RPG Review: This World Summons Too Many Heroes!!: Definitive Edition
This World Summons Too Many Heroes!!: Definitive Edition (TWSTMH from now on, because I value my fingers) is a 2025 Kickstarter-funded compendium of the 2023 second edition of a 2021 RPG by Nick “Duffo” Duff. The Definitive Edition expands the original core rules and includes supplemental material written by Paul “Ettin” Matijevic, plus Tom Harrison and Joe Anderson from the Anime Sickos podcast.
TWSTMH is an homage to/takes the piss out of otherworld isekai fiction like Konosuba, Re:Zero, Overlord, That Time I Got Reincarnated as a Slime, Uncle from Another World, Speedrunner Cannot Return from the Game World, So I’m a Spider, So What?, Reborn as a Vending Machine, I Now Wander the Dungeon, and a gazillion other light novels, manga, and anime that all have titles like that.
If you have no interest in that stuff, this might not be the game for you. If, however, you’re amused by the concept of several hapless doofuses from 21st century Earth bumbling around in a medieval fantasy world with cheat powers, this might be the diversion you didn’t know you were looking for.
Small note: Normally I like to break up reviews with masterfully captioned pictures from the game. I won’t be doing that (much) for this one, for reasons which will become clear.
What a World, What a World
A hero ain’t nothin’ but a sandwich
A few years ago, the generic fantasy world of Ceria was having its shit pushed in by this generic fantasy villain fella called the Cryptlord. Powerless before the Cryptlord’s generic evil powers, the various generic fantasy kingdoms pooled their magical resources to create a powerful spell. Once cast, it would force Launrith, the Goddess of Resurrection, to pluck a person from another world, give him a super powerful magic Gift, and bring him here to fight their battles for them.
Luckily, it worked out. Their reluctant hero, a man named Yuya Muto, had the Gift of creating spell scrolls out of thin air, which allowed him to become the greatest spellcaster and sage the world had ever seen. With this mighty power, he managed to depose the Cryptlord. Then he promptly retired rather than taking his revenge on the people who yanked him out of his world, which may be the least realistic thing about this whole story. Maybe he’d been something unpleasant in his previous life, like an advertising copywriter or IT professional.
Before running off, Muto told the assembled kingdoms that he would leave them with the means to save themselves in case another generic overlord might appear. He used his Gift to create hundreds of scrolls containing the very spell which summoned him to this world, and left them in the care of his closely trusted mage friends with strict instructions to only use them if absolutely necessary.
So of course almost the second Muto vanished, war broke out between the kingdoms to gain control of these scrolls. Soon whole caches of them had fallen into the hands of petty monarchs with scores to settle. Soon after that, the world became littered with summoned heroes who have been tricked, brainwashed, or threatened into fighting each other. The world now shudders before their mighty conflicts, yet Muto is nowhere to be found.
The PCs, as you might have guessed, are recently summoned heroes as well, given the task to contain any unused scrolls, mitigate the damage done by their peers, find out what happened to Muto, and maybe (if they have time) see if there’s a way to get all these “heroes” back home and out of the natives’ hair.
The Hero System
Wait, not … that is … you know what I mean
TWSTMH is based on the LUMEN rules system, or I suppose “Illuminated by LUMEN” because of marketing or something.
Characters have three Attributes: Might, Mastery, and Mischief. Cute. Might is simple raw punch-’em-up strength. Mastery is the character’s “control of the situation,” which could be anything from aiming a weapon to making a plan. Mischief is stealth and trickery and making people believe your lies. All three overlap conceptually in weirdly fuzzy ways. GMs should be ready for arguments about which Attribute works in which situation.
Players have 7 points to divide between these Attributes, which can be as low as 0 and as high as 7. This number determines how many d6 they roll when attempting a relevant feat. (They still roll one die even if the Attribute is 0.) The outcome of the roll is determined by the highest die rolled. If it’s 2 or less, they fail with a consequence. On a 3 or 4, they succeed with a complication. If the high die is 5+, they simply succeed.
The probabilities of success with this dice system shoot up very quickly. By the time you’re rolling 4d6, the chance of a failure is less than 1% while a full success is over 80%, and it gets even more ridiculous from there. GMs may struggle to keep things challenging. Since the PCs are supposed to be superhuman, though, it tracks.
Characters also start with 8 HP and 6 SP (“Special Points,” which activate their Gifts).
It’s Heroing Time!
And then he heroed all over those guys
To build your very own isekai hero, start by choosing an Archetype.
- The Bystander: Whoops! You weren’t even supposed to be here today, but you were standing too close to someone else being summoned or were hit by Truck-Kun and got sucked into another world by accident.
- The Demon Lord: Evil cultists summoned you here to rule the world, but you didn’t care for their vibe and you look terrible in black leather, so you dipped.
- The Hero: You were brought to Ceria to defeat an ancient evil. You blew through that quest easily, of course, so now you’re just looking for something interesting to occupy your time.
- The Myth: You’re never alone; there’s the spirit of a great Cerian hero or magic beast in your body. Once per adventure you can flip them in so they can wipe up the bad guys for you.
- The Noble: You occupy the body of a previously existing high mucky-muck, who by all accounts was kind of a snot. Now you have to navigate their life and maybe make things better for the people around you.
- The Reader: Ceria was the subject of your favorite book or video game in your past life, and you know more about it than even the people who live here.
- The Reincarnated: Only your spirit arrived, without a body. Unfortunately the summoning spell doesn’t do “making a human body” very well, and you now have the form of something completely different.
TragedeighThe Tragedy: You were summoned by someone very bad, who used you for very bad purposes. You managed to escape but now you have terrible scars and trust issues.
Each Archetype includes a choice between two special background-style benefits. For instance, the Noble can choose either Disowned Heir (get better starting equipment) or Villainess (any attempt to bully people always uses your best Attribute).
People who know the genre will easily be able to recreate their favorite tropes here, except one: the person who changes the primitive world with their encyclopedic knowledge of some modern niche subject (16th century castles, miso making, book publishing, WWI artillery, eclipses and other natural phenomena, etc.). Sadly, out of the box, you can’t save the world with your mastery of actuarial tables. Guess it’s not that kind of story.
With Archetype in hand, it’s time to choose a starting Class. There are 26 different classes, from the mundane (Blacksmith, Brawler, Mage, etc.) to the exotic (Beast, Living Weapon, Phantasm, Vampire, etc.). There are also four extra-powerful classes, Magus, Sage, Champion, and Servant, which can only be acquired during the campaign at great expense.
Each class gives a character two basic Class Abilities, plus a unique third depending on their highest Attribute. For example, the Blacksmith Class gives anyone who takes it the Metalwork and Signature Weapons abilities, plus Full Potential (spend SP to power up your weapon) if Might is your highest Attribute, Mana Forging (able to create magic weapons) for Mastery, or Cursed Weapons (able to create and wield jinxed weapons) for Mischief. The player gets to choose if the character has two equally high Attributes.
Leveling up either unlocks one of the other Class Abilities or increases the power of one you already have. For instance, the Blacksmith above could change their Full Potential ability to Full Potential+, either doubling its damage, halving its SP cost, or increasing its area of effect.
Multi-classing is possible if the character buys a class treatise to learn a new class. Common class treatises can be found in any town, but the more rare and powerful classes may require some questing to find. No matter how many Classes they have, a character can only have three Class Abilities active at a time by default. Known abilities can be swapped around freely outside of battle.
Happy birthday, it’s time to receive a Gift. The Gift a character receives depends on their highest Attribute, and the rules encourage rolling them randomly. Each character only gets one Gift and can never gain another.
Gifts are, frankly, super powers. There are 36 enumerated Gifts, but GMs and players are encouraged to come up with others if they think of something interesting. Here’s a smattering of the examples given in the book:
- Phantom World: Your starting weapon is also the key to a pocket universe where time passes quickly and you are immortal. In this pocket world is the spirit of a great hero who will train you and give you advice.
- Mindfreak 100: Every time you do damage, tally your attack rolls. When your tally reaches 100, your next attack does +100 damage.
- Invincibility Frames: Automatically avoid as many enemy attacks as the number of attacks you’ve made this turn.
- Base: You have a house or other dwelling which you call home. You can fast-travel there and back without casting a spell.
- Shopping Channel: Freeze time to enter an interdimensional supermarket where you can purchase anything you want.
- Exposition Fairy: A tiny creature which only you and certain monsters can see will follow you around and tell you all kinds of hidden secrets about your opponents.
People who regularly consume manga/manhua/anime/video games will quickly pick up what the game is putting down. Others would at least agree that these are some powers, all right.
Lastly, a new character receives their Weapon(s), as determined by their Class choice. Weapons are semi-abstracted into the categories of Small Melee, Large Melee, Ranged, Tomes for spellcasters, Unarmed, and Shields. Weapons also have at least one Tag to customize them. Some Tags increase damage under certain circumstances, like a +1 when wielded by a Mischief hero, or have special effects, like paralyzing enemies anytime you roll doubles. Weapons can be enchanted with more Tags if you can find an enchanter and spend the required cost.
Tomes are the basis of the game’s magic system. Each Tome contains one fairly simple spell, and anyone can use it. Certain Classes can also unlock Ritual Spellcasting versions of each Tome’s spell, which requires spending SP and making multiple Attribute checks. The Ritual versions are far more versatile and powerful, however, so it’s usually worth the effort.
For instance, a Fire Tome can be used by anyone to poof out a small bolt of flame which does +1 damage. Yawn. With Ritualized Spellcasting, however, a caster could use the same Tome to create a wave of flame which sweeps over the entire battlefield, doing 2 damage per round to all enemies for 5 rounds. Decidedly not yawn.
Fighty Bits
Heroically punching helpless goblins in the throat
Fighting evil in TWSTMH is your usual affair of going around the table, choosing a target or targets within reach, and attempting to thump them. Initiative order is up to the players.
One interesting peccadillo is, if a PC rolls 4 or less on their action, one of the enemies takes an action immediately afterward, before the next player gets a turn. That doesn’t necessarily need to be the enemy that PC is fighting, either. After all the players finish, the GM gets three more actions for the enemies to take, rolls Drops (HP, SP, or Materia) for each enemy defeated that turn, makes any changes to the battle (introducing reinforcements, changing the terrain, etc.), and then the process loops until one side is out of the fight, one way or another.
The GM-us interruptus nature of gaining an action on a player failure is an interesting mechanic in theory. However, it also incentivizes players to always use their strongest abilities, which could become dull or repetitive depending on the circumstances. The GM needs to stay on their toes and throw out varied challenges to keep things fresh.
Battlefields are divided into three ranges, Close, Near, and Far. There’s no blocking movement, so characters can charge around freely. Positioning is general and theater-of-the-mind. It’s very very abstract. You just gotta vibe with it, man.
Weapons and powers do set damage: all Small Melee weapons do 1 damage, Large Melee weapons do 3, etc. Armor is mostly not a thing, though Shields will always reduce damage by 1. Characters brought to 0 HP will fall unconscious and have their SP set to 0. Next turn, as long as any allies are still standing, they’ll reawaken with 1 HP.
If all the PCs are knocked out in one turn, it’s a TPK. The characters reappear before the goddess Laurinth and have to bargain for their lives. If and when they return, it’ll be without their weapons and possessions.
Goddesses and Monsteresses
Pantheism and You!
The world of Ceria has several goddesses who oversee the world and their worshippers.
Launrith, Goddess of Resurrection, for most of her existence, was a mysterious figure rarely thought of outside of births and funerals. After the hero-summoning scrolls put her front and center, her popularity exploded. Launrith discovered along the way that she loves the attention. Her personality has become bright, informal, and cheerful, almost like an entertainment idol, which scandalizes some of her older priests who preferred her all distant and spooky.
Henritte, Goddess of Law, has directly placed the crowns on the heads of state for time immemorial. She also polices said kings to ensure they follow the laws of their respective lands. This doesn’t prevent the monarchs from being objectively awful, but as long as the laws allow their awfulness to flourish, she’s cool with it. Henritte holds regular god-meetings so they can all discuss the best way to administer their power. Her sisters rarely attend.
Mellennia, Goddess of Drink and Festivities, has another title: Mother of Monsters. Mellennia has a dozen children with a variety of powerful beasts, like dragons, giants, elementals, and worse and weirder still. The Cryptlord was (secretly) one of these, in fact. In her mind, Mellennia’s demigod spawn were supposed to be the true rulers of this world, and she’s not happy that plain little Launrith’s heroes are stealing her thunder.
Cloe, Goddess of Secrets, is a recent addition to the upper god pantheon after Muto banished their previous fourth member, Death, back to the underworld. Cloe is obsessed with hiding objects of power all over the world, and is the source for a lot of the treasure chests and magic items heroes might find in otherwise empty 10’x10’ dungeon rooms. She particularly enjoys hiding hero-summoning scrolls where the weirdest people might find them.
There are several other minor gods and goddesses about, but Raphaelle, Goddess of War and Chaos, is a real up-and-comer. Henritte’s younger sister, Raphaelle likes to disguise herself as a human and sow discord wherever she goes. She dreams of a day when every kingdom uses their remaining summoning scrolls all at once, bringing a great war which will transform the world.
People, Places, and Things
That which is seen
The book goes on to describe a number of realms around Ceria. Some of the more interesting ones are:
Checkout: Deep in the frozen north, there lies an enormous, twisting, non-Euclidian supermarket. Many believe it was the Gift of a summoned hero. Now that hero is gone, but the supermarket remains, and has become home to multiple communities of raiders, scavengers, and cultists who sentence shoplifters to gladiatorial combat at their brutal Food Court.
Prosperity: A summoned hero had the Gift of 10% Commission, which he used to become quite wealthy. Merchants and kings begged him to use his Gift to their benefit, and everyone became stinking rich as a result. Unfortunately he was tricked by the goddess Raphaelle into being unable to use his Gift, and now the only thing that keeps all his deals afloat is mounting loan debt. The hero will beg the PCs to help him find the stolen object which will restore his Gift. If they can’t, the entire kingdom will fall to financial ruin.
Volkovia: A bustling factory town full of skeletons and zombies, all working under the Gift of a summoned necromancer Demon Lord-turned-hero. The living people here relax and enjoy the fruits of undead labor. Other necromancers think the summoned hero has made necromancy boring, and skulk about painting graffiti on the walls like gangs of pouting mall Goths. Despite the peoples’ distrust of the undead after that whole Cryptlord business, the ease of life has won most of them over. This area is surprisingly peaceful. Smells a bit though.
Each realm has its own set of NPCs and monster mobs. The following chapter gives thorough descriptions of the more important NPCs, including (for the first time, here on page 70 of 122) illustrations. I hadn’t realized how much I missed having incidental pictures until we got a few. I mean I wasn’t bored per se, but it just kinda startled me that it was even a possibility. And while I’m usually the first one to poo-poo extravagant page-wasting art, there’s a difference between big multi-page spreads and occasional line art to break things up.
Sadly, the pictures abruptly stop after page 77, and there are only three more pictures in the whole rest of the book. Ah. What might have been.
(Addendum: After some research, I learned the lack of imagery is due to the Kickstarter not reaching its stretch goal for full internal illustrations. I’m totally sympathetic on that front. It’s still kind of a shame. Even a little more would have gone a long way.)
The book continues with over 40 mob, monster, and minor NPC listings. These run the gamut from your typical wolves and skeletons to feral catgirls and giant enemy crabs. Some mobs are gathered into groups which the GM can drop in to give the PCs some instant rivals to vie against. My favorite is the Egg Boy Gang, a group of bandits led by a juvenile dragon who has yet to break entirely out of its shell, so it’s just an egg with two feet sticking out.
NPCs and monsters can also gain Class Abilities at the GM’s whim, either to fill them out or shake them up. There’s not a lot of guidance in this, so it’s possible to inadvertently make something overpowered for an encounter. The flexibility is appreciated, however.
The Frame of the Campaign
Falls mainly on the plain
The book wraps up with two mega-adventures that could well be campaign outlines. These were previously published as additional supplements which Nick (do you mind if I call you Nick?) has kindly bundled in with the Definitive Edition.
.Dungeon//Tower, by the Anime Sickos guys, outlines a 99-story dungeon tower which was the Cryptlord’s base of operations before he himself became … non-operational (pinky to corner of mouth, wry smile). Once the major threat was past, the tower became a popular location for newbie adventurers to grind its infinite monster spawners for XP.
Everything was hunky-dory until a group of heroes made it to the top floor and slew the main boss. This caused a cascade of magic energy to flow through the entire tower. All the monsters suddenly powered up, trapping dozens of lowbies in a dungeon way above their level. This became known as the “New Game+ Incident.”
This supplement suggests skipping past a lot of the boring dungeon exploration and getting straight to the boss fights, which include such iconic villains as The Bird Which Is Too Big, the Glitched Protagonist, and Slingo da Blue Mage. Then there’s Mr. Gun. The kobold who found a gun. And will shoot you. With his gun.
Season of the Sage is more of a traditional adventure. The PCs are hired to find a lost caravan which was carrying a summoning scroll, along the way discovering a grand conspiracy which involves goddesses, the lost Sage Muto, idol concerts, chaos demons, ninja, and even more silly things.
Both of these supplements are fun in different ways, and show off how a TWSTMH campaign can unfold in this weird-ass world. .Dungeon//Tower is by far the goofier of the two, and also the least focused. The Dungeon Tower is more a setting than a storyline. It’s mostly up to the GM to find a reason for the players to enter this cursed place. On the other hand, Season of the Sage has, like, a plot, and is set up like a proper intro adventure with motivations and everything.
Thoughts and Prayers
My Goddess Can’t Be This Cute?!
And that’s it.
Presentation-wise, the game is workmanlike. Previous editions are somewhat infamous for their questionable design and Comic-Sans-like font choices, but the Definitive Edition is quite legible, even approaching the level of attractive, thanks to a bang-up layout job by Ettin. Too bad about the art situation. Darn capitalism.
Content-wise, there’s quite a bit here, a lot more than you’d expect from a high-concept comedy RPG in fact. Locations and NPCs, from goddesses all the way down to a kobold with a gun (who will shoot you, with his gun), all come with a passel of motivations and story hooks. Of all the parts of this game, I think the world as presented is surprisingly my favorite bit. It’s not always consistent, but it’s consistently entertaining. What more could you ask for really.
Rules-wise, it’s LUMEN with some extra stuff bolted on. It can be a little clunky but it mostly works. I guess that’s better than some games. It helps that most isekai fiction has a very video-game-y veneer to it already, so a simple mechanistic ruleset works in its favor.
Gameplay-wise … that’s the deal, isn’t it. The player experience will depend heavily on their understanding of the underlying trope and/or their willingness to go along with the gag. In practice, I can see the base game feeling something like Drawn Together, where you put several similar but disparate character types in a pressure cooker and see what happens. If you’ve ever wondered how the Shield Hero might interact with Bakarina, then (thrusting hands palms-up toward you) there ya go.
The humor of the setting mostly lands. .Dungeon//Tower really pulls out the stops on the wackiness. Everything else is vaguely more grounded (as much as a game like this can be anyway). Despite a few slight nods to dark anime tropes, the game remains positive and aboveboard, and very much discourages anything really awful like slavery and incest and the other stuff that gives some stories in this genre a bad name.
As a celebration of isekai craziness, this game works. As an actual game, it’s fine. To really have fun, you have to want what it offers. If you’re into that, I can totally recommend it.
One-and-three-eighths thumbs up.