Let's play Everybody Is John
Everybody Is John is a light-rp game about John. John is a very ordinary fellow. He's not good at anything much, but somehow he always seems to wake up under the worst circumstances, times, and places, like in a bathtub full of organs, or in a board meeting of Tesco, or even around a sputtering campfire as the mammoth-demons close in... which leads to the most important mechanic:
You play as the voices inside poor John's head.
Voices
Voices are the Player Characters of Everyone is John. They are defined by a simple character sheet:
Willpower
Willpower is a pool of points that the Voice can spend to take control of John or improve its chance of success in any given action. Willpower will go down and up a lot in the game, so it might be easier to represent it with tokens rather than numbers on a page. Willpower starts off at 10 for most Voices.
Skills
Each Voice has two or three skills. This is a freeform game, so just write down a short description of the skill, like “Drives well,” or “Good at persuading people.” Most Voices have two skills, but you can have three if you start at 7 Willpower instead of 10.
Obsession
This is kind of like a winning condition: if you complete your obsession more than other Voices complete their obsession, you win. Obsessions come in three grades: Level 1 (pretty easy to accomplish, like “Pigging out on candy”), Level 2 (more difficult or risky, like, “dressing up in women’s clothing and hitting on strangers,”), and Level 3 (nearly impossible to accomplish, like, “Blowing up buildings”). The harder obsessions count more than the easier ones.
If you’re going to seriously compete with the other Voices, you probably should keep your sheet a secret.
Sheets can be PMed to me, or you can trust the honesty of the other players and put it in a spoiler.
John is not terribly competent; he has difficulty with a lot of things that you and I might take for granted. Whenever John attempts anything that an ordinary person might have any chance of failure at, he needs to roll for success.
The Voice who is currently in control of John does the rolling. If that Voice has a skill that covers the challenge, the Voice needs to roll a 3 or higher on the single d6. If it doesn’t have a skill, it needs to roll a 6. However, before the roll, the Voice can spend any number of Willpower points to get a +1 per point spent on the die roll. This can make success automatic.
Becoming the active Voice is a bit of a challenge, though. Whenever John wakes up or gets hurt, a test for control of John happens. Also, whenever the currently active Voice fails a roll or completes its obsession, a test for control of John happens.
When a test for control of John occurs, all of the Voices who are interested simultaneously bid one or more Willpower points (if you’re using tokens for Willpower, it’s easiest for everyone to just hold out the tokens in their closed hands, and then, when everyone’s ready, reveal the number of tokens). Voices don’t have to bid if they don’t want to (and you can hold out zero tokens if you want to fake out the other Voices). The highest number of Willpower becomes the active Voice. If multiple people bid the same highest amount, then they roll off to see who becomes active.
The Voice who becomes active loses the amount of Willpower it bids. All others keep their bids. It’s perfectly acceptible for the previously active Voice to win a bid and remain active.
Whenever John wakes up, the struggle for control of John happens before the GM describes the situation John wakes up into.
John is pretty easily distracted. Whenever nothing exciting is happening for ten minutes or more (such as on a bus ride or the like), the GM should roll a die. On a roll of 4 or higher, John goes to sleep and wakes up whenever (prompting a struggle for control of John). When John naps like this, all of the Voices gain one Willpower.
Play begins with John waking up in the morning (and a test for control of him). The GM then describes the circumstances into which he wakes up. With John, you never can tell. He could be in a gutter somewhere, or he could be in a palatial estate, or anywhere in between. The Voices really have no idea how they ended up here.
At this point, the Voices should start working on fulfilling their obsessions and avoiding getting John killed. Inevitably, their Willpowers will decrease. Once all of the Voices are out of Willpower, John sinks back into sleep, and the game session is over.
At this point, the Voices reveal their obsessions and count up how many times each was filled. Note that it counts for you if someone else is Active and fulfills your obsession.
Now, multiply the number of times you fulfilled your obsession by your obsession’s rank (1, 2, or 3). That’s the number of points you have. Highest number of points wins the game, and, generally speaking, is the GM of the next game of Everyone is John.
Remember - even if you're not in control of John, you can still talk to him and the other voices, and try and persuade them to do things.
Pick a theme for your voice - Hogar the Axeman is much more fun to play than "Obsession: axe murders".
Dramatis Personae:Salsacookiessosoku234TomasqueTinfoilTophat--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
John struggles from slumber, vaguely registering a loud noise in the background. Then he hears them. The voices.
They're back.
It's going to be one of those days again, he thinks, as his consciousness fades out and the gibbering voices coalesced.Bidding for control of John can begin as soon as there are four players. PM, Spoiler, or publically post your bid of tokens
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Topic: Everybody Is John [4/4] - A Roleplaying Game For Terrible People - Salsa Time (Read 8666 times)