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Over the Edge
240 pages, Paperback
Published January 1, 1992
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Jonathan Tweet
65 books49 followersTabletop game designer, children's science communicator. Grandmother Fish was a labor of love for 15 years.
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May 9, 2021Part 1 of my x part review of Over the Edge, a roleplaying game I have various editions of, both through some odd collecting in the past, and a recent Bundle of Holding (which is why this will be a multi-entry review, as I find things to say about individual books, not just the system/setting as a whole).
Over the Edge is one of the first really story-forward roleplaying games I read; whereas Dungeons & Dragons was based on a bucket of fantasy genre works, the goal of the game really grew out of wargaming and was very explicit in the first editions: the players are trying to defeat the challenges the GM poses for them, and in that way, defeat the GM, and vice versa. If you happen to tell a good story while trying to simulate a dragon attack, so be it.
Over the Edge likewise has a literary strain, though a more focused one: William S. Burroughs. Yeah, there's some other stuff in there -- I guess, I don't really see it from this initial book -- but the island of Al Amarja, with its invading aliens and secret history of domination is Interzone from Naked Lunch.
The setting makes this clear, but the rules system and advice to the GM are also about telling a story first, simulating the real world... well, not even close to second. For instance, the character generation is free form, where you pick 3 traits and 1 flaw, and they can be anything you want -- with the caveat that if you have tremendous power, most of the conspiracies and ancient dangers on Al Amarja will focus on destroying or coopting you.
Also, as opposed to D&D (or even my second real experience with rpgs, Vampire), most of this book is about the setting and about the adventures you could have here: there's all of the sinister locations, secret movements, weird science.
If you know my feelings on RPGs, you may be anticipating that here I say "but what do the PCs do?" And that's kind of the way I feel: there's some big plots a-moving on the island, from the alien invasion, to ancient powers reviving, and you could tell a heroic story of fighting against domination -- but that's not really the default campaign frame because there isn't really a default campaign frame. The scope of the game is only limited by being on an island full of weirdoes, but because time and space are also potentially weird, there's not even much of a limitation that way.
All of which is to say: I am very interested in reading the adventures I have to see what people do with this wonderful setting and rules-lite story-forward system.
Over the Edge is one of the first really story-forward roleplaying games I read; whereas Dungeons & Dragons was based on a bucket of fantasy genre works, the goal of the game really grew out of wargaming and was very explicit in the first editions: the players are trying to defeat the challenges the GM poses for them, and in that way, defeat the GM, and vice versa. If you happen to tell a good story while trying to simulate a dragon attack, so be it.
Over the Edge likewise has a literary strain, though a more focused one: William S. Burroughs. Yeah, there's some other stuff in there -- I guess, I don't really see it from this initial book -- but the island of Al Amarja, with its invading aliens and secret history of domination is Interzone from Naked Lunch.
The setting makes this clear, but the rules system and advice to the GM are also about telling a story first, simulating the real world... well, not even close to second. For instance, the character generation is free form, where you pick 3 traits and 1 flaw, and they can be anything you want -- with the caveat that if you have tremendous power, most of the conspiracies and ancient dangers on Al Amarja will focus on destroying or coopting you.
Also, as opposed to D&D (or even my second real experience with rpgs, Vampire), most of this book is about the setting and about the adventures you could have here: there's all of the sinister locations, secret movements, weird science.
If you know my feelings on RPGs, you may be anticipating that here I say "but what do the PCs do?" And that's kind of the way I feel: there's some big plots a-moving on the island, from the alien invasion, to ancient powers reviving, and you could tell a heroic story of fighting against domination -- but that's not really the default campaign frame because there isn't really a default campaign frame. The scope of the game is only limited by being on an island full of weirdoes, but because time and space are also potentially weird, there's not even much of a limitation that way.
All of which is to say: I am very interested in reading the adventures I have to see what people do with this wonderful setting and rules-lite story-forward system.
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