BESM d20 Revised

[pawsplay]

So, when BESM d20 Revised when to print, it inexplicably didn't have the information that updated it from referring to D&D 3e to D&D 3.5. Oops. Well, I just ordered the PDF of the Revised game, only to discover it's that borked document. I'm reluctant to spend another few bucks on the Stingy Gamer Edition to see if it's actually updated.

Guardians of Order is long defunct, and the errata documents and other files are no longer available. White Wolf sells the PDFs, but has no forum support or errata downloads on their home page.

Does anyone know where the d20 BESM Revised updates can be obtained?

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

Does anyone know where the d20 BESM Revised updates can be obtained?

The Stingy Gamer Edition _looks_ like it's up to date, but I do see an error on the Halfling race cost in my SGE; it still lists the Halfling cost as "1", but the Halfling cost in the 3.5 update is listed as 6 points. SGE and the Anime SRD both list it as 1.

It looks like the Update is available here:
Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire

 

[Relique du Madde]

The Stingy Gamer Edition and the Second Printing of the Revised Edition were supposed to be updated to 3.5 Problem is they still had some typos.

Unfortunately, I don't think any copies of the errata or a corrected SRD exist anywhere. For me, that was one of the reasons why I switched to M&M .

 

[pawsplay]

The Stingy Gamer Edition _looks_ like it's up to date, but I do see an error on the Halfling race cost in my SGE; it still lists the Halfling cost as "1", but the Halfling cost in the 3.5 update is listed as 6 points. SGE and the Anime SRD both list it as 1.

It looks like the Update is available here:
Free File Hosting Made Simple - MediaFire

Thanks!

Sadly, it looks like the errata is in need of errata. Halflings have +2 Str and +2 Con, and strangely the Ranger and Rogue both receive two Armor Proficiency feats, even though they are both only proficient in light armor in 3.5.

 

[Alzrius]

The copy of BESM d20 Revised that has the "3.5" in the lower-right corner should be the one that has the actual 3.5 updates made.

 

[pawsplay]

I have started sketching out a project. I could use some help from anyone who has experience with BESM d20. Any comments would be welcome. Even better would be links to information and actual plays, or even forums where BESM d20 has been discussed.

It looks like it had its brief day in the sun, right before the Revised debacle happened and then Guardians of Order went under. But the basic engine looks perfect for what I want to do.

 

[pawsplay]

24 hour *bump*

 

[Scurvy_Platypus]

I have some experience in running a BESMd20-derived game; I've pimped the game before (Everstone) as a solid enough game, despite being a bit "rough" in some places.

It really depends on what you're after though, as to how much if any help or suggestions I could give.

To be perfectly honest, BESMd20 really didn't have any time in the sun. They put out a few products and had things like Slayers d20, but as far as the d20 gaming community in general was concerned? BESMd20 was either ignored/unknown or bashed.

Part of the problem it had was criticising the balance of the d20 system to begin with. If you're going to cast stones like that, you kinda need to be above them being slung back at you.

The other part of the problem is the nature of the point system itself.

BESM comes from a philosophy of "if [some attribute] is more valuable in your campaign, the GM can/should increase its cost." Basically, BESM as a whole relies more on a "relative" value (how valuable an attribute is in comparison to other things) as opposed to an "absolute" value (a feat is worth .2 CR).

People approach point-based systems with an expectation of absolute value; no value judgement is being made on this, it's just the way gamers tend to be. d20 itself is also concerned with "balance" of various elements, which means that the potential audience is already primed to be analyzing a system in terms of its balance.

This makes for a couple of strong hits against BESMd20, with its more relative-based points system combining with an unclear math basis for d20 in general. BESMd20 further complicated things for themselves by switching things to skill-based combat; while it might be a selling point for some people, it's not leveraging the strengths of d20 as a system.

Overall, I find the system to be a solid and workable base but default BESMd20 isn't a system I'd run. It's got a lot of the usual stuff I don't like about d20 with additional complications by changing things to be skill-based but using d20's skill-setup which is less than ideal in my opinion.

I guess the ultimate expression of the weakness of BESMd20 is in looking at the BESMd20 Monstrous Manual. It basically takes a bunch of the SRD critters and then shows what they're like point-wise using BESMd20's system. That in and of itself isn't bad, it's actually pretty groovy.

The problem is the logical and natural leap of "[x] number of points is equal to [y] CR."

The CR system of d20 is already slightly contentuous, with many on the internet saying it's completely worthless and showing how they can break the system. The fact that the SRD critters that everyone relies on for their monster books aren' correct (see Cooper's Corrected Creatures for a product that actually tries to make them all correct), as well as the fact that there hasn't been an official CR system (other than Upper_Krust's attempt to codify it) makes for a somewhat shaky foundation to begin with. When you combine the slightly foggy CR system with the more relative nature of BESMd20's point system, you can easily wind up breaking things.

It's not an insurmountable difficult, it's just something that needs to be explicitly recognised by a GM or designer looking to use the BESMd20 system and then addressed explicitly in some fashion.

A somewhat related tangent: the BESMd20 bears a number of similiarities to M&M at least 1st Ed M&M. Steve Kenson is credited with working on SASd20, but really in his own words he worked on the bit in SASd20 that was talking about the age of comics. SASd20 initially had some positive looking bits, but M&M came out and blew it out of the water.

BESMd20 is based in a large part off the SASd20 rules. The interesting thing is that M&M has never really caught the flack for "balance" that BESMd20 did. There's a number of potential reasons as to why that is, but it's simply worth keeping in the back of your mind when you hear criticism about BESMd20.

As I see it, there's a few different ways of addressing the potential problems of BESMd20's point system. The simplest is to explicitly call out in the text what the "base assumptions" of the system is and explicitly acknowledge that A) a point-based system can be abused, and B) the purpose of the point-based system isn't to enforce "balance" but rather try to ensure that class/power choices are roughly aligned with each other.

Afterall, lots of d20 proponents immediately jump on the "classes are balanced relative to each other" sort of bandwagon; it shouldn't be too hard to convey the fact that the point system used is an extension of that.

Another potential solution is to simply rework the points cost themselves. BESMd20 kinda made their lifes more difficult by trying to limit the number of points etc when they did the point breakdown for classes. I think this particular blinder might have pulled them up short in trying to cost things, because they bought into the idea that classes were all roughly equal and it was only stuff like magic that was really unbalancing things.

Hopefully something I've what I've said is of some use. I've spoken pretty broadly because BESMd20 in general suffers from the usual flaws of the d20 system; how you want to deal with _those_ is going to potentially have a fair impact on how BESMd20 in general works for you in the first place.

And remember what I said about the similarities between it and M&M. M&M does have some tighter design I think; this means that you can take a look at some of the problems and solutions faced by M&M folks and back-port them to BESMd20. 1st Ed M&M is of the same era as BESMd20/SASd20, so problems/solutions are most likely going to be found there. Some of the design solutions for 2nd Ed M&M might be applicable, I don't know. 1st Ed M&M was criticised for being "too similar" to the original d20 system and that was something they explicitly moved to change. Frankly, I think that staying closer to "baseline" d20 and incorporating fixes/changes/additions from there is a better approach; you're better able to leverage player/GM system mastery, as well as being able to tap into more relevant advice regarding problems/solutions in the d20 system.

 

[Alzrius]

Scurvy_Platypus makes some good points. I seem to recall breaking down the point values of the monsters in the BESM d20 Monster Manual, analyzing the number of points spent to achieve their CR, and finding out that this didn't match to the number of points spent to achieve a given PC level (since under 3.5, class level for a PC race = CR).

I also recall that the system attempted to keep some of the original BESM's hands-off attitude in a lot of places. For example, I don't believe that a lot of attacks had range listings; the book basically said that if your characters were close enough to engage in any sort of meaningful combat, you should just assume ranged attacks could hit.

I could be misremembering on any of those, however.

At the end of the day, I think that BESM's big selling points were 1) that it brought anime tropes front and center into the d20 System, and 2) it provided a point-buy d20 System.

The problem is that, while it was fairly comprehensive and non-genre specific, point 1 can be (and has been) done elsewhere, though never quite as holistically. Likewise, point 2 has been better served by systems such as Complete Control and Eclipse: The Codex Persona.

 

[pawsplay]

I'm going to tip my hand here and say my new project is a space operatic game with super-psionics. While I plan on setting up a game that is generic enough for any space operatic campaign, and friendly enough to certain obvious pastiches of existing media, I am building it around a broad strokes world of my own design (and to some extent, building the world around the system; why make life hard on myself?).

Some things that I see as plusses:
- The building blocks approach to creating classes
- Ultimately almost unlimited flexibility, if it is desired
- Hews to standard d20 abstraction of hit points (contrast with even more abstract damage saves, or nitty-gritty physics based systems like GURPS), slightly more abstract than, say, Conan
- Free-flowing, check-based combat system without a lot of special case abilities
- Non-punitive, damage reduction based armor
- Easy-peasy rules on personal equipment
- Good interface surfaces with other d20 products
- Handily, has an Energy score built in, reflecting the tropes of the genre I want to emulate
- Expandable into fairly detailed ship construction, if desired
- Super easy design for new character races and occupations
- Short copyright citation list in OGL

Things definitely to be addressed and modified:
- Skill list to be retooled, following very excellent examples by Pathfinder, Fantasy Craft, M&M 3e, etc. while retaining certain BESM-isms
- Both Star Wars Saga and M&M consolidated AC with the (seldom used in these genres) Reflex save; I'll probably do the same and follow state of the art closely
- Virtually redundant Feat system to be folded into Attributes, with "feat trees" being recreated along the lines of other menu-based Attributes, like the old Gun Bunny and what have you
- Restore distinction between "standard" attributes and "exotic" attributes to simplify character creation; many attributes would be Exotic as they would be used primarily in pricing Items of Power or Magic (psionics)
- Range and movement to more closely conform to standard d20, albeit with BESM's higher level of abstraction; True20 is my role model here

I was not a big BESM d20 fan when it first game out. I was a bit of a Tri-Stat snob, actually. However, as a d20 tookit, it has a lot to offer. In terms of getting from Point A to Point B, BESM d20 looks like the shortest path to me in a lot of ways! I can probably cut and paste whole pages of OGC, which if you have ever done much design work, is a huge time saver in itself.

I'm definitely moving past BESM's enlightening yet not very practical obsession with benchmarking base d20, as if it were literally being sold as a toolkit. It is somewhat the cousin to Trailblazer in that regard.