I've played Everyone is John for years now, and groups of friends I've played with have gone on to play with even more groups of friends. It's been a fantastic middle ground between role playing and party game, with no preplanning required and very little prep.
I was surprised to find that how I've interpreted and run the game differs from videos I've seen of others' games. Not to suggest there's a right way or a wrong way, but this seems to strongly impact the flavor of gameplay.
The way I've run it is guided by this paragraph:
> 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.
Hence, the Voices are John, directly making choices and taking actions. The GM, despite the name of the game, is not John. The GM handles all other characters, describes the world, calls for rolls, adjudicates, and does the usual GM stuff.
However, in videos of games I've seen online, players will act only as literal Voices in John's head, while the GM plays the voice of "sane" John, whom the other players get to boss around.
IMHO, I'm running it correctly, and the results speak for themselves, with tales of misadventures told and retold years later. The other version, to me, is more one-note and less worthy of replay. To each their own, of course.
None that I know of, unfortunately. It's been a while, so there's probably newer content out there to sift through, but that's a pretty deep rabbit hole of multi-hour videos. Maybe I could find one of those videos that represents the way I wouldn't run the game, but not sure that's worth it either.
The rules being as condensed as they are, nothing beats just jumping into it with a few friends (with a few beers if that's your thing) and even if you don't get it 100% "correct", you're going to have a good time. Maybe don't start with a huge group, I'd suggest 4 to 5 people including the GM for your first foray, and you'll want at least 2 to 3 hours to spare.
If this is your site (rtwolf.github.io/Everyone-is-John/), looks like the linked site from the text is down (www.everyoneisjohn[.]com) It's just an empty page with a Chinese title?
Thanks, seems like an amazing game. I am watching some videos and trying to understand the gameplay. If you don't mind elaborating on few thing:
* In the rules it says that whenever a voce completes its obsessions a test for control happens. Doesn't it mean that the voice needs to reveal what the obsessions is at that moment, before the end of the game?
* Same goes for skill, seems like for it to be used it needs to be revealed before the end of the game.
* Who determines the level of obsessions?
The GM would have final say on the level of the obsession, and would notify players about a test for control. Certainly this provides a hint about what the active player's obsession is, though perhaps not a precise answer.
I didn't ever really anticipate that people would get super intense about the competition element. It's a self-evidently fairly silly game.
Thank you this game is incredible. I just learned about it from this post and I’ve already played three times mostly with people who have never played an rpg before. Instant hilarious fun for everyone.
Along the same lines, I recommend Mentopolis[1][2]. It has the same, "everyone is trapped in here with me"-vibe that EiJ has but it expounds on the idea with a more internal family systems[3] conception of the mind, one that naturally lends itself to great roleplaying. If you need any more of a selling point, it features the loveable Hank Green.
I don't like how, in their attempt to make the rules "simple", they've left them underspecified. It doesn't even say who does the opposing roll, or how many dice they use. If they use one, isn't it really easy to beat them if your skill is higher? If they use as many as you, isn't skill advancement moot?
This is awesome. Is there any way to pipe the sound into the microphone channel on your computer so that it works over discord? We play remote on roll20 with discord so I'd love to figure out how to get this into that platform.
I'm not familiar with virtual tabletops, all tabletop games I've played with friends or family were offline, so I can't recommend anything specific. Maybe it could help:
Website linked is dead. The canonical text is alive but the link to resources is dead.
> So, basically, if you want the canonical text, here it is. If you’re looking for Everyone is John resources, got to http://www.everyoneisjohn.com or just Google it, and you’ll find lots of stuff. Thanks!
Is it ableist to role play as someone with mental health issues? I haven't played the game. Was interested by the positive reviews here but then the central theme jumped out and I felt a bit uncomfortable.
Can anyone who played the game say if it comes across sympathetically to John's issues or are they othering in their effect? Does it feed at all into negative perceptions of mental disorder?
I know social issues are a bit frowned on here so apologies if this question is inappropriate.
It made me uncomfortable too, and it is ableist to talk about someone as if they are "totally insane", and to trivialise serious mental health issues.
Fortunately, it is easy to reframe EiJ as an android controlled by a bunch of aliens. That's much more lighthearted, and means you can extend John with useful or amusing augmentations! :)
DID (multiple personality disorder) is far, far more common in media than real life. This game gave me a greater sense of empathy for someone experiencing (a cartoon version of) DID. I don't have DID but I have a comparable condition, and I think I would appreciate it if more people could experience something like my daily experience through a game, to better understand what I'm going through, and so I wouldn't have to explain it. Sadly my condition has far less entertainment potential.
I also see the value of the humor added to a game played with a group of friends and don't see it as a negative towards someone with a comparable or even exact condition. I believe that a person can play a game which exaggerates some aspects for gameplay/comedic value and still empathize with serious mental health issues.
As someone that is always curious and worried about mental health would you mind explaining what a typical days experience is like for yourself?
I've always chosen to just introduce the game as you're a bunch of evil spirits possessing this poor fellow - sidesteps any of those issues and just gets to the fun.
Thank you, I think that's a good way of framing it and you're quite right.
Though you've also sparked an idea in me. I think a game focused sympathetically on an issue could do well to help in people's empathy. The vision that came to me was a Wheelchair Simulator where one would have to play to overcome the actual access restrictions wheelchair users face every day.
One of my DND groups did an EIJ session when we had some absent members. It was a lot of fun. We ended up discovering that Canadian McDonalds was a cover for a human meat smuggling racket to supply Canadian cannibals. Fun times.
this looks like a lot of fun, can't wait to try it out!
the irreverent humour in Everyone is John reminds me a lot of 2nd edition Paranoia RPG[1]. the most fun i and friends had playing RPGs back in the 90s was with Paranoia. it was absolute chaos! our jaws hurt for days because we were laughing so much.
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I was surprised to find that how I've interpreted and run the game differs from videos I've seen of others' games. Not to suggest there's a right way or a wrong way, but this seems to strongly impact the flavor of gameplay.
The way I've run it is guided by this paragraph:
> 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.
Hence, the Voices are John, directly making choices and taking actions. The GM, despite the name of the game, is not John. The GM handles all other characters, describes the world, calls for rolls, adjudicates, and does the usual GM stuff.
However, in videos of games I've seen online, players will act only as literal Voices in John's head, while the GM plays the voice of "sane" John, whom the other players get to boss around.
IMHO, I'm running it correctly, and the results speak for themselves, with tales of misadventures told and retold years later. The other version, to me, is more one-note and less worthy of replay. To each their own, of course.