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The Ultimate Democratic Republic of Al Amarja welcomes you. During your stay with us please remember that Liberty is Job One, Disarmament Means Peace, It’s Polite to Speak English, and, of course, Paranormal Activity is Perfectly Legal.

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The Edge is the weirdest city in the world. Get into trouble. Question your place in the crazed multiverse. Take a draught of madness. Peer through the gap in the mismatched angles where reality ends. Fight a baboon. Take a leap…

… over the Edge.

Over the Edge is Jonathan Tweet’s original game of enigma and conspiracy. It’s a cornucopia of fringe science, conspiracy, and hyper-reality that — in balancing on a precipice somewhere between madness and tomorrow — creates an undeniably unique frisson at the gaming table. The brand new 3rd Edition has been completely reimagined for a new generation of roleplayers: Every conspiracy has been twisted to a new angle. Every GMC

The game system, too, has been rebooted. The original game was a cutting edge system in 1992, and Tweet has reinvented that system from the bottom up to take advantage of his nearly 30 years of personal expertise in game design. The new system features fast, dramatic character creation that’s laser-focused on creating dynamic, active characters. Particularly notable in their elegance are each PC’s Trouble and Question, which relentlessly drive the story forward.

A simple 2d6 resolution mechanic uses a lightning-fast comparison of level and difficulty to generate rerolls, creating mechanical interest at the table without bogging down the action. (Which is further encouraged by the game’s focus on narrative resolution over action resolution.) The potential blandness of such simplified mechanics is counteracted by injecting shocking, unexpected outcomes through good twists, bad twists, and “twist ties”.

If you’re not familiar with these system cheat sheets, you should know that the goal is to summarize all the rules of the game – from basic resolution to the spot rules for actions, combat, firearms, injury, and the like. It’s a great way to get a grip on a new system, introducing new players to the game, and providing a long-term resource for both GM and players. (For more information on the methods I use for prepping these sheets, click here.)

WHAT’S NOT INCLUDED

These cheat sheets are not designed to be a quick start packet: They’re designed to be a comprehensive reference for someone who has read the rulebook and will probably prove woefully inadequate if you try to learn the game from them. (On the other hand, they can definitely assist experienced players who are teaching the game to new players.)

The cheat sheets also don’t include what I refer to as “character option chunks” (for reasons discussed here). In other words, you won’t find the rules for character creation here.

HOW I USE THEM

I generally keep a copy of my system cheat sheets behind my GM screen for quick reference and I also place a half dozen copies in the center of the table for the players to grab as needed. The information included is meant to be as comprehensive as possible; although rulebooks are also available, my goal is to minimize the amount of time people spend referencing the rulebook: Finding something in 6 pages of cheat sheet is a much faster process than paging through a 400 page rulebook. And, once you’ve found it, processing the streamlined information on the cheat sheet will (hopefully) also be quicker.

In the case of Over the Edge, the rules are a high-efficiency, ultra-streamlined experience. As such, the division of the cheat sheet is very straightforward: One page contains the core mechanics. The other contains the comprehensive guidelines for defining power levels. That’s all it takes.

MAKING A GM SCREEN

These cheat sheets can also be used in conjunction with a modular, landscape-oriented GM screen (like the ones you can buy here or here).

For more complicated cheat sheets I use reverse-duplex printing in order to create sheets that I can tape together and “flip up” to reveal additional information behind them. Since the Over the Edge cheat sheet is only two pages long, that’s obviously not necessary. If you have a four-panel screen like myself, you might consider sliding Axel Ortiz‘ beautiful map of the Edge into one of the slots. You might also consider adapting the Al Amarjan Names Handout (which can be found here).

“An Exorcist” is not a fully functional Over the Edge concept. “An Exorcist Who Loves Fighting Demons Too Much” is better. Not Stuntman but Weird Stuntman, with a curse of some sort associated with his work in a David Lynch film. Not Vampire but Recovering Vampire, Former Vampire, or Failed Vampire. If anything in the character description comes out of pop culture, it gets some sort of twist or angle.

                                     – Over the Edge, Jonathan Tweet & Chris Lites

This key bit of insight comes from the character creation chapter of the new edition of Over the Edge, and it’s basically brilliant: In one simple, actionable concept it instantly lets players completely unfamiliar with the game nevertheless create a character who is perfectly tuned into what the Edge is and what life there is like. I’ve come to think of it as “One Weird Twist,” and I’ve repeatedly watched as new players take this idea in and the switch flips for them. Before the twist they’re often struggling to figure out what sort of character they want to create and how their character is supposed to work. After the twist, it all clicks into place.

But as I’ve spent more and more time in the milieu of Over the Edge, I’ve come to realize that One Weird Twist isn’t just the key to grokking character creation in the game. It’s the key to unlocking the whole damn thing.

APPLY TO CONSPIRACIES

At the center of Over the Edge is the Island. Al Amarja. This strange and enigmatic locale is a memetic interstice where the world glides slightly to one side, and the great powers and conspiracies of the globe come together to tip the balance one way or the other: Movers, Pharaohs, Exiles, the CIA, the KGB (not the new one, the old one), the Aliens, and the anarchic Cut-Ups.

I’ve spoken to a few GMs who find it difficult to come to grips with this overwhelming torrent of Burroughs’ Naked Lunch smashed up against William Gibson’s bleeding edge esoterica. When you have a setting where everyone from the Illuminati to the Templars to the World Health Organization to the NSA to the Little Grey Men to Little Debbie snack cakes are butting heads, it can be a lot to wrap your head around and figure out what you’re supposed to do with it at all.

Here’s what you do: Take one conspiracy. Any conspiracy. You’re reading this on the internet so you probably know at least a dozen of them.

Now: Add the one weird twist.

Vaccines cause autism? Weak. (And dumb. And dangerous.) Vaccines, of course, are actually tempered to unleash psychic powers in those who are genetically susceptible to them.

Fluoride was added to the water to lower IQs? Of course not. Fluoride does, in fact, strengthen your teeth, forming a membrane that can detect air pressure (i.e., a transmitting “ear” that can eavesdrop on everything you say… or sub-vocalize).

Paul is dead? Well, sort of. It’s true that the Karla Sommers who performed from 1998 to 2001 was onboard the 9/11 flight that crashed into the Pentagon, but that wasn’t the original Karla Sommers. She was a celebrity clone, bred and programmed to continue the career of stars and starlets who grow bored of the limelight. The real Sommers had to come out of retirement to keep the whole thing from coming into the light… at least until another clone could be prepared.

Vaccines cause autism? Still dumb. Vaccines prevent disease, just like it says on the tin. The preservational thimerosal, of course, was a vector for delivering the micro-trackers that allow the government to track your moments.

Shakespeare didn’t write his own plays? Don’t be ridiculous. But Alexander Pope did carefully restructure them in his oft-definitive editions so that they could encrypt messages that can only be decrypted using the Al Amarja Today from July 7^th, 2019 as a one-time pad.

APPLY TO THE MUNDANE

The real trick to capturing the vibe of Over the Edge, however, is to not limit the One Weird Twist to the big, dramatic stuff in the campaign: It also needs to transform the mundane elements. The fact that Al Amarjans wear nooses for neckties is one canon example of this. To this you might add:

• Fast food joints that advertise, “Certified prion-free beef!”
• An ant with eight legs.
• A sign that reads, “This establishment prohibits the use or display of psychic powers.” In black ink, someone has scrawled under the sign, “Magic powers are totally cool!”
• A gravestone that reads “Born May 1^st, 1963. Died December 22^nd, 1919.”
• A tattered paperback left on a park bench. Written by H.J. Potter, it stars the wizard-born Joanne Rowling.
• A cat with a trademark visible at the back of its pupil.

When applying the One Weird Twist, I think it’s important to apply a twist commensurate in scope to the thing being twisted. If you’re dealing with a global conspiracy, yank it hard. If it’s a fast food joint, on the other hand, the twist should be slight. Subtle.

In this way, the twists push the envelope of the possible or shift things just a few degrees off the expected line. There’s a risk, I think, when running Over the Edge of going gonzo. Making the game sing, on the other hand, can be a little like balancing on a knife’s edge: Pushing the envelope. But not pushing too hard.

WHAT NEXT?

The final aspect here is to hook the PCs. How does this weird twist intersect their lives? How does it affect them? If it’s a routine part of life on the Island, how do other Marjans react to it? Is the contrast between their reaction and the PCs’ reaction significant or meaningful?