Role-Playing Games for People Who Don’t Like Dungeons & Dragons
If you’ve ever tried to get into board RPGs – the kind where you sit with character sheets describing your actions and roll the dice – it was probably through Dungeons & Dragons. And if you’re tired of medieval fantasy, or you don’t care about fighting monsters, or you hate looking at statistics in different graphs, you could leave thinking, “I guess I don’t like RPGs.” It’s a shame because there are thousands of other RPGs out there.
D&D is the oldest RPG and has evolved over the decades into multiple editions with varying difficulty, customization, and character options . But all of them are connected with the basic concept of the game of elves and dwarves, who fight against fantastic monsters in a vaguely mid-terrestrial setting. So if this whole atmosphere doesn’t suit you, here’s a guide to finding something better.
Various settings
There is no reason a game should have a medieval flavor. RPGs are in every genre and setting: cyberpunk , post-apocalyptic , children’s cartoons , espionage , vampire , superhero , 18th century gothic romance, and even the pre-state religious wars in Utah . You can play as minions of a vampire, a mad scientist, or a deliberately defeated adventurer . (If you want to become a modern mage, I recommend Mage: The Awakening or its predecessor, Mage: The Ascension ). Wikipedia has a long, but far from complete, list of games by genre .
Various versions of D&D. You can easily customize the setting or characters in D&D; various D&D versions as well as many additional materials, even
Just as D&D was inspired by The Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barbarian , some of the most popular RPGs are inspired by well-known genre fiction. Call of Cthulhu uses the “Cthulhu Myths” developed by HP Lovecraft and other horror writers, but you can install it at any time period and anywhere on Earth (or even outside Earth). Mouse Guard was based on the eponymous comic strip, inspired by the books by Brian Jacques Redwall .
If you want to play in a specific fictional universe like Star Wars , Firefly or James Bond , just search for the title and RPG. If there is no official play, there is often unofficial play (check out this Harry Potter RPG ). If there is no informal game, there is usually something in the genre.
Some systems are not even designed for a particular setting or story. Generic Generic RPG System – GURPS – Builds of interlocking rule sets for everything you can think of, including some specific fictional worlds like Mars attacks and Terry Pratchett in Highlands .
Different rules
Each game works a little differently or very differently. In D&D, wizards learn certain spells independently of each other, like collectible cards. In games with mages, a character’s magical abilities are more holistically determined by their skills in “mysteries” such as temporary magic, necromancy, and mind control.
If you just want a less complex version of D&D, you have tons of options. Two of my favorites are Dungeon Crawl Classics and Dungeon World , and they’re roughly the opposite. Of the three main paradigms of RPGs – Drama, Simulation, and Play – DCC focuses on play and Dungeon World focuses on drama.
DCC operates under the old system of rules, statistics and random events, so you can have fun in one session. You don’t want to befriend NPCs, you want to kill them and take their loot. You know almost nothing about the monsters that surround you, but you do know that your new enchanted ax does extra damage to undead. DCC creators publish many modules, so your dungeon master doesn’t need to create their own story if they don’t want to. DCC also uses even weirder dice than D&D, such as dice with 7 or 30 sides .
Dungeon World focuses on character relationships and storytelling – you get points for completing a “bond” with another player – for satisfying long-term narratives. You can make your choice based on the most interesting story, and not on the maximum of your characteristics. Your dungeon master is encouraged to come up with most of the details along the way, which saves them time to set up and allows players to help create the world. Less arithmetic, but some more abstract concepts to keep in mind.
You can get a lot weirder and throw the bones out completely. In the trippy, multidimensional fantasy game Amber , if two characters come into conflict, there is no dice roll and no randomization at all: if the two characters fight, the stronger wins, unless the character can pull out some other item or ability. this gives them an edge.
The Dread horror game uses the Jenga tower. Every time you try to do something that you might fail at, you have to do the Jenga move. When the tower falls, you die.
For minimalist games with fewer rules, try this list on RPG Geek , which includes a few games with just one page of rules. For a minimalist version of D&D, check out the Tiny Dungeon RPG Guide . Players do not level up and all dice rolls use a pair of regular hex dice.
If you are already familiar with several systems, but want to find a simpler – or more complex -, read Rolfe Bergstrom’s list of games , ranked by difficulty , or a sequel to Sleepwalker with more games . If you are familiar with all the tricks of the game, and you want a system that leaves you plenty of room for manipulation or improvisation, try the deliberately unfinished World of Dungeons (here’s a collaborative set of rules on Google’s docs ).
If you’re a beginner, try Paste Magazine’s list of RPGs for beginners (including a few I mentioned). If you just want to play D&D for free, try Pathfinder, which is unparalleled in speech, free as in beer (there is a more web-oriented set of rules here).
Less fight
Despite all the variety of RPGs, most of them are designed for combat. But some games avoid this cliché. In the popular Japanese import game Golden Sky Stories , recommended for children over 10, you play a magical animal that helps people and makes friends. ^ – ^ A game session only lasts an hour or two.
You can also try The Cloud Dungeon and ExSpelled , two cute adventure games that you play with imagination and paper craft . The first is a fairy tale for the whole family; the second is an affectionate parody of Harry Potter set in a community college for mediocre wizards.
For other games, visit the Non-Video Game Examples section of this TV Tropes page.
No Dungeon Master
Most RPGs require a dungeon master to build and tell the world to the players. But perhaps no one in your group wants to spend hours preparing classes and learning the rules.
Non-DM games are often more like collaborative storytelling. Universalis , for example, invites players to bet on character attributes using coins, and then exchange those coins to take action, change rules, or take control of each other’s characters. The system is designed to work with any genre and setting.
Fiasco tells a much more specific story: capers that are reminiscent of the Coen brothers’ movie or the plot of The Virgin Jane, set in locations such as a suburb or an Antarctic outpost. The game is played in one sitting, and it is very similar to a board game without pieces and a board. You and your playmates are entangled in a web of intrigue with each other. You win by developing the twists and turns of your story, so a failed heist and murder by your secret twin brother can be a victory. You do roll the dice, but only the usual ones.
Also try the Board Game Geek discussion on DM- free dungeon crawls and blogger Doubleninja’s list of over 200 non-GM games across all genres .
Seasoned gamers will know we’re just getting started, so check out the comments below for more suggestions, stories, and kindly fixes for our gross distortions.