I’m still working on the Big Eyes, Small Mouth-Pokemon game for my 5 year-old son. I also read Dante’s and Martin’s excellent post on Improvising. I’m taking notes here!
I bought 2 starters of The Pokemon Trading figure Game. My son whips my butt on a consistent basis and he loves those spinning figurines. I now have an Ash and a Pikachu figurine for the ‘party’
I also bought a Pokemon Trading Card Game 2 player Starter deck kit…I have more minor Pokemons to be captured, trained or fought in the Arenas of the gameworld. Ah yes, my son also beat me to our first game too…
Which means he’s a mean gamer or that I just suck at trading games or that I let him win (I soooo wish it was the 3rd one)…
Finally I am currently re-reading my copy of BESM 2nd Edition…
I know I’m a very D&D centric guy… because I love it and it’s the only RPG I have time playing. However, BESM is some good too! It’s heavy on Fluff and rather light on Crunch and still delivers a satisfying RPG experience for the Crunch Junky that I am.
The BESM character generation system is simple yet it delivers a Gurps-like feel for the range of concepts available. I remember having been able to pull off converting our 1 year old Gurps Fantasy campaign to BESM in one evening. If I recall correctly, each of the character’s flavor was maintained (do you agree Yan?). We played only 1 session, which ended up with the Big-Bad Dragon being sushied in 1 round but it was a satisfying RPG experience for me. I think my players liked it but were ready to move to another, non-point based system. (Then one of my players bought me the D&D 3.0 Player’s Handbook and the rest is history).
BESM’s task resolution system is so simple and the skill sub-system is even optional. One of the key rules is : Why roll Dice? How fluffy is that? 🙂
As soon as I’m done re-reading the rules, I’ll read the Cute and Fuzzy Seizure Monsters supplement and make the characters. I’ve read parts of it and it is a very cynical and satirical approach to the Genre (Which I could have done without).
It’s a shame that fellow Canuck gaming company Guardians of Order folded.
Anyway, I’ll post my version of Ash and Pikachu as BESM character and Pocket Monster as soon as I’m done.
Oh and if you are a gamer with kids, do check Gamer Dad’s site. It’s more geared toward video games and board games but that’s where I learned about how good the Lego Star Wars games were. My son and I grinded (thanks for the grammar tip Dave) both to near completion!
In that context, it would be “grinded.” But not always…
Gamer Dad is a great site. Unfortunately, he recently suffered a heart attack, and his family is still seeking donations to cover his medical bills, so I encourage everyone to give!
Thanks for the grammar tip. I’ll edit the Post.
He did? That’s bad, I’ll see what I can do (I work in a Cardiology hospital I’d feel cheap if I didn’t do anything).
I won’t go politics, but things like this make me wish that you dear southern neighbors had a more affordable healthcare system. We do pay more than 50% of our salaries in taxes but with the benefit of fully supported healthcare.
I just made a 40$ pay pal payment. It’s my monthly gaming budget, well spent I think. Thanks Dave.
If you like BESM 2nd ed. You should take a look at BESM 3rd ed. They go to a roll over system as opposed to the roll under. Which is good. Because I’ve found especially with fairly high point total characters and skills combined. Can really break the game quick. Dont get me wrong I’ve still had a lot of fun with 2nd. I just think 3rd is a big improvement.
And as we are on the subject of GoO. Their D20 Mecha book is awesome. It can be used to design any kind of vehicle, not just mecha. Its great. D20 crunch + BESM laid backness = Awesome! Plus no migrane headache from calculating the surface area of a vehicle, so that you can figure aero dynamic drag like in GURPS 3rd. :-p
Reference to gurps vehivles. wooo…
As for your question whether I liked BESM or not I must admit I have a complete blank on this game. Which either means that it when relatively well or I was not there… 😉
What’s ironic is that Gurps Vehicle and BESM were both designed by David Pulver. He was a crunch maniac! 🙂
Without getting too political (which I do quite often!) I wish we had government health insurance too.
I’m a huge BESM fan – if I didn’t have most of the group wanting to use the Coda system, I’d be using that for my upcoming Star Trek game.
BESM is a superb system; while it’s ‘anime’ styled, I contend that I can do anything with it. Well, anything in a traditional RPG sense, but that’s pretty close to anything.