Everyone Is John
 

I could paraphrase the rules, but they're relatively brief, so I'll just quote them from the creator's site.:

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

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.

That's it. That's all the rules! If you can figure out how to play Werewolf, you can play this. Arguably we should engage in some method of keeping willpower bids and obsessions secret, but screw it. If you play this "seriously" you deserve the disappointment that's coming to you.

I need at least 3 players and probably no more than 10. When you sign up, include your Skills and your Obsession.

I'm in.

Skills: I'm a skilled impressionist. I can control small woodland animals.

Obsession: Become a comic book style super villain of international renown.

Skills: Accomplished pickpocket. Jedi mind trick adept.

Obsession: Go to Canada (L1), kill 10 Canadians (L2), and blow it up (L3)

You see how it says "Skills"? Like, the plural? And then you only put one skill?

YOU JUST FUCKED UP FILLING OUT THE WORLD'S SIMPLEST CHARSHEET, ZERG

Damn. :(

It has been fixed.

In his defense, there is no char optimization forum for this game.

This game is startlingly true to life, as I actually do use my psychic powers to compel a man named John to do my bidding (mostly just to improve his risotto). He lives in Poughkeepsie, though. Anyway, count me in.

Skills: Can turn any liquid into Welch's grape juice™; can create an irresistible meal from any ingredient.

Obsession: Become a beloved star of a top rated television food program.

Skills: Effectively wielding staplers as deadly weapons. Second best interpretive dancer in Minnesota.

Obsession: Defeat Prince in single combat.

Skills: Ability to consume borax and live; penis contortionist

Obsession: Transfer consciousness into a robotic body

Skills: Can fall down stairs without sustaining major injury. Remarkable ability with a pogo stick.

Obsession: Recreate Pee Wee Herman's "Tequila" dance.

Skills: Being a bear, extreme stealth when necessary, fire resistant

Aw yeah 7 willpower. Suck on deeze nuts.

Obsession: Making people prevent (or put out) forest fires (or fires in general should forests not be around).

I have some of the higher level obsessions figured out. Am I supposed to reveal them too or keep them a secret like in the description? =o

It's one obsession each, Acer! You just get more points for doing the harder ones.

Skills: Scaring small animals/children, complimenting obese women

Obsession: Catching pigeons and collecting them in my basement.

Why does no one read anymore? :(

It is still rather confusing, but nobody said anything to Zerg, so I figured the obsessive-compulsive rules-monger had the right idea. Please forgive me.

Zerg had put a single SKILL, not a single OBSESSION.

How it works:

You pick 2 Skills, (or 3, but you start with 7 willpower instead of 10)

You pick ONE obsession.

I did all of that. However there are levels of obsessions of which everyone is just listing one. I'm confused if they're also keeping their higher level obsessions a secret or if people are just saying fuck it and going for just one obsession. I can read. :(

No, Acer, you pick ONLY ONE obsession.

But there are three levels of obsessions. And you get more points for completing it based on what level your obsession is. So eat a lot of candy gets you fewer points than use a stick of dynamite to blow up a functioning Santa's Village.

So you only have one obsession, and that obsession might be level 1, 2, or 3 depending on if you want to nibble for the victory, or throw one hail mary at the end.

Follow?

Oh... I think I get it. So my obsession could be considered a level 2 obsession, maybe. I can read. I just don't always comprehend. =I

The reading comment was aimed at Zeph, not you El Beardo Grande. I think it is a little vague in Pang's opening post.

Now, play Kirby so I can watch, please.

I can play Kirby later tonight after Planetes if that pleases you. =)

It warms my cockles, friend.

Skills: trolling video game forums; making cheese

Obsession: creating a best-selling perfume line

(so close to adding "music contests when they are run by a black guy" to the first skill, but then that would be a description of one of Skills' skills.)

Alright, 9's a good number for our first game. Let's a go! It might be interesting if we do this again to grant everyone one obsession of each level (3 altogether). We'll see.

Zeph: Level 2 Obsession
Acer: Level 1 Obsession
Else: Level 3 Obsession

John wakes up under a staircase inside an abandoned hotel. It's about 10:30 AM. He staggers to his feet and looks around. It's the Lincoln Hotel, in Duluth. John though they were planning to demolish that old place. Weird. Anyway, time to find some breakf—

Voices, bid for control VIA PM! You have 24 hours to enter your bid.

Tiebreaker: Evens, Odds

The ALTON BROWN voice takes control!

ALTON BROWN TO THE THREAD PLEASE, ALTON BROWN.

Ah, breakfast. The perfect way to start my day. Wait, what's this on John's clothes? It's like he's been rolling around in someone's compost heap. They're soaking wet, with god knows what. Well, beggars can't be choosers, I suppose. All I need is something to drink out of - ah, that dusty glass over there on the reception desk will do nicely.

"John, take off all your clothes, and squeeze whatever fetid liquid they've absorbed into the glass. Now, I'll just concentrate, and..."

Well shucks, it's not Welch's Grape Juice. Looks like John's going to stay hungry.

Alton Brown's skill at juicing just isn't up to this kind of task, and it doesn't seem important enough to put in any extra oomph. He loses control. John finds himself totally nude, with a glass of freshly-squeezed crud on the reception desk before him. Well, at least he's made it out to the lobby. He's still kind of hungry, and now he's getting cold on top of that. John shivers. At the very least, he should put his shorts back on before—

BID!

Willpower:
Alton 7
wvlf 10
Deni 10
Acer 7
Skills 10
Uzuki 10
Tritoch 10
Zeph 10
Zerg 10

The WVLFPVP voice takes control!

Perhaps we should dispense with the willpower bidding and rely instead on Pangalin rolling a die to determine who should go next. Otherwise, this game is going to move slower than molasses.

And how exactly did you pass up a good molasses joke?

I am concerned that the constant control challenges are not really a viable mechanic for online play.

It's a fun diversion, anyhoo. I expect we'll know who won right around the time Pang's D&D campaign concludes at Level 30 with a battle royale against Orcus and Tiamat all at once, with their pet Tarrasques and Beholders.

The game goes precisely as fast as its players, like anything else. Yes, it's dependent on people actually reading their PMs and paying attention, but so is Werewolf or whatever. There's nothing I can do to force people to send in their bids faster or to take their turn faster, so there's no use in being a wet blanket. :(

Zerg sent no bid on the first bidding, and Alton sent no bid on the second bidding, meaning that two of the people complaining about game speed are directly responsible for slowing the game.

Slowing down? But the rules say we can choose not to bid if we wish ._. You want me to send a PM telling you I want to bid zero willpower? I can do it if that's what you want. :)

'Sides, you never sent a PM and who's complaining about game speed :tpg:

Yeah, I didn't want to bid this time around, just figured remaining silent was fine, but I guess confirmation from everyone would help speed things along.

I am cold and naked. There is a computer in front of me. I must be at home! Sniffing the glass in my hand (hmm... not fragrant enough), I try to pour it on the odd man sitting in front of the computer, hoping that he will get up and let me log on. Sadly, most of the liquid sprays on the computer itself. Boom.


Alas.

The Lincoln Hotel was been vacant since the 70's, but John stumbles upon someone else in the lobby. He seems alarmed at John's nakedness. With a friendly smile, John pours his glass of greasy goo all over the man and his laptop. The computer is ruined, and the greasy sludge bursts into flames. Before John can react, the flames have spread to the stranger! Oh no!


Alton 7
wvlf 7
Deni 10
Acer 7
Skills 10
Uzuki 10
Tritoch 10
Zeph 10
Zerg 10


BID! Even if you want to bid zero, please send a PM to increase game speed

I bid negative 1 willpower. You have to pay me if I win! :tpg:

(Seriously though, I think it's better to just double-post instead of edit. The reason why I didn't send in a bid for the first time? Didn't realize you edited the post.)

Fair enough. Zephyrin's Voice wins the bid!



Alton 7
wvlf 7
Deni 10
Acer 7
Skills 10
Uzuki 10
Tritoch 10
Zeph 7
Zerg 10

Technology. NEVER works right. Why is it every time I try to send an email, Big Brother is trying to set me on fire?!@ At least this time he missed. But where are my clothes? Oh! There they are. Kinda moldy. Must've been a good night.

John throws his clothes away, and he suddenly has the desire for orange juice. He leaves the building and attempts to hitchhike a ride to McDonalds. He offers an Egg McMuffin in payment.

Use one point towards roll

DOH!

Despite his entreaties, John is not nearly persuasive enough to bum a ride; he looks like he slept in a dumpster and he stinks of gasoline.

John is standing on the sidewalk outside the Lincoln Hotel. He glances back at the building, and sees an old sign painted onto the bricks of the building.

http://www.saxypunch.com/miscimg/475...9c4c1fd8_o.jpg

Well, that was a relief anyway. The man he left back inside has stopped screaming, but a thin, greasy smoke is seeping out of the crack beneath the door.

It looks to be about noon; traffic is pretty heavy. Directly across the street from John is a parking garage. A few feet to the left (and slightly ahead), West 2nd Street meets North 3rd Avenue West at an intersection. The light is currently green. To John's right is the parking lot for the Lincoln. Two cars are parked there currently; a green Gremlin and a beige Pinto. Most of the other buildings around are residential apartments.

In John's pockets are a keyring with 4 keys, his wallet (he has $40 in cash, but lost his ID some time ago), and a ticket stub to a matinee showing of The Little Mermaid.

BID!


Alton 7
wvlf 7
Deni 10
Acer 7
Skills 10
Uzuki 10
Tritoch 10
Zeph 6
Zerg 10

I thought Zeph was using his "compliment obese women" skill to hitch a ride, so I was confused as to why he failed.

Oh well, time to see what happens when no one succeeds.

DENICALIS wins the bid!


Alton 7
wvlf 7
Deni 7
Acer 7
Skills 10
Uzuki 10
Tritoch 10
Zeph 6
Zerg 10

Yeah, I don't know why Zeph failed that roll either but I'm not inclined to argue with somebody who announces their own failure. :shrug:

I cackled as I made John jerk his leg, attempting to kick a passing citizen into on coming traffic.

Spend 1 on roll.

John's leg flies out from under him, and he falls flat on his ass. He is promptly trampled by several pedestrians.

BID!

Guys, you only have to roll to do things a normal person would find difficult You can do other things before you attempt a difficult action.


Alton 7
wvlf 7
Deni 6
Acer 7
Skills 10
Uzuki 10
Tritoch 10
Zeph 6
Zerg 10

Retracting myself from the game. The silliness is fun, but the tempo isn't so much.

Zeph, if you want to step out of the game, you could just spend an overwhelming amount on a bid and then use the rest of your points to make John do something awesome.

"Man, the players are taking time to figure out this game we've never played before. It's almost like this trial doesn't run as smoothly as something we've done a dozen times. Instead of doing something interesting I'm just going to quit."

:rolleyes:

If somebody wants to bail, let them bail. No sense in squabbling over it.

Colonel Skills wins the bid!


Alton 7
wvlf 7
Deni 6
Acer 7
Skills 7
Uzuki 10
Tritoch 10
Zerg 10

John gets back up on his feet. No point being a hobo when there was perfectly good laws to break.

Glancing toward the parking lot, he takes a moment to appreciate the majestic beauty of the viridian '74 AMC in the parking lot.

He is snapped out of his reverie by the odd feeling of a strong breeze upon the underside of his nutsack. Why yes, he is completely naked still. He almost forgot. Oh well, that makes his next task slightly easier anyway. Win-win.

He approaches the Gremlin while sneering at the Ford. Plebeian.

Getting up to the door, he starts attempting to gain access by manipulating the shape of his genitals into that of a key.

Contort shrinkydink into key. Need a 3. Spend 2 for ensured success.

John is happy he spent a little bit of extra time concentrating. He now has access to the car, although he feels awfully tired about it.

You have a habit of trying to put things in my mouth, Deni; words being one of them. Stop it. I said no. Nobody listens me to, jeeze. Only food and lollipops.

pssst, I actually made John get dressed, so he isn't naked anymore.

Skills. Psssst. You didn't fail! It's still your turn!

Arguably you could just blow your last 5 Will and become an Autobot

Not anymore you didn't

----------------

John looks around. His state of undress in the car is indeed continually beneficial.

In a great act of mental clarity, he reaches out with his mind. Become...the car. Be the car! YOU ARE THE CAR.

http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/4/42/Cy...nwheeljack.jpg

Good point, spend all will to make sure this happens.

Hmm. How...odd. What a strange sensation. John thinks he still has arms. And a head. But wh...

WOOB WOOB WOOB WOOB WOOB

http://tfwiki.net/w2/images2/a/a3/Mt...ninetynine.jpg

Thread is now Everyone is Wheeljack

Skills achieves his obsession! 3 points. John's mind now inhabits the chassis of a '73 Gremlin. His gas tank is full, but his left rear tire is under-inflated and he's out of wiper fluid. His former body, useless meat-sack that it is, rattles around in the driver's seat. Rattles around in the nude.

BID!

Alton 7
wvlf 7
Deni 6
Acer 7
Skills 0 (3 points)
Uzuki 10
Tritoch 10
Zerg 10

NOBODY BID EXCEPT DENICALIS

SO I GUESS HE WINS THE BID

YOU JERKS

Stomping through downtown traffic as a giant robot was pretty great. I used my talent with impressions to make my demands in a robot voice.

"I demand the world's supply of diamonds for my time freeze ray, or I'm going to... I don't know, smash babies, or possibly murder a bunch of nuns. Evil stuff."

As I, Wheeljack, stormed around the downtown in search of an orphanage, I waited for the camera crews to show up before I summoned an army of squirrels to me, evil squirrles, who bit old ladies and raised hell.

Surely this would cement me as a proper super-villain.

(spend 2 to insure victory)

Let's just call this a Skills/Deni tie game, shall we? Yes, let's.

Another grand failure in the Teach GFF To Play Things Other Than Werewolf Project. :(

It isn't your fault, Pang.

GFF is whiny, stupid, and afraid of new things.

:( I was enjoying it, even though I never got my turn in John's head. I evidently wasn't bidding enough when I wanted to take control, and only about half of the situations he was left in prompted me to vie for it. Before Pang brings it up, no, I didn't want to be Wheeljack. Maybe the bids would work better if they weren't bids. Just assign everyone a number, role, and auto take points from the winner. Keep it to a smaller group. Game would flow more better.

Yeah, not to blame anybody for this but one of the prime things that made the game feel slow is everyone's amazingly conservative bidding strategies. Nobody ever bid more than 3, and 85% of all bids were 2 or less with quite a few 0 bids. There's no rule against 0 bids but what happens if EVERYONE bids 0?

It didn't help that some people honestly seemed to think that John needed to roll just to put his socks on or flip a light switch, which resulted in very brief, unsatisfying turns. :(

I was waiting for the right circumstance. I thought Deni still had the rest of his turn left since attacking old ladies with squirrels (evil Great Lakes Avenger, ho!) doesn't seem like they'd make someone an internationally-renowed supervillain. I was planning to segue his further terrorist activities into blowing up Canada. But the game was called, so... :tpg:

Yeah. What about a robot smashing orphanages while summoning squirrels to attack old ladies would possibly draw the attention of the international media.

Stop ruining every single game, Zerg. Just stop.

What are you going on about? The game is over. What's there to ruin?

I'm not even complaining - it's my fault I failed to "act" in this game. Just giving a rationale for my thought process.

I guess if you're a dick, you think everyone's out to be dicks. Get that stick out of your ass already.

Just dropping in to say that you are a huge nerd holy shit.

( <3 )

e: also loool @ Deni/Zerg fight for the millionth time

I'd rather be a dick than an inspiid, constantly irritating twit.

I don't think you ruin games by complaining about them, I think you ruin games by taking part in them. And I'm hardly alone in that. How's that ban from a bunch of D&D threads treating you? Good? I'm glad.

I'm sure you had spreadsheets upon spreadsheets of cool ultra optomized everyone is john plans, but no one cares. Everyone in these games already hates you, and instead of backing off like a sane person and reevaluating your approach, you just kick down the wall like the fucking Kool-Aid man and keep doing THE SAME THINGS OVER AND OVER AGAIN. You are creepy as fuck with your overbearing pawing at people in D&D. You are like fucking fun cancer. You see a body of people having a good time, and your immediate reaction is to insert yourself in them until all the fun is dead. You murder entertainment. You kill joy. Stop doing that. I don't know if you're an aspie or what your fucking problem is, but whatever little personality quirk you have that causes this sort of behaviour needs to be dealt with. If anyone else had come in and ran their mouth, I wouldn't care. But I hear person after person complain about you, and I am getting even more sick of it than I already was. You don't want to take Pang's little hints to shape up? You don't want to listen to Skills joking little barbs?

The don't listen to Zerg thing? Not a goddamn joke. People mean that. You think I'm a dick? Guilty. You think I have a stick up my ass? You're mistaking my utter loathing for the way you ruin every damn game here for general attitude problems. And yet I can play these games without alienating half of the people in them. Brady and LeHah, a guy with a brain problem and the most hated person on these boards short of a child molestor didn't make everyone hate them.

What does that tell you about how you're approaching things, hm? I'm sure you'll rationalize this in your fucked up head as one man's attack on your perfectly acceptable behaviour, but it just isn't. I'm just the most blunt about it. A lot of other people have been saying the same things in much nicer ways, and you don't want to listen.

Start fucking listening.

In summation: Stop doing an Elixir impression. Everyone hated him.