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Over the Edge: A Roleplaying Game of Weird Urban Danger
With simple, story-forward rules and an intense, edgy setting, Over the Edge broke new ground in roleplaying games. When it was released over twenty-five years ago, it influenced a generation of game designers and spawned countless campaigns on Al Amarja.
Today, we’re bringing Over the Edge back with a new vision, new era, and new stories. We want you to be a part of that effort.
Return to the island you only think you remember.
WHAT IS AL AMARJA?
The setting of Over the Edge is a fictional, modern-day island in the Atlantic Ocean that’s home to the weirdest city in the world, the Edge. All sorts of conspiracies, paranormal entities, mad scientists, secret agents, and more lurk here. It’s the front line for the Last War, a conflict that rages unseen and unknown to most of its inhabitants. You remember Al Amarja, but not like this.
WHO AM I WHEN I’M HERE?
We believe you're going to be more invested in a unique character you create yourself. Over the Edge helps you draw on modern pop culture and paranormal traditions to craft these exciting characters.
We also believe it’s fun to get into trouble, and so characters in Over the Edge are defined not only by their distinguishing traits, but by the ways they leap from the rails and subvert expectations. They question their own core truths, and everyone gets to see what happens next.
For example, you might play…
a jet-setting grifter in Al Amarja to pull off the greatest caper in modern history.
a psychic super-child in pursuit of the remnants of a shadow government.
a reincarnation of an Atlantean Priest of Excess ready to indulge in the island’s forbidden tastes.
Characters are the best part of Over the Edge because…
The modern-day setting makes it easy to create characters that are relatable and that have depth.
The paranormal-friendly setting makes it easy to use your imagination to create a unique role.
Without even knowing the rules or the setting, you create your alter ego from scratch using concepts and words, not numbers, lists, or templates.
WHAT’S FAMILIAR AND WHAT’S ALL-NEW?
If you’ve played Over the Edge before, you might wonder what’s different this time around. We know you like touchstones and something to connect to, but you also want to feel as if there’s a reason to pick this edition up.
The major conspiracies and characters of the previous editions are still here, but they’ve all been reimagined and rewritten. The new game is inspired by the original material but not limited by or derivative of it.
A few re-imagined concepts include…
The police are still corrupt, but now, instead of being paramilitary officers with grease guns, the rank-and-file cops are schlubs with only their legal standing going for them.
One district is still patrolled by thugs with baboons, only now the baboons also roam on their own begging for food and sniffing out troublemakers.
The poorest neighborhood is still the turf of Lucifer’s Glorious Lords of Passion, a ruthless gang of metal heads, but now the gang is also a bona fide heavy metal band, and they use their music to solidify their hold on the district.
FREEFORM, STORY-FORWARD RULES
We believe the island of Al Amarja is best experienced through light, free-wheeling mechanics.
Over the Edge uses a simple, easy-to-understand game mechanic called “casting lots.” You throw two six-sided dice to resolve any decision, choice point, or challenge. This generates both a succeed-or-fail result as well as the possibility for a special result: good, bad, or both.
A single casting of lots can generate the results for…
A week of surveilling a shady target.
An evening burgling a house for loot and information.
A moment of deadly struggle in a big climactic fight.
Dive deep into the action or pull back and resolve only the key choice points of any situation. Over the Edge lets you determine the scope and stakes of any casting of lots and provides tools to tailor any scenario to the expertise of the player characters.
We believe in gorgeous, evocative books. This Kickstarter features a single rulebook written by original Over the Edge designer Jonathan Tweet. It also features assistance from writer Chris Lites, development by Cam Banks, graphic design by Thomas Deeny, art direction by James Mosingo, and editing by Jaym Gates.
This new edition is also inspired by 25 years of other game designers’ work, including Robin Laws, Ron Edwards, Luke Crane, Vincent Baker, John Harper, and Jason Morningstar. Many designers say that the original Over the Edge inspired them to design roleplaying games in a new way. We embrace that creative feedback loop by re-incorporating some of their amazing innovations here.
Today, we’re bringing Over the Edge back with a new vision, new era, and new stories. We want you to be a part of that effort.
Return to the island you only think you remember.
WHAT IS AL AMARJA?
The setting of Over the Edge is a fictional, modern-day island in the Atlantic Ocean that’s home to the weirdest city in the world, the Edge. All sorts of conspiracies, paranormal entities, mad scientists, secret agents, and more lurk here. It’s the front line for the Last War, a conflict that rages unseen and unknown to most of its inhabitants. You remember Al Amarja, but not like this.
WHO AM I WHEN I’M HERE?
We believe you're going to be more invested in a unique character you create yourself. Over the Edge helps you draw on modern pop culture and paranormal traditions to craft these exciting characters.
We also believe it’s fun to get into trouble, and so characters in Over the Edge are defined not only by their distinguishing traits, but by the ways they leap from the rails and subvert expectations. They question their own core truths, and everyone gets to see what happens next.
For example, you might play…
a jet-setting grifter in Al Amarja to pull off the greatest caper in modern history.
a psychic super-child in pursuit of the remnants of a shadow government.
a reincarnation of an Atlantean Priest of Excess ready to indulge in the island’s forbidden tastes.
Characters are the best part of Over the Edge because…
The modern-day setting makes it easy to create characters that are relatable and that have depth.
The paranormal-friendly setting makes it easy to use your imagination to create a unique role.
Without even knowing the rules or the setting, you create your alter ego from scratch using concepts and words, not numbers, lists, or templates.
WHAT’S FAMILIAR AND WHAT’S ALL-NEW?
If you’ve played Over the Edge before, you might wonder what’s different this time around. We know you like touchstones and something to connect to, but you also want to feel as if there’s a reason to pick this edition up.
The major conspiracies and characters of the previous editions are still here, but they’ve all been reimagined and rewritten. The new game is inspired by the original material but not limited by or derivative of it.
A few re-imagined concepts include…
The police are still corrupt, but now, instead of being paramilitary officers with grease guns, the rank-and-file cops are schlubs with only their legal standing going for them.
One district is still patrolled by thugs with baboons, only now the baboons also roam on their own begging for food and sniffing out troublemakers.
The poorest neighborhood is still the turf of Lucifer’s Glorious Lords of Passion, a ruthless gang of metal heads, but now the gang is also a bona fide heavy metal band, and they use their music to solidify their hold on the district.
FREEFORM, STORY-FORWARD RULES
We believe the island of Al Amarja is best experienced through light, free-wheeling mechanics.
Over the Edge uses a simple, easy-to-understand game mechanic called “casting lots.” You throw two six-sided dice to resolve any decision, choice point, or challenge. This generates both a succeed-or-fail result as well as the possibility for a special result: good, bad, or both.
A single casting of lots can generate the results for…
A week of surveilling a shady target.
An evening burgling a house for loot and information.
A moment of deadly struggle in a big climactic fight.
Dive deep into the action or pull back and resolve only the key choice points of any situation. Over the Edge lets you determine the scope and stakes of any casting of lots and provides tools to tailor any scenario to the expertise of the player characters.
We believe in gorgeous, evocative books. This Kickstarter features a single rulebook written by original Over the Edge designer Jonathan Tweet. It also features assistance from writer Chris Lites, development by Cam Banks, graphic design by Thomas Deeny, art direction by James Mosingo, and editing by Jaym Gates.
This new edition is also inspired by 25 years of other game designers’ work, including Robin Laws, Ron Edwards, Luke Crane, Vincent Baker, John Harper, and Jason Morningstar. Many designers say that the original Over the Edge inspired them to design roleplaying games in a new way. We embrace that creative feedback loop by re-incorporating some of their amazing innovations here.
272 pages, Hardcover
Published January 1, 2019
About the author
Jonathan Tweet
68 books49 followersTabletop game designer, children's science communicator. Grandmother Fish was a labor of love for 15 years.
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Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews
October 8, 2019
While the idea is fine, this book is a mess. Seldom has setting descriptions left me so bored, while at the same time giving me very poor resources with which to improvise at the table.
July 15, 2019
Well, that was mighty strange. Over the Edge was a very "outside the box" game way back in the first Golden Age of tabletop RPGs, the 90s (that decade was good for something). Taking bits of William S. Burroughs, The Prisoner, The Weekly World News, general 90s angst, and who knows what, they created a strange Island of mystery and surreal terror. Anybody could show up on the island of Al Amarja, from exiled dictators to retired spies, from experimental psychics to extra-dimensional explorers. Pile on drugs and conspiracies, and you had a recipe for some really out-there gaming. Along with the strange, they created one of my very favorite game systems. Now available as WaRP, the game mechanics for Over the Edge are fantastically versatile, fast, easy, and they get out of the way of the story and character. I've used WaRP to great effect running a game of Cyberpunk 2020 and a game of Star Trek. And I have every intention of using it again to run Fading Suns or a number of other games I think it would work very well for.
Flash forward almost 30 years and they've created a whole new game. It almost seems like the same game at first, but it's different in unexpected ways. This isn't just a 30 years later... reboot or relaunch. This is a total, ground-up rebuild. You'll recognized some names and places, but they've changed. Even Al Amarja's location and geography are different. It still has a drug-addled, Gen X angst. It's still super weird. It's just...different.
It's also got new game mechanics. Like Al Amarja, they too look the same at first, but the more you read them, the more strange they become. This is definitely not WaRP. If I'm being totally honest, I'm not sold on the new system. I'll need to try it out to be sure. It seemed oddly non-intuitive while I was reading it, but perhaps in play it will make more sense.
It's sort of hard to recommend this game, even though I think it's very good and has a ton of potential for good stories. It's so odd, so specific in its strange tone, I don't think it would be to everyone's taste. Even for those who are into it, this edition in particular feels like it's made more for shorter games. Not one-shots, necessarily, but mini-campaigns, maybe. As I read through the book, I found many interesting ideas, but when I was finished, I found myself thinking that while I'm sure I'd have a blast playing this new Over the Edge, I don't know that I have any interest in running it.
Flash forward almost 30 years and they've created a whole new game. It almost seems like the same game at first, but it's different in unexpected ways. This isn't just a 30 years later... reboot or relaunch. This is a total, ground-up rebuild. You'll recognized some names and places, but they've changed. Even Al Amarja's location and geography are different. It still has a drug-addled, Gen X angst. It's still super weird. It's just...different.
It's also got new game mechanics. Like Al Amarja, they too look the same at first, but the more you read them, the more strange they become. This is definitely not WaRP. If I'm being totally honest, I'm not sold on the new system. I'll need to try it out to be sure. It seemed oddly non-intuitive while I was reading it, but perhaps in play it will make more sense.
It's sort of hard to recommend this game, even though I think it's very good and has a ton of potential for good stories. It's so odd, so specific in its strange tone, I don't think it would be to everyone's taste. Even for those who are into it, this edition in particular feels like it's made more for shorter games. Not one-shots, necessarily, but mini-campaigns, maybe. As I read through the book, I found many interesting ideas, but when I was finished, I found myself thinking that while I'm sure I'd have a blast playing this new Over the Edge, I don't know that I have any interest in running it.
Read
April 15, 2022It's the 3rd edition of one of my favorite RPGs (I think) and it's a beautiful hardcover book (which I picked up from Atlas Games directly -- I've benefitted a lot from them owning their own warehouse space, which I still kinda wanna visit some day). So, just as 5e D&D may be the most beginner friendly version of D&D, is this the version to buy if you want to run Over the Edge?
Eh, I don't know. Frankly, I can't quite imagine playing this game with a bunch of people new to roleplaying. For one thing, character creation is still delightfully freeform, but rather than just come up with your traits/descriptions, you also pick one "question mark" trait -- that is, something intrinsic to your character, but which might shift over time. This feels like something from Robin D. Laws's Hillfolk, where characters were defined as being pulled between different poles or affinities, and while it makes a lot of sense in a dramatic scenario (Tony Soprano is pulled between his family and the Family), and while I can imagine experienced roleplayers doing interesting things, it feels like a lot to ask of a new player.
For another thing, while I love this updating of the island of Al-Amarja -- yes, still a totalitarian state, but now with an island-wide personal assistant surveillance -- so much of this is tied to the long history of Over the Edge, to the point where I don't know what a new user would understand of this world. But maybe it would be like Easter eggs in a work -- if you don't know what they are, you don't really notice them, and you don't really need to for enjoyment of the story itself. Maybe most of these connections are like that: nice if you can notice them, but not strictly necessary.
All in all, I still definitely want to play this.
Eh, I don't know. Frankly, I can't quite imagine playing this game with a bunch of people new to roleplaying. For one thing, character creation is still delightfully freeform, but rather than just come up with your traits/descriptions, you also pick one "question mark" trait -- that is, something intrinsic to your character, but which might shift over time. This feels like something from Robin D. Laws's Hillfolk, where characters were defined as being pulled between different poles or affinities, and while it makes a lot of sense in a dramatic scenario (Tony Soprano is pulled between his family and the Family), and while I can imagine experienced roleplayers doing interesting things, it feels like a lot to ask of a new player.
For another thing, while I love this updating of the island of Al-Amarja -- yes, still a totalitarian state, but now with an island-wide personal assistant surveillance -- so much of this is tied to the long history of Over the Edge, to the point where I don't know what a new user would understand of this world. But maybe it would be like Easter eggs in a work -- if you don't know what they are, you don't really notice them, and you don't really need to for enjoyment of the story itself. Maybe most of these connections are like that: nice if you can notice them, but not strictly necessary.
All in all, I still definitely want to play this.
July 3, 2019
A complete reboot of the previous version of the game, written as if if it was being created ab initio today. At least, so Tweet claims - there are a few nods to the past that only old fans will recognise. All in all, it's the Edge that you know and love in the 21st century. Lots of new ideas, new interpretations of old ideas, and so on. Not as well indexed as it could be, but given that random page flipping always leads to something fun, that's not such a great issue.
The rules system has been completely revised, and the new system is simplified on the player's end while potentially requiring GM's to improvise like never before.
All in all, this is weather the cuckoo likes, as it should be.
The rules system has been completely revised, and the new system is simplified on the player's end while potentially requiring GM's to improvise like never before.
All in all, this is weather the cuckoo likes, as it should be.
June 26, 2019
Interesting minimalist system by a designer known for some of the most crunchy RPGs ever developed.
The setting is a bit too bleak for me, but I might try running it as a one-shot at some point.
The setting is a bit too bleak for me, but I might try running it as a one-shot at some point.
January 9, 2020
Fun reboot and upgrade of classic game. Dunno if I'll ever run it, but enjoyed returning to this world.
February 15, 2024
Love the setting, love some of the mechanics, but the book is a disaster in terms of edition and order.
December 16, 2020
The first edition decades ago was one of my favorite RPG settings. This edition is not that strikingly different, but somehow, I feel like it lost what made it special. In the first edition, the world your characters visited was primarily baffling, surprising, unexpected, bizarre, and weird. That was the dominant note. There was an undertone where it was also scary, cynical, dangerous, bitter, and frustrating, but those things were secondary and primarily served to add power to the surrealism. This edition reads like the author has become bitter and jaded over time (and who can blame them, given the times we live in -- the section listing the bizarrely improbable dangers in the world including one about a particular president as one of the most improbable and dangerous was very powerful). And as a result, everything about Al Amarja is first and foremost dystopian, grim, bleak, hopeless, and determined to grind you down, with the weirdness as a secondary note that is now in service to the dark tone. It's there to keep you off balance so you'll be vulnerable to the gloom. This feels like a game that would be depressing, not unbalancing, to play.
July 14, 2019
A great update for today, even weirder and more disturbing than the original. I'm looking forward to running a game or two.
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9 reviews