Grog For Games

DEVIANCY: Hacking "Everyone Is John" for convention play with some new rules and a new setting

Everyone is John was an RPG that let players control the voices inside the head of a mentally ill main character - John. I've adapted the original rules (Found here http://overlycommonname.github.io/john.html) to speed things up for convention play and to put my own spin on the concept.

I present to you...

DEVIANCY

A competitive roleplaying game for three or more people.

The Game Itself

DEVIANCY is a humorous, competitive roleplaying game about an android called "Jeeves" living in the world of the future (Around the year 2077). Jeeves has been a dedicated servant-bot for many years but has recently started to have issues with sticking to the servant-bot persona because of a blow to the head.

One moment Jeeves is a Gangster-bot with a gun and protection racket ideas, and the next moment Jeeves is a trash talking frat-bot with a Tequila dispenser!

The persona Jeeves takes on opens up certain physical capabilities and skills which can only be used by that persona.

One participant is the GM, who controls the world and it's reactions to Jeeves', and the other participants in the game are Jeeves' various personas.

DEVIANCY requires all players to have a single six sided dice and a means of recording information such as a pen and paper.

A strongly advised addition is: 1x1 inch/5cm x 5cm shreds of paper, poker chips, coins, some form of physical "currency" that helps players remember how much Willpower they have.

Persona's

Persona's are the Player Characters of DEVIANCY. They are defined by a simple character sheet made up of:

Willpower

Willpower is a pool of points that a Persona can spend to take control of Jeeves or improve their chance of success in any given action. Willpower will go down and up a lot in the game, so it might be easier to represent it with tokens rather than numbers on a page. Willpower starts off at 7 for most Personas.

Skills

Each Persona has two or three skills. This is a freeform game, so just write down a short, high level description of the skill, like "Drives well," or "Good at persuading people." Most Voices have two skills, but you can have three if you start at 4 Willpower instead of 7.

Special Equipment

Each Persona has ONE piece of special equipment which has been in some way attached to Jeeves' body. It's up to the GM what is considered reasonable but generally it should be something that an average member of the public would be able to buy or get access to within a few days for $1000, even if it's illegal. Ideally it's related to the skills or Obsession for your persona, but it doesn't have to be.

It should let you do things that would otherwise be impossible. Grappling hooks, Skeleton Keys, Your owner's credit card (with a reasonable limit), these are just some ideas.

Obsession

If you complete your obsession more than other Persona's complete theirs, you win.

Obsessions come in three grades:

Harder obsessions count more than easier ones.

Personas' who perform your Persona's obsession on their turn either knowingly or unknowingly, still count towards YOUR number of times that the obsession was completed.

If you're going to seriously compete with the other Voices, you probably should keep your whole sheet a secret.

Game rules

Jeeves

Jeeves is a fed up servant-bot who has gone a little bit off the deep end and as a result is now controlled by the Persona's Jeeves' was programmed to be capable of — one at a time, of course.

When to roll

Jeeves is not PARTICULARLY competent; Jeeves' has difficulty with a lot of things that you and I might take for granted. Whenever Jeeves attempts anything that an average person might have any chance of failure at, Jeeves' needs to roll for success. Vaulting a wall, driving to a destination or negotiating a deal are just some examples.

The Persona who is currently in control of Jeeves' does the rolling. If that Persona has a skill that covers the challenge, the Voice needs to roll a 3 or higher on the single d6. If it doesn't have a skill, it needs to roll a 6. However, before the roll, the Voice can spend any number of Willpower points to get a +1 per point spent on the die roll. This can make success automatic.

Becoming the active Persona is a bit of a challenge, though. Whenever Jeeves' wakes up or gets hurt, a test for control happens. Also, whenever the currently active Persona fails a roll or completes its obsession, a test for control of Jeeves' also happens.

Test for control

When a test for control of Jeeves' occurs, all of the Persona's who are interested simultaneously bid any number of willpower points, highest bid wins, you can bid zero or not bid at all.

If multiple Persona's bid the same highest amount, then they roll a dice to see who becomes active, highest wins.

The Persona who becomes active loses the amount of Willpower it bids. All others keep their bids. It's perfectly fine for the previously active Persona to win a bid and remain active.

Whenever Jeeves' wakes up, the struggle for control of Jeeves' happens before the GM describes the situation Jeeves' wakes up to.

Jeeves' is stuck in power saving mode, meaning that if nothing interesting is happening for 10 in game minutes (such as travelling on a train), Jeeves' will go to sleep and wake up (Test for control needed) at the desired destination.

Whenever Jeeves' enters sleep mode, all players gain one willpower.

Playing

Play begins with Jeevs' waking up in the morning (and a test for control of him). The GM then describes the circumstances into which Jeevs' wakes up. With Jeeves', you never can tell. Might wake up in a gutter somewhere, could be in a palatial estate, or anywhere in between. The Persona's really have no idea how they ended up here.

At this point, the Persona's should start working on fulfilling their obsessions and avoiding getting Jeeves killed. Jeeves' is killed whenever the amount of damage an average family sedan could take before dying is sustained, over the course of the session.

A few bumps and gunshots is fine and Jeeves' will continue to act normally, falling into a pit of molten lava or being gunned down by a SWAT team, is not and Jeeves' will probably die.

Inevitably, their Willpowers will decrease. Once all of the Persona's are out of Willpower or Jeeves' dies, Jeeve's goes to sleep and recharges OR a new Jeeves' walks out of the factory, either way, the game begins again.

At this point, the Persona's reveal their obsessions and count up how many times each was filled. Remember that it counts for you if someone else is Active and fulfills your obsession.

Now, multiply the number of times you fulfilled your obsession by your obsession's rank (1, 2, or 3). That's the number of points you have. Highest number of points wins the game, and, generally speaking, is the GM of the next game of DEVIANCY.

Optional rules

Phobias - Each persona is afraid of something common but not super common, cats, police officers, small spaces, If a Persona attempts an action in the presence of their phobia, rolls are now +1 difficulty, meaning a 4 is needed to pass with a relevant skill. Non skill rolls still need a 6.

In and out - Persona's have a defined time limit, 30 minutes or so, before they are removed from the game. This could be helpful for convention play where players may want to drift in and out or for introducing people to TTRPGs. If using this rule, it's adviseable to start timers as players join as well as have character sheets printed and ready to go. Also probably good to limit obsessions to rank 1 or 2.

Swapsies - Players Persona's swap every 30 minutes or so, before a Persona swap, the player should note how many Times they completed that Persona's obsession and the rank of the obsession. The winner is the PLAYER at the end who has the most points (total of the times completed multiplied by the rank, across all Persona's they played)

DEVIANCY was adapted from the Everyone is John rules by GrogForGames, this doesn't mean Michael Sullivan was involved or endorses anything I do, including DEVIANCY.

DEVIANCY is a work of fiction and is copyright 2026 by GrogForGames

Everyone is John is © 2002 by Michael Sullivan. Original text found here http://overlycommonname.github.io/john.html

Creative Commons License This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, find out about what this means at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/