Everybody Dies core handbooks and licensing

A very busy map table at Everybody Dies HarderTim and me, at the Cow and Calf on Ilkley Moor - Surviving Winter as a Summer Lover by BeckyBecky Blogs

Everybody Dies is a character-driven political military megagame based on the book series A Song of Ice and Fire and the TV Show Game of Thrones.

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Design background

Everybody Dies was my first megagame design. I began working on it in late 2014, a few months into my megagaming journey, and it ran for the first time in November 2016. It was set in the world of Westeros, during the “War of the Usurper” or “Robert’s Rebellion”, depending on which side of the battle you were on. It drew inspiration from classic Megagame Maker games including Funeral Games, Renaissance and Reformation and The Spanish Road. Unique features included the many many deaths of player characters and the Small Council game to keep King Aerys in line.

The second run, Everybody Dies Harder, with even more characters and just as many deaths, ran in April 2017. In September 2018, I ran Everybody Dies 3: Playing With Fire, using many of the same mechanics but a different era in Game of Thrones history: the Dance of the Dragons. Finally, in November 2022 the game was overhauled with new mechanics for combat and taxation for its most recent run, Everybody Dies Again.

The Small Council at Everybody Dies 2 - 5 Lessons about Megagame Councils from the Handforth Parish Council meeting by BeckyBecky Blogs
Above shot of the map at the first Everybody Dies, surrounded by players
A handful of cards ready to play at Everybody Dies - 7 Habits of Highly Effective Megagamers by BeckyBecky Blogs
Region Map - Goodbye Everybody Dies the Megagame by BeckyBecky Blogs
Declaration Board - Goodbye Everybody Dies the Megagame by BeckyBecky Blogs
Dragon Challenge Board - Goodbye Everybody Dies the Megagame by BeckyBecky Blogs

Everybody Dies is a fan game. A Song of Ice and Fire and Game of Thrones are owned by George R R Martin and HBO and I do not make a profit from this game.

Free game handbooks

It is free to download the Game Handbook and Combat Handbook from the most recent run of the game. You can also download the Region Boards and sample Combat and Tactics Cards, to get an idea of the balancing for those aspects of the game.

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These materials are available for free under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License.

This means you may share and adapt the following works freely, including for commercial use, as long as you give appropriate credit and only distribute adaptions created from the below under the same license as this one.

I also request, as the original designer, that you do not use my game names (i.e. “Everybody Dies”), or derivatives thereof, in relation to these designs for any game based on or inspired by these works, without my explicit permission.

Licensing Everybody Dies

If you would like to licence Everybody Dies, please contact me.