Best RPGs Of 2019 – The Winner
2019 was an excellent year for RPGs. Here’s our pick for the best book of the year.
With so many RPGs out there, it was hard to pick a winner this year. Heck, it was hard enough narrowing it down to nominees without falling to warring factions at BoLS HQ. We saw a lot of creativity, with new indie games, some excellent followup games to some of last year’s favorites, and the launch of a major new edition for Pathfinder. Here’s our pick for the winner and the runners up. But the real winner is all of us, who have so many games to play.
2nd Runner-Up: Things From The Flood
Things from the Flood is the darker 90s followup to the 80s kids on bikes saving the world extravaganza that was Tales from the Loop. In this one you journey from kids into the messy world of playing as teens who deal with darker themes, including possible death. You go from playing Mike and Will and Lucas to Steve and Barb, and well, we all know what happened to Barb. I love the way this book expands their world but still makes for different kind of stories.
1st Runner-Up: Eberron: Rising from the Last War
Not only is this the first official setting book for 5th Edition that isn’t squarely grounded in the Forgotten Realms, it’s the return of a fan favorite setting, and marks the launch of a whole bunch of new content for the next stage of 5th Edition. With a brand new class, four new races, and a dozen different ways to play in an industrialized fantasy setting, Eberron is a refreshing look at old D&D ideas. Magitech, spies, intrigue, mysteries, good old fashioned dungeon crawls–all of this and more is in this book. It’s packed full of advice for players and GMs, as well as new monsters and magic items and robots. What more do you want?
Winner: Pathfinder – Second Edition
The edition ten years in the making. This is a followup to the original 3.75 Edition that was Pathfinder. Now, with a decade’s worth of lessons learned, a whole library’s worth of supplements produced (how many do you use when building a character?), and a new decade on the horizon, Pathfinder 2nd Edition launched. With a keyword focused engine that is reminiscent of parts of 4th and 5th Edition D&D while still remaining distinctly Pathfinder, there’s a lot to dig into and play with here. If you like your games with crunch, Pathfinder 2E is one of the crunchiest games out there right now.
What’s your pick for best RPG of 2019? Let us know in the comments!
