The Dusty Stack

Twilight: 2000, by Free League Publishing

Kalisz. We’re still only in Kalisz. We need to get out of here. Fast. The artillery barrages are getting closer. The Soviets will be here soon. Sarge says we move out after dark. I’m not sure we’ll last that long.

A classic roleplaying game returns. This new retro-apocalyptic edition of Twilight: 2000 goes back to the roots of the franchise with open-world roleplaying in the devastation of World War III. Just like the original 1984 edition, this new game is set in a year 2000 devastated by war – now in an alternate timeline where the Soviet Union never collapsed.

Twilight: 2000 is a roleplaying game about survival in mankind’s most desperate hour. Yet, in this bleak world, there is still hope. In the midst of utter destruction, you can start to build something new. Rally people to your ranks. Stake a claim and protect it. And maybe, if you live long enough, start turning the tide. This core set includes:

• A 152-page Player’s Manual, including rules for character generation, skills, specialties, combat, base building, and travel.
• A 112-page Referee’s Manual, describing a world at war and including 52 ready-to-play encounters and four complete scenario sites.
• A huge double-sided full-color hexagon travel map.
• 16 modular battle maps, designed to create an endless variety of battlefields.
• Four battle maps for specific scenario sites.
• 108 cardboard tokens for fighters, vehicles, conditions, and more.
• 52 encounter cards.
• 10 initiative cards.
• Blank character sheets, both color and printer friendly (English and Swedish).

Get Twilight: 2000 From DTRPG

Get Twilight: 2000 From Amazon

Scarlet Heroes, by Sine Nomine Publishing

The crimson mist churns a hundred miles from shore, red with the blood of a butchered world. Here in the Sunset Isles the last fragments of humanity struggle to withstand the fury of the native Shou and the corruption within their own divided ranks. Hard-eyed men and women brood in the waterfront dives and shabby tea houses, selling their swords for a few bright coins or the promise of a dead man's treasures. In the wilderness, the lost cities of vanished empires and fallen races lie deep within the jungle shroud, and the desperate efforts of colonists and refugees strain to contain the horrors that threaten on every side.

It is a time for legends. It is a time for fearless warriors and eldritch adepts to rise from this hard-pressed people and defend them from the nightmare that threatens to engulf them all. The wealth of ages awaits those steely souls with the courage to cast down the guardians and break the vaults of the festering dead. A new world struggles to be born from the red ruin of the old. It is in need of scarlet heroes.

Scarlet Heroes is an old-school tabletop role-playing game designed to provide classic sword and sorcery gaming for one player and one gamemaster. Unlike most other RPGs, Scarlet Heroes is built to support one-on-one play, with no need for a full-fledged party of adventurers to provide an evening's entertainment. Whether for a spouse, kid, curious friend, or just as an alternative to boardgames for those nights when only one or two friends can make it to the gaming session, Scarlet Heroes gives you the tools for good old-fashioned skull-cracking adventure.

Scarlet Heroes can be used both as a stand-alone RPG and as an overlay over your favorite old-school game to make its adventures playable for single PCs or very small groups. It shares the same classic statistics and basic game mechanisms as these old-school favorites, but by changing the interpretation of these numbers it makes it possible for a single courageous adventurer to dare perils that would otherwise threaten a half-dozen freebooters. With Scarlet Heroes, a GM can pull out a favorite module, grab a convenient friend, and a have a full night's adventure with no tweaking, alteration, or adjustment of the material needed.

Inside the pages of this book, you'll find...

• A full stand-alone RPG system that can also be used as an overlay atop most popular old-school games.
• The Red Tide campaign setting as a default for the game, with a full bestiary of Southeast Asian-inspired monsters, suitable new magic items, and a full list of new cleric and magic-user spells for that setting.
• Sixty new adventure tags of the sort beloved in Stars Without Number and the Red Tide Campaign Setting sourcebook. Mix and match to fashion your own perilous circumstance.
• Solo adventure tools for genuine single-player RPG gaming. Mix your own creativity with table results to create a narrative for your own hero's adventure... or use them as inspiration in crafting something for a group.
• Five crisp new maps by Dyson Logos, unkeyed and ready to be filled by your own creativity.

More than a thousand backers supported the Kickstart that funded the creation of Scarlet Heroes and now the book is available to the wider world. Seize this world of red adventure and be armed against the coming night!

Get Scarlet Heroes From DTRPG

Get Scarlet Heroes From Amazon

Desolation, A Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy, by Greymalkin Designs

High Fantasy Brought Low

The sky turned red, the ground split, the oceans flooded, fire rained down, mythical beasts woke and magic lashed out.

You survived.

Will you seize power amidst the chaos, help rebuild civilization, remap the twisted remains of the world ... or will you even survive another day?

The story is yours to tell.

This book contains everything you need to play, including a complete setting, seven playable races, free-form magic rules and the Ubiquity Roleplaying System, which emphasizes story and streamlined gaming.

Get Desolation From DTRPG

Get Desolation From Amazon

Deadlands: The Weird West, by Pinnacle Entertainment (A Savage Worlds Setting)

Welcome to the Weird, Wild West!

The year is 1884. Folks from all over the world journey to the American frontier in search of opportunity, freedom, and wide-open spaces. But danger awaits. Some say there are more than just wild creatures on those lonely trails. Some say there are monsters, creatures born of the darkest fears given life by some insidious and overwhelming evil. Out here night seems a little darker, the distance between towns a little farther, and something changes the very landscape itself.

Such tough times also create great heroes, rising across the West to fight Evil’s cold grip with a trusty six-gun, sacred tomahawk, holy miracle, or arcane hex.

Think you’ve got what it takes to join them, amigo?

Deadlands is the premier Weird West roleplaying game of action-packed horror. It includes all the Edges, gear, infernal devices, and powers players need to blast the tarnation out of those creepy crawlies. For the Marshal there’s a comprehensive overview of the Weird West, an adventure generator, and enough rascals, varmints, and critters to keep a posse busy ’til doomsday!

Deadlands: The Weird West is a 192-page hardcover book, in our usual “graphic novel” size, and glorious, bloody, full-color throughout.

This book requires the Savage Worlds core rules to play.

Get Deadlands From DTRPG

Get Deadlands From Amazon

Get Savage Worlds From DTRPG

Get Savage Worlds From Amazon

Summerland, Second Edition, by Fire Ruby Designs

Summerland is a game about desolation and redemption in a post-apocalyptic world destroyed by a vast supernatural forest. The game was first published nearly ten years ago, and has since been translated in to French, Catalan and Spanish.

Summary

In Summerland, players take on the roles of Drifters, characters who travel beneath the Sea of Leaves, the vast supernatural forest that has devastated the works of humanity. They are driven to constantly move on due to a past trauma that while protecting them from the Call, the siren-song of the forest, prohibits them from being accepted in to what's left of society. Instead they must confront their past, resolve their trauma and at last join the remainder of humanity. Like my last game Exilium, also funded via Kickstarter and delivered earlier than anticipated, this new version of Summerland uses mechanics specifically to model the process redemption, giving the game a clear 'end-game' linked to actual play.

The original version of the game came out around ten years ago, quickly followed by a revised and expanded edition. I'm now raising funds for a new full colour second edition of Sumerland, with new mechanics based on the Open D6 rules set as used in Exilium, so still rules light, but modified to fit the themes and goals of Summerland.

The Game

Summerland has been out for some time in it's original form with different mechanics to this new version. Check out some reviews at the links below (and bear in mind what's changed in this new edition, listed in the next section)...

DrivethruRPG customers:

'What captivated me about this setting was the mysteries and the connection to nature. It reminded me very much of the books of Robert Holdstock, where a huge forest places an important role as well. There is something strange here that I hope to one day explore! The cover art is amazing!

Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!]'

'The premise is both intriguing and deceptively simple: a primeval forest has overtaken the world overnight, destroying civilization in one fell swoop. Why and how? That's up to the narrator to decide--or to leave as a mystery. It's an evocative, open-ended setting with unlimited possibilities and designed with an eye to letting the players and narrator create a very personal, collaborative story. Personally, it's just the thing I was looking for. I can't wait to play it.

Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!]'

Since it's release, Summerland has been translated into French, Catalan and Spanish.

What's Changed?

The core of the game is identical, the setting material and 'Fallen leaves' the sandbox campaign, are all as before. There are two main changes...

• Full colour layout, featuring art from the talented Tithi Luadthong. The original game was black and white with treated photos. This version will be packed full of wonderful and evocative art like below in both one page and double page spreads. The game will also feature the beautiful original cover by Paul Bourne of Cubicle 7, modified for the new edition.

• New Open D6 engine. The original game had a short, very narrative rule set, which these days has proven to be insufficiently robust in play. So it's been replaced by the Open D6 rules based on MiniSix from Anti-Paladin games that I used with my other game Exilium. The rules for resolving traumas and stress are the same however, as they riff off of die results from actions.

Open D6

The Open D6 game system is extremely versatile, and can be implemented in various degrees of detail for games that are light to heavy in style. Summerland is definitely rules light, but that doesn't mean you couldn't bolt on things you like from the free to download Open D6 rule books. It's a great, simple versatile system, so that's why I use it in my games.

Get Summerland From DTRPG

Get Summerland From Amazon

Trudvang Chronicles, by RiotMinds

Player's Handbook

The Player’s Handbook for Trudvang Chronicles includes the rules and inspiration for players to create and play with their characters in the Trudvang universe. The book is the essential reference for all players and contain rules for character creation, skills, holy powers, magic and much more.

Players Handbook is the book dedicated for the players including the following chapters:

• Creating a character
• Skills, Disciplines and Specialities
• Improvement
• Magic and spells (weavers of Vitner)
• Priests and holy powers (Dimwalkers)

Shapeshifters, dimwalkers and blótkings, draw your sword, weave your magic, and call upon the mighty gods of thunder and death! Step into the truly unique fantasy world of Trudvang, based on the Norse and Celtic myths and sagas. Beowulf, the epic poetry Kalevala and the fantastic art of the Scandinavian artist John Bauer are our inspirations for building this game.

Trudvang Chronicles is an award-winning fantasy roleplaying game based on the mysterious and dark Nordic and Celtic sagas and myths. Enter a world of enchanted forests, trolls, dragons, spirits of nature, heroes and adventures. Trudvang is both grim and dark, epic and yet down to earth, with a melancholic tone of an ancient age when nature was a living creature and magic was wild and strong. Above all, Trudvang is a saga…

Trudvang Chronicles was voted the Most Anticipated RPG of 2017 by ENWorld Readers.

Get Trudvang Chronicles PHB From DTRPG

Get Trudvang Chronicles PHB From Amazon

Get Trudvang Chronicles GMG From DTRPG

Get Trudvang Chronicles GMG From Amazon

Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of, by Modiphius

WELCOME TO THE HYBORIAN AGE!

KNOW, O PRINCE, THAT BETWEEN THE YEARS WHEN THE OCEANS DRANK ATLANTIS AND THE GLEAMING CITIES, AND THE YEARS OF THE RISE OF THE SONS OF ARYAS, THERE WAS AN AGE UNDREAMED OF, WHEN SHINING KINGDOMS LAY SPREAD ACROSS THE WORLD LIKE BLUE MANTLES BENEATH THE STARS...

Robert E. Howard’s Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed Of takes you into the world of Conan the Barbarian, where heroes raise blood-spattered swords against dire sorcery, exotic lands beckon to the daring, danger and treasure lurks in forgotten ruins, and where loathsome creatures haunt the spaces beneath the earth… as well as in the throne-rooms of mighty kingdoms!

Seek your fortune in forbidden tombs or upon blood-soaked battlefields. Cast dark and terrible spells of unimaginable power, at the price of your soul. Sail upon untamed seas to lands where no human in living memory has walked. Fight for the fate of civilization — or barbarism — on a savage frontier!

• Create your own legend in this decadent and violent world.
• Complete 2d20 game system, including combat, skills, talents, sorcery, and equipment suitable for adventuring in the age before history.
• An extensive gazetteer covering the whole of Conan’s world: featuring fair Aquilonia, gloomy Cimmeria, magic-haunted Stygia, all the way to the far-off steaming jungles of Khitai.
• Extensive guidelines for running scenarios and campaigns in the Hyborian Age, allowing gamemasters to create suitably Howardian adventures.
• Fearsome foes, ranging from bandits to sorcerers, apes to giant serpents, Children of Set to frost giants, forest devils, and characters of renown such as Conan or his most deadly foe, Thoth-Amon.
• Art a team of iconic Conan artists, including Tim Truman, Simon Bisley, Esteban Sanjulian, Maroto, Mark Schultz, Tomás Giorello, and more.
• Developed in close consultation with award-winning Conan scholars, this is the most authentic depiction of Conan and his world ever published for games.

" I do love this game.  It has an ability to make a cohesive group of players out of any group (herd of cats) in my opinion.  The feel of this game is brilliant.  The system is smooth, the book is beautiful and the subject is compelling.  I like this game so much that I am even considering purchasing the Conan Official d20’s and d6’s.  I use poker chips of different colours for tokens but I want everything in hard-copy and official. In my opinion this is probably the best fantasy(ish) RPG on the market today." RPG Knights Review

"If you really want the freedom to explore Howard's world on your own, you should pick up Modiphius' Conan: Adventures in an Age Undreamed. It is a true labor of love, filled with quotes from Conan stories and explanations of how the mechanics are meant to embody the spirit of the Howard’s world." Polygon Review

Get Conan From DTRPG

Get Conan From Amazon

MÖRK BORG, by Free League Publishing

A doom metal album of a game. A spiked flail to the face. Light on rules, heavy everything else.

MÖRK BORG is a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and fools seeking redemption, forgiveness or the last remaining riches in a bleak and dying world. Who are you? The tomb-robber with silver glittering between cracked fingernails? The mystic who would bend the world’s heart away from it’s inevitable end? Confront power-draining necromancers, skulking skeletal warriors and backstabbing wickheads. Wander the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, the catacombs beneath the Bergen Chrypt or the bedevilled Sarkash forest. But leave hope behind - the world’s cruel fate is sealed, and all your vain heroic efforts are destined to end in death and dismay. Or are they?

MÖRK BORG is a complete game in the OSR genre, that can be played as is or be picked apart for use in your own homebrew. The rules are easily made compatible with most of the editions of the world’s largest role-playing game. Within the book you’ll find:

• A brief look at this dying world. From The Two-Headed Basilisks’ gothic cathedral in Galgenbeck and Blood-countess Anthelia’s limestone palace, to the fields of death in Graven-Tosk and the barren wastes of Kergüs.
• The Calendar of Nechrubel, that decides the speed of the world’s demise.
• 20 occult Powers that let you bend reality, and just as many magical catastrophes for when you disastrously fail.
• Optional rules which brings more depth to the game. Omens let you turn bad luck into a slightly better one. Classes with unique traits and quirks, and tables that will bring life into your character.
• 12 creatures to be murdered by.
• Game master tools such as tables for corpse plundering, occult treasure, adventure sparks, dungeon generating and other devilry.
• The introductory dungeon crawl scenario Rotblack Sludge, where you investigate a forgotten part of the Shadow King’s enormous ruin palace. Cannibal warlocks, poison peddlers from beyond the void and hungry gutworms await.

MÖRK BORG is constructed by Pelle Nilsson (Ockult Örtmästare Games) and Johan Nohr (Stockholm Kartell). The game is published by Free League Publishing and is available in Swedish and English - the English text is edited and cursed by Patrick Stuart (Veins of the Earth, Silent Titans).

Get MÖRK BORG From DTRPG

Get MÖRK BORG From Amazon

Outbreak: Undead, Second Edition, by Hunters Entertainment

THE NEXT CHAPTER to the AWARD WINNING Zombie Survival Simulation RPG!

Outbreak: Undead.. is the ENnie award-winning RPG that first premiered at GenCon 2010 as the very first Zombie Survival Simulation RPG. The game debuted to a wide audience gaining popularity with both Role Players as well as the Zombie/Survivalist community, obtaining a 'PLATINUM SELLER' status on DTRPG.

Over 7 years ago we told people YOUR ZOMBIE SURVIVAL PLAN WILL FAIL, and asked you to PROVE US WRONG. Many of you did, but CAN YOU SURVIVE the next stage?

Outbreak: Undead.. is Survival Horror simulation-based RPG, focusing on practical experience - and scarcity of resources rather than sensationalist hero fulfillment. The game asks you not ‘IF’ you are going to die, but ‘WHEN’.

What do we mean by 'Survival Simulation RPG'?

Outbreak: Undead is a sandbox system, with no real 'pre-established world building or lore' - players can create highly adaptable mission frameworks. Allowing for any kind of Survival Horror Apocalypse (slow, fast, sentient, biologically alive), in any kind of environment(urban, arctic, jungle, swampland), and take place in any kind of setting (divergent history, modern day, near future, fandom worlds) you can imagine.

Whats New?  

The first edition had a lot of great elements baked into its design. But it also fell short in some respects. So with 2nd Edition, our focus is to:

• Expand in DETAIL the rules of the game in both a Survivors Guide for Players, as well as a Game Masters Guide for the aspiring GM.
• Earn SURVIVAL POINTS as players, while generating RISK that the GM's have access to create unbiased obstacles.
• Provide example scenarios in the form of our STRAIN SERIES.
• Make OPPONENTS that are the perfect fit for your players worst nightmares.
• Play the game at a level of REALISM that is most intriguing to your group.
• Use players GESTALT (practical experience) to zero in on what makes players special.
• Run group TACTICS, and wisely use COMPETENCE POINTS to give you the best odds at survival.
• Continue to expand on our proprietary SPEW-AI (Strength, Perception, Empathy, WIll - Assessment Inventory, an online 30 Q personality test), so you can play YOURSELF as a character with confidence

Like all trends, zombies come and go through our collective consciousness as excellent titles by talented people are drowned out by the wave of product just trying to capitalize on the trend.

Outbreak: Undead.. wants to focus on the PASSION of the STORY, as the best horror stories aren't about ZOMBIES, but instead SURVIVING A WORLD where we are no longer IN CONTROL.

Outbreak: Undead isn't just about fighting the Zombies/Infected - it's about: 

• Scarcity of Resources
• Opposition of Nature and Man
• Stories of Individual Struggles peppered with Hope

It's about surviving in a world where THE ODDS ARE AGAINST YOU.

So in Outbreak: Undead.. you will be TELLING YOUR STORY of success and failure using resources generated by your practical skills. Degrees of Success and Degrees of Failure will either generate ACTIONS in combat, or LABOR in survival situations.

Levels of Realism:

While Outbreak: Undead.. is very much a test of wills, and the odds are often stacked against you - we understand it's still a game. So in 2nd Edition, we've broken the rulebook into THREE LEVELS OF CRUNCH.

The GREEN HIGHLIGHTS in the book will give you the basics of the system. While YELLOW will give you additional rules for realism. RED is for the players who are looking for a truly brutal survival experience.

Every level of difficulty allows you to integrate it into the others. So you could have a table with GREEN HORNS, TESTED INDIVIDUALS, and TRUE SURVIVALISTS all at the same time!

Strongholds: Live Together Or Die Alone

One of the unique features of Outbreak: Undead.. is the use of Strongholds and the foundation for your survival adventure. Strongholds allow players to make their games more than just a run-hack-n-slash affair, exploring interpersonal relationships and understanding what makes a society tick.

Beyond just finding safety in numbers, characters will have the opportunity to establish governmental bodies in order to manage and direct the communities they form, develop a working economic system that makes use of supply and demand, and establish a variety of relations with other groups that may also be out there in the apocalypse.

Get Outbreak: Undead From DTRPG

Get Outbreak: Undead From Amazon

Abney Park's Airship Pirates, by Cakebread & Walton

Someone screwed the timeline up

It's 2150, and the Earth's starting to get over the Great Apocalypse of 1906. From the steampunk sky-cities of Isla Aether and High Tortuga, airship pirates ply the clouds, in search of excitement and booty, kept in check only by the might of the Imperial Air Navy.

Down below, North America is a wilderness, its beast-haunted wastelands criss-crossed by the tracks of the freedom-loving Neobedouins and the armoured railroads that connect the Emperor's widely scattered domains.

In the walled, smog-shrouded cities, people huddle in forced Victorian squalor, lorded over by the upper classes, while the Emperor's clockwork policemen patrol the streets and the ultimate threat of the Change Cage hangs over those who would rebel.

You've got yourself an airship. You've got yourself a crew. You've got yourself one of Doctor Calgori's fancy chronominautilus devices. All you need now is a good swig of rum (trust us, you'll need it), and you're ready to set sail on the winds of time and plunder history itself!

Who knows, maybe you can screw up the timeline some more?

With a crew of drunken pilots

We're the only airship pirates

We're full of hot air and we're starting to rise

We're the terror of the skies but a danger to ourselves

From the music of renowned steampunk band Abney Park

From the true (honest!) tales of Captain Robert of the airship Ophelia

From the creators of the Clockwork & Chivalry and Victoriana RPGs comes the ultimate steampunk role-playing experience... Airship Pirates!

Get Abney Park's Airship Pirates From DTRPG

Get Abney Park's Airship Pirates From Amazon

Shattered City, by UFO Press

A FRAGMENTED LAND THRUMS WITH GEOMANTIC POWER. 

HUNGRY EMPIRES PAINT NEW BORDERS WITH THE BLOOD OF THEIR CITIZENS. 

REBELS IN A TWICE-CONQUERED CITY DREAM OF FREEDOM.

Shattered City is a roleplaying game about occupation and revolution in a fantasy world ravaged by war. Together you’ll build a city and sketch out its wonders and scars. You’ll take the reins of factions working to bring freedom to this city – or the foreign Guild sent to bring it to heel. You’ll make the heroes of this city: bold warriors, civic leaders, and uncanny mystics. And together you’ll tell the tale of this place’s struggle for freedom.

As flashpoints threaten to set the city ablaze, as you fight to pull down the occupying forces or work within their systems to earn yourself prosperity, as you work with the others to find moments of beauty and hope, what sort of community will you build? And what mysteries will you uncover along the way?

TELL YOUR OWN SAGA

Shattered City matches the faction-scale gameplay of Legacy: Life Among the Ruins with Tabula Games’ bizarre and beautiul Mysthea universe to tell a story of empire and rebellion in a crystal-encrusted land. With dozens of character and faction options, pages filled with beautiful art, and tools to help shape your story as it spans years of time, Shattered City has everything you need to play.

• Make your own faction in the resistance with 9 different House playbooks: Clandestine revolutionaries, city-priests, titan hunters and more.
• Define your occupiers with 5 different Guild playbooks: merchants, nobles, soldiers, priests or scholars enforce their rule in distinct ways.
• Step into the shoes of one of 15 Hero playbooks, and change your playbook over your campaign: from a hardy Toiler to a reliable Sentinel to a respected Veteran.
• Build a web of alliances as you plot your revolution.
• Explore a fantasy world encrusted with crystalline magic.
• Walk the lonesome road of a single hero with the solo play mode.

Get Shattered City From DTRPG

Get Shattered City From Amazon

Forbidden Lands, by Free League Publishing

Round the beggar from Varassa all sat in a ring,

and by the campfire they sat and heard his song.

And about walkers and wolfkin and every terrible thing,

and of his fear he sang to them all night long:

“There is something beyond the mountains, beyond the howls beyond the mist, there is something behind the veils, behind hearts cold as stone.

Hearken, something walks and whispers, walks and lures you in and whimpers:

Come to us, for this earth shall ever be ours and ours alone!”

Forbidden Lands is a new take on classic fantasy roleplaying. In this open-world survival roleplaying game, you’re not heroes sent on missions dictated by others - instead, you are raiders and rogues bent on making your own mark on a cursed world. You will discover lost tombs, fight terrible monsters, wander the wild lands and, if you live long enough, build your own stronghold to defend. Contents:

• Player’s Manual including rules for fast character generation, visceral combat, lethal magic, dangerous journeys and for building your own stronghold - easily be ported to your own favorite game world.
• Gamemaster’s Guide including a rich and detailed description of the Forbidden Lands setting, a large illustrated Bestiary, extensive random encounters, and three complete adventure sites.
• The Legends & Adventurers booklet, letting you flesh out your characters and give them unique backgrounds.
• Full-color map, giving you the freedom to explore the Forbidden Lands any way you want, hex by hex.

From the creators of the award-winning RPGs Tales from the Loop, Coriolis - The Third Horizon and Mutant: Year Zero.

"It's like somone took hazy childhood memories of a classic D&D game and mixed them with a dash of bleak Scandinavian darkness."
–Tabletop Magazine

"Superbly packaged, Forbidden Lands is a pleasing combination of Old School nostalgia and fast, simple mechanics with unobtrusive narrative elements designed to bring aspects of the character into play. Its setting offers scope for the player characters to develop not just personally, but also in terms of their place in the world."
–Reviews from R'lyeh

Get Forbidden Lands From DTRPG

Get Forbidden Lands From Amazon

FLAMES OF FREEDOM Grim & Perilous RPG, by Andrews McMeel Publishing

Polygon.com Recommends: “Flames of Freedom tabletop RPG mixes Hamilton with Stranger Things … one of the best new TRPGs released this year.”

Forbes.com: “Fight The Shadows Of American History With The Flames Of Freedom RPG… For fans of this era of history, or tabletop gamers looking to do something a little different with their next campaign, Flames of Freedom should be on your wish list.”

GeekNative.com: "Overall? You don’t need Zweihander to play Flames of Freedom... The battle against the lurking occult horror and the tangled web of conspiracies that lace North America gets the thumbs up from me … The colonial Americans are fighting for independence from the British Empire... Below that surface war, though, there is another, and it is even darker. The supernatural is real, dangerous, and actively out to destroy or corrupt humanity. It’s this occult battle that is Flames of Freedom’s focus."

Tabletop Gaming Magazine: “Flames of Freedom is a game written with heapings of passion and a dogged kind of dedication that oozes from every page."

It is the dawn of the American Revolutionary War of 1776.

A tangled web of conspiracy spans North America. In the war for survival, it does not matter what your creed, color, culture, or gender is - all stand together. But as the Revolution has begun, something far more mysterious stirs. Agents of the occult entreat both the Continental Army and Red Coats. Freemasons conspire in the City of Brotherly Love. Maryland is in the throes of a witch hunt by the Knights Templar.

Reports of witches have been seen in the Great Dismal Swamp. Indigenous sachem say that devils walk among the living. Flesh-gobbling ghouls have been tunneling beneath Boston. The Pine Barrens of New Jersey is haunted by what the locals call the "Leeds Devil".

In this game, most people have either chosen to deny the supernatural or rationalize it away. A rare few accept it for what it is and act. You are among those heroes, and are destined for greatness . . . or death.

This American Gothic horror game includes most of what you need to play: a player's handbook, a game master's guide, a bestiary, and an introductory adventure with a sandbox campaign set in and around Boston. All that's left are a few friends, pencils, and a handful of dice.

Welcome to FLAMES OF FREEDOM, where your grim & perilous tale hangs in the balance!

Get Flames Of Freedom From DTRPG

Get Flames Of Freedom From Amazon

Delta Green, by Arc Dream Publishing

ENnie Award Winner for 2018: Best Game (silver), Best Production Values (gold), Best Rules (gold), and Product of the Year (silver)!

Born of the U.S. government’s 1928 raid on the degenerate coastal town of Innsmouth, Massachusetts, the covert agency known as Delta Green opposes the forces of darkness with honor but without glory. Delta Green agents fight to save humanity from unnatural horrors—often at a shattering personal cost.

In Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game, the players are those agents. They fight to save human lives and sanity from threats beyond space and time. Delta Green’s percentile-based rules are compatible with 20 years’ worth of Delta Green scenarios and sourcebooks.

Delta Green includes two full-color rulebooks:

The Ennie Award-winning AGENT'S HANDBOOK features rules for creating agents and playing the game.  It includes:

• Rules for creating agents, with dozens of professions from throughout the U.S. government and the civilian world.
• Rules for tense, fluid investigations; players who use their agents' skills in clever ways have the best chance to succeed—and survive.
• Nerve-wracking rules for combat, where random disasters can undo the most careful planning and the human psyche is as vulnerable as the body.
• Mind-melting Sanity rules, which see agents gradually and inevitably deteriorate from too much exposure to trauma—and sometimes snap in an instant from overwhelming terror.
• Rules for “home” scenes where players can see what their agents are fighting for.
• Intuitive rules for equipment and assets, which let you determine on the fly whether something is available without having to plan it out ahead of time.
• Dossiers of the federal agencies most likely to be featured in Delta Green games, focusing on the details players want to know when they play their agents.

The HANDLER'S GUIDE is written for the game moderator who presents the mysteries and horrors of the Cthulhu Mythos. It includes:

• A history of the world of Delta Green from prehuman history to the present day, with campaign tips and scenario seeds on every page.
• Horrifying rituals, unnatural entities, and reality-shattering Great Old Ones.
• Rules for creating new threats to shock and terrify your agents.
• The secretive Delta Green organization in deep and disturbing detail—and the other ruthless conspiracy that claims it is the real Delta Green.
• Guidelines for creating original scenarios and campaigns using the resources in this book.
• “Operation FULMINATE: The Sentinels of Twilight,” a sample scenario, ready to play.

Delta Green: The Role-Playing Game is supported by 20 years of scenarios and sourcebooks, with more to come.

A universe of cosmic terror lurks, just out of sight. Can your agents stand against it?

Get Delta Green From DTRPG

Get Delta Green From Amazon

The Lost Citadel, by Green Ronin Publishing

Seven decades ago, there were cities upon cities, kingdoms and nations. Cultures at war and at trade.Humans, dwarves, elves,and others. So it remained for millennia, through two vibrant ages called ascensions.

Until the world ended. Nations crumbled. Magic sputtered. Nature sickened. Civilizations died.

The dead woke.

THE CITY IS CALLED REDOUBT...

Some say the doors to the Underworld flew from their hinges. Others believe that the god of the dead went mad. Whatever the cause, across the lands of Zileska, the dead have become the Dead. Whether human, elf, dwarf, or monstrous ghûl, all must survive the horror of this world overrun by death, where all that’s left of civilization has gathered behind the walls of the world’s last bastion of the living…

The city of Redoubt.

The Lost Citadel is a transmedia setting that exists simultaneously as gaming, art, fiction, music, and more. The Lost Citadel Roleplaying is Green Ronin’s full-faith effort to bring the world of The Lost Citadel into the newest edition of the world’s most popular roleplaying game. Welcome to a dark fantasy gaming experience unlike any other. Welcome to The Lost Citadel Roleplaying.

...AND IT IS THE LAST

In this setting, you play one of the only remaining souls alive after an undead apocalypse has brought civilization to a dark and bloody end. This beautifully illustrated game book provides everything you’ll need to experience The Lost Citadel through the lens of the world’s most popular roleplaying game.

Inside this book, you’ll find:

• The once-proud history, races, religions, and cultures of the world of Zileska. And how they Fell.
• Detailed coverage of the inner workings, factions, politics, and geographical locations of
  the Last City. Each district comes with its own Adventure Hooks sidebar.
• New classes, feats, items, and rules for use with 5th Edition, including a new sub-system called Woe.
• A host of new undead with which to test your characters’ wits and will. Will they face down the
  horror of a grim aggregate, the terror of a forlorn child, or even the power of a mighty Malevolent, itself?
• A full-color double-sided poster map of Redoubt and its surrounds, courtesy of gifted cartographers Andrew Law and Jared Blando.
• Original fiction by award-winning dark fantasist Elizabeth Hand.

Will you pledge yourself to the noted foresters and venture bravely beyond the safety of the city walls?  Would you risk an outbreak just to improve your
station in a society run entirely by the privileged elite? What mark will you leave on a world that may be spooling out its final hours? The answers lie within.

NOTE: The Fifth Edition core rulesbooks are necessary to use this product.

Get The Lost Citadel From DTRPG

Get The Lost Citadel From Amazon

Night's Black Agents, by Pelgrane Press

Night's Black Agents has been nominated for five ENnie awards for Best Rules, Best Interior Art, Best Rules, Best Writing and Product of the Year.

The Cold War is over. Bush’s War is winding down.

You were a shadowy soldier in those fights, trained to move through the secret world: deniable and deadly.

Then you got out, or you got shut out, or you got burned out. You didn’t come in from the cold. Instead, you found your own entrances into Europe’s clandestine networks of power and crime. You did a few ops, and you asked even fewer questions. Who gave you that job in Prague? Who paid for your silence in that Swiss account? You told yourself it didn’t matter.

It turned out to matter a lot. Because it turned out you were working for vampires.

Vampires exist. What can they do? Who do they own? Where is safe? You don’t know those answers yet. So you’d better start asking questions. You have to trace the bloodsuckers’ operations, penetrate their networks, follow their trail, and target their weak points. Because if you don’t hunt them, they will hunt you. And they will kill you.

Or worse.

Night’s Black Agents brings the GUMSHOE engine to the spy thriller genre, combining the propulsive paranoia of movies like Ronin and The Bourne Identity with supernatural horror straight out of Bram Stoker. Investigation is crucial, but it never slows down the action, which explodes with expanded options for bone-crunching combat, high-tech tradecraft, and adrenaline-fueled chases.

Updating classic Gothic terrors for the postmodern age, Night’s Black Agents presents thoroughly modular monstrosity: GMs can build their own vampires, mashup their own minions, kitbash their own conspiracies to suit their personal sense of style and story. Rules options let you set the level of betrayal, grit, and action in your game. Riff from the worked examples or mix and match vampiric abilities, agendas, and assets for a completely custom sanguinary spy saga.

The included hook adventure gets the campaign going; the included city setting shows you what might be clotting in Marseilles’ veins even now. Rack silver bullets in your Glock, twist a UV bulb into your Maglite, and keep watching the mirrors … and pray you’ve got your vampire stories straight.

As good as the toolkits that Night’s Black Agents provides are, the rules and advice deliver on the game and genre that they promise. Whether it is blood pumping action or heart stopping shocks, Night’s Black Agents is probably best shaken, and definitely has the “Vampire Spy Thriller” staked. - Matthew Pook

Vampires and spies – once you’re past the initial surprise, you’ll see that they work tremendously well in tandem. Well, I think they do, and I think the book’s an absolute knockout. - Sidney Roundwood

Get Night's Black Agents From DTRPG

Get Night's Black Agents From Amazon

Paranoia, by Mongoose Publishing

*Ivan's favorite version of this game is 2005's Paranoia XP (later revised in Paranoia Service Pack 1). Because of this all DTRPG links will be to Service Pack 1, but the physical edition Amazon link will point to the most recent version of Paranoia.

YOU ARE IN ERROR. NO ONE IS SCREAMING. THANK YOU FOR YOUR COOPERATION.

A ROLEPLAYING CLASSIC BACK IN PRINT AFTER 10 YEARS
Over 150,000 copies sold
New edition COMPLETELY UPDATED for a more paranoid era

The Computer is your Friend!

PARANOIA is an award-winning role-playing game set in a darkly humorous future ruled by a well-meaning but deranged computer.

The Computer is happy. The Computer is crazy. The Computer will help you become happy. This will drive you crazy. Being a citizen of Alpha Complex is fun. The Computer says so, and The Computer is your friend. Many traitors threaten Alpha Complex. Many happy citizens live in Alpha Complex. Most happy citizens are crazy. Which are more dangerous... traitors or happy citizens? Rooting out traitors will make you happy. The Computer tells you so. If you are not happy, The Computer will use you as reactor shielding. Being a Troubleshooter is fun. The Computer tells you so. Do you doubt The Computer, citizen? Troubleshooters get shot at, stabbed, mangled, incinerated, poisoned, stapled, blown to bits and accidentally executed. This is so much fun many Troubleshooters go crazy. You work with many Troubleshooters. They all carry lasers. Aren't you glad you have a laser too? Won't this be fun?

Stay alert! Trust no one! Keep your laser handy!

HAPPINESS IS MANDATORY!

When PARANOIA was first published almost 20 years ago, amid fears of nuclear war and job loss to those newfangled desktop PCs, it was instantly popular for its vision of a high-tech, post-holocaust, totalitarian future ruled by a deranged Computer. It won attention too for turning the basic paradigm of RPGs' players cooperation its head, making all players secret traitors who can only advance by uncovering treason.

Happily, today those fears are obsolete. Instead, we have spam, viruses, trojans, malware, distributed denial of service attacks, the RIAA, cyberwarfare, identify theft, terrorists, the Patriot Act, terrifying new diseases, the threat of environmental catastrophe, the grey goo scenario, and weapons of mass destruction.

In other words, PARANOIA is more relevant than ever before - and Paranoia upgrades the world of Alpha Complex for the fears of the 21st century.

BE A LOYAL CITIZEN! PURCHASE PARANOIA TODAY!

Failure to purchase this product is treason. Treason is punishable by summary execution. Have a nice day!

Get Paranoia SP1 From DTRPG

Get Paranoia From Amazon

Wheel of Time, by Wizards of the Coast

The Wheel Turns and New Legends are Born

As the Third Age unfolds, the tales of many heroes will be woven into the Great Pattern. While those stories have yet to be written, your part in them is unmistakable. Whether a Maiden of the Spear or a Hunter for the Horn, Aes Sedai or Asha'man, you are destined to join the struggle against Trollocs, Darkfriends, the Forsaken, and countless other evils revealed by the turning of the Wheel.

From the Aryth Ocean to the Aiel Waste, the entire Wheel of Time series is covered in this complete, self-contained d20 System roleplaying game approved by Robert Jordan. This single volume contains statistics for all the major characters, a unique system for channeling the One Power, feats, prestige classes, and everything else you'll need to make your visions become reality in Robert Jordan's world of epic fantasy.

Take your place in the legends that have yet to be told.

Get Wheel of Time From Amazon

Upriver, Downriver - a Tarot-inspired Tabletop RPG, by Ella Watts/Macguffin

Choose a destination and swear an oath to reach it in Upriver, Downriver - a tarot-inspired tabletop roleplaying game about life on the Great River, built for short-term, emotionally impactful tabletop roleplaying games of four to twelve sessions.

All you've ever known is the Great River. Storms break on the river banks, and treasure is buried in the silt. Fish swim in abundance through the Silver Pits, and rice grows thick and luscious on the Glas Road. No one has ever found the Source of the River, from which it is said that all magic springs. No one has ever returned after crossing the horizon of the Sea. If you travel upriver to the Source, you'll be seen as a fool hunting for faerie gold. If you travel downriver, you'll be seen as already lost, drowned in the ravenous Sea. But you and your crew have sworn a magical Oath, and you must reach your destination - or forfeit your souls and your ship to the water.

Learn More About Upriver, Downriver

The Resistance of New Holloway, by AdventureByMail

Fight fascism and #SaveTheUSPS

THE CONGRESS OF NEW HOLLOWAY, once a strong voice of the people, has been disbanded and replaced by a single leader, the Chancellor.  In the decades since, the grip of fascism has only tightened.

All that is left is for the state to find, disband, and destroy the resistance operatives hiding in plain sight throughout the city.

You are one such operative.

Messages across the wires are closely monitored, but the mail carriers move unnoticed. Write letters to brief your fellow operative on your mission,  progress made, and  life in your corner of  New Holloway.

*****************
Our game got a really kind shout out from the team at Dicebreaker in a recent episode of their podcast. Give it a listen here around 24:08.
******************

Designed specifically to be played through the mail, The Resistance of New Holloway has two players using regular playing cards as prompts as they write and send correspondences about the victories, struggles, and losses experienced by resistance operatives working in secret against a fascist regime. With each letter players send, they'll enclose a playing card to inspire their partner's reply. Together, they'll write stories, have exciting adventures, and create a world that needs saving. No GM needed.

Pick up a pen, buy some stamps, and get to work. New Holloway, and the USPS, need you.

Created by Daniel Tozier
(Inspired by Adira Slattery's The Machine)
(Photo by Gary Butterfield on Unsplash)

Get The Resistance of New Holloway From itch.io

Dead Belt, by A Couple of Drakes

You are alone out here.But that’s the way we like it. Out here in the Dead Belt, surrounded by the carcasses of space-faring history ripe for plunder and picking, another heartbeat means enough time for someone else to give your justly prised and prized salvage the old hairy eyeball. That means trouble, and there’s enough of that out here as is.

Not everyone’s got the temperament to be a Belter. Plenty of folks crack when the grav cuts and the lights go off. Plenty more jump at shadows when their flash starts to flicker. Others are too busy watching their O2 to see opportunities. Some folks just don’t have the know-how to rig a three-channel override through the primary induction boot shroud to get to the juicy payday underneath. But that isn’t you. If you can only rely on your gear, your smarts, and your grit, you’re going to make a stack of cred out here among these hulks.

Or you’re going to die trying.

Either way, you’re going to do it alone. No one’s coming looking. No one knows you’re here.

Dead Belt is a solo strategy RPG. It’s about skillful and desperate scavengers picking over the remains of junked starships in hopes of a juicy payday.

You will need:

• A deck of common playing cards.
• Two six-sided dice (d6).
• A few small tokens: one to represent your character, and three or four to mark trouble when it rears its head. You can use other dice, coins, or whatever you have laying around for tokens.
• A printed (or drawn-out) character sheet, provided in the Player Kit.
• Optional: A printed copy of Dead Belt for playing away from a device.

The core gameplay loop revolves around building a Belter and taking them out into the Belt to scavenge dead, randomly-generated starships. You’ll deal with all the dangers lurking onboard these starships, push your luck, and finally return to spend your hard-won booty to secure better equipment, improve your skills, pay down your crippling debt, and hopefully maybe eventually set yourself up to live out your dreams far from the Belt.

Get Dead Belt From itch.io

Dusk City Outlaws, by Scratchpad Publishing

Dusk City Outlaws is a tabletop roleplaying game for 3-6 players, set in the sprawling city of New Dunhaven. In this game, the players take on the roles of criminals on the wrong side of the law, collectively known as the Right Kind of People to those who run in outlaw circles. These criminals come together to form a crew, and take on a Job, a criminal enterprise brokered to them by a third party.

Each member of the crew is a member of one of the eight cartels that rule over the city’s criminal underworld. These cartels each have their own turf, their own specialties, their own motives, and their own methods, but they are all bound together by the Arrangement, an agreement that the cartels entered into to preserve themselves against too much infighting. In short, the cartels agree that they have enough enemies without warring with one another, and that they all want the same thing: to get rich. The cartels agree to respect each others' turf, and while some bickering and fighting is allowed, large-scale conflict is forbidden, and revenge is frowned upon.

To maintain this peace, when someone from the cartels has a Job they want done, they call upon the crew, which has members from several cartels, to pull off the Job. Each cartel gets a cut of the take from that Job, and the crew gains some wealth, prestige, and influence, plus the promise of future Jobs from those brokers.

Once the Job has been assigned, the crew must come up with a plan, do the legwork to set it into motion, pull off the plan, and then survive long enough to get paid.

An Off-The-Shelf Game

Lacking a quorum from your usual game group and don't want to play a session of your usual campaign? Having an impromptu game night and wanting to play a roleplaying game? At a convention and looking to fill an evening with friends? Dusk City Outlaws is designed to be played with minimal preparation. Once all of the players know the rules of the game, you can start playing a scenario with brand-new characters in a matter of minutes. Character creation is fast and easy, and the game comes with ten fully designed scenarios and rules for introducing challenges and antagonists on the fly to eliminate the need for lots of before-the-session prep work.

Urban Sandbox on a Massive Scale

In Dusk City Outlaws, there is no "right" way to handle the Job. The members of the crew formulate their own plan and put it into motion however they like; the Judge does not need to plan out plot twists and a complete narrative arc, only react to the actions of the players. New Dunhaven itself is a massive urban environment on the scale of modern-day New York City, giving the players nearly limitless freedom for the scope and details of their plan. Dusk City Outlaws uses sandbox play, accompanied by robust systems to help the Judge improvise, to give players ultimate freedom and eliminate the need for lengthy scenarios.

This Title Includes:

• The 28-page Player Rulebook
• The 48-page Judge Rulebook
• The 240-page Traveler’s Guide to New Dunhaven setting book
• 19 cartel sheets
• 26 specialty sheets
• A character sheet
• Diagrams for making your own advantage and challenge dice
• 60-card Deck of Quirks
• 40-card Deck of Enemies
• 20-card Deck of Time

Get Dusk City Outlaws From DTRPG

Undying, by Magpie Games

This Undying corebook features:

• • 6"x9" Book + Black & White Interior
  • Hardcover or Softcover
  • Hardcover Edition Includes A Silk Bookmark
  • 5 Core Playbooks + GM Materials
  • Free PDF via DriveThruRPG

You are a predator: a vampire who stalks human prey in the night, feasting on their blood.

Undying is a diceless tabletop roleplaying game about vampirism. Game play revolves around brief periods of intense conflict in which old rivalries and new slights spark a dramatic inferno and long stretches of intrigue in which intricate plots are set in motion by immortal conspirators.

Each player takes on the role of a vampire who stalks human prey in the night. Blood is your all-consuming passion, the object of your deepest desires and most primal needs. Your free will—your very self-determination—is a thin façade, a skin-deep veneer of civility gilding the parasite you truly are. Can you retain your humanity in the face of such desires?

Undying features:

• • A two-phase narrative system that balances nightly drama against the sweep of centuries
  • A collection of playbooks that enables archetypal and memorable character creation
  • A fast-paced blood token system that pushes players to bluff and bet against their opponents
  • A Byzantine political structure that draws characters into bitter conflicts with their fellow vampires
  • A lore system that allows groups to customize their game to fit any vampire genre

This is what it means to be a predator.

Undying makes use of the same rules-light engine as Apocalypse World, Monsterhearts, and Urban Shadows to create a narrative that is simultaneously tense and dynamic, pushing each predator to the brink through an intricate web of debts and intrigue.

Get Undying From Amazon

Get Undying From Magpie Games

Thousand Year Old Vampire, by The Hutchingsonian Presents-PlaGMaDA

A creaking hunter among dust and cobwebs, you prowl the night places, seeking the souls on which you feed. You have done this since time immemorial, or so you believe; you have no memories of  living as a man-thing like those you catch and eat. But human traces linger; your fingers trace clever arabesques in the dirt of your grave-place and with the flourishes come whispered songs in a language you've forgotten. Far away, in a museum, hangs your portrait in oil by a master five hundred years dead--you might have been lovers but the diary you kept then is long lost.

---

188 fancy pages

play in a couple of hours or a couple of weeks

solo play, optional group play

Hardcopy purchasers note:

This POD hardback is being made available as a discounted option for non-US backers.  It is printed in the UK and can be shipped worldwide much cheaper than I can provide the nicer offset copies from the US.  This hardback is considered the "EU Edition".

When you order here you are getting this "EU Edition" POD version of Thousand Year Old Vampire.  The POD version is different from the offset version in that it is missing the metallic ink, foil treatment, and all around spectacular cover treatment.  The POD cover also has "Thousand Year Old Vampire" written on it in numerous languages.  The POD version's interior lacks the ribbons, endpages, and super fancy paper.  The offset version has been described as "lush" and "decadent" and "the fanciest RPG book I've ever seen" so know what you are missing out on.

The game contents are identical otherwise.

Get Thousand Year Old Vampire From DTRPG

Get Thousand Year Old Vampire From Tim Hutchings

Space Weirdos, by Garske Games

Space Weirdos is a “skirmish heartbreaker.” About 10 years ago everyone was publishing their own old-school D&D hacks. Now a bunch of OSR nerds are turning to wargaming and discovering that the minis games are just as bad as RPGs for edition creep and other unforgivable crimes. So I'm publishing a short and sweet set of miniatures rules.

You’re wondering what makes Space Weirdos different from other games. Not much! It takes what I like from other games and mashes it all together.

• Low model count: 5-10 models or so for each side.
• Use any minis you have.
• Short but comprehensive. Everything in one 16 page zine.
• Minimal tokens, but still a few because I like them.
• No tape measures or rulers, all movement and ranges are measured with 5” sticks.
• Uses all your RPG dice (except the d20, d20's get enough love) because dice are fun.
• A points system, but you shouldn’t worry about it too much.
• Alternating activations, opposed rolls, Command Points, and random tables mean everyone is involved and rolling dice all the time.

• A separate 4-page solo rules document.
• A pdf with tokens, hobby advice, and a warband sheet.

If you like minis games or 40K but giant rulebooks turn you off or seem intimidating, maybe give this a shot.

Get Space Weirdos From DTRPG

Twelve Years 2nd Edition, by Max Moon Games

TWELVE YEARS 2ND EDITION

• Twelve Years is a "solo+ rpg." There is no Game Master and it is designed to be played with one or more players.
• Twelve Years may be played cooperatively, competitively, or parallel and asynchronously or synchronously.
• Every twelve years, the Lich King rises from his slumber awaiting his coronation. Prophets warned that if he is not crowned, he will lead his skeletal minions on a rampage razing the known world. Each player is tasked with assembling a party of adventurers, finding a crown, and completing the coronation ritual. I would say good luck, but that is merely false hope. Failure and death are the most likely outcomes. Be warned.
• Each zine is 44 pages printed on 105 gsm paper with handprinted metallic green ink on black cardstock covers, and saddle-stitched with metallic green staples.
• To receive your PDF download code, please email me.
• Free downloads of printables as well as a tables of new monsters are available here: https://www.maxmoongames.com/downloads

Get Twelve Years from Max Moon Games

Alice Is Missing: A Silent Roleplaying Game, by Hunters Entertainment & Renegade Game Studios

From the creative mind behind Icarus: A Storytelling Game About How Great Civilizations Fall, comes Spenser Starke’s next project Alice is Missing, a silent role-playing game about the disappearance of Alice Briarwood, a high school junior in the small town of Silent Falls.

Developed by Hunters Entertainment and published & distributed by Renegade Game Studios, Alice Is Missing is a unique kind of roleplaying game in which players only communicate using their phones, sending text messages to each other as they unearth clues about what happened to Alice.

The game is played live and without verbal communication. Players inhabit their character for the entirety of the 90-minute play session, and instead of speaking, send text messages back and forth to the other characters in a group chat, as well as individually, as though they aren’t in the same place together.

Haunting beautiful, deeply personal, and highly innovative Alice is Missing puts a strong focus on the emotional engagement between players, immersing them in a tense, dramatic mystery that unfolds organically through the text messages they send to one another. Right at home with games like Life Is Strange, Gone Home, Oxenfree, and Firewatch, it’s designed to feel as much like an event-style experience as it does a role-playing game.

Alice Is Missing runs over a single session of 2-3 hours, with 3-5 players. In the first 45 minutes, players create their characters, their relationships to Alice, and their ties with each other. The next 90 minutes are spent uncovering secrets and unearthing clues in an attempt to discover where Alice is, and who is behind her disappearance.

Though text messages seem to be the most common mode of communication in our modern era, they are rarely utilized as a storytelling medium.

The integration of texting into the gameplay unlocks a brand new way to play RPGs that is unlike anything you’ve likely experienced before. It’s personal, immersive, and perfect for remote play.

Get Alice Is Missing From DTRPG

Get Alice Is Missing Amazon