One of the best tabletop role-playing games, Dungeons and Dragons, already has an element of horror, but most D&D campaigns end up being fun role-playing games, like the upcoming Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves, which brings the game back to the big screen.
Here are 5 horror fantasy tabletop RPGs for dark adventures:
If you're looking for a tabletop RPG that will take your adventure down a darker path, then you should check out any of these horror-themed fantasy tabletop RPGs that make great campaigns.
MORKBORG
Few fantasy tabletop RPGs are darker than Mork Borginspired by doom metal. The book is most notable for its extremely aggressive art and layout, essentially screaming the details of its hopeless world right in your face. No two consecutive pages have the same layout, constantly throwing you off balance in the best possible way. Like its sci-fi sequel Cy_Borg, even if you don't play Mork Borg, it's totally deserving of a unique and explosive art book.
Luckily, the game contained in Mork Borg is a lot of fun for both newbies and seasoned veterans alike. In the game, all action is reduced to a D20 roll modified by one of four simple statistics, making it easy to keep up the exciting pace of the action. All characters are created with a random set of statistics and abilities, which allows you to create unusually bizarre heroes who have to go through a harsh path. With class options like Gutterborn Scum, Wretched Royalty, and Occult Herbmaster, the game makes it easy to infuse a ton of personality and terrifying charm into your characters. The brutal nature of the combat can make keeping your character alive a challenge for long-term campaigns, but even if you end up completely killing your party against any number of the twisted creatures included in the book's bestiary, you'll have a hell of a time getting torn to pieces.
TROPHY GOLD
If you have a treasure-hunting company, there's no better way to test their greed than by playing. Trophy Gold. Your doomed heroes, driven by a thirst for great riches, travel to the shadowy and forgotten places of the harsh world of Kaldur, losing themselves to an ancient evil. The book's list of inspirations includes Dark Souls, Green Knight, and The Witcher, and influences from all of these games are easy to spot when flipping through the tables and adventures included in the game.
What makes Trophy Gold and its companion game Trophy Dark interesting at the table is their very collective nature. Players are free to enter possible consequences or plot ideas for the GM to weave them into the tale, pushing the plot in an unexpected direction. Hunters are fragile, but players go into the game knowing their luck will run out at some point, so part of the fun lies in finding a memorable end to your story. The game includes a wide range of invasions, as Trophy calls one-off adventures, and if that's not enough for you, there's a companion book, Trophy Loom, which is filled to the brim with inventive lore that lets you create your own doomed expeditions in one of the best tabletop RPGs.
BAND OF BLADES
History Band of Blades starts with defeat. The army of the dead of King Cinderella defeated the Legion, a glorified band of warriors, and sent them on the run. You take control of the members of the Legion as they retreat in hope of the safety of Skydagger Keep. The game is notable for having a very specific framework and structure, as well as a map of the terrain that you have to traverse while continuing to resist the overwhelming forces advancing on your heels. Since this is a dark fantasy war game, you can expect a lot of casualties before the final showdown in one of the most interesting tabletop RPGs.
The game uses the Blades in the Dark system, but heavily modifies it into something of its own. Each player takes on a specific role within the squad, such as quartermaster or marshal, each in charge of a different level of campaign. There is a pool of craftable characters, so players don't play as a specific character in every session, but choose one based on mission requirements, like in video games like Darkest Dungeon or XCOM. At the beginning of each campaign, you will choose a specific Chosen One, god-like creatures that give players mission bonuses, and a pair of Broken, twisted former Chosen Ones who now serve King Cinderella, meaning that each campaign will be unique despite using the same cards. It's a mechanically dense game, but it creates an experience quite unique compared to other Blades in the Dark based games.
TEETH: STRANGER AND STRANGER
If you want to see another scenario in the Blades in the Dark system, I would recommend you Teeth: Stranger and Stranger. Instead of making it more rigid like Band of Blades, Teeth simplifies and lightens the rules for its 18th century rural England setting. Created for a mini-campaign, players embody mutated dorks trying to protect their small village and their beloved pigs from the rampaging Abomination. After a visit from a mysterious stranger who claims to have a way to end the abomination forever, you embark on an adventure to collect bizarre artifacts from the area. The book provides you with information about possible landmarks and story paths, but leaves plenty of room for the GM to do things his own way.
If you want more after playing through the short campaign of Stranger and Stranger, there are two more single-shot RPGs in the Teeth universe. Night of the Hogmen is a more focused game about hapless travelers on the run from a horde of the titular pigmen. You will pass through a series of locations on your way to the church, where you will have your final victory over the terrible beasts. The action of another one-shot game, blood cotillion, takes place at a high society ball where you play as undercover assassins trying to eradicate the hidden occult forces lurking in the estate. It's a game that balances ballroom intrigue and monster hunting to create a unique combination. Also in development is Teeth, a massive RPG that will hopefully hit Kickstarter later this year and become a tabletop RPG star.
HEART: THE CITY BENEATH
Imagine the standard “adventurers meet at an inn” scenario, the classic opening to any fantasy campaign. In the strange and twisted world of HEART, these adventurers may include an occultist full of magical bees, a knight with armor made from cursed trains, and a priest of the Crimson God of Debt. Moreover, this inn is a predatory building that lures people in and slowly consumes them. The underground lands of HEART are an ever-changing nightmare that changes and transforms depending on the desires of those who travel through its terrible ruins.
The game is beautifully built to keep you on the knife's edge of danger as you delve deeper into the world of one of the best tabletop role-playing games. Every time you throw, you have the opportunity to experience stress, which can manifest itself in many forms beyond the physical and can lead to a condition that has both descriptive and mechanical consequences. For example, too much supply stress can leave you out of ammo, and too much luck stress can cause you to split from the party. The only way to get rid of stress or dropout is to spend the treasures looted while exploring the various scary HEART attractions, so you will be encouraged to keep risking life and limb to get more currency for healing. Featuring polished mechanics and an expressive yet open story, Heart: The City Beneath is well positioned to create a memorable and inventive campaign.
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