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View Full Version : [BESM d20] Advice



sebsmith
2009-01-06, 07:56 PM
One of my friends is talking about running a one-shot of Revised Big Eyes Small Mouthes d20, but I haven't been able to find very much about it. I glanced at the rule book recently, and it looks like there are some fun things I can do. However, I'm wondering if there is any advice you guys can give? There seem to be all sorts of crazy things I could do, but I'm not sure which are worth doing. I haven't been able to find an active forum for discussing this game, if any of you have a link to one, could you please provide it?

By the way, if your wondering what genre we plan to do, its stump the gm, so any advice you have for that would also be appreciated.

kyoten
2009-01-06, 08:57 PM
Here's an idea a friend and I did. Have someone be a Hot Rod and another be a Samurai. Have the Hot Rod supe up his or her ride so it can hit 200 MPH. Build some HIA (High-Impact Armor) so you can reduce damage from high speed impacts. Give the Hot Rod the ability to regenerate a few HP a turn. Don't forget to program your ride with basic drive patters (circle, zig zag, straight, curves).

Now have the Samurai wield two HUGE swords. One in each hand. Give them good HP and damage. Now the fun part.

Have the Samurai hop on the Hot Rods ride, preferably a motorcycle. Have the Hot Rod activate a preset drive pattern. Give the Hot Rod a SMG and spray and pray. Have the Samurai you his HUGE swords to act as a frontal shield. At the last minute have the Samurai hop off the ride and charge and Swing.

When the ride's about to crash jump off the ride, you can heal the damage partially. Continue to spray and pray. The bike will not only be highly likely to survive; you just turned it into a 200 MPH bullet.

Enjoy!! :biggrin:

P.S.- Don't forget to give your ride a level or two of armor.

Yes, yes it is EVIL, but it is FUN!!

Artanis
2009-01-06, 09:38 PM
I would suggest either using outright BESM or else using outright d20 with BESM flavoring. The two systems are about as different as it's possible for two systems to get, and trying to reconcile the two mechanically is (reportedly) really, really ugly.

tyckspoon
2009-01-06, 10:45 PM
I would suggest either using outright BESM or else using outright d20 with BESM flavoring. The two systems are about as different as it's possible for two systems to get, and trying to reconcile the two mechanically is (reportedly) really, really ugly.

Truth. I know it's a little annoying to be told "just play a different system", but in this case it's the best approach. Try the actual BESM system for an anime-styled game (2nd Edition Revised and 3rd Edition are both good, and probably equally hard to find) or, if your group just wouldn't feel right without rolling a d20, Mutants And Masterminds is a much better conversion to a point-based creation scheme.

If you're going to stick with BESM d20 anyway, keep in mind that it's based on a much more free-wheeling design philosophy than D&D 3rd. From a mechanical perspective, the system is pretty much broken from the start (in far more obvious and easy to implement ways than D&D.) It takes a lot of discussion with the rest of the group and the DM to avoid ending up with a set of wildly disparate power-levels in the characters. A good place to start is usually to decide on a genre, as you will then tend to get characters that are at least a thematic fit even if one of them happens to be a good candidate for God-King of the Universe. If you don't do that, you run a good chance of having to reconcile the existence of a classical superhuman swordsman with a sentient mech and a modern-era fighter pilot/biker punk with an illegally-modified Harley. Although that may actually be the point of "stump the GM," in which case carry on.

The best approach, in my experience, is to just not worry about what is a 'good' build or not in BESM. If it's awesome and you're having fun playing it, you're doing it right. This is of course still true for D&D, but I find it's more important to keep in mind with an inelegant kludge job like BESM d20 where the mechanical optimization subgame isn't as well developed.

sebsmith
2009-01-06, 11:42 PM
a classical superhuman swordsman with a sentient mech and a modern-era fighter pilot/biker punk with an illegally-modified Harley.

That is exactly the point. (Of course the dm gets to decide the fluff, so they might come out a little different.)

I just heard the genre is action-comedy, so that doesn't give many limits. Also, the other player might just be investing most of their power points into unknown supernatural power. Which should keep us balanced.

As to playing another game system, given we are college students and the dm payed for a pdf of the book, I doubt we would. Also, the other option presented was not something I was interested in (a vaguely Traveller inspired cyberpunk d20 setting as I heard it explained).

It should be noted that in some ways, a crazy system is the perfect thing for a crazy one-shot.