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.