In 1998, Guardians of Order released the fisrt edition of Big Eyes Small Mouth. Written by Mark C. Mckinnon and using his Tri-Stat rules system, the game was intended as a simple, fast paced anime RPG that was capable of being used to simulate any genre of anime from fantasy to romantic comedy. The rules were scarce and caused GM to rely much on their own interpretations, but the game caught own. Something about the simpleness of it's rules, yet the ability of those rules to cover many bases made it appealing. It was not made to be a RPG with rules for every occasion, and in fact, the book actually recommnded to use another system if that was what a GM was wanting. The book stated that it was a simple game made to fit in with the fast and loose style of most anime when it came to non-plot line details. Like most anime, BESM stressed character interaction and development over rules and restrictions, and indeed, many in those days ran it as a diceless system, which it also handles quite well.

The ability of this small (The original book was only 96 pages.) set of rules to cover so much ground and in such a simple way lead to great success for Guaridans of Order.

BESM First Edition

Front Cover

Back Cover

The book was written by Mark C. Mckinnon and released by Gurdians of Order in 1998. It spawned two source books of it's own ("Big Robots Cool Starships" and "Hot Rods and Gunbunnies") that expanded the game with simple, yet comprehsive mecha and combat rules respectively. It also was the source of several liscensed products. The books was 98 pages long, and had a retail price of 15.95 US money. It later got a second edition in July 2000.



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