Tabletop Roleplaying Games

Novissa Spola is a tabletop tactical RPG being developed for VR, mixed reality, and PC. Inspired by classic tactical RPGs and the physical experience of playing around a tabletop, Novissa Spola combines strategic turn-based combat, character building, exploration, and a fantasy campaign designed to be played solo or with friends. The game is currently in development, but a playable demo is already available. The demo gives you a chance to experience the tabletop-style gameplay and tactical combat that form the foundation of Novissa Spola. Visit the official website www.honestcabbage.com to play the demo, view the trailer, and stay up to date on development. Development is ongoing, with the full game planned to expand the campaign, characters, world, combat systems, and cooperative experience.

Get your table playing in minutes, not hours.   GATEWAY RPG is a free, rules-lite d20 system built for zero-prep adventures, sudden one-shots, and seamless intro sessions. Familiar 5E-style mechanics with all the bloat stripped out, so you can run any genre instantly: neon-soaked cyberpunk streets, grit-filled noir alleys, high fantasy, cosmic horror, and everything in between. The Definitive Edition is now the main book. This is the complete, current version of GATEWAY RPG: updated core rules, solo play, a starter bestiary, and homebrew variants, character sheets all combined into one source. New artwork, professional layout, and everything players and GMs need in a single 132 page PDF. Want the history? Every older version of the rulebook, spanning 2017 to 2026, is bundled in the Legacy Zip below for collectors and the curious. Download the complete PDF bundle. AI Disclosure: This Enhanced Edition of Gateway RPG features some AI-generated artwork and layout assistance. The rules were still hand written by me and human proofread/playtested since 2017. As a one-man passion project with $0 budget, and $0 revenue gain from this game, this edition utilizes AI imagery only to provide a visually richer and cohesive experience while keeping the game entirely FREE. The original Classic Edition from 2017, featuring human-created artwork, is included as a bonus in the download files. However, if you are only looking for a gaming experience completely free of AI-generated assets, the standalone Classic Edition can be found exclusively on its own dedicated product page at https://gatewayrpg.itch.io/gateway-rpg-classic-edition. What’s Inside? Definitive Edition (Main Book): The complete game in one volume. Updated rules, solo play engine, starter bestiary, and homebrew variants. Legacy Zipfile (2017-2026): Every prior version of the rulebook, character sheet, supplement preserved as released. For archivists, returning players, and anyone who wants to see how the game evolved. Core Rules: The streamlined engine for players and Game Masters, in both English and Spanish (Reglas en Español). Character Sheets: Multiple Printable and Form Fillable Character Sheets Ready-to-Play Content: Pregenerated characters and one-shot adventure modules spanning multiple genres. Jump straight into the action. Player's Toolkit: Printable and form-fillable character sheets, a one-page quick reference guide, and the d20 Oracle for solo play. Starter Bestiary: 25 adversaries across 11 settings, from High Fantasy to Space Opera to Lovecraftian Horror. Homebrew Variants: Over 20 pages of optional mechanics, including Spark of Heroism (Inspiration), Pushing for Success (partial success), and genre modifiers for Survival and Cosmic Horror. Pocket Character Sheets: Compact sheets designed for portability. Solo Play Quickstart Zine: A portable, zine-style guide for on-the-go solo adventures. NEW: Android Player Companion App Character Builder: Create custom characters or select from 30 curated pre-mades. Pocket Rules: Quickly search core mechanics and references on the fly. Sheet-Integrated Dice: Roll checks directly from your sheet. Solo Engine: Built-in oracle for quick, on-the-go solo adventures. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aistudio.gatewayrpg.app Designer's Note: GATEWAY RPG grew out of a personal passion for tabletop gaming. Back in 2015, I discovered S. John Ross’s classic 1993 game, Risus: The Anything RPG. It was free, modular, ultra-flexible, and simple to pick up, but as I played more TTRPG's like DND5e, I missed the iconic d20 and the drama of critical hits and misses. I created GATEWAY RPG to capture that same beginner-friendly spirit while bringing back the thrill of the twenty-sided die and being able to use it for any setting. Whether you are running quick one-shots, playing standalone adventures, diving into solo sessions, or modularly introducing advanced rules as your group learns, GATEWAY adapts seamlessly to your table. GATEWAY RPG and Aurican's Lair are a Not-For-Profit Tabletop Roleplaying Game publisher.

When Sky and Sea Were Not Named (WSSWNN for short) is a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game. To play, you'll need a set of gaming dice, your imagination, and a few friends. One player, the Guide, narrates the story and sets up challenges for the rest of the group. The other players take on the roles of heroes who set forth upon doomed floating islands, rescue people from their fates, and rebuild civilization. A game of When Sky and Sea Were Not Named might be limited to a single island that players explore in a few hours. Or it can be a sprawling adventure spread out over months of play, with heroes steadily gaining more powerful abilities and technology. Beyond action scenes and combat, WSSWNN is about your heroic characters and their journeys together. You can learn new lore from other characters—perhaps allies you've rescued, or even foes you've graced with mercy. You can invoke your hero's ideals in dramatic moments, potentially turning failure or struggle into success.

Thirsty sword lesbians battle a tyrannical ruler when her enforcers march down from the frosty north. They rocket through the stars to safeguard diplomats ending a generations-old conflict. They sip tea together and share shy glances at the corner cafe, until they need to take up their swords to defend their community. Even in conflict, they seek peace with their opponents—and sometimes connect more deeply than anyone expects. Your thirsty sword lesbians may be fantasy heroes, or may inhabit a galaxy of laser swords and starships. Anywhere that swords cross and hearts race, thirsty sword lesbians are there. A sword duel can end in kissing, a witch can gain her power by helping others find love, and an entire campaign can be built around wandering matchmakers flying from planet to planet. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a roleplaying game for telling queer stories with friends.

Invincible - Superhero Roleplaying is a tabletop RPG based on Robert Kirkman, Cory Walker, and Ryan Ottley's Invincible comic and its Prime Video animated adaptation, designed by Adam Bradford (founder of D&D Beyond) and Tomas Härenstam (Free League co-founder and lead designer of the ALIEN RPG), and published by Free League Publishing in partnership with Skybound Entertainment.  Announced in February 2025, it was funded through a Kickstarter that raised over $400,000, with a Core Rulebook and Starter Set illustrated by original series artists Cory Walker and Ryan Ottley and graphic design by Johan Nohr of Mörk Borg fame. It runs on an adaptation of Free League's Year Zero Engine, streamlined down to nothing but six-sided dice. Description Playing Invincible means stepping into the franchise's own particular flavor of superheroics: cityscape brawls, sidekicks, team-ups, alien invasions, and witty banter, all delivered without the usual plot armor. Violence is graphic and injuries genuinely last, with death often permanent unless a character has the specific power to avoid it, which keeps the stakes tense rather than routine.  Mechanically and tonally, the game leans hard into the comic's central tension - ordinary teenage life, school, and relationships colliding with a level of power handed down from, and sometimes fought against, a parent - rather than playing superheroics as a straightforward power fantasy.

Outgunned is a cinematic action tabletop roleplaying game about heroes in the style of 1980s and 1990s action movies, designed by Riccardo Sirignano and Simone Formicola of the Italian studio Two Little Mice, with illustrations by Daniela Giubellini.  It was funded on Kickstarter in May 2023, reaching its goal within five minutes, and won two Silver ENNIE Awards in 2024 for Best Game and Product of the Year. It was originally published in Italian and English by Two Little Mice, and since December 2024 Free League Publishing has published it worldwide under its Free League Workshop label, which covers games it did not develop in-house. The line has grown through the standalone Outgunned Superheroes and the pulp spin-off Outgunned Adventure, all built on the same dice-pool system and compatible with one another. It is a loose evolution of the matching-dice system of Broken Compass, Two Little Mice's earlier game. Description Players take on Heroes, each combining a Role (such as Commando, Spy or Nobody) with a Trope, a behavioral archetype such as Diehard or Cheater.  The Game Master is called the Director, and a story is framed as a season of an action series. Missions run as heists, chases, brawls and showdowns with a villain, and the game's own advice for the Director is "tools, not rules". The game wants a table that enjoys big set pieces and dramatic failures. Heroes are tough, but they run on a finite supply of energy, and when it runs out the rules push the table towards a near-death moment rather than a quiet exit.

13th Age is a heroic fantasy tabletop roleplaying game built on the d20 rules tradition, published by Pelgrane Press. The first edition was released in August 2013 and designed by Rob Heinsoo, lead designer of Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition, and Jonathan Tweet, lead designer of Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition. It won the 2014 Silver ENnie Award for Best Rules. The Second Edition, funded on Kickstarter in May 2024 and released in 2025, splits the core rules into a Heroes' Handbook and a Gamemaster's Guide, reworks the nine core classes, monsters and magic items, and is designed to stay fully compatible with first edition books. The system is heavily inspired by Dungeons & Dragons 3.5, with several ideas borrowed from 4th Edition. Description Players take on heroes tied to the Icons, thirteen archetypal figures of power in a default setting that is meant to be reshaped at the table. The Game Master (GM) runs a story in which the characters' backgrounds and personal ties to the Icons drive the plot as much as the monsters do. Play favors big fights and big gestures over careful dungeon bookkeeping. The game asks a table to be loose with the setting. Players write their own history and invent a trait that has no rules attached, and the GM is expected to fold those into the story. It suits groups who like crunchy d20 combat but would rather invent than look things up.

7th Sea is a swashbuckling fantasy tabletop roleplaying game of piracy, duels and intrigue in the world of Théah, created by Jennifer Wick and John Wick, with Kevin Wilson co-writing, and published by Alderac Entertainment Group (AEG) in April 1999. It won the Origins Award for Best Roleplaying Game of 1999, presented in 2000, and was fairly well received. The game originally used a d10 roll-and-keep system, in which players roll a pool of ten-sided dice (d10) and keep only some of them. It also inspired a collectible card game that was discontinued in 2005. In 2004 AEG moved the line to the d20 System and renamed it Swashbuckling Adventures, a change many fans of the original rules disliked. Later books supported both systems. The first edition later went out of print, and volunteer writers have since released e-books and adventures for it. Chaosium acquired 7th Sea and its rights in 2019. The second edition of the game was released in 2016 as 7th Sea Second Edition, a new system from John Wick Presents. Description Players take on heroes in Théah, a fantasy version of 17th-century Europe whose nations are exaggerated versions of real kingdoms. The setting draws on 1600s European literature, with sorcery playing a major role and a dominant religion that resembles gnostic Christianity, complete with a parallel to the Spanish Inquisition. The Game Master (GM) runs adventures of sea voyages, court intrigue and sword fights. The game asks a table to embrace the swashbuckling genre and the era's romance, and to tolerate a 1990s rulebook that is now out of print. Anyone picking it up should check which system a given book is written for, since AEG published for both the original roll-and-keep rules and the d20 System.

A Monster's Tail is a monster-catching tabletop roleplaying game about young trainers and the creatures they travel with, published by Five Points Games, a small studio based in Mesa, Arizona. It is a Powered by the Apocalypse game, inspired by video games such as Pokémon, Digimon, Dragon Warrior Monsters and Jade Cocoon. It was funded on Kickstarter between February 20 and March 21, 2024, raising $13,577 against a $10,000 goal from 201 backers. The system is heavily inspired by Apocalypse World, the game that created the Powered by the Apocalypse family. Description Players take on trainers in Hayle, a region of travel, exploration and coexistence between humans and Genmon, the monsters at the heart of the game. The Game Master (GM) runs rival trainers with competing dreams and the wild places between towns. There is no fixed goal, and the theme is coming of age: players are expected to return home changed. The game is built around dilemmas rather than plots, and one of its guiding principles is "Create Interesting Dilemmas, not Interesting Plots." It suits a table that wants a light, story-led game and is comfortable inventing monsters on the fly.

Achtung! Cthulhu is a pulpy World War II horror tabletop roleplaying game in which Allied and resistance agents fight a secret war against Nazi occultists and the Cthulhu Mythos. It was created by Chris Birch and published by Modiphius Entertainment, which launched the setting in 2012 as an adventure series for Call of Cthulhu, with versions for other systems announced. The 2d20 edition, with rules designed by Nathan Dowdell, launched on March 9, 2021, as a standalone game with a Player's Guide and a Gamemaster's Guide. The 2d20 edition replaced the earlier versions of Achtung! Cthulhu, which were written for other systems, and uses the same 2d20 system as Dune: Adventures in the Imperium. Description Players take on soldiers, spies and resistance fighters in a war where the real enemy is behind the enemy. Campaigns run from 1939 to a confrontation in Antarctica in 1946, with scenarios in places such as occupied Czechoslovakia and Dunkirk. The Gamemaster (GM) runs the war, the Black Sun cultists and the creatures they command, including undead, Deep Ones and a Shoggoth. The tone leans towards action rather than dread. The supernatural is a threat to be overcome, at least for a while, which sets it apart from the more fatalistic horror of Call of Cthulhu. The game asks for a table that wants a combat-heavy war story with a thin layer of cosmic horror.

Dungeons & Dragons (D&D) is the original fantasy tabletop roleplaying game, designed by Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson and published by Tactical Studies Rules (TSR) in 1974 as a small boxed set of three booklets. It grew out of Arneson's Blackmoor game, a medieval variation on Dave Wesely's Braunstein wargames played with individual characters instead of armies, which he showed to Gygax. The two developed it as "The Fantasy Game", and Gygax did the final writing. The set was produced on a budget of $2,000, with $100 for artwork, and it was amateurish in production, assuming that players already knew wargaming. About 1,000 copies sold in its first year and about 3,000 in 1975. The set stayed in print until 1979, and it is often called Original D&D (OD&D). The system directly evolved from Chainmail, the miniatures wargame whose rules it used for combat. In 1977 TSR split the line into the lighter Basic set and the more structured Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition (1977), which was later followed by Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition (1989). Description Players each take on a single adventurer, a fighting-man, magic-user or cleric, and explore dungeons and wilderness. One player takes the role of the Dungeon Master (DM), the referee and storyteller who runs the setting and non-player characters and decides outcomes using the rules and their own interpretation. The three booklets are Men & Magic (36 pages), Monsters & Treasure (40 pages) and The Underworld & Wilderness Adventures (36 pages). The game asks a table to fill in a lot of gaps. It assumes that players know miniatures wargaming, and its wargaming roots show in the attitude that players are not very attached to their characters. Character creation is fast, death is common and replacements join the party, so it suits groups who enjoy improvising rulings more than reading rules.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (AD&D) is a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game of dungeon delving and heroic adventure, designed by Gary Gygax and published by TSR. TSR released a Basic Set in early 1977 to bring the game to a wider public, then published the first part of AD&D later that year as a tighter, more structured game for hobbyist players. The three core hardcovers followed between 1977 and 1979: the Monster Manual (1977), the Player's Handbook (1978) and the Dungeon Master's Guide (1979). Unearthed Arcana (1985) added many new rules. The two lines, Basic and Advanced, were developed separately and often contradicted each other. The system directly evolved from the original Dungeons & Dragons (1974). A second edition, Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition, was designed mainly by David "Zeb" Cook and released by TSR in 1989. After Wizards of the Coast bought TSR in 1997, its Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition (2000) merged the Basic and Advanced lines and dropped "Advanced" from the title. Description Players take on adventurers, usually fighters, clerics, magic-users and thieves, who explore dungeons, wilderness and ruins for treasure and glory. The referee is called the Dungeon Master (DM), and the rules are split into player and referee books so that the DM is needed to run a game. The Dungeon Master's Guide covers running campaigns, combat and magic items, with tables for treasure and random encounters. The game asks a table to accept a lot of tables and a high level of lethality. It is a 1970s rule set, written for referees who adjudicate and improvise, and it is not an easy introduction. Many tables run it today because they want exactly that.

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition (AD&D 2E) is a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game of heroic adventure, published by TSR in 1989 and designed mainly by David "Zeb" Cook. Work began in 1987 with a small TSR team led by Cook, and Steve Winter and Cook redeveloped the edition after Gary Gygax, who wrote the first edition, left TSR in 1985. The Player's Handbook and Dungeon Master's Guide sold over 400,000 copies in their first year, though lifetime sales fell short of the first edition, and the Dungeon Master's Guide won Origins and Gamer's Choice awards. TSR re-released the core books in 1995 with new covers, art and layouts, and the line was succeeded by Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition in 2000, which was revised into Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. The system directly evolved from Advanced Dungeons & Dragons First Edition (1977). It was designed to work with first edition rules, but its information was streamlined and clarified. Description Players take on adventurers drawn from a set of races and classes, and the Dungeon Master (DM) runs dungeons, wilderness and, in later years, whole settings. The edition shifted the game's feel from 1960s and 1970s sword and sorcery to medieval history and mythology, and it stressed heroic roleplaying and teamwork. Demons and devils were removed by name and renamed tanar'ri and baatezu. The second edition grew far beyond a single fantasy world. TSR added settings such as Ravenloft (horror), Spelljammer (science fiction) and Dark Sun (apocalyptic), each with its own rules supplements. The game asks a table to keep a few tables and a fair amount of arithmetic, and the many optional rules mean the DM should decide what is in play at the start of a campaign.

Dungeons & Dragons 3rd Edition (D&D 3E) is a fantasy tabletop roleplaying game of dungeon delving and heroic adventure, published by Wizards of the Coast in 2000. It was the first edition the company released entirely itself, and the Player's Handbook went on sale on August 10, 2000, with its debut at Gen Con that month. Monte Cook, Jonathan Tweet and Skip Williams all contributed to the Player's Handbook, Dungeon Master's Guide and Monster Manual, and each then wrote one of the three books, with Tweet credited with the design of the Player's Handbook. The designers set out to simplify and declutter the whole system. "Advanced" was dropped from the title because the Basic game had been discontinued and the simpler name was more marketable, but it was still called the third edition. The system directly replaced Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Second Edition (1989). It was revised in 2003 as Dungeons & Dragons v.3.5, a deliberately small update. Description Players take on adventurers built from a race and a class, and the Dungeon Master (DM) runs dungeons, monsters and campaigns. The edition removed many of the old limits: restrictions on class and race combinations, and on level advancement for non-human characters, are gone. Combat expanded to include a grid system that supports tactical play and miniatures. The game asks a table to be comfortable with character building. Skills and feats give players more ways to customize a character than the older edition did, and the options keep growing with each rulebook. Reviewers at the time praised its art and tightly packed rules, and one called it the best combat-oriented roleplaying game available.

The One Ring is a tabletop roleplaying game of journeys and fellowship in J.R.R. Tolkien's Middle-earth, designed by Francesco Nepitello and Marco Maggi. The first edition was published by Cubicle 7 in 2011 and set in Wilderland, the lands around Mirkwood and the Lonely Mountain. Cubicle 7 stopped publishing the game in 2019, and Free League Publishing took over the licence in 2020, announcing a second edition that moved the setting to Eriador. It was funded on Kickstarter, with backer shipments beginning in October 2021 and general retail release on 22 March 2022. The second edition won a 2022 Gold ENnie Award for interior art, and its French edition won the 2024 Graal d'or for Best New Edition. The second edition replaces the first edition published by Cubicle 7, and the two share a core approach to travel, hope and shadow. Description Players take on heroes of the Free Peoples of Middle-earth, such as Hobbits, Dwarves, Elves and Men of the North, who band together as a company. The Game Master is called the Loremaster (LM), and the second edition is set in Eriador roughly twenty years after Bilbo Baggins disappeared from the Shire. Sauron's shadow is growing again, but the world is still mostly quiet, and the game concentrates on the small, hard-won victories of ordinary heroes rather than saving the world. Play alternates between two rhythms. During the Adventuring phase, the company travels, explores, fights and talks its way through the Wild. In the Fellowship phase between adventures, heroes rest, recover, practise skills and pursue personal undertakings. The game asks a table to accept slow, attritional travel in which the road itself wears the company down, and to play characters whose hope can falter. It suits groups who want Tolkien's tone, not Tolkien's powerful wizards and heroes.