Intentional ambiguity and Big Eyes Small Mouth

[John Burdick]

In response to Chris Lehrich mentioning the idea of ambiguity as a virtue in a game, I suggested that Big Eyes, Small Mouth (BESM) offers a kind of structured ambiguity. Bricolage APPLIED (finally!) I'm starting this thread with the first edition; I'm also going to follow up with how selected books later in the line detailed aspects that had been left open.

Many games written in the early years of role playing feature open-ended ambiguous rules. Over time, designers tried to make games more complete and consistent. BESM was successful in a recent market already filled with complete, mature games. While the the trendy theme of anime was certainly part of that, anime themed games based on systems such as Fuzion were offered in the same time period with much less success. BESM developed a following as a fun game for players regardless of their interest in anime. Maybe the ambiguity engineered out of contemporary mainstream games added value.

I'm looking at Big Eyes, Small Mouth: A Universal Japanese Anime Role-Playing Game by Mark MacKinnon second printing April 1998.

The formal part of the character sheet consists of three Stats (Body Mind Soul), four derived traits, Character Attributes, and Character Defects. Health Points are derived from Body and Soul. Energy Points are derived from Mind and Soul. Attack Combat Value and Defense Combat Value are both derived from the average of the three stats and modified by Attributes. The action resolution system involves rolling under one of the stats, an average of 2 or 3 Stats, or one of the Combat Values on 2d6 plus difficulty modifiers.

The only benchmarks for the Stats are a table with entries like "1 Inept" and "9 Best in the land". The difficulty modifiers table has entries like "-1 Easy" or "+1 Slightly Difficult". No effort is made to tie any of this to fixed standards. The GM is encouraged to make the the difficulty fit the specifics of the character attempting the action.

The importance given to the Soul Stat is one of the things making this an anime game. It is quite reasonable to beat a stronger, faster, better trained opponent because you have more heart.

Attributes include trivial mechanical advantages such as increasing Health Points. A few attributes serve as pseudo-skills. They aren't exactly skills because they don't have a determined effect on action resolution. Acrobatics has effects like "Level 1 Knows a wide range of basic acrobatic manoeuvres." The largest portion of the Attributes cover powers:

Special Attack: "Level 5 +5 to Attack Combat Value, plus a very powerful special attack effect."
Shape Change: "Level 5 Can morph very quickly into anything of comparable size at will, with full control over the new form."

The Unique Character Attribute exists to include within the rule text all custom Attributes. "This section covers any and all Character Attributes not detailed above that an anime character might possess." The rules for Unique Character Attribute include "Level 1 Little character or game effect."

Defects include things like Awkward: "1 BP Generally clumsy and accident prone.", Cursed: "1 BP The character suffers from a small disadvantage.", and Unique Character Defect: "This section covers any and all Character Defects not detailed above that an anime character might possess."

Given rules that include "any and all Character Attributes not detailed above", one can consider the rules to cover just about anything you want to play. Since even the specific rules included don't specify what they really do, players need to extend the system informally to make anything work.

Three pages after "what is role-playing" I find a 7 step check list to make a character. The check list looks like a well defined procedure we've seen in many other games. There are a total of three optional rules, all contained on a single page in the back. Everything looks simple and ready to play. The character sheet has the three Stats laid out in a triangle, with the derived numbers at visually suggestive locations on the triangle.

There is the usual "Don't obsess about the rules. Every GM has his or her individual style when running a game. If your GM wants to play "fast and loose" with the system, go with the flow." The unusual aspect of this advice is the lack of strict rules to cling to. When I was kid, I ruined a basic D&D game by nagging the GM into using the rule for falling damage. This edition of BESM has no rule for falling damage other than GM assessment. While running a game, there are almost no answers to be found by looking in the book. How long after loosing all your HP do you die? "... an appropriately dramatic length of time." The book is full of rules formally telling the GM to improvise.

We'd like to read about experiences playing BESM, particularly the first edition or early variants like the Sailor Moon Role-Playing Game and Resource Book.

John

[Callan S.]

Hi John,

Ah, have you read Rifts at all? Very similar, except a lot of ambugity is held in each character class (and there are a lot of classes)

I've actually been thinking on similar lines recently (though I couldn't get into the bricolage thread).

I'm going to pitch this as sim style exploration, but at a smaller scale than you might normally use. Now, at a normal scale you might have a conflict which you wish to explore. You might wish to find out what happens when the mind controllers clash with the high tech tank guys about a mutually desired resource. Of course, how it all ends up can be in a wide number of ways.

Okay, you want to explore what happens there (it's exploration could be part of any CA, really). But when the players start calling up rules/powers (to deal with sub conflicts which are part of that main conflict), you run into the ambiguity inherant in those rules. You'll have to work out what happens. More importantly, you'll have to explore these rules/powers. Since thier ambiguous, how this exploration ends could be in a wide number of ways.

Notice how the exploration of the mind controllers Vs tank guys, and the exploration of power X vs sub conflict Y, are the same at a certain structural level? In fact, it will steal the lime light from the main conflict and instead these sub conflicts become the main conflict that people focus on exploring. Certainly, the book is supporting players being curious about their powers and pursuing answers on them, rather than supporting curiosity about your story and pursuing answers to that. They shift the focus of the group (system mattering).

If you take it that exploring these rules/powers are like exploring the mind controllers Vs the tank guys situation, then the reason all these rules are interesting, why their ambiguity is enjoyed, is that there are hundreds of things to explore there. It's less a rule book and instead a campaign book. The rules don't shape play...they are a 'story' to explore. If you can like this stuff like you might enjoy the mind controller Vs tank guy conflict, then there are hundreds of stories waiting to against other stories, in lots of variations. It's just like white wolf or other games where they detail clans or corporations and their attitudes and how they might be interesting to explore. These rules arn't just rules, but basically the same thing.