You’re standing on top of a moving semi-truck. In one hand, you have a chainsaw. In the other, a high-yield explosive you definitely didn't have thirty seconds ago. Your GM looks at you and asks how you want to do this. Most tabletop games would have you flipping through three different rulebooks to check the physics of wind resistance and gasoline ignition. Not here. The never stop blowing up system—the engine behind Dimension 20’s high-octane season—doesn’t care about realism. It cares about whether you’re cool enough to survive the explosion.
It’s a weirdly beautiful mess.
Honestly, if you've played Kids on Bikes or any "Powered by the Apocalypse" hack, you might think you know what’s coming. You don’t. This system, designed largely by Brennan Lee Mulligan for the Never Stop Blowing Up campaign, is a hyper-distilled version of 80s and 90s action movie tropes. It’s designed to escalate. It’s designed to break. And it’s designed to make sure that by the end of the session, the map is literally on fire.
The Core Mechanic: It’s All About the Die Flip
Most games want you to stay within your lane. If you’re a "Strong Guy," you stay strong. If you’re a "Smart Guy," you stay smart. The never stop blowing up system uses a die-ranking mechanic that feels familiar—d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, d20—but it adds a "Turbo" layer that most games are too scared to touch.
When you succeed at something spectacularly, or when the narrative demands you go "full action hero," your die size increases. Permanently. Or at least until the scene ends or the "heat" gets too high. You start the game as a normal person—literally a "Dave" from a strip mall—and by the end of the first act, you’re rolling d20s for things like "Jumping a Motorcycle over a Helicopter."
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It’s a progression system on literal steroids.
The math is intentionally skewed toward success because the game knows that failing a roll in an action movie is boring. Failure in this system doesn't usually mean "you miss." It means "you hit the target, but the ceiling collapses on your best friend." It’s about consequences, not binary win/loss states. That’s a huge distinction that a lot of crunchy RPG players struggle with at first. You aren't playing to "win" the encounter; you're playing to see how much collateral damage you can rack up before the credits roll.
Why the "Status" System Replaces Traditional Health
Forget Hit Points. HP is a slog. In the never stop blowing up system, you track your "vibe" and your "status."
Action movies don't care if a hero takes a bullet to the shoulder; they care if the hero looks cool doing it. The system uses a series of escalating conditions that affect how you interact with the world. You’re "Buff," you’re "Rad," you’re "Out of Control." These aren't just descriptors. They dictate which dice you’re grabbing. If you’re playing this at home, you’ve got to lean into the absurdity of the labels.
The system relies heavily on the "Exploding Die" mechanic. If you roll the maximum value on a die—say, a 6 on a d6—you roll it again and add it. In most games, this is a rare treat. Here, because of the way the Turbo mechanic bumps your die sizes, you’ll see dice exploding constantly. It creates this frantic energy at the table where the players feel invincible, which is exactly when the GM (or Game Master) drops the anvil.
The "Heat" and the "Big Bad"
You can't just blow things up forever without someone noticing. The never stop blowing up system tracks "Heat."
Think of it like the stars in Grand Theft Auto. As you perform more ridiculous feats, the world reacts. The mooks with pistols get replaced by tactical teams. The tactical teams get replaced by attack dogs. Eventually, you’re fighting a guy with a cyborg arm on the wing of a burning plane.
The brilliance of this system is that the players want the Heat to go up. In a standard D&D campaign, players often try to avoid danger. They rest. They plan. They negotiate. In Never Stop Blowing Up, resting is for losers. If the action stops, the tension dies. The system rewards players who lean into the chaos by giving them "Stunt Points" or similar currency to fuel even crazier maneuvers.
Breaking Down the Character Archetypes
You don’t pick "Fighter" or "Rogue." You pick a trope.
- The Action Hero: High durability, low common sense.
- The Tech Whiz: Can turn a toaster into a claymore mine.
- The Femme Fatale / Smooth Talker: Distraction is their primary weapon.
- The Wild Card: Literally just there to cause problems.
These roles are fluid. Because the system is built on the idea of "becoming" an action movie star, your character sheet often changes mid-session. You might start as a cowardly accountant, but after one "Turbo" moment, you’ve suddenly got a d12 in "Brawling."
It Isn’t for Everyone (And That’s the Point)
If you love tactical combat, 5-foot steps, and calculating weight ratios for your backpack, you will hate this. Seriously. It will drive you crazy. The never stop blowing up system is "rules-light" in the way a forest fire is "light." It’s fast, it’s destructive, and it moves too quickly for you to worry about the specific range of a shotgun.
The system relies on a high level of trust between the players and the GM. Since the rules are flexible, the GM has to be comfortable saying "Yes, and..." to some truly deranged ideas. "Can I use the recoil of my minigun to fly?" In this system, the answer isn't "Let's check the physics." The answer is "Roll a d20 and don't get a 1."
It’s a game of "Vibes."
How to Run This at Your Own Table
If you want to try the never stop blowing up system, you don't need a 400-page manual. You need a handful of dice and a group of friends who are willing to yell at each other in character.
Start by defining the "Anchor." Every character needs one thing that keeps them grounded in reality before the madness starts. Maybe it's a pet cat. Maybe it's a mortgage. When the characters enter the "Action Movie World," that anchor becomes their motivation. If the villain kidnaps the cat? Total war.
Next, focus on the "Rule of Three." An encounter shouldn't last more than three major beats.
- The Initiation (The explosion happens).
- The Escalation (The stakes double).
- The Climax (Something massive breaks or someone dies).
Keep the pace fast. If a player hesitates for more than five seconds, the Heat goes up. The world doesn't wait for them to decide which spell to cast. There are no spells. There are only grenades and one-liners.
The Real Genius of the Scaling Difficulty
Most games increase difficulty by giving enemies more health. That’s boring. It just makes combat take longer. This system increases difficulty by making the environment more dangerous.
The floor isn't just a floor; it’s glass, and there’s a shark tank underneath. The car isn't just a car; it’s carrying a shipment of unstable nitroglycerin. By shifting the threat from "the enemy's stats" to "the world's situation," the never stop blowing up system forces players to be creative. You aren't just clicking "attack" on a stat block. You’re figuring out how to use the shark tank to your advantage.
Actionable Steps for Gamemasters
To truly master this style of play, you have to stop being a referee and start being a director.
Embrace the "Cut." If a scene is dragging, literally say "Cut to the next morning" or "Cut to the car chase." You don't need to roleplay the three hours of driving. You only roleplay the moment the tires screech.
Reward the "Stunt." If a player describes something cool, give them a die-step increase immediately. Don't wait for a level-up. Give them that d12 right now. Let them feel the power.
Kill the Sacred Cows. Don't worry about balance. Balance is the enemy of fun in a system designed for over-the-top explosions. If one player becomes a god-tier killing machine, make the enemies target their "Anchor." Personal stakes always beat numerical balance.
Use a "Mayhem Track." Keep a literal d20 on the table that tracks the current level of chaos. Every time something explodes or a player rolls a "Turbo" success, turn that die up. When it hits 20, something catastrophic happens. The building falls over. The nuke arms. The villain’s mother shows up. It keeps the players on edge.
This system is about the joy of the "Too Much." It’s about finding the limit of what a narrative can handle and then pushing past it. It turns a quiet night of tabletop gaming into a collective fever dream of chrome, fire, and poorly timed jokes. If you're tired of counting gold pieces and checking line-of-sight, it's time to stop thinking and start blowing things up.
Check your dice. Pick a trope. Don't look back at the explosion. It's more cinematic that way.
Next Steps for Players: Identify your character's "Action Movie Trope" and assign your starting dice—d4 for your weakest trait, d12 for your strongest. Map out three "stunts" you’ve always wanted to see in a movie and keep them in your back pocket for when the "Heat" reaches its peak.