Best RPG Book Of 2018 – The Winner
In which we announce the winner for 2018’s RPG book of the year.
2018has been a stellar year for RPGs, whether looking at the high fantasy of Dungeons and Dragons, the Low Fantasy of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay, the Middle Fantasy of Middle Earth roleplaying, or a host of others, including sci-fi RPGs, RPGs about kids on bikes saving the world, RPGs about making friends and just trying to get along, RPGs featuring ponies, RPGs where you just try and make it through an awkward date–there’s a swath of stuff out there.
It’s almost impossible to try and play them all, so we picked our Best RPG for 2018 from the ones that we actually had a chance to play–you can find out who all the nominees were here–but for 2018, the folks around the BoLS office continually came back to the massive megadungeon that is, Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage.
Waterdeep: Dungeon of the Mad Mage – Wizards of the Coast
It’s a return to form for D&D–after big published campaigns like Curse of Strahd or the Tomb of Annihilation, this one takes you back to the heyday of D&D, where the idea of a Dungeon being this massive, multilevel complex set in the ground somewhere, full of monsters and treasures and traps for brave adventurers to find, took shape. And it runs with it, blending that classic flavor but showing it to you through a more modern lens. It doesn’t reinvent the Dungeon, but it does contextualize it for modern players.
Dungeon of the Mad Mage shows you how to tell a story across the levels of a Dungeon, helping newer DMs see that monsters on one level might have designs on another, and letting that story influence the encounters you come up with when designing your own. It has some wild creativity on display, stuff to help shake the dust off of veteran DMs–and players–giving them some fantastical set pieces to have their adventures in.
Highlights include a pit of singing ooze, a massive obstacle course over a yawning chasm full of lava (complete with bodiless spirit commentator), teleportation gates that take you from one level to another, not necessarily linearly–which is a fun point in terms of design. Your party probably won’t go through this thing level by level by level, but will find their own story as it unfolds. And it’s this last bit that makes D&D really shine–and why we love Dungeon of the Mad Mage. It has its own stories to tell, for sure, but it sets them up in a way that means your players will discover their own, as they delve, as they find traps and figure out puzzles, and that’s what D&D is all about.
Well that’s it for now. We’ll have more best-of winners this week, so be sure and check back if you’re interested in Wargames or Miniatures. Did we miss one of your favorites? Leave it in the comments below–we’d love to know.
What’s your top RPG for 2018?
