Sometimes the most fascinating part of a movie is the stuff that happens behind the camera. Hold Everything by Nora Katz taps into this, turning the drama and chaos of Golden Era Hollywood into a fun TTRPG.
In Hold Everything, players take control of the cast and crew of a new Hollywood feature film. Alas, things are going off the rails as not only are the film’s main stars refusing to act due to the terrible script, but the film is also over budget and behind schedule, meaning that studio executives are circling like vultures, planning to scrap the film and cut their losses. However, you and your friends refuse to let that happen, as you refuse to let go of the hope that this movie will propel you to superstardom.
A Hollywood Film Falling Into Chaos
The game starts with the players and the GM rolling three ten-sided dice and checking the included roll tables. These tables will help players decide the film’s central characters, what these characters do during the movie, and the problem they must overcome to meet their goal.
There is also a second group of three tables that will help the players and the GM come up with why the production is encountering issues, covering every possibility, from the person the film is based on suing the production, right up to a murder involving a group of mysterious time bandits.
After this, the players make their characters. In Hold Everything, players have four stats: Close-ups (using your looks to get what you want), Composition (your ability to create things), Cutting (aggressive actions like yelling or making demands), and Continuity (for playing it cool or wielding your influence). Players then assign stats to their character (using a classic array) and then roll on four roll tables to find their character’s job on the set, their general vibe, and their name.
After this, the main flow of the game begins. Whenever the player characters attempt to do something or overcome an obstacle that has a chance of failure, the player chooses their most appropriate stat and rolls six-sided dice equal to that stat’s value plus two. Each die that rolls four or more is a success. If the player has more successes than the GM deems necessary for the task’s difficulty, their action is successful.
Hold Everything is a really fun party game that does a fantastic job of capturing the chaos of Golden Era Hollywood productions and translating it into a fun gameplay experience.
Simple TTRPG Concepts Produce Hollywood Comedy
The prompts are the game’s highlight. They do a fantastic job of imbuing the TTRPG with a distinct 1930s Hollywood feeling. In fact, fans of that era of movie-making will note that many of the prompts reference numerous films and behind-the-scenes stories from the era, meaning this game is sure to delight fans of movie history. However, while the prompts are loaded with references and nods to vintage Hollywood, they’re written in an open-ended way, meaning that players are still given room to be creative and bring their own ideas to the table. Plus, players who don’t understand the old movie references won’t feel alienated or unable to participate in the game.
While the mechanics are simple, they perfectly fit the experience the game is aiming to create. Hold Everything clearly wants players to improvise a classic Golden Age Hollywood anecdote, where out-of-control producers do whatever is possible to bring their ideas to fruition. All the while, the actors do their best to endure this chaos while trying to manage their own chaotic lives. So, having more complex mechanics or a more granular pass/fail system would undermine this chaotic atmosphere by restricting the player’s options, meaning that the resulting story wouldn’t capture the wild weirdness that made this era of Hollywood production so memorable.
This balance of ease and thematic atmosphere continues through to the book’s layout. While the text is clear and easy to follow at a glance, it is packed with charming visual touches that evoke the 1930s cinema era, from images of contemporary actors to borders that replicate the look of classic camera film and hand-painted matte backgrounds. This means that anyone (even newcomers to TTRPGs) will be able to quickly read the book and understand the rules, while also instantly understanding what atmosphere the game wants players to evoke during play.
However, I do have one request for future versions of the game. I would love to see the addition of an extra page aimed at GMs. A page that gives tips about running the game and setting appropriate difficulty levels for checks, alongside some extra rolltables that can be used to generate scenes and exciting moments on the fly. While the game isn’t hard to run, its intuitive pick-up-and-play nature means that it would be a great first game for people wanting to dip their toes into GM’ing, so a little extra support would go a long way to further enhance the game’s already excellent accessibility.
Hold Everything is a fun party TTRPG that captures the chaos of early Hollywood production. Its pick-up-and-play nature, combined with its easy-to-read layout, means it is a great game to keep on your shelf for impromptu game nights and times where your group wants to play a quick one-shot rather than diving into something more complex. Because of this, it is a TTRPG that is sure to top your box office.
