Free Role Playing Game Supplement Review: BESM Primer – Fourth Edition

BESM Primer – Fourth Edition by Mark MacKinnon is a role playing game supplement published by Dyskami Publishing Company. The supplement is an introduction to the Fourth Edition of BESM – Big Eyes, Small Mouth; named after a drawing style seen in anime and manga. BESM Naked – Fourth Edition and BESM Fourth Edition are much larger versions of the game.

The supplement is available as a 16-page PDF for free from DriveThruRPG. One page is the front cover and one the front matter.

The Introduction explains what a role playing game is and how BESM games are structured.

Character Basics has different power levels for campaigns, form a level described (possibly poorly) as Sub-Human, which would be small animals, young teens and children and wee creatures, up to Godlike, which is pretty much what it sounds like. This means a wide variety of campaign styles can be used.

Templates has two example templates of two different power levels.

Stats explains that there are three stats – this is the Tri-Stat System, after all.

Attributes are a character’s abilities and this includes a table of such with descriptions and costs.

Customisation does what it says, explains how to customise characters with Enhancements and Limiters.

Defects are problems and vulnerabilities that characters have.

Derived Values are those that are derived from the three stats; combat value, health and energy.

Action is on taking actions. BESM uses 2d6 to determine outcomes.

Determining Success is how to work out if a roll is successful and opposed rolls.

Rolling Dice explains what is rolled for.

Combat has an overview of this.

Damage is how damage is inflicted and recovered.

BESM Primer – Fourth Edition in Review

The PDF is bookmarked with the major sections linked. Navigation is decent. The text maintains a two-column colour format and appeared to be free of errors. There were some colour illustrations that are probably custom for the new edition. Presentation is decent.

This is a primer for what looks like a comparatively simple game intended to allow playing anime and manga campaigns across a wide range of genres, from friendly animals up to beings that shake the universe. The full versions are both significantly longer than this, which only covers the basics. It does appear to have enough to play the game, but it looks like it lacks GM advice of all kinds and the wider range of options found in the larger supplements. What this primer looks like it does is help you decide if you want to splash out on either of the complete versions, and that it appears to do. BESM Primer – Fourth Edition is an introduction to the game and it can be downloaded for free by clicking here.