Questions tagged [besm]

For questions about Big Eyes, Small Mouth, a role-playing game originally designed by Mark C. MacKinnon that is designed to simulate the action styles of anime and manga. BESM is named for the way in which characters are typically depicted in anime/manga, with large expressive eyes and comparatively small mouths.

To create characters, players roll 2d6 + 10 and divide the sum between Mind, Body, and Soul, against which action checks are made; these are supplemented by positive or negative Attributes.

Several editions of Big Eyes, Small Mouth have been released:

• BESM 1e: The first edition of BESM was released by Guardians of Order, a publishing company founded by MacKinnon, in 1997. RPG writer David L. Pulver wrote a mecha creation supplement titled Big Robots, Cool Starships, and the next supplement was a genre book called Hot Rods & Gun Bunnies that added skills. BESM's system, the "Tri-Stat System", was also used as the basis for licensed RPGs based on various anime franchises.
• BESM 2e: The second edition of BESM, released in 2001, incorporated these innovations. Further licensed books based on anime were published as Ultimate Fan Guide supplements rather than full RPGs. 2 original settings, Centauri Knights and Uresia: Grave of Heaven, were also released for the game.
• d20-system: A d20 System adaptation of BESM was first published in 2003, with new versions of the Centauri Knights and Uresia settings released for this version of the game. In 2004, a revised edition was published, but it did not contain all the revisions in its final published form due to printing errors.
• besm-3e: The third edition of BESM was scheduled for release in the summer of 2005, but was delayed to April 2006. It was initially slated to have 3 versions: Deluxe, Standard, and Vanilla (an introductory, simplified variant). However, MacKinnon announced in August 2006 that Guardians of Order was going out of business. ArtHaus Games, a subsidiary of White Wolf Publishing, announced its acquisition of the game the following month. BESM 3rd edition was released in January 2007, featuring a change in the Tri-Stat System; only a standard edition of the book was published.
• besm-4e: In April 2019, Dyskami Publishing Company (which was founded by MacKinnon) announced a worldwide licensing agreement with White Wolf to produce a new edition. It was written by MacKinnon, and co-published with Japanime Games. The fourth edition of BESM was crowdfunded on Kickstarter in 2019, with PDFs released to backers in December of that year; the game was officially released to the public in 2020. BESM 4th edition was released in standard and limited editions, as well as BESM Naked, a "stripped-down" standalone alternate edition marketed as a "gateway product".