Coming Soon to Kickstarter: Extra Ordinary

Extra Ordinary gives us beat-up canvas backpacks and dirty, duct-taped sneakers, kids holding bloody hands grasped a little too tight, strange and dangerous powers, chasing dark forces, people who can’t or just won’t understand, and an endless journey on the side of a winding highway asking, “What do you do next?”

Extra Ordinary is a tabletop roleplaying game where you play kids with extraordinary powers on the run from danger in the ordinary world. It uses the belonging outside belonging system, which is dice-less, GM-less, and uses tokens and the players’ imagination to create a narrative-focused and roleplay-heavy story. The game is built for 3-7 players and intended for longform play, but alternate rules for GM-ed or one-shot play will be included in the final book. Inspired by Maximum Ride, Percy Jackson, and Animorphs, this game tackles themes of homelessness, child endangerment and abuse, bigotry, young kids with grand destinies, and what it means to be something other than ordinary—in more ways than one.

The vibes of Extra Ordinary are very much the Goonies meets the X-Men. In addition to the inspirations mentioned above, it's also heavily influenced by the Hanna TV series, the His Dark Materials TV series, the Escape to Witch Mountain movie, the Logan movie, and the Another Kind graphic novel. 

• What you’ll need to play:
  • 3-7 players
  • Tokens of some kind
  • A printout of the Playset, which can be found for free at jaztice.itch.io 
  • Loose paper or index cards and various writing utensils 
  • The Extra Ordinary quickstart, PDF, or physical book
  • If you are playing the game virtually, you can use the Extra Ordinary Virtual Play Sheet (or whip up your own virtual play area)
• What the final game will have:
  • Fifteen character playbooks for Kid creation
  • Six Aspect sheets for world creation
  • A detailed “How To Play” chapter that covers the rules 
  • Sections for running GM-ed and One-Shot games
  • Narrative-forward advancement mechanics 
  • An organized, extensive “Play Examples” chapter 
  • At least six pre-generated Backdrops to use as inspiration, examples, or for jump-right-in play 

Extra Ordinary is written and designed by Kodi Gonzaga and illustrated by Stella Langecker. It will be launching on Kickstarter in March 2025. Download the free Quickstart on itch or DriveThruRPG to get a taste of how to play, and follow the Kickstarter Pre-Launch Page to be alerted when the campaign goes live!

What People Are Saying

“So, no surprise, this was my favorite session of the con. We spent two hours on chargen + collaborative worldbuilding, then two hours actually playing [...] Typically I'm not drawn to any games where you play kids, but I think this idea is just not as interesting with adults. Kids on the run and trying to make do is inherently a little more fraught and heavy than adults doing the same, and it also tugs on your heartstrings a little more too. Overall I had a blast with this one and I plan on backing the Kickstarter when it eventually launches.” — a playtester from GenCon 2024 (see their full GenCon review post here)

“Extra Ordinary is something special. It's the peak of collaborative storytelling, trusting the players to manage plot and tension more than maybe any ttrpg I've ever seen – and it pays off. In my first ever session, we built the world, and got to watch our kids go from shoplifting from a bodega to fleeing a conspiratorial paramilitary. Every move mattered, and the story we told was surprising without feeling contrived. With only a very light touch from our facilitator, we fell into a natural rhythm of escalation and deescalation, building the dramatic reveals and delicious misfortunes that had us cheering for our little heroes.” — Brian Lagoda, a playtester from GenCon 2024