This book is public domain. Feel free to copy and remix it to your heart's content.
ALL POWER TO ALL THE PLAYERS.
WEILD IT WELL.
Warning:
Side effects may include finding yourself in a writer's circle, starting an improv troupe, lifelong friendships, anarchist organizing, starting libraries, and really creative roleplay.
If everyone is having fun, you are playing correctly
In the 1970s, the 80s, 90s, 2000s, 2010s, and yesterday mages, punks, warriors, vampires, pirates, hippies, friends, lovers, fantasists, readers, dreamers and travellers played roleplaying games.
Roleplaying is an infinitely entertaining way to spend time with friends or alone.
Human imaginations are boundless and chaotic and they crave stories.
They also crave telling stories.
Before roleplaying games there were campfire story circles. It was inevitable that someone would bring dice. If by some tragedy people forget about roleplaying games, you can be confident they will be rediscovered.
1. Honor and respect the boundaries of all players at all times.
2. Take turns narrating the experiences of imagined characters in imagined worlds as they persue their goals.
LINES
Keep a list of topics that any player doesn't want to be in the game. Steer clear of these topics.
VEILS
Keep a list of topics any player doesn't want to be roleplayed or described in detail. Don't give more than a passing remark to these topics.
X CARD
A clearly marked object that whenever any player touches it, narration immediately moves on from the current topic no questions asked.
|| CARD (PAUSE CARD)
A clearly marked object that any player may touch at any time to pause the current narration and check in with all players to ensure everyone is comfortable with the game.
SCRIPT CHANGE
Players speak, type, or otherwise indicate one of five expressions.
Fast Foreward: Skip past uncomfortable content (as with the X card).
Pause: Take a break to check in with everyone and/or give everyone time to tend to bodily needs (as with the || card).
Rewind: Go back in narration and take another path to another outcome to avoid an uncomfortable narrative element.
Frame-by-Frame: Proceed with caution because the narrative is venturing toward an uncomfortable element.
Resume/Play: Return to normal play after a Pause or Frame-by-Frame.
Masterless Roleplaying
In UNGOVERNABLE every player is master of their characters and their interpretation of events.
All interactions between player narratives must be consentual.
Players may choose to see things differently.
Every roleplayer has different preferences about how they like to roleplay.
The tools in this book reflect my preferences and are meant to be sane, simple, and supportive for players that don't yet know their preferences.
I hope they serve you well as a default to start from while you become the master of your own roleplay.
Feel free and encouraged to experiment with tools and content from anywhere and everywhere.
Group Consent and Genre Expectations
While an all-out chaotic game with characters and settings from across all time, space, and fantasy is grand; it is equally fun to agree upon limits for what types of characters and settings a game should contain.
In addition to genre, players may agree to limit mechanics that disrupt the pace of the game.
UNGOVERNABLE is designed for free association of players. If your favorite genre or mechanic isn't right for a particular game, you can carry your characters, mechanics, and even histories, loot, and settings into another game.
Just as one game may reject rolling lots of dice, another may require it or permit any kind of rolling mechanics.
Listen to your friends. Have fun together.
How to Spend Your Turn
UNGOVERNABLE puts the power and some of the responsibility of a game master into the hands of the players.
On your turn your character should persue a goal. This can be as simple as buying rope or getting across the road.
Keep a list of your character's long-term goals for reference when choosing short-term goals to roleplay.
You may also have mid-term goals you must achieve before you can complete a long-term goal.
In addition to your character's actions, their perceptions should be described. The things they see, smell, hear, taste, and feel develop the world for everyone.
Playing a side character on someone else's turn does not spend your turn.
You are encouraged to keep many characters, but only play one main character per session. Others only as cameos.
Always Look to Have the Best Experience for Yourself and Your Friends
Written logs are the fossils of conversations past, they are not the complete truth. You choose how to interpret them and if you share them.
If someone shares their character's narrative with you, you should kindly recieve it, even if it does not interest you. They should be kind as you share with them your character's narrative.
Help Players Get What They Want out of a Scene
If your character wants to have a dramatic final attack that kills the big boss, telegraph what they plan to do. Either in narrative or out of character tell the other players you are going to kill the boss (or try, if you're letting the dice decide) the turn before, so each player gets a turn to do their cool thing before the scene is over.
Pay attention to what other players enjoy and bring them opportunities to do those things.
The game is a mutual aid project. Make the game fun for others and others will make the game fun for you. If not you can play alone or with other players.
If a player likes drama, feed them dramatic opportunities.
If a player likes beheading, feed them hordes of monsters.
"Two Rules is too Rules-Light! I Want Some Crunch!"
The two rules are the rules everyone must follow, you can follow more if you like, you just can't tell anyone else they have to follow them.
If you want to craft a board that tracks cargo space, fuel, haul value, date, and days of food left, I understand you and you are valid.
I made this game for you to play side by side with someone who has no interest in carry weight, spell components, or buying torches.
Everybody wants different things on different days and I want them all to play their own way together.
I want to play the crunchiest goblin tinkerer and the simplest squirrel mecha pilot in the same game and you can't stop me.
Quickstart Campaign
Each players chooses a character. It can be from anywhere.
Characters meet at a hub from which --or a vehicle with which-- they can easily travel to each character's homeworld.
Each session in turn has the characters going to a different world until a story sparks or a home is found and characters choose to spend more sessions there.
The worlds can start from anywhere. Imagination will transform them into something new, unique and personal.
As your first characters explore you will make new characters and develop a selection of characters to play and worlds to explore.
You can play your characters solo or with other groups, though you may need to catch other players up on major events that changed the character since the last time they saw them.
Main Characters
Characters are infinitely diverse.
It's recommended you only play one main character in a session, though multiple characters that act as one is also pretty manageable
You are encouraged to keep many characters, only playing one as a main character in the session.
Cameos
In a masterless RPG like UNGOVERNABLE, players are likely to play multiple characters.
When a character is interacting with another character that is not a main character in the current session, the player that owns the guest character will play that character as a cameo in the main character's turn narration.
If the guest character is new, the player may create the new character themselves, or describe the kind of character they need and ask for a volenteer to create, own, and play them.
The owner of the guest character decides if the character is available, and has full control of the character going foreward.
I'm sorry if your favorite shopkeeper becomes an adventuring witch and leaves town but also I'm not.
Worlds are Infinitely Diverse
You can make them up as you go along. Each player contributing elements as they narrate their character's journey.
Players can bring their favorite book and explore the setting.
Players can agree to play in the same world or, because there is no centralized control, they can explore multiple worlds with no overhead.
Maybe everyone meets at the interdimensional timeship between each adventure and they explore a different world with different characters each session.
Players can agree to genre expectations before playing or let everyone's imaginations run wild.
Players can keep their own maps, or location lists, or players can share one, or no player can keep a map. Whatever works for your group.
If everyone is having fun you're playing correctly.