No Thank You, Evil! vs Spore Friends
Compare No Thank You, Evil! and Spore Friends side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| No Thank You, Evil! | Spore Friends | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Fantasy | Fantasy |
| Tags | Beginner-Friendly, Family-Friendly, Rules-Light, Narrative, Collaborative, Low-Prep | Cozy, Collaborative, GM-Less, Rules-Light, Beginner-Friendly, Family-Friendly, Experimental |
| Core Mechanic | Simplified Cypher System: roll d6 vs. difficulty number (1–6). Spend points from pools (Tough, Fast, Smart, Awesome) to lower difficulty. Character sentences scale by age: 'I'm a Noun' (age 5+), 'I'm an Adjective Noun' (age 6+), 'I'm an Adjective Noun who Verbs' (age 8+). Every character has a Companion with a one-use Cypher power. Any player can shout 'No Thank You, Evil!' to instantly end a scary encounter. | Players drop 10 confetti spores onto a printed target; at least one spore inside or touching the circle succeeds. Being Good At or Really Good At the task adds four or eight spores, while a complication halves the pool. The group agrees on the pool before the drop and chooses a fictional setback after failure. |
| Dice | d6 | Diceless |
| Complexity | Very Low | Very Low |
| Availability | Paid | Paid |
| Runnability | 3 of 5 book tools | Book tools not listed |
| License | Proprietary | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Not yet researched | Not yet researched |
| Publisher | Monte Cook Games | Ultimate Hyper Games |
| Year | 2015 | 2026 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Families with kids aged 5 and up who want a structured, supportive introduction to tabletop RPGs in a whimsical setting. | Mixed-age groups seeking gentle collaborative adventures built around a tactile resolution ritual. |
| Highlights | Three complexity tiers scale character sentences by age (5+, 6+, 8+), built-in safety mechanic lets any player end a scary encounter, every character has a Companion with a one-use Cypher power, uses simplified Cypher System rules as a gateway to Numenera and The Strange | Spore Challenges turn resolution into a physical target drop, making uncertain actions a shared table event. Open-ended Good At traits reward players for explaining how an unusual strength applies to the current problem. Adventure prompt sheets convert scattered spores into scene ingredients, allowing play to continue without a prepared scenario. |
| Considerations | Designed for ages 5–12 with limited mechanical depth for older players, d6 vs. difficulty 1–6 resolution has narrow outcome range, setting is locked to the whimsical land of Storia, no advancement system beyond the three-tier sentence structure | Physical setup is required: confetti, a target, and enough room to drop spores from 50 centimeters. Core judgments depend on consensus, and the rules give no numerical fallback for unresolved disagreements. Setbacks can remove a Good At trait, but the rules provide no advancement procedure for gaining new abilities during a campaign. |