Everspark vs The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen

Compare Everspark and The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.

	Everspark	The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen
Genre	Fantasy	Historical, Fantasy
Tags	Rules-Light, Solo-Friendly, GM-Less, High-Fantasy, Improvisation, Player-Only Rolls, CC-Licensed Rules	GM-Less, Diceless, Comedy, Narrative, Improvisation, Rules-Light, Gonzo, Beginner-Friendly, One-Shot Friendly, Short Sessions
Core Mechanic	Skill Checks roll a single d20 with no modifiers and read the result in five tiers: 20 is Very Good (success plus an Opportunity), around 15 is Good, around 10 is OK (success with a Complication), around 5 is Bad, and 1 is Very Bad (failure plus serious Complication). Leverage and Drawback shift the interpretation rather than the roll. Sparks track progress on anything in the fiction (combat, projects, threats, conditions) by drawing rays of a 5-point star on a sticky note; after each advance, roll a d6, and if it lands at or under the rays drawn, the Spark resolves. A 6 on the final check of a closed 5-ray Spark Overturns it, flipping the expected outcome.	There are no dice. Each player starts with a purse of coins equal to the number of players, or five each with fewer than five players. In turn, a player tells a first-person tale of about five minutes on a subject another player names just before it starts. A listener with a coin may interrupt by staking one coin on an objection. The teller either keeps the coin and works the objection into the story, or pushes it back with a coin of their own. A refused objection normally goes back and forth, one coin and one insult at a time, until one side backs down and takes the pile. A teller who backs down must then use the objection. After everyone has told a story, each player gives their whole remaining purse to the story they liked best, never their own, and the largest pile wins.
Dice	d20, d6	Diceless
Complexity	Very Low	Very Low
Availability	Paid	Paid
Runnability	4 of 5 book tools	2 of 5 book tools
License	CC BY-SA 4.0	All Rights Reserved
Third-Party Publishing	Not yet researched	No verified route found
Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing.
Publisher	Cezar Capacle	Fantasy Flight Games
Year	2025	2016
Languages	English	English, German, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Spanish
Best For	Solo players or groups who want zero-prep fantasy adventures with maximum narrative flexibility: especially anyone drawn to GM-less or solo play, brand-new players, or experienced groups looking for a relaxed alternative to crunchy fantasy systems.	Groups who want a short, GM-less party game of competitive boasting that needs only a handful of coins and quick wits, including tables new to roleplaying.
Highlights	Sparks abstract every progress system (combat damage, long-term projects, looming threats, resources, lasting conditions) into one shared mechanic, so the rules stay tiny while still tracking long-arc events. Skill checks are player-facing only: monsters, traps, and NPCs act fictionally and the player rolls a d20 to react, removing GM-side rolls entirely. Four built-in modes (solo, GM-less coop, parallel where each player runs their own protagonist, and hosted) let the same game work whether one person sits down alone or six gather at a table. Character sheets carry no numbers: Ancestry, Background, and Class drawn from 20 entries each yield 8,000 baseline combinations and can be rolled randomly in seconds or written out over fifteen minutes through question prompts.	Objections are wagers, so a sharp teller invites interruptions that can be woven in and pockets each accepted stake. Appendix One gives 186 ready-made story subjects that a player can hand to the next teller. Two coin-free versions for online play let the game run asynchronously over email or a forum, or live in text chat.
Considerations	No combat mechanics, hit points, or numerical traits: players who want tactical positioning, action economy, or character build optimization won't find any of it. Sparks are freeform: when to create one, when to advance, and what counts as resolution are constant judgment calls rather than rules questions. No published setting: every world, faction, and pantheon must be created on the spot or imported from another game's material. Without DCs or modifiers, two characters with very different fictional competence still roll the same; mechanical differentiation is replaced entirely by Leverage/Drawback rulings and narrative description.	A storyteller normally improvises a tale of around five minutes on a subject named moments before, which can put hesitant players on the spot. There are no advancement or campaign rules, so play suits one-off evenings rather than long campaigns. The core game assumes drinks are flowing, and a player who declines to tell a story must buy the company a round.