Before the Kickstarter for Big Eyes, Small Mouth 4e even starts, the publisher, Dyskami Publishing, has announced a rules-light variant of the edition called “BESM Naked” in a news post on their site early last week.
From the Post:
A Stripped-Down Version of BESM Fourth Edition
It’s time we revealed a little secret about the our upcoming Big Eyes, Small Mouth Fourth Edition launch: BESM 4 is actually two distinct games. In addition to the standard Fourth Edition, we are also releasing a stripped-down core game called BESM Naked that a complete, stand-alone, alternate edition.
BESM Naked will be presented as a “gateway product” of a sorts, targeted at anime and manga fans who may know something about role-playing but aren’t traditional gamers. It’s also for role-playing enthusiasts who enjoy indie-style RPGs with simple rules and more narrative game flow. With a structural simplicity closer to BESM First Edition from 1997 — yet presented with an eye on illustration and graphic design that lives up to the expectations of today’s gamers — BESM Naked contains everything you need to play, wrapped in one small volume at an attractive price.
I was a huge fan of the 1st and 2nd editions of BESM as well as BESM d20 (I was the rarity there it seems) but fell away from it as my tastes
started to skew towards Conan-like Pulp Fantasy. Now in my old-age however, I am keenly looking forward to this. While I have my reservations on the cover and on the choice of title (not for my own sake but society is on a hair-trigger lately) I am honestly looking forward to adding Big Eyes, Small Mouth 4e, and BESM Naked to my collection once they are released. However, I have serious doubts it will replace the current king of Anime RPGs OVA … at least at my digital tables.
Remember, Big Eyes, Small Mouth 4e’s Kickstarter goes live in seven days, so keep those eyes peeled for more coverage and barking from me!
