THIS PAGE IS A WIP

TTRPGS I'VE PLAYED

this is a list of every single tabletop roleplaying game i've played! it's separated into two categories: ONE-SHOT and CAMPAIGN. the games are sorted by what play they're most suited for, not necessarily by what i myself played. for example: i've played many one-shots of Interstitial: Our Hearts Intertwined, but it's sorted into the CAMPAIGN category, because it's best suited for campaign-length games.

this list is a little too untenable for me to include my thoughts on every single game, but i've included a little blurb about who i'd recommend (or not recommend) each game for. feel free to ask me for more in-depth thoughts on any of them, because i could genuinely talk about TTRPGs for hours. each list is in alphabetical order

LAST UPDATED: 3/6/24

ONE-SHOT

52 DAYS ON THE ICE || Ell Schulman

"You are alien to each other. For one of you, this world is familiar. You are the Exile. For the other, this world is not. You are the Envoy. You are fleeing something terrible and going into a situation which might be as bad for one or both of you. Your only route is across a great expanse."

RECOMMENDED FOR: people who were forever changd by Ursula K. Le Guin's The Left Hand of Darkness, roleplayers with a penchant for long emotional journeys (both literal and metaphorical), gender aliens

DEAD FRIEND: A GAME OF NECROMANCY || Lucian Khan

"Dead Friend is a roleplaying game for a necromancer and a ghost. That is, it's a collaborative storytelling game for two players. You will each play the role of a friend, one living and one dead. You will ask and answer questions to develop the characters, their community, their history together, and the motivations leading up to their final conflict. The script follows the dramatic structure of a necromancy ritual, and you will use the spellbook of instructions throughout the entire game like a witch reading spells from an ancient grimoire. The mood may be spooky or intimate, heartwrenching or hilarious — it is up to you as storytellers. Dead Friend requires 1 Tarot deck or 1 deck of mundane playing cards."

RECOMMENDED FOR: ghosts, friends of ghosts, people who describe their relationships as "it's complicated", believers in the power (for good or for bad) of long-lasting human connection

DIALECT: A GAME ABOUT LANGUAGE AND HOW IT DIES || Thorny Games

"Dialect is a game about an isolated community, their language, and what it means for that language to be lost. In this game, you’ll tell the story of the Isolation by building their language. New words will come from the fundamental aspects of the community: who they are, what they believe in, and how they respond to a changing world."

RECOMMENDED FOR: linguists, aspiring linguists, people really into tumblr posts about language, anyone who has created nonsense words to use with their friends

DREAD || The Impossible Dream

"Dread is a game of horror and suspense. Those who play it participate in a mutual telling of an original macabre tale. You will take on the role of someone trapped in a story that is only as compelling as it is hostile–someone who will find themselves making the sorts of decisions you hope never to face in real life."

RECOMMENDED FOR: people who have seen every saw movie, people who read the wiki pages of horror movies, ghouls in every sense of the word, storytellers who understand the appeal of a good old-fashioned slasher

FOR THE QUEEN || Alex Roberts

"For the Queen is a card-driven collaborative storytelling game that invites you to tell a dramatic narrative about a Queen’s journey with you, her companions! What will you learn about her (and yourself) along the way? In the end, will you stand for or against her?"

RECOMMENDED FOR: people who really relate to that post about being against the monarchy but loving when the knight pulls the sacred sword from the stone and saves the day, enemies of the queen, friends of the queen, fans of hot women who are bad

FOUR SHERLOCK HOLMES AND A VAMPIRE (WHO IS ALSO ONE OF THE AFOREMENTIONED SHERLOCK HOLMES) || Andrew J. Young

"In Four Sherlock Holmes and a Vampire (Who Is Also One of the Aforementioned Sherlock Holmes)—officially abbreviated as either Four Sherlock Holmes and a Vampire or FSHV—four players play four Sherlock Holmes who team up to solve mysteries and one-up each other. Secretly, one or more Sherlock Holmes may be vampires. Can the four Sherlock Holmes find out who among them could be a creature of the night?"

RECOMMENDED FOR: fans of justin mcelroy's specific brand of chaos, people who know too much about sherlock holmes, people who know fuck-all about sherlock holmes, people who wish arthur conan doyle included more vampires

HISTORY IS GONE BUT WE REMEMBER || Rufus Roswell

"HISTORY IS GONE BUT WE REMEMBER is part story telling ritual, part history writing game, where in you are asked to share oral histories and to create your own oracle cards. It can stand alone as an around the table LARP or be used to set up the setting of a longer campaign or story."

RECOMMENDED FOR: the chronic worldbuilders, the lore bible readers, people with more than one set of tarot cards

HONEY HEIST || Grant Howitt

"Honey Heist is a surprisingly successful one-page RPG. Here is the plot:

1) You have a complex plan that requires precise timing.

2) You are a GODDAMN BEAR.

RECOMMENDED FOR: people pretending to be bears, bears pretending to be people, adults who used to be teens with lol so random XD humor, fans of the beautiful form of comedy known as the shitpost, people who've watched ocean's eleven WAY too many times

HOUSE || Marn S

"This is a story about a house.

This is also a game about an eldritch, ever-expanding building that you and your fellow players have entered, and are going to investigate, and may never find your way out of. It's a game based on House of Leaves and Dionaea House, for 2+ players, using pen, paper, and a regular deck of cards."

RECOMMENDED FOR: haunted house freaks, the ghosts of your past and your future, wannabe paranormal investigators, those who like a story within their story

I'M SORRY DID YOU SAY STREET MAGIC || Caro Asercion

"i'm sorry did you say street magic is a GMless city-building story game for two to six players, that runs three or more hours. Discover and imagine a city filled with life and vivid detail, packed with a myriad of neighborhoods, landmarks, and residents. Discover their true names, and the ways that they intersect—then set events in motion that will change or alter their relationships."

RECOMMENDED FOR: urban magic planners, fans of breaking into the rooftop of very tall buildings, people who see rainbows shimmering in parking lot puddles

IT'S BEEN A LONG, LONG TIME || riley rethal

"it's been a long, long time is a game about two characters who were in a relationship and somehow got separated. you tell their story through flashbacks to their lives together and apart, and finally end with their emotional reunion."

RECOMMENDED FOR: people who read novel-length stevebucky fanfiction in 2012, characters that haunt the narrative, seers of shrimp colors

LASERS AND FEELINGS || John Harper

"You are the crew of the interstellar scout ship Raptor. Your mission is to explore uncharted regions of space, deal with aliens both friendly and deadly, and defend the Consortium worlds against space dangers. Captain Darcy has been overcome by the strange psychic entity known as Something Else, leaving you to fend for yourselves while he recovers in a medical pod.

RECOMMENDED FOR: kids who pretended brooms were lightsabers, pantsers with no desire to become a plotter, busy people without any time to read more than a page of mechanics

NEW NORMAL || Ell

"This is an empathy game about chronic pain based on my experiences living with a chronic intractable migraine for over a year."

RECOMMENDED FOR: people with chronic pain, people with loved ones with chronic pain, enjoyers of lyric games

OH, DANG! BIGFOOT STOLE MY CAR WITH MY FRIEND'S BIRTHDAY PRESENT INSIDE || Ettin

"Oh, Dang! Bigfoot Stole My Car With My Friend's Birthday Present Inside is a hack of John Harper's Lasers & Feelings about going on a road trip to track down Bigfoot, get your car back, and maybe learn a little something on the way."

RECOMMENDED FOR: would-be lasers and feelings players who like cryptids more than spaceships, monsterfuckers, anyone down for whatever with bigfoot

PALIMPSEST || Gordie Murphy

"Palimpsest is a game about creating and discovering the development of civilizations across thousands of years, and understanding how one led to the other. You and a few others will be collaboratively creating concepts for civilizations, taking on Lenses of them, explaining how they faded, how they came to be, and how ideas get re-contextualized from one to the next."

RECOMMENDED FOR: lovers of layers, aspiring writers of sprawling epics, those who tell their people's stories

PORTRAIT IN A ROOM OF MIRRORS || Seb Pines

"A print and play solo autobiographical narrative role-playing game. Move through the room of mirrors and gaze upon what they reflect back, and which image holds true."

RECOMMENDED FOR: people who are told they're "very introspective" by a therapist, writers trying to dig into the meat of their OCs, those who want to go through the mortifying ordeal of being known by themself

SLEEPAWAY || Jay Dragon

"A horror game of Belonging Outside Belonging about a group of summer camp counselors protecting their queer youth from a monstrous cryptid."

RECOMMENDED FOR: gay monsters, fans of summer camp slashers, people who think too many rules get in the way of playing pretend with their friends, those who love a good ritual

SPINDLEWHEEL || Teacabbage Studios

"Spindlewheel is an interpretive tarot-like storytelling game where you weave together a story from card to card."

RECOMMENDED FOR: people with a favorite tarot card, witches, wizards, mediums, storytellers of any creed

STARCROSSED || Alex Roberts

"Star Crossed is a two-player game about really, really wanting to, when you really, really can’t. It's about the excitement, tension, and heartbreak of romance!"

RECOMMENDED FOR: hopeless romantics, overzealous rom-com watchers, people with lots of opinions about romance novels, fanfiction trope enjoyers

STEWPOT: TALES FROM A FANTASY TAVERN || Takuma Okada

"Stewpot: Tales from a Fantasy Tavern is a collection of small games for groups of three or more players. Each game lets you, a retired adventurer, play out different parts of running a tavern and settling down in a town together with your old adventuring party."

RECOMMENDED FOR: people who wish more of lord of the rings took place in hobbiton, people who think the ubiquitousness of d&d makes good fantasy very difficult to find

SUPERNORMAL || Ursidice

"SUPERNORMAL is a mini RPG where you play as superheroes with unstable powers just trying to enjoy your day off."

RECOMMENDED FOR: capes comics enjoyers, MCU-haters, superheroes pretending to be normal people

SYMPOSIUM || High Rock Press

"Symposium is a Descended From The Queen storytelling card game for 3-8 players, simulating a philosophical dinner party (or "symposium") in the classical style of the ancient Greek world and based on Plato's work of the same name, with some modifications to make it more accessible to a modern audience."

RECOMMENDED FOR: greek philosphers, regular philosphers, people who enjoyed their socratic seminars in high school a little too much, fans of pointless arguments

THE DARK SENTENCER || Marn S

"The Dark Sentencer is a tarot card based storytelling game for 2+ players, where you and your friends play out eleven days in the lives of alien mobsters, robotic pirates, and completely human con artists attempting to escape the galaxy's most dangerous prison planet. It's inspired by the Coheed and Cambria song of the same name (and the entire album Unheavenly Creatures)."

RECOMMENDED FOR: people who say "be gay do crimes", fans of prog rock, con artist appreciators, people who want to teach their friends the basics of prison abolition

THE HOUSE CHANTS ON || a.c.d (that's me)

"THE HOUSE CHANTS ON is a GMless game for 1+ players where you play out a ghost haunting from start to finish using tarot cards and your imagination. You create a Soul and explore their life leading up to their eventual death, the circumstances that cause them to become a ghost, and the reason they pass on to whatever is next in the end."

RECOMMENDED FOR: ghost lovers, friends of mine, those filled with deep existential curiosity, people with joint custody of an OC

THE LONG SHIFT || Caro Asercion

"The Long Shift is a tabletop story game for two to five players. Using a standard deck of playing cards, players take on the roles of employees at Mari’s 26-Hour Cosmic, an interstellar rest stop in a derelict asteroid belt. Over the course of the game, players will also take turns playing travelers who visit the rest stop, bringing news of the world beyond."

RECOMMENDED FOR: service workers dreaming of the mythical "good customer", milkshake lovers, people who always have a story to tell at a truck stop, waiters who love art

THE QUIET YEAR || Avery Alder

"The Quiet Year is a map game. You define the struggles of a community living after the collapse of civilization, and attempt to build something good within their quiet year. Every decision and every action is set against a backdrop of dwindling time and rising concern."

RECOMMENDED FOR: lovers in the post-apocalypse, believers of the power (and near-impossiblity) of consensus, fans of silent roleplaying

THE ULTIMATE MICRO-RPG BOOK || Edited by Jamed D'Amato

"Get gaming fast with The Ultimate Micro-RPG Book including brand-new micro-RPGs created by experts across the gaming world. From space exploration to jungle dungeon crawlers this book has everything you need to pick up and play today."

GAMES I'VE PLAYED IN THIS BOOK: Hero Dog Saves Town by Alex Roberts, You Were Never Really Here by Ben Chong, A Green Hour by Jeeyon Shim, Post-Match Interview by James Mendez Hodes, Heartbeats by Keith Baker and Jenn Ellis

THIS DISCORD HAS GHOSTS IN IT || Will Jobst and Adam Vass

"Players split into two teams: investigators and ghosts. Throughout the game, ghosts haunt rooms while investigators explore, get spooked, and learn about the ghosts, all while narrating the horror to all players and hinting at their secret motives. Ghost players reveal parts of themselves by creating new rooms, in turn making the house a labyrinth. Investigators get to the bottom of these mysteries and spill secrets of their own."

RECOMMENDED FOR: internet teenz, people with friends in every timezone, fans of shitty ghost hunting TV shows, ghosts that are ready to try haunting the blogosphere

TOPOLOGICAL SOULS VOL. 1 || Rufus Roswell

"This zine is a set of mapping mini-games that explore our relationship with geography and story. Each game uses an oracle deck and sometimes dice or token to explore a particular kind of mapping project. Each game can be played by one or more players."

RECOMMENDED FOR: hopeful geographers, spiritual guides and those seeking spiritual guidance, people who get excited when there's a map at the beginning of the fantasy book

WE ARE BUT WORMS: A ONE WORD RPG || Riverhouse Games

"A one word RPG about worms. You can play it as a LARP too if you want."

RECOMMENDED FOR: worms, worm allies, poetry enthusiasts

WICKEDNESS || M Veselak

"Wickedness is a peculiar tabletop game written for exactly three players and one tarot deck, with no dice and no GM. Together, you'll form a coven between three mystical archetypes (the innocent and gentle Pure Heart, the volatile, revelrous Wild Spirit, and the uptight, scholarly Old Soul) and try to keep your world of magic and mystery in balance with the mundane world, in spite of its ignorance, poverty and violence."

RECOMMENDED FOR: witches, wannabe witches, people with more tarot decks than sense, fans of the lesser known parts of the minor arcana

WORLD ENDING GAME || Everest Pipkin

"World Ending Game is a tabletop game written to serve as the last session of a campaign in any system. It should come after the finale, whatever that is for your table; the dragon defeated, the government felled, finals week over, the great mystery solved. World Ending Game does not have mechanics for deciding big story outcomes. Instead, it offers a series of scenes and vignettes towards closure."

RECOMMENDED FOR: players in the final year of their 5-year tabletop epic, players in their final month of their 6-month tabletop epic, people who love having more games per game

YOU'RE IN SPACE AND EVERYTHING'S FUCKED || Nevyn Holmes

"You’re in Space and Everything’s Fucked is a terrifying tribute to sci-fi survival horror and gore-filled splatter films. It’s a game for 2-5 players, with one taking on the role of an isolated, hostile space station while the others embody survivors, emergency aid, or some other unlucky individuals that are probably going to die horribly."

RECOMMENDED FOR: players of video games in the alien franchise, haunted house enjoyers, desperate people ready to make one last bid for survival