Rings and Running Shoes

Welcome to Sonic's World - A universe unique and beyond what you know from the SEGA games! Where, inspired by Sonic and other heroes of the franchise, you and your friends will create a team of heroes that will save the world from the forces of evil!

For those unfamiliar - tabletop (or role-playing, or pen-and-paper) games are imagination focused games, like Dungeons and Dragons. This one is based on Sonic and is using Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA for short) system, that's meant to be very narrative focused and free-form with minimal rules. You will not be walking on a grid, collecting loot and leveling up your character in a traditional sense. Instead you will be trying to recreate feelings and themes of your favorite cool moments from games, cartoons and comics.

I've been working on this game since October 2019 with a small group of my friends, and now I feel like it's in a state that I can go public with it. The rulebook is nearly complete and just requires polishing and testing. I have plans for the future, and will constantly be updating the game as much as possible.

All you need to play is at least two friends, an idea for your Original Character (or an official one if you'd like), 2 six-sided dice, this rulebook, a GM and one of the playbook sheets per player. The links in the Helpful Tools section will lead you to fillable PDFs, but you can use your own. If you have any question, concerns or anything else - feel free to contact me or leave a comment.

The system is based on PbtA with heavy modification to fit the care-free power fantasy of Sonic's Adventures, but anyone familiar with the core game, should know the basics. On a very surface level the gameplay loop consists of alternating between "Peace and Quiet" and "Stages" sections. During P&Q your group will rest, prepare for the Stage, roleplay and develop your characters. During Stages the GM will present you with encounter, which you will need to resolve. When you have an idea, you will describe it from your character's perspective, roll the dice and narrate the outcome based on the results. That will repeat until the encounter is fully resolved, at which point the group moves on to the next one. At the end of the Stage you will usually meet a Boss, defeat them using similar rules and receive End of Stage Ranking, leading you into another P&Q. All of that is done in a mostly improvised dialog between the players and the GM telling the story of your adventure.

NOTE: All the below links are updated along with the "beta" version of the doc, so they will have the latest changes that are probably not in the downloadable official yet. I added "Supplementary Material" zip to the game files to include the "at the time" versions of these files. 

Google Doc - the latest most updated version of the book that's available. Every time I do a new update or a tweak it will show up here first and then I will update the download file later. If you want the "beta" version, so to speak. 

IMPORTANT NOTE FOR 1.7: The Example adventure in the released book is outdated and contains a lot of misinformation. Just so I don't have to post a new version I have written a better one in a blog post. Find it here.

Playbook Sheets:

Lead - Tinker - Guardian - Robot - Destined - Changed - Rogue - Clumsy 
These are the main "classes" of the game and sheets for each one, since most of them have a unique mechanic associated with them, as well as a handy link to the Playbook Move Summary.

Basic Move Summary - a useful tool for people familiar with this system, which gives you a short breakdown of all the basic moves and mechanics of the game on 3 pages.

Playbook Move Summary - a similarly helpful list of all the playbook moves available for each playbook, helpful for having a list of things in front of you for faster level ups.

Discord Server - finding groups and GMs for any new game is hard, especially this niche, so if you would like to see how the game is played or maybe join or even run a group, feel free to drop by. We do our best to run weekly weekend games with occasional one shots for holidays or for groups of new people.

So I was asked this, and while the book is completely free and made as a hobby, if you would like to show some appreciation, support and take commissions from the artist of the book - Peachy Owl, she does amazing work, drew the cover of the book and is working on the art of each playbook's "representative". Also, everything made from donations on this book will go to her and getting more art for other playbooks.