The tabletop roleplaying game that inspired so many others (through their Powered by the Apocalypse branding) including games I’ve played and enjoyed like Blades in the Dark.
Sorcerer is a tabletop roleplaying game by Ron Edwards. It is an explicit precursor to Apocalypse World, being mentioned in those rules several times (and by extension, all of the Powered by the Apocalypse games).
Dark Avant-garde OSR module that would be a perfect fit for the bleakness of a system and setting like MÖRK BORG.
The PCs will delve deeper and deeper into the madness of a drowning village, a broken dam and an ancient evil that’s underneath it all.
A collection of essays about GMing. Offers some good tips and tricks but it’s not as comprehensive or as much of a must-read as So You Want To Be A Game Master?
An extremely efficient yet thorough guide to running tabletop RPG games. I would have loved to have read this back when I first started GMing over a decade ago! It’s got everything you need to give you the confidence you nede
Even if you’ve got experience GMing, there’s so much knowledge in this book and it’s expressed so clearly that you’ll undoubtly learn a bunch reading it, no matter what kind of games you’re interesting in running.
A tiny collection of punched up blog posts on DMing from Micheal Shea. The “Session Zero Checklist” was useful but there’s nothing here that’s mind blowing or worth going out of your way to read.
OSR RPG system that cleaned up the Ennie awards in 2024. There’s a succinctness and clarity to the rules which also seems to cover all the bases unlike other OSR systems I’ve read. I’m excited to finally do some old school dungeon crawling with these rules.
A Delta Green scenario about a viral video of a woman disappearing in thin air and the small town cult that might be responsible.
A Delta Green campaign module based on the King in Yellow, where investigators start with an investigation into a missing persons case tied to the King in Yellow and get sucked into that world.
Lovecraft X The X-Files tabletop roleplaying game. Delta Green has been kicking around for decades and so it has so much modules written for it, critical for an investigative RPG like this where the devil is in the details and it’s much harder to run a game like this without any supporting material.
A sci-fi horror tabletop RPG with some of the most evocative RPG modules I’ve ever read. I can’t wait to play this!
Metal Gear / A-Team inspired tabletop RPG. Seems like this would be great for one-shots (or potentially longer campaigns) with people with any level of experience in roleplaying because the rules are so simple yet exciting.
I’ve played the Paranoia RPG more than a few times, it’s always a blast. If you’re into chaotic, goofy, absurdist, comically dystopian settings and cooperative/competitive roleplaying systems then you’ll love Paranoia.
A collection of small one shot tabletop RPGs. Their quality varies and not all of them will be interesting to the people you play with BUT there’s some bangers in here.
MÖRK BORG is a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and fools seeking redemption, forgiveness or the last remaining riches in a bleak and dying world.
WICKED ONES is a Forged in the Dark tabletop RPG about a group of fantasy monsters building a dungeon, launching raids on the surface to gather a hoard, and pursuing your nefarious master plan.
Monster of the Week is a standalone action-horror RPG for 3-5 people. Hunt high school beasties a la Buffy the Vampire Slayer, travel the country to bring down unnatural creatures like the Winchester brothers of Supernatural, or head up the government investigation like Mulder and Scully. It seems OK, nothing extraordinary or unique other than the conceit.
Heart: The City Beneath is a tabletop game about delving into a nightmare undercity that will give you everything you’ve ever dreamed of – or kill you in the process. It is a dungeon-crawling, story-forward tabletop RPG that focuses on what characters have to lose in pursuit of their dreams in the chaotic darkness beneath the world. Weird but in a good way.
A tabletop roleplaying system where everyone tries to one-up each other with increasingly ridiculous stories about their adventures and exploits in their roles as Georgian/Victorian era noble people.
Makes for a great one-shot with the right group.
