Everything You Are Must Be Found (Playtest)

Everything You Are Must Be Found (EYAMBF) is a roleplaying game where characters begin without identities, and possibly without memories, and play to find out who they are. Your character sheet will begin completely blank! 

You probably also play to see if your character can survive or escape or overcome whatever dangerous predicament they have found themself in, but if you play a slice-of-life style game, I’d love to hear about it!

The core of this game is to provide a procedure for developing a character’s identity and relationships over time through playing the game, rather than mapping out any of that beforehand during character creation.

The Core Gameplay Loop

During session recap, players identify potentials based on the events of the previous session. At the end of each session, players assign experience to the potentials their characters explored. During downtime, a potential will grow into a core, a bond or a knack.

Notes on Playtesting

This is a playtest!

These playtest rules will use some RPG shorthand, and assume a reasonable level of familiarity with RPGs. In the future, I’ll expand them to make that familiarity less required! For example, because the main thrust of this playtest is not on the resolution mechanics, it borrows, and assumes some familiarity with, the d6 dice pool system of games like Blades in the Dark and Trophy.

If you play EYAMBF (either as a complete game, or as an add-on), I would be thrilled to hear about it. Critical feedback, a summary of what happened in your game, or even just a note saying you played would be greatly appreciated. Shoot me an email at brendan@brendanalbano.com if you play the game. If you’d like to be credited as a playtester in the final version of the game, let me know how you’d like to be credited! 

Even if you don’t play the game, I’d love any feedback on the text itself. Was there a section or mechanic that didn’t make sense? Was there a section that sounded really exciting and made you want to play? Would you like to send me a note telling me I’m smart and pretty?

Since you’d be doing me a huge favor by giving feedback, I’m happy to take it in whatever format is easiest for you! Whether it’s notes straight in an email, or a printout marked up with a red pen, that’s all great!

Credits

• Game Design and Layout by Brendan Albano
• Art by Kate Barbaria
• Editing by nobody, but probably Kate Barbaria in the final version ;)
• Playtesting by Kate Barbaria, Lex Butera, xmasowl, and hopefully you!