Role-playing games are great, as many have found out through the years. Some of the RPGs that started the genre are still around, battling for the title of the best RPG that you can play today.
While no single game can be considered the best, because every game has its own rules and caters to different people’s needs, there are many games that can be considered great and which people should play. Here are the best RPGs that you can play now.
Dungeons & Dragons
D&D started the genre and it is still around, among the most popular if not the most popular RPG of our time. It has countless spin-offs and games set within the D&D universe, from tabletop RPGs to video games. Some of the most popular video game RPGs are set in the D&D universe.
However, when talking about tabletop games, D&D 5e is the current rule set of the game, relatively popular when it comes to D&D rules. The good thing about D&D is that it is widespread and that finding a party should not be an issue.
Blades in the Dark
Everyone likes a bit of steampunk. What’s even better is that the setting for Blades in the Dark doesn’t really put the player characters in the most moralistic of roles. Unlike most RPGs, this one puts the players in the shoes of upcoming thieves, hoping to become rich in the city of Duskvol.
You don’t feel bad for the rich, however, because they tower over the poor, who are so trodden that they basically live in the sewers.
Cyberpunk Red
Cyberpunk was released in 1988 as a tabletop game, full of people enhanced by cyberware, and corporations ruling the world through capitalism. Cyberpunk 2077, a video game by CD Projekt Red, made the original tabletop popular again. However, revisions were made, and Cyberpunk Red is one of such revisions. It is a new game that puts the players in the 2040s, a couple of decades before the events in the game.
It looks great, but it can fool new players that Night City is more welcoming than it is. The streets and corporate life are definitely rough in the world of Cyberpunk.
Trail of Cthulhu
Call of Cthulhu is one of the most popular competitors to D&D and Trail of Cthulhu is a game that is in the same universe, but does not place the emphasis on the combat, but rather the storytelling. Unlike in most RPGs, players don’t take the roles of heroes or other powerful characters.
They are relatively normal characters, who need to solve a mystery. However, the deeper they dive into the mystery, the more dangerous it gets, as it should be.
Pathfinder
Based on D&D rules 3.5, Pathfinder was released in 2009 and took the bestselling spot from D&D for a couple of years. It became something else entirely, a game that requires its own cheat sheets, encyclopaedias, not to mention that it already has two video games in its own universe. It has its own classes, races and monsters, so prepare for another deep dive.
These are the best RPGs you could play now, as well as some of the best RPGs of all time.