RPG Recommendations

John Harper

● 1001 Nights (stories within stories in the Sultan's court)

● 3:16, Carnage Amongst the Stars (Space Marines)
● Action Castle (a kooky party game based on old text adventures like ZORK)
● AGON (heroic adventurers seeking glory in a mythic world)
● ALIEN RPG (by Fria Ligan)
● All Men Must Die (the RPG for Game of Thrones)
● Apocalypse World (sexy-ass post apoc action and the grandaddy of many great
games)
● Band of Blades (fantasy military action)
● Blades in the Dark (the criminal underworld in a haunted city)
● Bliss Stage (teen survivors fight alien invaders in the dream world using their
relationships to form battle mechas)
● Bluebeard's Bride (gorgeous horror/suspense)
● Bootleggers (prohibition-era gangsters)
● Breakers (dungeon crawling as a blue-collar job)
● Burning Wheel (gritty, personal fantasy adventure)
● Classic D&D (I love the 1981 Basic set by Tom Moldvay)
● Cthulhu Dark (super simple and smart system for cosmic horror)
● Copperhead County (modern day rural crime fiction. FitD)
● Danger Patrol (pulpy sci-fi heroic action)
● Dogs in the Vineyard (Western frontier justice among the faithful)
● Dread (horror gaming using a jenga tower)
● Dream Askew (post apocalypse survival and community)
● Dungeon World (epic fantasy adventure)
● Dust Devils (Western cinematic rpg)
● Electric Bastionland (weird fantasy, one of my favorites in the genre)
● FATE (a light and fast system for playing your own homebrew ideas)
● Feng Shui (fast and furious Hong Kong cinema action)
● Fiasco (poor impulse control and bad decisions. the "Coen Brothers" rpg)
● Flying Circus (fantasy pilots in a Miyazaki style WWI)
● Girl Underground (Alice in Wonderland style adventures)
● Grey Ranks (teenage polish soldiers in WWII)
● InSpectres (it's Ghostbusters)
● Infected (zombie survival horror)
● Into the Odd (possibly my favorite 'dungeon adventure' game)
● Kagematsu (a wayward ronin and a village in trouble. very innovative and cool.)
● The King is Dead (GMless war for the throne)
● Lacuna (surreal thriller action in the dream world)
● Lady Blackbird (steampunk + Firefly-esque romantic adventure)
● Masks (teen superheroes)
● Microscope (a kind of meta rpg for building a setting and history)
● Monsterhearts (teen monster romance and adventure)
● Montsegur 1244 (besieged cathars facing the pyre)
● Murderous Ghosts (modern survival horror)
● Mutant Year Zero (post apocalypse survival adventure)
● The Mustang (tragic Western folktale)
● My Life With Master (minions of a mad scientist explore love and hope)
● Night Witches (badass lady pilots in WWII)
● Pendragon (a long Arthurian campaign driven by the characters' passions)
● Poison'd (pirates, but without the gloss of heroism. can go to dark places)
● Polaris (tragic fantasy at the end of an age)
● Prince Valiant (one of the first 'storytelling' games)
● Psi-Run (supers on the run from govt agents)
● The Quiet Year (community and survival in the apocalypse)
● Romance Trilogy (by Emily Care Boss -- it's how you get Shooting the Moon,
Breaking the Ice, and Under my Skin, all in one volume)
● Sagas of the Icelanders (brilliant historical roleplaying)
● Savage Worlds (combo of tabletop war game and rpg)
● Scum & Villainy (space adventure in the vein of Star Wars and Cowboy Bebop)
● The Shab Al-Hiri Roach (the dark world of petty academics and a Sumerian
god-monster)
● The Shadow of Yesterday (non-traditional fantasy adventure)
● Shipwreckers (Cornish coastal salvagers in the 1700s)
● Shooting the Moon (love-triangle fun a la The Philadelphia Story)
● Stars Without Number (sandbox sci-fi adventure)
 ● Steal Away Jordan (slave narratives in the antebellum south. so good! kind of
hard to find:
http://www.indiepressrevolution.com/xcart/Steal-Away-Jordan-PDF.html
● Sundered Land (mini-rpgs for fantasy anthology storytelling plus a great tutorial
for RPG design)
● Swords Without Master (pulpy swords and sorcery with a novel game format)
● Thou Art But a Warrior (collapse of empire in Moorish Spain)
● Torchbearer (modern design for classic dungeon crawling)
● Trollbabe (big hair, big horns, badass lady adventurers)
● Undying (the very best vampire rpg, for real)
● Unknown Armies (modern occult action/intrigue)
● Warhammer 2nd Ed. (dark and weird fantasy)
● The Warren (like Watership Down -- and just as brutal)
● World Wide Wrestling (professional wrestling action)
● Zenobia (old-school adventures in the ancient world)

Old, weird, or obscure games:

● Metamorphosis Alpha (dungeon crawling iiiin spaaaaace)
● Tunnels & Trolls (classic dungeon crawling fun)
● Call of Cthulhu (venerable horror/investigation rpg)
● Gangbusters (prohibition era action plus some ahead-of-its time innovations)
● Gamma World (mutant post apocalypse -- I started with 2nd edition)
● Cyberpunk 2020 (classic cyberpunk rpg)
● Traveler (classic sci-fi rpg)
● Talislanta (weird fantasy rpg with a system that inspired Apocalypse World)
● Contenders (the desperate lives of prize-fighters)
● Geiger Counter (escape the alien survival horror)
● The Mountain Witch (samurai on a doomed mission)
● Beast Hunters (two-player competitive monster hunting game)
● Best Friends (the frenemies rpg)
● Inheritance (wonderful pseudo-larp viking funeral game -- sadly out of print!)
● Refuge in Audacity (hilarious spoof rpg)
● Usagi Yojimbo (the rpg of the comic, with some great mechanics)
Games that are in development:
● Blades Against Darkness (dungeon adventure in a weird fantasy world)
● Girl by Moonlight (magical girl relationships and battles)
● Misbehavin’ (prohibition era gangsters plus magic)