OVA: The Anime Tabletop Game!

dropbox.com/s/tve1j5ewm0f7zfq/OVA Revised.pdf?dl=0

Well, Veeky Forums, how is it? GM wants to run this and this rulebook is...something else.

>Said happily to my players "create a character for the OVA one shot"
>session day, see character sheets: The fucking Avatar, Gambito, A wind elemental martial artist, A guy with a sword and demon powers, a black american guy
>all of them could fly
>say fuck it you are in an island and a bunch of t-rex with miniguns attack you
>after they kill the t-rex a battle royale starts, gambito killed about 2 players and had a long keikku dori fight with the wind master
>the american guy launched a nuke in the island
>cries while the american flag waves in the background

It was retarded but fun, it could work in a more serious group

My concern is how open ended the rules seem, the rulebook kinda throws a lot of stuff at you and says "talk with your GM to make sense of this".

The game is good, even suffering by the same problem as BESM of "you can break this game easely if your GM don't put his finger."

Characters can be in a well rounded group, but maybe that's not the focus of 80% of the groups out there.

Please learn English properly before posting.

Talk with your players, change abilities as you see

Whoa, hang on there. I want to know where the GM is putting his finger

I'm not the GM, I'm just off-put by all the moments (like character creation/leveling up) where it says that there are no hard rules for it.

These games INVARIABLY suck. I stand by my statement that you cannot make an "Anime RPG" because anime is a visual aesthetic.

Sure you can crowbar in certain story beats and gratuitous Japanese but that doesn't make it "anime."

These games try to treat anime as a "genre" when it is clearly not. Anime is an aesthetic that can be overlayed onto any genre to give it a flavor, but it's simply too broad to warrant a single-genre RPG. These games try to be everything to everyone and, as a result, invariably end up feeling like a poor man's GURPS.

It's bad

Play BESM 2E instead

Sounds like Tekken: The Motion Picture

>Anime is an aesthetic that can be overlayed onto any genre to give it a flavor...
And tha's exactly what this system is... it's just that "OVA, the System for Adding an Anime Aesthetic to Various Other Genres of Roleplaying" doesn't really roll off the tongue all that well.

I like how it handles magical girl-esque transformation. But that's really about it, I wouldn't use it except for a beer and pretzel type of game.

Why some everything cost the same, ever if its utter useless?

Because it's not useless. If you're not in a game that focuses on social stuff, then sure, the social stuff won't help you much... so you don't take it. If you really want it and your GM is okay with it, take it as a Knowledge instead of a normal ability, which costs half as much.

On the other hand, in a setting that focuses on social situations, social abilities are just as powerful as any other, so having them cost less just because they wouldn't be as useful in a different style of game doesn't work.

OVA does not have one set genre, so it needs to have its rules be able to adapt to different settings. It does this by assuming that everything is equally valid in all settings, and that if you're putting ranks into X ability, you know how to make that ability useful for your character given the setting.

There are some genres that are unique to Japanese media. Particularly magical girls and sentai superheroes. However, all "anime" games I have seen just try to be some sort of GURPS-clones with vague "anime" theme.

It's fine. The issue is that the game as a whole is kinda shallow/looser in the mechanics. Like it can't handle big numbers and roll system by design is a bit wonky and obviously you can break the system easily if you try. And this can turn off people who want something a bit more rigorous in design.

I like it and I use it like a more intermediate form of Risus. Good for when you want something somewhat crunchy or just a bit of gaminess but don't want to bust out a heavier system.

I like the create a move thing it has and I find it good for games where that sort of stuff would be fun to have.

Speaking of that are there any other system with a similar power move thing that OVA does?

I know Anima has Ki techs but it's fucking clunky as fuck and same thing goes with Anima in general. Supers systems kinda do it as well but their breadth is obviously focused on a wider range of abilities so it doesn't feel as focused as something dedicated to special attack move building.

I think Fight! do that...

Used It for a Fate/Stay Night game and so far, It works.
With a group that trusts you, you can do some neat things. Instead of letting the players making the special moves, you can prepare them yourself, put them on cards and make a whole labum that can be used for anything.
Materia, mecha load-outs, magical weapons, video-game-like skill tree...
It has some potential

>Its called OVA, which means Original Video Animation
>Uses anime in its name instead of manga, even though there's no animation of any kind.
>Not even Japanese

Might as well call it "The Comic Game"

It doesn't have still drawings of a manga either you autist, it's talking about the "feeling", themes, assumptions and aesthetic of the game.

>The light novel game
who allowed this to happen?

The first pages could be considered manga, because a manga doesn't have to be black and white.
As for the feeling, it's a weird thing to say, because Anime isn't a genre but a form of media. If you mainly watch seinen, like Joker Game or Zipang, I bet this game won't be what you're looking for.

Kinda made me lol, but that's actually the most accurate description.

Downloaded it and took a look. If I'm reading the right stuff for it, BESM does something similar with powers (I play 3E- can't say as to earlier editions). I've always found it to be pretty flexible and customizable, at least for me and my players.

You can still simulate it.
Also "Shounen simulator" is a mouthful

>Anime is an aesthetic

I'd even go so far as saying that this is false; it's not a genre or an aesthetic.

Could be wrong, but I don't think Berserk shares many aesthetic traits with Hello Kitty Animation Theatre.

More of a medium than anything, or a subdivision of a medium.