I’ve been playing DnD for quite a few years now and blogged about my DnD characters about a year ago. A lot of roleplayers are currently going through a bit of DnD fatigue – and while I agree that the combat in DnD can be tedious and frustrating, I still think it’s one of the best systems for long, epic campaigns because the sense of progression you get in DnD is excellent.

However, ever since I have started running a regular roleplaying event, which massively contributed to the rapid rise of a local RPG community, I’ve been getting to play a lot more RPG systems that are not DnD. Thanks to this, I significantly broadened my RPG horizons.

In this post, I will give some mini-reviews of all the medieval(ish) fantasy-adjacent systems I’ve played so far. I’ve split this post into 2 because it would have been a massive list – check back soon for the second part of this list, which will consist of RPG systems that are not medieval(ish) fantasy.

  • Cairn: A fairly rules-light game of exploring a scary, dark forest. I played a one-shot of this, it was really fun, but aside from the prickly root, I honestly don’t really remember that much about it, so it wasn’t such an outstanding system.
  • Call of Cthulhu: Probably one of the biggest systems aside from DnD, I played a one-shot of this which was a typical Cthuhlhuian mystery. Honesty it felt to me like playing the narrative board game Mansions of Madness, just with more freedom and roleplaying. It was pretty cool, but didn’t blow my mind.
  • Daggerheart: Daggerheart has been hyped as the replacement for DnD 5e, and supposedly gets rid of all the problems with DnD (lengthy combat, too much math). After playing two sessions of it so far, I’m not quite sure if it achieved this goal. There’s still quite a bit of math (less, but still), and from a complexity level, I don’t think it’s much simpler than 5e. It does do some things quite differently though in an interesting way. As a system I think it can stand on its own, but I’m not entirely certain why one would pick this over DnD. As a setting, it’s super generic and uninteresting, and leaves all the worldbuilding to the GM.
  • Dragonbane: A super streamlined, fairly rules-lite fantasy RPG that can be very deadly. I played 2 different one-shots of this, and both were really fun, short and sweet dungeon crawls. It has some cool races as well, with the wolf-like people and the ducks. Yes ducks, that sometimes have fits of rage. I would always play again.
  • Heart: The City Beneath: This system shares a setting with Spire: The City Must Fall, which I didn’t play, but I really like Heart. It’s a sprawling mega-dungeon, which consists of rings that increase in difficulty, until eventually you reach the heart. It has super cool character classes (such as a swarmkeeper-like creature and one that can make people desire things). I played only a one-shot of this, but I found it super fascinating and would love to play more of it one day. Definitely one of my favorite systems and settings so far, because it’s so unique.
  • Mörk Borg: Ah yes, if you’ve heard of Mörk Borg, you probably know that this is one of the most ridiculous systems ever conceived. It’s very metal, and it’s made to be silly and fast-paced. I played a one-shot of Mörk Borg where I probably laughed more than in any other RPG just due to the sheer ridiculousness of it. It’s also utterly lethal, which is why it comes with an online character generator. In the ~4 hour one-shot we played with 4 players, I think we went through about 10 characters. One of the characters was instantly killed 2 minutes into the game and it was hilarious. I played 2 or 3 throughout the adventure. Absolute great fun for one-shots (but definintely not suitable for campaigns).
  • Pendragon 6e: I played a one-shot at the roleplaying event that I organize, and it was not the best experience because the group was too big, and I was too busy thinking about all the organisational stuff. Hence my memory is a bit hazy, but I do remember that it had lots of really cool and fun lore and great medieval vibes. The combat was absolutely horrendous though, and just like Runequest it’s way too complicated for its own good.
  • Runequest: If you thought combat can’t get more tedious and complicated than DnD, I urge you to play Runequest. This is without a doubt the most convoluted and confusing combat system I’ve ever played, and it really took the fun out of it. The setting is also not particularly accessible or interesting. I played 3 or 4 sessions of this, I found it too generic, and there was nothing that really fascinated me about it (but so it the vanilla DnD world, which tbh I never really played in). Definitely not a game I’d ever voluntarily want to play again.
  • Swords of the Serpentine: I played a one-shot of this which was a really fun little mystery to be solved. I remember absolutely nothing about the system itself, but it was a good, fun evening of playing and solving this story, I’m afraid that’s all I can say about it.
  • Trophy Dark: I played a one-shot of this, and it was a fairly dark mystery of navigating through a forest and eventually reaching a cursed church (or something along those lines). Character creation was quite fun, and I remember that I was a necromancer with a shovel, so a lot of opportunity for interesting character moments. The system was really lethal though, and only one of the four characters survived. It’s a really great system of one-shots, and I’d love to try more one-shots of Trophy Dark someday.

So there we have mini-reviews about 10 fantasy-adjacent RPG systems I’ve played in the past couple of years. Next week I’ll post a list of 10 more systems that are more sci-fi or modern day oriented.