Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition (D&D 5E) is a heroic fantasy tabletop roleplaying game published by Wizards of the Coast. Released in 2014, it is the edition that brought D&D from a niche hobby into mainstream pop culture - showing up in TV shows, podcasts, and actual-play streams, and introducing millions of new players to the hobby for the first time. 5E was designed after a massive public playtest ("D&D Next") with the explicit goal of being approachable to newcomers while still satisfying veteran players. The Basic Rules are free, and a game can start with nothing more than those rules, some friends, and a set of dice (or a digital dice roller app). In 2024 the core rules received a significant revision, now commonly referred to as Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (2024). Both versions are fully compatible and most groups mix material freely. The system it directly evolved from is Dungeons & Dragons 4E (2008) Description In D&D 5E, players create fantasy adventurers (a half-orc barbarian, an elven wizard, a tiefling rogue) and one player takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM). The DM builds and describes the world, voices the non-player characters (NPCs), controls the monsters, and acts as both the lead storyteller and the rules referee. There is no board. The game is a conversation: the DM describes a scene, the players say what their characters do, and the dice decide what happens when the outcome is uncertain. A typical session runs three to four hours with a group of three to six players plus the DM. The game describes itself as resting on "Three Pillars": Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction. A single session might include all three, from tracking a monster through the wilderness and negotiating with a shady merchant to fighting a troll at the entrance to a cave. Combat is the most mechanically detailed of the three and tends to take up the largest share of table time, though groups are free to lean as hard into roleplaying or exploration as they like. The default assumption is a high-fantasy world filled with magic, monsters, and ancient ruins. The flagship published setting is the Forgotten Realms, but Wizards of the Coast has released adventures across a range of worlds, and many DMs create their own. The game does not ship a single canon story. Every table's story is different, shaped by what the players do. 5E is designed to be approachable. The core philosophy is "rulings over rules," meaning that when something comes up that the rules do not explicitly cover, the DM is encouraged to make a quick call and keep the game moving rather than stopping to look things up. The rules reward creativity and improvisation, and the system explicitly expects that no one at the table has memorized the entire rulebook. That said, the DM carries most of the preparation work between sessions: building encounters, preparing maps, and keeping the story moving. Players can show up with nothing but their character sheet and a set of dice.

Dungeons & Dragons 5.5E (commonly called the "2024 rules" or "D&D 2024") is the revised and updated version of the Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition tabletop roleplaying game, published by Wizards of the Coast. Released across three core rulebooks throughout 2024 and early 2025, it is not a new edition. It is the same game, refined. The revision was driven by a decade of player feedback and data on how tables actually run 5E, and it shipped to coincide with the game's 50th anniversary. The three revised core books are the Player's Handbook (September 2024), the Dungeon Master's Guide (November 2024), and the Monster Manual (February 2025). All three are reorganized, reworded for clarity, and mechanically updated. Rather than replacing 5th Edition with a "6th Edition," 5.5E expands and tightens the existing framework while maintaining backwards compatibility with every 5E adventure module, sourcebook, and campaign setting published since 2014. If you are new to D&D entirely, start with the Dungeons & Dragons 5e (2014) entry for a full explanation of how the game works. Everything described there still applies here. This entry covers what 5.5E specifically changed. Description D&D 5.5E plays identically to 5th Edition at the table. Players create adventurers, one player takes on the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), and the group tells a collaborative story driven by a twenty-sided die (d20) and the DM's rulings. The core loop, the "Three Pillars" of Combat, Exploration, and Social Interaction, and the fundamental mechanics (Advantage and Disadvantage, Bounded Accuracy, the Proficiency Bonus, the rest system) all carry over unchanged. What the 2024 revision addresses is the rough edges that a decade of play exposed. Martial classes (Fighters, Barbarians, Monks, Rogues) now have more tactical options in combat instead of repeating the same basic attack every turn. Spellcasting classes have been rebalanced to reduce the gap between low-level and high-level power. Rules that were famously unclear or frequently house-ruled (grappling, crafting, surprise, two-weapon fighting) have been rewritten. The Dungeon Master's Guide, long criticized as poorly organized, has been restructured into a book that new DMs can actually learn from rather than only reference. The result is a game that feels the same at the table but runs more smoothly. Groups that have been playing 5E for years will notice the quality-of-life improvements. Groups starting fresh will simply have a cleaner ruleset from day one. Both 2014 and 2024 material can be used at the same table without conversion, though the newer rules are recommended for new characters.

Daggerheart is a fantasy tabletop role-playing game published by Darrington Press, an imprint of Critical Role Productions. The game was released in 2025. Description Daggerheart is a story-docused role-playing game system, where the rules direct players to think narratively and not just mechanically. The game uses a system called Duality Dice, where players roll two twelve-sided dice. One for Hope and one for Fear. In addition to determining whether the character achieves success or fails at the action they are trying to perform, it also generates a helpful Hope resource for the player, or a challenging Fear resource for the game master (GM). Lead designer Spenser Starke explained that there is "also no initiative in Daggerheart". It functions very much like a Forged in the Dark or a Powered By The Apocalypse game, where the GM is making moves on certain dice rolls and we're passing play back and forth as a conversation. It all flows together in a way that supports the storytelling-first direction that Critical Role has really embraced over the last decade". The game features 279 supplemental cards to track player abilities and characteristics. Darrington Press also launched several digital resources, including an online custom card creator.

Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition is a tactical, combat-focused tabletop roleplaying system released by Wizards of the Coast in 2008. Designed to fix the high-level math imbalances and "martial vs. caster" disparities of the 3.5E era, 4E redesigned the game's engine with a more video game adjacent approach. It is famous for its structured, grid-based combat and for standardizing class abilities into a unified system. While its dramatic departure from legacy mechanics polarized the fanbase directly paving the way for the creation of Pathfinder. 4E is widely praised today for its brilliant monster design, DM tools, and unparalleled encounter balance. The system it directly replaced is Dungeons & Dragons 3.5 Edition (2003) Description In D&D 4E, players take on the roles of heroes who are combat-capable right from the start. The system relies of combat being carried out with the use of a battle grid. Positioning plays a big part of the combat experience. The exact location of the characters matters greatly. Unlike other editions where spellcasters are played in a separate mechanical way than martial classes, 4E unifies the progression system. Every class is boiled down to a specific combat "Role" and draws from their specialized toolkit of "Powers," making the game balanced and ensuring that every character has unique and impactful actions that they can perform on their turns. System Overview & Key Features The Power System Instead of traditional spell slots or basic attacks, every class has a list of At-Will, Encounter, Daily, and Utility powers, each with different power levels and frequency at which they can be performed. Fighters can execute epic daily maneuvers just as wizards cast daily spells, creating a better balance between martial classes and spellcasters. Combat Roles All classes are sorted by their class specialization role: Defenders (tanks who draw aggro and protect their allies), Strikers (high single-target damage), Leaders (healers and support), and Controllers (area-of-effect damage and debuffers). Static Defenses Saving throws were removed and replaced with four different defense values: Armor Class, Fortitude, Reflex, and Will. When a wizard casts a fireball, they roll an attack against the targets' Reflex. Instead of both sides rolling for success and for defense - the attacker is the only one to roll dice. Healing Surges A standardized resource pool representing a character's stamina. Almost all healing in the game, whether from a cleric's spell or catching your breath, requires the target to spend a Healing Surge, which reliably heals them for exactly one-quarter of their maximum hit points. Monster Roles & Minions The Dungeon Master's toolkit was revolutionized. Monsters have explicit roles (like Brute, Artillery, or Skirmisher) that cleanly dictate their behavior. 4E also introduced "Minions". Monsters that have normal stats and deal average damage, but only have exactly 1 Hit Point, allowing heroes to cleave through cinematic hordes. Skill Challenges An unique system with 4E is Skill Challenges - a "cinematic" series of actions that turn social, environmental or escape situations into more movie-like scenes. The players must achieve a certain amount (determined by the situation) of successful skill checks, before they collect enough failed skill checks. Additional links dungeonsanddragons.com - Official Dungeons & Dragons website

Released in 2014 by Chaosium, Call of Cthulhu 7th Edition is the latest version of the cult-classic cosmic eldritch horror role-playing system originally launched in 1981. The story is based off of the  literary works of H.P. Lovecraft and lovecraftian works. Instead of setting the players up as heroes, the characters are regular investigators who are exploring cults, forbidden knowledge and various eldritch-cosmic entitites and threats. Description Occupations in the game for the characters include academics, reporters, and private investigators. The gameplay loop revolves around uncovering information, analyzing clues, and evading dangers. As the supernatural elements in the game are considered more powerful than the investigators, they have are not expected to actually confront most of the threats head on. Instead they usually have to resort to avoiding or escaping any situation that may arise. Combat is lethal and usually leads to characters getting permanently killed or pushed to insanity (which eventually is the same).  System Overview & Key Features Percentile Framework (d100) Every action is resolved by rolling two ten-sided (d10) dice to get a result from 1 to 100. If you roll is equal to or under your skill rating, the action is deemed a success. This approach simplifies the mechanical process of the game, as there are no complex tables to keep track of and compare to decypher whether it is a success or failure. Pushed Rolls If a character fails a skill check, they may attempt to "push" the roll, allowing for a second attempt. This requires the player to come up with a new, more desperate approach to performing the task. If this subsequent pushed roll also fails, the Keeper describes a severe and immediate negative consequence. Sanity and Madness A core mechanic of the system is the tracking of mental stability. Investigators lose points from their Sanity gauge when exposed to anomalous creatures or disturbing truths. Drops in Sanity result in the character experiencing temporary or permanent forms of madness, which can manifest as new phobias, delusions, or a temporary loss of player agency over the character. Bonus and Penalty Dice To account for situational advantages or disadvantages, the game employs a system of bonus and penalty dice. If a character possesses a distinct advantage when performing a task, an extra d10 is rolled and taking the higher result. A disadvantage means rolling an extra d10 and taking the lower result. Combat Lethality Physical altercations are inherently dangerous by design. Investigators possess limited hit points, and the damage output of both conventional firearms and anomalous entities is high. Recovery mechanics are slow, simulating realistic healing times. This structural lethality serves to discourage combat and incentivize stealth and investigation. Expendable Luck Players can spend points from their character's Luck pool to retroactively lower a dice roll. The points are subtracted on a one-to-one basis until the dice result qualifies as a success. This ensures that the Luck pool is a limited resource which should be used and utilized in the most critical situations. Additional links chaosium.com - Official publisher website and digital storefront drivethrurpg.com - Digital repository for official scenarios and sourcebooks

PORK MORT is an old-school fantasy tabletop roleplaying game inspired by Balearic folklore and traditional folktales. Created by Sergio Amat, Mercedes Prats, Jaume Mayans and Daniela Kropeit, the game combines dark fantasy, absurd humor and a distinctive visual style in a strange and dangerous world known simply as The Island. Players take on the roles of unlikely adventurers trying to survive in a land inhabited by witches, giants, demons, talking animals and other bizarre creatures drawn from Mediterranean folklore. Exploration, danger, unpredictable encounters and dark comedy are at the heart of the game.  PORK MORT uses a fast, rules-light system that is fully compatible with MÖRK BORG, allowing characters, monsters and adventures to be easily used between both games. Description In PORK MORT, players take on the roles of disgraced knights, peasants forced into adventure, cursed hunchbacks, outcast bear-men and other kinds of antiheroes trying to survive on The Island, a magical land ruled by the Porkos (pig-men), who govern all its inhabitants with an iron hoof.  As if that were not enough, the Moiras (anthropomorphic spiders who can supposedly predict the future) have foretold that three of the four pillars supporting The Island have collapsed, and that the end is near. The game prioritizes creativity and exploration, with simple rules designed to adapt to any crazy situation the players might encounter on their journey to become something more than mere wanderers, perhaps even the protagonists of the tales of the future.

Dolmenwood is a fantasy adventure RPG designed by Gavin Norman - also the creator of Old-School Essentials - published by his studio Necrotic Gnome in partnership with Exalted Funeral Press, following a hugely successful Kickstarter that launched in August 2023.  It's built on a streamlined, customized version of the Old-School Essentials rules, but stands as its own complete game rather than a supplement, growing out of Norman's self-published Wormskin zine, which he'd been quietly developing since 2015. The game went on to win four ENNIE Awards, with its complete retail release - three core books, four adventure scenarios, a supplement, and a referee's screen - arriving through 2024 and 2025.

Salvage Union is a RPG set in a Post-Apoc world where MegaCorps rules pockets of civilization and nomads on giant 'Crawlers' comb the wastes for 'salvage'. Players are part of the 'Salvage Union', on one of these roaming Crawlers and deploy out in jury-rigged Mechs to collect salvage and investigate their ruined world. Description Playing Salvage Union means playing a crew of salvager mech pilots living aboard a massive, mobile home base called a Union Crawler, scavenging a corporate-ravaged wasteland for scrap to keep their community alive. Beyond raiders and rival scavengers, threats include monstrous Bio-Titans, alien Meld, and the Corpos who still control most of the world's remaining resources. Much of the game's appeal comes from its two-layered loop: narrative exploration and salvaging runs outside the mech, and tactical, resource-managed mech combat once things go loud, tied together by a deep crafting system that lets pilots build and refit their machines from scavenged parts between missions.

Mörk Borg is a doom metal apocalyptic fantasy tabletop roleplaying game, published by Free League Publishing in 2020. It was created by Pelle Nilsson and Johan Nohr. The game is famous for its aggressive, award winning graphic design and incredibly bleak tone. Players navigate a dying world destined to end, playing as miserable scoundrels, heretics, and broken souls simply trying to survive their final days. The system it is heavily inspired by is Old School Renaissance (2000s) Description In Mörk Borg, you do not play heroes. You play tomb robbers and outcasts exploring a grim, rotting world under a black sun. The setting is actively counting down to the apocalypse as prophesied by the two headed basilisk. Gameplay is highly lethal, fast paced, and completely unfair. It prioritizes atmosphere, quick rulings, and embracing the inevitable doom of your character. System Overview & Key Features Player Facing d20 Rolls The core mechanic is incredibly simple. Players roll a 20 sided die (d20) and add a stat modifier to beat a Target Number, which is usually 12. Players roll for all attacks and all defense. The Game Master never touches the dice during combat. The Calendar of Nechrubel The world is literally ending. Each morning, the Game Master rolls a die to determine if a Misery occurs. When the seventh Misery is rolled, the world burns and the game is permanently over. The players cannot stop this. Omens Characters have a small pool of Omens each day. These are points that can be spent to reroll a failed test, maximize damage dealt, reduce damage taken, or neutralize a critical hit. In a highly lethal game, Omens are the only thing keeping a character alive. Unpredictable Magic Magic is cast by reading ancient Unclean or Sacred scrolls. Any class can attempt to read a scroll, but doing so requires a Presence test. Failing this test results in a terrifying Arcane Catastrophe, causing massive damage or permanent mutations. Zero HP and Broken Bodies When a character reaches zero Hit Points, they are Broken. The player must roll on a brutal table to determine their fate. They might simply be knocked unconscious, lose a limb, or die instantly and gruesomely. Additional links youtube.com MÖRK BORG RPG Trailer morkborg.com - Official Mörk Borg website freeleaguepublishing.com - Official Free League Publishing website

Old-School Essentials is a Dungeons & Dragons B/X retroclone designed by Gavin Norman and published by his own studio, Necrotic Gnome, first released in 2019. It doesn't reinvent the 1981 Basic/Expert D&D rules so much as reorganize them: rather than hunting across four different chapters just to build an elf character, every rule on a given topic now lives on a single two-page spread, with modern layout and clarity layered over mechanics that are otherwise untouched. Since launch it's become something close to the flagship rulebook of the Old School Renaissance - clean enough to hand a brand-new player, and 100% compatible with four decades of B/X-era modules and third-party adventures.

Drakar och Demoner ("Dragons and Demons," commonly abbreviated DoD) is Sweden's first and longest-running fantasy tabletop RPG, originally published in 1982 by Äventyrsspel (later renamed Target Games) as a translation and adaptation of Chaosium's Basic Role-Playing system and its Magic World supplement. It occupies roughly the same cultural space in Sweden that Dungeons & Dragons holds in the US - not just a game many Swedish players grew up on, but effectively the game that introduced the country to the hobby before D&D had any real distribution there.  Over four decades and roughly a dozen editions, the game shifted from BRP-style percentile play to a d20-based roll-under "Expert" system, passed through several owners including RiotMinds in the 2000s, and since 2021 has belonged to Free League Publishing, who crowdfunded a reimagined 40th-anniversary edition in 2022 known internationally as Dragonbane. Designed by the team behind Mutant: Year Zero and Forbidden Lands, with art by Vaesen illustrator Johan Egerkrans, this modern edition is what's currently in print and most widely played today.

The Expanse RPG is based on the exciting new Modern AGE rules-set, and includes many of its features, such as customized character building using Backgrounds and Professions, Drives for character engagement, and an abstract resources system. It also makes use of the Modern AGE approach to action, exploration, and social encounters, complete with stunts and systems for all of them.

CY_BORG is a cyberpunk tabletop RPG created by Christian Sahlén and Johan Nohr of Stockholm Kartell, published by Free League Publishing in 2022 following a November 2021 Kickstarter. It's a direct spin-off of MÖRK BORG, Pelle Nilsson and Nohr's doom-metal-flavored apocalyptic fantasy game from 2020, swapping that game's black-metal dark fantasy for a noise, industrial, and underground-hip-hop-inspired vision of cyberpunk - and it's fully compatible with MÖRK BORG's own rules and content. Where MÖRK BORG is often pitched as a doom metal album in RPG form, CY_BORG plays the same trick with a different genre, trading gothic dread for corporate-hellscape rage. Description Playing CY_BORG means playing one of six ready-made classes - the Forsaken Gang-Goon, Shunned Nanomancer, Renegade Cyberslasher, Burned Hacker, Orphaned Gearhead, or Discharged Corp Killer - dropped into the sprawling megacity of Cy, a world of warring corporations, gangs, cults, and an alien nanotech infestation that keeps mutating everything it touches.  Character creation is quick and dirty, mostly determined by dice rolls across tables for abilities, gear, quirks, and even who a character owes money to, staying true to MÖRK BORG's rules-light, rulings-before-rules design philosophy. Sessions tend to run as short, dangerous jobs - the included introductory heist, Lucky Flight Takedown, has players scope out and hit a casino - rather than long-form dungeon delving, and death comes easily enough that a fresh, disposable punk is always just a few dice rolls away.