Modesty's List of Table Top Role Playing Games
These are games I have played or observed others playing to give context. (This post is a Work in progress, I will likely come back to correct things.
Genre - borrowing from movie and book categories to give you a shorthand sense of what the tropes, characters, and stories are like. (i.e. Western, High Fantasy, Space Opera, etc)
Setting - A bit more specific than genre, it will include specific things like time period, location, character types, and world premise.
Dice Type - a quick description of what kind of dice and how many might be needed for playing a game. Some systems may have special dice specific to that game while some may have alternatives.
Difficulty - this is from a brand new player perspective but this incorporates how complicated the rules can get as well as how in-depth the lore might be.
- Easy - rules are intuitive and there's only low-level world building
- Average - you can skim rules and kind of learn as you go, the lore is based on tropes
- Hard - you have to check the rules often. The lore is specific and closely tied to the rules, there's heavy reading involved
- Insane - you might need an advanced degree to understand the rule nuance or several years to get through all the lore.
Age Appropriate - the intended age range with both difficulty and content in mind. (I borrow from the video game rating system and movie system as shorthand.)
- E10 - This is my lowest rating because rules make these games a bit inaccessible to very young children so that's why it's not E for Everyone.
- PG-13/Teen - Average difficulty, content may contain surface level mature content but nothing explicit
- R/Young Adult - High difficulty or the world-building includes mature content
- Adult Only - Insanely difficult or very mature content
NOTE: I want to mention here again that even though I may rate a system to have no explicit or mature content that's not to say that someone can't insert mature content into their story. When looking at systems you also want to consider WHO is playing in addition to what they are playing.
FATE - (my personal favorite)
Genre: None
Setting: None. This is an open-ended system. You can find settings or scenarios.
Dice Needed: 6 six-sided dice. There are "official dice" that have a +, -, and blank side but you can use regular six-sided dice.
Difficulty: Story heavy instead of rule-heavy, so fairly accessible but may challenge creative thinking.
Age-appropriate: E-10
Mature Content: Official guide scenarios may vary when it comes to mature content.
Other Versions: Fate Accelerated
My Experience: I've played a couple games with this system and boy do I love how creative it lets me be with my characters. It really lends itself to story-based characters which can make the rules a bit loosey-goosey. But I've always had a good time.
AGE (Adventure Game Engine)
Genre: Fantasy/Space Fantasy/High Fantasy
Setting: It can be an open system but officially they have three settings: High Fantasy, Futuristic, and the video game franchise Dragon Age which is also high fantasy.
Dice Needed: 3 six-sided dice. It helps if one is a different color.
Difficulty: Average. The character sheet is a bit long but dice rolling rules are easier to grasp. There is a gameplay video of the game designer playing with some actors.
Age Appropriate: Looking at a PG-13 or slightly R rating using movie terms.
Mature Content: Racism, Slavery, Violence, Dragon Age has "demons" but they are reduced to intelligent monsters associated with a deadly sin, Immodest attire (referring to some of the illustrations)
Other versions: Dragon AGE, Blue Rose AGE, Future AGE
My experience: I own the GM guide and player guide for the Dragon AGE version, made some character sheets, watched the gameplay videos, got the special dice. I have the map pinned to my wall. But it's mostly because I'm a huge fan of Dragon Age. I have not played with anyone but I really want to.
Vampire the Masquerade
Genre: Mafia Horror
Setting: 1990's United States (Modern day) with clans of vampires competing for power in the city.
Dice Needed: 10 six-sided die
Difficulty: Insane. The lore is tied into the ruleset so you'll be reading quite a bit. And the lore is crazy long. The character sheet must be made with the GM around. Dice rolling rules are a bit confusing to me.
Age Appropriate: Adult Only. (Both because of content and difficulty)
Mature Content: Violence, Abuse, Demonic entities, Religion, Drugs, Alcohol, Adultery, Promiscuity, and criminal activity.
Versions: Multiple editions
My Experience: I played the video game version. We started a virtual game of it with my usual group near the beginning of quarantine 2020. It took us hours upon hours to create characters. Unfortunately, we never started due to a player not wanting to do things virtually and the GM losing his job.
Shadowrun
Genre: Punk, Urban Dystopia
Setting: A dystopian, cyberpunk future city with corporations acting like gang bosses. Still utilizes the classic high fantasy races like Trolls, Elves, Dwarves, and humans.
Dice Needed: d20
Difficulty: Average - Hard. If you are familiar with other d20 systems the dice rules and basics of characters make sense. You may spend a lot of time getting into the lore and figuring out the unique features.
Age Appropriate: PG-13 to R.
Mature Content: Promoting Crime, drug and alcohol abuse, political corruption, promiscuity, classism, prostitution
My experience: We were able to complete a "run" or big mission, we started but never finished our 2nd mission. I had fun with it.
Numinera
Genre: Sci-fi Fantasy/Space Fantasy
Setting: An alien planet with sparse civilization. Somewhat dystopian. Unique Races.
Dice Needed: d20
Difficulty: Average - Hard - It shares similarities to other d20 character sheets, but the lore is very unique to this system.
Age Appropriate: PG-13
Mature Content: Violent, harsh/unforgiving environment
My experience: I think because we had been switching systems so often I was getting burnt out but I really did not like the setting for this one. I like my elves and dwarves, please.
Fiasco
Genre: Fits under the classic definition of Film Noir.
Setting: Varied. Writers submit scenarios but they all are supposed to end pretty tragically.
Dice Needed: Several six-sided dice of red and white.
Difficulty: Average - High. Improv skills and storytelling skills REALLY help. You do "act out" scenes. The dice are not for rolling. The rules aren't really difficult but even verbally acting out a scene or improv is challenging.
Age Appropriate: Young Adult/R (acting and improv is a difficult skill...or maybe that's just me.)
Mature Content: Varied. Depends on the scenario but nearly all the games I've seen included violence, abuse, drugs, promiscuity, crude humor, alcohol abuse
My experience: I was once asked in a job interview if I had played because the office workers played it. I had seen people on YouTube play it and was interested but they ended up not hiring me.
My Little Pony
Genre: Cartoon Fantasy
Setting: In the franchised world of My Little Pony: Friendship is magic. It's set in the magical land of Equestria and you get to make your own pony character.
Dice needed: six-sided dice
Difficulty: Easy - Average. This is aimed at a younger audience so the character sheet is short and the rules minimal/easy to understand. For the lore, you can watch the TV show. But the book also is rather short.
Age Appropriate: E10
Mature Content: None, it's meant for children. There may be "scary situations" or "monsters".
My experience: Another one of the systems I own but have not played. There's not a lot of people who want to play it with me for some reason. :P One day I'll have children.
StarWars Edge of Empire
Genre: Space Fantasy/Sci-fi fantasy
Setting: Franchised world of Star Wars. Several alien characters, space ships, and laser sword weapons.
Dice needed: Specialize multi-sided die
Difficulty: Average - Hard: The dice rolling system is unique compared to other systems and the interpretation of results reminds me of tossing runes. The lore can get in-depth, but familiarity with the films can get you by.
Age Appropriate: PG-13
Mature Content: Some crude humor, violence, drugs and alcohol,
Call of Cthulu
Genre: Horror/Noir
Setting: The story world of H.P. Lovecraft is set in 1920s New England with Elder Gods and madness.
Dice needed - d100 die
Difficulty: Average - Hard: resolving dice rolls and those rules seemed pretty intuitive, the character sheet is a bit intimidating, the lore can be pretty intricate and it helps to know about the time period and location.
Age Appropriate: R
Mature Content: Mafia Crime, Prohibition, Madness/Insanity, Racism, Cults, Evil usually wins, Promiscuity, Elder Gods
My Experience: So, for the system, I've only watched others play but I've been through a few Lovecraftian-inspired games. It's really not my favorite genre. It really emphasizes hopelessness, the futility of mortals, and really does not address faith well. It really did a number on my depression. That said, you kind of got to go into a CoC game expecting to "lose" or die in the end.
D20 SRD
Genre: Open System. There's high fantasy and modern-day fantasy officially.
Setting: This is an open system so there's no specific setting.
Dice Needed: D20 set
Difficulty: Average - Hard. You need to reference a lot of things but the rulebooks are open source and available for free online. There is still a touch of lore-based around magic spells and character types.
Age Appropriate: Teen - just because the rules are complicated
Mature Content: There are a few references to demons and devils, but nothing explicit
My Experience: This was the first system I was exposed to. We played a d20 modern game. It was very difficult for me to understand the system and build that first character. The rules were not organized in the way that I expected. Because so much of the lore and rules have to be decided by the person running the game (GM) it's harder to understand. In my case, the GM told us the classes we could use and some excerpts from Mormonism for Dummies since that was going to be a big theme in our game.
Dungeons & Dragons
Genre: High Fantasy
Setting: The fantasy world of Farun has expanded over the years to incorporate many cultures, races, and magic. You will find your staple Lord of the Rings-inspired elves, orcs, halflings, and dwarves. But it has expanded over time to include anthropomorphic animals and other mythical creatures.
Dice: d20 set
Difficulty: Average to Hard - the system has a long history, many versions, and the rules are long and the lore gets longer all the time.
Age Appropriate: PG-13 maybe R
Mature Content: Violence, Racism, Slavery, Alcohol/Drug, Abuse, Immodest Attire (illustrations), Biblical Names of Demons, Criminal Activity, Promiscuity.
Other Versions: 1.0, 2.0, 3.0, 3.5, 4.0, 4.5, 5.0
My Experience: I've always considered D&D to be a baseline for other systems even if it was not the first system I ever used. I had a cultural awareness of the different creatures and class systems, how to play, and the moral panic of the 80s and 90s. The games I did play were all PG (although our conversations and jokes around the table were not). I started playing with the 5th Edition of D&D, which is more accessible than previous editions. Although 3.5 is also very popular.
