What was the RPG Pipeline
Monday, 14 October 2030
Friday, 29 November 2024
What's Hot in Indie TTRPGs 2024 - Year in Review
What’s Hot in Indie TTRPGs 2024
A compilation of data and opinionProduced by Epistolary Richard and with contributions from others as noted. Note that this is in the process of compilation and is not currently final.
Contributors
Josh Fox - Emergent Mysteries -What I’m calling emergent mystery is a game where the mystery is created by multiple people and multiple people have control over what the truth. If you consider a traditional mystery game to be where the GM is the one who knows what’s really going on and comes up with the clues for everybody to find and an improvised game is where the GM is making it up as they go along, but is still deciding what the mystery is, then an emergent mystery is where the players get to shape the mystery and decide what's really happening. Back in 2018, Oli Jeffries wrote Apocalypse By Moonlight, as a plug-in for Powered by the Apocalypse games and had been inspired by my game Lovecraftesque, which had been been where basically the players take turns to make up clues and then at the end their theory is used to define what the truth is. Apocalypse By Moonlight makes that a GMed emergent game so when the players want to investigate something they say I'm going to investigate something they roll some dice and if they roll well they get to decide what they find; if they roll badly the GM may tell them what they found or complicate what they were hoping to find. At the end when they've accumulated enough Clues then they are going to be rolling to see whether their theory as to what the mystery means is correct and again if they roll well it's true, if they roll less well than the GM complicates it, so it's taking what is traditionally this GM controlled thing and making it a story that nobody knows the answer to. So Apocalypse By Moonlight was the foundation of that idea and that inspired the game Brindlewood Bay which had a very big kickstarter in 2022 and now there are loads and loads of games happening in this space: there are dozens of hacks of Brindlewood Bay, there are other unique systems which are using the same idea. I literally cannot find them all never mind tell you about them all. A few of my favourites though are: Apocalypse Keys where you're playing sad monsters trying to prevent imminent apocalypses; Bump in the Dark, you’re small town cryptid hunters using a Forged in the Dark style system; Cryptid Creeks is almost the opposite so you're kids trying to prevent a curse in a small town and are helped by friendly cryptids; and Rosewood Abbey where you are medieval monks investigating scandal, rumour and superstitious gossip.
I really love emergent mystery: it’s a lot less work you can create a mystery on the fly with no prep at all; it removes the problem of players getting confused or looking at the wrong place because there is no such thing as the wrong place and they ultimately cannot be wrong; also as a GM I find it more exciting as I get to discover the mystery along with the players.
Will Rahman Daultrey - Narrative wargames / Tactical roleplay -
I think part of where the push for more narrative elements in wargames is actually a push back against a trend within the industry towards more competitive play. For example, Games Workshop, their games have gone very much into the competitive scene and there are players that don't want that. They don't want to turn up and play a game that is so rules-heavy and constrained within a points-based system of how you build your army so that the game can be competitive. Those players have looked at roleplaying games and I’m one of them. I played minis games more than I played roleplaying games, but the first game I created, Forbidden Psalm, I wanted it to tell a story, I wanted it to be narrative and I wanted it to be fun. So I created a game that I felt did that by being focused on the narrative.
There's kind of a theme in the game of fun through failure so if your guys are losing and dying in a competitive game the game stops being fun so designing games where it's actually fun to lose can become a part of it which again is something that you have in role playing games of that failure forward. That's where a lot of it's come from: taking that overly competitive nature of war games that has grown over the last few years and pushing back against it and bringing the fun and the narrative and the storytelling back in that war games originally had. Some of the most popular long-lasting war games like Mordheim have that; people spend hours making their warband, customising it, building a whole story around it and yet the play on the tabletop doesn't continue that story. These more narrative wargames use scenarios beyond just killing each other or king of the hill, their scenarios can be more like a roleplay adventure with more varied objectives and text that you read out to describe what’s happening in the world, they can have a campaign system that represents flaws and feats and your characters evolve and get new equipment and then players want to kit-bash a whole new model to represent it. Plus these games are not always competitive, in Forbidden Psalm and all the other games I’ve made since, each player has their own warband and you can attack each other, but there’s no actual benefit in doing so. There’s no extra XP, you don’t level up quicker. Instead, you’re up against monsters who have their own behaviour flow-chart so it’s kind of like a gmless ttrpg. You can play it solo as well so it's the idea that you can approach it how you want to approach it to tell a story.
(Compiler’s note) If you’re interested in narrative minis games then other games to check out are Necropolis28, Turnip28, and Trench Crusade. For an example of a similar game coming from the ttrpg angle then check out Lo! Thy Dread Empire which calls itself a tactical roleplay / narrative wargame.
Michael Duxbury -
2024, like 2023, has been an absolutely brutal year for personnel cuts in the field of games journalism. Happily, 2024 has also been a great year for new, reader-funded, tabletop journalism outlets filling the void left behind. In many instances, the latter has emerged directly out of the former, as displaced journalists outdo their former tech overlords, by constructing a sustainable model for high-quality tabletop journalism.
Some of the highest profile entries into this space include Rascal News (founded by former io9, Polygon, and Dicebreaker writers), Just For Fun (founded by former Dicebreaker journalists), and Second Wind (founded by the Escapist Magazine’s video team – predominantly a video game website, but with RPG Actual Play content too). More amicably, we’ve seen a former host of Shut Up and Sit Down step down to establish the similarly Patreon-funded Quinn’s Quest, providing high profile exposure to indie RPGs.
Reader funding doesn’t just preserve the livelihoods of these creators, but also the journalistic independence their outlets need to thrive. I’m hopeful this trend continues into the new year and far beyond it. I’m also hoping that the mass firings of industry personnel will, as a tiny shred of silver lining, remind remaining employees of the importance of collective bargaining in resisting corporate overreach. The expansion of the Game Workers branch of the IWGB to accept tabletop members suggests tentative progress in this direction as well.
Sharang Biswas -
For last year’s Year in Review, my thoughts dwelled on resistance and rebellion. Well, it’s been an exhausting year politically, so this time, I thought I’d focus on something both more personal, and a little lighter in tone.
Playing Jack Harrison’s ENNIE-award-winning KORIKO: A MAGICAL YEAR has been has been my favourite game experience this year. I’m playing it somewhat unusually; rather than as a solo journalling game, I’m playing it with a friend, the two of us discussing and co-writing each entry. I confess that most journalling RPGs don’t work for me. Possibly because I make worlds and stories for a living, the act of playing one of these games tends to feel like work, leaving me exhausted. Having another person present has transformed the experience entirely. The social, co-creative aspect of RPGs rises to the top, and I’ve found that I can write pages upon pages in longhand without growing tired. We’ve filled 50 journal pages already (okay disclaimer, they’re quite sticker-filled), and we’re only halfway through the game!
Of course, the game’s own merits more than contribute to the enjoyment I’m getting out of it. From the excellent instructions about housekeeping and journal organisation, to the guided manner in which new characters are introduced and incorporated, to the wonderfully inspirational prompts each accompanied by a metered rhyming couplet, to the font and colour choices—so much care and thought has gone into the game’s design. The dice and tarot mechanics are offbeat too, together creating a wonderful structure for storytelling. It helps that the themes of learning and growing up, as well as the Ghibli-inspired story frame of trainee witch in a new city, appeal to me immensely.
I don’t really know how to end this note, so I’ll just leave you with a couple of the game’s rhymes. Maybe they’ll transport you somewhere inspirational too?
reeking sigil, monstrous mane,
mouthy goblin, spectral flames.
mystic pickles, haunted breads,
talking teddies, dazzling threads.
mountain peak, forest glade,
sunken grotto, broken blade.
Jonathon 'Starshine' Scribbles -
2024 was defined by growth. This year, I've had the pleasure of seeing loads of new creators enter the industry, be they releasing their first games or becoming part of the game design community. 2024 has also seen creators stretch the medium of TTRPGs in new ways, crafting new and unique mechanics or making games about themes and topics that have not been covered before.
This is especially obvious in the solo game space, as 2024 has been blessed with a massive number of memorable and creative games that use the medium to tackle a vast number of topics, from personal struggles to global crises. For example, The Rock Limpet" by RobotFrancis used the solo game format to explore the often messy nature of political revolutions and their ensuing fallout. While Magikya Studios' I Don't Speak French, But They Do!" used puppetry and ventriloquism to discuss communication barriers and how they can be overcome.
Even outside the solo game space, 2024 was packed with highly creative titles that pushed the medium in new directions. For example, Deep Dark Games's A Perfect Rock" used gathered rocks and sci-fi worldbuilding to get players thinking about environmental issues and the need to protect Earth's climate.
The year has also seen many TTRPGs incorporate props and LARP-inspired elements, adding to player immersion and making games more accessible. This includes games like glitterbandemissary's Roadtrip Radio," which uses real-world radio stations and player position to recreate the feeling of an old-school road trip, and Chuck & Noodles" by Kurt Refling and Kathleen Hartin, which uses two walkie-talkies to drop players into the middle of a moving story about the pain of growing up.
If nothing else, 2024 proves that the TTRPG industry never sits still. It is constantly growing, changing, and evolving.
Epistolary Richard - GenAI and ttrpgs -
Generative AI has been a buzzy term for this year across a lot of disciplines. GenAI is a blanket term for types of AI that generate something new including those based on Large Language Models (LLMs) like Chat GPT as well as diffusion models that can create images based on text prompts. Big Tech is all-in on GenAI and Venture Capitalists are chasing hot GenAI startups with even greater fervour than they chased crypto start-ups a few years before. GenAI has found its way into a lot of different areas of life including now being mandated in some people’s work and the TTRPG space is no exception and I’d like to talk through some of those impacts.
Just as a side-note however I’m not going to talk here about the ecological impact of the broad implementation of GenAI here. But if you weren’t already then please know that it does have one and should go learn about it.
I’d like to split the impacts into the personal level, what I’m going to call the table level, which is impacts to how people play ttrpgs and then the business level which is where money is more involved.
TTRPGs as a hobby is pretty well decentralised. While there are big companies and big games, no group is dependent on them to be able to play their game. We don’t have to worry about centrally run servers like MMORPGers do or the factory line production and shipment of specific game pieces for board games or even the creation of new content like the book industry. One ttrpg can last a lifetime. Each table is quite self-reliant and so how one table plays can be very different from another. So in terms of GenAI, at that table level, it really comes down to each individual as to extent that they want to use generic chatbots to write elements of a campaign or contents of a dungeon or brainstorm new characters or create AI images to for PCs or NPCs. For some people that stuff, that creation is part of the fun of the game; for other people it’s not. A different use I’ve read about is someone who used AI to take notes of their games because their table found note-taking a drag and summarising a transcript of a 4 hour game was something an AI definitely could do. For other potential uses I’ve read, like training a chatbot to talk like an innkeeper and then uploading audio files so the chatbot can use it as a voice… sounds cool in theory, but is this really why I got together with my fellow gamers so that we can all talk to ye olde chatbot together? No. And I think there is a risk there that, especially if those kinds of bells and whistles are held out as best practice GMing, it’s actually going to lead to GMs having to put in more preparation and be even less comfortable with being flexible. I know that when I was starting out as a GM I relied too much on prep and too little on rolling with what the players actually wanted to do. And if I had a bunch of players who were expecting full motion video NPCs every way they turned then I would never have bothered.
So, bottom line, the use of generic GenAI tools (by which I mean those that weren’t tailored to TTRPGs) as part of prep or other game-related admin it’s going to be person by person, table by table decision. And I think the only way that that wouldn’t happen is if when Big Tech shifts from growing the GenAI market to then trying to make a profit on it and then pushes the full cost of it onto consumers it will be too expensive for this kind of use.
So onto the business level where people are trying to make money out of GenAI specifically related to TTRPGs. Here again I want to split it between platforms, tools, game text and art. Yes, don’t worry, I’ll get to art.
Platforms first, and here I mean websites like Friends and Fables or AI Dungeon where the deal is that you go to the website and you play the game there with their AI acting as GM. I have not played any of these, they’re not my scene, but they’re an implementation.
Then tools: these are almost aimed at GMs because obviously in the traditional roleplaying stereotype, the GMs are always the ones overloaded with work and having to pour their creativity out to a bunch of ungrateful players who just want to seduce the bartender and hit something with an axe. These are mainly generators for things like encounters, dungeons, stat blocks, I mean I don’t know what any of these things are because I only play indie games, but apparently they are things that GMs of mainstream games have to create.
I can’t claim to say anything more about these as again, it’s not my scene. My only thought is that they’re kind of relying on the generic GenAI tools not getting too good – because if I can generate encounters, dungeons and stat blocks with Chat GPT then why do I need a TTRPG specific tool? If Chat GPT gets good enough to just be able to DM a game of D&D then why do I need to subscribe to an AI GM platform?
Fundamentally, though, both of these trying to sell their customers on a GenAI experience. The AI nature of it is part of the sales pitch and then it’s down to the value proposition for each individual customer. For the last two, however: game text and art, the AI nature is not customer facing.
Game text, by which I mean TTRPG designers and writers using GenAI in their creation of their TTRPGs either as part of drafting, editing or playtesting. For drafting and editing at least this is kind of bread and butter stuff for LLMs. Again this is something that’s going to impact more mainstream games than indie games, after all I don’t really need Chat GPT to generate large amounts of text for my 100 word rpg. Taking a leaf from fiction publishing, places like the Authors Guild produced best practice notes for use of AI which does imply a widespread use of GenAI in fiction writing. In that business, the concern is more on the legal side about whether the author has transformed the AI text sufficiently to claim copyright in it because that’s what their contract with their publisher says. But in TTRPG space where almost everyone self-publishes that’s less of a concern. While I’ve not heard mention of GenAI usage in writing ttrpgs I think it’s reasonable safe to assume that it’s likely happening at a similar rate to fiction writing.
Lastly, we get to art. After a bunch of controversies, the second half of 2023 and 2024 saw the roll out of policies around the use of AI-generated content including Kickstarter, OneBookShelf and itch.io requiring the disclosure of AI generated content (OBS also added it as a filter), WOTC saying they don’t want their creatives using GenAI in creating final products, on reddit r/osr and r/dnd have both put out rules against posting AI generated content. At the same time, I have seen several blog posts pointing ttrpg designers who want to include art towards public domain, open source, creative commons or inexpensive stock art. Will it make any difference? We will have to see. Large corporations will use GenAI art if they think they can make money without blowback (they have that fiduciary obligation to their shareholders after all); for that to happen they will have to able to normalise its use in the eyes of their audience and be confident in actually having the copyright to what they produce. If there’s a significant change or clarification of copyright law in relation to GenAI creative works then I wouldn’t be surprised if publishers quietly amend their policies and chance it.
Epistolary Richard - From forums to Plexodus to TweXit to BlueSky -
From the 2000s, while indie TTRPG folk have always been, well, independent as to their digital space, it’s often been useful to have a central touchpoint (a town square if you like) where you can actually find people. A lot of that was originally based around a couple of key forums, then Google Plus gained favour thanks to its better timeline controls and its integration with Hangouts. When Plus was shut down for non-commercial use, Twitter became that place kind of by default because that’s where a lot of people already had networks. But with its transformation to X and the recent US election, a bunch of indie TTRPG folk have moved onto BlueSky (with its Starter Packs functionality especially assisting folk to quickly create networks).
Selected TTRPGs
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2024 Level 1 Anthology
Alt link: An annual collection of TTRPGs published in time for Free RPG Day. The indie RPG scene is a diverse, fascinating, and vibrant part of the TTRPG community. With Level 1: The Indie RPG Anthology, 9th Level Games brings together choice games from the world of indie RPGs in an annual collection published in time for Free RPG Day. The 2024 edition of Level 1 is themed around "Command Line." This year's designers take us to the internet, the future, and other worlds. We have abandoned Discord servers, viruses, robots, and even golems. We have hacking simulations and a simulation of hacking. You can become a god, an outer space pet, or, as predicted, a hacker. So strap on your keyboard, and get ready to jack into the net, chummer! |
This won silver Best Free Game / Product at the Ennies 2024
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Afterglow
Alt link: It started when a WIZARD cleaved apart the temple into two. Because, in the cyclical way of things, one ideology eventually wins out over the other. The Celestial Cycles shatter and pour away, blending into the colour of their worship into tones of soft purple and creamy orange hues. Now there is no more day or night, no rising or setting of the Godly tombs that float in carefully calculated arches through the sky: there is only the AfterGlow and the wake of a different world. AfterGlow is a solo or co-operative play journaling TTRPG game. Become a Dawncarver Acolyte of the Light, Imefelga, or a Nightweaver Acolyte of the God of the Night, Elestrell. |
This won Best GMless TTRPG at the CRIT awards
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Against the Wind
Alt link: In the lands where the wind howls like a beast untamed, you forge your path. They say the gales here shape not just the land, but the very spirit of those who walk it. You are one of those souls, a wanderer amidst the churning skies and the earth that bites with frost. Against the Wind is a solo/coop fantasy-adventure sandbox game in a land ravaged by fierce winds and biting cold, all infused with a subtle pinch of fairy tale ambiance. In this world, players step into the roles of magical nomad heroes, confronting the relentless climate, traversing diverse landscapes, and following their own unique paths. The game blends traditional and modern styles of play, merging the classic elements of fantasy adventure — like wilderness exploration and dungeon delving — with contemporary, narrative-driven mechanics. |
This was named as a favorite solo TTRPG of 2024 by Pop Cult
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Becoming The Villain
Alt link: Becoming The Villain is a solo or multiplayer tabletop roleplaying game for players who love character, choices and storytelling. Create characters, and give them hopes, dreams, and ambitions. Use Tarot cards to see how their story unfolds and Become The Villain! |
This was named as a favorite solo TTRPG of 2024 by Pop Cult
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Between Clouds
Alt link: Between Clouds is a colorful, biopunk, tabletop RPG about a family of misfits navigating the open skies atop their beloved flying beast |
This won Best Multiplayer TTRPG at the CRIT awards
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BREAK!!
Alt link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/576526373/break-a-trpg-inspired-by-classic-videogames-and-anime BREAK!!'s setting and aesthetics are inspired by classic anime and SNES era videogames, along with wistful fantasy novels and movies! BREAK!! is a 470 page, full-color book loaded with diagrams and infographics to make learning and playing the game as fast and fun as possible. |
This won Best Family Game / Product at the Ennies 2024
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Cepheus Universal
Alt link: https://www.paulelliottbooks.com/cepheus-universal.html This universal science fiction RPG allows players and Game Master to emulate most kinds of sci-fi gaming, from time travel or near future cyberpunk, to space opera; from modern-day Solar System exploration to a far future that enjoys antimatter power, matter transportation and food replicators. As much attention is given to low-tech societies as mid-tech and far future, high-tech societies. You'll find options for gunpowder weapons, disintegrators, fusion power, portable shield generators, flint tool production and using beasts of burden. The scope of Cepheus Universal is huge. The 2D6-based Cepheus rules are adaptable but not complex, and easy enough for players new to sci-fi gaming (or to roleplaying in general). Character creation is purely by design, and features a life path system that adds depth and which connects them to the setting. Create a character in 5 minutes or less. Packed with material that you can use to build your setting, or adapt your favourite setting from a novel or movie, it includes systems for building not just characters, but starships, animals, robots, vehicles, AI machines, star systems, spacesuits … you name it. Pick the parts you need to build the type of setting you desire. No setting is included, but three examples are provided to give you an idea of the scope of these rules. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2024 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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CHEW: The Roleplaying Game
Alt link: The award-winning Image comic book series and New York Times Best Seller, CHEW, is cooking for a game table near you! Take a bite out of crime in a foodie crime drama about cops, crooks, cooks, cannibals, and clairvoyants in a clucked-up world. We're building off the popular fiction-first game mechanics of Forged in the Dark to bring the action-packed comic series of food crimes, over-the-top characters, and out-of-this-world conspiracies to life. |
This was a 2024 Ennies Judges' Spotlight Winner
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Coffee & Chaos
Alt link: Coffee & Chaos is a comedy tabletop roleplaying game about running a cafe, bar, restaurant or other establishment as everything goes very, very wrong around you. It has been built on a rules-lite framework that facilitates two major things: 1. Allows the game to be played with any characters and work especially well with pre-existing characters for one-off comedy sessions within longer campaigns. 2. Allows for the game to pull away from the idea of winning and instead focus on telling hilarious stories. |
This won Best Indie TTRPG at the CRIT awards
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Dead Gods
Alt link: After the Cataclysm of Heaven it all changed. Murdered gods fell from the sky, sundering the land and casting their sacred relics about the world. From the woodwork crawl Warcults, scavengers of god-relics to further their own twisted gains. The Eternal seek power over death itself. The Order of the Stars seek relics to unlock god-like omniscience. The Pale Druids imbibe relics to acquire power over nature itself. The Black Maw will create a new, hungrier god under their control. Dead Gods is a fast-paced skirmish game for 28mm fantasy models where players control Warcults to secure the sacred relics left behind by the Cataclysm. |
This won Best 1 Page TTRPG at the CRIT awards
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Dragonslayer Role-Playing Game
Alt link: Step into the Golden Age of Role-Playing Games with Dragonslayer, an OSR (Old-School Renaissance) game system that brings the classic magic, adventure, and wonder of 1980s tabletop RPGs to life! Built for fans of D&D-inspired OSR gameplay, Dragonslayer combines the streamlined rules of B/X with the tactical depth and flair of First Edition, offering a single-volume ruleset packed with everything needed to fuel your fantasy TTRPG campaigns. Dragonslayer includes all the core elements of the classic fantasy RPG experience: distinct races, iconic classes, powerful spells, terrifying monsters, and hoards of treasure — all meticulously curated for OSR-style adventures. Immerse yourself in a world where myths come alive, terrifying monsters roam, and every quest could be your last. Unleash the true spirit of old-school RPGs with Dragonslayer, the OSR ruleset that brings high-fantasy adventures and timeless dungeon delves to your table. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2024 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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Dreams And Machines: Starter Set
Alt link: https://modiphius.us/collections/dreams-and-machines/products/dreams-and-machines-starter-set A vast distance from Earth, a human colony bearing the scars of a self-inflicted apocalypse survives on the distant world of Evera Prime. In the shadow of ruined megacities humanity rebuilds, scavenging technology from the Old World and returning to a simpler way of life. Among the mountains and valleys of New Mossgrove, the mechs of the Old World dot the landscape, deadly tools of a corrupt A.I.. Since the war that finally defeated the machines, they have been locked in a slumber that’s lasted hundreds of years — but occasionally, they awaken, and when they do, these ‘Wakers’ continue their programming to wreak havoc across the world. |
This was named as a best new ttrpg book of 2024 by Polygon
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Eat the Reich
Alt link: https://rowanrookanddecard.com/product/eat-the-reich/ The year is 1943. You are a team of crack vampire commandos with one mission: drink all of Hitler’s blood. Eat the Reich is a tabletop roleplaying game in which you, a vampire commando, are coffin-dropped into occupied Paris and must cut a bloody swathe through nazi forces en route to your ultimate goal: drinking all of Adolf Hitler’s blood. It’s written by Grant Howitt (Honey Heist, Spire, Heart) and illustrated by Will Kirkby (Critical Role, Image, Darkhorse, Boom). This over-the-top, ultraviolent game is designed to be played from beginning to end in one to three sessions of carnage, blood magic, meaningful flashbacks and hundreds upon hundreds of extremely dead fascists. It tells one story, it tells it loud, and it tells it brilliantly. Think Wolfenstein crossed with Danger 5 and you’re not far off the mark. |
This was named as a best new ttrpg book of 2024 by Polygon
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If I Were A Lich, Man
Alt link: If I Were a Lich, Man is a trilogy of funny Jewish roleplaying games about creative resistance against authoritarianism. The villains in the stories of our oppressors become the heroes in our play. Written and illustrated by a team of avant-garde Jewish designers, this box set includes rules for all three games, game cards & a set of wooden dreidels. Recommended for fans of What We Do in the Shadows, Russian Doll, and Young Frankenstein. |
This won silver Best Family Game / Product at the Ennies 2024
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Ker Nethalas: Into the Midnight Throne
Alt link: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Ker-Nethalas-Into-Midnight-Throne/dp/B0CT8F47QM Condemned to death. Executed. Yet somehow, you survived. Now you roam the endless tunnels of the City Below, the Midnight Throne: Ker Nethalas. Will your skills and wits save you once again, or will you join the countless restless dead? Welcome to Ker Nethalas: Into the Midnight Throne, a single player dungeon crawler set in an endless necropolis. With the tools presented in the book you’ll tell the story of your character who, after miraculously surviving an execution, wakes up to realize that their problems have just begun, and that there are fates worse than death. When you sit down to play Ker Nethalas: Into the Midnight Throne, you, the player, take on the role of a single character. Your PC is your avatar in the dark tunnels of the necropolis, and your decisions (and luck!) will determine their fate. Ker Nethalas: Into the Midnight Throne uses a simple D100 ruleset to resolve all tasks. Whenever a PC tries to do something and the result isn't evident, or there is something at stake, you will need to perform a check. This is done by rolling D100, and comparing the result to the corresponding skill on the character’s sheet. If the result is equal or lower than the skill’s score, the check is a success. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2024 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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Kids on Bikes: Second Edition Core Rulebook
Alt link: https://www.board-game.co.uk/product/kids-on-bikes-core-rulebook-second-edition-deluxe/ Kids on Bikes is a Collaborative World Building RPG set in small towns with big mysteries. Written and created by celebrated game designers Jon Gilmour (Dead of Winter, Atari: Centipede/Missile Command/Asteroids) & Doug Levandowski (Gothic Doctor, Seven Minutes in Hell, Home: The Haunted House Map Building RPG). Kids on Bikes is a rules-light storytelling system that gets players into the action fast. The Adventures of Kids on Bikes take place in small towns at any point in history before: everyone had a camera phone that could catch video of a ghost, use GPS to track a homicidal maniac roaming around town, research an old creaky house in seconds using the internet. Kids on Bikes takes place in a more mysterious time, where anything and everything could happen. Kids on Bikes is a 138-page, rules-light, fast-paced storytelling game in the spirit of games like Dread, Perseverant, Monsterhearts, and other great indie titles. Kids on Bikes is perfect for game nights in which you want to get a game in RIGHT NOW. Using stats like GRIT, CHARM, FIGHT, FLIGHT, BRAINS and BRAWN, you’ll jump into the action. Each skill is represented by a polyhedral die based on your character’s competence. More sides = better chance of success. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2024 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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Knave: Second Edition
Alt link: https://questingbeast.itch.io/knave-second-edition Knave 2e is an exploration-driven fantasy RPG and worldbuilding toolkit, inspired by the best elements of the Old-School DnD movement. This edition expands on the intuitive core of the original game, featuring elegant, modular subsystems for hexcrawling, dungeon delving, potion making and downtime activities, all in a 80-page digest-sized hardcover lavishly illustrated by Peter Mullen. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2024 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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KUROI
Alt link: From the author of the bestselling games ENTITY and Campfire Story comes a new solo cyberpunk game, KUROI. In addition to simple but rich rules, the game also features top-notch artwork from world-renowned illustrators to visualize its own unique world. Kuro is a cyberpunk setting which pays homage to the greatest giants of the Cyberpunk genre, of which the author has been a die-hard fan since the early 90s. The game is played on a 6x6 inch grid and is a so-called micro wargame. You progress from level to level of a heavily guarded corporate building, trying to fulfill the objectives of your Heist. The game uses a unique Action roll system with two rerolls (Yatzee style) that you must tactically manage in your turn by using these dice to buy various actions and enhance them. In the game, you can choose several ways to progress through each level, you can be stealthy or manipulate enemies or go all out with your entire arsenal. Permanently improve your character from Heist to Heist with cyberware and try to complete Heists in the buildings of the most influential and dangerous megacorporations. Kuro also offers various tables and generators to support storytelling, such as different factions, corporations, events, complications, rewards, weapons, items, cyberware, and different types of Heist levels. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2024 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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OBSCURE: Found Footage Inspired Horror TTRPG
Alt link: OBSCURE is a tabletop role-playing game inspired by the genre "found-footage horror" known from movies and video games like The Blair Witch Project, Outlast and V/H/S. The game is made for one-location horror one-shots and survival horror campaigns, where storytelling is weighted above rules, and horror above action. The Player Characters are not heroes, just regular everyday people caught up in horrifying situations, where death is always lurking around the corner. This roleplaying game is designed to match the unnerving experience of watching a horror movie or telling a ghost story around a campfire. To capture the atmosphere of urban legends in a time before the internet was a common thing. OBSCURE is about solving mysteries. It is about running and hiding. It is about confronting your worst fears and overcome them. And above all, it is about getting through the night - alive. |
This was a 2024 Ennies Judges' Spotlight Winner
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Outgunned
Alt link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/449021/outgunned Outgunned is a cinematic action RPG inspired by the classics of the action and heist genre, from Die Hard to True Lies, passing through James Bond, Lethal Weapon, Kingsman, Ocean’s Eleven, Hot Fuzz, and the latest John Wick. In Outgunned, Players take on the role of action Heroes facing terrible odds. They will be constantly surrounded by enemies while trying to carry out their mission, be it robbing a casino or saving the day. Outgunned features a game system called Director’s Cut, a set of mechanics using small pools of six-sided dice to determine the outcome of the Heroes’ actions. When rolling dice, your goal is not to score the highest or lowest possible number, but to roll two-, three-, and four-of-a-kind. |
This won silver Best Game and silver Product of the Year at the Ennies 2024
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Psychic Trash Detectives
Alt link: https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/478875/psychic-trash-detectives Psychic Trash Detectives is a shared-GM game inspired by guidebook-style TTRPGs and a pulpy, punk ethos that demands a shift in how games and literature are defined. You do not need roleplaying experience to play—just open the book and start to read. If you have played a TTRPG before, you'll find that Psychic Trash Detectives offers an immersive storytelling experience unlike any other. You and the other players will use actual trash to generate elements of the game world, resolve questions, and push the story forward. You'll use whatever trash you bring to the game space (or whatever trash is there already). Plus, you'll create the setting of the game together too, mapping out on a hand-drawn map the weird places where your characters find their favorite trash. And when it comes to the psychic trash visions, you'll play weird, surrealist mini-games to determine the supernatural messages and memories |
This won Best Indie TTRPG at the CRIT awards
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Shadow of the Weird Wizard
Alt link: https://schwalbentertainment.com/shadow-of-the-weird-wizard/ Shadow of the Weird Wizard® is a fantasy roleplaying game in which you and your friends assume the roles of characters who explore the borderlands and make them safe for the refugees escaping the doom that has befallen the old country. Unsafe are these lands: the Weird Wizard released monsters to roam the countryside, cruel faeries haunt the shadows, undead drag themselves free from their tombs, and ancient evils stir once more. If the displaced people would rebuild their lives, they need heroes to protect them. A brand new game built using the system powering Shadow of the Demon Lord, this game gives you everything you need for you and your friends to champion the innocent, to brave grave dangers, and right terrible wrongs, all while exploring the wild frontier of the borderlands! Some saw him as a mad sorcerer who commanded eldritch powers of staggering might. As proof, one only has to look at all the abominations he set loose in the lands—the hybrid beasts, the multilegged hulking collectors, floating eyes that hang in the air trailing their nerve endings. And then, far, far beyond the edges of the new lands rose the walls of the Forbidden City and the clockwork peoples who dwelled there in seeming servitude to the dread mage who ruled over all he surveyed. But the Weird Wizard is gone. His shadow remains, but the figure casting it disappeared and none, not even his closest servants, know where he went. It might be coincidence that his absence preceded the bloody civil war that tore the Great Kingdom apart and that precipitated the violent struggle between the other nations in the west, or the Weird Wizard might have had some stabilizing influence that enabled civilization to flourish once more following a far older, nastier decline. Too, he could have been the source of the conflict and abandoned the world to its fate. Either way, the instability sends people by the thousands spilling into the borderlands. As this territory grows more and more crowded, refugees are looking to the east to make their homes. The first forays into the strange place have ended with disappearances and death, and the few people who have returned carry tales of hostile inhabitants, cruel faeries, and hideous, ravenous monsters. If the new lands would be tamed, there must be peace with the inhabitants. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2024 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year and was covered as part of Sly Flourish's 2024 TTRPGs Year in Review
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Shadowdark
Alt link: Old-school gaming, modernized. Shadowdark RPG is a critically-acclaimed tabletop fantasy RPG that raised $1.3 million on Kickstarter in March 2023. It won the 2024 Three Castles Award for best game design, as well as four gold ENNIEs: Product of the Year, Best Game, Best Rules, and Best Layout & Design. |
This won Best Game, Best Rules and Product of the Year at the Ennies 2024, was named as a best new ttrpg book of 2024 by Polygon and was covered as part of Sly Flourish's 2024 TTRPGs Year in Review
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Swyvers
Alt link: https://www.swyvers.com/ Swyvers is a tabletop role-playing game about bastards. You and your gang of criminals scarper through heists and sewers, stalk through the filth of The Smoke and, if you’re lucky, you’ll make it out with a few extra shillings. The whole of this city is your filthy, sickly oyster. Swyvers is a light-weight set of rules married to a full set of tools and tables for running a game in the chaotic sprawl of The Smoke, its many districts and The Midden. What a city it is — corrupt officials, looming war, rogue sorcerors, monsters below and nobs above. Violence rests as thick as the smog, nothing is sacred and it’s always bloody raining. A brand-new game built from the ground up to give you a grotty system for running a grotty game. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2024 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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The Electric State
Alt link: https://freeleaguepublishing.com/shop/the-electric-state-rpg/core-rulebook/ The Electric State Roleplaying Game is a tabletop RPG based on the art book The Electric State by acclaimed visual artist and author Simon Stålenhag soon to be adapted into a major motion picture by the Russo brothers (Avengers: Endgame), starring Millie Bobby Brown (Stranger Things) and Chris Pratt (Guardians of the Galaxy). The Electric State RPG, featuring art by Simon Stålenhag originally made for the art book project but never published before, is written by Nils Hintze (Tales From the Loop RPG) in collaboration with the Free League core team and based on Free League’s award-winning Year Zero Engine. This is a game about a group of travelers heading out on a journey through a strange America in an alternate 1997. The ruins of gigantic battle drones litter the countryside, heaped together with the discarded trash of a high tech consumerist society in decline. The game is not about the goal but the journey – what the characters experience and how it changes them. This is a game of exploration, but that which is explored is yourself and your friends, and what you are willing to do when the world collapses around you. |
This was named as a favorite solo TTRPG of 2024 by Pop Cult
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The Librarian's Apprentice
Alt link: Infinite, ever-shifting, and sometimes dangerous, the Library exists in the space between worlds and times. Among the many who call it home are the Librarians, and only those who truly understand it may join their ranks. You seek to do so. The path of a Librarian’s apprentice is a long one. Your current task is designed to test your skills at traversing the Library and finding information. Retrieve the six documents requested by your Librarian before the day is out and you will have completed one more step on your journey. The Librarian's Apprentice is a solo journaling game created with the Firelights Creator Kit by Fari RPGs. The rules will guide you, but you are in control of where the story goes. |
This won Best Solo TTRPG at the CRIT awards
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The Wassailing of Claus Manor
Alt link: https://clearkeep.itch.io/thewassailing Serve the Claus family during a descent into yuletide bedlam. The Wassailing mashes together: - The Edwardian estate drama of Downton Abbey - The atmospheric horror of Mike Flanagan shows - The festive antics of every Christmas movie you’ve ever seen Quick to play with wild twists and turns, The Wassailing is a roleplaying game perfect for raucous holiday sessions. |
This was a 2024 Ennies Judges' Spotlight Winner
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Triangle Agency
Alt link: Welcome to the first job of the rest of your life! Triangle Agency is a tabletop role-playing game in a present-day setting about wielding enormous, reality-warping power, navigating bureaucratic red tape, and juggling your everyday responsibilities. Player characters work at the Triangle Agency, an international corporation with influence in every industry. As Field Agents, players investigate and capture supernatural Anomalies that threaten the lives and comfort of normal citizens. |
This was named as a best new ttrpg book of 2024 by Polygon
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Yazeba's Bed & Breakfast
Alt link: Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast is many things. It’s a bed and breakfast, of course, but it’s also this book. And this book is a book, of course, but it’s also a role-playing game—the sort of game we can play with our friends around a table, or on a voice call while hanging out, or even very, very slowly by mail. Yazeba’s Bed & Breakfast is played over the course of 48 chapters, each of which is a 1 to 2-hour scenario with its own unique but quick-to-learn rules. Players can take control of one of the 7 long-term residents of the B&B or choose from a cast of 50 quirky guests, each of whom has their own ongoing storylines. |
This was a 2024 game named as a game of the year by Indie RPG newsletter
Selected TTRPG crowdfunding
Brandon Sanderson's Cosmere RPG
Beginning with The Stormlight Archive and expanding to Mistborn, this original tabletop RPG will grow to support the entire Cosmere!
Terry Pratchett's Discworld RPG: Adventures in Ankh-Morpork
A tabletop roleplaying game set on Terry Pratchett's Discworld
DC20
The Next Great Evolution in Fantasy TTRPGs: A Fresh System with Epic Combat, Intuitive Gameplay, and Characters as Unique as Your Group
Adventure Time: The Roleplaying Game
Experience your own adventure in the Land of Ooo in this epic 5E RPG based on Cartoon Network's Adventure Time!
Legend in the Mist RPG
A rustic fantasy tabletop RPG based on the acclaimed City of Mist. Spin a tale of journey and peril where choices transform gameplay.
Ember
Ember is an online tabletop roleplaying game of unprecedented scope from the creators of Foundry Virtual Tabletop.
Coriolis: The Great Dark RPG – Explore A Lost Horizon
Free League's original sci-fi RPG returns. Join expeditions to faraway stars and delve deep into ancient ruins.
The Broken Empires RPG: Sim-Lite d100 Skills-Based TTRPG
Dramatic fantasy setting and Success Level System built for speed, detail and immersion! Live (or die) with your choices.
Conan: The Hyborian Age - The Roleplaying Game
Take part in days of high adventure in this glorious and official Conan tabletop roleplaying game.
ASTROPRISMA
A solo sci-fi RPG of space exploration and faction conflict set in a retrofuturistic universe.
Monday, 18 December 2023
What's Hot in Indie TTRPGs 2023 - Year in Review
What’s Hot in Indie TTRPGs 2023
A compilation of data and opinionProduced by Epistolary Richard and with contributions from Chris McDowall, Fiona Howat, Laurie O'Connel, Lloyd Gyan, Nick Bate, Rob Carnel, Diogo Nogueira, Pearse Anderson, Sharang Biswas, Gabriel Kerr, Andre Novoa and with publically available data from Kickstarter, Kicktraq, DriveThruRPG and various awards as marked.
Table of Contents
- Selected Indie TTRPGs
- Some bestselling TTRPGs released on DriveThru in 2023
- Selected Themes in Indie TTRPGs from 2023
- Selected TTRPG Crowdfunding from 2023
So the first reason is to record what I’ve learned. The second reason is to try and inspire others to do the same.
I would really like a better version of this document to exist. One that’s more comprehensive, more detailed, more balanced, more accurate. One that’s put together by people with more time, ability, resources and connections than I have. Not even that (though that would be great), I would really like to read something like this written by anyone who has a different perspective, different contacts, different data or analysis than I have. I really hope this document helps encourage others to create their own. If it does, please let me know.
For the written opinions, I invited those who had contributed last year, who were recommended to me by those who had previously contributed, and anyone else who replied to social media shout outs or who were recommended by others. While I didn’t filter or select any of them I’m also aware that there is an element of self-selection, that they do not represent the full diversity within the hobby and exclude non-English speakers. Everyone’s opinions are just that, their opinions. They don’t necessarily represent my opinion, and they’re based on folk’s personal experiences with ttrpgs this year.
Finally, please be aware that - while this document is free - I receive a small commission from OneBookShelf as an affiliate if people go on to buy a product from DriveThruRPG. If you don’t like this, please remove my affiliate id (487648) before you buy.
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24XX Dying Sun
Alt link: 24XX: DYING SUN is a tabletop roleplaying game for 2+ players, designed using the framework provided by the 24XX SRD by Jason Tocci. DYING SUN depicts a world of post-apocalyptic fantasy, devastated by the corrupting sorcery of the Arcane Wars. It was inspired by a classic campaign setting from the 90's, Sword & Sorcery novels and many comic-books from the 80's. You play as Warriors, Wanderers or Warlocks, trying to survive in the harsh wastelands or dabbling with the intrigue of the city-states. |
This was a ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar. I enjoyed all the creativity around the 24xx system this year and enjoyed my games with the system. It is not very complex and very hackable, focusing on what is at risk and only using mechanics to represent peril. It provides a basic resolution mechanism and not much more; so subtle things in the PbtA and Forged in the Dark systems like playbooks and downtime don't clutter up the playsets that people create. Instead there is a focus on character differentiation through roles, ancestries or jobs, spark tables galore to get a game moving quickly and create an implied background. One of my favourite playsets was 24xx Dying Sun which stripped the Dark Sun setting down to the core of its fiction and in doing so removed much of the cluttered and problematic material to reveal a parable for our own overheating world. 1400 a compilation of fantasy hacks of the system ran the range from versions of the Thief computer game to the high fantasy tropes of things like the Forgotten Realms. All manner of more esoteric game worlds are available such as Super Bandit (space opera starfighters) and 18xx Richelieu (musketeers).
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ARC: Doom Tabletop RPG
Alt link: https://momatoes.itch.io/arc A tabletop role-playing game where you defeat the apocalypse. What is ARC? ARC is a tabletop RPG where heroes rise to slay the apocalypse. Stories you make and play in ARC run against a timer. While heroes navigate and transform the world around them, the real-time Doomsday Clock ticks to an irreversibly cataclysmic event. |
Something I am very excited to see being explored more and more in RPGs is the interaction between the events in the game, and the events outside the game. A lot of games are not turning their eyes on the media of RPGs itself, the way it is played, and how we, as designers, can play with that particular component of the game experience. I am seeing more and more games experimenting with the way people are set at the table, the roles the participants have on playing the game themselves and how that affects the fictional world and vice-versa. A lot of older art mediums have taken the same path, and seeing tabletop role-playing games following the same path shows how we are maturing as an art form as well. ARC - Tabletop Doom RPG is a game that does exactly this, as it ties its magic system to actual rituals players have to perform themselves, blurring the veil that separates the fictional world from the world where we are playing the game. How immersive is that? A recent adventure I wrote made something similar, as it ends with the players creating an in-game artifact outside the game, collaboratively, and when the adventure ends, the players are left with a physical artifact, a memory from their time in a fictional world. What a gift! I am excited to see how far can we explore our medium, and I bet in the next games we will see this trend finding an even more solid footing!
Diogo Nogueira is an award-winning game designer and artist from Brazil. His works include Halls of the Blood King, Kosmosaurs, Primal Quest, Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells, and many more.
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Cairn 2e and Knave 2e
Alt link: https://preview.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/250888/Knave?affiliate_id=487648 Cairn is an adventure game about exploring a dark & mysterious Wood filled with strange folk, hidden treasure, and unspeakable monstrosities. Character generation is quick and random, classless, and relies on fictional advancement rather than through XP or level mechanics. It is based on Knave by Ben Milton and Into The Odd by Chris McDowall Knave 2e is an exploration-driven fantasy RPG and worldbuilding toolkit, inspired by the best elements of the Old-School DnD movement. This edition expands on the intuitive core of the original game, featuring elegant, modular subsystems for hexcrawling, dungeon delving, potion making and downtime activities, all in a 80-page digest-sized hardcover lavishly illustrated by Peter Mullen. |
This were upcoming ttrpgs highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar "Self-indulgent caveat: Both of these games are based on Into the Odd. Their popularity shows that there’s now even more interest in games that focus on an OSR style of play, but have very little D&D DNA in their actual implementation. These are by no means the only examples, but in particular both of these books are set to provide a wealth of tables, procedures, and guidance to help run an OSR type of game effectively. Very excited for both."
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Deathmatch Island
Alt link: https://www.backerkit.com/c/projects/evil-hat/deathmatch-island Deathmatch Island is a fast-paced game about a deadly gameshow on a mysterious island chain. |
Deathmatch Island by Tim Denee, solely because of the graphic design. He inspires me to incorporate more mockups and ephemera into my games, it's such a wonderful way to set the tone and introduce TTRPGs to new players. I can't wait to bring this to a table in New Zealand.
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Eat the Reich
Alt link: EAT THE REICH is a tabletop roleplaying game in which you, a vampire commando, are coffin-dropped into occupied Paris and must cut a bloody swathe through nazi forces en route to your ultimate goal: drinking all of Adolf Hitler's blood. |
Can a TTRPG be a site for resistance against fascism? This question has been explored by numerous games. Unruly Designs’ ROSENSTRASSE came out last year. Chad Walker’s SIGMATA: THIS SIGNAL KILLS FASCISTS, is five years old at this point. And even from the start D&D has often involved stories about stopping tyrants and liberating people from dictatorships. Scholars, too, have been discussing this topic for a while. Mary Flanagan, theorizing about games generally, contends in her book CRITICAL PLAY that “Games are particularly ripe for subversive practice”, while Jonaya Kemper argues in various spaces that roleplaying is a powerful tool for “emancipatory bleed”, for the strengthening of thoughts, emotions, and feelings about uplifting marginalized communities. Even games like AVATAR: LEGEND, which adapts a beloved children’s cartoon, goes into the topic: “The Brutality of War”, “Colonization in Progress”, and “Hope in Rebellion” are three of the five guiding themes if you choose to play a campaign in the “Roku Era” in the history of the Avatar world. So where does EAT THE REICH, Rowan Rook & Decard’s upcoming title about vampires on a mission to devour Adolf Hitler fit in? “This game is not, in and of itself, an act of resistance,” the text exhorts. “It is an act of creativity which reflects our frustration with the real world’s ongoing nazi problem.” The basic game uses premade characters and exactly one scenario: land in Paris (via “tactical drop coffins”), carve a bloody swathe through the Nazi-occupied city, find Hitler and drink all his blood. Unlike in ROSENSTRASSE, there’s little room to explore how fascism affects interpersonal relationships. Unlike in SIGMATA, there’s no playing out of how communities organise against oppression. Unlike in AVATAR: LEGENDS, there’s no personal growth beyond power advancement. The game’s main schtick is ultraviolence: “For some players, telling a story of fictional and over-the-top combat against some of history’s worst people feels fun and cathartic,” the game argues. You fight off waves of Nazis, and then, when you confront Hitler: “Kill Him. War’s Over. Go Home.”
Sharang Biswas (He/Him)
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FIST
Alt link: FIST: Ultra Edition is a tabletop roleplaying game about paranormal mercenaries doing the tough jobs no one else can. In the game, you belong to a legendary rogue mercenary unit called FIST. You are a soldier of fortune who doesn’t fit into modern society. You are a disposable gun for hire, caught up in the death and destruction of pointless proxy wars and oppressive establishments. You may also be someone who can turn into a ghost or control bees with your mind. The paranormal secrets of the Cold War are your bread and butter, and you fight for your life to make ends meet alongside others like you: stopping disastrous science experiments, infiltrating occult compounds, neutralizing eldritch horrors—all in a day's work for FIST. Players are typically outnumbered, easily killed, and disliked or hunted by most sources of authority. You don't have tons of money and gadgets backing you up, just your wits and a few tools. War is hell, and you're one of the little guys. FIST is inspired by Metal Gear Solid, The A-Team, and Doom Patrol. It's mechanically descended from John Harper's World of Dungeons, Ben Milton's Maze Rats, and Offworlders, by Chris P. Wolf and Olivia Gulin. |
This was a ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar and a 2023 the Award winner
FIST is the A-Team meets Hellboy. When I rolled up a couple of sample characters they were a Psychic Sniper and Skeleton Accountant, which I think really sets the tone. The rules are simple and then the rest of the book is the stuff you actually need to make a game happen. Loads of random tables, pages of useful advice, and all doused with flavour that swings from military grit to paranormal silliness. FIST feels like an entire world waiting to be discovered by both the players and the GM, exactly the sort of experience I love to bring to the table.
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Forgotten Ballad
Alt link: https://coolwayink.itch.io/forgottenballad Forgotten Ballad is a minimalist Adventure Game - TTRPG, if you prefer - heavily inspired by The Legend Of Zelda series and the OSR movement. This is an expanded version of the one-game pamphlet with optional rules, little more detail, and more content to build your games. Its simple system uses only d6 and is built around the character's items and inventory, encouraging creativity and exploration based on how the players describe their approach to problems. |
This year I'd like to recommend Forgotten Ballad (Forgotten Ballad by coolwayink (itch.io)). I just love games that have a musical theme, and this is perfectly executed. To top it off, the NES Zelda vibes and the mechanics are excellent.
"I'm Gabriel Kerr, I write and play games"
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Gnoll Citadel of Evil
Alt link: https://heimatderkatastrophe.bandcamp.com/album/hdk-05-the-citadel-of-evil After KOBOLD, another half-human dungeon-synther took its place in HDK catalog: here's the barbaric... GNOLL! Beware the powerful percussions, the blows of icy and sharp sounds, the brutal attack of analog synthesizers! This first release of GNOLL is the soundtrack of an epic descent into a dungeon populated by weird creatures and unfathomable threats. GNOLL is devoted to the visionary and bloodthirsty 70's heroic-fantasy literature, overflowing with baroque magic and arcane mystery, to Lin Carter, Karl E. Wagner and vintage Marvel comics based on characters by Robert E. Howard, as Conan and Kull. |
For a few years now, I’ve been a huge fan of Heimat Der Katastrophe, a “punx collective from Milan” that creates RPG modules and adventures in the format of retro cassette tapes with dungeon synth soundtracks. I probably became aware of their work through MORK BORG’s original Kickstarter back in 2019. They are brilliant. They were definitely one of the biggest inspirations for me personally (and The Dead Robotz) when we came up with the idea for DEATH ROBOT JUNGLE – a RPG setting in the format of a music LP vinyl. Well, this year, the circle seems to have completed itself: Gnoll, one of the creators at Heimat Der Katastrophe collective, released CITADEL OF EVIL, a music LP packaged with a 24-page dungeon module ready to be played. I love it, and I urge you to check it out. It feels extremely humbling that the idea of producing RPG material packed in music LPs is picking up.
Andre Novoa here. I’m the main person behind publisher Games Omnivorous.
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Grasping Nettles
Alt link: https://adamebellgames.bigcartel.com/ Grasping Nettles is a worldbuilding game for 1-6 players about a community and its story over the course of generations. You take turns dictating various things about a world of your creation. On your turn, you move one of three faction pieces around a central game board called the Wheel and perform the action you land on. Actions include defining factions, describing locations, discovering issues, creating characters, starting projects, catching glimpses of other communities, and framing scenes. Once all game pieces land on the Generation action space, you look at everything created so far and describe how it changes over time. You can then continue to play to explore the next generation's effect on the world. By the end of the game, you have a whole history of a community brimming with factions, characters both living and dead, and locations where everything has happened. Playing a generation in Grasping Nettles typically takes about 1-2 hours depending on your play style. You can string together multiple generations of play in one session, or even come back to your world for multi-session play. |
Grasping Nettles by Adam Bell was given to me at the Pittsburgh Zine Fair and remains an amazing testament of dense, lively worldbuilding that can drive a game forward, instead of the traditional "quests." Telling intergenerational stories rocks, and with a bunch of world seeds at the back, it's even easier - Viditya Voleti even has a dinosaur world guest written in there.
I'm Pearse Anderson, a tabletop roleplaying designer and freelance journalist. I've developed games like Recipe on Kmiydish Paper, Cosmic Latte, and Critters & Companions, and written about gaming for WIRED, Rolling Stone, Polygon, and more. You can follow me at @pearseanderson on all social media, but I'd especially recommend my TikTok.
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See Issue X
Alt link: https://potatocubed.itch.io/see-issue-x See Issue X is a tabletop roleplaying game where you will both tell the story of a superhero (or several) and also stand in the shoes of the writer as you struggle with their ever-more-unwieldy backstory. When the grey aliens threaten the Earth, that's one thing. When they kidnap Aunt Harriet's dog, that's... a little odd, but you can sell it. When they bring the hero back from the grave because of their shared love of board games, you know you're working with real comic book nonsense. See Issue X can be played as a solo journalling game or as part of a group where everyone has their own character. Even better: you can play solo, take your character to join a group for a team-up event, then go back to playing them solo -- or knock out a few solo adventures between regular group sessions as part of your own continuity! |
This year I've particularly enjoyed two deck crafting ttrpgs: Wreck this Deck by Becky Annison and See Issue X by Chris Longhurst. Both games have you modify an ordinary deck of playing cards, writing on or otherwise defacing them to leave you with a unique and personal artifact of play. What particularly grabbed me was how they can both turn solo journalling experiences into interactive ones, through the exchange of cards and characters with other (often remote) solo players of the game. Wildly cool stuff.
Nick Bate is an Australian game designer and cast member on the Black Armada Tales actual play podcast. He is the creator of Stealing the Throne, a game of epic giant mecha heists, and Chiron's Doom, about an ill-fated expedition to a mysterious monument. He is probably planning a heist right now.
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Wreck This Deck
Alt link: https://blackarmada.itch.io/wreck-this-deck Wreck This Deck is a dark urban fantasy game of solo journaling, demon summoning and deck crafting. Summon and bind demons into your Demon Deck, defacing the cards as you go. Demon summoning is dangerous and you're bound to get into some sticky situations as you play but it's nothing you can't handle - right? |
This was a ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar
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A Collection of Improving Exercises
Alt link: https://timhutchings.itch.io/a-series-of-improving-exercises From Goodreads: This book, copyrighted 1924, is part of a series of drawing manuals authored by Timothy Brian Hutchings. While a large number of this specific volume are known it is not known if the examples from the rest of the series are extant. It is possible that the other books in the series were never actually printed, or that the disposable nature of the books means that few survive. While this book does contain cursory instructions regarding perspective drawing it is meant to be an adjunct to another book which is presumed lost. Nonetheless, the exercises in the book may prove useful to budding artists of all skill levels. It is the opinion of this reviewer that any value in this book lies in the exercises. The conceit is that reader/artist is a romantic beachcomber and each exercise introduces a new item washed up by the sea. For example, Exercise 9 reads "A cluster of glass or cork fishing floats. Five minute time limit. The sun reflecting in the glass is blinding; the view through the glass, distorted." |
This was an The Awards winner
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Avatar Legends Starter Set
Alt link: The Avatar Legends RPG Starter Set brings you and your friends into the beloved setting of Avatar Legends! This boxed set includes everything you need to get started playing Avatar Legends: The Roleplaying Game, portraying your own characters on action-packed escapades through the Four Nations! Weave tales of self-discovery and action with your team of friends, and work with legendary heroes like Fire Lord Zuko to bring balance to the world! |
This was a 2023 Ennies Winner Best Family Game / Product
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Beam Saber
Alt link: Beam Saber is a Forged In The Dark game about the pilots of powerful machines in a war that dominates every facet of life. They are trying to do their part, then get out physically and mentally intact. The organizations that perpetuate The War throughout all of known space are too incomprehensibly huge to take down. There is no “winning” The War, there is only surviving it. Hopefully you can help others get out too. |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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Biliocalypose
Alt link: Bibliocalypse is a rules-lite, no-prep, vocabulary-based OSR dungeon crawl with no designated Game Master. Instead players take turns to fill in the role of the Librarian - the game's main antagonist and rules arbiter - to generate levels and hazards which aim to stop the Linguists in their tracks. The game was designed for situations where you have nothing prepared, nobody wants to GM, but you still want to play something and have a good time. |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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BREAK!!
Alt link: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/576526373/break-a-trpg-inspired-by-classic-videogames-and-anime BREAK!! is a tabletop roleplaying game of exploration and adventure. BREAK!!'s setting and aesthetics are inspired by classic anime and SNES era videogames, along with wistful fantasy novels and movies! BREAK!! is a 470 page, full-color book loaded with diagrams and infographics to make learning and playing the game as fast and fun as possible. |
This was an upcoming ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar
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Brindlewood Bay
Alt link: https://www.brindlewoodbay.com/brindlewood-bay.html Brindlewood Bay is a tabletop roleplaying game that combines Murder, She Wrote with H.P. Lovecraft. In it, you play a group of elderly women, members of the local Murder Mavens Mystery Book Club, who help the authorities solve murder cases in a picturesque New England Town. Over the course of their investigations, they become aware of a dark occult conspiracy that connects the cases, and will eventually have to face that conspiracy in order to save their community. The game is low-prep and easy to play no matter your experience with tabletop roleplaying games. |
This was a 2023 Ennies Winner Best Electronic Book
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CBR+PNK Augmented
Alt link: https://itch.io/b/1830/cbrpnk-augmented-digital-bundle In CBR+PNK (Cyber plus Punk) you play as a team of RUNNERS—mercs, criminals, activists living on the edge and running in the shadows of a gritty, ultraviolent world. In each game we play an entire new cast of characters making their LAST RUN. As a minimalist game, everything is presented as a series of eight-panel pamphlets: GM GUIDE Contains the core system rules and a comprehensive breakdown of all the steps needed to run CBR+PNK one-shots. RUNNER FILE The character playbook, also containing all the player-facing rules—character creation, stress, special actions, recovery, etc. |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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Coyote and Crow
Alt link: https://coyoteandcrow.net/ Coyote & Crow is a tabletop roleplaying game set in an alternate future where colonization of the Americas never happened. In this world that is both familiar and entirely new, you'll take on the role of heroic characters adventuring in a changing landscape. Coyote & Crow is a bold look into a different future full of possibilities and fresh perspectives, created and developed by a diverse, Indigneous-led team. |
This was a 2023 CRIT Award winner (Best Multiplayer TTRPG of the year)
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Fabula Ultima TTJRPG
Alt link: FABULA ULTIMA is a Tabletop Roleplaying Game inspired by Japanese-style console RPGs, or JRPGs. In Fabula Ultima, you and your friends will tell epic stories of would-be heroes and fearsome villains, set in fantasy worlds brimming with magic, wondrous locations, and uniquely bizarre monsters! |
This was a 2023 Ennies Winner Best Game (Gold)
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Fedora Noir
Alt link: In Fedora Noir, you create the story of a flawed private investigator in the style of a film noir. Players take on the roles of the Detective, their Partner, their Flame – and their Hat, the Detective’s sharp mind and inner voice. Together, players explore the Detective’s messy life against the backdrop of a difficult case. |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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Flabbergasted
Alt link: https://www.wanderers-tome.com/flabbergasted Flabbergasted is a comedic tabletop roleplaying game set in the Roaring ‘20s! Join an up-and coming social club, and get up to mischief, mayhem and many marvellous misadventures, all before your afternoon tea! |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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Girl By Moonlight
Alt link: https://evilhat.com/product/girl-by-moonlight/ Magical Girls grapple with destiny in this multi-genre tabletop RPG. Girl By Moonlight explores the heartbreak of denying who you really are, fighting for what you believe in, and the transcendent power of building relationships while embracing your true self. As a Magical Girl you will clutch your tragic struggles tight, seeking to score defiant triumphs against the darkness of an oppressive society. The game reinterprets the classic examples of the genre to create an allegory for self-discovery and queer identity. The text uses ‘magical girl’ as a shorthand, but your magical girls need not be girls, necessarily, but people whose identities put them at the margins. Designer Andrew Gillis takes the rules engine beneath highly-acclaimed Blades in the Dark and tunes it to create a unique play experience representing the breadth of the Magical Girl genre. |
This was an upcoming ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar
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Godkiller
Alt link: GODKILLER: First Blood Edition is a holypunk PbtA (Powered by the Apocalypse) game for one player, the Godkiller, and one Game Master, the god of gods. Together, the two of you will weave a mythic, violent, and transformative tale about the only mortal in existence with the power to slay a god, rising against the challenges of the divine. Which gods will you kill to shape the realm — and which gods will you spare? |
This was a 2023 CRIT Award winner (Best Indie TTRPG of 2023)
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going rogue 2e
Alt link: those who dream of a better world know one simple, terrible fact: not everyone who helps build it will be blessed with the opportunity to live in it. those who put their lives on the line to transmute dreams of rebellion into reality know the grim truth that to see this transformation occur, they may one day have to give their lives as catalyst. going rogue 2e is a GM-less tabletop roleplaying game for 2-5 players that tells the story of that sacrifice. |
This was a 2023 CRIT Award winner (Best GMless game of the year)
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Gubat Banwa
Alt link: https://makapatag.itch.io/gubat-banwa GUBAT BANWA is a Martial Arts Tactics and War Drama Tabletop RPG where you play as martial artists poised to change the world: Kadungganan: the cavalry, the wandering swordsmen, the tide turners, the knights-errant, the ones to call in darkest night in a world inspired and centering Southeast Asian folklore. Witness, grand warriors, honorable gallants that trudge and toil under kings and haloes. Witness, KADUNGGANAN, that refulgent name. That blasted name: WITNESS NOW. The end of days is upon us: and the new world MUST BE BORN. Bear your blades, incant your magicks. Cut open your tomorrow from the womb of violence. Inscribe your name upon the very akasha of this world. With an emphasis on martial arts as a background for war drama and violence, from a Philippine-centric view. Garudas fight against unglu. Martial artist warriors master the Principle of Cutting by meditating upon the teachings of the Violent Bodhisattva. Rituals and superstitions must be performed or else risk the wrath of the ancestors. Vast kingdoms arise with God-Kings at their helm, claiming to be Shiva-Buddha incarnate. You and your warband stand at the center of the mandala of this violence! |
This was a ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar
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i remember you.
Alt link: i remember you. is a conversation, or a confrontation, or a confluence of being between two individuals who know (or once knew) each other, facilitated through building a stack of rocks together. Your stack is your story, and your story is your relationship, and your relationship is made of the memories you've made together, the memories you have of each other. Each stone represents a memory, and whether or not your stack falls apart depends on what memories you hold dear enough to keep. But will you choose to keep the same ones? What happens if they must ask you to throw away a memory, even as you clutch it close to heart? What happens if your story falls apart? |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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Kosmosaurs
Alt link: You play a Kosmosaur in this game. You're a member of an elite force of dinosaur space rangers that defend the galaxy against all forms of threats, both internal and external. You fly in your spaceships, working as a team, acting as explorers, diplomats, defenders, and, if need be, soldiers against those that would destroy what was built by the many civilizations. |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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Meanwhile, in the subway
Alt link: The subway runs below the city; no map binds it and what happens in its hallways is never completely coherent. Each station is unique and a source of unexpected adventures. Each passenger, when met, turns out to be someone amazing. Sometimes, people leave the subway, bringing the memories and dreams of their stories with them… |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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MIRU
Alt link: MIRU is a solo-first hexcrawling analog adventure game. Set in a solarpunk future, you play a character whose brother is killed by a robot. The next day, you pack your bag with a few supplies and foolishly head off into the uncharted wilderness to go kill the God responsible. |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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Moonlight on Roseville Beach
Alt link: A Queer Game of Disco & Cosmic Horror that Tabletop Magazine Calls a "Must Play" Head west on Rose Island and you get to the pricey summertime communities like Saltwinne, Destiny Bay, or Dunewood. Head east and you’ll find exclusive resort towns like Pinewood Harbor, Charmington, and Sunken Oak. But those city kids and artists looking to get away for a long weekend, they’re heading right out to the middle of the island for that old gaycation getaway: Roseville Beach. You play the amateur sleuths protecting this 1979 queer beach town from cosmic horrors, vindictive necromancers, fantastical beasts, and conservative politicians. |
This was a 2023 Ennies Judges' Spotlight Winner and an The Awards winner
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Not A Demon
Alt link: Not a Demon is a game about perseverance and creativity, about seeing beyond appearances, and being true to who you are. You play as a shapeshifter guardian spirit manifested in the human world as a demon-like creature. Despite your honorable calling, the common folk see you as a monster, and they treat you as one. Your supernatural essence stops you from communicating directly to them. You are uncapable of mundane actions, such as talking or interacting with the material world. Whatever you do, it is both miraculous and terrifying for the people of these lands. Everything in this world will tell you to give up and return to the spirit realm, or become the demon they say you are. But you know your truth, and you are determined to be a guardian and a helper of these people, even if they never recognize you as such. |
This was a 2023 CRIT Award winner (Best Solo or Stand Alone TTRPG)
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One Breath Left
Alt link: https://stoutstoatpress.itch.io/one-breath-left Move with caution. Reclaim useful tools. Track your oxygen levels. Investigate rooms for clues. Reveal the ship’s schematics. Survive. You are an Explorer tasked with determining what happened aboard a now-abandoned spaceship. You’ll document what you find while trying to avoid a perilous end. |
This was a 2023 Ennies Judges' Spotlight Winner and an The Awards winner
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Outliers
Alt link: Outliers is a single-player journaling game in which you play a research assistant trying to do their job in an absurd environment. Recruit participants, collect data, and perform miscellaneous tasks around the lab before the study runs out of funds. Keeping your job shouldn’t be hard when your participants are clones, time travelers, and cryptids . . . right? |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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Root: Talon Hill Quickstart
Alt link: In this quickstart, political turmoil and a conflict of succession threatens the fate and stability of the clearing of Talon Hill (and possibly all of the Eyrie!). In the midst of the Woodland War, the clearing is locked into conflict as three contenders of the Kingfisher family fight for their claim to the ashwood throne of Talon Hill. As vagabonds, you must navigate these dangerous and complicated state of affairs. You choose whom you will serve, or assist, if anyone… and you may tip the balance of the war in this key location! Root: The Tabletop Roleplaying Game is based on the award-winning Root: A Game of Woodland Might & Right board game. In Root: The TTRPG, you play vagabonds, going on adventures and changing the Woodland with your actions. This booklet is a sampling of the core rules of Root: The TTRPG, created for Free RPG Day. It has all the necessary instructions for starting to play, as well as an entire prewritten clearing that will give you a strong situation for one or two sessions of play. |
This was a 2023 Ennies Winner Best Free Game / Product
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Saltfish & Almanacs
Alt link: Saltfish & Almanacs is a storytelling RPG about a merchant company embarking on their yearly journey through new and familiar places. You and your fellow merchants travel in different directions around the same route, experiencing life on the road and discovering the mark the others have made on their visit. As you buy and sell goods, you’ll craft your own story of discovery, love, passion, and what it means to be parted. How will your journey change you? |
This was a 2023 IGDN Groundbreaker winner (Best Rules) and an The Awards winner
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Slugblaster Kickflip over a Quantum Centipede
Alt link: In the small town of Hillview, teenage hoverboarders sneak into other dimensions to explore, film tricks, go viral, and get away from the problems at home. It’s dangerous. It’s stupid. It’s got parent groups in a panic. And it’s the coolest thing ever. This is Slugblaster. A table-top rpg about teenagehood, giant bugs, circuit-bent rayguns, and trying to be cool. |
This was a 2023 IGDN Groundbreaker winner (Game of the Year)
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The Between
Alt link: https://www.brindlewoodbay.com/the-between.html A Game of Victorian Darkness The Between is a tabletop roleplaying game about a group of mysterious monster hunters in Victorian-era London. They are residents of a place called Hargrave House, and their job is to investigate and neutralize monstrous threats terrorizing the city—threats that Scotland Yard won’t or can’t handle themselves. As the story progresses, they become aware of the plans of a Moriarty-style criminal mastermind they will eventually have to face in order to save Queen and country. The Between is directly inspired by the gothic horror TV show Penny Dreadful, but also takes a lot of inspiration from British horror classics, graphic novels like From Hell and The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen, and pulp-era stories. Mechanically, it’s Powered by the Apocalypse but also uses the mystery system from Brindlewood Bay. |
This was a ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar
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The Electrum Archive
Alt link: The Electrum Archive is a science-fantasy TTRPG zine series inspired by the worlds of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind, Dark Sun and Ultraviolet Grasslands. It uses simple core rules inspired by other OSR games like Cairn, Mausritter and Whitehack to quickly get you started playing. The game is set on the world of Orn, a place long ago abandoned by an alien race now known as the Elders. The magical ink left behind in the shipwrecks of these ancient aliens is now used as currency and inhaled by warlocks as fuel for their spell casting. Adventurers called inkseekers venture out into the decaying world beyond the cities ruled over by scheming Merchant Houses to look for Elder artefacts and ink. |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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The Electrum Archive - Issue 02
Alt link: Explore Orn, a world where adventurers delve into ancient alien shipwrecks in search of magical ink which is used as both currency and spellcasting fuel. |
This was an upcoming ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar
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The Price of Coal
Alt link: https://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/The-Price-of-Coal.html The Price of Coal is a card-based prompt-driven storytelling game about coal miners and their loved ones in West Virginia, 1921. It’s about the struggles faced by those who stand up for their rights, and about communities that come together through hard times. It’s about a history that should not be forgotten. It’s about the fights we still face today. The game uses character and prompt cards to help you tell the story of a year leading up to a terrible battle. During this year, characters will face many trials together, both inside and outside the mines. The Price of Coal draws inspiration from a variety of storytelling games, like Red Carnations on a Black Grave, For the Queen, The Quiet Year, and Montsegur 1244. |
This was a ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar
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The Sticker Game
Alt link: The time has come for your unused stickers to tell a story… The Sticker Game is a single-player experience that’s part journaling and part audio drama. You've been chosen by the Agency for a very important research project. Participants will need to be bold, creative, and willing to make tough choices. Through the use of audio tracks and proprietary tech, your Guide will help you unlock the strange biochemical properties stickers contain to manipulate the electro-matter radon field between universes. Inspired by The Stanley Parable and Portal 2, The Sticker Game is an absurdist solo journaling game filled with puns and heart. While the game seeks to help players finally put a fun use to their sticker collection, the game also tackles concepts like loss, regret, and acceptance. |
This was a 2023 IGDN Groundbreaker winner (Most Innovative)
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The Wildsea
Alt link: https://felixisaacs.itch.io/thewildsea Your character is a wildsailor, part of a crew cutting their way across the island-studded wilderness of the treetop sea on a vessel of your very own. You’ll clash with survivor cultures and wild beasts, scavenge and salvage for wreckage and trade-goods, chase rumours, and uncover secrets. The focus of this game is on exploration, progress, and change - you’ll define the world of the Wildsea as you sail it. Adventures on the Wildsea start as hooks, elements of the setting or of a character’s history with the potential to blossom into an arc - a story for you and your crew to experience. While playing through an arc you roleplay scenes, montages, and journeys to make decisions, take actions, and resist your baser impulses. Completed arcs, and the triumphs and disasters within them, will allow you to develop your character as you play. Decisions are made through the conversation, a collaborative process that keeps all players at the table involved in the outcome of an event. The Wildsea's GM figure, the Firefly, is there to ask the right questions to keep the conversation flowing, as well as to bring the rules into play when necessary. |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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This Machine Has Meat In It
Alt link: Two parts cosmic horror, one part black comedy, all wrapped up in a 19XXs style employee brochure. Join together with a team of other awakened employees, and plumb the depths of the nightmare prison that is your workplace, in search of the beating hellish heart of the beast that eats your time. Fight colleagues, bosses, and otherworldly horrors on your journey up the corporate ladder in search of much better work/life balance. Seek out clues, piece together secrets, and fight your way to, eventually, killing your job. |
This was a 2023 the Award winner
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Totally Normal Human Roommates
Alt link: Totally Normal Human Roommates is a light-hearted one-page RPG about being a monster —er, a Totally Normal person that is— and getting through the day. You'll have to deal with being mistaken for a trick-or-treater, keeping a friend from eating passersby or worst of all, a neighborhood potluck, all while denying rumors of your true nature. All you'll need to play is 3-6 players, a handful of dice, a place to write notes, and some silly voices. |
This was a 2023 CRIT Award winner (Best 1 Page TTRPG of the year)
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Trophy RPG
Alt link: A tabletop roleplaying game of dark forests, doomed treasure-hunters, and a world woven on a loom of rumor, history, and myth. |
This was a 2023 Ennies Winner Best Game (Silver)
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Village Witch
Alt link: Village Witch is a solo journaling game about a witch finding a home You’ve completed your training and are ready to become a village witch. You’ve been sent by the order to find a village to work in and have a year to find the place you want to make your life. |
This was a 2023 CRIT Award winner (Best Solo or Stand Alone TTRPG)
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Void 1680 AM
Alt link: https://bannerlessgames.itch.io/void-1680-am Night after night, you sit alone with your thoughts, your music, and a microphone. Whether you come to your radio show with somber attitude or joyful spirit, you use the music that moves you to etch something fleeting and beautiful into the big empty. There are other voices in the darkness. With a deck of cards, a six-sided die and a stack of music, you will build a playlist, invent and interact with Callers to your show, and evolve their stories over as many broadcasts as you like. No matter their motivations, they simply must be heard. In that way, you are very alike. VOID 1680 AM includes rules for single-session and ongoing play, instructions to have your show broadcast on the airwaves as an Affiliate, and even a way to add your voice to a library of Callers that other DJs can use in their own games. |
This was a 2023 Ennies Judges' Spotlight Winner
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Zephyr: An Anarchist Roleplaying Game Of Fleeting Identities
Alt link: Zephyr: An Anarchist Game of Fleeting Identities is a roleplaying game set in the wandering, sentient continent of Ophoi. This entity travels on a relentless march across an endless salt flat, its four lungs bursting with sentimental energy - the alien emotions of the Zephyr, which comes in Cyan, Magenta, Yellow and Black. Like most substances, the emotions of the Zephyr coalesce into mountains made of rage, rivers of sorrow, fields grown out of the essence of guilt - everything that is, in its whole colorful gamut, including complex lifeforms. From these emotions and their fusion, the Windfolk are born. You are one of them, setting out from a far flung community in mountainous embrace, to travel this eerie continent in order to fulfill sacred obligations. These obligations are crafted by the players, becoming the main drivers for the narrative as well as the knots that tie your characters to the peoples they meet across the land. |
This was an upcoming ttrpg highlighted at the 2023 Dragonmeet seminar
Some bestselling TTRPGs released on DriveThru in 2023
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ENTITY
Alt link: From the mind behind the 2022's Silver Bestseller, "Campfire Story", hails a new chapter in solo tabletop gaming. Prepare to embark on an epic hard Sci-Fi journey, one that transcends the boundaries of known space and delves into the mystery of a long-lost civilization. A chilling odyssey teetering on the edge of the unknown, an exploration of the extraterrestrial, and a testament to the indomitable spirit of discovery... brace yourself for an experience that's out of this world. DYING SUN depicts a world of post-apocalyptic fantasy, devastated by the corrupting sorcery of the Arcane Wars. It was inspired by a classic campaign setting from the 90's, Sword & Sorcery novels and many comic-books from the 80's. You play as Warriors, Wanderers or Warlocks, trying to survive in the harsh wastelands or dabbling with the intrigue of the city-states. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2023 and achieved Mithral rating before end of the year
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Cities Without Number
Alt link: Cities Without Number is a cyberpunk role-playing game built for sandbox adventures in a dystopia of polished chrome and bitter misery. It's both a full-fledged Sine Nomine toolkit for building a cyberpunk world of your own and an Old School Renaissance-inspired game system for playing out the reckless adventures of the desperate men and women who live in it. Whether polished metal or flesh and blood, your operators will risk their lives and more to seize those precious things a merciless world would keep from them. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2023 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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Black Star
Alt link: Darkness has fallen over the galaxy. The once-noble Galactic Imperium now serves only the Grand Imperator and his inner circle. But the galaxy is vast. While the core worlds may be caught in the Imperium’s grip, many more exist beyond the galactic core, in the barely charted expanse of space known as the black star sector. A haven for criminals and unsavory characters of every stripe, the black star sector is also where the resistance against the Imperium is strongest. If there is any hope of overthrowing the Imperium, the galaxy will need heroes, and those heroes will come from under a Black Star. Black Star is a rules light sci-fi roleplaying game you can carry around in your pocket. Using the latest version of the Furious Games Engine first used in Magnum Fury and refined in Six-Gun Fury, Black Star is designed for fast play and high-flying action, perfect for classic space opera and heroic science fantasy. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2023 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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Sword Weirdos
Alt link: Sword Weirdos is the fantasy sequel to the surprisingly popular Space Weirdos. "When will you write a fantasy version?" people asked. So I did. Sword Weirdos is a skirmish wargame that allows you to build stats for just about any fantasy or historical model in your collection. Your model's class and weapons determine its special abilities. With 26 classes and 54 weapons and other pieces of equipment to choose from the possiblities are...a lot. I'm not that great with math. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2023 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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Dragonbane Core Set
Alt link: Dragonbane is a classic fantasy tabletop roleplaying game full of magic, mystery, and adventure. It is designed from the ground up to facilitate fast and furious play, with very little prep time and adventures that are a breeze to run. Dragonbane is a game with room for laughs at the table, while still offering brutal challenges for the adventurers. |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2023 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
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Public Access
Alt link: A roleplaying game of analog horror, based on the Brindlewood Bay mystery system! Public Access is a tabletop roleplaying game about a group of people in 2004—the Deep Lake Latchkeys—who find themselves investigating strange mysteries in and around the town of Deep Lake, New Mexico. In the ‘80s and early ‘90s, Deep Lake was the home of a notorious public access television station called TV Odyssey, the history and fate of which—the station literally disappeared—is the source of much speculation in certain corners of the internet. As the Latchkeys conduct their investigations in Deep Lake, they will become increasingly aware of the central role TV Odyssey plays in everything that’s going on, and will have to face whatever terrible truth lies at the heart of the infamous station... |
This ttrpg was added to DriveThruRPG in 2023 and achieved Platinum rating before end of the year
Selected Themes in Indie TTRPGs from 2023
Pearse Anderson - TTRPG journalismUnfortunately, my eyes are always on gaming journalism, and TTRPG coverage isn't doing good. Lin Codega's removal from io9/Gizmodo marks the last of mainstream publications reliably covering TTRPGs, and after their fantastic journalism especially about D&D Beyond, crypto, and AI art, the industry will be under less scrutiny and celebrations. Dicebreaker, another reliable source of info, might be sold. How can small designers get their name out of their bubbles during an era of such collapse?
I'm Pearse Anderson, a tabletop roleplaying designer and freelance journalist. I've developed games like Recipe on Kmiydish Paper, Cosmic Latte, and Critters & Companions, and written about gaming for WIRED, Rolling Stone, Polygon, and more. You can follow me at @pearseanderson on all social media, but I'd especially recommend my TikTok.
Aaron Voight - TTRPG journalism
Anyone paying attention to games journalism over the last five years could tell you the earth is salted. But it’s been especially hard to see two mainstream outlets for TTRPG news suffer from corporate greed here at the end of 2023.
First is the layoff of Lin Codega from Gizmodo, part of a 23-person restructuring that also shuttered the iconic feminist site Jezebel. Codega had received an Ennie Award only a few months prior for their work covering the fiasco Wizards of the Coast invited upon itself when it tried to revise its Dungeons and Dragons “Open Gaming License” in an attempt to squeeze competitors out of the economy. My favorite of their recurring features was “The Gaming Shelf,” which regularly highlighted indie RPGs. It is so rare to see someone with relatively mainstream media access discuss what’s happening on itchio, and to lose this chance to get more eyes on small projects is an absolute travesty. Codega themself puts it best: "I deserved better than this and G/O Media will be poorer for letting me go."
The second, which is at this time a travesty-in-progress, is the auctioning of ReedPop’s “Gamer Network” portfolio of websites, which includes Dicebreaker. This news arrived the morning I sat down to write about media consolidation, the week of Dicebreaker’s second Tabletop Awards. Few other sites command the audience and prestige of Dicebreaker, whose journalists regularly feature games by indie creators who otherwise are forced to market their games through increasingly-fractured social media sites. I truly hope the “Gamer Network” portfolio is purchased, and all staff affected keep their jobs, but I’m not optimistic.
My mom was a journalist. She retired over a decade ago, when GateHouse Media swallowed a dozen local newspapers right before filing for bankruptcy. I’m genuinely sorry to see that ten years on, media companies are callous as ever, happy to ruin the lives of hundreds of brilliant people for the sake of a few points on a spreadsheet.
Indie games deserve mainstream coverage. And the people who cover them deserve so much better than what they’re getting.
Aaron Voigt is a writer and video essayist. You can find his work at youtube.com/@aavoigt.
Chris McDowall - System neutral "mood books"
I've noticed a few books that are more than just “a system neutral sourcebook”. Vermis got me more excited about running a game than many actual RPG settings. It reads like a combination of setting book, graphic novel, video game guide, describing a Dark Souls-like world in a completely different way to a typical RPG. We have so many systems, sometimes it’s nice to just wallow in mood and cool ideas. Previously we had Herbalist’s Primer, next year we get Gackling Moon, so here's hoping we keep getting these "mood books".
Diogo Nogueira - Interaction between the events in the game, and the events outside the game
Something I am very excited to see being explored more and more in RPGs is the interaction between the events in the game, and the events outside the game. A lot of games are not turning their eyes on the media of RPGs itself, the way it is played, and how we, as designers, can play with that particular component of the game experience. I am seeing more and more games experimenting with the way people are set at the table, the roles the participants have on playing the game themselves and how that affects the fictional world and vice-versa. A lot of older art mediums have taken the same path, and seeing tabletop role-playing games following the same path shows how we are maturing as an art form as well. ARC - Tabletop Doom RPG is a game that does exactly this, as it ties its magic system to actual rituals players have to perform themselves, blurring the veil that separates the fictional world from the world where we are playing the game. How immersive is that? A recent adventure I wrote made something similar, as it ends with the players creating an in-game artifact outside the game, collaboratively, and when the adventure ends, the players are left with a physical artifact, a memory from their time in a fictional world. What a gift! I am excited to see how far can we explore our medium, and I bet in the next games we will see this trend finding an even more solid footing!
Diogo Nogueira is an award-winning game designer and artist from Brazil. His works include Halls of the Blood King, Kosmosaurs, Primal Quest, Solar Blades & Cosmic Spells, and many more.
Rob Carnel - Writing your own rules
Lloyd mentioned at the seminar that the result of the OGL debacle is a timely reminder that big companies with a vested interest in the commercial exploitation of their property aren't always the gamer's friend. We are not quite back to the TSR world of insisting that the game is only played according to the official rules but with things like D&D Beyond there are actually more powerful tools for declaring what is "correct" and what isn't.
It was great therefore to see people writing their own mini-rules and notes on their games and how they like to run them. Places like Itch make it easy to share whether you are charging for the material or not although, as we've discussed in previous years discovery remains a problem if you're not in someone's circle. I've also seen people sharing their mechanics in blog posts and zines.
This harks back to the earliest days of roleplaying, Blackmoor was originally not much more than a sheaf of typed notes on Arneson's campaign. It also links to the Forge era of game design as what people include mechanics for in their notes is a version of purposeful designs. If you find fighting tedious then make combat a simple test. Love crafting, add rules for herb gathering and potion making. Abstract gear down to slots that can contain just what a character needs at a moment or use a physical drawing of a backpack and items to create a Tetris like inventory puzzle.
People are much more ready to borrow mechanisms across game systems without designing from scratch or being beholden to the retroclones manifesto. I hope what we're seeing is a grass routes interaction with game design that is driven by principles such as Maximum Game Fun that focuses on having memorable experiences with friends at the table or on the video call.
Nick Bate - How to teach players (rather than GMs)
I've noticed more and more people talking and thinking about how to teach players (as opposed to GMs) how to play specific ttrpgs. Rulebooks are typically targeted at teaching GMs how to play a particular game, but how can we help the players learn to play that same game and -- ultimately, ideally -- become better at it? I've seen this challenge approached from multiple angles, drawing in GM table experience, actual plays and podcasts, and (perhaps most interestingly to me) as a game design challenge. Some specific examples: A fabulous twitter thread from Sidney Icarus on how to teach Blades in the Dark to new players (https://x.com/SidneyIcarus/status/1684708887264649218?s=20); The Teaching Games series in Thomas Manuel's Indie TTRPG Newsletter (https://ttrpg.substack.com/) and on the Yes Indie'd Podcast (https://www.patreon.com/indierpg); The tutorial-like character creation process in Voidheart Symphony by Minerva McJanda (https://ufopress.co.uk/voidheart-symphony/); Teaching guides in several Black Armada Games ttrpgs, including Flotsam and Lovecrafteseque (https://blackarmada.com/)
Nick Bate is an Australian game designer and cast member on the Black Armada Tales actual play podcast. He is the creator of Stealing the Throne, a game of epic giant mecha heists, and Chiron's Doom, about an ill-fated expedition to a mysterious monument. He is probably planning a heist right now.
Selected TTRPG Crowdfunding from 2023
Dolmenwood Tabletop RPG
A lavishly detailed fantasy world inspired by the fairy tales and eerie folklore of the British Isles.
Shadowdark RPG: Old-School Gaming, Modernized
Classic adventure gaming for 5E and old-school players alike! One book, all you need to play.
Knave RPG: Second Edition
A GM-friendly toolkit for creating and running sandbox campaigns packed into a lean, beautiful hardback.
BREAK!! - A TRPG inspired by fantasy videogames and anime
An easy-to-play game of exploration & teamwork set in the wonderfully dangerous Outer World.
The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game
Tell your own story in The Walking Dead Universe in the official roleplaying game from AMC Networks and Free League Publishing.
Triangle Agency, Paranormal Investigation TTRPG
Clock in to work and protect the world in this game of paranormal abilities, corporate horror, and dangerous Anomalies.
Cities Without Number
A cyberpunk tabletop RPG from the creator of Stars Without Number
Adventurer Conqueror King System Imperial Imprint (ACKS II)
Welcome to the new edition of the bestselling fantasy role-playing game. Adventure, conquer, and reign.
The Hidden Isle
Embark on a Tarot adventure! Wield magic and fight tyranny across the Renaissance world in this TTRPG powered by card divination.
Outgunned - Cinematic Action RPG
An action-packed cinematic Roleplaying game by the ENNIE award winning authors of Household and Broken Compass.
2024 Quest Calendar - An Adventure-a-Day RPG
A desktop tear-away calendar with a year full of adventure in 2024
Mythic Bastionland RPG - Before Into the Odd
Rules light roleplaying in a dreamlike world of knights and myths. Crawl hexes, rule a domain, and remember your oath.
Cohors Cthulhu Tabletop Roleplaying Game
A 2d20 RPG adventure of mighty Roman warriors and their barbarian rivals fighting the forces of the Mythos
Xcrawl Classics TTRPG Core Rulebook
The big crawl streams live tonight! Commercial breaks, corporate sponsorships and fabulous prizes! Tune in to run your favorite team!
Wilderfeast
A tabletop RPG about monster hunting and campfire cuisine. There is only One Law in the One Land: YOU ARE WHAT YOU EAT.
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