Through play, each copy of Spectaculars evolves into its own unique comic book universe; in essence, the players create, through play, a rich backdrop against which their heroes and villains clash. The nature of the setting is determined by the players. Is your setting’s home city built on top of a dimensional rift, spilling dark magics into the world? Is the government agency that oversees superpowered activity made up of men and women in black suits and sunglasses, operating in a loose affiliation of independent cells in all of the world’s major cities? Is the star empire that chases refugees to Earth a tyrannical, conquering horde looking to make humanity its next victims? You decide which of these are true for your setting. Spectaculars makes it easy to create a fully fleshed-out setting, guiding you the process of creating the setting’s major elements at the time they come into play.

Spectaculars is designed to be played with minimal preparation. Once all of the players know the rules of the game, you can start playing a scenario with brand-new characters in a matter of minutes. Character creation is fast and easy, and the game comes with over 50 fully designed scenarios spread across four comic book genres. With Spectaculars, you can run multiple satisfying, evolving campaigns right out of the box, with no need to spend hours doing advanced work to prepare for the session. It’s the perfect game for people who want the satisfaction of playing an ongoing campaign, but don’t have the time to dedicate away from the game table.

Spectaculars is a game that is focused on episodic campaign play, playing out like issues in your favorite comic book series. However, Spectaculars also uses its included components to make it easy to play a campaign without requiring anyone to do any advanced prep work between sessions. There's no need for one person to spend hours crafting materials in advance of the session; each scenario includes all of the information the Narrator needs to run the game.

Spectaculars uses the 100AC dice system, the same system used by Dusk City Outlaws. Consisting of percentile dice (used to determine success or failure) and custom advantage and challenge dice (which are used to represent advantageous or detrimental circumstances surrounding the roll you are making), the 100AC system produces a whole spectrum of possible results in a simple, easy to read, and easy to adjudicate way. You roll percentile dice for success and failure on any roll, determined by your percentage chance of success (listed on your hero archetype and identity); if you roll boons, you get some additional positive benefit, and if you roll drawbacks you get some additional negative benefit, meaning you can succeed on your task but have some negative consequence, or fail your roll but still get something good out of it, and every other permutation of success, failure, upside, and downside. The system allows for easy improvisation, quick modification of a roll by the Narrator, and creating interesting twists and turns without the need for advanced preparation. 

The game comes with four series pads, which include the heroes, villains, and scenarios of your setting. Each pad contains 40 double-sided sheets arranged in a tear-off paper pad, and includes a storyline in a particular comic book subgenre. As you play through the campaign, you tear off sheets that contain the individual issues (scenarios) that you are going to play through, and sheets for villains and minions (which the Narrator creates at the start of the session, adding to your setting's growing cast of unique villains). Additionally, the first few sheets in each pad contain hero archetypes appropriate to the series pad's theme, and a few team roster sheets, to create the team of heroes that will be playing through the campaign. Additional hero archetypes occasionally appear throughout the series pads, becoming available for players to play after certain events in the campaign.

The series pads can be played in any order, and you can jump back and forth between the series at any time. You can create new teams for each series, or play some or all existing heroes when you change to a new series. The series pads included in the base game contain over 50 total issues among them, each one aimed at two to three hours of play, meaning that there is over 100 hours of comic book adventure in the Spectaculars box.