appears to have more considerations on making things easier to play at the table – over previous editions.

Mark has done a good job of considering recent trends and role playing games have trended towards the lessening of crunch or heavier rule sets. Mark has adopted the recent idea of advantage and disadvantage mechanics from dungeons and dragons 5th edition and applied them here. Big Eyes Small Mouth is still a 2d6 system. You are still rolling 2d6 and applying stats, advantages and disadvantages when making rolls. Something that changed from 1st and 2nd to 3rd edition was the change from a roll low/under system, to a roll high/over system – making math a lot easier. Roll high is continued here but in addition, the new edition’s inclusions of edges and obstacles replace modifiers when thinking about target numbers. I have not seen how this works in play- after all this is my impressions with the game as I have owned it since 12/21 but it seems like play will flow even easier.

I have not had a lot of opportunity to design characters or things as of yet with the new system but I did do character creation for my test character and I have some impressions of character creation to share.

BESM 4 is a point based rpg where the GM will tell you how many character points you will begin the game with. It has guidelines that tell you in general what power level your campaign will be. Points are then used to determine how your character interacts with the world. Stats are the primary basis of the game. In games like dungeons and dragons you have 6 stats – strength, constitution, dexterity, intelligence, willpower and charisma. In BESM, you only have 3 main stats that cover a broad base. Body, Mind and Soul – thus the game’s Tri-stat system. You then choose attributes that help determine what extra abilities your character has access to. You then get defects to help define your character’s personal challenges and personality quirks.

When designing a character, It takes some time to come up with a concept. BESM 4 gives you tools to tweak some attributes by giving them additional ways to work with enhancements and limiters. In prior editions and games like gurps – this also exists but the way this game handles it is by modifying the effective level of the attribute as a whole rather than modifying the actual point costs. So I think this will allow less math over all and can save time. But I have not observed how this works when having players actually make characters but the few things I have done with it so far seem to be ok.

I may come off as critical on BESM 4 but to be perfectly honest – in many ways I feel like this version is a true return to form. I felt like some of my criticisms like on adding more trope definitions to the GM section could have been considered however reading the playtest was a pledge specific item so I will give my feedback here. I criticize because I really like BESM and I still cant be happier that the game is coming back. BESM 4 Lite (I refuse to call it Naked) I feel Is a great alternative to another fantastic game known as OVA by wise turtle publishing. I feel like OVA is still great for rules lite gaming but I feel like it can be a little too lite in some respects. BESM in my mind has always felt like it had the tools to be what people need it to be. For example – it can be really lite – relying on the 2d6 core engine. And the attributes and power scaling can be kept to a minimum by having the GM give good guidelines on what kind of campaign they wish to run. As an aside -a complain I always hear about BESM is how unbalanced the game is… but I feel like that only really could happen if the GM doesn’t limit things. Then again, balance is kind of a dirty word in the rpg industry since we have entire movements dedicated to playing games without balance. I personally like balance myself but I’ve also never really had a time where I felt my players took too much advantage of it with BESM.

Returning to my point about OVA vs BESM – I felt like in some spots where I would love more definition, I always had to make it myself with OVA and with BESM I felt like it was easier to get in general what I wanted if I needed the definition. I feel like there is room in the industry for both and I plan to support both. After all, BESM still has some more products on the way like BESM Extras – which are additional options for finer tuning things like attributes and additional combat options. Dyskami is also working to create licensed products – allowing you to play in the worlds of established anime with character’s and abilities described through the BESM lens!

If you want a TLDR – I like BESM 4 and am happy with it so far but it has some elements I felt could use some work – but these were not related to game play. I cant provide much on game play yet as I have not actually played the game but I feel like it has a solid foundation and will do what you need it to- which is to have a fun anime themed experience at the table.

#BESM