A versatile horror-themed game, it lends itself well to wildly different play styles and narrative tones, from schlock splatter-horror to intense psychological horror, with an entire spectrum of terror (humor, or action, etc.)

Beyond the Supernatural is implicitly set in the modern day, wherein magic and psychic powers are real and monsters and demonic cults exist, but out of the public eye.

could have substantially different training backgrounds and skill sets, with one being a doctoral student and another a high-school drop-out, depending either on the roll of the dice or character concept.

This replaced the older "spells per day" system that had been used in earlier versions of the Palladium Fantasy Role-Playing Game (1983), Heroes Unlimited (1984), and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness (1985).

In the October 1988 edition of Dragon (Issue 138), Ken Rolston found much to like about Beyond the Supernatural, including its similarities to Dungeons & Dragons/Advanced Dungeon & Dragons that would enable new players to quickly adapt to its rules; interesting player-character roles well-designed for co-operative play; and "well-developed and well written" occult and supernatural settings.

However, Rolston criticized the gamemaster notes and sample scenarios, saying that they "do nothing to support these virtues, and are particularly inappropriate to the systems, PCs, and campaign background established in the rest of BTS.

[3] Boxed Nightmares is over eighty pages containing six adventures, three new monsters plus villains, rules for creating secret organizations, the arcanist thief, GM tips, and the newspaper was packaged with the book.

Unlike the first edition, however, it does not have a section on magic nor an extensive bestiary; the two supplements that are to have detailed these aspects were to have immediately followed the core rulebook but are yet to be published.

The second edition, however, made some very significant changes to maintain the mystery of the setting, preventing characters from bringing "proof" of monsters or psychic powers to the world at large.