Wise Turtle Publishing

Greetings

A few people from RPG.net forums pointed me here. I am always on the quest to find that role-playing game that is right for me. I have several hundred rpg products and I play them solitaire using "Mythic Role Playing". I just can not find that right system that fits me but PDQ's "T&J" & "ZoZ" came close as well as D6's "Star Wars 2nd Edition Revised Expanded". But still no true love.

I am looking for a core rules that is fast play, does not get in the way of the story, and does not have lots of rules to siphon through, and can handle "homebrews" being added to the rules reeeaal easy.

Questions now:
1 - Is this a product that can be played with universal genres (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, pulp, wild-west, etc.) and not just anime? Also can it handle multi-genre settings & adventures at the same time?
2 - Does OVA use an abstract range, time, & speed system? I hate games that say my Uzi has a short range of 1-7m; it takes 3 seconds of time to play a round of combat; & the car goes 86 mph with a handling of 6 plus attribute plus skill + dice roll etc.
3 - Are there "how to use and design vehicles" discussed in OVA?
4 - Is there a sample "Beastery" list? Or is there discussions on how to design NPCs and beasts. I want a very fast NPC building system, possibly a stat or two at most and "out the door she goes".
5 - Is there an official OVA setting or setting suggestions in the product?
6 - Can OVA be used to play super-heroes and average citizens at the same time?
7 - I do not want a system that has to play with minitures to work out combat. I hope OVA does not make use of minitures in any fashion as I can just save my money and use my "Savage Worlds".
8 - Is the pdf printer friendly?
9 - If I purchase OVA now there is not going to be released a revised or 2nd edition in six months and the original I bought is outdated?
10 - Is there anything else you can tell me that will sale me on purchasing "Open Versatile Anime Role-Playing Game"?

EDIT: I forgot to ask about the magic, Psionic, and Psychic powers? I hope they are fast, loose and not complicated. Are they included in the core OVA?

Hi Doc. Welcome to OVA. I'll answer what I can for you, but more official answers may be on the way from Clay himself.


Questions now:
1 - Is this a product that can be played with universal genres (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, pulp, wild-west, etc.) and not just anime? Also can it handle multi-genre settings & adventures at the same time?

Yep. I'm actually running a fantasy adventure, a sci-fi mecha adventure, and a modern arcana adventure, all using the same system. It is just as easy to mix genres as well, going by all the sample characters you have in the book.

2 - Does OVA use an abstract range, time, & speed system? I hate games that say my Uzi has a short range of 1-7m; it takes 3 seconds of time to play a round of combat; & the car goes 86 mph with a handling of 6 plus attribute plus skill + dice roll etc.

Abstract. There are no set ranges, movement speeds, or even actual equipment. Everything is created using attributes, weaknesses, perks and flaws.

3 - Are there "how to use and design vehicles" discussed in OVA?

Not as such, but Clay is working on OVA Mecha, and there are a few mecha design ideas here on the forums.

4 - Is there a sample "Beastery" list? Or is there discussions on how to design NPCs and beasts. I want a very fast NPC building system, possibly a stat or two at most and "out the door she goes".

NPC creation is just as fast as PC creation, as all you are doing is creating a description and using that to add attributes and weaknesses based on that description. There's not really a bestiary, though its not hard to build.

5 - Is there an official OVA setting or setting suggestions in the product?

Not really. OVA is generic at this point, however there are suggestions for type and genres.

6 - Can OVA be used to play super-heroes and average citizens at the same time?

Yep. It's simple to create powerful heroes while keeping regular people regular.

7 - I do not want a system that has to play with minitures to work out combat. I hope OVA does not make use of minitures in any fashion as I can just save my money and use my "Savage Worlds".

Nope. No minis. In fact, you can play out combat without ever having to set up a map, much less pull out minis and such.

8 - Is the pdf printer friendly?

Nope. Graphic intensive, and very colorful if you want to go that route (It is definately the way to go though).

9 - If I purchase OVA now there is not going to be released a revised or 2nd edition in six months and the original I bought is outdated?

Actually, Clay just released a revised edition, so I don't think you need to worry about that for now.

10 - Is there anything else you can tell me that will sale me on purchasing "Open Versatile Anime Role-Playing Game"?

D6 only, very simple rules to read through and learn, simple but detailed character creation, very abstract rules for combat and chases, and very easy to adapt to any genre. That's pretty much all you need to know.

11.I forgot to ask about the magic, Psionic, and Psychic powers? I hope they are fast, loose and not complicated. Are they included in the core OVA?

Very nice rules, although they can be a little difficult to grasp because of their flexibility. Plenty of examples of how to use them here on the forums though.

Hope that helps. I'm pretty much recommending this system to everyone that will listen, as it has suited me well since I started using it. While I like Savage Worlds, this system is much more dynamic and smooth in its play, allowing for more roleplay rather than rollplay.

-Erich

Doc Halloween wrote: I am looking for a core rules that is fast play, does not get in the way of the story, and does not have lots of rules to siphon through, and can handle "homebrews" being added to the rules reeeaal easy.

I’ve certainly found OVA a good system for spur of the moment one-shots.

Doc Halloween wrote: Questions now:

Lots of questions – I’ll do my best to answer, but you should keep in mind that I’m just a customer who rather likes the game, and not in any way official.

Doc Halloween wrote: 1 - Is this a product that can be played with universal genres (horror, sci-fi, fantasy, pulp, wild-west, etc.) and not just anime? Also can it handle multi-genre settings & adventures at the same time?

Sci-fi, fantasy and pulp are sort of native genres for the game. Horror might require some additional rules, like a sanity or fear system. Wild West might be possible, but would take extreme restraint in character creation and gun fights would be a little on the abstract side.

Doc Halloween wrote: 2 - Does OVA use an abstract range, time, & speed system? I hate games that say my Uzi has a short range of 1-7m; it takes 3 seconds of time to play a round of combat; & the car goes 86 mph with a handling of 6 plus attribute plus skill + dice roll etc.

Abstract, definitely abstract. Really, weapons and attacks are either ranged or they are not, and that’s it. Instead of speeds, you have difficulties: so, if a character wants to run through a doorway before another, instead of measuring distances and comparing them to speed, it’d be an opposed roll, modified by such advantages and disadvantages as quick, super-speed, slow, etc. If they wanted to through the door before an explosion, it would be a check against a fixed difficulty.

Doc Halloween wrote: 3 - Are there "how to use and design vehicles" discussed in OVA?

Not very much. There’s a couple of notes on mecha design (you design them pretty much like characters), but that it. There’s some on this board, and a hopefully a mecha expansion coming early next year.

Doc Halloween wrote: 4 - Is there a sample "Bestiary" list? Or is there discussions on how to design NPCs and beasts. I want a very fast NPC building system, possibly a stat or two at most and "out the door she goes".

There are no sample monsters, but there are rules for building character type opponents that come in three strengths, and some examples. I’ve found it pretty easy to throw together opposition so far.

Doc Halloween wrote: 5 - Is there an official OVA setting or setting suggestions in the product?

Not really (I mean, it’s an anime system, but given that anime is a medium that covers multiple genres, that’s not very specific).

Doc Halloween wrote: 6 - Can OVA be used to play super-heroes and average citizens at the same time?

Yes, if you mean they both can be spec’ed in the system. It doesn’t have the support that, say the Buffy the Vampire Slayer RPG has for playing both in the same party.

Doc Halloween wrote: 7 - I do not want a system that has to play with minitures to work out combat. I hope OVA does not make use of minitures in any fashion as I can just save my money and use my "Savage Worlds".

It would take significant modification to use OVA with minatures -- so no fears there!

Doc Halloween wrote: 8 - Is the pdf printer friendly?

I can’t help you there -- I have the standard and the color print editions, but never bothered with the PDFs (I have bunches, but really prefer print when possible).

Doc Halloween wrote: 9 - If I purchase OVA now there is not going to be released a revised or 2nd edition in six months and the original I bought is outdated?

Based on the revision history, I’d say you’re safe. So far, all that’s happened is occasional errata and eventually Clay is supposed to release some supplements (Mecha and Fantasy), but I’d say the core rules look finished.

Doc Halloween wrote: 10 - Is there anything else you can tell me that will sale me on purchasing "Open Versatile Anime Role-Playing Game"?

It’s a lot of fun? Oh, and the default character is actually compedent. You get two dice in an attempt to so something even without an appropriate advantage.

I also like the fact that skills, abilities and feats/edges/etc. are all treated the same.

Doc Halloween wrote: EDIT: I forgot to ask about the magic, Psionic, and Psychic powers? I hope they are fast, loose and not complicated. Are they included in the core OVA?

There are three types of magic, and all of them are dead simple: Arcane magic allows you to burn endurance to reproduce advantages and attacks, Witchcraft allows you to burn endurance to place curses (disadvantages), and Occult Knowledge allows you to summon things. There are also a handful of psychic power advantages. They’re all pretty simple, and mostly leverage the character creation rules.

Now, to balance these answers, a couple of drawbacks:

• Character creation requires careful GM oversight. It is fairly easy to create a broken character in this system, which is (in my opinion), an inevitable consequence of its completeness for covering all of the primary anime genres.
• Some players find the arithmetic in combat (addition and multiplication) annoying.

Hope this helps!

Cha Ching $ $ Cha Ching

I am sold There is a few negatives but more positives for the product.

Thank you very much Beli & Father of Dragons for those very lengthy and thorough responses. I appreciate you both taking your time and effort to answer my questions Thank you.

No worries, Doc.

While this may not be the most active board on the net, it is by far one of the friendlier ones. The players who deal with OVA are very passionate about the system, and Clay is very open to ideas and thoughts about his product and seems to encourage us to push his system as hard as we can.

I haven't seen it break too many times yet.

I can agree with FoD that character development can get out of hand, and GMs should watch that, or use it to their advantage if they want to give you that much ammunition.

Well, it seems the great fans here have already addressed most of your questions! I really hope you find that you enjoy the game after purchasing it.

Some notes others did not touch on.

Regarding revised editions: Any updates to the game will be available to you for free. Simply visit your account and redownload the product. Announcements of updates will appear on wiseturtle.com and these forums. You can also click a button where you purchased the product to notify you of any updates.

Regarding printer friendliness: It is not friendly to printers at all, and I've heard several stories about PCs barely choking out the document at length. That said, the entire document is text-selectable. If you see a passage you would like printed, you can simply copy-paste it to your word processor of choice and go from there.

Regarding settings: Each genre book will have two packed-in settings for your use.

Regarding purchasing the book in print: RPGNow no longer offers Print on Demand services at this time. If you wish to find the book in print, please visit online RPG stores (like RPGshop.com), ebay, or your local game shop. The book is technically out of print, but copies are still floating around.

Hope that helps!

Doc,

I just wanted to chime in that I think OVA is one of the coolest "little" games that I own. For me, the nicest part is the "Versatile" bit. I've been able to tweak and bend and add concepts to the core without it all coming apart on me. I'm the kind of guy who likes to port over best of breed concepts to my games and OVA lets me do that. And besides that, it's one of my wife's favorites so I don't have to twist her arm too badly to get a game going.

Hope that helps. I'm pretty much recommending this system to everyone that will listen, as it has suited me well since I started using it. While I like Savage Worlds, this system is much more dynamic and smooth in its play, allowing for more roleplay rather than rollplay????

Wow, that was a blast from the past.

It's laborious to seek out knowledgeable folks on this topic, but you sound like you already know what youre talking about! Thanks