Over the Edge is a surreal role-playing game of secrets and conspiracies, taking place on the mysterious Island of Al Amarja.

Both Over the Edge and Vampire: The Masquerade were based upon a project between Jonathan Tweet and Mark Rein·Hagen which followed their development of Ars Magica for Lion Rampant.

While Vampire has achieved far more popularity, Over the Edge has distinguished itself with critical acclaim and has been acknowledged as a major source for the indie role-playing game movement.

In order to achieve a success, the player or Game Master needs to get a result equal to or greater than the difficulty number.

I invented whatever came to mind as we played, and wound up generating dozens of weird clues to uninvented mysteries, many of which the players never followed up.

The western side of the island is covered by three interconnected cities (from north to south): the port town of Skylla, the slums of The Edge and the tract housing of bourgeois Traboc.

Erosion of the cliffside, frequent violent earthquakes, the occasional eruption of Mount Ralsius, and a mushrooming population is slowly accelerating its collapse.

The Brink, the terraced cliff-face to the west of The Edge, is the home of the Garbagemen, Al Amarja's strange Untouchables caste.

The rest of the island is undeveloped hilly forest, at the center of which lies an extinct volcano called Mount Ralsius.

The French version of the game (called Conspirations) shifted the position of Al Amarja to the Caribbean for the same reasons it was placed in the Mediterranean sea in the original.

It is an exotic place in an area of numerous islands sufficiently unfamiliar to the target audience, next to big nations where many cultures and societies mix.

During its history, Al Amarja has been colonized and conquered in succession by Greeks, Romans, North African Muslims, Catalans, Castilians, various Italian states and eventually the newly unified Italy.

The official history of the island states that on October 7, 1940, Her Exaltedness Monique D'Aubainne, the Current Shepherdess of Al Amarja and president-for-life, drove out the fascists with the aid of her bodyguards, the Loyal Defenders.

She is like the Queen of England in that she's a pleasant-seeming elderly woman who technically rules the country and occasionally appears on TV to make speeches.

She holds court in the Temple of the Divine Experience in Sunken Barrio, the tourist district, and has strong ties with the island's Mystic Shit and Fringe communities.

is grudging compliance, the Russian "Da" is used for dejected acceptance of the inevitable, and the Japanese "Hai" is selected for enthusiastic agreement.

The current population of Al Amarja has also been increased by a mix of Mediterranean, European, and some recent North American, Asian and Sub-Saharan African immigrants.

They also include mutants, maniacs, outlawed psychics, magicians, intelligence and conspiracy operatives, fringe scientists, unscrupulous businessmen, rich patrons and anything else.

Rosenthal noted, "It is above all about an adult universe, where the notions of power, money, sex or drugs are not highlighted, but shown in a rather realistic light (sometimes a little surrealist too)."

However, the game requires an expert GM, some find role-players and at least a passing interest in the kind of stories that you can participate in on Al Amarja.

However, Swan concluded that "With its engaging setting and tidal wave of ideas, I’m surprised that the OTE game hasn't gotten more attention.

Though not for beginners — the freeform style requires both the referee and the players to fine-tune the rules as they go along — veterans should go for this in a big way, particularly those with a penchant for the bizarre."

"[8] In a 1996 readers' poll undertaken by Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, Over the Edge was ranked 28th.

PCs are defined by a handful of abilities which you invent to suit yourself, plus some personal history to give the ref some hooks; virtually everything is resolved by rolling a small number of six-sided dice.

The setting, with all of its hooks and suggested mysteries, is the main attraction, less as a place to explore and more as a venue to inflict that system upon, like a firing range or a tropical atoll."

However, Horvath found the setting devoid of extreme edges, pointing out, "There is no mention of fetishes of any sort or even nods to musical subcultures, like punk and goth, which are common in other '90s RPGs ... For an island that professes to be so interested in excess and freedom from conventionality, the details all seem oddly square.