Quote from: Omega;1111506And alot of the supposed 'new' anime is just old anime themes with a fresh coat of paint. If even that. And several of those themes are not exactly original to anime either.

Attack on Titan, SOA (Or it's more intelligent less popular brother Log Horizon), Hell JoJo's Bizzare Adventure while being a Manga that's been going on for 30 years now, was never covered in BESM and didn't get it's mainstream world wide appeal until it's Anime Adaption in the last decade and there really is NOTHING like it. Doctor Stone, Fucking Puella Magi Madoka which is basically the god damn Watchman of magical girl series. My Hero Academia and One Punch Man which is full on Western Superheroes done through the Anime lens.

If you don't think there's been a full on revolution in Anime in the last ten years, then you haven't been paying attention or you're being a purposeful grognard who doesn't want to recognize the new stuff as being new and innovative.

As I said before, if there's no attempt by BESM to address any of these new genres and tropes which have come out of Anime in the last decade I'll be pissed. I have no doubt we'll get the product, the Beta is out with the art and text in it. But it will be a cash grab to me if we're just coasting on old Anime and not addressing these new genre elements.

Yes they're things I could do myself, but I work for a living and would prefer someone else to do the creative labor for me, or give me the tools to do it myself. This is why I give Kevin Crawford my money.

Quote from: Orphan81;1111619Attack on Titan, SOA (Or it's more intelligent less popular brother Log Horizon), Hell JoJo's Bizzare Adventure while being a Manga that's been going on for 30 years now, was never covered in BESM

Except that the system is robust enough that it can cover those themes without needing its own book. Try again please. Your grasp of anime seems to be sorely lacking.

Quote from: Omega;1111638Except that the system is robust enough that it can cover those themes without needing its own book. Try again please. Your grasp of anime seems to be sorely lacking.

You're not listening to a damn thing I've been saying. One of the things I've always enjoyed about Tri-Stat books is how they'll often dig into the source material of what they're covering, and discuss and give real examples of how to portray and make game-able the themes and ideas of the media it's representing. Silver Age Sentinels wasn't just good for it's system, it also had an excellent break down of comic books at the time, and how even to do characters of differing power levels on a team. BESM 3rd edition had an excellent essay on how to portray the same story through a Shonen or Shojou lens while also talking about the changes the medium of anime itself had gone through since the 2nd edition.

Yes, I know how to use 4th edition to create the Scout Legion of Attack on Titan, I could figure out how to make Stands on my own..

But that's not why I'm buying the book. I'm buying it because I want someone else to have done that work for me, or at the very least provided some guidance on how to do it. It is saving me the mental labor of doing so myself. I bring up Kevin Crawford and his books again. His books are full of useful tools, his book "Silent Legions" is probably the best Lovecraftian RPG supplement ever, purely for the tools within that help you create your own Mythos Pantheon, servants, secrets of your world, and the like.

The 4th edition beta of BESM's text outside of the system changes itself, is largely a copy paste of 3rd edition, and provides no new insight or ideas on how to emulate the anime that's come out within the last ten years. Some advice on how to do something like the Nen system from HunterxHunter, or deconstructing a genre like Puella Modoka, or Stands and Hamon from Jojo would have been nice, rather than the exact same essay on Shojo vs Shonen I have in my 3rd edition copy.

Quote from: Orphan81;1111619Attack on Titan, SOA (Or it's more intelligent less popular brother Log Horizon), Hell JoJo's Bizzare Adventure while being a Manga that's been going on for 30 years now, was never covered in BESM and didn't get it's mainstream world wide appeal until it's Anime Adaption in the last decade and there really is NOTHING like it. Doctor Stone, Fucking Puella Magi Madoka which is basically the god damn Watchman of magical girl series. My Hero Academia and One Punch Man which is full on Western Superheroes done through the Anime lens.

If you don't think there's been a full on revolution in Anime in the last ten years, then you haven't been paying attention or you're being a purposeful grognard who doesn't want to recognize the new stuff as being new and innovative.

As I said before, if there's no attempt by BESM to address any of these new genres and tropes which have come out of Anime in the last decade I'll be pissed. I have no doubt we'll get the product, the Beta is out with the art and text in it. But it will be a cash grab to me if we're just coasting on old Anime and not addressing these new genre elements.

Yes they're things I could do myself, but I work for a living and would prefer someone else to do the creative labor for me, or give me the tools to do it myself. This is why I give Kevin Crawford my money.

Now, it is possible that Paradox* only let Mark MacKinnon have access to the BESM IP again if he could get a basic corebook funded successfully and then if that turns out well, they may let him do supplements for newer genres such as Isekai or if it does well enough, take the risk of licensed RPG's (Personally, I'd love to see a remake of the Sailor Moon BESM Game, along with Attack On Titan and JoJo)

Given Mark's past incompetence, he may had to reprint a lot of the old 3E corebook's text because Paradox wants it done on the cheap and then if it does well, they'll let him work on supplements to cover newer developments in anime.

*-I'm assuming Paradox Interactive owns the IP as White Wolf bought the rights to BESM so they could release the 3E corebook (and then dropped all support for the game) and when Paradox bought White Wolf in 2015, there was a brief teaser of an upcoming version of BESM being a possibility on the Nu-White Wolf website.

If anyone is wondering what's happening with the BESM project, it's currently stalled.

In a November 14th update sent to backers, Japanime Games said they are waiting for authorization from White Wolf (the licence holder) to go to print.  The problem is that WW has had all the completed material (4th Edition, Deluxe, Naked, Primer, Game Screen, Adventure, Character Folio, and Dice) for roughly two months and JG has no idea when that approval may come.

As of the November 21st update no new news about the approval has been received from WW. JG have gone ahead with some material samples and cover printings to make sure they are happy with the stock and color-matching.

Quote from: rgalex;1114661If anyone is wondering what's happening with the BESM project, it's currently stalled.

In a November 14th update sent to backers, Japanime Games said they are waiting for authorization from White Wolf (the licence holder) to go to print.  The problem is that WW has had all the completed material (4th Edition, Deluxe, Naked, Primer, Game Screen, Adventure, Character Folio, and Dice) for roughly two months and JG has no idea when that approval may come.

As of the November 21st update no new news about the approval has been received from WW. JG have gone ahead with some material samples and cover printings to make sure they are happy with the stock and color-matching.

As always, Nu-White Wolf fucks up spectacularly.

White Wolf finally gave approval.  PDFs of the main books will be available to backers some time in the next couple of weeks, once the print file version is approved and they can then optimize it for DriveThru.  Print books will take a bit longer, but are expected to arrive in backer's hands in late March to April-ish, depending on the shipping method the backer chose (express shipping was an option).

On a pseudo related note had anyone heard of Mike Nystul, former FASA writer, had failed not one, but three kickstarters for the Castle Nystil series? Claiming they ran out of funds.
Infinite Dungeons was going to be bailed by someone but Nystul has it back now so its still DOA.
Cairn was bailed, finished and sent off to backers by Ross Issacs who worked on various ST:TNG and Nephilim books. Backers get s POD voucher for it. But all the stretch goals Nystul has still failed to do it seems.
Axes and Anvils was rescued by Andrew Shields who I have not seen anything he has done for yet. PDFs sent off to backers only, no physical books as this was just a rescue.
Tenkar's Tavern has an article on it as well. yeesh.
https://www.tenkarstavern.com/2013/06/mike-nystul-fiscally-incompetent-washes.html

Meanwhile in stark contrast Sandy Peterson mortgaged his damn house to make sure his project was fulfilled and backers got what was promised.

On Saturday I received all the currently completed pdfs: BESM 4e, BESM Naked, Character Folio, 4e Primer, Dramatis Personae: Volume 1 and the 4e update to the 2e adventure "So, We Have ... An Obelisk?".  Haven't had any time to look through them yet and probably won't until later in the week.  mumblemumble stupid holidays.

Quote from: rgalex;1117332On Saturday I received all the currently completed pdfs: BESM 4e, BESM Naked, Character Folio, 4e Primer, Dramatis Personae: Volume 1 and the 4e update to the 2e adventure "So, We Have ... An Obelisk?".  Haven't had any time to look through them yet and probably won't until later in the week.  mumblemumble stupid holidays.

Yup, got all my PDF stuff too as well. I've been going over it, and while the system is quite sound, and an improvement over 3rd... With the Naked and Primer edition giving the tools for those who just wanna do games more in the 1st and 2nd edition style.... Mark is still stuck in the early millennium of Anime.

Much of the text is reprinted from 3rd edition, and most of the example characters in Dramatic Personae are rather...well, bog standard "Here's a Ninja, Here's a Magical Girl, Here's a Psychic, Here's a Monster Hunter" all from their own inhouse Anime-Multiverse setting. In some ways, I'll give this initial stuff a pass, particularly Dramatic Personae 1, since giving the bog standard classic anime tropes seems to make sense right out the gate. The most "different" character is a guy who deals in magical antiques and equipment who ends up as the Fixer for everyone else.. Magical Girls, Alien Travelers, Demon fighters and what have you.

But, like I mentioned before, there's very little advice, ideas, or examples given towards how to build your own settings more representative of the anime from the last ten years.. Full Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood, Hunter x Hunter, Jojo, Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia, One Punch Man, any of the Fate series, just to name a few. Many of these Anime/Manga are massively popular and don't fit well into the idea of an "Anime-Multiverse" or at least the one that was created back in 2007 (Which is the one used for 4th edition too) since they're such self contained worlds in of themselves.

Modern Anime has moved on from what BESM is currently presenting setting wise. The system works, which is why I still like it... But it's my hope the future supplements will reflect more modern offerings rather than stuff that's already been covered and is dated by comparison.

Take it BESM 4th edition isn't in rpg drivethru yet?

Quote from: Snowman0147;1117512Take it BESM 4th edition isn't in rpg drivethru yet?

"Okay Boomer" edition of BESM is not available for purchase just yet.

Quote from: Orphan81;1117507Yup, got all my PDF stuff too as well. I've been going over it, and while the system is quite sound, and an improvement over 3rd... With the Naked and Primer edition giving the tools for those who just wanna do games more in the 1st and 2nd edition style.... Mark is still stuck in the early millennium of Anime.

Much of the text is reprinted from 3rd edition, and most of the example characters in Dramatic Personae are rather...well, bog standard "Here's a Ninja, Here's a Magical Girl, Here's a Psychic, Here's a Monster Hunter" all from their own inhouse Anime-Multiverse setting. In some ways, I'll give this initial stuff a pass, particularly Dramatic Personae 1, since giving the bog standard classic anime tropes seems to make sense right out the gate. The most "different" character is a guy who deals in magical antiques and equipment who ends up as the Fixer for everyone else.. Magical Girls, Alien Travelers, Demon fighters and what have you.

But, like I mentioned before, there's very little advice, ideas, or examples given towards how to build your own settings more representative of the anime from the last ten years.. Full Metal Alchemist:Brotherhood, Hunter x Hunter, Jojo, Attack on Titan, Demon Slayer, My Hero Academia, One Punch Man, any of the Fate series, just to name a few. Many of these Anime/Manga are massively popular and don't fit well into the idea of an "Anime-Multiverse" or at least the one that was created back in 2007 (Which is the one used for 4th edition too) since they're such self contained worlds in of themselves.

Modern Anime has moved on from what BESM is currently presenting setting wise. The system works, which is why I still like it... But it's my hope the future supplements will reflect more modern offerings rather than stuff that's already been covered and is dated by comparison.

What the fuck you are talking about? Most of the animes you cited are "boring standard anime", don't need any special rule to play. Isn't because the anime plot like to make everything sound complex as fuck, for some reason, that is the really in RPG rules.

Jojo - part 1, part 2 and Demon Hunter are the same fucking, except for less POSING. Hunter X Hunter's Nen is "whaterver the fuck you play says, but mostly Special Attack", My Hero Academia and One Punch Man just use the same rules but different scales, Saitima is the only one who kinda fuck thing up, but because his Player is Mix-Maxer from Hell. Fate is Fate, you play with Servants, Mages are NPCs in 90%, "normal humans" are fucked, nobody fuck know how Noble Phantasm really work and power crashes go whaterver the way the plot say it going to be.

99% of the Isekai Genre is just Fantasy with a Super Powered Japanese Wage Slave.

In resume, you really don't need new rules to play most of modern Anime, because they're copies of things who made success in the last decade or so, or are from last two decades or more (like Jojo's, and Berserker). Really, there plenty of shit to critique about the new edition of BESM, like the horrible layout, but you chose a strange hill to die on.

Quote from: DarcyDettmann;1117771What the fuck you are talking about? Most of the animes you cited are "boring standard anime", don't need any special rule to play. Isn't because the anime plot like to make everything sound complex as fuck, for some reason, that is the really in RPG rules.

Jojo - part 1, part 2 and Demon Hunter are the same fucking, except for less POSING. Hunter X Hunter's Nen is "whaterver the fuck you play says, but mostly Special Attack", My Hero Academia and One Punch Man just use the same rules but different scales, Saitima is the only one who kinda fuck thing up, but because his Player is Mix-Maxer from Hell. Fate is Fate, you play with Servants, Mages are NPCs in 90%, "normal humans" are fucked, nobody fuck know how Noble Phantasm really work and power crashes go whaterver the way the plot say it going to be.

99% of the Isekai Genre is just Fantasy with a Super Powered Japanese Wage Slave.

In resume, you really don't need new rules to play most of modern Anime, because they're copies of things who made success in the last decade or so, or are from last two decades or more (like Jojo's, and Berserker). Really, there plenty of shit to critique about the new edition of BESM, like the horrible layout, but you chose a strange hill to die on.

You really didn't read what I was saying, but instead decided to go off and be an asshole and act like you know what you're talking about. I never said special rules to play first off. I said examples from contemporary Anime, rather than the examples given which are from anime that's about 20 to 30 years old now. Further, I didn't ask for "Special Rules or new rules" I asked for GMing advice on how to portray contemporary Anime, rather than having the exact same text line for line lifted straight out of the third edition from 2007 which covers largely outdated concepts.

Yes, I know how to do all this shit myself. But those who are new to RPG's or BESM in general, and are contemporary Anime fans, are going to find out, there really isn't a lot of examples for contemporary anime. There's rumors the licence book is going to be Cowboy Bebop. Cowboy Bebop is 20 years old now.

Furthermore, if you think Nen is "What ever the fuck you play says.." I can see you don't really watch much Hunter. For that matter, I noticed how you decided to conveniently  avoid the topic of Stands from the majority of Jojo and how complex they can get. The fact you think Demon Hunter's sword techniques and Hamon are the same thing, also speaks volumes.

You apparently fail at reading comprehension, you chose a strange hill to die on yourself.

Edit: And I get it dude, the Appleseed Avatar. You still think Ghost in the Shell is relevant and new, despite Stand Alone Complex being almost 20 years old itself. But I got news for you Boomer, Anime and Manga moved on.

Quote from: Orphan81;1117800You really didn't read what I was saying, but instead decided to go off and be an asshole and act like you know what you're talking about. I never said special rules to play first off. I said examples from contemporary Anime, rather than the examples given which are from anime that's about 20 to 30 years old now. Further, I didn't ask for "Special Rules or new rules" I asked for GMing advice on how to portray contemporary Anime, rather than having the exact same text line for line lifted straight out of the third edition from 2007 which covers largely outdated concepts.

Yes, I know how to do all this shit myself. But those who are new to RPG's or BESM in general, and are contemporary Anime fans, are going to find out, there really isn't a lot of examples for contemporary anime. There's rumors the licence book is going to be Cowboy Bebop. Cowboy Bebop is 20 years old now.

Furthermore, if you think Nen is "What ever the fuck you play says.." I can see you don't really watch much Hunter. For that matter, I noticed how you decided to conveniently  avoid the topic of Stands from the majority of Jojo and how complex they can get. The fact you think Demon Hunter's sword techniques and Hamon are the same thing, also speaks volumes.

You apparently fail at reading comprehension, you chose a strange hill to die on yourself.

Edit: And I get it dude, the Appleseed Avatar. You still think Ghost in the Shell is relevant and new, despite Stand Alone Complex being almost 20 years old itself. But I got news for you Boomer, Anime and Manga moved on.

OK Millennial


On a more serious note, I honestly think that the reason why BESM 4 didn't cover more recent anime genres and tropes probably has a lot more to do with Paradox/White Wolf than anything else. Like I said earlier, Paradox seems to be keeping the BESM team on a very tight leash and even with the Kickstarter campaign, there's a good chance that Mark and the crew had to keep things cheap for the basic corebook, and then if the BESM 4 corebook sells well enough, we will see supplements to cover newer genres and developments in anime such as the rise of Isekai.

Even back in the late 90's and early 2000's, the core BESM rulebook was more of a generic system with anime artwork while the bulk of the genre-specific stuff was in supplements, dating all the way back to the classic 1E supplements from 1999, Big Robots Cool Starships and Hot Rods & Gun Bunnies and you also had a lot more reliance on licensed settings like Sailor Moon, New Dominion Tank Police, and Tenchi Muyo back in the day.

I doubt we'll get official licensed stuff unless BESM 4E really goes above and beyond and sells like hotcakes, but I have no doubt we'll see supplements for more modern anime genres in addition to the old standbys of mecha and cyberpunk

Also, the Boomers are better than us Millennials and Zoomers in every way.