# Recommended Fantasy RPGs For the Discerning Escapist of Wizards tags: #articles #game/rpg/dnd ![[Fantasy Landscape (pseudo-Erol Otus).jpg]] ## Welcome to Freedom We are once again in that season. No, I don't mean the holiday season, though it would be applicable for this discussion as well. What I mean is the season where people are up in arms about the way that Hasbro/Wizards of the Coast are managing **[[Dungeons and Dragons]]**, destroying its legacy, crapping on the fans and producing substandard product. [^elon] I feel like this is something that goes on about every three months at this point, which not only provides a certain amount of amusement but is the kind of cyclic behavior you have come to expect from the internet. While it's not exactly like clockwork, and you probably shouldn't set your watch to it, it does come with certain other advantages like being a fine reminder there is a lot to say on the subject, which has very little to do with **D&D**. Even though fantasy is not my favorite genre, and there are probably people who specialize in it who could provide you a more complete list, I'm not entirely out of touch with the worlds of fantasy, classically Tolkien-inspired or not. Maybe it's time for a pre-Christmas roundup of available and interesting fantasy TTRPGs that I would be comfortable recommending to people. Already we're out in shocking territory. I'm going to present them in no particular order but grouped by style of play. Don't let yourself get trapped in a box by playing only games that mimic the style of table interaction that you've had before. Look outside the box, play outside the box, enjoy outside the box. ## The Roster of Mighty Tomes (Many Free) Look, it's the holiday. It's Christmas. We've just survived an expensive Thanksgiving. You want to keep as much money in your pocket. Thankfully, the vast bulk of things that are going to be on this list are indie projects, and as such are priced far more reasonably if they aren't free entirely. Of course, there will be a thing or two which is going to run a fair amount, but such is the nature of finding good things. Still cheaper than anything coming out of the House of Wizards. ### Traditional Architecture If you're here for the **Dungeons and Dragons**, I can only assume that most of your experience on the tabletop has been with games with a very traditional play architecture. That is, there's a GM who's responsible for providing much of the direction and the refereeing of the experience. And there are players who are responsible for playing an individual character with their own stats and continuity of control. It's a very classic power dynamic in the hobby, and I know there are tons of people who just want a replacement for the game that they miss. Fair enough. That's not to say I'm not going to suggest things with a different take on such issues, but for now we're going to stay more in that space starting with… #### Fantasy World ![[Fantasy World (cover).jpg|400]] Quite frankly, my favorite of the mostly traditional fantasy RPGs on this list isn't *quite* as traditional as some people might imagine. **[[Fantasy World]]** departs from many of those structural tropes in that its lineage comes from **[[Powered by the Apocalypse|Apocalypse World]]** — but not through the older branch which **[Dungeon World](https://dungeon-world.com)** represents. I can't in good conscience recommend **Dungeon World**, mainly because it adheres far too much to just being a **D&D** clone which replaces the resolution mechanics with [[Powered by the Apocalypse|PbtA]] and Moves, but without truly integrating a more holistic solution. **Fantasy World** leans into its PbtA heritage and directly talks about what the purpose of the game is, why the focus is different from other traditional fantasies, and probably represents the best hard exploration and explanation of the PbtA mechanics that I've seen in any version of the game core. The book opens telling you exactly what it is about: dramatic fantasy adventuring. *"It's about the personal conflicts, internal and external, that turn a bunch of drifting murderers into a group of heroes."*^[Murder-hobos, for the win!] That's straight from the book, by the way. It focuses on the characters as characters and not as agents for necessarily changing the world or conquering it (though that is doable and we'll talk about other games which lean more in that direction later). The group that the characters are part of, referred to as the Fellowship here, is literally a mechanical construct that you settle on at the beginning of the game before you even make characters. The party has a purpose. What's going on has meaning. There are four different kinds of Fellowships you can be part of which cover the gamut of most of the elements of fantasy groups and definitely the gamut and more of the kinds of groups you find in classic **D&D**. Classes exist, but they aren't necessarily what you think of as classes in **D&D** itself. They really are playbooks in the style of PbtA, which have their own special moves, their own ways of gaining XP, and unusually in the genre, their own end games. Because characters are not intended to be played forever. They are intended to be played until the end of their story and then pass on their legacy. ![[Fantasy World - Occultist Sheet - Pg 1.jpg]] ![[Fantasy World - Occultist Sheet - Pg 2.jpg]] There's a good reason that this heads off the traditional architecture games list because it brings in elements that I think are far superior to the ones considered classics but doesn't abandon the core of the experience for most people. You can pick up the rules for this game for free, but I definitely encourage you to pick up the PDF version, which has some really beautiful and stylized art because I think it's worth it. #### Sword, Sorcery & 2d6 ![[Sword, Sorcery n 2d6.png|400]] Let's go a little more old school, though surprisingly modernist, with **[[Sword, Sorcery & 2d6]]**. If you were looking for a very minimalist system (36 pages in all), with PbtA mechanics of a sort and a true old school retro vibe including some art that would not be out of place in **OD&D**, this might be a fine thing for you to look at. **SS2D6** is high-speed, low drag at its finest. There are four classes: *Warrior, Archer, Sorcerer, Healer*, and that's it. There are five stats: *Strength, Agility, Resistance, Intelligence, and Charisma*. There's a list of spells, everybody starts with 6 hit points and 1d6+1 starting items along with 1d6 starting goal in your pocket. Allocate your stats that run from +2 to -1 across the attributes, one each, grab some gear, and you're ready to head out the door on your adventure. That's it. That's the whole thing. The rest is just understanding how resolution is done, the spell system, and tables for generating things. Is there a setting? No. It doesn't need one. You know the setting. You've been playing in it for half your life, most of you. Anything you don't know you're perfectly capable of figuring out. If you wanted something pretty old school but with new school tools, here you go. You're ready to rock. Oh yes, and it's free. The best price. #### Tiny Dungeon ![[Tiny Dungeon (cover).jpg|400]] While it's not in my personal collection, I can definitely attest that **[[Tiny Dungeon]]** is a surprisingly good playing experience for someone looking to stick to the fantasy genre in a very classic **D&D** way, not so deeply as our previous entry.^[I personally prefer **[[Tiny Frontiers Revised|Tiny Frontiers: Revised]]**, but sci-fi and horror are my jams.] But it's slim, sleek, and avoids anything like unnecessary complexity. In the rather slim book, you have half a dozen micro settings which are ready to play. You've got simple mechanics that are effectively D6 die pool roll under. You've got a collection of classic races. You're ready to rock and roll. While it's not *necessarily* tiny in *price*, [currently being $18 on DriveThruRPG just for the PDF, at which point you might as well just go ahead and pop for $30 and get the soft cover with the PDF](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/230298/tiny-dungeon-second-edition). It's a damn fine game you won't mind picking up. There is a ton of support and a whole horde of similarly designed Tiny mechanic games. So if you wanted to push your crossovers, this would be a solid platform. #### On Mighty Thews ![[On Mighty Thews (cover).jpg|400]] I'm going to assume that some of you like your epic fantasy to be more swords and sandals than Tolkien, and even if you love **D&D**, you certainly wouldn't object to getting your Conan on in a way that tickles your hindbrain and plays directly into being an awesome badass no matter what you're playing. **[[On Mighty Thews]]** is exactly what you're looking for. In fact, it might be so much what you're looking for you might stop reading this article right now and go out and buy it, pull your friends together, and throw them into playing almost immediately.^[[$5 from DriveThru RPG even this very moment.](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/171413/on-mighty-thews) You know you want it.] I have that kind of faith. There are three attributes in **OMT**: *Warrior, Sorcerer, and Explorer*. That's it. Every character is a little bit of each of them at the very least. After that, you get two special abilities, which are effectively broad skills that define things you are particularly good at. Just because you're you, one of my favorite is *"The King's Executioner."* That gives you a sense of the scope.^[If you're leaning in a more sorcery direction, there's some fun options like *"Stygian Adept"* or *"Scion of the Ancient Houses,*" or whatever comes to mind for you, because this is *that* kind of game. ] Lastly, you get one trait, which you assign a d20 to that represents how your character acts most of the time. It's your core personality trait. It does not need to be positive. Two of my favorites are Fatalistic and Melancholy, but I really love [Elric](https://stormbringer.fandom.com/wiki/Elric_of_Melnibon%C3%A9). That's pretty much it for character generation. It's that fast and easy. There is one additional bit that almost kept me from sliding **OMT** off into this section of the article, and that is this: Whenever a new element is added to the game, that is whenever somebody narrates in a new thing that didn't previously exist or wasn't previously revealed, *any player* can choose to make a lore role. And if it's successful, they can just make up more things about that element, no matter what it is. They heard a rumor, or they were there before, or any of the other 10,000 things that happen in sword and sandals stories. ![[On Mighty Thews - Lore Addition.jpg]] It's not quite fiction-forward but you can see it from here. This is the game if you miss active over-the-top heroism and villainy being part of your tabletop RPG experience. That doesn't mean that the protagonists don't have nuance. After all, *Conan* never starts a story with a pocket full of money and a carefree attitude. The man has woken up in a strange bed hungover, naked, and without a dime more times than I've had hot lunches. But these are characters who want things and are driven to get them actively and passionately. Along the way, the players construct the world as it comes at them, making it perhaps not just stranger than you imagine, but stranger than you can imagine. This wouldn't be the top game I suggested for *me* - but it might be second on that list. #### Warpland ![[Warpland (cover).jpg|400]] Honestly, I'm not sure you're *high* enough for **[[Warpland]]**, and it's only in here because **[Expedition to the Barrier Peaks](https://www.dndbeyond.com/posts/1735-explore-a-futuristic-spaceship-in-expedition-to?srsltid=AfmBOorRvzLU-rzpeZ0rzrhqMzMyWjOs8T2Z7xF6AR7Zt2xVz9mPMaP2)** exists and is one of the most awesome things on the planet, bar none. But I'm hesitant to bring it before you. Not because it's bad or undeserving, but only because it sits on that weird border between genres that **D&D** (and its source material) occasionally dabbled with: science-fantasy.^[Look, frankly every gnome tinkerer, dwarven engineer, and mechanical demon are science-fantasy constructs and I'm tired of pretending they're not! Come at me, bro!] Not just science-fantasy but *fucking weird* science-fantasy in this case. ^05e319 I'm going to let the book open at you, okay? ![[Warplands - Genesis Intro.jpg]] We already start deep in the weeds with the Eloi and the Morlocks (and we'll leave any sort of metaphorical connection with modern politics on the table as inherently obvious), a massive war, incredibly powerful artifacts, powerful crystals, which we know nothing about, but are obviously dangerous, the destruction of the earth, the devastation of the sky, followed by a massive cataclysm which tore apart the very fabric of reality, plus the Void, an active malevolent power, which is clearly horrific beyond belief, then capping it with the Demiurge, an explicitly spiritual and powerful entity. What's going on here? *Yes, exactly.* You have an oppressive technocracy, effectively, militantly enforcing obscurantism in order to keep any knowledge of the past under wraps, out of terror that humanity could once again tap into that power and destroy the world. Mutants out in the wasteland - literal mutants. Demons bursting through from hell. It's chaos, I tell you, absolute chaos. It's beautiful, beautiful chaos, and I'm here for it. ![[Warpland - The Tenet.jpg]] If you miss the days when **D&D** could be absolutely weird, the early times when **[[Tekumel|Tékumel]]** was freshly spun off and everything could be wacky and utterly over the top and simultaneously horrific and beautiful, coupled with insanely visionary art, then you probably want to pick up **Warpworld**. I would tell you more about the mechanics, but they don't matter. If you're the kind of person who is already hooked and wants to know more about this kind of game, then you are already halfway out the door and ordering the nicest print of it you can. I can say that the system is a bit of a strange hybrid between "PbtA-style" only the players roll dice Moves, and an almost OSR-like affection for skill checks. It's not something I would necessarily choose to run myself but I wouldn't object to playing if somebody else wanted to take the seat. If you miss the old school madness that could be part of the **D&D** experience, go pick up **Warpland**. You won't be disappointed. ### Fiction-Forward We've covered the traditional RPG fantasy architecture pretty well, so let's move off into a little more interesting space, shall we? Maybe you're tired of the very traditional GM/player dichotomy. Maybe you're excited to have the opportunity to try something entirely new. Maybe you just want to get out there and let the story control the mechanics, rather than the mechanics creating the story under the direction that's not a player's. I've got your hookup. This is really where things start to shine. #### Ironsworn ![[Ironsworn (cover).jpg|400]] It's the big boy, it's the strong rival. It is very much my favorite fantasy RPG of the last decade, and I'm not even kidding a little bit. If you have read any of my work or just glanced at the extended lattice of references peeling out from this node in the sidebar, you know immediately I've written a lot of stuff which touches on **[[Ironsworn]]** and I have absolutely no shame in pointing it out. What you have here is a game that descends in part from the PbtA lineage down through [[Blades in the Dark|FitD]]. It is designed to be played solo, but is equally comfortable being run co-op with all the players being inspired by the mechanical oracles together and weaving their story. Or, if you must, it can be run guided in a more traditional GM way. However you want to play it, it works, and it's wonderful. I've written a lot about how character generation and actual play occur in the game. But I have [[Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny - DND to Ironsworn|a series of articles which specifically talk about converting D&D, specifically old-school D&D]], into **Ironsworn** play, which is very relevant here. - **[[Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny - DND to Ironsworn|Ontogeny Recapitulates Phylogeny: D&D to Ironsworn]]** Go check out those articles. If you're at all curious what that would look like. Of all the games in this list, if you are *at all* interested in getting into a new fantasy setting game, particularly one with a leaning toward more grounded dark fantasy (though the world setup is extremely flexible and you can go as high fantasy as you like), I will always shove a copy of **Ironsworn** into your hands. Not the least reason being that [you can have it for free](https://tomkinpress.com/products/ironsworn-digital-edition). The amount of third-party material available for the game is truly mind-blowing because it essentially has an open license for the text. [Hundreds of people have made their own add-ons, tweaks, and entire parallel settings, all available to pick up for extremely cheaply on Drivethru RPG and itch.io](https://itch.io/search?q=ironsworn).^[Want the easy gateway drug to **Ironsworn** suppliment heaven? Pick up the **[Ironsmith](https://www.drivethrurpg.com/en/product/351813/ironsmith)** collection. You'll be glad you did.] If you don't go ahead and buy yourself a copy of **[Ironsworn: Delve](https://tomkinpress.com/pages/ironsworn-delve)**, as well as some of the great material from those sites, you're doing yourself a serious disfavor if you love the fantasy genre. #### Follow ![[Follow - A New Fellowship (cover).jpg]] Stepping away from the solo architecture and back more to a straight-up GMless game, **[[Follow]]** might not be the first one that comes to mind even if you have heard of it. While it does have quests, those quests are intentionally and deliberately *not* genre-tied. Instead, they describe a situation in which the characters might find themselves. Play proceeds by players refining down how it actually applies to their current imagined space and answering the questions. The core mechanic is that you have a certain number of beads, coins, or markers in two different kinds, one of which represents the idea that your character agrees with what's going on and one of which represents the idea that they don't like what's going on. Resolution involves picking one of those and revealing it from your hand when the questions are answered. The ultimate resolution of the quest hinges on the distribution of those tokens at the end. **Follow** is not a game intended to be played in long, complicated arcs — though I imagine that you could do so without too terribly much trouble simply by stringing together the narrative between quests. It's more geared toward one-shots or short arcs, which build to answering a significant question. Why is it here, you might ask? Could it really replace **D&D** as your go-to fantasy RPG of choice? I think it could. And the key is realizing that you can string those quests together in a coherent narrative and continue playing the same characters quest after quest, exploring and expanding your world together with everybody else at your table, and making it ever more your own. The extremely streamlined and simplified mechanics play into that idea, staying out of the way, while you focus on the heavy lifting of actual role playing. Let me grab one of the quests as an example: ![[Follow - Quests - the Dragon.jpg]] Notice that I've chosen a fairly obvious one for the fantasy theme. It's the other half after Dungeons, after all. But really look at the *variations* that come embedded with this quest. It focuses on is the fact that there is a threat loose in the land and the people of the area can have various and varying responses to it, including active opposition to your completion of the quest. Also notice that there is built into the basic underpinnings of the mechanics defining what your characters *want* from one another. This goes a long way toward helping solidify an active character dynamics that's worth watching even if you aren't part of it at the same table because it's characters seeking the satisfaction of something which another character may not want them to have. Yes, you can actively oppose one another in this game and even turn/fall to betrayal — not necessarily by *death*; in fact, death is fairly rare unless you really want to. It's far more nuanced than that. Regardless, **[Follow: A New Fellowship](https://www.lamemage.com/follow/Follow_New_Fellowship.pdf)** is the free version of the game with the complete rules, but with only four quests in the back. Others are available to download, or if you buy the original follow book you get a whole suite of them. However, you can easily come up with your own. There's even an open system resource document available, which allows you to make games based on the core mechanics to your heart's content. Open licenses are the bomb. #### Band of Blades ![[Band of Blades (cover).jpg|400]] In a sense, this is a bit of a step back as it possesses a traditional GM/player dichotomy as part of its mechanisms of play. However, **[[Band of Blades]]** goes much further afield and does things which are unusually power distributed. Let's start with the higher level overview. In **BoB**, you at the table represent the officers of an army in retreat. Each of you has a different role and position, and what you do is critical to maintaining the cohesion and safety of the remnants of the army as they try to withdraw to safety across enemy-controlled land. This is not high fantasy, though there is powerful magic afoot. It's gritty, grimy, dirty, and for the most part, you and your friends are soldiers on the slog. There is a rising element of the setting which borders on the nascent steampunk, with corrupted alchemy being not just an element of the enemy's power, but something that you can research and use for yourself. You probably will have to go as the aspects of play, which are the officers of the army, manage things on a strategic level. You will also be playing the dirt-level grunts that they send out on missions in order to allow progress across the map to relative safety. Many of these characters will die. ![[Band of Blades - Character Creation - Playbooks.jpg]] One of the officer roles has it as their responsibility to make sure there are enough extra men in camp to replenish the fallen and is tasked with memorializing everyone who falls. **BoB** has a very specific setting and is very much focused on achieving missions, many of which will involve combat due to the very nature of the situation. It is not a free-form party of randomly selected characters rampaging across the countryside murder-hobo style. Mechanically, it's derived from **[[Blades in the Dark]]**, meaning that it has one of the best approaches to thinking about how to resolve conflicts among the current slate of popular games in the hobby. The fiction itself drives what mechanics get triggered rather than the other way around once you know what the character wants to do, you trigger the move, which invokes a conversation between the GM and the player about what their position is *(controlled, risky, or desperate)* and the expected degree of effect *(limited, standard, or great)*. Find yourself dangling from a parapet while guards patrol mere inches away? What do you want to do? Pull yourself up in an explosion of violent action and stab them both in the eye? You're in a bit of a desperate position, and you might expect only minimal results from that attempt. Want to hang there until they pass, then quietly slip into the hall from which they came? You've got the upper body strength to hang on a bit longer, so it's just risky. And you can expect that to go off without too much trouble if you can do it, so just standard effect. One of the great things about the [[Blades in the Dark|FitD]] mechanics is that the player has the power to push back and say, *"I'd like to exchange Stress for a better position,"* or better effect, or just to create a flashback in which they are revealed to have explicitly planned for this situation and take advantage of it. If you're looking for a game in which you have an immediate demand by the setting and the situation to have you be invested, the thought of making strategic decisions as well as tactical decisions appeals to you, and you don't mind the specificity of the setting — get on that **Band of Blades** bandwagon because you are going to enjoy this like nothing else. ### Adventure Wargames We've gone a fair chunk in the direction of pretty strongly narrative games. But what if we want to head back and deal with the fact that exploring dungeons is fun, killing bad guys is great, and throw the dice as much to stab a dude in the eye as to carefully work your way through the puzzle that the warlock left behind? That's not to say these games are less narrative in the sense of having less of a story, but there is an expanding genre of game which is reasonably thought of as more of a tactical focus. Stories happen naturally as a result of recounting events to someone else, but in the *"adventure wargame,"* the focus is more on often the miniatures and the tactics of the moment than the recounting later. #### Warrior Heroes: Adventures in Talomir ![[Warrior Heroes - Adventures in Talomir (cover).png|400]] This is where I bring out the first game of this particular style I was ever exposed to, **[[Warrior Heroes - Adventures in Talomir|Warrior Heroes]]**. This may come as a bit of a shock, given my preference for sci-fi and my extensive collection of the same publisher's **[[5150 - Total War (wargame line)|5150]]** games, but here we are. Let's talk about adventure wargaming. Effectively, it is dynamically generated storytelling applied to the process of creating a mostly coherent narrative through line for what are usually tactical exercises. A lot of adventure wargaming boils down to sitting down and making strategic and tactical decisions which put your squad or army into a situation in which you have to fight it out to find out how things progress. This can be on the skirmish level scale, man-to-man, or larger warbands, up to companies and even full divisions of armies, depending on the game you're playing. **Warrior Heroes** is largely focused on the skirmish level, man-to-man combat. If you're familiar with where **D&D** came from and why it evolved from **[[Chainmail]]** to skirmish scale, here is something that evolved from that kind of thinking but took a very different path because there is a lot more of minimalist RPG design in **WH** than you might otherwise think. You can certainly play it *like* an RPG with very minimalist rules and it works just fine. Not only that, it's playable solo, co-op, and head-to-head because it brings to the table a set of random generation oracles already hooked into the default setting, which allow you to just roll for the situation and get stuck right in. Want to try and sweet talk your way by the guard? You can do that rather than stabbing them in the face if you really want. There's mechanics for that! But here might be the selling point for the people I'm talking to in this article: do you want to go dungeon diving but not spend three hours prepping stuff that may never be seen? Do you want to try and protect the border from incursions of orcs, but not spend eight hours pointlessly rolling dice to resolve 15 minutes of combat? Do you want to push some lead around on the table with your buddy and try to sneak by the caravan guards to steal the religious icon of the death-worshiping cultists? Is that the sort of thing you want to do? Go ahead and pick up **Warrior Heroes**. You will not mind in the least. For extra points, you can pick up [the book on sailing and sea combat](https://rebelminispress.com/products/warrior-heroes-warring-fleets) to throw in a bit of piracy for fun. Why would you not? ##### 2 Hour Dungeon Crawl ![[2 Hour Dungeon Crawl (cover).jpg|200]] If all you're interested in is the dungeon diving, connected by the very flimsiest of threads, maybe you should pick up a different game in the THW catalog which is closely related to **Warrior Heroes**, **[[2 Hour Dungeon Crawl]]**. It goes right to the chase using a system of cards included with the game to generate the dungeon map, figure out what things are lurking within rooms, and determine what the loot you scavenge off the poor corpse is when you're done. The core mechanic and resolution system is the same as the rest of the THW selection, but it's deliberately streamlined and tucked in in order to go directly after the dungeon diving experience. All that said, I honestly still prefer the dungeon generation and exploration system found in the original **[[Warrior Heroes - Adventures in Talomir|Warrior Heroes: Armies & Adventures]]**. There's no reason that you can't continue playing that edition of the game from now to eternity. It is still available after all. ![[Warrior Heroes - Armies and Adventures (cover).jpg|200]] #### Five Leagues From the Borderlands ![[Five Leagues From the Borderlands (cover).jpg]] From one of the earliest to one of the most recent to release an edition, let's talk about **[[Five Leagues from the Borderlands]]** If **Warrior Heroes** was an evolutionary spur from early tabletop skirmish war games, which evolved into being a relatively lightweight RPG and skirmish war game experience, then the **Five Leagues** evolutionary course started with skirmish-level man-to-man combat and began layering on random generation mechanisms to bring more and more context into the situation to the point where working out what's going on in the campaign and how your adventuring group is affecting and being affected by it is as much of the game as putting the figures on the map and killing the bad guys. That's not to say it has any less storytelling, but it does have you doing a lot more resource tracking, effect tracking, and general heavy lifting — which sounds like a bad thing but in reality just means that what you're doing has a lot more impact on the setting, and you are expected to achieve and keep achieving while the game pushes back really hard. Like **Warrior Heroes**, **Five Leagues from the Borderlands** can be played and is designed to be played solo, but is flexible enough to allow for co-op play with your friends. And this is where we get to the *"potentially replacing **D&D** at your table"* bit. If your interest is in the grand campaign form of the **D&D** experience, it's very likely that **Five Leagues from the Borderlands** could scratch that itch in a magnificent way. There is just so much in the book, and it is laid out so well that it’s hard to compare it to some of the other much more indie products that I've mentioned so far. Make no mistake, this is a miniatures battle game, though you don't need miniatures to play if you have some sort of digital representation that will work just fine. Just to give you a general sense of how this looks, let me give you a taste of the first couple of pages which cover setting up your campaign. You get this about a third of the way through because the character generation system and game rules are quite complete. ![[Five Leagues from the Borderlands - Starting the Campaign.jpg]] ![[Five Leagues from the Borderlands - Foes Within.jpg]] ![[Five Leagues from the Borderlands - Foes Without.jpg]] It goes on like that for a few more pages, but critically, it's worth noting that just getting the campaign and map set up is the bare start. Once you start figuring out where encounters are and what kind there are, things really kick off and start to accelerate possibly into your demise because this is not a game that plays gently with you. It wants to hurt you. If you get a bit of a thrill from beating the challenge of a brutal DM who throws you up against forces that very well could take you out unless you are both a little bit lucky and on the ball, then you're in. This is it. Oh, did I mention that [there are two fairly hefty expansions for the game](https://modiphius.us/collections/five-leagues-from-the-borderlands) which add more races, entirely new scenarios, entirely new enemies, and some pretty interesting mechanics alongside all of the above? They look as good and as feel as good as the core book. If you miss the days of really crunchy campaigns which don't give a crap about you and keep spinning up interesting situations for you to be in, **Five Leagues from the Borderlands** should be in your hand. ## And Scene! There were a surprising number of fantasy games in that list considering it's not my focal genre. But it is a magnificent part of gaming history, the tabletop role-playing hobby, and particularly critical given the situation we find ourselves in with literally the best selling RPG on the planet. Truthfully, I would prefer that last not be true at all. So in pursuit of that, there's the list. Hopefully, one of them is intriguing enough and exciting enough to perk you up and get you interested, along with maybe dropping a few dollars for a creator who is not part of the mainstream. Any of these would make a fine gift for someone else here in the holiday season, or your best friend: yourself. Do you think anything deserves to be on this list that I missed? Do you have something in hand that you think could be **D&D** on people's shelves? Should something on this list go the way of the dodo and be removed? Let me know via any of the social media that you probably saw this link on, or hunt me up and drop me a line. I'd be interested in knowing what you think. [^elon]: C'mon, Elon, do it. Do it! I double-dog dare you!  I mean, that's how we got the gloriously reborn Twitter, so - I'm in!