besm

[steph]

a friend of me tell me :besm is the equal of hero system...............i never play besm but what my friend said is true?.............he said you can get the same result with besm in a much more simple system..........is it true??
excuse my englsih
is not my first language
stef

[TheQuestionMan]

It is all a matter of personal preference. I have not used the Tri Stat System, but I have played most everything else at one time or another and find I like Hero System best.

Tri Stat System - BESM
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tri-Stat_System

RPG Net Reviews of Big Eyes Small Mouth Third Edition
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/12/12712.phtml

HERO System 5th Edition - Champions
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hero_System

RPG Net Reviews of HERO System Fifth Edition Revised
http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11044.phtml


Cheers

QM

[tkdguy]

BESM is a rules-light system. I originally didn't care for it much because of that, but I found people who don't regularly play rpgs find it easier to learn than HERO.

[copeab]

BESM is a rules-light system. I originally didn't care for it much because of that, but I found people who don't regularly play rpgs find it easier to learn than HERO.

One thing to note about BESM is that, despite the anime presentation, the system works well for action gaming in general and is really better than the more general Tri-Stat dX rules (which unfortunately is far too biased towards modern superhero gaming). Of the various generic systems* I have, BESM is about halfway in complexity between GURPS and the *very* rules-light Fudge (Masterbook is easier to create characters in, but had a more complicated game engine to actually run a campaign with).

* I'm not counting Talislanta or d6 Star Wars here.

[input.jack]

I have played and GMed both HERO and BESM.

HERO is very detail-specific. Characters are defined by a large number of characteristics. Powers have to be written very precisely to work how they are supposed to. Advantages and Limitations allow the Player to craft the character into exactly what the Player wants. Combats are fairly complex, and movement is detailed, making use of a battle mat almost a necessity.

BESM is very general in its approach. Characters are defined by three characteristics, which can also have some further modifiers. Powers and abilities are generalized, and the scope of powers is left up to the GM to determine in some cases. Some power descriptions are so vague as to be almost pointless. Combats are fast, and there is no inherent movement system, making use of a battle mat difficult without extensive house rules.

BESM can be a fun game. It is more easily grasped and understood by new players than HERO. It can be a lot of fun.

BUT. BESM is in no way the "equal" of HERO. It cannot offer the depth of character build HERO can. It is also not as internally consistent as HERO.

BESM's main advantage over HERO is that things are much, much easier to write up in BESM. (Because the system is so simplified).

However, ultimately, my entire game group (with one exception) found BESM to be unsatisfying, compared to HERO.

For the record, I find Mutants and masterminds to be somewhere in the middle; detailed enough to be satisfying, but simple enough to be easily understood by new Players, and it takes less time to write people up in M&M than it does in HERO.

But I still prefer to play HERO.

[Zeropoint]

BESM Tri-stat was a lot of fun for me, although it does take some restraint on the part of the players to avoid making seriously broken characters. It's a very flexible system that works great for any genre where you want a "cinematic" flavor--if you want gritty realism, this is NOT your system.

I did find that I missed the internal consistency and detail of the HERO system, but I could very happily run or play a BESM game.

On the other hand, I didn't like Silver Age Sentinels. To my eyes, it combined the worst aspects of BESM and HERO. It lacked both the free-flowing simplicity of BESM and the crunchy goodness of HERO.

There is one more thing to mention here--BESM D20. While I'm not at all a fan of the D20 system, I found that BESM d20 is a big improvement, at least to me. It's much looser in character construction, and even includes a "class of no class" for those people that don't want any restrictions on where their character goes. There are race construction guidelines, and an analysis of the standard D&D classes.

BESM D20 is mostly compatible with standard D20 games, although there are a few hiccups (like energy points, which don't exist in standard D20) and the fact that a BESM character is much more powerful than a standard D&D character of the same level.

Especially if you tailor them to a specific situation . . . my Magical Girl could tear through undead and other supernatural evil with frightening efficiency. :D

[tkdguy]

I've never actually tried BESM d20; I decided to pass on that. Of course, I had already played D&D 3rd Edition and decided to stick with the older versions of the game (and with HERO, of course).

I ran my martial arts/film noir game with BESM, since the players weren't much into rpgs and didn't care for the HERO system when I ran an earlier campaign with it. The system can definitely be used without the anime trappings. I own a copy of Tri-Stat dX, but I haven't used it yet.

[gamerz123]

If you're more comfortable with French, I managed to find this using Google.

http://www.roliste.com/detail.jsp?id=6300

I searched for "BESM roleplaying" and used an Advanced Search to restrict the language.

[wylodmayer]

Criminey...

...misread one letter in the thread title, a you're bound to wind up with a TOTALLY WRONG impression of what this thread is about...

...anyway...

I never got into Silver Age Sentinels, either. I wanted to like it, because I totally fell in love with the beautiful graphic presentation of the full color deluxe edition. But, yeah, seriously... I found the power write ups confusing AND vague. The super strength system made me feel nauseous. I found I could buy levels that would increase my effectiveness in combat, but the system was so poorly laid out and described, I never had a sense of how good those levels made me.

I'm telling you, the best thing in early superhero roleplaying was the Attribute Benchmarks in TSR's Marvel Super Heroes RPG. I prefer HERO as a system any day, but having all the attributes laid out on a chart that told the player where the upper end for this continuity lay... well, I've created exactly such charts in all my superhero games since. Very handy stuff. DC Heroes followed suit, you'll note. I'd like to see such a chart for Champions Universe, but then again, I don't keep up with it very well, so one may exist for all I know. Still, it would be good to know how strong the "strongest" character in official continuity is, etc. Especially useful would be something a little more obscure - a chart of skills. I'd like to know where the "great minds" in the CU fall in terms of best effective skill roll for the various science skills. That way, if I ever play in the CU, I won't accidentally make a character who's way better than I intended him to be...

[BcAugust]

I'm actually playing in a BESM 3.0 Superhero game right at the moment.

Good points, it's actually fairly easy to sit down and just play with, the damage being standardized makes it easy to remember, even when you're dealing(like me) with shifting weapon strengths. There also is a series of benchmarks, and options for making it simpler/more complicated.

Bad points, some common options are in confusing places(Entangles, for instance, is a sub category of Weapon), there's a bit of confusing/conflicting writing(Though I lay that out to it not getting a final edit), and skills really need a rewrite or a better explanation.


So, how do I rank it? Hmm... it's actually tied with Hero at the top of my personal list of play/run. For lower power/detailed games, I'd go hero. I'd go BESM 3rd for High powered/bright games.

[input.jack]

BcAugust, you might also want to give 2nd Edition Mutants and Masterminds a look-see.

I havent been able to get my hands on a copy of BESM 3.0. Id love to compare it to M&M. (I already know HERO wins for detail and consistency) ;)

[copeab]

I havent been able to get my hands on a copy of BESM 3.0. Id love to compare it to M&M. (I already know HERO wins for detail and consistency) ;)

Less detail isn't automatically a bad thing. I've long considered shifting my current campaigns from GURPS to BESM (or even Fudge) *specifically* because they have lower levels of detail.

(I'm also not sure where BESM has any inconsistiencies, at least any major ones).

EDIT: I have BESM 2e, which seems reasonably consistient. Tri-Stat dX, OTOH, seems to be a mess.

[BcAugust]

BcAugust, you might also want to give 2nd Edition Mutants and Masterminds a look-see.

I havent been able to get my hands on a copy of BESM 3.0. Id love to compare it to M&M. (I already know HERO wins for detail and consistency) ;)

I actually own and have run a game in M&M 2ed. I'm not exactly fond of it, but it's certainly a good system. It just hits the wrong spot for what I enjoy gming, though it's my third system of choice for superheros. (Hero, BESM, M&M, and Aberrant for the systems I've played for supers.)

[input.jack]

I actually own and have run a game in M&M 2ed. I'm not exactly fond of it, but it's certainly a good system. It just hits the wrong spot for what I enjoy gming, though it's my third system of choice for superheros. (Hero, BESM, M&M, and Aberrant for the systems I've played for supers.)

Individual tastes vary, of course :)

I found BESM too nebulous and easily-abusable by the Players to enjoy GMing, even though I wrote up a complete Star Wars campaign setting and all the vehicles and stuff. (Nightmare headaches)

M&M is a good blend of crunchy and smooth, for my tastes.

But as I said, tastes vary :)

[DiTenebras]

It's not exactly the same result as Hero, but Big Eyes, Small Mouth is an excellent system for simple, cinematic roleplaying.

It is also (in my experience) the easiest system out there to use when introducing new friends to RPGs. The mechanics are easy to understand and easy to use, while not being quite as over-simplified as a lot of single-die systems. You can build pretty much any type of character you want, without doing a lot of number-crunching in the process.

BESM is great for fast combat action (most combats will take less than 10 minutes), and gives a truly anime feel with attacks either being average (standard weapon combat) or REALLY BIG (weapon attack powers)! The system is very effective at statting out the results of powers/combat while giving you a lot of freedom in describing how things look.

Hero, on the other hand, is the encyclopedia to BESM's comic book. If you want exact details and a greater ability to customize your characters or powers, Hero's definately your game. Personally, I prefer Hero for long story arcs, and BESM for a fun and light-hearted pickup group. Both have their strengths.

[tkdguy]

Try playing a couple of games to see if you like it. If it's not your cup of tea, you still have the HERO system. :)

[ShinDangaioh]

It has its good points and it has its weak points. BESM was designed to handle things like Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, Slayers, Urusei Yatsura, Pokemon and get it done quickly.

Hero/Champions was designed, until recently, to handle Marvel super-heroes(save Silver Surfer and the other cosmics). If you wanted to play pre-Crisis Superman characters or Dragon Ball Z characters, you needed to get MEGS(DC Heroes by Mayfair or Blood of Heroes from Pulsar)

No offense, but when it comes to defining minute difference between average humans, that goes to Basic Role Playing from Chaosium(Runequest, Ringworld, Futureworld, Fantasyworld)

[Kristopher]

It has its good points and it has its weak points. BESM was designed to handle things like Sailor Moon, Ranma 1/2, Slayers, Urusei Yatsura, Pokemon and get it done quickly.

Hero/Champions was designed, until recently, to handle Marvel super-heroes(save Silver Surfer and the other cosmics). If you wanted to play pre-Crisis Superman characters or Dragon Ball Z characters, you needed to get MEGS(DC Heroes by Mayfair or Blood of Heroes from Pulsar)

No offense, but when it comes to defining minute difference between average humans, that goes to Basic Role Playing from Chaosium(Runequest, Ringworld, Futureworld, Fantasyworld)

I think quite a few people would take exception to the idea that HERO couldn't handle pre-Crisis Superman characters or Dragon Ball Z characters, even back in 4th edition.

[BcAugust]

Hmm, after playing for a bit, my secondary thoughts. Given I've played an "equalivent" power campaign in Hero. (New Sentinels, on the boards here, I played Cyrande.) I'm playing Nox(900 points) in BESM.(Will ask my gm for permission to post a link to her writeup or will post it here if there's an interest)


1. Insubstantial is way overpriced for superheroic games. For instance, to get the same effect as Desolid, you need 80 points. But to effect it only costs one point. And though most people won't take the full ranking, that just means that you're paying a lot of points for something that's fairly easy to bypass in a supers game.

2. I like Power Flux better then VPP. Not only do they require better definitions to start, it's easier to change on the fly, both in game time and out of game time. And as I learn the system better, I'm sure it will only improve the utility of it. Plus, the costing is fairly intuitive, compared to VPPs.

3. Skills make a much bigger difference in BESM then in Hero. So far, without counting attack rolls, all of our characters are using their skills often.

4. OCV/DCV levels(which mean the same thing they do in Hero) are, contrary to my first impression, really well priced. At first I thought they were overpriced, but after seeing them in action...

5. Energy points are valuable, and you will never have enough in a superhero game. I think only one of us ended up not spending over half their pool in the various fights. But they're so useful, I didn't mind.

[CourtFool]

It is also (in my experience) the easiest system out there to use when introducing new friends to RPGs.

While I have not run or played it...I would say Truth & Justice is the easiest system.

[copeab]

While I have not run or played it...I would say Truth & Justice is the easiest system.

Of the systems I have, I'd say TWERPS is the easiest. If you don't consider that a real RPG, I'd go with FUDGE as being ther easiest for new players (but not for GMs). I'd put d6 Star Wars third.

[ShinDangaioh]

I have been thinking about getting BESM 3rd, but how does it stack up to BESM 2nd ed rev or SAS or Tri-Stat Dx?

I have no wish to waste my money on something that I have the rules for already.

[CourtFool]

Of the systems I have, I'd say TWERPS is the easiest. If you don't consider that a real RPG, I'd go with FUDGE as being ther easiest for new players (but not for GMs). I'd put d6 Star Wars third.


I am not familiar with TWERPS. I would agree you could argue FUDGE.

[copeab]

I am not familiar with TWERPS. I would agree you could argue FUDGE.

http://members.tripod.com/~The_Ev_Web/TWERPS-Ev.htm

In the most basic version of TWERPS, you have one attribute (Strength) rated 1-10 and no skills. You roll a d10 vs your character's Strength to hit with a sword, fire a gun, defuse a bomb, fly a plane, etc. Later expansions added professional packages, which were basically bonuses to perform certain actions (for example, a Ranger got a bonus to tracking).

[Haven Walkur]

I keep misreading this thread title as "bdsm." Imagine my disappointment!

[CourtFool]

I keep misreading this thread title as "bdsm." Imagine my disappointment!

Interestingly enough, I have found a fair share of role players on CollarMe.