‘Wanderhome’ is the Comforting Indie RPG You Should Be Playing to Relax
Peaceful settings, kind people, and collaboratively built NPCs and locations may not be the norm in RPGs. But Wanderhome aims to be more.
While other tabletop RPGs ask you to kill monsters, Wanderhome gives you a warm cup of tea and asks what your perfect peaceful town looks and feels like. This is a tabletop RPG unlike any other. But that may mean that it’s not for every table.
Wanderhome
After a successful Kickstarter campaign, Wanderhome was officially funded, written by Jay Dragon, and published in 2021. While some tabletop RPGs focus on the enemies you meet and the monsters you encounter and vanquish, Wanderhome is a different sort of game. This is a fantasy world full of good-hearted animal folk of Heath who travel not for glory or treasure or to kill monsters, but to learn more about themselves and others.
Not to say that this is a totally peaceful world. Your animal folk live in a post-war society. They may have even been indirectly or directly affected by this war. But that isn’t the focus of your adventure. Sort of like how many Ghibli movies have a war in the background or in recent history, but they’re not usually the thing your protagonist is focused on.
Now though, there is little to no violence and most people are good. This is a game focused on empathy, understanding, and thoughtful attempts at genuinely helping people. In a world full of games where players just want to fight and kill all of their obstacles, Wanderhome asks you to consider kindness.
Wanderhome‘s Collaborative Nature
In Wanderhome, the journey is the game. There isn’t necessarily an endgame in mind or a goal or even a final story as determined by the GM. Sometimes there isn’t even a GM. Your game can have one person designated to sort of herd the cats at your table along, but in many cases, Wanderhome is a game where players determine what the NPCs (or Kith) and various locations on their journey look like. Going from place to place to meet and help new people is the point, and the other folks around the table help control what those places look like and who those people are. It makes for a deeply collaborative game.
Character Creation & Game Play
The character sheets used in Wanderhome can be a bit overwhelming. There are a lot of blank boxes and empty spaces to fill in. But this is a pretty light rules and light mechanics game. The sheet is there for your organization and assistance as much as it is for rules and gameplay. And characters are made using a series of fifteen playbooks or classes. Each playbook comes with traits they do have and traits they don’t have, and each is perfectly suited to this peaceful world. For example, there is the Caretaker, the Dancer, or the Veteran who has a weapon but will never use it in violence again. Everyone is an animal-folk, and can pick their own animal. But this doesn’t seem to have any effect on the game the same way Race would in D&D.
Gameplay itself is done through earning and pending tokens. And while there are numerous specific ways to do each, at its most basic tokens are earned by sacrificing something, contributing something to the world or group, putting someone else before yourself, etc. Conversely, tokens can be spent to solve the situations or problems presented to your group or help somebody. Various locations, months, seasons, and holidays present new ways to earn or spend tokens.
In Short
If you’re looking for a nice, kind, peaceful, and lowkey game to play with your friends without any of the frustrating high stakes of battle, Wanderhome may be the game for you. It’s a beautiful game with a beautiful book that just may make you more empathetic along the way. If you’re interested in checking out Wanderhome for yourself, you can learn more on the Possum Creek Games website.
Have you played Wanderhome? How about any other low-key or peaceful games? What do you think about collaborative RPGs without a DM? Let us know in the comments!
Happy adventuring!
