RPG Review: Everspark
Earlier in my “career” as an “reviewer,” I looked at some tiny, rules-light games that had less-than-stellar tips on how to GM systems based on descriptors and moonbeams. It’s always felt to me that only providing one or two paragraphs of “here’s a prompt, roll with it, GLHF” is a disservice to new or casual GMs.
After reading Everspark, I have a new appreciation for vagueness.
Everspark is a 2024 rules-“light” collaborative fantasy RPG system by Brazilian developer Cezar Capacle. Cezar has been in the indie dev biz for a while, but this is the first RPG I’ve read from him. The book is 336 pages long and has no pre-developed setting. It has a decent amount of mostly cartoony art and a few full-page spreads, but make no mistake, there’s plenty of text to curl up with on those long winter nights.
The book opens, in fact, with a multi-page essay about why the author wrote this game. Essentially he wanted to get back to the good old days of gaming, when people just threw dice around and had a good time. Remember? Back when nobody bought books or box sets, and there were no grognards or rules lawyers? … Anyone?
Anyway, that’s the thesis. Cezar goes on to cite a dozen other influences, from D&D and Pathfinder on down to things like Mythic GME and Fate. Which is both wide-ranging and a little odd, because the Everspark system barely resembles any of them.
“Organization”
Not in so many words
The way the book is put together is weird enough to garner a special mention. It goes all the way through character generation, world generation, adventure generation, and how the players and the story are supposed to work together, before it teaches you how to roll skill checks. On page 108. Bear in mind the dice system is touted as a big plus in the opening manifesto. I read the book constantly waiting to get to the fireworks factory.
Also note that, even though there was a boatload of content before the dice page, there’s still *furious scribbling on napkin* 942 pages of content afterward. Wait, maybe I should double-check my math. But there’s a lot left. What takes up the bulk of the book, you ask? Come on a magical journey with me to see.
The First Part
Playing slow and tight with fast and loose
The rulebook comes with the standard package of Modern RPG Openings: a “hello” section, a “what is this?” page, a “how to play” page that’s so high-level it doesn’t explain anything, a “how this book is put together” page that kinda points a spotlight at the awkward organization, and a section about safety and how fantasy sometimes touches on bad things (but you don’t have to).
One immediate positive is that the electronic version of the book is thoroughly hyperlinked. If you don’t mind spaghettifying your first readthrough, you could click any of the bolded purple text links and see what the heck the terms mean. The PDF also has decent bookmarks. So I may be making it harder on myself by reading straight through, but it also didn’t have to be this way, Cezar.
We get our first glimpse of a system on page 23, in the “What You Need to Play” section. The list of essentials: 1-6 players, a couple hours out of our precious lives, one d20 and one d6 (per player, ideally), a pad of sticky notes or equivalent, one character sheet per player, and pencils etc. for all. Optionally, the table will also have one or two copies of the Story Sheet (see later) and a printed copy of the separate, 30-page Reference Guide, which contains all the random tables and other ephemera needed to play.
The game can be played one of four ways (or Modes): Solo, Co-op, Parallel, and Hosted. Solo Mode I’m sure you can figure out. Co-op Mode has everyone at the table building the story together without a GM. Parallel Mode is slightly unusual in that the characters all exist within the same world but aren’t necessarily all doing the same thing. It’s like playing solo within a shared story, or a highly individualistic West Marches. It feels like it would be both lonely and have big swaths of downtime. There must be players out there that would get into it though.
Hosted Mode has one person taking the role of Game Host, explaining the rules, adjudicating conflicts, acting as NPCs, the usual stuff. The game stops short of calling the Game Host a “GM” because they don’t dominate the game with world-building or story-creating. Everspark is all collaborative, all the time.
The game takes three pages to list its Core Principles, which I will now do in one compound sentence. *deep breath* Tell the story together; let the story unfold naturally; support your fellow players; reward imagination; make up rules on the fly; don’t sweat the details; plagiarize freely; roll dice often but with purpose; abide by the die rolls; and play how you like, but respectfully. There. That wasn’t so hard.
We next veer into a minor treatise about how players in Everspark are expected to take control of the story and not just sit around letting things happen to them. The author asks players to assume that they are more important than the story, which is a roundabout way to eschew introducing things which make others uncomfortable. The flip side of this assumes the story is greater than any individual character, which is meant to head off players who want to make everything all about their beautiful unicorns.
It’s pretty obvious through this whole opening section that the author is trying to prevent crap players from spraying their crap all over this nice clean game. And I mean they’re really beating us over the head with it. SAFETY, they thunder, echoing across the land; EQUITY AND INCLUSION. I don’t dismiss the sentiment at all, but by the end of this chapter I felt scolded. Geez. What kinda people you been playing with, Cezar.
Building a World
With your bare hands
Everspark doesn’t have a canonical setting. Players are tasked to create the world they play in. The book states that, often, just using their characters’ jobs and missions (which we haven’t gotten to yet), viewed through the lens of common fantasy tropes, may well be enough to jumpstart the universe.
If that’s not enough for you (and, I must reiterate, at this point we still don’t have context for what a character brings with them), we are provided six lists of 20 world-building concepts, like “Ghost Ships,” “Dragon Riders,” “Noble Houses,” “Artifacts of Power,” etc. Roll a d6 for a list and d20 for an entry, repeat three or four times, and then everybody hashes out a setting from the prompts. Depending on the table, this may turn into a deep discussion. The book has little to say about how to adjudicate this in a group setting. Solo players have it comparatively easy.
Next we have a section on how to make a map of your new world. After touting online generators like Perilous Shores and Fantasy Map Generator, it goes into a unique method for making a map manually. And I mean manually:
- Divide a blank sheet of paper into six equal numbered areas.
- Roll 2d6. The first number is a map segment; the second is the number of fingers you’ll be holding up (6 = fist). Lay your non-drawing hand in that map segment and draw a blobby shape around it. The angle of your hand and which fingers you throw up are up to your own dexterity. It’s fine to have the lines go off the edge (but don’t draw on your parents’ kitchen table, kids!).
- After the map’s been thoroughly fisted, go around again rolling 2d6 for segments and fingers. This time, put that many fingers down in the segment and draw circles around them. If it’s in the “ocean,” it’s a peninsula or island; if it’s on “land,” it’s a lake or bay.
- Draw squiggly coastline-like lines around your fisting and fingering results.
- Give the world a fantasy name.
I gotta admit, this bit of arts-and-crafts cartography would be a blast to do at least once. Highly recommended for immature groups (i.e. all of them).
Building Characters
Who were you again?
Character building uses the ABC method: Choose an Ancestry, select a Background, and take a Class. The book helpfully provides tables of 20 of each to either choose from or roll on if you don’t care. Rolling lets you generate a character in about ten seconds. That must be some kind of record.
Ancestries include your usual gamut of fantasy peoples, plus more. I’m not sure if Cezar and Nimble’s Evan Dahm are cribbing from the same sources, but their games’ main lists are very similar, down to turtlekin and fungus people. One folk unique to Everspark are Capybarians, a chill and calming bunch.
If the main list isn’t enough, there’s an alternate 20-item list which is mostly made up of animal types like the Ornelith (platypus people) or the Sauriax (dinosaur people). Or just make your own.
Ancestries aren’t described in great detail, so the player can add their own flair. A few optional questions are provided which the player can answer if they want to think deeply about where their Ancestry exists in society and the world. If two players take the same Ancestry, they’re encouraged to work together to decide what their common features are and then what sort of sub-Ancestry they might each have to make things different.
Ancestries don’t bring you any concrete bonuses, just vibes.
Backgrounds are similarly provided in lists of 20, and are your usual fantasy lifestyles: Noble, Spy, Acolyte, Trailblazer, etc. etc. we’ve all been there. Each one has a little paragraph about what their life may have been like before they became adventurers. Again, you can answer a few provided questions to help cement your character’s origin.
Backgrounds don’t bring you any concrete bonuses, just vibes.
Classes have a bit more definition, but not much. The (yet again) 20 classes have a paragraph of description, a selection of cool unique things you can do, and a few questions which you can answer to make the class a little more your own. The rules strongly suggest not to have two players with the same class.
Multi-classing is accomplished by taking some parts of one class and blending them with some of another class, but not in a way that overshadows everyone else. Each list of unique abilities has four entries, so the easiest way to adjudicate this would be to take a mix equal to four.
Classes don’t bring you any concrete bonuses, just unique abilities (and vibes).
So you saw the pattern, huh. No HP or levels or stats or plusses or anything math-y. Characters just are what they are.
We still don’t know what any of that means yet, though. Let’s soldier on.
We briefly touch on Gear, which doesn’t matter until it does. The general assumption is that the party is reasonably equipped unless you say you’re not, and extraordinary circumstances may require rolls or Sparks (explanation forthcoming) to determine if you have enough X to do Y. There’s a random table of 20 unique weapons if you can’t think of what your character might carry.
Now it’s time to choose a name. Again, if you’re having a crisis of imagination, there’s a handy table of 20 gender-neutral first and last names. I hope no player ever gets so desperate as to roll on it.
Once everyone has their characters it’s time to play, right? Nope! Now it’s time for Interviews! The group comes together and quizzes each other about their characters’ ABCs. This is intended to help with group cohesion and hone everyone’s active listening skills.
I’m beginning to suspect Cezar’s day job is in HR.
From these Interviews, players should be able to identify some Bonds, commonalities from each of their characters that they can, well, bond over. Unlike some other games, Bonds here are really just “hey, you have one of those, me too! Neat!” sort of situations. They may sneakily help with world-building too.
We leave the character section with the group discussing the Adventurer’s Guild they work for, what it’s like, why they joined, etc. I guess being a random group of murderhobos isn’t enough.
Building Adventures
Twirling, twirling towards freedom
These rules start off by stating that there are a gazillion online adventure generators out in the world, and you can even just, like, buy adventures. I’m not sure how successful running one would be without a GM, but it might be interesting to use the opening of one as a jumping-off spot. At the end, you could all read the adventure and see how far off the mark you were. That could be fun.
But! If you’d rather continue being bespoke, Everspark comes with a Mad Lib-style adventure generator. Using several d20-indexed columns, the group can roll random prompts and slot them into the following sentence:
“’A(n) [villainous adjective] [villain type] wants to [evil verb] [noun] at/of/in/from a(n) [adjective] [place]. You must [heroic action verb] [another noun]; otherwise [bad consequence] [a third noun].”
Quick, actual, rolled-right-now example: “A cursed statue wants to infiltrate a dispute at/of/in/from a broken forest. You must find technology; otherwise failure idea.”
No, not failure idea! (Word choice is not always the best fit, as you see here.)
I mean, it’s not impossible to make an adventure out of that. Maybe the “cursed statue” has an Ultron-esque agenda against a kingdom that’s negotiating with fae folk who lived in a forest which recently burned down. Forged evidence makes it look like the kingdom’s own actions destroyed the forest, but the fire was actually set by the cursed statue itself. The king needs the party to find magitech evidence that will reveal the real culprit; otherwise, the already-shaky alliance between the kingdom and the Fairy Realm will be sundered forever. Hmm. Yes. Yeeeees!
Of course, a group of players would almost certainly interpret those same prompts differently, or build into the story as they play. It’s all up to everyone’s imaginations.
The rules take time out to discuss how each player’s mission can interlock with others in Parallel Mode. Maybe two people rolling the same antagonist type are working individually against the same guy. I still don’t quite get the appeal of this mode, but the idea of a grudging teamup between two lone wolves is kinda neat.
To help keep track of the shared world, we’re introduced to the Story Sheet. This is simply a page with columns to list protagonists, beings, factions, locations, threads, and anchors. Several entries will come naturally before the game begins from each characters’ Backgrounds and whatever Bonds arose during the interview phase.
Most of these columns are self-explanatory. The Protagonists column is for info about each PC, like significant factoids about their pasts or any unusual abilities, grudges, etc. they have. Threads are reminders about significant story arcs, which the group can jot down so they don’t get lost. Anchors are truths about the shared world you’re creating; for instance, if the whole continent is suffering an endless winter, that goes here. The Story Sheet plus the Fist Map (my own term) together help everyone remember the parts of the campaign that carry over from session to session.
If the group thinks it’s too much to deal with while they’re wrestling with everything else, they can skip it.
How to Actually Play the Friggin’ Game
Sorry for saying friggin’
Well, we’ve finally reached this milestone. It’s been quite the journey.
Rolling the Dice
Drumroll please
So the Big Deal about Everspark, the thing that returns the fun of gaming to the role-playing world, is precisely this:
Roll 1d20 and vibe.
No, seriously, that’s (mostly) it. Rolling 20 is a success with an Opportunity, around 15 is a solid success, 10-ish is either a success with a minor Complication or a failure with Opportunity, down around 5 is either a base failure or a very minor success with a largish Complication, and 1 is a failure with a dire Complication. The idea is that that’s kind of how a lot of tables roll anyway, so why not base the whole game around it?
I can’t categorically disagree with the sentiment. But it’s taken a lot of talk about systems and characters and organization and interpersonal communication to reach this, the loosest, most story-forward resolution mechanic imaginable. People who like their games to have, you know, systems might find their interest balloons rapidly deflating at this point.
Now, everything we did before isn’t wasted. The true outcome of a roll depends on circumstantial factors, including the character’s ABCs. Rolling a 10 for a Frogling Swashbuckler trying to jump a chasm (their ABCs giving them Leverage, in game terms) has a different quality of outcome than the same action and result for a Turtlekin Arcanist (whose stats would qualify as a Drawback). They both receive a Complication, but maybe the Frogling just stumbles and looks silly in front of someone he was trying to impress, while the Turtlekin almost falls and has to spend all next turn scrambling up the edge.
Complications are snags, annoyances, delays, general inconveniences. The lower your roll, the worse the Complication. They can play out immediately or take place over time. Particularly big Complications can invoke Sparks (explanation forthcoming) which build up until they either explode or require a lot of work to thwart.
Opportunities are good things, value-added extras, “yes and”s. They can be a boon right now or a bigger payoff later, maybe also involving Sparks to count us up to the jackpot.
Both Complications and Opportunities have a 2d6 random table to roll on if you can’t think of something off the cuff.
If you want to maximize effort, you can Tag Team (distant Quagmire voice: Awriiiiight). This lets several players roll together on an action and take the highest.
Fate Checks and Sigils
I’m your density
When the ol’ well of inspiration runs dry, or when you have a quantifiable question that needs answering (How crowded is the street? How hard is it raining? How mad is the shopkeeper about me releasing bees in his store?), it’s time to break out these mini-oracles.
Fate Checks are meant for “how much” type questions. Simply think to yourself, “The higher, the [blank]er,” then roll a d20. What “more” is is determined by the situation. Leverage and Drawback may also apply here.
Sigils are the minimum definition of “oracle.” There are six Sigils: Fire, Water, Stone, Wind, Light, and Shadow, each with a little icon and a few words to help refine their meaning. Roll a d6, find your Sigil, and open your narrative to its cosmic vibe.
This might work in a pinch, but there are plenty of better oracular systems out there. If you have any at hand, just use that.
Sparks
And Recreation
At this point, we may feel like we have a handle on how the game works. But then Cezar chooses to throw this whole new thing at us. Earlier, the rules said that Sparks are optional. But even if they’re optional, quite a lot of the book (112 [!] pages) is spent explaining them.
Sparks are, in essence, clocks with extra steps. Every Spark has five segments, called Rays, drawn on a sticky note or slip of paper in a five-pointed star configuration. The trigger to draw a Ray is decided at the Spark’s creation, and can be mechanical (every time you roll badly on a check, say) or fictional (every time something makes Uncle Albert laugh, say). If something particularly big happens, you can draw multiple Rays at once. Once you complete your pentagram, the Dark Pact is sealed whatever you were counting towards comes to pass.
Except maybe not. Normally, each time you add a Ray, you also make a Spark Check by rolling a d6. If you roll less than or equal to the number of Rays drawn, the Spark is resolved early. This gives some jitter to the proceedings.
When you complete the Spark, you also make a final Spark Check. If you roll a 6, the Spark is Overturned. The event still happens, but you flip the script somehow. The example given is a collapsing temple, which still falls down but reveals a complex of tunnels beneath for further looting and plundering.
To help players set up their Sparks, the author gives us some delicious NACHOS to snack on:
- Name: What to call it
- Advance: What needs to happen to add a Ray
- Check: What needs to happen to invoke a Spark Check
- Hit: What happens when you hit a Ray (besides finishing the Spark)
- Overturn: What happens if this happens
- Special: Unusual rules surrounding the Spark
You don’t have to go to all this trouble to set up every single Spark, but it helps hack the system to better fit different situations.
The system splits Sparks into Basic, Intermediate, and Advanced. Basic Sparks keep track of concrete goals: skill challenges, looming threats, long-term projects, that kind of thing. Intermediate Sparks track story beats, like tension, power scaling, situations escalating, etc. Advanced Sparks are meant for player-specific tracks: how Conditions change over time, crowd reactions to player actions, insights, motives, and so on. Players are encouraged to introduce each layer gradually, as they get a handle on the system.
Some Sparks are Layered. (Mmmm. Layered NACHOS.) Suppose you’re Sparking through an encounter with a horde of vicious battle tapirs, and wind up hitting an Overturn. So you still manage to scatter the horde, but then the evil Boss Tapir Nimiodon shows up. This sudden new encounter ignites a whole new Spark.
Another way to adjudicate a Spark is a Montage. In this case, you’d start four different Sparks for the same task at once: Success, Complication, Opportunity, and Disaster. Each member of the party chooses their role and rolls as they go, adding Rays to the proper Spark depending on their results. Whichever Spark gets resolved first is the task’s ultimate fate.
The Sparks chapter closes with a couple of example scenarios and several hints and suggestions.
This whole section tries really hard, almost desperately, to sell us on the Spark system. I can see it being a useful tool, but there’s no reason for it to take up a full third of the book. No matter what the name of that book happens to be.
Procedures
Proceed, senator
Whew! We’ve spent hundreds of pages learning how to make characters and stories, how the dice work, what Sparks are, etc. Now we’re at the very last chapter of the book, so surely, surely we know how to play Everspark by now, right?
WRONG!
The final chapter introduces the Gameplay Loop, and the three types of scenes: Conflict, Groundwork, or Interlude. Each player’s turn starts in one of these, and you go through and use the various game systems to resolve them yadda yadda basic storytelling for dummies.
There are several more tips here on how to use the Story Sheets, including a “Detailed Mode” which uses a random table to create interconnections between the various elements. It’s either a way to deepen a story’s complexity semi-organically, or one more hassle to keep track of, or both.
The book circles around to chapter one with a list of Best Practices. These help players get into the right mindset, including saying “Yes” more, putting their ideas out there, sharing the spotlight, being a protagonist, taking risks, and so on.
The final section, almost an appendix, is about 40 pages’ worth of How Tos for the struggling table. There are plenty of tips for constructing stories and scenes (including — again — a random table of sources of conflict), making and dealing with NPCs, figuring out what’s the deal with magic, making monsters, balancing encounters (as much as you can in a system like this), dealing with downtime, etc. The whole section feels like an afterthought, or else stuff that Cezar couldn’t figure out how to integrate into the rest of the book.
Since Everspark doesn’t have hit points, or a formal combat system, or anything, the only way for a character to die is for the player to agree to it. This isn’t terribly unusual for a story-first system, but it’s a little odd that it’s only mentioned once about ten pages before the book ends.
The very last bit is about Parallel Play and how to make it engaging for everyone. Here I finally find written out what I had been thinking this whole time, that non-spotlight players should contribute details and ideas during the other players’ turns. Yes. Thank you, Cezar, very cool.
Final Thoughts
The long and winding road
So I can tell that the author is very enthusiastic about Everspark. As you’d hope, about their own game. But my gosh, that’s a lotta words to get it over to the rest of us.
This book, Goldilocks style, is tooooo long. The actual system takes maybe 15 pages to explain in detail. Everything else is either examples, persuasions, or rationalizations. And there are lots of rationalizations. Everspark is almost more a treatise on game design and the author’s inner thoughts than a game. It’s enough that we know how. You don’t always have to tell us why.
The game itself is not at all bad. It’s quite loose, and very story-teller-y, so it’s not for everyone. Cezar does his level best to sell it, but there are too many people who want structure and tactics and stuff. But I do enjoy the audacity of making “throw a die and make shit up” into the game’s central mechanic. Sparks have potential too, though Cezar pushes them so hard that some folks will Oppositional Defiant Disorder themselves right out of it.
The book art, by Ray Olli and Penflower Ink, is abundant, clean, and colorful, bordering on “lavish.” One thing that stood out is that there are a fair number of depicted characters missing a limb or two. I know adventuring is a dangerous business, but, well.
I’m not completely sure who Everspark is for. Cezar mentions new and young players a lot, but it’s counterproductive to throw a tome like this in front of them and expect them to pick it up as their first game. I’d say it’s more for experienced players who are either absolutely bored with traditional gaming, or want to introduce a narrative-first game to their friends without them having to learn much. The book is super duper chock full of examples and deep dives on nearly every subject. If someone were willing to expend the time and effort, that’d make it easy to internalize the rules. Maybe that’s the plan: sell the book to one meticulous person who cares enough to read through it, then have them break it down for other players …
Oh shit. I’m Patient Zero.
It’s fine, but it’s a slog. (Patient) Zero point nine thumbs up.