Our Five Favorite TTRPGs In 2021
The year is winding down, and that means it’s time to look at our favorite things from this past year. Here are our favorite TTRPGs this year.
The last few years have been an explosion for roleplaying games. We’re living through a time of rapid expansion. Of course there’s no matching the reach of D&D, but in the shadow cast by its d20, you can find all sorts of amazing games. From retro-future cyberpunk to a surprising number of games where you play a mouse or a rabbit but with a sword, there’s a lot out there. Nobody has enough time to play through ’em all, but here are five of our favorites from this year.
Root
This is the tabletop adaptation of the incredible board game of forest warfare and adventure, Root. Root the RPG is technically still only available as a Quickstart set of rules. But if you want to play through the board game, bringing forest clearings and their problems to life, then Root has your back. You’ll play as a vagabond, doing vagabond things. You might work for the factions of the forest or pursue your own agenda. Root puts Powered by the Apocalypse through its paces, capturing the imagined world of the board game in a way that gives it a unique spin.
Now to have the impossible dream campaign of playing Root the board game and using the RPG to fill in what happens in between faction turns.
“Root: The Roleplaying Game is the officially-licensed tabletop RPG based on the award-winning Root: A Game of Woodland Might and Right board game by Leder Games. In Root: The RPG, you play vagabonds, individual outlaws whose adventures and alliances define the Woodland forever.”
Here’s what you’ll find inside this book:
- Nine unique playbooks, each built to help you create a vagabond whose exploits will echo in the Woodland for generations to come.
- Easy-to-follow rules for all manner of fantasy adventure, including roguish feats, reputation and travel mechanics, and more.
- Innovative mechanics for managing equipment, weapons, and combat that make your choices matter both tactically and narratively.
- Detailed instructions for running Root: The RPG – crafting combats, managing factions, and more – alongside a full clearing, Gelilah’s Grove.
Gun & Slinger
Gun & Slinger is an incredible game of forlorn wandering in a beautiful, wasted world. It’s meant for three people, one GM and two players. Oneis the Slinger: a wanderer without a home with strange senses and supernatural powers. The other plays the Gun: a magical, sentient weapon. Also the world has died and it’s up to the two of you to figure out what happened.
This game is extremely moody, if you can call Trigun and Nausicaa of the Valley of the Wind moody. And all you need to play (besides the amazing book) is a deck of cards.
“GUN&SLINGER is an RPG geared for short, episodic sessions about a weapon and a wanderer. A Maestro and two players (Gun and Slinger) set out into a dead planet mutated by a god’s forgotten child and hunt strange bounties, investigate the world and unlock hidden powers. During play, they seek to learn the nature of what’s hunting the Slinger, figure out why the Gun is sentient and discover how the world died.”
- Tell the story of a post-magic world and the people working together to survive.
- Explore the nature of a twisted reality and a force that hunts the players.
- Answer Questions & Prompts at the table to establish a bespoke setting to adventure in.
- Play with or without a gamemaster!
- Mix and match any of the 7 unique character types and 3 unique settings to create a truly unique story that’s all your own!
- Roleplay using an entirely unique and intriguing resolution system: GO FISH!
The One Ring 2E
The One Ring was a legendary RPG set in the world of JRR Tolkien’s Middle-earth. Earlier this year, Free League Publishing raised more than $2 million to update it with a 2nd edition. With updated and revised rules, including an opportunity to create your own monsters that have that mythic Tolkienesque feeling, it’s a fantastic way to adventure outside of the usual D&D set.
“The One Ring™ comes with updated and revised rules, a new visual style, and a focus on the land of Eriador — the lone-lands west of the Misty Mountains.”
Among its key features are:
- Rules for travelling across the land (Journey), facing frightening foes (Combat), and meeting the personalities of Middle-earth (Council).
- Thorough advice for the Loremaster on how to bring Middle-earth to life, including rules for magical treasure, the Shadow, and the Eye of Mordor.
- In-depth information on six Patrons — individuals sponsoring the adventures of the Player-heroes — including Bilbo Baggins and Gandalf the Grey.
- A bestiary containing a spread of adversaries, from lowly Orc Soldiers and Highway-robbers, to monstrous Cave-Trolls and Barrow-Wights.
- Rules to create your very own Nameless Things — unknowable beings from the dark corners of the world.
- A complete Landmark adventure, The Star of the Mist, with extra support for new Loremasters, in the form of tutorial advice throughout.
DUKK BÖRG
Life is like a hurricane when you play DUKK BÖRG! And this fowl adaptation of MORK BÖRG! brings loads of treasure-hunting ducks and their inexplicable nephews to your tabletop. If you’ve never played either of these RPGs, you’re in for a heavy metal fantasy time. Also you’re all ducks.
Life is like a hurricane, here in…
DUKK BÖRG!
Once the gleaming jewel of Calisota, a fowl wind now blows down the streets of DUKK BÖRG, abandoned by all but those foolish enough to travel there and those cruel enough to survive. The treasures of long dead merchant-emperors call to you, and so you and your clan have flocked as birds of a feather to almost certain ruin. Mysteries are yours to solve, histories are yours to be written. For every day you will be out there, facing…
DUKK BÖRG!
Boy Problems Side-B
The basic premise of Boy Problems is that in a dark, dystopian future, the players are contracted by an anonymous sponsor to break into the highly sought after Vault of CRJ’s unreleased songs. Your mission is to raid the Vault and break out what’s inside.
Side-B is the expansion to Boy Problems.
Side-B opens up the world of Boy Problems. Lasers & Feelings is a fun, but streamlined RPG, and with the new book, new mechanics loom, including different ways to customize your character and where they live:
An expansion to the original Carly Rae Jepsen-inspired cyberpunk heist game, Boy Problems Side-B will provide new jobs for your crew, expand on character customization, and let you carve out a home for yourself. There is even more intrigue that awaits, are you ready?
With an all-new creative team, Side-B will delve even deeper into the cyberpunk world of Boy Problems. Inspired by fashion-zines, the expansion will provide brand new art, mechanics, and story for the original game.
INCLUDES
+ NEW MECHANICS
+ NEW ART
+ THREE NEW HEISTS
What were your favorite RPGs in 2021?
