Hi

I was looking at this as something different to play that would make a nice change to Warhammer and Dark Heresy (two systems that are both great fun, but when you get right down to it, very similar). What is Anima all about? And is there a pre-written campaign in the core book to help us on our first steps?

Thanks

Errr.. it's hard to explain what is Anima about... You can find some info here and here and also in some discussion thread on Anima board here , a review of the corebook here . And there you can find "Nightmare become true" , a fan-made introductory kit with a little rules review and an adventure. (didn't read it so I don't know if it's good or not).

To sum up, I can say that Anima is a fantasy RPG, inspired by mangas and video games as Final Fantasy for example. The world is very interesting, full of plots, big ennemies, secrets and weird things. It seems to be "low fantasy", as the world's inhabitants doesn't know that some supernatural things exists, and there is the Inquisition to forbid every supernatural stuff or beings (wizards etc.). But, in reality, Gaia is a very fantasy world.

It's not really medieval-fantasy, because some places are inspired by middle-age, others by Renaissance, etc. sometimes it can even reach Industrial Revolution for scientific level.

The rules are very good (in my opinion ^^), because you can customize your character, build it as you want, very freely. They use a d100, and a combat chart (quite as in Rolemaster, but Anima rules are very, very lighter than Rolemaster). They are 4 types of supernatural powers : psionic, magic, summoning and Ki (very visual combat technics, you can custom build it for your character).

For GM, in Anima you can play every gaming style : epic fighting, dark intrigues, worldwide political plots, even dungeon crawling or Indiana Jones exploration if you want, Cthuluh style horror game, whatever game style you like, you can do it.

If you got bore of Archwizards, orcs and gobelins, drows and dungeons, Anima is made for you, because it will change you gaming horizons a lot. Gaia is a fresher world, with only humans and a very interesting setting, a new way to consider fantasy RPG.

So, I hope you'll like it And sorry, there's no official campain (and there's no planned in the future, only an adventure compendium, in longer term future). With the GM screen (out in France and Spain, next release in english I think), there's a booklet with new rules, 20 pregen characters and a very very good official adventure.

PS : If you can read french or spanish, there's a lot a things I can give you to discover Anima.

Cool Thanks for that!

Sounds really interesting! I've printed out the Nightmare become true pack and will put it towards my gaming group when we next meet.

Unfortunately my Spainish is non-exsistant and only spoke French at school which was a about 10 years ago so isn't the best in the world!

Anyone know if the GM screen will be available from FFG?

I think I've heard that FFG plans to release GM's screen, but I don't know when... It should be the next release I think.

In France we waited for 3 or 4 month between the corebook and the GM's screen, I hope you'll need to wait for less time !

I wish I was more worldly with my languages. I needed Polish for an RPG book a few years ago and my French is way-way out of date. My Russian and Bosnian is more current but I haven't seen an RPG book out of either of those nations for a while.

If I get in to the game (when I buy the book next month!) I'll be in the business of making my own screen.

A-S

I may have to pick up a copy of the french GM screen. My french isn't that spectacular, but it's good enough...well good enough for a clueless american, anyway (A number of years ago I bought a fantastic french WWI wargame, so if I can manage wargame rules en français I suppose a GM screen wouldn't be that difficult).

Does anyone have a suggestion for a french games retailer that might be willing to ship internationally?

Time to do some Google searches. There are some restrictions on some products (namely Macross with Harmony Gold) that doesn't allow stuff to be distributed or sold to the States.

Cheers, A-S

http://www.edgeent.com/v2_fr/edge_tienda_detalle.asp?etidi=1006

Edge (Anima editor in France) sells everywhere, but I know from a Canadian friend that the extra cost for shipping is very high. And beware of the high euro ^^

The GM's screen is not only a screen, but also a 60 pages full-color booklet with new advantages/disavantages, new rules, 20 pre-gen characters and a 30 pages uber cool official adventure

But feel free to make your own screen with tables you think necessary, because I don't really think that the tables they choose are really useful... (they choose Traps but there's no table for critical hits effects... for example). I needed to make another file with some other tables to complete my screen.

Anyway, if you have some troubles translating from french, don't mind to ask me (or Moklo) here, we'll help you ^^

I usually like to make my own screens and I use Microsoft or Adobe "something" to throw those together. Sometimes re-typing the numbers gets to be a little rough. After that, off to the local print shop and get it laminated and creased. I'm not a graphic designer but I like playing around with maps and ginning together new things.

I should probably get away from the forums for a while since I'm getting worked up in to a lather and I can do very little about it at this time. It hurts to be a penniless grad student.

A-S

I don't know where the FFG Anima books are producted, but in Spain and France, we had a serious problem with the binding of some books. So, copying your books could probably torn apart some pages....

I bought Anima as soon as I saw it in my local store and I fell in love. It's a beautiful book in my opinion. I have to agree that is it a fresher rules light system that offers something for everyone. I fell in love with the game and it took me three days to read the phole book cover to cover (my fastest read by far). I,m very excited about potential future products from this line and this game is fast moving up my top 5 list.

Ysalaine said:

I was in the business of being a scanner technician for a company that transferred books to microfiche. I'm pretty good at imaging so it probably won't be too much of an issue. I can also retype anything that I want for a screen to Publisher or Illustrator and go completely from scratch.

A-S

thanks for the rundown !

I've played four sessions now, and I'm thoroughly enjoying it. A lot of us have been talking about how clunky the rules may or may not be. My opinion at this point is that after one full session, assuming everyone has read the rules, things should run pretty smoothly.

The setting is very interesting. Even though it doesn't drop plot ideas right into the GMs lap, it's easy to read briefly through the location and organization descriptions and come away with lots of ideas for adventures.

I also made myself a GM screen. It's currently 6 pages long. I use Microsoft Publisher for my screens (as well as my character sheet), and like it quite a lot. I recommend people check out Publisher.

Maybe you coul "publish" your creations here ... ^^