Fudge RPG - Fudge vs BESM

Issues? I'm curious as to what they are. I, too, have BESM2.


>From: Carl D Cravens 
>Reply-To: fudge@phoenyx.net
>To: fudge@phoenyx.net
>Subject: FUDGE: Fudge vs BESM
>Date: Tue, 17 Apr 2001 13:56:57 cst
>
>On Tue, 17 Apr 2001, The White Crow wrote:
>
> > And BESM is perfect for what it does.  It would be one thing to compete
> > against the Fuzion anime games that came before BESM, but BESM...well, 
>you
> > could do anime in Fudge just as well, but I'm not sure how you'd do
> > better.
>
>I *really* got interested in BESM2 recently.  To the point that I was
>almost convinced to abandon Fudge as my primary "universal" system because
>BESM doesn't have to be "anime" and is becoming very popular for
>superheroic roleplaying.  (It tastes like a very simple Champions in a lot
>of ways.)  But after some serious review, I find that it doesn't quite fit
>together.  The rules are somewhat kludgey because they tried to cram every
>power into six levels, resulting in Light Armor (2.5 points of defense per
>level at a cost of 1 point/level) and Heavy Armor (10 points per level at
>a cost of 4 points per level).  They're completely identical in
>per-defense-point costs and the way they work, but they're two completely
>separate "powers" in different (alphabetical) sections of the book.  If
>you want ten points of defense, you take Heavy Armor Level 1.  If you want
>12 points of defense, you take Heavy Armor Level 1 and Light Armor Level
>1.
>
>Own a Big Mecha costs 4 points per level and gets you 20 Mecha Points per
>level.  And if you only want 25 Mecha Points, you buy OBM Level 2 (40
>Mecha Points) and sell back 15 Mecha Points for 3 character points.  That
>is, Mecha Points cost 1 character point per 5 Mecha Points, but they
>kludge it up to make it fit.
>
>But if you want Weapon Attack, it comes in 15-damage-point increments and
>I can't find any place where you can change that.  (When the average
>character has 40 health points, 15 point increments is a lot.  Especially
>when you can buy armor in 2.5 point increments.)
>
>Overall, I'm very impressed with the simple design.  But I'm somewhat
>disappointed in the details of execution.  As someone pointed out earlier,
>a stat of 4 is human average, but they fail an "easy" task on a six or
>greater on 2d6... far more than 50% of the time.  Defense rolls are
>independent of your attacker's skill... dodging a mook's blow and a
>swordmaster's blow are equally easy.  I figured if I can fix all the
>little things that bug me, I might as well fix all the little things that
>bug me about Fudge.  And I can't publish games based on BESM without a
>license. :)
>
>So I've decided to stick with Fudge and use some of the things I've
>learned from BESM to finally complete the superhero supplement I've
>wanted.  BESM helped me focus on what I do and don't want out of a game.
>
>(I still have some minor issues with Fudge, but I think I can resolve
>them now.  Some of my issues have been meta-issues... lack of support and
>popularity, some of us basically playing different games even though we
>all call it Fudge, etc.)
>
>--
>Carl D Cravens (raven@phoenyx.net)                    Fudge List Owner
>     [                     Trim Your Quotes!                     ]
>I *wish* I could remember where I parked my hard disk.
>
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