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Crazysaneman
2010-07-23, 09:31 AM
Heya folks, like the title says, i am looking for information on this wonderfully over-complex % system. I searched for info on the forums, and got 0 returns for the effort.

So...

Anyone have any thoughts/opinions/experiences with it?

Tetsubo 57
2010-07-23, 09:48 AM
Oddly I just heard about this game yesterday. I know nothing about it other than a favorite YouTube game reviewer plans on doing a review in the near future. He goes by the name clackclickbang. I find him terribly entertaining.

Crazysaneman
2010-07-23, 09:51 AM
I have the core book for the game, and I am currently reading it and some of it is profoundly confusing because of the horrible translation. It seems like a lot of fun...

Drascin
2010-07-23, 10:14 AM
I have the core book for the game, and I am currently reading it and some of it is profoundly confusing because of the horrible translation. It seems like a lot of fun...

Actually, it's horribly over-confusing just because it is horribly over-confusing. I have it in its original language, and trust me, it's still a headache in many places :smalltongue:.

Anyway, as for the game, my impression after trying to play it is that it's a game with quite a few good ideas (love the Arcana summons - the whole summoning stuff, really), but which suffers from being unnecessarily complex in the areas that didn't need it, while lacking in the areas that did. We probably didn't need a million different weapon outlines to differentiate sabers/shortswords/gladiuses/wakizashis/etcetera, while we might really have needed a better system for Psionics as a whole. It ends up being massively clunky to play (having to look up a table, sometimes two, every single time you attack is just plain... what. My players actually refused to use their multi-attack Ki techniques because that meant less dice rolled!), and magic-users end up being massively above everyone else pretty fast.

All in all... I have the game, but I'd not GM a game of it if I could help it.

Chagrin
2010-07-23, 10:33 AM
The product needs alot more support. There are a few monsters in the core book but other then that the GM will be making them. A GM screen covered in tables is a must to speed up play.

For a meatier review checkout the link

http://forum.rpg.net/showpost.php?p=6954630&postcount=8

If your looking for support your best bet is the fantasy flight forum

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_temas.asp?efid=85&efcid=3

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-23, 10:35 AM
Other than being over-complex, could someone explain what the game is actually about? I often hear it compared to Exalted, but that doesn't quite help me as Exalted is wildly varied (almost cripplingly so).

littlebottom
2010-07-23, 10:47 AM
it is a "high powered" game. in a way atleast. the characters from level 1 can do things beyond normal human capabilities, but thats nothing special, i mean look at D&D and people can cast spells which is beyond normal human capabilities.

but anima is compared to exalted because of things like "if i do this then that then that then that during character creation, i can fly non stop" which is true, and perfectly possible, but by doing that, you miss out on a lot of other stuff. so its a little more sensible than exalted can get.

overall, its a seemingly overly complicated roleplay system... that i wouldnt trade for any other.

i run Anima, and me and my players all love it. it has a feel to it that most games dont have, and all the hard work is really just for the GM (and my god is it hard work to remember all those rules and keep the players under control) but its rewarding.

another thing i like about Anima, is that it wants you to use it for your game how you like. what i mean is, is that although its got its own setting (which after reading the new book i can tell you is pretty good, both rich in history and in almost every other way) it wants you to go "ive got an idea for an X type of game" and use that system for it. it has no rules for guns guns beyond a flint lock, and cannons, but after 15 mins or so, you can fiddle with the system till it works.

Anima is all about the fun, the style, and the adventures, but to make it that way, there has been alot of work put into the rules. (and if your reading them in english, :smallsigh: then be prepared to get confused since the translation could of been better)

i dont know what more to say right now about anima, other than, if you have any more questions about it (Setting or system) ask me.

oh oh oh, and you can avoid the painful tables by using the GM screen
(ZOMG SAVED MY LIFE AND I LOVE IT!):smallredface:

EDIT: by avoid, i mean "have them right infront of you and have the book for other more important things during combat" and anyway, the tables work off a common sense system, after you have played a few games, you can accurately figure out what the result will be without the table... (if your good at math like me anyway)

actually thats a good point. make sure the GM is either good at math, or is quick at using a powerful calculator :smalltongue:

Zeta Kai
2010-07-23, 11:05 AM
No discussion of A:BF is complete without mentioning that the game is blessed by one of the best graphics artists alive, Wen M (http://wen-m.deviantart.com/). His art is absolutely gorgeous, & is insanely detailed. Seriously, go check it out, you owe it to yourself to see such beauty. I can't speak for the game (I've heard it's kinda clunky), but the art is second to none.

Hyozo
2010-07-23, 11:13 AM
What a coincidence. I was planning on looking for information about this game later today. It seems to be popular enough that my FLGS is willing to stock quite a few products related to it, yet other than noticing it on their shelves I've never heard of it.

Did someone say summoning was good in this system? I've been looking for a tabletop game that can do summoning in a way I can enjoy.

ShadowsGrnEyes
2010-07-23, 11:21 AM
all i know is that i follow one of the artists for the project on deviant art. . . his site can be found here (http://wen-m.deviantart.com/) some of his work is Fantastic for dnd games. and i've looked at the books once in a borders and simply found myself confused

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-23, 11:28 AM
I still find myself at a loss at to what this game is about. What's the world like? What are the PCs expected to be? Could anyone kindly answer these questions?

Crazysaneman
2010-07-23, 11:28 AM
What a coincidence. I was planning on looking for information about this game later today. It seems to be popular enough that my FLGS is willing to stock quite a few products related to it, yet other than noticing it on their shelves I've never heard of it.

Did someone say summoning was good in this system? I've been looking for a tabletop game that can do summoning in a way I can enjoy.

The summoning system for the most part works like this:
As long as you can pass the check, you can summon anything... including self made (and gm approved) creatures.

Summon has 4 parts; summon, control, bind and banish. Summon is self explanatory, control is too. Binding allows you to bind the spirit or creature into any object (living or otherwise) but if the bound object is destroyed so is the summoner. Banish allows you to make a check to send away a baddie that isn't bound.

Any creature you have bound you can take as a familiar... sweet.

Also there are invocations you can do that are similar to summons, but not. They allow you to call on deities of immense strength to grant favor for a while.


Or at least thats my understanding of it :smallsmile: Hope it helps

REF: Core book chapter 12 pg:176 to start

wizuriel
2010-07-23, 11:58 AM
I ran the module with the GM screen and had mixed impressions. It has a lot of good ideas, but was incredible complex and tons of dice rolling.

combat you roll initiative every round, then need to see how you can surprise or not. If you want to use a ranged attack you need to roll to see how far the attack goes, then look up the penalties for defense and finally calculate how much damage you do.

Magic and Ki I found were cool. You spend a few rounds charging up your attack and than unleash something devastating on the battlefield. not sure how well a magic user will be in a campaign though. A days rest in Anima will only return a fraction of a magic users mana pool. Casters really need to be conservative on how much they use.

Psionic I like the idea, but not sure on it. Just having an system where a bad roll can kill your character imo is wrong (though you need a very bad roll and probably trying to do something very epic for it to happen).

Haven't seen summoning in the play yet. Seems interesting in theory. Can make a charater that specializes in summoning creatures and just turning them lose. Can make a character that can't summon anything, but can control creatures he/she runs across (kind of like a pokemon trainer). Can make a character that specializes in banishing creatures they run across. What I like is the timing. You can't easily summon a creature in battle, the more time you spend doing a ritual the higher your bonus is (if you fail the summon check you suffer some pretty bad results), trying to summon something in 1 round gives you a penalty encouraging summoning to take place in times of rest.

Fighting is really well done though. It's just as complex as magic (at least in terms of tables and stuff to look up). Also the sundering system is brilliant.

As for the world.
This is going off memory don't have my book near me.
As for the world is a mix of high and low magic. The world as a whole is pretty low magic. Sometime in the past there were 3 races and the world was separated into 3 parts. Some souls of the older races are being reborn into humans, but most people are pure human (there is no real races in Anima, either human or human with an older races soul). You have 2 groups interested in magic the Inquisition and the Templars. Inquisition wants to wipe out magic and Templars want to study it. Have an empire kind of in ruin. There is also a shadow organization hiding magic users and researching magic.

In terms of high magic you have a world kind of like Warcraft Emerald Dream (a world that lives in the shadow of the normal one, full of nightmares and other magical beings).


To give you an idea of what can happen (spoilers from the GM module, again this is just going off memory). The players start in the maiden voyage of an airship. During the trip there is a coup and the captain tries to take over the ship to sell to another kingdom. A creature of shadow also takes over the ship and tries to crash it to use the fear generated from the passengers to open a path to this island. The PC's crash on the island. You learn its in this state of misery. After some investigation you learn a Templar ship crashed on the island with 2 prisoners. A lord of nightmare and a specter. The specter using the templar technology is trying to drain the lord of nightmare and bring the island into the shadow world and rule it (becoming a lord of nightmare). The creature on the airship you learn worked for another lord of nightmare (same one the specter worked for) and was sent to punish the specter for trying to steal power.

Module is pretty good and would highly recommend buying it. Can easily use it to start a campaign.

Crazysaneman
2010-07-23, 02:11 PM
:smallsmile::smallsmile:I am definitely going to have to get a copy of the GM's companion.:smallsmile::smallsmile:

Tinydwarfman
2010-07-23, 02:33 PM
No discussion of A:BF is complete without mentioning that the game is blessed by one of the best graphics artists alive, Wen M (http://wen-m.deviantart.com/). His art is absolutely gorgeous, & is insanely detailed. Seriously, go check it out, you owe it to yourself to see such beauty. I can't speak for the game (I've heard it's kinda clunky), but the art is second to none.

My god, I want to download a copy just to look at more... So pretty...

TheThan
2010-07-23, 02:40 PM
I have a friend that keeps trying to get us to play it. I even flipped through the book and decided I didn’t want to spend all the time it takes to learn how to play the game, my other friends have the same point of view. Its simply too complicated to be fun, at least for us.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-23, 02:42 PM
My god, I want to download a copy just to look at more... So pretty...

Speaking of pretty games... (http://www.eorisessence.com/home.html)

Tinydwarfman
2010-07-23, 02:48 PM
Speaking of pretty games... (http://www.eorisessence.com/home.html)

That's an RPG?!? I thought it was a video game! :smalleek: But wow pretty. Too pretty actually. It puts me off, since my experience has generally been that things that look too good are generally compensating for a lack of substance.

EDIT: Hmm... The sheet looks like Exalted, only with emotional stuff, and more complex. Weird.

The Rose Dragon
2010-07-23, 02:51 PM
That is an RPG?!? I thought it was a video game! :smalleek:

As far as I know, it's a tabletop RPG. I'm not sure whether it's out yet, though.

The Tygre
2010-07-23, 03:00 PM
Speaking of pretty games... (http://www.eorisessence.com/home.html)

Oh... Oh God... I think I'm in love.

Jerthanis
2010-07-23, 03:49 PM
I love Anima, partly because I went into the game with expectations about as low as you can possibly get and was very pleasantly surprised. The huge, intimidating charts get surprisingly intuitive after a while, since they just scale your base damage up and down at a linear rate.

There's very little balance, but each character has cool stuff they can do, and there's advantages and disadvantages to any of the diverse classes. I really liked how it combines the structure of a class and level based character advancement system with the freedom of a point buy system, allowing you to step outside your class in certain ways.

I don't want to sell anyone too highly on it, because it's far from perfect. If I had gone into it expecting a great game I wouldn't have ended up enjoying it as much as I did.

Crazysaneman
2010-07-23, 08:43 PM
I do like the openness with all the abilities you can get, but all the extra die rolls are gonna screw with my players lol.

Talkkno
2010-07-23, 08:57 PM
The game is broken, by the time you get around 4th level, balance gets thrown out the window.

Zovc
2010-07-23, 09:28 PM
All I know is the first release of the card game (not a collectible card game like Magic or Pokemon, a card game that plays like a board game and comes in a box set) was absurdly confusing, typo-ridden, and self-contradicting.

I still have no idea how a lot of stuff works after reading the rulebook several times.

...and yes, it was that bad--they rereleased the game it was so bad. What's more, the cards in the game's expansion have a different color border that only matches the newer version... way to hose your customers, Fantasy Flight.

Kyeudo
2010-07-24, 02:55 AM
The game is broken, by the time you get around 4th level, balance gets thrown out the window.

Psh. That's nothing. Exalted throws game balance out the window at character creation.

Geddoe
2010-07-24, 06:51 AM
I still find myself at a loss at to what this game is about. What's the world like? What are the PCs expected to be? Could anyone kindly answer these questions?

PC's can be just about anything you want.

Neither my brother or I use the Gaia setting itself since the book just came out and it would require some rewriting of our campaigns

In my brother's game we have a Tao, who is also a medicine woman. We have an illusionist that is an officer/spy in the army. A Dark Paladin who is a mercenary trying to move away from the overt evil of his former partner. And a merchant of a lost race(Jayan) that knows the ways of ki.

In my game, I just converted over my OA D&D 3.5 game, so we have the merchant rogue(assassin), the bard(illusionist that requires singing for his spells to work), the warblade(weaponmaster), and the taoist/buddhist priest that summons spirits to aid him(summoner with a chinese stone dog/lion). As D&D characters converted they all took a certain advantage so they fumble 5% of the time instead of 3%.

Balance can get pretty crazy in anima. The bard player(my brother) really stacked on the Int advantages, and as a result could have picked up Physical Immunity or Immortality as spells at first level if he had really wanted to. Physical Immunity is exactly what it sounds like, an army of modern soldiers could fire machine guns/lob grenades at the caster all day, and the caster would never need to even try dodging, as they do nothing. Only a high powered laser could likely hurt a caster with Physical Immunity in the modern world. All for the low cost of 10 zeon points a day after the initial casting(the bard recovers 30-40 a day). Immortality is the standard you don't age but can be killed by violence type.

Talkkno
2010-07-24, 07:04 PM
Psh. That's nothing. Exalted throws game balance out the window at character creation.

A Perfect Solar Essence 5 Solar Circle would be hard pressed to kill Ketchup Carjack or one of the Deathlords. Said 4th level psioncist could trivally crush the world ending threat statted in the corebook. (With some good tatics.)

littlebottom
2010-07-26, 08:33 AM
to answer someones question from ages ago, its hard to explain the setting without reading pages and pages of the core book and the entire world book. a rough idea for you though:

the world was recently unighted under one flag, but there is now lots of controversy, as the family line which have been the emperors for generations are no longer in the thrown. and now the daughter of one of the 4 war generals of the empire (after alot of complicated little problems) and many of the countries of the empire dont like this and have used this as an opportunity to seperate themselves from the empire.

the empire is now fractured, with those for the empire, against the empire, for the church, or just plain neutral.

another important point for the setting is that the church is in charge of seeking out and destroying all things supernatural (by order of the first emperor) but there is another society made to find and protect "the knowledge of the past" and to remember it, also founded by the first emperor.

due to what happened way back then, they are conflicting in their views. the church want to destroy the supernatural, but the supernatural is highly important in everything in the world before the empire, so the other group constantly clash with the church. (this makes magic users have to be highly careful of where and when they use their magic)

__________________________________________________ _________________

as for the balance of the system, it is unbalenced in many ways especially as you level up, BUT, its up to your GM to counter this. trust me, no matter how powerful you might become, until you can do every spell in the magic book, and have tons of Ki abilities, and can summon the most almighty demons and control the entire worlds climate with your mind. there will be something that can better you. so your GM has to keep you under control using the church and the tol rako, to keep you in hiding until you are stong enough to not be stopped by any other human (IE: the most powerful magic users etc) then that will be an effective method. and if you are using the setting in the book, you have to use alot of social situations, political adventures, (obviously dont ignore combat) but it is highly important because you have to keep your players grounded. dont rail road them, just keep them under control, they can go do what they want, but make them realise that if they are not careful then it could be worse for them in the long run.

PS: for example, my next game of anima im running, their advisary will be an illusionist, making for an interesting game, which even if they are broken as characters, im messing with the players minds. its going beyond the mechanics. i suppose its the same for any system, but in D&D for example, people can be content with hack and slash adventures, in this it doesnt work too well.

Ormagoden
2010-07-26, 08:42 AM
I've been following the artist for quite some time on deviant art. He is amazing. As for the game, I cannot say...