Winner! Origins Award: Best Roleplaying Game
Winner! ENnie Award Gold: Best Family Game
Evil Doesn't Stand a Chance!
Olivia is a Super Smart Princess who Experiments with Science. Rowan is a Cool Robot who Loves Ooey Gooey Things. Their best friend tells them that a dragon has stolen all his chocolate coins. They’re the only ones who can enter Storia and save the chocolate—how will they do it? It’s all up to them!
No Thank You, Evil! is a tabletop game of creative make-believe, adventure, and storytelling. In No Thank You, Evil!, each player creates a character based on a couple of cool, descriptive, imagination-firing traits. The Guide (a special role often played by a parent or older sibling) presents a dilemma, and the players set off on an adventure of the imagination. Along the way, they use their character’s special skills, companions, and equipment to overcome obstacles. Maybe you’ll rescue a friend from Dragonsnot Falls, save the world’s biggest adventure park from an ancient curse, or fix Whizbang’s broken time machine before it’s too late! Whatever you choose, you’re sure to solve mysteries, gain friends, confront bad guys, and have a wild adventure!
Whereas conventional board games constrain players’ actions, No Thank You, Evil! sets kids’ imaginations free: Their options are limited only by their creativity. Together, the players create a story as they work together to make their way through the adventure!
Adventurous Fun for All Ages
Younger kids frustrate easily when a game is too complex for them to master.
Older children quickly grow bored by games that are too simple or that strike
them as below their level.
No Thank You, Evil! is great fun for kids as young as five years old. But it’s also great fun for the rest of the family—adults included!—because the scalable rules adapt easily to the abilities of the player. A six-year-old might play, for example, a Princess. An eight-year-old might play a Super Smart Princess. A ten-year-old creates a Super Smart Princess who Experiments with Science. Each of these stages adds a level of sophistication to how the game is played—but all of these characters can play around the same table in the same game! After a game or two with the grown-ups, a twelve-year-old might even run games for the other kids!
The gameplay rules are easy to grasp for novice or young players, but nuanced and flexible enough for older kids and grown-ups to enjoy just as much.
How Do You Play?
In No Thank You, Evil!, each player creates a character based on a couple of
cool, descriptive, imagination-firing traits. These characters are kids
themselves, but kids from the realm of the imagination—one might be a spy,
while another is a robot. These characters have another unique trait: Through
portals only they can access, they are able to visit the realms of Storia: The
Land Next Door. Every character has a companion, along with an I Gotchyer
Backpack (in which they carry their cool stuff), and with these in tow they set
out to resolve whatever mystery or adventure the Guide presents.
In the case of the missing chocolate coins, perhaps they discover that dragons don’t really like chocolate. It took the coins because they were wrapped in shiny gold foil. Will Olivia and Rowan find some other shiny item and convince the dragon to trade? Will they fight the creature or try to trick it? There are no limits to their options: It’s all about envisioning the story, overcoming obstacles, working together, and using their imaginations!
Enter Storia: The Land Next Door
Storia is The Land Next Door: a world seen through children’s eyes.
It’s home to all the elements of kids’ imaginations: Dragons and dinosaurs,
faeries and elves, race cars and robots, and all sorts of fanciful creatures.
Players’ characters in No Thank You, Evil! are kids who have been specially
chosen to help save Storia from evil. Along with their companions and their
handy I Gotchyer Backpacks, characters venture into Storia to save
the day!
I’m a __ __ who __
In No Thank You, Evil!, each player (except the Guide) creates a character to
explore the world of Storia and enjoy imaginative adventures. Every character is
defined by up to three elements that make up a colourful description—they form
a sentence you can say: I’m a [adjective] [noun] who [verbs].
- I’m a Fast Superhero who Experiments with Science
- I’m a Kind Prince who Reads Great Books
- I’m a Powerful Robot who Flies through the Sky
Each of these elements helps define your character’s abilities—his or her strengths and weaknesses, special powers, gear and stuff, and companion.
A full “sentence” like those above is the most sophisticated version of a character, but you don’t need the whole thing. A character with just an adjective and noun (I’m a Kind Prince!) is a little less complex in play. And a noun alone (I’m a Prince!) is simple enough for the youngest players. But characters of all three complexity levels can play together in the same game, ensuring that the youngest players aren’t frustrated by a game that’s too difficult, while older kids (and grown-ups) aren’t frustrated by a game that’s too simplistic.
Pools
Every character has four Pools—sets of points they can use to better succeed
at actions they attempt in the game. The four Pools are Tough, Fast, Smart, and
Awesome (Awesome is used when you help other players attempt actions). The
number of points in each Pool is based on the elements of the
character’s description—so a Super Smart Spy who Eats Ice Cream might
have 2 points in her Tough Pool, 3 in Fast, 4 in Smart, and 2 in
Awesome.
When you begin an adventure, you put the appropriate number of tokens in each Pool. You remove a token every time you use a point to Try Harder at an action. If you’re damaged, perhaps while battling a creepy wizard, you lose points from your Pools.
“No Thank You, Evil!”
Your adventures may be cheerful and bright, mysterious and tricky, or fast-paced
and action-packed (and often all of these!). Occasionally, our imaginations can
be so good we really get scared by pretend situations. In games with younger
players, every player gets a No Thank You, Evil! token. At any time, a player
who is finding the game too intense can play his token, put his hand up, and
say, “No Thank You, Evil!” Exercising this special kid power tells the Guide
to change the tenor of the adventure. He may decide that the scary thing gets
teleported out of existence for a while. Or the fierce creature may peel off its
costume and reveal that it’s just a person in there. Maybe a nearby creature
or non-player character makes a joke or handily deals with the evil entity. Or
maybe the action just stops for a few moments so the players can take a
breather.
It’s a great way to give younger players a voice in the flavour of the game, helping tailor your adventures to the needs of your family!
Companions
Every No Thank You Evil! character has a companion! A companion is a friend
that accompanies your character on adventures. A companion might be an awesome
alien, an invisible friend, or a robot dog.
Each companion has a trick. On your turn, instead of taking an action, you can have your companion do its trick. Companions also have cyphers: secrets that only companions know. Each companion has one cypher at a time, and they can use it only once. If it’s used its cypher, you can feed your companion a treat, and it gains a new one!
So take your dust bunny, pretty pony, or flying octopus and head into Storia for a fun, creative adventure!
A World of Adventure
In No Thank You, Evil!, your characters discover that their very own bedrooms
have secret doorways that lead into a world of imagination and adventure.
Go Into the Closet and encounter a fairy tale land full of queens, witches, dragons, and trolls.
When you go Out the Window, you’ll find a whole new world of space travel and undersea adventures, race cars and rockets.
Under the Bed is scarier, haunted by goblins, ghosts, and ghoulies, while Behind the Bookshelf leads to stories of superheroes and spies, dinosaurs and demigods.
All of these gateways lead to regions of Storia: The Land Next Door, a world peopled by fantastical new friends who help you save the day against the forces of evil.
How the Game Works
A game of No Thank You, Evil! involves a Guide and two to four other players.
It’s a group game of make-believe, played in the joint imagination of the
players and Guide. The Guide sets the scene, the players create characters and
decide what they want their characters to do, and together they determine what
happens next.
The Guide’s job is to understand the game, help the players create their characters and follow the rules, and be the storyteller who shapes the gameplay. A Guide may also be the “voice” of creatures and characters in the game. The Guide is usually a grownup, but an older child with a little experience with the game can take on this role as well.
Each player creates a character and then acts as that character. He uses the character’s special skills and equipment, and decides what actions his character will take. Maybe he wants to fight the dragon, win over the mayor, or beat the rabbit in a race.
How Does It Happen?
The Guide starts the story, using an adventure from the game or one she made up.
The players take actions as their characters.
Whenever a character wants to take an action, the Guide decides how hard the action is (on a scale of 0 to 8). This is called the Goal.
If an action is something that a regular person can do most of the time, like talk to a friend, take a walk, or have some lunch, then the Goal is 0, and you don’t need to roll the die. You just do the thing you want to do.
If the action is harder, like fighting a creature, climbing a wall, or charming an evil sorceress, then the Goal is somewhere between 1 and 8. In that case, you make a roll to see if your action succeeds or fails.
This basic game mechanism is simple: Roll a die and see if your result equals or beats the Goal. You can make the Goal a bit easier if you Try Harder by spending a point from one of your Pools—but you only have so many points, so use them wisely!
“I want to hit the yawp with my frog slingshot!”
“To hit the yawp, you have to roll a 4 or higher. If you want to Try Harder, it will cost you 1 point from your Tough pool.”
“I want to Try Harder to hit the yawp, so I’m going to use 1 Tough.”
“OK, now you’ll only have to roll a 3 or higher. You rolled a 5! You hit the yawp right in the shoulder with your frog slingshot! The yawp bellows and staggers back.”
You can use your character’s special abilities, companions, and gear to help succeed at your actions, or to find different and creative ways to solve problems.
Depending on whether you succeed or fail, the Guide describes what happens as a result, relying on her imagination and creativity, and the adventure continues forward! It ends when the players reach the adventure’s goal and overcome the obstacles they’ve encountered along the way.