[Dan Davenport]

Originally Posted by proseusr

First of all, thanks, Dan, for taking the time to playtest and review RandomAnime!

My pleasure!

I think this is a fair review overall, and many of the snags you've run into are things we're aware of ourselves and have worked to address in our supplements. Obviously, I'd argue with you on some points, but the point of a review is to give your own take on the material as you received it, and not necessarily as the creators intended it to be received. Years of playing the game since its publication have really refined our approach to designing and writing this stuff, and I assure you we're our own worst critics, if you'll pardon the cliche. Of course some difficulties, like gimmick selection, become much less of a problem once you're more familiar with the choices the game presents. This must be true of any game to some extent, and whether that's really a problem or not is a matter of opinion, I guess.

Certainly, but please feel free to argue any points you like. I won't take offense, I promise!

There's just one apparently serious inaccuracy in your review I'd like to correct. As far as I can tell, in your description of the Sempai background you seem to be under the impression that the extra Bonus Points granted by levels of the background are given to your own character. This is not the case, and if it were it would be just about the worst posible case of abusable min-maxing I could imagine for the game. In fact, those Bonus Points are given to the character's sempai, who is a completely separate NPC created and controlled by the Narrator. A character's sempai is, pretty much by definition, someone who's more capable than the character himself, and the background level determines just how much more capable he or she is by granting the Narrator extra Bonus Points with which to create the sempai NPC. I hope that helps clear up some confusion.

Ah... that does make more sense. Thanks for correcting me on that. And yes, I was (mis)reading the description as meaning that the levels in Sempai provided extra Bonus Points to reflect the extra training the Sempai had given the character.

As we've discussed at length on the rpg.net forums, some other issues, such as dealing with Barrier, super strength, and energy-based gimmicks, really boil down to the Narrator understanding and controlling the implications of the game's mechanics. I think it's perfectly fair to point out these implications as possible problems if you see them that way. They certainly will be problematic if players don't work with them (or omit them) in a way that's appropriate to the game they're running.

Absolutely. That's why I made sure to stress that the game may be perfect for someone who doesn't see these issues as limitations, or, if they do, if they aren't bothered by them.

I suppose that's why it's relatively rare for me to give a game an outright <u>bad</u> rating -- for that, I think I'd have to be looking at a game that both fails at what it sets out to do (IMO) <u>and</u> is seriously broken or lacking in some way. <b>RandomAnime</b> is neither of those things.

As always, I welcome further discussion or even debate of any game design and mechanics issues, here, on our own forums, or wherever. We actually enjoy this stuff!

The hallmark of a classy industry pro.
<br>