Over the Edge 3rd Edition Is Here

The original roleplaying game of counter-culture conspiracy, weird science, and urban danger comes roaring back — available in stores today, June 1st.

 Conspiracy lurks around every corner on the island of Al Amarja.

This third edition highlights everything we at Atlas Games like about RPGs:

• A heady blend of fringe science, conspiracy, and hyper reality. The island of Al Amarja is a rich sandbox to be filled with your craziest and most entertaining ideas.
• Everything old is new again. New narrative rules, character traits, conspiracies, and locations improve storytelling and propel drama.
• Designed by Jonathan Tweet, lead designer of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, Ars Magica, Everway, and 13th Age.

New dice are available too!

Over the Edge was originally created in 1992 by Jonathan Tweet with Robin D. Laws. The first edition served as the inspiration for the collectible card game On the Edge, originally published in 1994 and still available from Atlas Games. This third edition is completely reimagined, with new rules, twists, art, and more.

“Over the Edge is designed to highlight your creativity,” says Tweet. “The setting of Al Amarja is full of interesting details, but what really counts is what you and your friends come up with on your own.” We can’t wait to see what conspiracies you uncover when you return to the Island.

Over the course of the next month, we will share interviews with the production team, designers, and line developers. In the meantime, be sure to follow us on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram to stay in the loop on what’s coming next.

More than two thousand Kickstarter backers helped fund this edition, some of whom appear in the art of the core rulebook. To everyone who backed, shared, or supported the Kickstarter: thank you! Atlas Games loves you.

Any Weird You Want

Over the Edge comes at character creation from a unique perspective: you don't have to know the rules to make a great character. Not only that, but your character can come from any source at all. Everything is fair game–just make it weird.

You only need to fill in four blanks when you create an Over the Edge character. First, you need a Main Trait that answers the basic question, "Who are you?" Options might include the tabloid mascot Bat Boy, Big League Slugger, Chernobyl Survivor, Time Lord, Urban Cowboy, or Demonic Salesman.

Second, you need a Side Trait. It's another skill or identity that differentiates you from others like you. You and another player may both be Urban Cowboys, but one of you might have the Side Trait of Contortionist, while the other is Radioactive.

Third, you need to know what kind of Trouble your character has. Trouble is what derails your character, like Fear of Puppies or being Obsessed with Energy Conservation. Whatever you're trying to do, Trouble pulls you off task or leads you more deeply into danger.

Finally, each character has a Question Mark. Every person has something that others believe to be absolutely true about them: they're honest, they're brave, they're selfless. Once you apply that magical Question Mark (Honest? Brave? Selfless?), those concepts spawn all sorts of complications. And complications are what make characters and adventures interesting.

Go down a few internet rabbit holes and mine some serious weirdness. It'll make your Over the Edge character and experiences all the richer!

Your Helpful Assistant Reba

Reba, what's a good Vietnamese restaurant near me?

< Good question. Here's what I've found: >

<< La Florale zine says, "iPho has protein balls that taste just like the ones this scientist I know makes. In their rich oxblood broth, they satisfy your basic need for nutrients." >>

<< Overheard, 12:52 pm, visitor Alex Rodriguez: "That food usually gives me the runs, but the junk we ordered from Hoa Bien hasn't given me a single squirt." >>

<< Guest record 2384w38965, Janelle de Baubigny: 11:00 am tour of IndustreeLab campus, 12:35 pm lunch at Truong Nam (consumed bun and Vietnamese iced coffee), 3:00 pm tour of Bandama caldera, 3:41 pm fell into caldera. Cause undetermined. >>

Reba, that's probably enough.

< Always happy to be of assistance. Enjoy your time on The Edge. >

Welcome Back to the Edge

You step up to the passport control window at last, the long line still stretching out behind you. The government employee is very clean, his noose necktie cinched perfectly. You notice the tattoos on his fingers as he stamps your passport: L O O K   O N C E.

"It's been a long time. Welcome back to Al Amarja."

You can't remember how many years have passed since you last visited the Edge. The brand-new edition of Over the Edge shows you around the place as it is now. The Kickstarter is your ticket for the tour bus.

The Edge is still the weirdest city in the world, and the action comes from the characters you create. New rules focus on the trouble that leads you into the clubs, corporations, and cults of Al Amarja where the good stuff goes down.

The Kickstarter launches today, July 10, and it's full of all-new specials never before featured in an Atlas Games RPG crowdfunding campaign. Get in on the Edgy excellence first!

Grokking the Difference: Jonathan Tweet on Unknown Armies vs. Over the Edge

In the final post in our Grokking the Difference series, we talk to Jonathan Tweet, designer of Over the Edge and Clades. Jonathan has also had a hand in the development of other classic games like Ars Magica, Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition, and 13th Age. Here are a few of his insights into the things that distinguish Over the Edge from Unknown Armies.

There are a number of differences I can see between Over the Edge and Unknown Armies. First, Unknown Armies has a cool backstory that the characters can plug into. Over the Edge is more about the story that players bring, while the backstory is chaotic and self-contradictory.

Second, Unknown Armies says there is a secret order to things. Over the Edge says it's chaos, not order, that runs the world. A lot of it lands right in the characters' laps. If you walk down a street in the Edge, the chaos jumps out at you. You might see baboons patrolling the streets as cheap security; public shrines from undocumented and bloody spiritual traditions; or a heavy metal band ruling a poor neighborhood with high-decibel concerts and street violence. Ultimately, a lot of the flavor of Over the Edge just comes from horrible people being themselves or exploitative systems doing their thing.

Unknown Armies is serious. Over the Edge is serious, but with generous side helpings of hyperbole, satire, and farce. Over the Edge is relentlessly urban, while Unknown Armies embraces the rural American side of life, too.

As far as game systems go, Over the Edge is more freeform in terms of dice-rolling and mechanics, compared to Unknown Armies. There is, for example no mechanical magic system to use that represents secret knowledge in the game world. Players define their characters' paranormal abilities, if any, in a loosely structured way.

Unknown Armies 3 has streamlined mechanics, and so did the original Over the Edge. The new edition of Over the Edge that will be coming out takes streamlining to another level. A single throw of the dice can resolve an entire scene, such as what results when a character breaks into an apartment looking for clues. Bypassing security, finding a way in, staying quiet enough to avoid attention from neighbors, not getting bitten by vipers serving as guards, and finding important clues (or not) can on a single throw of the dice. 

Grokking the Difference: Greg Stolze on Unknown Armies vs Over the Edge

In our effort to untangle the differences and similarities of our classic roleplaying games Unknown Armies and Over the Edge, we asked each game's designer to weigh in with their perspective. Unknown Armies author Greg Stolze has looked at the question with new eyes, coming off the successful third edition of his game. Even now, we're rolling out the UA3 Campaign Starter Kits at your favorite digital marketplaces. Here are his thoughts on the two games:

It's not hard to see similarities between the two games. Over the Edge came out first and was a strong inspiration for Unknown Armies, particularly in the area of 'Players get to define what their characters can do instead of picking off a limited list of skills.' They're both deliberately weird, subverting expectations of what reality is, built around the sometimes-unspoken idea that the game's primary duty is to be compelling, 'fair.'

But the differences are crucial.

     1) Unknown Armies is about people. Over the Edge is about setting.
In UA, every character has a set of gauges that register the traumas they've experienced. Those meters, in turn, show how they relate to others, how they interact with the world around them, and how they respond to further challenges. The spotlight of the story is on the characters, and the mechanics orbit their personalities. OTE, on the other hand, is about the mysterious, baffling, frustrating island of Al Amarja and its myriad bizarre inhabitants. The characters inevitably bring their own agendas, secrets, and mysteries, but those are at best co-equal ingredients in a thick, crowded, and flavorful stew.

     2) In Over the Edge, you explore. In Unknown Armies, you pursue.

If you're a GM who likes getting a giant pile of sinister agendas and then assembling them into a maze for the characters to scurry through, ratlike, in pursuit of the cheese of a little power or just an explanation and also, the maze is on fire, then OTE is the game for you. The city of The Edge, the typical setting for an OTE game, gives you all the pieces you could ever need to provide mysteries for players to gnaw and worry at. UA, on the other hand, puts the players in the position of driving the game forward, off on a tangent, or right off a cliff. UA characters are driven and obsessed to accomplish some particular goal, decided on by the players, in a setting collaboratively developed. OTE characters are curious and canny, usually explorers instead of revolutionaries.

     3) The rules are very different.
UA has rules that help generate story. OTE has rules that get out of the way. UA is an intricate percentile-based system with a lot of interconnectedness, by design. It's meant to make every experience or decision weighty and lasting, whether the blowback from bad choices is physical or psychological. OTE runs off a short d6 pool with a few intuitive tweaks to influence outcomes. It's designed for transparency and simplicity, so you can learn the rules in ten minutes and make a character in five.

Jonathan Tweet's Kickstarter

Jonathan Tweet, of Over the Edge fame (among others), is Kickstarting a fantastic kids book about Evolution … but it ends TOMORROW 6pm PST. Check it out, download a preview, support it now!

Social Media Roundup, 02-08 February 2014

Here are the five most interesting things from the Atlas Games social media this week.

• Most people rely on books and movies to fill out our imaginings of knightly combat, but we're sure this article about full-contact medieval fight clubs will inspire vivid details in your next Once Upon a Time story.
• Pick up the current Bundle of Holding to get a virtual library of Ars Magica Fourth Edition books. For less than $20, you get the core rulebook, resources, and adventures by authors like Jonathan Tweet, Will Hindmarch, and Atlas Games president John Nephew. Less than a week left on this sweet deal!
• Whether you're looking for a new Over the Edge storyline or a new reason to buy a hazmat suit, the laboratory replication of this 30,000 year old virus should fit the bill nicely.
• Myths about the Middle Ages abound in the modern world, but sometimes it's sad to see one of them debunked. We regret to inform you that medieval people actually did drink water, instead of only alcoholic drinks. Please adjust your Ars Magica or Once Upon a Time games accordingly.
• For game design insights and random hilarity from Atlas' brand manager and award-winning RPG designer Cam Banks, follow him (@boymonster) on Twitter.

If you want up-to-the-minute news or to interact with Atlas staff and fans, follow us on the Atlas Games Facebook and Twitter feeds, as well as the Once Upon a Time and Gloom pages!

Last Chance Bundle

The clock is ticking on the Over the Edge Bundle of Holding -- there's less than ten minutes left to pick up this bargain of eleven RPG eBooks for only about $17!

An Even Bigger Bundle

Several titles have been added to the original line-up in the Over the Edge Bundle of Holding: Friend or Foe?, Wildest Dreams, Unauthorized Broadcast, and Warped Adventures: Invasion.

A mere $5.95 gets you started with the core rulebook, Player's Survival Guide, and the novel Pierced Heart; pay more than the current average, and you get a whopping eight more titles for download.  If you've already bought the bundle, you'll find the extra titles on your download page already!

Time is running short -- this offer will end on Wednesday morning, so don't miss out!

Return to Al Amarja with Warped Adventures: Collision

It's been almost thirteen years since we last visited the island of Al Amarja in an official product, but your long dry spell is now over with Collision, the third in our series of Warped Adventures. Whether you've just encountered the surreal danger of Over the Edge with the recent Bundle of Holding or you're a long-time fan, Warped Adventures: Collision offers an entirely original experience. Five player characters are provided so you can get right to answering the two big questions of this scenario: who are you, and how did you get here?

Over the Edge Hashtags for Al Amarjan Fun

The launch of this week's Over the Edge Bundle of Holding reminded us all at Atlas how much we love this classic RPG's wonderfully perverse Mediterranean setting of Al Amarja.

Two details of the setting too often forgotten are "Opportunities in the Edge" and "Little Scratches," a pair of regular, classified ad-style features in Al Amarja Today, the island's chief news source. "Widely Read, Reasonably Priced!" or so the paper's editors claimed.

• Opportunities in the Edge was a magnificent source of adventure ideas, sideline encounters, and GMC ("Game Moderator Character") inspiration.
• Little Scratches was a printed free-for-all featuring coded communiques between secret agents, bitter commercial tirades, political apologia, and rebukes from God.

A page of Opportunities on the Edge and Little Scratches from the Over the Edge core book.

Although we had no way to know it back in the day, micro-texts of each type are perfect fodder for Facebook and Twitter, so join us on the island using the #OpEdge and #LitScr hashtags. Feel free to direct people to this page when they wonder what the hell it is that you're trying to say. We've pre-shortened a URL and everything: is.gd/alamarjatoday.

(Not familiar with Over the Edge? We can fix that problem, too.)

OTE Bundle of Holding

We're excited to start off the new year with another Bundle of Holding, this one featuring Jonathan Tweet's seminal rules-light RPG of surreal conspiracy, Over the Edge.  At the minimum price you get the OTE 2nd Edition rules, the Player's Survival Guide (which gives players the info they need, without giving away Al Amarja's secrets), and a novel set in Al Amarja: Pierced Heart, by Robin D. Laws.  Pay more than the average, and you get more -- including any additional books added as the bundle goes on!  The bundle went live last night and runs a little over a week.  Act now, as the average price keeps creeping upward...