Everyone is John

[veekie]

Everyone is John

A competitive roleplaying game for three or more people.

Everyone is John is a humorous, competitive roleplaying game about playing the various personalities of John, an insane man from Minneapolis. One participant is the GM, or, in Everyone is John lingo, "Everyone Else." All of the other players are Voices in John's head.

Everyone is John uses six-sided dice (you really only need one, but it might be easiest if every participant carries one) for play.

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.

John
John is a totally insane man in Minneapolis. He is controlled by the Voices in his head -- one at a time, of course.

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.

Playing

Sounds like a fun one shot.

[PhaedrusXY]

Sounds hilarious, and also like a fun way to introduce roleplaying to people who have no experience with it, and/or don't like the fantasy elements of more traditional RPGs.

[Bozwevial]

And then John was a zombie.

This actually does sound like it'd be interesting to play.

[ShadowViper]

Aye sounds like an interesting little game.

[X-Codes]

I would absolutely play this game.

[awaken DM golem]

My Kitty avatar finds this very disturbing, but perhaps a teaching moment ... 
(wink)

[PhaedrusXY]

My Kitty avatar finds this very disturbing, but perhaps a teaching moment ... 
(wink)

Yeah, I think you play this game every day, ADMG. 

[awaken DM golem]

I don't.




EDIT - my kitty avatar begs to differ.

EDIT2 - hey I didn't edit this ... 

[veekie]

Guys, we have found John.

[Nanshork]

This is awesome!  I'd definetely play.

[veekie]

It's actually simple enough to set up on the PbP or playground. Pretty failproof even with a rotating pool of players.

[X-Codes]

It's actually simple enough to set up on the PbP or playground. Pretty failproof even with a rotating pool of players.

Yeah, it probably doesn't even need a PbP thread, just a couple posts in the playground.  One post for the rules of the game and character "sheets" and one game thread per week.  People can message their Willpower bids, when necessary, to the current GM.  The winner starts the next game.

[dna1]

lol looks awesome. i want to try it so bad

[dither]

And then John was a zombie.

Yes sir. You win.

[awaken DM golem]

dither - the other voice inside my head, says your avatar looks a lot like the Katy Perry videos I just hacked.


{ ... insert technically that was a compliment smiley face ... }

[awaken DM golem]

Wait a minute ...  ... dang it ... it didn't work.

[dither]

dither - the other voice inside my head, says your avatar looks a lot like the Katy Perry videos I just hacked.

(I'll give you that, but my avatar isn't Katy Perry.  )

[awaken DM golem]

dither - the other voice inside my head, says your avatar looks a lot like the Katy Perry videos I just hacked.

(I'll give you that, but my avatar isn't Katy Perry.  )

umm ... You'll give me "that" as in my other voice inside my head 
 

[Gods_Trick]

Dither stop getting into 'John's' head, we haven't started playing yet!

[dither]

dither - the other voice inside my head, says your avatar looks a lot like the Katy Perry videos I just hacked.

(I'll give you that, but my avatar isn't Katy Perry.  )

umm ... You'll give me "that" as in my other voice inside my head 
 

Nonsensical statement is a banana.