![[The] Anime Misfit](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!Jt56!,w_120,h_120,c_fill,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Fc0a32db9-7aa2-4a29-85e8-fc988ce12ff6_500x500.png)
![[The] Anime Misfit](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/$s_!dD2x!,e_trim:10:white/e_trim:10:transparent/h_72,c_limit,f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fsubstack-post-media.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F923ffc40-7b74-4c17-896e-1c9d3b771787_1344x256.png)
A bit of history:
Back in 2005, I think it was, I was browsing my local comic book shop and happened upon a new role playing game that would become an obsession: Big Eyes Small Mouth. The book I held in my hands, all 210 pages, was the beginning of the merger between two of my favorite hobbies: role playing games and anime. I was excited to find this gem, because I knew of Dungeons & Dragons, Star Wars, and Role Master, but here was a game specifically designed to emulate my favorite television programs, namely my anime obsession at the time: Tenchi Universe.
This was the Second Revised Edition (cover pictured above), and the book is a surprising quick read. All of the character creation is contained in Chapter 2 (about a hundred pages), and it’s easily broken down into steps. To be honest, once you learn about the Attributes, that’s the heart of character creation. Attributes are the things that allow your character to do the awesome stuff you see in anime.
Chapter three talks about all the game mechanics, which uses the TriStat system. You have three Stats, Body, Mind, and Soul, each ranges from values of 1 to 12— but typically most times, you’re going to limit these to under 6. This system uses a simple 2d6, Roll Under, which I find to be liberating as a Game Master. I don’t have to think about Target Numbers to see if a Player does the thing.
I’ve played this system for the last twentyish years now. I was truly excited when the Third Edition was set to come out in 2007 - 2008, but the company had some financial issues, and suffered a bit of a scandal, bankruptcy, and ultimately closed up shop. I did eventually get the Third Edition, and it was a vast improvement over the Second Revised Edition, namely with the reworking of the dice mechanics to using a more intuitive Roll Over mechanic (although, I later found that I tend to struggle with this), and the addition of Gear Building mechanics and Templates for different races and occupations— Classes. As much as I adored working with the Third Version, it definitely had it’s share of flaws. And during the time between 2008 and 2020, behind the scenes, the author of this system, Mark Mackinnon, was quietly getting his second wind.
Sometime during or immediately after the whole Covid crap, Mr. MacKinnon restarted his passion for this game system, with the creation of Dyskami, and published a Fourth Edition of the Big Eyes Small Mouth rule book. Despite all the scandal associated with the Third Edition, I was still excited to see my beloved system make a come back, and quickly purchased every book available. Even as older books from the Guardians of Order publication were released, I purchased those as well.
One question I’m asked about, is why do I continue to support this man, this company, rebrand, whatever you wish to call Dyskami with all the drama that happened regarding the Third Edition release? And my answer is twofold. First, I truly enjoy the system. It’s flexible and fairly fast. Besides, I’ve invested years of my life into mastering it. But secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I support a man whom is trying to pursue a dream. Mark has a dream, whether it’s motivated by making a shit-ton of cash, or just a passion to provide an awesome game environment to replicate our favorite anime series, doesn’t matter to me. Mark is an inspiration to me, much as other TTRPG (tabletop role playing game) publishers are, because someday, I hope to be counted among my heroes as a publisher too.
Now let’s talk game.
Now for the true reason why I’ve decided to finally get off my butt and write something today! I stumbled across my copy of Big Eyes Small Mouth Second Edition RETRO— a rewriting of the original Second Edition book I initially found so many years ago in that comic book shop. This version expands upon that original second edition, combining some of the Fourth Edition mechanics with the Second Edition content. What I love about this version over the Fourth Edition is that it still uses a Roll Under mechanic, but also adds the ease of Templates that were introduced in the Third Edition.
Anyway, as I’m sitting here with my PUMC (Plot Unfolding Machine Companion) fired up and ready to go, I’ve been unsatisfied with attempting to play using Traveller or Cypher System. The problem I’ve discovered is that the character concepts I have are complex. Traveller allows for on-the-fly character generation. So my concept probably gets overridden. Cypher System is a great system, but it doesn’t work very well for complex characters that have multiple themes, like my cast of Magical Misfits. However, with my experience of BESM, I feel confident that I can build my characters using this system, and more importantly, explore the world I’ve had sitting in the dark recesses of my brain for months now.
So who exactly am I trying to create? Allow me to introduce my five misfits:
Hikari Amaterasu, a naive, young Solar mage who over-kills everything. She’s my primary antagonist.
Quinn Harper, inspired from Colonel Jack O’Neil from StarGate SG-1. He’s an older guy, just wants to retire, and has a coffee addiction. His primary power is Time Manipulation, and has the unfortunate curse of gender transformation to activate his powers.
Matilda Weber, born in a small town somewhere in rural Germany is a gothic/emo girl. Yes, she looks underage, despite being 27 years old. She’s actually a vampire, who not only excels at Necromancy, but loves heavy weapons. Death is kinda her thing.
Avery Fairchild III, is the wealthy bookworm brat of some high-class nobility. She’s a technical genius, perhaps even a Technomancer— I haven’t committed a decision on this just yet.
Kai Hart is one of the newer members of the team, a psy-powered martial artist who has embraced toxic positivity, and is gender-fluid. Their personality abruptly changes as quickly as their identity does.
With the cast loosely defined now, I can get a bit into the setting. These magical girls are a part of an ultra elite military organization designated to protect Earth from all sorts of troublesome invaders and other critters. Just like in most typical anime, of course. But these five are classified as misfits for reasons. This game focuses on absurd comedy— in fact, if you’ve read any of my other work, you may recognize these five characters, because I’ve already started a fictional story involving them. So why create a role playing game featuring these same characters? Well, I want to explore their personalities outside of pure creative fiction. I’m kind of treating this game as a warm-up exercise to get my creative juices flowing again, because I do miss writing fiction. But right now, with so much utter horrible shit going on in the world— in my own backyard, I can’t concentrate on the longer form writing that I started out doing. I feel that role playing, even if only in a solo environment could allow me to take baby steps back into the realm of my twisted imagination.
I’ve set up my PUMC environment so that I can use these same five characters across a variety of role playing systems. My plan is to recreate these characters in different role playing systems, perhaps play a little in these different systems, without needing to recreate the entire world, locations, all the things needed to do to set up a game. One way or another, I plan to learn the 200+ role playing systems I have purchased that are just sitting idly on my hard drive. BESM Retro is only the first that I’m going to experiment with.
I also need to become more comfortable with the PUMC environment too. Because as much as I’d like to just publish my game using my online forum, I don’t think right now is a good time to utilize that platform. Especially since there’s not really anybody interested in participating in my role playing discussions. It’s depressing hoping online to see I’m the only person active on my forum day after day. Using PUMC, I don’t have that distraction. Furthermore, since I had to downgrade my phone package recently, I no longer have unlimited internet access, and PUMC works completely offline.
In closing, because I know I’m rambling now, I will say that burnout is a total bitch. I miss my hobbies. I miss having the energy to enjoy my life. Burnout totally leads into depression. And I know I suffer from Seasonal Blues, so that doesn’t help either. So, I’m going to try to play my old favorite in a new way (BESM Revised vs Retro, Forum vs PUMC) and hope for the best.