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.