King is Dead is, quote: “A print-n’-play roleplaying game about a family of giants, their feuds, and a prophesy that may spell doom. Will you follow your father’s wishes and swear fealty to Branwen, or revolt and fight against the tide of destiny and take what you think is rightfully yours, or perhaps you will find another way?” Mechanically, the game uses the AGORA system, which was designed for a game that (at time of writing) has yet to be released.

At first, Edmund was delighted to receive his first expectation as a Moulde. As he was still unfamiliar with the Moulde family, he assumed — quite incorrectly — that attending a family meeting would be an easy expectation to meet. By the time he had made his way up the hill again, he realized it was an opportunity as well: In An Ornithological Watcher’s Primer, Lady Strumbrugge had been very explicit that the only reliable way to learn about birds was to watch them.

Runaway Hirelings is a comedy RPG about the squishiest and most inconsequential characters in the whole of the RPG medium: the hireling. Hirelings served a very specific role in the early era of dungeon-delving RPGs. Players often found themselves lacking certain abilities: perhaps no one was playing a lockpicking thief, or they needed some method for carrying and extracting all the loot they scavenged from the dungeons. One of the original uses of Charisma in 1st Edition D&D was to limit how many hirelings you could command at once, and how likely they were to stick around.

Fiasco is an RPG, though it certainly doesn’t look much like one compared to the old RPGs of yesteryear. There are no stats, no challenge rolls, no character sheets beyond a single note-card. There are scenes, yes, and players act out their roles to advance a shared narrative, but no one ever rolls a die to see if they succeed at charming their way past a guard or pushing past a bouncer into the club.

d1 RPG is a joke, right? Of course it’s a joke. Reading the rules makes it abundantly clear that this is a bit of a spoof. A parody what it means to play an RPG. Isn’t it? I mean, it has charts! Table A tells you the results of each side of your d1: if you roll a 1, your action succeeds. That’s it. No failures, no complications, nothing but success.

Black rain was still falling on Moulde Hall as Edmund walked briskly through the winding halls towards his room. Once Tricknee had showed up, the evening had fallen remarkably quiet save for the loud slurping of soup. When the mansion finally tolled seven, everyone made weak excuses and left to return to their rooms or walk about the grounds, until it was just Tricknee and Edmund who sat at the table.

Parselings has a early millennium action-webcomic aesthetic and tone, where players take on the role of the titular Parselings; ordinary folk who have become infected with strange ink-like entities that bond with their hosts and tattoo words on their bodies. Caught between humanity and dark linguistic monstrosities, the Parselings use the magic of these words to heal or harm the infected world. The world of Parselings is deeply thematic, drawing on ideas of mutual aid, internal versus external definition, freedom versus self-control, and the complexities of communication when others may have already labeled you differently than you label yourself.

Knave is an OSR (Old Style Ruleset, Old School Renaissance, or Old System Revival — I’ve seen them all) RPG. OSR games hearken back to the olden days of dungeon delving and hack n’ slashing. A system without a pre-built world, Knave is designed to be modular and adaptable to any compatible systems, bestiaries, spellbooks, and adventures. There is a long and detailed history of OSR gaming, and I won’t go into that now.

Ironsworn, set in an iron-age dark fantasy world, is a game about survival. To quote the game itself: “You will explore untracked wilds, fight desperate battles, forge bonds with isolated communities, and reveal the secrets of this harsh land. Most importantly, you will swear iron vows and see them fulfilled — no matter the cost.” The mechanics of this game are quite interesting to me, but I want to focus on one specific design choice; everything — from a single combat to the campaign as a whole — is represented by progress tracks.

As Edmund entered Moulde Hall, Ung stepped forward to address Mrs. Kippling. “Matron’s guests have all decided to have their meals in their rooms.” Mrs. Kippling’s face turned bright red as her hands began to wring themselves back and forth. “And I suppose they all think I can just fix it all up, no trouble? My gracious, I couldn’t take a tray to each of them — I have to start dinner soon!