tabletop games – Page 2 – PopCult Reviews

31 Days of Character Creation #21 – His Majesty the Worm

Like I said a few days ago, fantasy dominates the tabletop roleplaying game world because of Dungeons & Dragons. However, we are in a golden of age of really creative fantasy/dungeon delving systems that do a lot different than the old classic. His Majesty the Worm is bleak and grim, just like Darkest Dungeons and has some interesting things going on in it.

31 Days of Character Creation #20 – Heinrich’s Call of Cthulhu Guide to Character Creation

I’ve run through this character creator twice before and it is one of my favorite ttrpg tools I’ve ever played with. The characters you create are full of interesting hooks, conflicts, and contradictions. I decided to forgo building a whole Call of Cthulhu character as it is a little more time consuming than I would like. Here you’ll have a very strong foundation to stat out the character as you see fit.

31 Days of Character Creation #19 – Death in Space

So I had a different ttrpg in mind for this day, but when I sat down and started working through it I found the character creation rules to be very poorly laid out and communicated. I think being a primary school teacher for over ten years has left me always looking for streamlined, visual, easy to comprehend tabletop systems. There are a lot of people who play and ttrpgs in the sciences or other technical fields and they often make their games in a way that makes sense to them, but not to someone new. As a teacher, my brain is always thinking about how that new person can be caught up easily.

31 Days of Character Creation #18 – Dragonbane

There’s no deficit of fantasy tabletop RPGs. Because Dungeons & Dragons was the runaway success in the early days of the industry, fantasy has become a default of sorts. If you tell someone who is unfamiliar with the depth of games out there that you are doing ttrpg they will probably imagine D&D or at minimum fantasy tropes. So why do we need anymore fantasy games at all at this point?

31 Days of Character Creation #17 – Black Sword Hack

The dark fantasy world is one I haven’t really explored in any medium, but have always been curious about. Michael Moorcock, Jack Vance, and Robert E. Howard are names I’ve known since I was a kid thumbing through genre-related magazines like Wizard, Starlog, and Fangoria. But I’ve never read a word of their work. In 2025, I’m hoping to sample at least one of those writers. They certainly have fans as evidenced by Black Sword Hack, an OSR game that seeks to recreate the tone of these stories.

31 Days of Character Creation #16 – Vaesen

Today’s game is a Norwegian tabletop RPG and I don’t think many people know that Norway has a quite robust ttrpg and larping community. Years I ago I remember reading an article about Norwegian roleplay and learning about a complex Mad Men-inspired LARP someone there designed. So they are doing things a little differently than the most popular games in the States.

31 Days of Character Creation #15 – The One Ring 2e

I’ve always been a bit leery of tabletop RPGs derived from pre-established and highly developed settings. I think that can take away GM and player agency because you feel pressure to follow the lore rather than do your own worldbuilding.

31 Days of Character Creation #14 – Symbaroum

For today’s character we look to the grimdark world of Symbaroum. This is a nice blend of OSR elements, but also some of the more modern narrative-driven games. The setting is a step up from Mork Borg which is intentionally vague. Here we have a bleak world with more detail added, if that is your thing. Here’s how the game is described on its official webpage:

Explore the vast Forest of Davokar in the hunt for treasures, lost wisdoms and fame. Visit the barbarian clans to trade or to plunder their treasuries. Establish a base of power among princes, guilds or rebellious refugees in the capital city of Yndaros. Or survive encounters with Arch Trolls, dark-minded Blight Beasts and undead warlords. But whatever you do, never ignore the warnings spoken by the wardens of the forest: tread carefully and do not disturb the ruins of old, for the dark deep of Davokar is about to awaken.

31 Days of Character Creation #13 – Troika!

Troika! is a rule-lite OSR type of game that is incredibly unique. Part of character creation is rolling d66 (two six-sided die as numerals for a two-digit number) and that is your background. This covers your class as well and each one is special to the game and nothing you’ve really seen before.

31 Days of Character Creation #12 – Knave 2e

It’s back to some old school style fantasy but with some modern design twists. Knave 2e is a light system capable of big things. Character creation takes a matter of minutes, but you still end up with a lot of pieces to build off of. Here’s how the game is describe on its official website:

Knave 2e is an exploration-driven fantasy RPG and worldbuilding toolkit, inspired by the best elements of the Old-School DnD movement.