And what is more used; BESM d20, or 3rd ed?
This message was last edited by a moderator, as it was the wrong forum, at 08:23, Sun 20 Apr 2014.

I've recently picked up a copy of BESM version 2.5. To me it seems fairly simple, and it might be interesting to try it out.

The rules are over 200 pages, but most of that is the usual 'what is Anime, what is RPG?' stuff, and character generation.

Character generation takes up most of the book, but most of that is simply comprehensive description of the various Attributes and Skills you can choose from.

Once you've decided what you want for your character and you've distilled them down to a few dice modifiers, the ongoing, day-to-day play seems straightforward - you simply roll under (or over in version 3, I believe) a value using 2D6 plus or minus a handful of modifiers.

It seems to be a good choice for a rules-lite game with a lot of freeform interaction.

However, it seems to suffer from the perennial problem of FtF-derived games when used for PbP - it takes forever to resolve combat.

Each round of combat requires an Initiative Roll from each character, then each combatant has to roll for attack, wait for the opponent to roll for defence, then roll for damage... Then the defender gets to attack, waits for his opponent to defend, then rolls his own damage.

By the time you’ve accounted for multiple time zones and RL interruptions, each round of combat could easily take a week or more.

I'd be interested to know if anyone has found an effective way of speeding up BESM combat, so you can resolve it in one or, at most, two dice rolls per round.

BESM 3rd is not that hard to learn. Mechanically you roll 2d6+attribute bonus and that is it. Higher is better. The hard part is character creation as it is an effects system and you can make anything from a My Little Pony Allicorn Princess to a Warhammer 40k Space Marine. So character creation is the hardest part and needs back and forth with your game master.

BESM d20 uses the d20 engine like Dungeons & Dragons. roll1d20+attribute bonus. Higher is better.  The difference in BESM d20 is you have classes with defined attributes and powers from the get go and can not make anything. This makes character creation easier, but lacks the versatility of BESM 3rd. Since many people play D&D BESM d20 is popular because they do not have to learn a new system from scratch.

Does 3rd remove all the to and fro combat rolls?

3e is ridiculously simple. The d20 version is something you pretty much already know if you have any experience with d20 at all, you just need the book for classes and such.

I own BESM d20, there is an Adventurer Class for those who like to assign their own attributes, they have character points given out each Level instead of set class feats or whatever you call them. However they're balanced out by being slightly weaker than the other Classes mechanically.

Still, I own Hellsing d20, which uses BESM d20 as a system (infact I bought the latter as I didn't realise the former was an add-on for it) and nobody is messing with Alucard when if memory serves he's d20 Lv.32 even if he does have a load of Adventurer Levels. Of course the ECL added for being Vampire helps, but I digress...

I think BESM is easier if you dislike the crunch that comes with d20, though I only have experience of BESM through the Tenchi Muyo! rpgs (sadly out of print, but I own the books thankfully), which seemed to be the prototype for 3rd edition and there are some differences.
This message was last edited by the user at 14:31, Sun 20 Apr 2014.

The main thing third really does is noodles with some balance issues. There's a few additional details, and some things from second edition crossed over as core templates. Not all, but some did.

*Read the title as BDSM, sadly disappointed*

Might be a different thread topic.

Haven't played it, but you could use a couple of the d20 conventions to speed it up:
  1)  One initiative roll per character per combat, then use that initiative every round
  2)  Instead of rolling defenses, make them static, using the average roll (7 for rolls of 2d6) + modifiers

I haven't implemented it for BESM specifically, but on play by post I allow players to post in whatever order they want on the first round, then either stick to that or post they're waiting when their turn would normally come up. I also tend to ignore anything related to initiative and I let it be known that I'm doing that. Usually... sometimes it's not so clear.

I generally ignore initiative and have each player post an action, then I post the baddies and results. On the rare (hasn't happened yet either) occasion that who goes first is important, I'll just roll for it when I post results.

No it does not. You roll to hit and the other guy rolls to defend. But Damage is a set number. If you land a critical hit or the other guy has armor then it is adjusted, but you do not roll it. There are optional rules to change that though. I find combat goes quickly in BESM 3rd because like in anime characters tend to be 'Glass cannons' that dish out loads of damage but take far less. So most fights last only a few rounds.

As someone with a great deal of experience with both d20 and 3rd, neither system is difficult to learn the basics of. 3rd edition takes some effort to learn how to make good characters, but once you do learn, it's laughably easy to break the system over your knee like a dry twig. It requires a lot of tweaking and balance work, it really does. Meanwhile, the d20 version just doesn't work very well - BESM skills and abilities don't mesh well with d20 attributes and levels.

I haven't played BESM d20, but I don't especially want to. The point of BESM and Tri-stat for me is that it's quick, simple, and flexible. Any form of d20 is pretty much the opposite of all of that.

I've played BESM 2E and skimmed through 3E rules. It's fairly simple.
The normal PbP fix for any game is to roll initiative once from the whole combat scene unless someone has an ability to deliberately change their initiative. Then just everyone post what they're doing and resolve everything with a GM post at the end of the round.
If you want a shortcut for defense you could try making the opponent's defense figure (or half the value) the target number to beat on an attack roll.