category
Free
Free games give groups a real way to start without buying a core book first. Some are fully free; others offer quickstarts, SRDs, or generous starter editions that are useful enough to evaluate the game at the table.
Find tabletop RPGs by genre, system, mechanics, and tone.
Start with the kind of play you want. Browse categories for fantasy, horror, cyberpunk, solo play, rules-lite systems, and more, then compare games that share those strengths.
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category
Rules-Medium
Rules-medium games sit between quick minimalist systems and heavy simulation. They give the table enough procedure, options, and character texture to feel substantial without asking everyone to master a dense rules engine before play starts.
Decision Tag
Beginner-Friendly
Beginner-friendly games are easy to teach, clear in play, and forgiving enough that new players can make meaningful choices before they understand every rule. They reduce friction without reducing the experience to a tutorial.
Decision Tag
Collaborative
Collaborative games deliberately share authorship across the table. They ask players to help define relationships, setting details, outcomes, or the direction of play rather than treating the GM as the only source of fictional authority.
Decision Tag
Licensed
Licensed games translate an existing setting, franchise, or media property into tabletop play. The best ones do more than attach names to rules: they make the source material's pacing, conflicts, and character roles playable.
Decision Tag
Low Prep
Low prep games reduce the work required before the session starts. They support tables that want quick setup, improvisational tools, or procedures that create usable material during play rather than demanding extensive GM planning.
Decision Tag
One-Shot Friendly
One-shot friendly games can deliver a complete, satisfying arc in a single session. They usually help with fast setup, sharp premises, tight procedures, or built-in endings so the table is not dependent on a long campaign to pay off.
Genre
Aliens
Alien-focused games put extraterrestrial life, cultures, bodies, threats, or first contact at the center. The category fits when the nonhuman unknown changes the questions characters must answer.
Genre
Comedy
Comedy games are built to make humor part of play, whether through absurd premises, escalating failure, social chaos, or rules that reward ridiculous choices. The category fits games where laughter is structural, not accidental.
Genre
Cosmic Horror
Cosmic horror games make the universe feel vast, indifferent, and hostile to human certainty. Investigation, sanity, revelation, and helplessness often matter more than defeating the threat.
Genre
Cyberpunk
Cyberpunk games focus on high technology under rotten power: corporations, surveillance, street-level survival, cybernetics, debt, and identity under pressure. The category fits when the future is sharp, unequal, and personal.
Genre
Dark Fantasy
Dark fantasy games combine the impossible with horror, corruption, grim consequence, or moral compromise. The category fits when magic and monsters make the world more dangerous rather than more wondrous.
Genre
Dystopian
Dystopian games focus on oppressive systems, surveillance, scarcity, propaganda, corporate power, or broken futures. The category fits when the setting's social order actively constrains what characters can do.
Genre
Fantasy
Fantasy games make magic, myth, impossible places, strange peoples, heroic danger, or invented worlds central to play. The category is broad, so the best fits use fantasy assumptions to shape choices rather than just scenery.
Genre
Gothic
Gothic games draw on decaying places, secrets, obsession, romance, dread, family history, and the weight of the past. The category fits when atmosphere and buried truth are doing real work.
Genre
High-Fantasy
High-fantasy games favor sweeping magic, invented worlds, heroic stakes, grand conflicts, and mythic scale. The category fits when fantasy is expansive and central rather than low-key or incidental.
Genre
Historical
Historical games use real eras, events, cultures, or social constraints as more than wallpaper. The category fits when the past meaningfully shapes character choices, conflicts, and what feels possible.
Genre
Horror
Horror games make fear, vulnerability, threat, and loss active parts of play. They can be supernatural, psychological, survival-focused, or investigative, but the common thread is that danger changes how the table makes choices.
Genre
Interstellar Travel
Interstellar travel games care about journeys between worlds: starships, routes, strange planets, distance, logistics, and what happens far from home. The category fits when moving through space is central, not just implied.
Genre
Military
Military games center missions, chains of command, soldiers, units, war, logistics, or the emotional cost of organized violence. The category fits when military structure shapes both action and consequence.
Genre
Modern
Modern games take place in contemporary or near-contemporary settings, using familiar institutions, technology, culture, and social assumptions. The category fits when present-day texture changes what characters can do.
Genre
Mystery
Mystery games revolve around unanswered questions, hidden motives, clues, and revelation. This category is broader than procedural investigation: it includes games where uncertainty and interpretation are the core pleasure.
Genre
Mythology and Folklore
Mythology and folklore games draw on legends, oral traditions, supernatural bargains, and culturally specific stories. The strongest fits make mythic logic matter in play rather than using folklore as a decorative monster list.
Genre
Non-Western / Culturally Diverse
Non-Western and culturally diverse games draw from traditions, histories, myths, designers, or perspectives outside the hobby's usual Euro-American defaults. The category is about meaningful viewpoint and texture, not cosmetic naming.
Genre
Nordic Mythology
Nordic mythology games draw on Norse gods, sagas, runes, harsh landscapes, fate, or mythic conflict. The category fits when those materials shape the fiction rather than merely naming monsters and places.
Genre
Post-Apocalyptic
Post-apocalyptic games take place after collapse, disaster, war, plague, or other world-ending change. The category fits when rebuilding, scavenging, memory, scarcity, or broken institutions shape the table's choices.
Genre
Romance & Slice-of-Life
Romance and slice-of-life games focus on relationships, daily pressures, emotional change, and personal stakes. They are strongest when intimacy, longing, community, or ordinary life is the engine of play rather than a break from the real game.
Genre
Science Fiction
Science fiction games use technology, future societies, space, artificial life, alien worlds, or speculative ideas to drive play. The category fits when the question is not just where the game is set, but what the speculation changes.
Genre
Space Opera
Space opera games favor sweeping stakes, starships, empires, rebellion, romance, politics, and high adventure across the stars. The category fits when scale and drama matter more than hard-science precision.
Genre
Space-Western
Space-western games move frontier justice, outlaws, hard travel, isolated settlements, and rough bargains into science fiction. The category fits when the frontier mood matters as much as the spacecraft.
Genre
Star Trek
Star Trek games focus on exploration, diplomacy, ideals, starship crews, moral questions, and scientific or political problem-solving. The category fits when play aims to feel like Starfleet-style drama rather than generic space adventure.
Genre
Star Wars
Star Wars games are for space fantasy built around rebellion, destiny, smugglers, strange worlds, starship action, and mythic conflict. The category fits when the game is explicitly trying to capture that galaxy's play experience.
Genre
Steampunk
Steampunk games combine industrial technology, alternate history, invention, class tension, and retro-futurist style. This category is most useful when brass-and-steam aesthetics also affect what characters can build, challenge, or disrupt.
Genre
Superheroes
Superhero games center extraordinary abilities, public stakes, identity, responsibility, and spectacular conflict. The best fits make heroism and consequence playable, not just a list of powers.
Genre
Supernatural
Supernatural games involve forces beyond ordinary reality: ghosts, spirits, magic, curses, monsters, or hidden worlds. The category fits when those forces change the rules of life instead of merely decorating the setting.
Genre
Sword-and-Sorcery
Sword-and-sorcery games focus on dangerous magic, personal ambition, brutal adventure, strange ruins, and heroes surviving by nerve more than destiny. The category fits when fantasy feels immediate and perilous rather than epic and orderly.
Genre
Urban Fantasy
Urban fantasy games put magic, monsters, spirits, or hidden worlds into contemporary streets and institutions. The category fits when the supernatural collides with modern life rather than replacing it.
Genre
Western
Western games use frontier pressure, lawlessness, hard travel, grudges, settlements, and moral compromise. They may be historical, weird, or space-western, but the category fits when that frontier logic shapes play.
Mechanic
Campaign
Campaign games are built to reward return visits. They support long-term character change, faction movement, accumulating consequences, or evolving worlds that make repeated sessions feel deeper than isolated episodes.
Mechanic
Card-Based / Diceless
Card-based and diceless games use cards, tokens, prompts, negotiation, or deterministic procedures instead of traditional dice-driven resolution. The appeal is not just novelty: the alternative tool changes pacing, uncertainty, and player control.
Mechanic
Character Customization
Character customization games give players meaningful ways to shape abilities, identity, progression, or play style. The category fits when building the character is part of the fun and affects choices in play.
Mechanic
Class-based
Class-based games organize characters around archetypes, roles, professions, or playbooks with distinct abilities. The category fits when choosing a class meaningfully shapes how a character contributes and advances.
Mechanic
Classless
Classless games avoid locking characters into predefined archetypes. They usually favor skills, traits, freeform advancement, or modular abilities so players can grow in more flexible directions.
Mechanic
Collaborative Worldbuilding
Collaborative worldbuilding games ask the table to create setting, history, factions, maps, or cultures together. The category fits when making the world is part of play, not just prep before play begins.
Mechanic
Exploration-Driven
Exploration-driven games put discovery, travel, mapping, strange places, and unknown risks at the center. The category fits when moving through the world and learning what is there matters as much as any plot.
Mechanic
GM-less / Cooperative
GM-less and cooperative games distribute the work normally held by a single Game Master. They use procedures, prompts, turns, or shared authority to keep play moving while everyone participates in shaping the world and consequences.
Mechanic
Heist
Heist games focus on jobs, crews, targets, complications, plans, and reversals. The category fits when play is built around taking something, infiltrating somewhere, or pulling off a risky operation under pressure.
Mechanic
Innovative Mechanics
Innovative mechanics games do something structurally unusual with resolution, authority, pacing, character, or campaign shape. The category fits when the rules introduce a notable design idea rather than simply remixing a familiar chassis.
Mechanic
Investigation
Investigation games make discovery the center of play: clues, theories, hidden motives, procedural pressure, or strange evidence drive the session forward. Some make mystery-solving reliable and structured; others use investigation to create dread, paranoia, or character drama.
Mechanic
Low Magic
Low magic games keep supernatural power rare, costly, hidden, or subdued. They are useful when wonder should feel dangerous or exceptional rather than a routine tool on every character sheet.
Mechanic
Narrative-Driven
Narrative-driven games prioritize fiction, character pressure, scene framing, and consequences over tactical optimization. They are strongest when the rules help the table follow drama instead of merely resolving tasks.
Mechanic
Real-Time Mechanics
Real-time mechanics use actual time at the table as pressure, pacing, or resolution. This category fits games where clocks, countdowns, or live timing change decisions rather than merely decorating the session.
Mechanic
Resource Management
Resource management games make supplies, stress, time, money, position, safety, or other limited assets part of the challenge. The category fits when spending and conserving resources changes the story.
Mechanic
Rules Lite
Rules-lite games keep mechanics minimal so the table can start quickly and stay close to the fiction. The best fits still provide enough procedure to create pressure, choices, and memorable outcomes.
Mechanic
Sandbox
Sandbox games give players room to choose goals, routes, factions, and risks instead of following a fixed plot. The category fits when open-ended exploration and consequence are more important than scripted scenes.
Mechanic
Skill-based
Skill-based games define characters through capabilities, ratings, specialties, or learned expertise rather than broad classes alone. They are useful when what a character can specifically do should drive problem-solving.
Mechanic
Solo Play
Solo play games support one player without requiring a full group or traditional GM. They use prompts, oracles, journaling, procedures, or focused scenarios to make solitary play complete rather than merely improvised.
Mechanic
Streamlined
Streamlined games reduce friction without becoming empty. They use focused rules, clear procedures, or compact character options to keep play moving while still supporting meaningful choices.
Mechanic
Survival
Survival games make endurance, scarcity, exposure, danger, or dwindling resources matter. The category fits when staying alive is a real play concern rather than an assumed background condition.
Mechanic
Tactical
Tactical games reward planning, positioning, resource timing, and deliberate choices. The category is broader than combat: it fits any game where the table is expected to think through options and consequences carefully.
Mechanic
Tactical Combat
Tactical combat games make fights into meaningful positional, resource, or build decisions. The category fits when combat asks the table to plan and adapt rather than simply narrate attacks.
Mechanic
Team-Based
Team-based games put cooperation, roles, group identity, and shared objectives at the center. The category fits when the party, crew, squad, or community is more than a loose collection of protagonists.
Mechanic
Universal
Universal games are designed to support many genres or settings from the same rules foundation. The category fits when adaptability is a real design goal, not just a hack someone could attempt.
System
5e Compatible
5e-compatible games are for groups that want D&D 5th Edition familiarity without being limited to one official line. This category covers games that keep 5e assumptions, math, or character language legible while changing genre, tone, scope, or procedure.
System
d20 System
d20 System games use the familiar rhythm of rolling a twenty-sided die, adding modifiers, and resolving uncertain action through target numbers or opposed checks. This category is useful when that mechanical grammar matters more than a specific brand.
System
Forged in the Dark (FitD)
Forged in the Dark games build from Blades in the Dark's action rolls, position and effect, stress, clocks, flashbacks, crew play, and faction pressure. The category fits when that framework shapes the table's rhythm.
System
New School Revolution (NSR)
New School Revolution games keep some old-school priorities while embracing newer layout, procedures, tone, or design experiments. The category fits games that prize clarity, danger, and player agency without simply recreating older rules.
System
Old-School Renaissance (OSR)
OSR games emphasize rulings, dangerous exploration, player ingenuity, resource pressure, and worlds that are not balanced around the characters. The category fits when old-school procedure shapes how problems are approached.
System
Powered by the Apocalypse (PbtA)
Powered by the Apocalypse games use fiction-triggered moves, playbooks, GM agendas, and consequence-driven resolution to keep scenes pointed at genre pressure. The category fits games that meaningfully use that design lineage.
Theme
Bleak
Bleak games offer little comfort. They focus on scarcity, despair, doomed choices, failing systems, or worlds where victory is compromised. The category is for groups that want pressure without easy reassurance.
Theme
Cinematic
Cinematic games aim for the pacing, framing, and dramatic clarity of film or television. They often favor bold scenes, visible stakes, genre beats, and momentum over exhaustive procedure.
Theme
Dark
Dark games use grim tone, danger, corruption, cruelty, or hard consequences as a major part of the experience. The category is broad, but the common thread is that the world pushes back in unsettling ways.
Theme
Environmental
Environmental games foreground ecology, place, climate, land, extraction, survival, or the relationship between people and the natural world. The category fits when the environment has agency in the story.
Theme
Feminist
Feminist games put gender, power, care, violence, labor, or identity under deliberate pressure. The category fits games that make those questions part of play rather than background theme dressing.
Theme
Mature
Mature games handle adult themes, difficult choices, sexuality, violence, grief, politics, or moral ambiguity with more intensity than an all-ages adventure. The category signals subject matter that deserves deliberate table consent and tone setting.
Theme
Metal
Metal games lean into intensity: doom, excess, rebellion, violence, grotesque imagery, or album-cover fantasy turned into play. The category fits games that want volume and attitude, not just dark color palettes.
Theme
Political
Political games make power visible: institutions, factions, ideology, governance, class, diplomacy, or revolution affect what characters can do. The category fits when politics create real choices rather than background lore.
Theme
Psychological
Psychological games turn inward, using memory, identity, obsession, perception, fear, or emotional instability as active parts of play. The best fits make the mind and its fractures more than a character note.
Theme
Social Intrigue
Social intrigue games make conversation, status, secrets, favors, betrayal, and reputation as consequential as combat or exploration. They reward reading people and navigating power without reducing everything to a fight.