RPGs by Genre

If you are reading this, chances are you asked a question like "what kind of games are there that do X?" someplace and have been directed to a section of this page. The format and links here share a lot in common with the the wiki of the r/rpg subreddit, because I (as u/omnihedron) wrote most of content like this for that wiki. I don't use reddit anymore, though, so wanted a place for this sort of reference. It is not meant to be exhaustive, but rather to provide quality examples of particular types of gaming.

Games marked with ¤ are either free or pay-what-you-want. This page does not use affiliate linking.

Universal Systems

Minimalist

Minimalist systems attempt to use as few rules as possible to cover a wide range of genres.

• The Bean Engine¤ – a skill-based system using summed 2d6 (or best two of three for advantage/worst two of three for disadvantage), trying to hit 8+. (CC BY-SA 4.0)
• Capriccio RPG¤ - Easily adaptable, free, generalist two-page system with 4 attributes, powers and skills.
• CORE Micro¤ – a minimalist hybrid (trad/narr) SRD designed by Tod Foley, basis of “DayTrippers” and other games. (CC BY 3.0)
• Cornerstone RPG¤ – a dialog-heavy, simple d6-based system, intended to run zero-prep one-shots.
• Elemental aims to be “a fast and flexible roleplaying game for any character, any setting, any story”. It is a skill-based system with free one-page rules, but deeper support materials.
• Fast FU is a two-page minimalist version of Freeform Universal within the 2nd edition PDF.
• Fudge Lite is a rules-light generic RPG that uses natural language to describe character traits (fair, good, great, etc.) The game is designed to let the mechanics fade into the background and allow the players to focus on playing the game.
• Heroic Tales is a “genre-neutral, rules-light role playing game of heroic problem solving.”
• Paper-Free RPG is a one-page RPG for situations in which character sheets are not very feasible, such as during nature hikes or night-time car-rides. (CC BY 4.0)
• QAGS - “Quick-Ass Game System”. Minimalist RPG first published in 2001, notable (notorious?, infamous?) for its explicit use of edible tokens as a dice modifier currency called “Yum-Yums”.
• Risus: The Anything RPG – a free four-page game with a large following, supporting a variety of play styles.
• SHARP – a lightweight descriptive system, Simple Handy Adaptable Role-Playing claims to be a “love child” of WaRP, FitD, and Gumshoe. (OGL)
• Septible (aka Alpha-7)¤ – a lean, flexible system playable with pools of any type of 50/50 randomizer (dice, coins, etc.). (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
• Simply6 – A simple d6 pool system.
• Tricube Tales – a free “minimalist, narrative-driven” system using 3d6 and some tokens. Aims to be kid-friendly and is supported by a number of settings. (CC BY 3.0)
• TWERPS - minimal system from Zocchi Games first published in 1987, “The World’s Easiest Role-Playing System”. Notable for being published by Lou Zocchi of GameScience “precision” dice fame.
• Ultra Accelerated – a one-page simplification of the already streamlined Fate Accelerated. (CC BY 3.0)
• Unbelievably Simple Roleplaying – three stats, simple dice, and a narrative currency, in two pages.
• Universalis - token-based system to share out story-telling authority
• 五德 (Wu De) - The Five Powers¤ – a narrative RPG, system based on the east-asian philosophy of Yin & Yang and the 5 Elements. Requires 6 d6 in two different colors.

Hackable

Simple games intended to be (or, at least, in actuality) co-opted and hacked into other published games.

• 24XX¤ – the system from 2400 prioritizes “description and narrative positioning over detailed rules processes”. (CC BY 4.0)
• The Black Hack – an OSR fantasy game that spawned a vast number of games in other genres. (OGL)
• D6xD6 – an open system using two d6 multiplied together and characters that can be written on a business card. Provides the framework for many games and settings. (D6xD6 OSL)
• Forged in the Dark¤ - SRD based on the award winning Blades in the Dark RPG, a game focusing on daring heists and building a criminal organization. Generally specializes in episodic, story-driven play with a set gameplay cycle. (CC BY 3.0)
• FU: the Freeform Universal RPG¤ – a lightweight system supporting degrees of success that “lends itself to a ‘seat of your pants’ style, where little preparation is needed.” (CC BY 4.0)
• Fudge¤ – supports a number of dice rolling systems, including using the eponymous Fudge dice, to drive a “rules-light role-playing game engine providing a common set of game mechanics that can be used to create any role-playing game you desire”. (OGL & FSTL)
• Fuzion – a crunchy system that (somewhat quietly) forms the backbone of dozens of games (e.g. Artesia, Cyberpunk v3, Victoriana), built to unify “the best of the Hero System (Champions) and Interlock (Cyberpunk)”. (Currently unclear licensing. At one point, Action! was an OGL system mostly compatible with Fuzion, but it is no longer.)
• Lasers & Feelings¤ – originally a sci-fi game, but its many modifications tune its very simple system to widely different ends. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Microlight20¤ – the d20 system stripped as bare as possible, currently supporting over a hundred different games. (OGL)
• Mini Six¤ – a slimmed down version of the OpenD6 system (see below). (OGL)
• minimalD6¤ – a minimalist game engine with over two dozen games written using it, by a variety of authors. (CC BY-SA 4.0)
• Pip System – aimed at beginning role-players, but with scaling complexity, using opposing pools of black and white d6. Supported by a number of kid-friendly games using the system, as well as a number of genre-specific guides.
• Questworlds¤ – A flexible system, with characters defined by key words and a resolution mechanic that covers all challenges, be they physical, mental or social. (Questworlds OGL) Based on HeroQuest, which was an alternate system to play in the Glorantha setting of RuneQuest.

Unusual dice/randomizer

Games that leverage atypical randomizers to support many genres of play.

• Fastlane: Everything, All the Time - Uses American or European roulette wheels, though rules for dice are included as well.
• Fate – uses Fudge dice (dice with equal numbers of blank, −, and + faces) to back “story-focused tools” that “puts the narrative and fiction first”. In addition to a number of published games and settings built on top of it, Fate comes in three “flavors”, divided by degree of complexity:
  • Fate Core – the full, medium-crunchy, version, with more options and examples. Also supports of line of world and toolkit books. (OGL & CC)
  • Fate Condensed – a compact, stand-alone version of Fate Core streamlined for clarity and ease of reference. (OGL & CC)
  • Fate Accelerated – a greatly simplified version of the system, designed to be quickly read and low prep. (OGL & CC)
• Genesys - uses dice with customized symbols, “with a system so adaptable and expansive you can explore every popular roleplaying genre”. The main book contains five settings, and other games use the system for a particular setting. (Genesys Foundry)
• Rosette Diceless – “dedicated to a consensus-based, story-first, and improvisational approach”, using no randomizers at all.
• Sapio – “lightweight, flexible framework for telling the stories” making use of pools of d12s with combinations of three symbols on each face.
• Silver Bullet RPG – A coin-based system that gets newbies playing quickly - building characters and learning as they play, and gives the PBTA crowd a generic that feels familiar and natural.
• Unbound – features “session zero” tools for collaboratively figuring out what genre/setting/concept you want to play in the first place. The system itself uses decks of playing cards for randomization.

Toolkit

Toolkit systems offer numerous options or subsystems, with explicit guidance to mix and match a subset of the parts for a specific campaign or experience.

• 4C¤ – explicitly a toolkit “foundation for you to build upon”, using a lightweight percentile/chart lookup system, heavily influenced by FASERIP. The title is an abbreviation of “four color”, owing to the game’s superhero roots. (text is public domain)
• Active Exploits¤ - diceless generic rpg system from Precis Intermedia first published in 2002.
• Chimera RPG – a 64-page “framework for gaming in any conceivable genre” using d12 non-binary checks and opposed polyhedral rolls, that is “easy to learn and optimized for fast play”. (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
• Cortex Prime – a mid-complexity, “multi-genre, modular, session-centered” toolkit, with explicit knobs for tuning the system for a desired campaign. Evolved from earlier iterations of Cortex that powered many games from Margaret Weis Productions.
• FAST System – “a new generic setting gaming system based solely around a D10 mechanic from Art of the Genre. It is designed to be ‘anti-bloat’, with everything geared toward an easy gamemaster experience and quick resolution mechanics for the players.”.
• Forge Engine¤ – a mid- to high-crunch system using opposed d10 dice pools with degree of success. Tunes available skills and equipment to the genre. (CC BY 4.0)
• Lumen¤ - A lightweight toolkit for action packed, power fantasy games, providing the framework for several dozen games, and growing. Mixes a 2d6 degree of success system with tactical, fast, combat-heavy play. (Free to use, with credit given.)
• OpenD6¤ – originally the house system for West End Games, now a free, open, mid-complexity system. Attributes and skills available to characters are defined based on genre/setting with actions resolved using a summed pool of d6. (OGL)
• Solar System - based on the early 2000’s indie RPG The Shadow of Yesterday, the first game where a “Key”-based XP system was presented.
• WOIN – “What’s OLD is NEW, three toolkit-oriented tabletop roleplaying games designed to work together”, using a fairly crunchy mechanics driving a summed d6 pool for resolution. (WCPS)
• UGIS¤ - the “Universal and Generic Imagination System”. Low complexity and rules-lite with a focus on character development and roleplay. Opportunity to create any setting and genre with numerous options for customization. Resolution works with d6 pools against difficulties. Has its license open to all types of hack or additional material.

Toolkit + genre book

Toolkit systems that go a step further, offering products tuned to specific genres or settings.

• GURPS – the original “generic universal role-playing system” has accumulated a huge number of supplements over the years, each adapting the basic concepts of the game to particular genre or setting. A 32-page “distillation of the basic GURPS rules” is available for free.
• 6d6 – combines characters defined by a collection of “advantages” with a token system measuring their “potential” (how many advantages they can actually use at a particular time) to build a summed dice pool. Adapts to different genres with setting and adventure books. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Everywhen – a medium-crunch system “designed for high action roleplaying and suitable for campaigns in any era or background”, based on Barbarians of Lemuria. Setting books provide examples of using the system for particular genres. (custom license)
• Index Card RPG – a system that “throws out all the clunky parts” while providing numerous choices for characters. Class-based, but with available classes tailored to the genre. Provides a number of “world” books which customize the game for a given setting or genre. (CC BY 4.0)
• JAGS – Just Another Gaming System claims to be “rules-heavy”, and interested in a very wide power scale, a “variance in lethality”, and nice production. Several setting books tune it to particular genres.
• OneDice – a system based on rolling a single d6, with dozens of genre-specific variations.
• Saga – a low- to mid-crunch storytelling system, with several setting books as examples of use for particular genres. While it contains “a deadly and believable combat system, it is not combat focused”. (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
• TinyD6 – a very light system using descriptors and a pool of one to three d6, with genre specific books (e.g. Tiny Wastelands, Tiny Frontiers) to expand it into specific genres.

Comprehensive

Systems aiming to offer options for every possibility at once.

• HERO System - The 400 pound gorilla of point-buy, crunchy, high character customization systems, originally extracted from the Champions superhero game. Resolution pits a summed d6 pool (usually 3d6) against a target.
• Cosmic Cutthroats – a complex, “kitchen sink” sort of system built to support multi-genre dimension-hopping. (CC BY-SA 4.0)
• EABA – stands for “End All Be All” and routes everything through a universal chart, taking the sum of the best three d6 from a pool. (Custom open license)
• Open Legend – a mid-complexity system using pools of exploding dice. Claims to be “open-source”, by which it means using a license reminiscent of the OGL. (Open Legend Community License)
• True20 – a simplified (three-class) version of the d20 system (the open portions of D&D 3.5), liberated from some of d20’s license restrictions. (OGL/True20)

Specific

Systems that support a particular type of play in a genre-agnostic way.

• 3Deep – a lightweight system “designed to emulate the episode structure” of TV, and also dedicating a significant section of the book to support solo play.
• Arium – two books, Arium: Discover is a streamlined RPG system that is built to run games in any world built with Arium: Create.
• Blackwind – might be what would have happened if RPGs were originally made by novelists instead of wargamers. Uses lots of the technical tools of writing.
• DOGS – “a genre and setting agnostic” interpretation of the now out-of-print Dogs in the Vineyard, using a dice pool and wagering system that is “heavily intertwined with the narrative… ideal for games where the players are solving mysteries, settling disputes, and making moral and/or ethical decisions”.
• Forthright – a mid-complexity system based on non-binary results of a d20 roll. Heavy emphasis on expectation setting (both for the game as a whole, and for each die roll), collaboration, and GM guidance. (CC BY 4.0)
• Gumshoe – offers an engine designed for building investigative, mystery-solving games, regardless of genre. A kickstarter opened the SRD for the system. (CC BY 3.0)
• Narrative Game System – rules-light, heavily targeting narrative, collaborative play. Bulk of the book details fifteen example settings.
• The Pool – a free, simple system using a “dice pool gambling mechanic” to decide narrative control, and advancement is handled by adding words to your character’s story.
• Primetime Adventures - designed to create games that feel like television shows of any genre.
• Spark – “purpose-built to foster creating dynamic, custom settings” where play is “about challenging values and beliefs”. The main book contains example settings for “shogunate science fiction”, “montreal police drama”, and “fantasy under siege”. (CC BY 3.0)
• Strike! – a medium-complexity system built around grid-based tactical combat, aiming for “variety without complexity” and non-binary resolution using a single d6.
• Theatrix - originally published in 1993, this diceless system leans into many theatrical metaphors in its structure.
• Vivid – a lightweight d6-based system targeted at cinematic, pulpy, low-prep adventure.

House systems

Systems that back a particular company’s line of games, usually extracted into their own setting-agnostic book.

• 2d20 – the backbone of a large number of games produced by Mōdiphiüs, though they have never produced a “generic” book for the system.
• AGE – powers a number of Green Ronin’s games, using complex system built around a 3d6 pool where one of the dice is special and determines degree of success and some other factors.
• Amazing Engine - genre-neutral system published by Wizards of the Coast in 1993 primarily used to drive a series of genre-specific supplements.
• Cypher System – drives the various titles of Monte Cook Games using an “I’m a blank blank who blanks” approach to character building and “GM intrusions”.
• Era d10 – an extraction of the pool of exploding d10s system behind the Era: … games from Shades of Vengeance.
• Fragged Rules System – a high-crunch 3d6, system using “tactical miniature combat” and “best for long sandbox games”, supporting several games from Design Ministries. They treat the first half of the Fragged Empire Core Rules as the baseline rules engine.
• Masterbook - originally a house generic system from West End Games from 1993, still available via DTRPG. Made extensive use of custom cards called Masterdeck
• Mythic D6 – based on the idea that all RPGs are basically superhero games with different trappings, using a modified d6 success pool. House system for Khepera Publishing.
• PDQ Sharp! - A generic version of the house system used by Atomic Sock Monkey press in games such as Truth and Justice and *Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies
• RuneQuest descendants – first published in 1978, RuneQuest has gone through a number of revision and more than its fair share of legal maneuvering. Out of all this have come a number of generic games:
  • Basic Role-Playing – a common distillation of the games produced by Chaosium. A fairly crunchy percentile skill-based system. (BRP OGL)
  • Mythras Imperative – a “free introduction to the Mythras system, and geared towards generic adventures”. A fairly crunchy percentile skill-based system. (Mythras Gateway License)
  • OpenQuest – more explicitly “a game of fantasy adventure”, but similar to the two above. A fairly crunchy percentile skill-based system. (OGL)
  • Revolution D100 – “proposes a new approach to percentile-based role-playing games, while keeping the unique flavour of the classic D100 engine”. A fairly crunchy percentile skill-based system.
  • Note that QuestWorlds (listed in the “Hackable” section above) is based on Heroquest, which was an alternate rules system for playing in the Glorantha setting of Runequest.
• Savage Worlds powers Pinnacle Games. It has a liberal (though not open) license as well, so many settings have been published for it.
• Tri-Stat dX is the free, generic expression of the games first made by Guardians of Order, revived with the latest edition of Big Eyes, Small Mouth.
• WaRP – for the 20th anniversary of Over the Edge, Atlas Games released the “Wanton Role-Playing System”, an open expression if its system. (OGL)
• Cortex was once the house system of Margaret Weis Productions, when they still produced RPGs, now supplanted by Cortex Prime (see above).
• The D6 System formed the basis of games by the bankrupted West End Games like Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game, and now lives on as OpenD6 (see above).

Historical

Systems that are no longer available but were notable in their time.

• [Lords of Creation](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lords_of_Creation_(role-playing_game) - an early generic game published in 1983 notable for its publisher (Avalon Hill) and its author (Tom Moldvay).
• CORPS - generic toolkit game from Blackburg Tactical Research Center published prior to, and considered superseded by, EABA.

Post-apocalyptic

Wander the Wasteland

Characters wander a generic wasteland, trying to survive/find adventure. The nature of the apocalypse is either unspecified, forgotten in the distant past, a general multi-faceted collapse, or some other “classic” wasteland.

• Aftermath! — a 1980’s era, detailed reality simulator that features levelless, classless and skill based characters. Beloved by many, but very crunchy.
• Apocalypse World – a narrative, character-driven wasteland game, based on playbooks and triggered “moves”. The somewhat infamous sex moves are removed in Burned Over, a “pretty deep redesign… suitable for play across wider age groups and more general audiences”. Its design philosophy and concepts drive a slew of other games, known as “Powered by the Apocalypse”. (PbtA)
• Atomic Highway¤ – a free game that “doesn’t spend any time on backstory or metaplot” and is “well-suited to one-shot games and short campaigns”. System counts successes from pools of d6, and provides heavy support for vehicle-related play. (V6 Engine)
• d20 Apocalypse — was WotC’s take on using d20 Modern for PA play. (OGL)
• Darwin’s World – was a d20 take on PA, with a good number of supplements. An announcement in 2018 indicated a Savage Worlds reboot of this line, which has not yet materialized. (OGL)
• Earth AD — a generalized, adaptable approach to post-apocalypse play. Uses a 2d6, degree-of-success, color-chart system, and can also be run diceless. (genreDiversion)
• Exodus RPG — another d20 approach to wandering the wasteland, originally licensed to be set in the Fallout universe, but no longer. (OGL)
• Glow in the Dark — “play to find out if your tribe can flourish despite other hungry gangs, forgotten prewar threats, the unforgiving elements, and their own dark impulses.” (FitD)
• Mutant Future — an old-school take on generic post-apocalypse play, “fully compatible with Labyrinth Lord”. (OGL)
• Mutant Bikers of the Atomic Wastelands¤ — being a “post-apocalypse game of big guns, big bikes and diminutive IQs”, this free game replicates the feel of cheesy 80’s post apocalypse movies. (Fudge OGL)
• Redline — a vehicle-heavy d20 wasteland. (OGL)
• Ruinations¤ — a work in progress, “based on the framework and tradition of old school gaming” for play in a non-gonzo “grittier near-future”. (OGL)
• Tiny Wastelands — a minimalist rule-set using “only one to three single six-sided dice on every action [and] characters that can be written 3×5 notecard”. The book contains a dozen or so sample settings. (TinyD6)
• The Wasted Hack — another old-school approach to “assume the roles of survivors in this ruined world”. (Black Hack OGL)

Make Your Own Wasteland

Similar to the previous category, but also containing play elements specifically about defining the specifics of the apocalypse during session zero, or during play.

• Barbarians of the Aftermath — expansion for Barbarians of Lemuria to create any type of PA setting. (Everywhen)
• Downfall — no GM, no dice, no prep, for three people, with step-by-step tools to build a world, and then destroy it.
• Maximum Apocalypse — based on the board game of the same name, using a percentage system. Each player chooses their own personal apocalypse.
• Other Dust — “is not here to dazzle you with brilliantly novel mechanics” but rather “designed as an industrial-strength toolkit for postapocalyptic sandboxing”, using an old-school system “completely cross-compatible” with Stars Without Number. Heavy on setting generated from random tables.

We Can Rebuild

Play focusses on rebuilding society after the apocalypse, with mechanical or other focus on community, “base-building” and so on.

• After the War — set ten years after a mimetic virus laid waste to a galactic union, survivors try to rebuild a frontier world. Uses a belief-driven narrative system including mechanics for settlements. CC BY-NC 3.0
• Flatpack: Fix the Future — “optimistic apocalyptic roleplaying” about “building a new society using pre-apocalypse technology that you don’t always trust or understand, and solving terrible problems creatively”. (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
• Legacy: Life Among the Ruins — Rebuilding after the calamity, using a flexible, multi-generational system, with players controlling both families and individual characters. (PbtA)
• The Morrow Project — “intended to be part of an organized plan to rebuild America” after a nuclear war, the PCs are woken from stasis too late. “Now, far outside the original time frame and unable to contact the rest of the project, they must start alone the process that was intended for thousands”.
• Mutant Epoch — play deals with “excavation teams” trying to “reclaim some semblance of civilization”, using a mostly percentile system. (Outland)
• Mutant: Year Zero — a well-supported evolution of the Swedish game Mutant, originally published in 1984. Play involves maintaining and upgrading “The Ark”, the character’s home, and exploring the surrounding wastelands for whatever can help. (Year Zero Engine)
• Traveller: The New Era — set after the complete collapse of an interstellar empire, play typically features the re-contact of once imperial worlds. Built on the system used in Twilight: 2000 and Dark Conspiracy.
• Wreck Age — a game that merges a focus on community and rebuilding, miniatures skirmish rules, and rpg mechanics. (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)

This Particular Apocalypse

Games that lean heavily into a specific setting.

• Arrhenius — a narrative-based adventure, exploration, and combat game set in the harsh and far-future ruins of the next Ice Age in the year 100,000.
• Broken Earth – a general post-nuclear real-world setting, for both Savage Worlds and Pathfinder. Many supplements detail areas of the setting. Unrelated to the fictional series of the same name by N. K. Jemisin (see below).
• Cascade Failure¤ — a free game set in the aftermath of an interstellar collapse. (OGL)
• Degenesis¤ – a free game based on a dense, dark setting, brought to life with impressive visual design and art.
• Deadlands: Hell on Earth — a post-apocalyptic take on the weird-west Deadlands setting, with several editions:
  • Classic — the 1998 original.
  • Classic d20 — a d20 port of the original. (OGL)
  • Reloaded — actively supported. (Savage Worlds)
• Fragged Empire — “four genetically engineered races seek to build a new society for themselves as they emerge from the ruin of genocidal war, and back to the stars”. Heavy emphasis on tactical miniatures combat. The first half of explains a more genre-neutral system, with the second half adapting it specifically to the setting.
• Gamma World — grew out of the not-exactly-post-apocalypse Metamorphosis Alpha, and moved through many different editions, with the nature of the apocalypse and the setting mutating over time. Most of these editions (and their supplements) are still available, though none of them is in active development:
  • First Edition and Second Edition shared a similar, traditional design, with second largely being a cleaned-up and expanded version of the first.
  • Third Edition reworked the game to use a four-color “action table”, trendy in TSR’s games of the era.
  • Fourth Edition moved to a class and level system, somewhat reminiscent of a streamlined D&D 2e.
  • Fifth Edition was a setting supplement for the sci-fi game Alternity.
  • Omega World was a standalone d20 mini game published in Dungeon/Polyhedron magazine.
  • Sixth Edition brought the full setting to d20 Modern. While unpopular at the time for its more sombre tone, it includes an interesting approach to community building, and a GM’s Guide useful beyond just this game or genre. (OGL)
  • Seventh Edition made polarizing use of the D&D 4e engine to build a more gonzo tactical fighting game, adding extremely fast character generation, high lethality, and cards for random powers. (GSL)
• GURPS post-apocalype worldbooks — a wide range of books bring particular post-apocalypse settings to life over different editions of GURPS.
• Onyx Sky — devastating global war and environmental collapse plunge humanity back into the stone age. After decades safe inside a military bunker, government facility, fallout shelter, or scientific vault, the characters emerge. They find the world in ruin, communities struggling to endure against roaming marauders, autonomous battle droids, and metal-eating nanites.
• Polaris — high production values describe a world where, after the surface of the earth has been rendered uninhabitable, “humanity, searching for refuge, combs the world’s oceans and finds sanctuary… and more”. Uses a skill-based system, trying to get the highest roll under a particular target.
• PunkApocalyptic — based on the miniatures skirmish game of the same name, with a modified version of rules from Shadow of the Demon Lord.
• Summerland — about desolation and redemption in a world destroyed by a vast supernatural forest growing overnight. (OpenD6)
• Twilight: 2000 — a newly revived fourth edition for “roleplaying in the World War III that never was” as soldiers or civilians. (Year Zero Engine)

During the Apocalypse

Part of play deals with the apocalypse as it happens, and its immediate aftermath.

• Chaos Earth — a game/setting based on Rifts, when the world suddenly comes apart.
• Down in Flames — thirteen “wrecking scenarios for CORPS or any other role-playing game”.
• Dream Askew — a heavily narrative game of “queer strife amid the collapse”, set in a strange, gradual apocalypse. Uses a token economy, no randomizers, and playbooks (for more than just characters).
• eCollapse — a setting for Wild Talents featuring supers in “a future that didn’t explode so much as give up in disgust”. (ORE)
• The End of the World — a series of four related, but distinct, games originally created by the now-defunct role-playing arm of Fantasy Flight Games and now in the hands of Edge Studio. Each game puts players in the middle of a particular kind of apocalypse, as it happens, using a story-focussed, narrative ruleset.
  • Alien Invasion presents five scenarios of extraterrestrial attack
  • Revolt of the Machines, which technology goes rogue.
  • Wrath of the Gods offers five takes on the end of humanity by divine wrath.
  • Zombie Apocalypse contains five different takes on the rise of the undead.
• Mörk Borg — an edgy OSR game set during the destruction of a fantasy world. “Rules light, heavy everything else.” Ennies Product of the Year 2020 winner.

Zombie Apocalypse

Specifically targeted at zombie/infection style post-apocalypse play. Some of these may be “during the apocalypse” games.

• All Flesh Must Be Eaten — an early, setting-agnostic rule-set for zombie survival horror, combined with a wide variety of sourcebooks for specific settings. Tasks resolved using d10 plus skill, attribute, and modifier. (Unisystem)
• AZ: After Zombies — a survival game using percentile system.
• The Dead Are Coming — “a minimalist, classically-inspired RPG about survival in a post-apocalyptic world where the dead have risen and other survivors can be much worse than the undead”. Based on Into the Odd.
• Dystopia Rising: Evolution — though heavily featuring zombies, there is more to this “gritty action-adventure survival game”, a tabletop adaptation of a LARP setting. (Storypath)
• Fear the Living — players design the zombie apocalypse as part of play, with the play that follows being episodic.
• Infected! — a game of “survival, suspense, horror, politics, war, intrigue and action in the years following the zombie outbreak”.
• Outbreak: Undead — a “zombie survival simulation” presenting “a modular system to create your own horror setting… with a variety of undead or infected monsters“. Uses a percentile skill system, mixed with several special varieties of d6 and tokens. Awarded Ennie Judges Spotlight in 2011.
• Red Markets — a game of “cut-throat capitalism with its knife on your neck” where “characters risk their lives trading between the massive quarantine zones containing a zombie outbreak and the remains of civilization”. Features a highly detailed setting, backed by a system using two opposed d10s. (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
• Rotted Capes — B-list superheroes are the last hope in a “horrific world where the super zombies sit atop the food chain”. (Arcanis)
• Survival of the Able — people with disabilities vs. plague zombies in the Middle Ages.
• Tiny Living Dead — minimalist zombie survival. (TinyD6)
• Ultima Forsan — “set in a macabre alternate version of our Renaissance”, after a plague of the dead ravaged the world. “Now, in the year 1514, heroes from the New Kingdoms are ready to fight to reconquer the World.” (Savage Worlds)
• Zombi — a lightweight 2d6 survival game which considers the other survivors the main adversaries.
• Zombie World — a zero-prep, card-based rpg “designed for easy, quick, and intense play”, built around defending some type of enclave. Mechanically, different situations or character actions trigger particular types of card draws.
• Zombiepocalypse — a minimalist survival game “designed to be easy to pick up and simple to play”, with quick character generation to balance a low survival rate. (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0)

Gonzo

Games where the main draw is over-the-top weirdness, genre bashing, kitchen-sink inclusion, not particularly-serious play.

• Barbarians of the Ruined Earth — a “weird post-apocalyptic fantasy setting” providing “a Saturday Morning Cartoon Stew fueled by heavy metal”. (Black Hack OGL)
• Death is the New Pink — a “bizarre, crazed” setting where play is “brutal, bloody, and chaotic” and “things should be kept fast-paced and it’s more than fine if it doesn’t make sense”. Based on Into the Odd.
• Low Life: Rise of the Lowly — based on the somewhat scatalogical art of “whimsical yet twisted bizarrities” by Andy Hopp. If you ever wanted to play as a sentient Twinkie or elevated worm, this is the game for you. (Savage Worlds)
• Mutant Crawl Classics — an old-school mutations-give-cool-powers game, built for full compatibility with Dungeon Crawl Classics. (OGL)
• Mutants of Ixx — a “pamphlet sized” game based on Into the Odd.
• The Rad Hack — set in “a weird, post apocalyptic future where mutants, robots, psionics and humans team up against the dangers of the wasteland in search of tech, slugs and adventure”. (Black Hack OGL)
• See the many attempts to replicate Thundarr the Barbarian, below.
• 2400 Xot, 2400 Exiles, 2400 Tempus Diducit, and 2400 Data Loss are all various flavors of weird post-apocalypse. Each one is a three-page rules-lite module and they can be combined together with minor finangling.

Magical Wasteland

Differentiated by the inclusion of magic and/or other fantasy elements.

• Daemornia — a rules-light, combat-heavy, 3d6-roll-under, with an extensive setting after a utopian world fell to a demonic invasion.
• Dark Sun — set “amid the barren wastelands of Athas”, based heavily on the art of Gerald Brom. Originally designed for D&D 2e, and later released for D&D 4e.
• Day After Ragnarok — a “submachine guns and sorcery” setting, set after the Midgard Serpent rises near the end of World War II, only to have its head nuked by Truman, and devastate the world when its body crashes. (Fate Core, HERO, Savage Worlds)
• Desolation — “set 18 months after a high-fantasy world was nearly brought to an end”. Uses a free-form approach to magic. (Ubiquity)
• Earthdawn — “hopeful, post-apocalyptic fantasy”, recently updated to its “fourth” edition. The setting’s “kaers” are strongly associated with Fallout “vaults”, and can lead to a similar (though fantasy-themed) sort of play.
• Forbidden Lands — though not advertised exactly as a post-apocalypse game, this “sandbox survival… in a cursed world” fits the bill. Combines a streamlined old-school approach with some more modern narrative techniques.
• Planet Apocalypse — a supplement for turning 5e fantasy worlds into a hellscape overrun by fiendish hordes. (OGL)
• Reclamation — “combines sci-fi, fantasy, and survival horror themes with a unique card-based game system”.
• Sordid Dystopia — “a post-industrialist and vaguely post-apocalyptic game set in a low-fantasy world, where the public… are blissfully ignorant to the inhuman eyes that watch from their shadows”.
• Sundered World — “a fantastic, kind of gonzo campaign setting for Dungeon World” set in the “shattered remnants of the worlds… ravaged during a cosmic war between the gods and primordials”. (PbtA, CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
• Titansgrave — featured in Will Wheaton’s Geek & Sundry series, details a world mixing “high magic and hi-tech” which now recovers from two different apocalypses. (AGE)
• Tribe 8 — “set in a tribal future where PCs are blessed with mystical insight and marked by destiny”. Mechanics use the highest result from a d6 pool. (Silhouette)
• The Ultraviolet Grasslands and the Black City — “psychedelic metal roleplaying” where heroes journey across the titular grasslands. The book contains both a beautifully illustrated setting and a light D&D-like system.
• Unity — a high-production-value fantasy apocalypse, with a combat system “design to facilitate teamwork” and shared narrative authority.

Other Thematic Approaches

Games with a targeted “feel” or mode of play, often using a very specific setting.

• After the Bomb — originally a post-apocalyptic setting for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, but became its own game, set in a world dominated by uplifted animals. (Megaversal)
• Belly of the Beast — “brazen survivors… plumb the depths of a world-eating monster’s guts, scouring the remains of the mighty empires that were eaten by the Beast.” (Ethos Engine)
• Bounty Hunters of the Atomic Wastelands¤ — in which “the players take on the role of bounty hunters, banding together to hunt down bad guys for reputation and reward”. (Fate Accelerated CC BY 3.0)
• deadEarth¤ — though long out of print, “possibly one of the worst RPGs ever” was made freely publishable for non-commercial use.
• Devil’s Run — “a post-apocalyptic future in which gang warfare dominates”. (2d20)
• Future Imperfect¤ — players take on the roles of centuries old sentient machines, in a world where humans became unable to breed. (Risus)
• High Plains Samurai — “a storytelling game of extreme mash-ups” in a super-powered world of “gunslingers, barbarians, samurai, gangsters and steampunk”. Dice rolls do not measure success or failure, but are instead used as complications against your enemies.
• Libreté — a translation of a French game where you “assume the lives of children trying to survive in a world without adults”. (PbtA)
• Pugmire and Monarchies of Mau — related games/settings built on 5e set after the world is inherited by uplifted dogs and cats (respectively). (OGL)

Franchises

Games based on specific post-apocalypse movies, books, video games, or media franchises.

• The Fifth Season – will be an rpg based on N. K. Jemisin’s Broken Earth trilogy.
• Mad Max — pretty much every game listed above owes something to the Mad Max franchise, but no official RPG exists. Games mentioned above with a heavy focus on vehicle chases/combat include: Atomic Highway, Redline.
• Stalker RPG — like the film and video game series of the same name, this diceless game is based on the novel Roadside Picnic by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, but brought to “modern times and modern audiences”. Available in Finnish and English.
• Thundarr the Barbarian: See Thundarr Roleplaying

Science Fiction

Broad-focused sci-fi

• 2300 AD – Originally released under the Traveller name, and now again. In between, it was a hard sci-fi game intended to continue the setting of Twilight 2000.
• Coriolis – Middle Eastern-inspired sci-fi setting, described as “Arabian Knights in space”.
• DayTrippers – A CORE-based game of surreal reality-hopping science-fiction. Low prep, high collab, universal Yes/No/And/But mechanic.
• Diaspora – based on an older edition of Fate, won the gold ENnie for best rules in 2010. It contains a number of interesting approaches to sci-fi exploration play. (Fate 3)
• FrontierSpace – an action/adventure OSR-type game highly influenced by Star Frontiers. (d00Lite, CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
• Infinite Galaxies – broad focus system with a setting that “presents a positive and engaging future state of the universe”. (CC BY-SA 4.0)
• Shadows Over Sol – hard sci-fi horror set in our own solar system.
• Star Frontiers – an early general sci-fi system from TSR.
• Stars Without Number¤ – an OSR sci-fi game built “to encourage sandbox play”. Has both a free and paid version.
• Traveller – one of the earliest sci-fi games, has seen nearly a dozen different versions, all of which still have their adherents. Some versions are famous for cases where your character can die while being generated. The OGL portion of Mongoose Traveller Version 1 is known as the Cepheus Engine.

Broad-focused transhumanist sci-fi

• Eclipse Phase – a post-singularity game of transhuman horror. (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
• Farflug – “about the ends of the universe, where nothing has been undone and everything is permitted”. (PbtA)
• FreeMarket – a post-scarcity, transhumanist game set aboard a space station, asking the question “what will you do with forever?”. The box set of this game is hard to find.
• Mindjammer – takes place in an award-winning far-future, transhumanist setting. (Fate)
• Nova Praxis – “a post-singularity sci-fi setting that explores transhumanism and post-scarcity societies against a backdrop of action, adventure, conspiracy and intrigue”. (Fate, Savage Worlds)

Broad-focused space opera

• Archives of the Sky – “a tabletop story game of galactic scope and threatened ideals” won a Judges’ Spotlight ENnie in 2019.
• Baroque Space Opera – “Enter a fantastic universe beyond time and space… filled with strange technology, stranger cultures, exotic locations, and incredible danger.” (Fate)
• Blood in Space – minimal rule set with a fully realized setting. (Fudge)
• Fading Suns – a game of heavy combat, vicious politics, weird occultism, alien secrets and artifacts, from the makers of Das Schwarze Auge. Recently kickstarted second edition.
• Faith is a space opera RPG “of epic adventures, where starfaring alien civilizations race to explore a dangerous, unknown universe; while the Gods compete for followers; and the Ravager threaten civilization as a whole”.
• Galactic – “tell the character-driven, relationship-focused space opera stories you want to see in the world” in this GM-less RPG inspired by Star Wars (Belonging Outside Belonging)
• Hellas – a “fusion of high drama, action-adventure, romance, mythology-infused space opera”
• Rebel Scum – “a cinematic RPG about a war in the stars inspired by a deep love of old school action figures and of punching Nazis in the face”.
• Space Opera – “an old school RPG including complete rules for character and planet generation, human and alien races, skills and professions, starships, individual and ship combat, etc.”.
• Thousand Suns – RPG that takes its inspiration from the classic literary “imperial” science fiction of the ’50s, ’60s, and ’70s. (OGL)
• Tiny Frontiers – a “minimalist space opera” game based. (TinyD6)
• Trinity Continuum: Æon – Psions in a Mass Effect-ish galaxy, in recovery 60 years after a devastating war. Extrasolar colonies, aliens, space weirdness, jumpships. (Storypath)
• Uncharted Worlds – a wide-scope “space opera of discovery and adventure”. (PbtA)

Starship crew

• Ashen Stars – Investigative game about freelance law enforcement on the fringe of civilized space. Described aptly as the crew of Serenity tasked with the job of the Enterprise. (Gumshoe)
• Bulldogs! – is high action space adventure about a crew hauling cargo to the most dangerous places in the galaxy. (Fate)
• Burn Bryte – The galaxy is being consumed by the Burn, and the players along with their living ship adventures across the galaxy. Exclusively available through Roll20.
• explorers - a crew-game of planet exploration SciFi, moderate rules, focus on teamwork and limited resources.
• Impulse Drive – focused on a ship crew “making a living on the fringe of civilized space”. (CC BY-SA 3.0, PbtA)
• Lasers & Feelings¤ – a free one-page game about a starship crew, is about as rules-light as you can get, and has spawned literally hundreds of hacks to different genres. (CC BY-SA 3.0)
• Offworlders – as “owners of a small starship”, a group of “adventurers, outlaws, and guns for hire make their fortune on the rough end of the galaxy”. (CC BY 3.0 US, PbtA)
• Rust Hulks – a game about “playing space truckers in a grimy science-fiction future.” (PbtA)
• Scum and Villainy – a game ”about a spaceship crew trying to make ends meet under the iron-fisted rule of the Galactic Hegemony”. (FitD)
• Teens in Space – a spinoff of Kids On Bikes. A relatively lightweight system with cooperative storytelling elements about a crew of alien teens and their spaceship exploring space.

Thematic approaches

• 3:16 Carnage Amongst the Stars – a mechanically simple, low-prep campaign game about being a member of a self-serving military tasked with wiping out alien threats.
• Blue Planet – “offers hard sci fi adventure on the ecologically wild, sociopolitically contentious frontier of Earth’s first extrasolar colony world: a distant waterworld named Poseidon”.
• Cosmic Patrol – built to be more “golden age scifi”, using a simple rule-set. (Cue, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
• Danger Patrol¤ – captures some of the aesthetic of 1930’s sci-do serials, mixed with a more modern cinematic vibe. Has evolved through several versions, including a two-page “pocket” approach. (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
• Exilium – a game of “of science fiction adventure and intrigue set against a backdrop of post-human loss and redemption”. (Mini Six)
• Flatline – “a near-future dystopian roleplaying game about armed EMTs who execute intensive medical ops to protect the richest clients”. (Fate)
• Hello World – set in a digital utopia where only memory is in short supply. (FitD)
• Hostile – “a gritty, near future roleplaying setting for the 2D6 Cepheus Engine rules… inspired by movies like Outland and Alien”. (Cepheus Engine)
• Hunt the Wicked – focusing on “bounty Hunters: peacekeepers, gunslingers, saviors, and assassins, the heroes and mercenaries that go after the bad guys”.
• Mothership – “a sci-fi horror roleplaying game where you and your crew try to survive in the most inhospitable environment in the universe: outer space”.
• Never Tell Me the Odds – a “space-scoundrel RPG about risking it all”.
• The Nullam Project – A hard sci-fi RPG about humans who have arrived at a distant world in a generation ship only to find 2 warring species already there, forcing them to build an orbitol colony.
• Obsidian: the Age of Judgement – in 2299, “a desperate humanity wages war against the manifested legions of Hell itself”.
• ORUN, Post-Apotheosis Space Opera RPG – A rich and fully realized, and immersive Afrocentric science fiction setting in the Post- Apotheosis Age
• Paranoia – As a Troubleshooter, an elite force, you’re tasked with finding trouble and shooting it, you will be hunting mutants, terrorists, traitors, [CLASSIFIED], secret societies and renegade bots. You look worried, citizen. Relax! It’s still Paranoia. The year is still 214. You still have six clones and a laser pistol. The Computer is still your friend.
• Predation – A desparate future uses time-travel to build a colony 66 million years in the past, stranding them there. High tech meets dinosaurs. (Cypher)
• Shock: Social Science Fiction – a “fiction game of culture and future shock. Inspired by the works of Bruce Sterling, Kim Stanley Robinson, Ursula K. LeGuin, and Philip K. Dick, the game pushes the players to make stories that matter to them — stories about politics, philosophy, love, and death.” A variation of it, Shock: Human Contact is pretty much the Star Trek Federation with the serial numbers filed off.
• Star World – intends to emulate Star Trek and “includes PC playbooks, ship playbooks and a special set of ship moves for interstellar combat and maneuvers”. (PbtA)
• Sufficiently Advanced – a distant-future, somewhat optimistic game. The most recent edition uses a diceless system.
• Synthicide – makes use of tactical grid combat, in a grim semi-cyberpunk setting where the machines have taken over.
• Vast and Starlit – a “complete nano-game of interstellar crime & rebellion” using diceless mechanics and minimal verbiage.
• The Void – a “hard sci-fi survival horror setting with Lovecraftian elements”.

Mechs

• ArCS – “try and outrun debt collectors, fight space battles, and try to destabilize warring corporations for pay… all from the cockpit of a giant robot”. (PbtA)
• Beam Saber – a “game about the pilots of powerful machines in a war that dominates every facet of life”. (CC BY 3.0, FitD)
• Firebrands – is a casual game about pilots in the universe of the lego mech fighting game Mobile Frame Zero. (PbtA)
• LAST SENTINELS - a GM-less storytelling game about a doomed mech pilot, inspired by Polaris
• Lancer RPG – centered on shared narratives, customizable mechs, and the pilots who crew them in the future.
• Mecha – designed specifically to emulate both the combat and the drama of mecha anime. Core book contains three different settings, and advice on building your own.
• Mecha Aces – a more minimalist, generic approach to mech gaming. The book includes four different settings. (Fudge)
• The Mecha Hack – a standalone game “of titanic warmachines and their intrepid pilots, made with The Black Hack.”
• Mecha vs Kaiju – Mechs vs giant monsters, both for Fate Core and Cypher.
• Mechasys for Genesys - Genesys Foundry supplement by Studio 404 Games. Uses the Genesys Narrative Dice system. Able to handle most genres of mecha (big, stompy robots to agile mecha like Gundams and NGE). Mecha are constructed via a system that parallels player characters, and earn XP over time to tweak or build up their abilities.
• Mechwarrior: Destiny – the latest in a line of (very different) games for role-playing in the BattleTech universe. (Cue)
• Mekton Zeta – “enter a world of high adventure and mechanized combat”.
• Too Good to Be True – A one-shot/short campaign game of “mercenary combat in a gritty future”, also known as 2G2BT. Still in beta.
• Tiny Frontiers: Mecha and Monsters – you take on the role of jockeys who pilot massive robots, defending the world and cities of man from threats, giant aliens or monsters (Tiny Frontiers)

Cyberpunk

• Adrenaline – a crew-based heist game with “optional rules for cyber, bio, and pharmaceutical augmentations”. (FitD)
• Aetherium – a d10 pool system, set in a cyberpunk world that puts heavy emphasis on virtual reality.
• Altered State – a cyberpunk supplement for the Index Card RPG which brings cyberpunk to that system.
• Axon Punk – “Hip hop inspired cyberpunk in the megacities of 2085”.
• Black Code – a transhuman cyberpunk game “set in a future where humanity and technology are intermingled so closely we don’t know where we are going next”, using a toolkit approach.
• Bleeding Edge – create characters “with the limitless potential of next-gen technology, yet weighted down with the legacy of greed, lies, and hate”. (OGL)
• Blood Chrome Neon – a “relatively lightweight” game that is “pretty straightforward to hack”.
• Carbon 2185 – uses a class-based approach, and a better than average visual aesthetic. (5e OGL)
• CBR+PNK – designed for one-shot sessions, where a crew makes their last run. (FitD)
• CRASH//CART – play “a paramedic crew in a near-future Californian coastal metropolis.” Uses playing cards instead of dice. (FitD)
• Chrome Shells & Neon Streets – a two-page rpg “inspired by popular cyberpunk fiction”. (Tricube Tales)
• Cities without Number cyberpunk RPG built for sandbox adventures in a dystopia of polished chrome and bitter misery. Old-school inspired game system, fully compatible with the sci-fi Stars Without Number game and it’s fantasy sister-game Worlds Without Number
• Corporation – leans into the megacorp notion, to the point that nations no longer exist.
• Cyberblues City – “offers a lighter take on the cyberpunk genre, both in terms of system and tone” and supplies a number of free adventures. (Fudge)
• CyberFUDGE – cyberpunk meets fantasy meets post-apocalypse. Author claims “it sucked”. (Fudge)
• Cyberpunk is Dead – A rules-light Forged in the Dark-hack of playing a faceless corporate hit squad in a dystopian cyberpunk world.
• Cyberpunk RED – the latest version of the early Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0., advancing the timeline to the year 2045.
• CYBER//PUNK¤ – a Lasers & Feelings hack.
• Cyberspace – an early cyberpunk game. Like many Iron Crown Enterprises games, never took off the way its contemporaries did.
• d20 Cyberscape – the (perhaps inevitable) WotC d20 Modern expansion for cyberpunk play. (OGL)
• Daring Tales of the Sprawl – a somewhat generic cyberpunk setting. (Savage Worlds)
• Ex Machina – contained a trio of quite nice cyberpunk settings for the now-defunct Tri-Stat dX.
• Hack the Planet – has particular focus on arcologies and environmental activism. (FitD)
• Hard Wired Island – anti-capitalist cyberpunk inspired by 90s anime
• IDENTICO – brings classes, levels, and hit locations to 2099.
• Interface Zero – a well supported cyberpunk setting that has gone through a number of systems. The current version is a setting using a Savage Worlds license. (Savage Worlds)
• Neon Black – anticapitalist game about “a community of poor people fighting back against tyrannical corporations and the indifference of the rich”. (FitD)
• Neon City Outlaws – presents an alternate setting for Dusk City Outlaws, “a dystopian cyberpunk city where the crew takes on Jobs targeting the monolithic corporations and the execs that run them”.
• Neon City Overdrive – Forged in the Dark mixed with Freeform Universal. Fast, player-facing, tag based, a focus on heists/jobs/missions but with longer term goals for PCs that tie things together.
• Polychrome – a setting bringing cyberpunk elements to Stars Without Number.
• Remember Tomorrow – rules-lite and GM-less.
• Shadow of the Beanstalk – a cyberpunk setting built around a space elevator and link to the Android board and card games. (Genesys)
• SIGMATA: This Signal Kills Fascists – a cyberpunk RPG about ethical insurgency against a fascist regime, taking place in a dystopian vision of 1980’s America.
• The Sprawl – turns up the mission-based, genre-simulation dials. (PbtA)
• System Shutdown – a one-page one-shot, features a burned cyberoperative trying to extract vengeance before his implants fail.
• TechNoir – correctly dubs itself as “high-tech, hard-boiled roleplaying”, with unusual mechanics to match.
• Uprising – explores the tradeoff of freedom for technology. (Fate)
• The Veil – focuses more on character emotional drives and the impact of secondary realities (AR, VR, etc.). (PbtA)
• vs. MIRRORSHADES – a fast-playing game that uses standard playing cards. (vsM)
• Wired Neon Cities – “minimalist cyberpunk roleplaying” in five pages.

Cyberpunk plus…

Cyberpunk worlds with fantastical elements, without quite reaching “science fantasy”.

• Ascendancy – “psychic cyborgs, identity, and finding yourself through fighting for what you believe in”, based on the same engine as The Spire
• Corporia – a genre-bending game where reborn Knights of the Round Table struggle against oppressive mega-corporations.
• Cybergeneration – a spinoff of Cyberpunk 2.0.2.0. that includes superhero elements.
• Entromancy is a cyberpunk/magic fusion setting. (5e OGL)
• Halcyon – contains a number of cyberpunk elements, but also some post-apocalypse and magic.
• Headspace – claims to be “shared consciousness cyberpunk”. (PbtA)
• Psi-Punk – A psionic cyberpunk game. (Fudge)
• Retropunk – “in which the players embody characters in a futuristic hybrid reality—where the digital and physical have merged.”
• Shadowrun – the 400-pound gorilla in the “cyberpunk plus magic” genre. Known for having a lot of hacks to move the setting to other systems (see Shadowrun Alternative Systems).
• SLA Industries – takes place in a cyberpunk world with the horror elements turned up.
• The Spire – doesn’t bill itself as a cyberpunk game, but has a definite cyberpunk vibe, as your drow revolutionaries resist the high elf establishment that runs a mile tall tower-city.
• Toonpunk – “cartoons have come to life in the dystopian 24th century”.
• Trinity Continuum: Anima – upcoming cyberpunk/litRPG setting a handful of years after a devastating war. (Storypath)
• Vurt – takes place in a cyberpunk setting that adds travel into parallel worlds. (Cypher)

Science Fantasy

A (usually pulpy or over the top) mix of fantasy/magic with technology.

• Adventures on Dungeon Planet – a science fantasy supplement for Dungeon World. (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0, PbtA)
• Cryptomancer – The inevitable Age of Information which magick would bring to a Tolkienesque high-fantasy setting. “Made by hackers, for hackers.”
• Equinox – A space RPG; action, intrigue, and mystical powers in a war-ravaged dark future. System-agnostic setting guide and choice of two system books: Match system and rules-lite Storygame system (the latter being a permutation of Freeform Universal).
• Gatecrasher – Light-hearted mash-up of science fiction and fantasy set in the 24th century.
• Numenera – Set a billion years in our future, it’s a game of exploration and discovery. Abilities and artifacts of the past seems like sci-fi, magic, or both, depending on how you look at it. (Cypher)
• Otherworlds – a “future fantasy” game, which aims to provide lots of variability without overcomplicating.
• Space Wurm vs Moonicorn – “Space Wurm and Moonicorn are rivals, fighting over the future of galactic civilization.” Two players play them, while others play characters caught in their web, while GM is tasked with undermining them all. (CC BY-SA 4.0, PbtA)
• Starfinder is a “science fantasy adventure” game derived from the Pathfinder rule set. (OGL)
• Titansgrave – a setting inspired by Heavy Metal, The Land of the Lost, Akira, and Thundarr. (AGE)
• Troika – science-fantasy universe in the spirit of works such as Dying Earth, Viriconium, and Book of the New Sun.

Franchises

Games officially based on existing science fiction franchises.

• Alien – brings the universe of the Alien franchise to life, “a universe of body horror and corporate brinkmanship, where synthetic people play god while space truckers and marines serve host to newborn ghoulish creatures”. (Year Zero)
• Altered Carbon – aims for the neo-noir, bod-swapping feel of the TV series.
• Dune: Adventures in the Imperium – “a journey through the storied worlds of Frank Herbert’s sci-fi masterpiece”. (2d20)
• Elite Dangerous – brings the world of the popular MMO to the gaming table.
• The Expanse – brings the setting of James S.A. Corey’s bestselling fiction series to your table. (AGE)
• Farscape is a d20 system that can still be purchased, but is no longer supported. (OGL)
• Flash Gordon – “Do you have what it takes to join the Freemen, defy the rule of Ming the Merciless, and become the savior of the universe?” (Savage Worlds)
• The Gaean Reach – based on the “legendary cycle of science fiction classics” by Jack Vance. (Gumshoe)
• Girl Genius – Based on the comics and graphic novels by Phil and Kaja Foglio. Kaja and Phil are listed among the authors and have done the art for the book.
• John Carter of Mars – created “under license and with the cooperation of the estate of Edgar Rice Burroughs”. (2d20)
• Star Trek
• Star Trek Adventures – the latest in a long line of official Star Trek games. (2d20)
• Prime Directive has a contract with Paramount, but can’t actually use the phrase “Star Trek”. (OGL, GURPS)
• Games listed above that directly emulate Star Trek include: Shock: Human Contact, Star World
• Star Wars
• Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game (WEG)(1987) – the original D6-based game, which in 2019 got a reprint
• Star Wars Roleplaying Game(2012) (Fantasy Flight Games, 2012) – Uses a unique dice system for determining outcome. The dice system was later adopted as the core for the universal Genesys RPG.
• Star World: Streets of Los Eisley – A free, rule-lite, playset, based on World of Dungeons.
• Games listed above that directly emulate Star Wars include: Never Tell Me the Odds, Rebel Scum, Scum and Villainy, Galactic.
• Stargate SG-1 Roleplaying Game – (published Summer 2021). (5e OGL)
• The Starship Troopers line contained over a dozen titles, but is no longer supported. (OGL)
• The Terminator RPG – Kickstarter funded in 2021, quick start has been released. (S5S)
• Vorkosigan Saga offers the science-fiction stories of Lois McMaster Bujold. (GURPS)

Adaptive approaches

Some generic systems offer sci-fi-specific variations or guidebooks:

• Cortex Prime contains some serviceable advice for running “starship crew” style games in that system. Cortex excels at ensemble mission-driven play and was used to drive the Firefly and Serenity games, when they were still available.
• D6 Space – uses the OpenD6 to approach many different types of science fiction. This is the same system that powered West End’s Star Wars game.
• Genesys – Grew out of the Star Wars Roleplaying Game by Fantasy Flight Games and offers the Shadow of the Beanstalk setting book for cyberpunk adventures in the Android setting.
• GURPS
  • GURPS Cyberpunk – a line of books provide a toolkit for cyberpunk play in that generic system. It also has a somewhat infamous history.
  • GURPS Space – a whole line of books for bringing GURPS to space.
  • GURPS Tech – a whole line of books for bringing technology to GURPS.
• N.E.W. is the future-focused component of the What’s Old is New system (W.O.I.N), a generic system.
• The Science Fiction Companion tunes the Savage Worlds system for science fiction, as do settings like The Last Parsec and Slipstream.
• The Stars Are Fire – Extends and optimizes the Cypher System for science fiction.
• Ultramodern5 – a toolbox which brings various genres of sci-fi to the 5e ruleset. (5e OGL)

Superhero

Genre-spanning

A number of games approach supers in a general way, aiming to support many different genres of stories with a generalized set of rules. Games like this include:

• BASH! matches a lightweight system with a ton of supplements, with advice on targeting different eras of comics.
• Champions has gone through a confusing array of editions. At this point, two main lines carry the torch in different ways:
• Champions Now is a “recovery and re-imagining of first-generation Champions role-playing” using much more modern design.
• Champions Complete builds a more traditional supers toolkit on HERO System 6th Edition.
• The Contract RPG A gritty origin story game with a system that allows Players to build custom powers for any concept.
• Era: The Empowered sets the game around a timeline of “events”, each of which captures a particular flavor of comics. The system itself “offers the chance to play any superhero story you could possibly want”. (Era)
• The Four Color Hack “rips the heart from The Black Hack, and transplants that still beating organ into a Frankenstein’s monster of a system”.
• Galaxies in Peril is a Forged in the Dark supers game where heroes progress from street-level vigilantes to galaxy-saving heroes. (FitD)
• Heroes Unlimited, still on the market since its debut in 1984, “enables players to create virtually every type of hero imaginable” in exactly the way you’d expect from Palladium.
• [Heroes and Heels] (https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/23800/CheezePuff-Productions). 5e compatible superhero game with hit points and slots for powers instead of spells. Tries to be inbetween Champions and Mutants and Masterminds in complexity but truly 5e compatible. You could fight a 5e monster manual monster with characters in these rules.
• Icons is intended for “silver age” style supers play, and strikes a good balance between “freeform” and “ultra-crunchy”, with a somewhat-crunchy power system.
• Invulnerable “supports every power level, from street-level crimefighters up to interstellar paragons, and includes a complete setting”. (OGL)
• Kapow! is a free universal supers game which “blends free-form play… and dice-driven mechanics [using] degree of success”. (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
• Metagene is a lighter-weight system with “random and point-based character creation, rules for investigation and combat, and a built-in setting”. (CC BY-NC-SA 4.0)
• Mutants & Masterminds was written by the same guy who went on to write Icons, though it is more crunchy. It is a d20/OGL style game, but without classes, and has a pretty large collection of supplements. (OGL)
• Mythic D6 Using a d6 dicepool & successes system, creates a heroic adventure game with (super)powers ranging from the classic to fantasy. Light to run for the GM.
• Prowlers & Paragons marries die rolls that determine who narrates outcomes with lists of powers and extras.
• Sentinels of Echo City asks “what if the makers of the FASERIP game engine decided instead to use the B/X rules as their inspiration?”. The author considers this game to have supplanted his earlier Resolute. (CC BY 4.0, OGL)
• Spectaculars creates the setting as you play, building your own comic book universe.
• Triumphant! supports a wide range of supers stories with medium complexity. Its author previously wrote SUPERS! Revised Edition, which is similar.
• Villains & Vigilantes, after a lengthy legal battle, is now back in the hands of its creators and updated to version 3.0. Still apologetically ultra-crunchy.

Thematic

Many supers games target a specific type of supers story, with mechanics to match the theme:

• Amp is another “emergence” style supers game, with additional “years” that follow.
• Brave New World is set in an alternate America, under perpetual martial law, with a handful of rebellious supers fighting for freedom.
• Capers is set in the 1920s, and uses a standard deck of cards and has a number of supplements that take the game into other eras. (CC BY 4.0)
• Cold Steel Wardens is “inspired by the rise of dystopian, darker, contemporary comics from the 1980s onwards”, the “Iron Age” of comics.
• Fallen Justice brings an OSR White Box approach to Iron Age supers.
• Hit the Streets aims for 6-10 session, street-level heroic campaigns.
• Godlike imagines a WWII where ordinary people who manifest amazing powers are sent to the front. (ORE)
• Guardians bends White Box style rules into all superhero genres.
• The Kerberos Club is a “sourcebook for superheroic roleplaying in Victorian London”. Pubished variations exist for Savage Worlds, Fate, and Wild Talents.
• Masks is a “young adults trying to figure out who they are and what kind of heroes they want to be” style supers game, and succeeds at producing this type of experience better than most. (PbtA)
• Mutant City Blues covers the investigative genre in a superpowered world. (GUMSHOE)
• Mutants in the Night works the “mutants being hunted by the government” angle. (FitD)
• Necessary Evil calls on villains to save the day against an alien menace that destroyed all the heroes. (Savage Worlds)
• Psi*Run is a “persecuted heroes on the run” style game.
• Rotted Capes, where b-list supers deal with a zombie apocalypse.
• Bedlam City and its followup, Straight Out of Bedlam, detail an Iron Age of comics city setting, with versions published for Mutants and Masterminds and Savage Worlds.
• Trinity Continuum: Aberrant, the slightly-future era of the White Wolf/Onyx Path’s Trinity Continuum line, takes on the “emergence” theme, where supers suddenly spring up in a world that has never seen them before.
• Venture City is a near-future urban setting for corporate “heroes” and unsponsored “villains”, and lots of shades of gray. (Fate)
• Vigilante City is a “gritty, street-level, superhero game set in the near future”, implemented multiple systems in the same kickstarter: Survive This!! Vigilante City, a mix of 5e/OSR concepts, ICRPG Vigilante City, a version for the Index Card RPG, and The Vigilante Hack, based on The Black Hack.
• Wild Talents strives for a “realistic” feel, heroics with consequences. But, it can be altered to do more four-color style play as well. (ORE)
• Worlds in Peril starts with urban-based supers, but can become more fantastic. (PbtA, CC BY-SA 3.0)

Minimalist

Some games capture supers play with very light rule-sets:

• 3d6 Supers! uses both dice and playing cards “to run exciting action in any comic book universe”.
• Capes is a GM-less supers game with heart, using an interesting interlocking concept.
• Four Color System (4C) an emulator of an older superhero game system, fitting in 34 pages. (free)
• Marvelous Superheroes uses a mix of Fudge and 4C System to tackle supers play. (OGL)
• OneDice Supers uses the lightweight, quick, and flexible OneDice system for any supers genre.
• Spider and Man, a Lasers & Feelings hack. (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0)
• Stuperpowers! uses rock-paper-scissors to pit “heroes with silly, useless, and occasionally downright gross powers…against the only slightly less ridiculous forces of evil”.
• Supercrew! uses a comic book format to present a game where players play themselves, but with super powers.
• Supers Unleashed crams a lot into a small package.
• Tiny Supers is a minimalist, four-color-style supers take on the tinyD6 system. (TinyD6)
• Truth & Justice uses the slim PDQ system containing several settings and a lot of good advice. (PDQ)

Franchise

Unsurprisingly, official tie-ins between published comic book/fiction lines and role-playing games are common:

• Bulletproof Blues brings an open, rule-light engine to the universe of Kalos Comics. (CC BY-SA 4.0, OGL)
• DC Comics have occasionally licensed games, all of which are out of print:
• DC Adventures (OGL)
• DC Universe Roleplaying Game (D6)
• DC Heroes
• Smallville aimed to recreate the feel of the TV show of the same name. (Cortex)
• Marvel Comics backed a number of RPG lines, none of which officially lasted very long:
• Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game(2023) is the currently licensed game, using it’s own d616 System
• Marvel Heroic Roleplaying was the prior official marvel RPG. (Cortex)
• Marvel Universe Roleplaying Game (2003) (a.k.a MURPG) was published by Marvel itself, and didn’t last long
• Marvel Super Heroes Adventure Game used cards as both randomizers and experience. (SAGA)
• Marvel Superheroes (1984) used a percentile system with a colorful “universal results table”. It lives on in two different retroclones: FASERIP and Four Color System.
• Valiant Universe offers a modern, more casual play style, with a lot of the moral ambiguity found in the Valiant Comics line.
• Sentinel Comics: The Roleplaying Game boasts a modern design that allows play using either Sentinel Comics characters, or those of your own making.
• Wearing the Cape: The Role Playing Game brings the Wearing the Cape fiction series to the role-playing table. (Fate)

Adaptive

Some generic systems offer supers-specific variations or guidebooks:

• The Cypher System has Claim the Sky and The Origin as implementing supers play using that system.
• GURPS has no shortage of supers based material, starting with GURPS Supers
• Mythras has a sourcebook with urban setting called Destined that provides general rules for creating superheroes with Mythras.
• Savage Worlds has a Super Powers Companion

Demigod

In some games, the characters are demigods, avatars of the gods or characters who get their powers from gods in some form, in many ways functioning as (or indistinguishable from) superhero games.

• Amber Diceless (Lords of Olympus-expansion)
• City of Mist characters embody both myth, story, or legend, and a noir-like archetype, such as a detective. (PbtA)
• Demigods is about “what happens when mortal life is turned upside down by the discovery of your divine heritage”. (PbtA)
• Exalted has much more of a high-fantasy feel than a supers game, but features characters elevated from the ranks of mortals.
• Godbound features divine heroes in a broken world, men and women who have seized the tools that have slipped from an absent God’s hands, using B/X retroclone rules with the power levels dialed up.
• Godsend Agenda explicitly treats superhumans as god-like, especially culturally. It has gone through a number of iterations/additions, including D6 Powers and MythicD6. (D6)
• Mythender is a game about “stabbing gods in the face”. (CC BY-NC 3.0)
• Nobilis: the Game of Sovereign Powers was a diceless RPG that gave each character control over an elemental aspect of reality
• Part-Time Gods of Fate supplanted the original Part Time Gods. Players take the role of ordinary people imbued with the powers of a god. Balancing one’s mortal and divine lives can be tricky. (Fate)
• Part-Time Gods Second Edition (PTG2E) - published in 2018, unclear if rules are FATE-based
• Scion characters are mortal descendants of gods tasked with working as the hands of their parents in the mortal world.
• Tiny Gods is about expanding TinyD6 to handle the divine. (TinyD6)