"We have D&D at home"

D&D at home:

I vividly remember my first D&D experience.

It was a sunny afternoon in the late 1900s (I’ll give you a second to process that), and my friend invited me to go to an acquaintance’s house to play ‘a kind of board game’. When I arrived, AD&D’s ‘First Quest’ box set was laid out on the table.

And there they were: pre-made illustrated character sheets in card stock, minis, maps, the weird dice, and the CDs. Ah, those CDs. They had around an hour of soundtracks, sound effects, and tidbits of narration from the characters’ perspective as we advanced through the adventure. I was immediately hooked!

But it wasn’t long before the cracks started to show. Soon I realized that the stories we wanted to tell clashed with the rules we used to tell them. There was a disconnect between the promise offered by the art, the setting, the music, and the experience delivered by the game itself. We had a lot of fun still, mind you, but that was in spite of the hurdles caused by the mechanics.

“Wait, what am I doing wrong?” Photo by Melanie Dretvic on Unsplash

At first, I thought it was my fault. I mean, I was an inexperienced player, if only I knew the rules better, I’d certainly enjoy the game more, right? Right? Well, not really. When the rules were performing at their supposed ‘best’ (RAW), we had the hardest time. I can’t tell you how many times our table conversations were like this:

Player: "Can I try to..."

GM: "You used that action already."

Player: "What if I..."

GM: "There's a penalty because..."

Player: "Well then, can I..."

GM: "No, only on level 5"

Player: *sigh* "Ok... I guess I'll just swing my sword, then"

That feeling that something wasn’t quite right stuck with me for a while. Wasn’t I supposed to feel like a hero that can attempt… well, heroic feats? Wasn’t it supposed to be empowering and exciting? Wasn’t the game supposed to help us have fun?

A journey and a half

I kept playing for decades, houseruling the heck out of that ruleset, and surviving through each iteration of the dragon game by sheer spite. And because my group of friends really enjoyed being together in a safe space where we could be ourselves (while pretending to be wizards).

Fast-forward 25 years.

Since the pandemic, I hadn't been able to play an in-person RPG session. Then, a few months ago, I've heard of a local WhatsApp group in which people organized some board game meet-ups. I joined, with the hope of finding some like-minded friends. And lo and behold, after a couple of weeks, someone asks, "Hey, do you want to play Dungeons and Dragons?".

That was my cue.

“Pick me!” Photo by Camylla Battani on Unsplash

Let me try something

At first, I didn't say anything. I am super introverted, and the thought of jumping in and offering to play a game with a bunch of people I had never met before was equal parts exciting and terrifying. And, of course, there was the D&D thing. I... didn’t feel like facing the same frustrations I’ve dealt with for literally two decades. So I waited.

After some message exchanges, I realized that everybody that was excited to play had never played a TTRPG before.

Now that was my real cue.

I mustered up some courage (it took me two weeks), and offered to run a game for them. I said that I was going to devise a simple ruleset to introduce new players to the hobby. I know that, after D&D, the second most popular RPG genre is "let me fix D&D", so it's not that I didn't have a million options to pick from. But, well, you know me.

I thought, "How could I strip D&D off of everything and leave only the vibes? How can I offer what beginners think the D&D experience is, without the hurdles of what it really is?"

So I decided the only things I would keep were:

• The mysticism of the d20 and its nat-20 and nat-1 rolls that are embedded in the perception of the game

• The fantasy of playing a character of a certain class and species

Everything else would be eyeballed.

These icosahedrons hold a strong symbolic energy. Photo by Timothy Dykes on Unsplash

Adding some flavor

I got around eight people interested in giving it a try.

One week before the first session, I sat down to jot down some ideas. I ended up creating a list of 20 Ancestries, 20 Backgrounds and 20 Classes (which I've been calling the ABCs—like Pathfinder, I think?), drawing from a lot of other big-name fantasy RPGs.

And I added a simple mechanic to deal with longer challenges, which involves drawing stars on sticky notes (my attempt to combine Clocks, Aspects, Progress Tracks, Usage Dice, Hero Points and Fear Tokens into one single mechanic. More on that on a future post). And off we went.

Here is a little teaser.

The session was a blast.

Everyone was super excited. I planned it to be a simple one-shot, and all of them asked to keep playing, and it became a campaign. We're now thirteen sessions in, and this simple ruleset is working smoothly. So much so that I decided to actually publish it.

Look at their happy little faces! 

Fantasy heartbreakers

I struggled to make this decision. I mean, classic fantasy is the most saturated genre there is. And I've published Nexalis and Against the Wind, which, although not exactly, fall into that spectrum. Why bother making another fantasy RPG? What can I offer that it hasn't been said before?

Honestly, I'm not sure. But I need to give it a try in answering, ‘What if we could actually live the promise that those RPG book covers sold? What if we could offer new players the experience they think they will have with that one game, without the frustration of a ruleset that says 'no' all the time?’

That’s how Everspark was born.

I want to provide those carefree, belly-laugh-filled, let’s-play-pretend moments of rolling dice, casting imaginary spells, and coming up with all sorts of shenanigans. I want to reignite that original spark that first attracted us to this kind of games and never left us—the Everspark, if you will.

This game is providing us so much joy that I believe it is worth sharing. The stat-free approach of simply rolling a die for everything opens up so much space for creativity. And that little system of longer challenges has proven to be super versatile and welcoming to hacking (I’ll have a whole session in the book for creative ‘tricks’ you can pull off with it).

You get to tell epic tales, live the fantasy of being a unique hero, celebrate nat-20s and lament nat-1s, and spend some quality time with your friends (or by yourself) daydreaming about dragons. You only need a d20, a d6, and a bunch of sticky notes.

I envisioned this game as a good fit for situations like, ‘I have friends that want to start playing D&D, I’d like to offer that experience, but I can't be bothered to explain all those rules (or to play D&D again at all)’.

Wanna play with your children (or your parents)? Or people excited about the vibes of fantasy RPGs, but without the time, focus, or interest for complex mechanics? Sure thing. Here you go.

So I am willing to bet this approach can resonate with some people. To take it one step further, for the first time ever, I commissioned an artist to make some custom art for the game—the amazing Ray Olli (and during the campaign, you can have a custom character drawn by him to your specifications!).

Cover art spread by Ray Olli. I mean, the vibes!!

Besides those stars in sticky notes thingy, dice rolling is super simple. There are no modifiers, DC, AC, HP, ability scores, spell slots, proficiency, weapon damage, skill lists.

You roll a d20 and eyeball the result—you know, like when you ask for a skill check in D&D but don’t set a DC beforehand and just wing it based on the result? It’s OK, I know you do that. I am not judging—to see if you get a critical, regular or mixed success (or failure). If circumstances are more (or less) favorable, you judge your results more (or less) generously. That’s (almost) all there is to it.

Reignite the spark

It took me more than 30 years and 30 published games to muster the courage to give this one a go, but now here it is. I am crowdfunding Everspark.

I want to honor that kid that listened to the First Quest’s CDs and has been chasing that high ever since, being let down multiple times by a promise that wasn’t quite delivered. I want the actual experience of playing a fantasy RPG that mirrors our selective memory of those sessions, you know, just like when we recount the adventures leaving out the frustrations of clunky mechanics or tedious rule-checking.

Do I risk positioning this game as a ‘We have D&D at home’ meme? Perhaps. But I am giving it my all to be an alternative you’re happy to try. Simpler, yes, not lesser. I do believe Everspark can deliver the type of adventure many people have been waiting for quite some time.

If nothing else convinced you that this is a good idea, perhaps this will: among the 8,000 possible combinations of characters, you can play as a Capoeira Capybara.