Role-playing games, from the first dungeon onward.
Commercial tabletop role-playing games from small publishers and major houses. Browse the systems, settings, and editions that gave players different ways to tell stories together.
Ken St. Andre’s early fantasy system favors accessible procedures, six-sided dice, and abstract combat. Flying Buffalo’s solo adventures offer a way to begin without assembling a group. Later editions are distinguished from the early game.
Characters develop through percentile skills rather than fixed classes and levels, while dangerous combat, cults, runes, and community ties root their adventures in Greg Stafford’s mythic world of Glorantha. Later editions revise the rules, but the original 1978 design established the game’s distinctive identity.
A fantasy adventure system built around a compact set of rules and a broad selection of adventurers. It suits dungeon expeditions and shorter campaigns without requiring an elaborate character-build process.
Travel, survival, exploration, and stronghold development define a dangerous fantasy sandbox. The journey between adventures is part of the game, rather than a brief transition to the next dungeon.
Adventurers explore the forest of Davokar and the conflicts surrounding its ancient secrets. Corruption and the consequences of disturbing the past give the setting a darker tone than heroic treasure hunting.
Investigators encounter supernatural beings drawn from Nordic folklore. Understanding a creature and its history can matter more than fighting it, making investigation central to resolving the mystery.
Fourth edition core set front cover · Cover source
Soldiers and survivors navigate a Europe devastated by a fictional World War III. Travel, supplies, encounters, and choices about helping others form a military survival campaign, not a historical account of an actual war.
Mutants explore the wasteland while developing the settlement they call home. Personal expeditions and the community’s growth connect survival adventures to a broader campaign purpose.
Children investigate strange technologies and mysteries in an alternate 1980s. Everyday relationships and the extraordinary world around the Loop matter more than combat prowess.
Detectives investigate cases in the Blade Runner setting. Evidence, moral choices, and the pressure of an assignment create a noir campaign rather than a succession of conventional combat encounters.
A crew travels among the worlds of the Third Horizon, where trade, factions, religion, and ancient mysteries intersect. Spaceship adventures share the stage with the political and cultural setting.
Explorers venture into a dangerous region of space in search of a future for their community. Expedition planning and delving into forgotten structures distinguish this game from its Third Horizon predecessor.
A compact dark-fantasy system presents desperate adventurers in a world approaching its end. Its sparse mechanics and strong visual identity suit short, dangerous adventures and unconventional settings.
Cybernetic outsiders confront a polluted, exploitative future city. A rules-light structure supports dangerous jobs and anti-corporate adventures, with the setting’s excesses integral to its tone.
A crew tries to keep a working home and livelihood in a decaying universe. Equipment, repairs, and the pressures of survival make everyday spacefaring problems part of the adventure.
Explorers seek strange artifacts in a world mixing industrial society with uncanny dangers. Compact character creation and direct combat procedures keep attention on exploration and the consequences of decisions.
Pirate crews face dangerous seas, strange islands, and supernatural threats. Its rules-light approach supports chaotic voyages and treasure hunting in a setting that blends historical inspiration with horror and fantasy.
Travelers journey through an alternate America shaped by strange technology and social collapse. Relationships, encounters, and the mystery of the surrounding world give the road trip its campaign structure.
Survivors contend with the dead and with the choices of other people. Community needs, scarce resources, and relationships give the campaign stakes beyond surviving the next attack.
Knights pursue honor, family, and service across Arthurian campaigns. Personality traits and passions make a character’s convictions part of play, while dynastic continuity extends the story beyond one adventurer.
2023 Universal Game Engine hardcover · Cover source
A toolkit for creating campaigns across several genres using percentile skills. It offers a common mechanical foundation with options for different settings, rather than prescribing one ready-made fictional world.
Police investigators handle magical incidents in Ben Aaronovitch’s fictional London. Procedure, investigation, and the relationship between ordinary policing and supernatural threats form the campaign’s core.
Agents of a noble House navigate intrigue, duels, espionage, and conflict in the Imperium. The 2d20 system can move between individual action and broader contests involving a House’s assets.
Wasteland wanderers scavenge equipment, face mutated threats, and contend with competing factions. Its 2d20 rules carry the familiar Fallout setting into a group campaign with character perks and survival challenges.
A Starfleet crew investigates unfamiliar worlds and balances scientific discovery with diplomatic and ethical decisions. The second edition uses 2d20 rules for personnel, starships, and the collaborative work of a bridge crew.
Allied investigators confront occult threats amid a fictionalized Second World War. The 2d20 edition combines military action, investigation, and supernatural horror; it portrays an alternate conflict rather than a straight historical simulation.
Roman-era adventurers uncover cosmic horrors at the fringes of the empire. Its 2d20 roleplaying rules combine investigation and action with ancient cultures; this is the RPG, distinct from the related Tactics miniature game.
Characters explore the Empire of the Isles through stealth, intrigue, and dangerous supernatural powers. Its 2d20 rules use momentum and chaos to connect risky decisions with consequences in a setting shaped by the video games.
Crews and explorers travel through the Homeworld universe, encountering ancient mysteries and competing civilizations. A 2d20 adaptation supports adventures connected to the fleets and displaced peoples familiar from the computer strategy games.
Communities rebuild on a distant world where enormous machines sometimes awaken. The RPG places exploration, cooperation, and the risks posed by these technological remnants within a hopeful science-fiction survival setting.
Heroes cross the deserts and cities of Edgar Rice Burroughs’s Barsoom in adventures of daring rescues, swordplay, and strange technology. The game adapts 2d20 to fast-moving planetary romance and larger-than-life characters.
Agents undertake missions in the Human Sphere, where rival powers contest information, influence, and advanced technology. The 2d20 rules support physical confrontations alongside hacking and social conflict in the Infinity universe.
Resourceful friends embark on globe-trotting adventures in an alternate 1960s inspired by Franco-Belgian comics. Percentile mechanics and story points support investigation, chases, and adventurous complications rather than military campaigns.
Explorers swear vows and journey through a dangerous space frontier. Oracles and guided procedures support solo, cooperative, or guided play, linking uncertain encounters to the character’s commitments and developing campaign story.
Young superheroes protect Halcyon City while deciding who they want to become. Playbooks and shifting labels make relationships, adult expectations, and personal identity central to the action.
Vampires, wizards, mortals, and other factions bargain for power in a contemporary city. The second edition uses debts, relationships, and corruption to connect personal drama with the struggle for influence.
Animal vagabonds travel through a woodland divided by competing factions. Powered by the Apocalypse rules turn jobs, loyalties, and local conflicts into adventures; this is a standalone roleplaying game distinct from the Root board game.
Heroes travel through the world of Avatar, pursuing adventures across several supported eras. Character growth and the tension between personal principles underpin the rules, alongside bending, combat exchanges, and relationships.
Players share different aspects of the Bride as she explores Bluebeard’s mansion. Rooms, disturbing discoveries, and difficult choices create a collaborative horror story with explicit attention to discussing boundaries before play.
Characters entangled in the drug trade face dangerous bargains, obligations, and divided loyalties. Powered by the Apocalypse rules focus on a tense adult crime drama, with consequences extending through families and criminal organizations.
Players portray the stars of a dramatic telenovela, complete with secrets, rivalries, and extravagant romantic complications. Its rules build scenes around emotional escalation and revelations rather than tactical combat.
Heroes inspired by Greek myth sail between islands and confront trials devised by gods and mortals. Competitive contests give each hero a chance to win renown while the group pursues its shared voyage.
A spaceship crew takes risky jobs among rival factions in a troubled sector. Forged in the Dark mechanics connect action, stress, downtime, and ship development across campaigns of smugglers, bounty hunters, or rebels.
The Legion retreats before an undead army while players manage missions, personnel, and supplies. Forged in the Dark procedures link dangerous squad operations to the larger campaign and the struggle to reach safety.
A team of hunters investigates strange events and dangerous creatures in episodic adventures. Playbooks define different hunter types, while investigation and escalating threats help structure each mystery and its confrontation.
Adventurers combine dramatic swordplay with romance, relationships, and emotional complications. Powered by the Apocalypse playbooks support a range of settings, using conflict to develop connections as well as resolve dangerous situations.
Monstrous agents investigate occult mysteries and try to prevent the end of the world. Bonds and dangerous powers shape a campaign about belonging, emotional pressure, and the line between saving the world and threatening it.
Desperate adventurers seek survival and profit amid war, demons and forbidden magic. This standalone, rules-light game combines swashbuckling action and Gothic folk horror with distinctive firearms, dangerous spellcraft and compatibility with the MÖRK BORG system.
First Edition Player’s Survival Guide cover · Cover source
Crews explore derelict spacecraft and hostile worlds while stress, panic and violent encounters threaten their survival. The streamlined first-edition rules use a percentile roll-under system, fast character creation, wounds, destructible armor and shore leave instead of conventional levels.
Federal agents and other specialists investigate unnatural threats while secrecy, violence and exposure steadily damage their sanity and personal lives. This player-facing core rulebook covers agent creation, investigation, combat, equipment, federal agencies and the home scenes that show what each operation puts at risk.
Salvager pilots cross a corporate-dominated wasteland in scrap-built mechs, recovering parts to sustain their mobile Union Crawler community. A variable d20 system supports exploration, mech and pilot customization, salvage, crafting and encounters with raiders, mutants, bio-titans and corporate forces.
Players portray soldiers, tank crews, war correspondents or resistance fighters during the campaign in France from D-Day onward. Starter and advanced rules support personal stories of courage and survival within a broader military campaign rather than treating the war as a sequence of detached battles.
A unit of soldiers confronts the human and supernatural horrors of the First World War after mass slaughter tears open the Veil. The +One System emphasizes the survival and growth of the group, while cards track dwindling mental and emotional resources and occult power threatens each character's humanity.
Cinematic actionModern action cinema · High-risk missions and chases
Outgunned Core Rulebook
2025 · Free League Publishing / Two Little Mice
Free League Publishing core rulebook · Cover source
Action heroes take on overwhelming opposition in missions inspired by heist, spy and action films. The Director’s Cut system uses small pools of six-sided dice, with matching pairs, triples and quadruples determining success, while dedicated rules handle enemies, chases and cinematic set pieces.
Military adventureModern military adventure · G.I. JOE versus Cobra
G.I. JOE Roleplaying Game Core Rulebook
Renegade Game Studios
Renegade Game Studios core rulebook front cover · Cover source
Players create members of the G.I. JOE team from military-training origins, personal influences and specialized roles, then undertake missions against Cobra and other threats. The core rulebook includes character creation, complete play and game-master rules, equipment and an introductory adventure.
Ordinary people and uneasy antiheroes pursue careers and dangerous ambitions in the Old World while confronting corruption, cults, monsters and political intrigue. The fourth edition uses percentile characteristics and skills, with detailed rules for combat, pursuits, disease, misfortune and long-running campaigns.
Travellers create experienced characters and pursue exploration, trade, diplomacy and danger among distant worlds. This revised Mongoose edition integrates rules updates and errata while retaining the careers, task system, starships, equipment, world creation and referee guidance needed for campaigns across Charted Space.
Imperial citizens and adepts serve a powerful patron while investigating conspiracies, rival factions and hidden threats across the Macharian Sector. A refined percentile system supports character roles, patron creation, influence, social investigation, psychic powers, equipment and the dangerous confrontations that follow when an inquiry turns violent.
JRPG-inspired fantasyJRPG-inspired fantasy · Collaboratively created worlds
Fabula Ultima Core Rulebook
2022 · NEED GAMES!
NEED GAMES! English-language core rulebook cover (2022) · Cover source
Players build would-be heroes by mixing fifteen character classes, then pursue personal goals in a fantasy world the group creates together. The rules evoke Japanese console RPGs through modular advancement, dramatic villains, magical settings and consequences that let the players influence the unfolding story.
Cyberpunk science fictionNight City, 2045 · The Time of the Red
Cyberpunk RED Core Rulebook
2020 · R. Talsorian Games
R. Talsorian Games core rulebook cover (2020) · Cover source
Edgerunners take on dangerous work in a rebuilding Night City after the Fourth Corporate War. Ten character roles, cyberware, weapons, street-level contacts, netrunning, combat and extensive setting material support campaigns in the Time of the Red between Cyberpunk 2020 and Cyberpunk 2077.
Adventurers cross a far-future Earth transformed by catastrophe, mutations, strange creatures, isolated societies, and hazardous remnants of advanced technology. The original game combines science fiction and fantasy exuberance rather than treating survival after the apocalypse as a strictly realistic exercise.
Humans and mutants explore the vast generation ship Warden after disaster has shattered its society and obscured the vessel’s true nature. Decks become isolated worlds filled with altered life, malfunctioning machinery, and misunderstood technology, making discovery itself the engine of the campaign.
