Each year, the tabletop RPG scene expands in exciting new directions. Whether it’s new worlds for long-running games like Dungeons & Dragons or exciting debut projects that tap into unexpected corners of storytelling, it’s a great time to enjoy role-playing with others.
2022 saw an impressive array of new games to tempt playgroups into an adventure. Here are ten of the best, presented alphabetically, each offering new and exciting vistas for discovery.
And if you like your RPGs with a side of excellent board gaming, don’t miss our recent awards for the Best Board Games of 2022.
Coyote & Crow
Publisher: Coyote & Crow Games
The Native American-led team that created Coyote & Crow began with a simple premise: What would America look like if it had never been colonized? Throw in a robust mix of mythology, science, and mysterious individuals gifted with supernatural power, and you have the makings of a fascinating role-playing game.
The technologically advanced civilizations that players explore in Coyote & Crow presume that the last 700 years of history are different than how things happened in the real world. It makes for a intriguing exercise in exploring alternate history, and there’s a lot to enjoy about paging through the core rulebook to discover the engaging fiction that’s been crafted.
But the game makers have also built a nuanced game system with plenty of room for creativity in play. A d12-based resolution check allows for flexibility around a simple core mechanic. Set paths, motivations, and archetypes help shape your character. And traditional experience point acquisition is exchanged for a structure about building your own legend, as established through the completion of specific short and long-term goals.
Coyote & Crow is a rewarding and cleverly constructed game that embraces cultural traditions we don’t frequently see brought to life in the role-playing sphere, and certainly not with this level of purposeful intent. Its creators have been vocal in inviting both native and non-native players to enjoy the game, with guidance for both about how to do so in a welcoming and respectful way. Leave your preconceptions at the door, and expect to find something genuinely fresh.
D&D – Dragonlance: Shadow of the Dragon Queen
Publisher: Wizards of the Coast
For D&D fans who grew up in the 1980s, Dragonlance was almost certainly on your radar. One of the earliest campaign settings for the world’s original RPG, Dragonlance had not only a run of awesome game modules but also a series of fantasy novel series that continues to this day.
The best parts of that setting have been revived in this new update for the 5th edition of the game. While the timeframe is roughly concurrent with major events from the novels, the adventure contained within the new book carves out its own corner of the War of the Lance, and sets players along an exciting path of battles and discovery.
In addition to offering details about the setting, players get access to some fun new options, including the Kender race, a lunar sorcerer subclass, and backgrounds to let you play one of the memorable knights or mages that are part of the Krynn world. But the biggest success is the adventure itself, which embraces a wartime RPG campaign that is fun and exciting, but without glossing over the horrors and brutality of mass conflict.
It’s a lengthy adventure, but in an interesting twist, the RPG campaign can be paused at certain points. If desired, you can then play through a full session of the separate Dragonlance: Warriors of Krynn board game that recently released, which you can alternately snag if you choose to grab the Deluxe combined edition. The results of your board game excursion can then inform the RPG story’s forward pace. Of course, you can leave out the board game part and simply enjoy the excellent campaign.
Either way, this return to Dragonlance has been long anticipated by its fans, and the version that has arrived is a fitting update to an early fantasy gaming classic.
The Darkest House
Publisher: Monte Cook Games
The print version of The Darkest House was released this year after a successful digital launch in 2021. Either option is great, but the digital version is especially well suited to gaming groups that meet remotely, as the entire set up of handouts and other info is managed digitally and can be shared as gameplay progresses.
The Darkest House is a fascinating RPG product, built as it is to be slotted into any existing RPG campaign for a dose of existential horror. Simple adaptation rules translate your characters over into the system when you mysteriously enter the house, whether you’re coming from a fantasy game of D&D, a futuristic Star Trek or Cyberpunk campaign, or another Monte Cook Games world like Numenera.
While The Darkest House is effectively a giant haunted house, it’s a bit more complicated than that – imagine if the house itself was the malevolent entity intent on hating and destroying you. The encounters within are puzzling and disquieting. If you’re hoping to have all the answers to what’s happening inside after playing through, you’ll be disappointed. But if you want a dose of dread that can be added to any RPG you’re already playing, it’s an amazing twist to offer to your group.
Hunter: The Reckoning
Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
The new edition of Hunter this year joins the broader universe of the World of Darkness games, and the results should please anyone who likes their gaming time to be focused on tracking down all the things that go bump in the night, and making them stop moving.
Where a game like Vampire: The Masquerade commonly focuses on mood and politicking, Hunter is a counterpoint focused more on action, missions, and deadly encounters. As mostly normal humans concentrating on hunting down supernatural threats, there’s a tension and desperation to the action represented in a cool way through additional dice rolled as things get especially dire.
Conflicts are usually against dangerous named supernatural baddies, or the broader societal orgs your small Hunter cell has determined to be compromised. It makes for a more approachable take on World of Darkness content, especially for players who may be more familiar with traditional tabletop role-playing with its quests and battles. If this dark fiction is appealing, but your group isn’t looking for the heavily atmospheric vibe offered by its cousin game, Hunter: The Reckoning could be just the ticket.
Into the Odd
Publisher: Bastionland Press / Free League Publishing
Originally published in 2014, this remastered and extended version of Into the Odd opens up the wonderful rules-light game for new audiences. Set in a mysterious and otherworldly industrial setting with hints of Lovecraftian cosmic horror, it’s an intriguing universe to uncover, even if it is only minimally detailed – leaving plenty of room for game masters and groups to make the game their own.
Players take control of explorers delving into the benighted tunnels and sewers beneath the city of Bastion, lending an old-school dungeon crawl vibe to the experience. From character creation to combat, the game system is extremely light on rules, encouraging a freeform and fast-moving approach to play that allows for plenty of experimentation. The threats encountered by a group of explorers are often devastating barriers to best be avoided. But the acquisition of mystical items called Arcana lets you solve any number of problems with creative thinking.