Dragonbane

Overview

Dragonbane is a classic fantasy tabletop roleplaying game published by Free League Publishing in 2023. It is a modern English translation and reimagining of
Drakar och Demoner https://groupfinder.gg/library/drakar-och-demoner
, Scandinavia's first and longest-running TTRPG, originally released in 1982. The game carries over four decades of Swedish gaming heritage into a sleek, accessible package designed around the philosophy of "mirth and mayhem": fast-paced adventures with minimal prep, where danger is real, luck matters, and even a humble merchant can become a legend. Unlike many modern fantasy RPGs, Dragonbane deliberately avoids the power-escalation treadmill of level-based systems. Characters are capable but mortal from session one, and the game works equally well for a single one-shot evening or a sprawling long-term campaign. It was a strong contender for TTRPG of the year on release, praised widely as one of the most accessible entry points into tabletop fantasy roleplaying.

Description

In Dragonbane, players take on the role of adventurers in the Misty Vale, a hidden mountain valley, ancient and full of ruins from fallen kingdoms, only recently cleared of orc and goblin occupation. The world is shaped by the eternal cosmic struggle between two great powers: the Dragons and the Demons, rival godlike forces whose conflict bleeds into mortal life. Players choose from six playable Kins: Humans, Dwarves, Elves, Halflings, the duck-like Mallards, and the feral Wolfkin and one of ten Professions (Fighter, Mage, Hunter, Thief, Artisan, Merchant, Mariner, Scholar, and others), each providing a distinct set of skills and heroic abilities. One player takes the role of the Game Master (GM), who builds the world, voices NPCs, and runs the dangers the adventurers face. The tone balances genuine peril and dark fantasy with moments of levity and absurdity.

Key features

Roll-Under D20 Skill System

Dragonbane uses a clean roll-under mechanic. Every skill has a rating from 1 to 18, and to succeed, the player must roll equal to or below that number on a D20. There is no adding up bonuses or consulting modifiers, a skill of 14 means you need a 14 or lower. This keeps the math fast and intuitive while still creating meaningful differences between a trained and an untrained character.

Rolling a Dragon & Rolling a Demon

Natural 1s and 20s are not just successes and failures, they're narrative events. Rolling a 1 is "Rolling a Dragon": a critical success that triggers powerful, flavourful special effects. Rolling a 20 is "Rolling a Demon": a critical failure with immediate consequences. This naming convention ties the dice directly into the world's mythology and gives every roll dramatic weight.

Push Your Luck

If a skill roll fails, the player can choose to Push it, picking up the dice and rolling again. But every die that fails a second time inflicts a Condition. Characters can become Exhausted, Sickly, Dazed, Angry, Scared, or Disheartened, each imposing a specific mechanical penalty. Pushing is rarely free, and the decision of whether to push adds meaningful tension to every uncertain roll..

Willpower Points & Heroic Abilities

Each character has a pool of Willpower Points (WP), a resource spent to activate their Profession's Heroic Abilities. A Fighter might spend WP to make a devastating counterattack; a Mage burns it to cast spells. Willpower represents the spark of exceptionalism that separates adventurers from ordinary folk, and managing it carefully is central to play.

Card-Based Initiative

Combat initiative is determined by drawing from a shuffled deck of initiative tokens. One per character and one per monster group. This creates a genuinely unpredictable turn order every round, keeping both players and GM on their toes and preventing the predictability of fixed initiative lists.

Kin & Profession, Not Class & Level

Character creation is fast: pick a Kin, pick a Profession, assign starting skills. After play begins, advancement is open: characters grow by spending experience on skills of their choice, unconstrained by class restrictions. This avoids the feeling of "wrong builds" and keeps development tied to what the characters actually do in play.

Active games and players

en English
PATH2E
Pathfinder 2E
PATH1E
Pathfinder 1
...
Online
Chris
So, about me, been playing for 11-12 years, started out GMing and probably on the whole find that the more rewarding part of the hobby, but I enjoy playing as well. Played quite a range of systems by this point; did my mandatory few years of D&D and Pathfinder, actually started with Dark Heresy. But I've run Shadowrun briefly, Mutants and Masterminds, dipped my toes in World of Darkness.  I think a benefit of my time behind the screen is that I'm relatively flexible in what I enjoy. I can go for deep and character driven games, but I also appreciate the fun of a good dungeoncrawl or epic combat. I'm absolutely a sucker for intrigue, but I'm not above playing characters dumb as a brick. I'm perhaps overly comfortable playing morally grey grand bastards, but when I think of my favourite recent characters, the Lawful Good Rogue probably ranks as the most compelling.  I'll admit, though I'm by no means someone who can only enjoy hyper-simulationist games, I do occasionally tend to press up against overly artificial system restrictions. In Starfinder, my character did over time trend towards 'why don't we vent the airlock before we go in... soften them up.', and in general, I see a balanced encounter and will often think 'how can rig the deck a bit more in my favour'. Also not a big fan of 'Narrative' games, like Powered by the Apocalypse. For whatever reason, they are the one genre I've never quite meshed with.  But yeah, I am generally open to try different systems, and flexible about my exact role in whatever party I join.
Save to favorites
en English
Savage Worlds
Savage Worlds
CoC
Call of Cthulhu
...
Online
Marlon
Hello, fellow gamers. My name is Marlon, but everyone calls me Jay-long story there that I won’t get into. Anyways, I’m the forever DM in my family, and I run weekly podcast games for my wife. We’ve designed a tabletop RPG called Prosperon: A Bio‑Cyberpunk RPG, and we’re actively looking for more playtesters. If that interests you, shoot me a message and we’ll make it happen. With that being said, I’m also an active player in several games. I’m currently in a Blades in the Dark campaign every Thursday, which is absolutely amazing, and I have a few open biweekly days where I can commit to another game-as long as it’s the right game, the right crew, and the right day and time. That’s all for now. Take care, and don’t forget-have fun at your table.
Save to favorites
en English
DND5.5E
Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (2024)
...
Los Angeles
Online
diggityjones
Usually behind the screen, always happy to grab a seat and try another system. I bring curiosity, share the spotlight, and work with the GM and fellow players to create the kind of moments you only get around a TTRPG table.
Save to favorites
en English
DND5E
Dungeons & Dragons 5E
Savage Worlds
Savage Worlds
...
Online
Ramlatus
About Me & My Experience:     • Role: Player (stepping out of the GM chair after several years).     • The Situation: My long-running home group recently dissolved due to conflicting adult work schedules, so I am looking into online gaming. Systems I Have Played/Run:     • Sci-Fi & Cyberpunk: Traveller (Mongoose 2E), Shadowrun 3E & 5E, D6 (WEG Star Wars), Star Wars (various), Star Trek (various).     • Fantasy: D&D (BECMI, AD&D, AD&D 2E, 3.0, 3.5, 5E 2014), Pathfinder 1E & 2E, Burning Wheel, Daggerheart, Ironsworn.     • Supers & Generic: Mutants & Masterminds 2E & 3E, Aberrant, Savage Worlds (Deluxe & SWADE, including Deadlands & Hell on Earth).     • Indie/Horror: Dread, and various other miscellaneous games.
Save to favorites
en English
MOTHERSHIP
Mothership
...
Scotland
Online
Jacob
The problem solver Mini-campaign fan
Hey there! I'm a 10-year rpg veteran and 7-year forever GM. Most of my playing experience is with 2014 5e, but I've really enjoyed branching out into all sorts of other games. I think I'm at 12 systems GM'd these days, though I'd love the chance to play in more. I run games professionally on Start Playing (startplaying.games/gm/jacob), but also just for fun, usually in unusual systems. I'm broadly free on Sunday-to-Wednesday evenings (GMT), but only my Thursday evenings are absolute non-starters. I enjoy a little bit of everything but definitely lean most strongly towards narrative, intrigue, problem-solving stuff. I'm not a fan of DnD's slow, attritional combat but I'd be interested to see if other games (Draw Steel, 13th Age, etc) handle this better. I'm a big fan of pulpy historical fiction like Bernard Cornwell's, as well as the Wheel of Time, Dragon Age, and Star Wars. Questionnaire results: Problem Solver, Tone chameleon, Balanced player, Focused & prepared, Backstory architect, Mini-campaign fan
Save to favorites
en English
DND5E
Dungeons & Dragons 5E
DND5.5E
Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (2024)
...
Online
Mark
The socialiser Tone chameleon
I first became involved in TTRPGs way back in 1984 where I ran BECMI and AD&D. College, a busy career as a school teacher and family put a pause to this in the early 90s. A global pandemic in 2020 provided  the opportunity to rediscover the game and i have been running a weekly game online with friends ever since.  Unfortunately, this is not enough to feed my TTRPG habit and i am always looking to run adventures for new groups when time allows. Whilst I currently run a variation of D&D 5.5 and Tales of the Valiant, I am also really keen to run a range of other systems.
Save to favorites

Videos

Reviews

Sorted by:

No reviews yet.

Login to leave a review.

Other entries

Stars Without Number
Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Stars Without Number

English
Sci-fi
Rules-medium
Stars Without Number is a sandbox science fiction tabletop role-playing game designed by Kevin Crawford and published by Sine Nomine Publishing. Originally released in 2010, followed by an extensively expanded and restructured Revised Edition in 2017, the game is a prominent fixture of the Old School Renaissance (OSR) movement. It is structurally engineered to merge the lightweight tactical framework of early fantasy role-playing systems with exhaustive, modular sci-fi sandbox generation toolkits. Description Stars Without Number takes place in the year 3200, centuries after the tragic collapse of the Second Terran Mandate. The human galaxy was once interconnected by instantaneous jump gates and protected by a core of psychic navigators, until an evolutionary psychic catastrophe known as "The Scream" drove every psychic in existence instantly insane or dead. The sudden collapse of interstellar transit triggered a multi-century dark age of isolation known as the Silence. In the modern setting, fractured sectors of space are finally rediscovering faster-than-light spike drives and exploring a fragmented universe. Players navigate this dangerous frontier as spacers, scavengers, mercenaries, or rogue psychics, operating in a cosmos characterized by corporate espionage, lost pre-collapse technology, and shifting planetary regimes. Links sinenomine-pub.com - Official homepage for Sine Nomine Publishing and Kevin Crawford's developer catalog drivethrurpg.com - Revised Edition (Free Version) on Drive Thru RPG

Read more

Talislanta
Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Talislanta

High-Fantasy
Rules-medium
Heroic
Talislanta is a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game created by Stephan Michael Sechi, first published by Bard Games in 1987. It draws its inspiration from Jack Vance's Dying Earth novels and the travelogue spirit of the Arabian Nights rather than from Tolkien. It built its identity around a single blunt promise printed right on the box: "no elves". No dwarves, no halflings, no standard-issue fantasy races at all - just dozens of original cultures found nowhere else in the genre.  The game has passed through five editions and nearly as many publishers, including a stint at Wizards of the Coast in the early '90s, and creator Stephan Michael Sechi now makes the entire back catalogue - every edition, every supplement - available for free through the official Talislanta Library. Description Playing Talislanta starts with a choice. Instead of creating a character from separate race, class, and skill lists, players pick one of well over a hundred archetypes. Things like the Cymrilan Rogue Magician, the Jaka Beastmaster, or the Mandalan Mystic Warrior - each one a fully realised character tied to a specific culture. Complete with attributes, skills, gear, and a place in the world already worked out. A little light customisation (a point moved here, a skill added there) and the character is ready to play.  What makes the game distinct isn't its mechanics, which are deliberately light, but the scale of its setting: the continent of Talislanta is home to more than a hundred distinct peoples, and the rulebooks spend far more pages on culture, custom, and worldview than on combat math. It rewards players who want to explore a genuinely alien fantasy world over chasing mechanical optimisation. System Overview & Key Features Archetype-Based Character Creation Character creation isn't a build process, it's a selection process. Every archetype in the book arrives fully statted, dressed, and equipped, tied to a named culture and a defined role in Talislantan society. Archetypes are deliberately unbalanced against one another, since staying true to the setting mattered more to Sechi than parity between character options. The Unified Action Table Skill checks, combat rolls, and magic all resolve on a single d20 chart. Attacking works exactly like any other skill roll: add a skill rating, compare to a target number. There's no separate combat subsystem to memorise, which keeps the rules themselves down to a few dozen pages even in the densest editions. Modes and Orders Magic runs on two interlocking pieces: Modes (twelve broad effect categories like Attack, Heal, or Illusion) and Orders (culturally rooted schools of magic, from Cartomancy to Elemental Magic). A magician's Order shapes how a Mode behaves and looks when cast, so the same underlying effect plays out completely differently in different hands - which lets a short list of Modes support a near-endless variety of actual spells. A World Built Without Tolkien Every culture in Talislanta was designed to avoid genre default: no elves, no generic barbarians, no standard dragons. In their place are peoples like the Thralls (identical clone-warriors distinguishable only by tattoo), the sky-sailing Phantasians, and the shapeshifting Sindarans. The setting material - not the rules - is where most of the page count and most of the game's reputation live. Links talislanta.com - Official Talislanta website talislanta.com/talislanta-library - Free official PDFs of every edition and supplement ever published

Read more

Quantum Ogre Cast
Actual Play & Podcasts

Quantum Ogre Cast

English
Discussions
The topical TTRPG podcast you were destined to encounter no matter what choices you made. Join Jorbin of Elder Goblin Games and his ever-changing round table of guests as they explore casual TTRPG topics and put the FUN back in FUNgeon! Get it...? Because Dungeons... and Quantum Ogres... idk just listen if you like roleplaying games... Links youtube.com - Podcast playlist

Read more

Looking for a group?

Find a tabletop group to join or players to invite. Groupfinder is a free looking-for-group platform. By players, for players.