Vaesen - Nordic Horror Roleplaying

Shadow of the Demon Lord is a grim dark-fantasy tabletop roleplaying game set during the last, doomed years before an apocalypse, designed by Robert J. Schwalb and published by his own studio, Schwalb Entertainment, in 2015 following a Kickstarter campaign.  It builds a d20-based system deliberately stripped of the modifier-stacking common to games in its weight class, replacing most situational bonuses and penalties with a single abstracted mechanic. Schwalb later returned to the same core system for a lighter, more traditional-fantasy spinoff, Shadow of the Weird Wizard, released via Kickstarter in 2023. Description Characters begin as ordinary commoners rather than destined heroes, in a world where the Demon Lord's return is already underway and survival - not glory - is the realistic goal of most adventures. The Game Master (GM) runs a setting that leans hard into body horror, corruption, and creeping dread, and the game states its demands plainly.  Characters can and do die, sanity can crack under the weight of what they witness, and doing what's necessary to survive can leave a permanent, mechanical stain on a character's soul. It's built for a table that wants D&D-adjacent fantasy combat without D&D's heroic framing - closer in spirit to grimdark fiction than epic fantasy, with character death treated as a real and fairly common outcome rather than an exception.

Delta Green is a standalone tabletop roleplaying game of modern conspiracy and cosmic horror. Originally a supplement for Call of Cthulhu, the current standalone edition was published by Arc Dream Publishing in 2016. Players take on the roles of federal agents or contractors working for a secret, illegal organization dedicated to containing supernatural threats and covering up the existence of the Cthulhu Mythos to protect the United States. The system it directly evolved from is Call of Cthulhu Description In Delta Green, the horror is not just about monsters; it is about the toll that a life of secrecy and violence takes on the human soul. Agents juggle their high stakes investigations with their crumbling personal lives. They must navigate a world of bureaucratic red tape, government conspiracies, and sanity shattering entities while ensuring that no one, not even their own families, ever finds out the truth. The game is famous for its bleak tone and focus on the cost of the "Great Work." System Overview & Key Features d100 Percentile System The game uses a familiar percentile dice engine. Skills are rated from 01 to 99. To succeed, you must roll equal to or under your skill rating. If the tens and ones digits match (a double) and the roll is a success, it is a critical success; if it is a failure, it is a critical failure. Bonds and Domestic Ruin Agents have Bonds representing their relationships with loved ones or colleagues. When an agent suffers Sanity loss, they can choose to project that trauma onto a Bond to reduce the loss. This mechanically represents the agent coming home and taking their trauma out on their family, slowly destroying their personal life to stay functional in the field. Sanity and Adaptation The game tracks three types of Sanity loss: Violence, Helplessness, and the Unnatural. If an agent experiences enough Violence or Helplessness without breaking, they can become "adapted," making them more resilient to those triggers but less capable of maintaining human empathy and Bonds. Lethality Rating Instead of rolling many dice for heavy weapons like assault rifles or explosives, Delta Green uses a Lethality percentage. If the player rolls under this rating, the target is instantly killed. If they roll over it, the weapon deals a fixed, significant amount of damage instead. The Home Phase Between missions (Operas), players play through a "Home" scene. They must choose how to spend their limited time: fulfilling responsibilities to maintain Bonds, seeking therapy to recover Sanity, or practicing skills. Choosing one often means neglecting the others, leading to a downward spiral of isolation. Special Training and Agencies Character creation is deeply rooted in real world professions. Whether you are a CIA Case Officer, an FBI Special Agent, or a CDC Epidemiologist, your profession dictates your starting skills and the federal resources you can leverage during an investigation. Additional links deltagreen.com - Official Delta Green website arcdream.com - Official Arc Dream Publishing 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

That RPG Podcast is a podcast about tabletop roleplaying games and the art of game mastery, where we create roleplaying game adventures on the fly from prompts submitted by our listeners. We each have a story to tell. Sometimes all it takes is a single idea to kick off a great adventure. Join us as we embark on a monthly quest to bring your stories to life. That RPG Podcast is about tabletop roleplaying games and the art of game mastery, where we create roleplaying game adventures on the fly from prompts submitted by our listeners. At the heart of That RPG Podcast is Adventure Hook!, a tried-and-true method for building RPG adventures with only a kernel of an idea. Each month we take a listener prompt and help it blossom into a fully-realized adventure you can use in your games. Links thatrpgpodcast.com - Official website youtube.com - Youtube playlist spotify.com - Spotify feed podcasts.apple.com - Apple Podcasts feed patreon.com - Patreon page discord.gg - Discord server

In the world of tabletop gaming, there is one system that towers above all others. Whether you are a veteran of the hobby or just getting into it, you are aware of the elephant in the room. As the hobby evolves with new rulesets and indie titles, we dived deep into the numbers we are seeing on Groupfinder. Based on the currently active posts on Groupfinder, which comes down to 1560 active players and 688 active groups, here are some numbers that better describe the current landscape. /images/general-media/1775486691_3CWZADDB.pngThe current active posts on Groupfinder, as of April 6, 2026. You can see the live numbers here. The dominance of D&D It will come as no surprise to most of us, that Dungeons & Dragons remains as the dominant force in the hobby space. And while some of us (generally veterans who have played for a long period of time) feel like D&D has outlived itself and is losing to the newer titles. The numbers tell another story: Groups: ~60% of all the groups currently looking for players are for Dungeons and Dragons, either 5.5E, 5E or some previous edition. Players: If groups are over half, then the player side is even steeper. As 90% of all player posts on Groupfinder are looking for a D&D game. While many players are also open to playing other game systems, the vast majority still treats D&D as their go-to system. Looking to start your TTRPG hobby journey? It seems like you should find a dungeons and dragons group first. Beyond just D&D An encouraging trend we can see from our data, is the players' willingness to experiment and also try something else. While 90% of the players are looking to play D&D, they aren't only looking for a D&D group. When we exclude Dungeons & Dragons from the statistics, we can draw a clear "Top 5" of adjacent systems. Based on the currently active posts in April 2026, these are the most popular systems on Groupfinder right now: Pathfinder 1 & Pathfinder 2 combined Daggerheart Call of Cthulhu Vampire: The Masquerade Cyberpunk RED /images/general-media/1775485987_rve3K01J.pngCurrently popular systems (players and groups combined) The Groupfinder Library We believe that exposing players to alternative systems will keep the hobby-space fresh and thriving. This is why we have created the Groupfinder Library - an all-encompassing collection of various resources: Tools, Platforms, Creators, Communities and Game systems. We are hoping that players looking for a D&D game, might stumble upon some other game system in the library and discover that the hobby isn't just Dungeons & Dragons. Perhaps their journey won't have a traditional start and their first game is something else entirely. By lowering the barrier to entry for non-D&D systems, we hope to make the hobby more diverse and vibrant for everyone. 10.04.2026 Edit: The library is now live - read more about it in our Update log. Are you already part of the data? Whether you are a DM looking for a party or a player looking for a home, your voice helps us understand where the hobby is going. Looking for a game? Browse the player profiles and let DMs find you. Looking for players? Take a look at all the groups looking for players and start your next adventure. What is Groupfinder? Groupfinder is a free global tabletop gaming "looking for group/players" matchmaking platform. The platform's growing userbase is a clear indication of a need for such an unifying place.  Read more about the platform here.

A free, accessible, browser-based character creator and editable sheet for Mongoose Traveller 2022 — every roll cited, every choice logged, every character saved locally. Description Traveller Lifepath is a free, browser-based character creator and editable sheet for Mongoose Traveller 2022. It walks players through the full Mongoose 2022 lifepath — basics and species, characteristics, background skills, pre-career education (University, Army Academy, Marine Academy, Navy Academy), career terms with their full survival / event / commission / advancement loop, mustering-out, the post-creation skill package, and a final reviewable character sheet — without ever leaving a single browser tab.                                                              The tool offers three ways to set characteristics. Players who want the classic experience can have the site roll 2D × 6 into a pool and assign each value to whichever stat they like. Players who prefer their own physical dice can enter results manually; the site still tracks every DM, target, success/failure, and aging effect. Players who'd rather skip randomness entirely can use the included point-buy method (42-point budget, 2..12 per stat). PSI is rolled separately when psionics are enabled, and the Psion career unlocks accordingly.  /images/general-media/1778159165_rhvJ8xSn.png The character-creation rules are implemented as a typed effects engine — TypeScript discriminated unions with exhaustive switching — so every rule lives in one place and can be tested in isolation. The project ships with around 360 automated tests covering qualification, commission, advancement, aging crises, mishaps, life events, connections, the skill cap of 3 × (INT + EDU), pre-career education, and the Mongoose 2022 errata clarifications for Vargr and the Vacc Suit skill. A full audit trail of every rolled die, every applied DM, and every player choice is captured to a roll log that updates in real time. The post-creation sheet is a fully editable Mongoose-style character record. Skills, careers, equipment, weapons, armour, augments, connections, benefits, and free-form notes can all be edited inline; values save automatically to localStorage with cross-tab synchronisation, and the sheet is print-friendly (one panel per printed page, ink-friendly styling). Every character in the local library can be exported and re-imported as JSON for backup or for handing off between players.                                                      Two visual themes are included: a light "Little Black Books" look in the spirit of Classic Traveller, and a dark "Imperial" theme — plus a System mode that follows the operating system's light/dark preference and reacts live when it changes. Theme choice is remembered between sessions.                                                                    Accessibility is treated as a first-class concern. The interface meets WCAG 2.1 AA contrast requirements in both themes (verified by an axe-core audit suite that runs as part of the project's tooling), every interactive element has a visible keyboard focus indicator, icon-only buttons carry ARIA labels, and the layout includes a skip-to-content link for screen-reader users.            /images/general-media/1778159170_sbkOfhno.png Other features include undo across the wizard (rewinds to the relevant picker after popping a character snapshot), URL-based debug logging (?debug=1), the Connections rule for shared PC backgrounds, an aging-crisis path with medical-debt accumulation, and an honest "unofficial fan tool" disclaimer in every place it matters.                            The project is open-source under the MIT License, runs entirely client-side with no backend and no account requirement, and uses privacy-friendly analytics (no cookies). Bug reports, rules questions, and pull requests are welcome on GitHub. Links bytesbynelson.github.io - Live tool github.com - Source code github.com - Issue tracker / feedback