000 - How to Play Everyone is Jonas

Everyone is Jonas is based off pen and paper RPG “everyone is john”, created by Michael “Epoch” Sullivan. So if you’re familiar with that game then you have a major head start.

We play the game with 4 players but you can play with as many as you want with a minimum of 3. First, a bit of backstory:

Jonas McGill is a man of unknown origin, living in the Vancouver area of British Columbia, Canada. He appears to be in his late twenties, stands five foot ten inches tall, and has brown eyes and soft, feathered brown hair. He is assumed to be caucasian.

Some time ago, Jonas discovered things no human should ever know and was granted the ability to talk telepathically with inter dimensional beings. In a Faustian bargain with one said being, for reasons unknown to us, Jonas acquired an item of great magical power. A magical purple backpack, weightless and with a seemingly unlimited capacity.

The backpack came at a great cost, however, granting beings dominion over poor Jonas’ mind. He has tried in vain to be rid of the backpack and even end his own life, to no avail. Discarding the backpack always meant death, and death always meant resurrection.

In this game, the players will play as one of the voices in Jonas’s head, while one of them plays as “everyone else”, which is the equivalent of a Dungeon Master, or ‘DM’ from dungeons and dragons, referred to from here on out as a GM or Gamemaster. Which if you’re not familiar, is basically the storyteller of the game. Each player starts the game with between 7 and 10 willpower tokens, but we’ll get to that later.

Before the game starts, each player chooses a goal, of which they only disclose to the GM. This goal can be anything from drinking glasses of water to crashing police cars. Be creative.At the GM’s discretion, these goals will have a difficulty of 1, 2 or 3 which is a multiplier added to that player’s score at the end of the game.

Any time a player wants to coerce Jonas in to performing an action, they have to roll a standard 6 sided die, or ”D6”. If they roll a 6, that action is successful. A Player can “sweeten” a deal by adding a willpower token to it. 1 token makes the roll a 5+, 2 tokens a 4+ and so on. It is possible to spend enough tokens to make a roll pass automatically. Rolls can be made on a 4+ if they pertain to one of two skills chosen by each play at the start of the game. These can be anything at all, but each player only gets two skills. A player may start with 3 skills, but this means you start with only 7 willpower tokens.

When the game starts, if Jonas falls unconscious and wakes up, or a player fails a dice roll, players can contest for power over Jonas. At this time, each player is issued a single token. A player may only attempt to control Jonas on his or her turn.

During this power contest, players may bid any number of tokens (including zero if they want to try and bluff) in their enclosed fists. When the bids are revealed, the highest bidder pays the DM the amount revealed and then has control of Jonas.

If two players both have the same bid, they must each roll a D6 to see who gains control. In the event of a tie, control is auctioned between the two players at additional tokens.

If a player loses control of Jonas as the result of a failed roll then goes on two win the ensuing bid for control, the failed action is then completed for free.

At any time, a player who is not currently in control of Jonas can immediately pay 3 tokens to “intervene”. Them and the player currently in control must then roll a D6 each for control. In the result of a tie, the player who “intervened” gains control.

At any point before the end of the game, each player may attempt to guess another players goal by secretly passing a note to the GM. A player may only make one guess of each other player. If they guessed the goal correctly, they will receive an extra point at the end of the game, calculated after the goal difficulty multiplier.

The aim of the game is to coerce Jonas in to acting out your obsession the most times before he either dies, or everyone runs out of willpower tokens.

You can watch me, Tahlia Murdoch and Erik Jovanovic play live every Monday night at 7.30pm pacific time on twitch.tv/cavegoblins or catch the VOD on YouTube the following Wednesday.