Best tabletop RPGs 2023 - you need to try these must-have adventures

Regardless of whether you want to get into pen-and-paper adventures for the first time or are a veteran eager to try something new, the best tabletop RPGs have got you covered. They're easier to get into than ever, too - new, streamlined versions of old favorites allow both newcomers and fans to start their quest with minimal effort.

But where should you begin? If you're feeling intimidated by the best tabletop RPGs, don't panic. Our experts have been at this for quite some time, so no matter whether you're a greenhorn or storied veteran looking for something new, this guide has recommendations to suit you. And because we're living through the TTRPG golden age, you'll be able to find a system for almost any interest. Swords and sorcery? Sure thing. Sci-fi star-trekking? You bet. Superhero action? Absolutely.

To make sure you're saving as much money as possible along the way, we've enlisted the help of our bargain-hunting software to find discounts on the best tabletop RPGs.  Because these prices are updated automatically on a regular basis, you can be sure that you're getting the most tempting offers available right now. Just click on the buttons below each entry to check for reductions. 

Wondering how we choose which products to feature in this list? We'll only ever spotlight items that our writers, freelancers, and colleagues have had extensive hands-on time with, and that means we truly believe in the tabletop RPGs below. In other words? We'll never suggest a game we wouldn't use ourselves.

Best tabletop RPGs

For many gamers, 'tabletop RPGs' and 'D&D' mean the same thing. And that's hardly surprising. Besides being the oldest in the business, it's also by far the most popular. Particularly now - there's been a resurgence of interest thanks to shows like Stranger Things and Critical Role. Basically? It should be your first port of call if you want that traditional pen-and-paper experience.

Although they have their flaws, you can't overemphasize how much of an impact Dungeons and Dragons books have had on the industry either; it's the gold standard in terms of classic fantasy roleplay, world-building, and mechanics. Plus, the franchise has built a wealth of content to explore with infinite possibilities on-tap. Want to explore dusty old tombs and battle hideous monsters? No problem. Eager to explore the stars in a Jules Verne-style space adventure? You can do that too. Yes, other TTRPGs are better at specific things like roleplay or combat, but few provide as well-rounded an experience as D&D.

That's why we'd highly recommend diving in with the starter set. It'll give you a feel for everything the best tabletop RPGs can offer while providing a jumping-off point to explore other D&D products. It offers a solid grounding that'll serve you well if you decide to try something different, too - a lot of the rules you'll encounter here share DNA with many of the suggestions listed below.

• Read more: Dungeons and Dragons Starter Set review

If you're new to the best tabletop RPGs and have no idea what to do with a d20, this clever system by Runehammer is a great place to start. Designed with accessibility in mind, Index Card RPG is about getting into the action as quickly as possible. You won't need to dust off your math skills in order to play, either; its mechanics are streamlined and emphasize ease-of-use.

That's because the book simplifies actions by consolidating tasks into categories that always use the same kind of dice. This results in much less rules-confusion where players pause the game so they can look up how much damage a particular attack should do (we can never remember which dice are used for certain weapons in D&D, so not having to scan spreadsheets is a blessing in our eyes). When combined with no-fuss character creation and a straightforward health system inspired by video game 'hearts', you can be playing Index Card RPG in an impressively short amount of time.

Much of that comes down to the book's conversational tone; it's much easier to read than other TTRPG tomes. However, this doesn't mean it's boring. Instead, Index Card classes feature clever twists to help them stand out alongside left-field player options like ghosts carried within a suit of robotic armor. What's more, it's home to not one but five settings (the fantasy-themed Alfhiem, starship-focused Warp Shell, supernatural western Ghost Mountain, superhero romp Vigilante City, and prehistoric Blood and Snow). Basically, the system can be used for almost anything you're able to dream up. That makes it a great example of everything the hobby is about.

• Read more: Index Card RPG review

Blades in the Dark is the most focused game on this list: it's the story of a gang of scoundrels who try to carve out their own piece of a big, dirty city. The details of who they are and how they go from small-time crooks to bosses of the underworld (or die trying) are up to you. It may sound limiting - and certain game mechanics, such as territory acquisition, feel more like a board game than a TRPG - but Blades in the Dark pushes that narrow remit to its fullest potential.

The fresh way Blades in the Dark thinks about RPG systems is encapsulated in the "engagement roll" for any given mission. Rather than letting players get bogged down in the limitless what-ifs of planning for a fictional situation, the game master asks a few questions, builds a dice pool using the answers, and then you cut straight to the action using the roll's result. Additional details can be added in-medias-res via flashback scenes. I haven't even gotten into how much I love the balancing act of Position and Effect, pushing players beyond leaning exclusively on the biggest numbers on their character sheets, but I could go on.

You don't 'win' in this adaptation of the horror franchise; you just survive. And even then, your odds aren't great. As a certain android once said, "I can't lie to you about your chances. But you have my sympathies".

This nihilistic, against-all-odds mentality is alive and well in the Alien tabletop RPG. Actually, it's one of the best translations of the source material on shelves right now. This isn't an adventure of derring-do or indestructible heroes. It's a desperate last stand where you're hopelessly outgunned, and that makes it unusually compelling - not to mention terrifying. The xenomorphs it revolves around really are perfect killing machines here, and being able to survive an encounter with one (even the smaller, more vulnerable variety seen throughout Aliens) is an achievement.

That's because this game wisely leans into the stress, tension, and large body-count of the original series. As an example, its 'cinematic mode' offers pre-generated characters in a high-lethality scenario where you're likely to die a sudden, very unpleasant death. These poor souls come with conflicting objectives as well (like covering up Weyland-Yutani's faults or capturing a sample) to make roleplay even spicier, so expect to second-guess your companion's every move. If you're used to being a near-invulnerable paragon of good in D&D, it's a breath of fresh air as a result. As our review points out, "knowing beforehand that characters can and will die frees both designers and players to make full use of horror elements".

• Read more: Alien: The Roleplaying Game review

Masks is a game about teenage superheroes who get into fights, secretly crush on each other, and somehow still manage to get their rolling dumpster fire lives together long enough to save the day. Plenty of tabletop RPGs have taken on the task of recreating comic-book superheroics in the past, but Masks' secret to success is framing it all in the lens of young heroes defining their identities. You don't have permanent stats in Masks, you have ever-shifting Labels. These reflect the way your young hero sees themself through their interactions with others; if you show off your fantastical powers in a way that sets you apart from your more normal human peers, they might make an awed remark that shifts your Freak up and your Mundane down.

You could try to reject their Influence, saying how your character disregards their words then rolling the dice to see if they really did get to you after all. Being Influenced makes you vulnerable, but it can also help charge your squad up with Team points at the start of dramatic battles that let you help each other out just when you need it most. Masks is a series of brilliantly interconnected systems like that, and it's easily worth playing even if you aren't into Teen Titans or Young Justice.

Don't let the name fool you: Feng Shui 2 has nothing to do with interior design. It's a tabletop RPG ode to classic Hong Kong action cinema - the kind of movies you catch playing on TV at midnight and end up accidentally marathoning past dawn. It's built to make you feel like you're playing a guns-blazing John Woo crime drama, a kung fu period piece with cheesy costumes and fantastic fight choreography, or much stranger fare (four words: post-apocalyptic battle apes). This is not a game to play if you want a realistic police procedural.

Feng Shui 2's built-in setting throws together archetypal heroes from the past, present, and future in the "Chi Wars," a secret magical conflict that rages across human history. In practical terms, it's an excuse to tie together sessions with hardboiled crime adventures and ancient demonic summoning rituals all into one campaign. However you can easily disregard the supernatural elements if you prefer, especially for one-shots. Either way, the genre-emulating mechanics will be just as strong - especially those rules for chase scenes. Mmm.

Best for… action aficionados who want to say "I can't believe that worked" at least five times per session.

If you enjoy Nancy Drew or Veronica Mars and think it would be fun to play a tabletop version of them, you should stop reading this review right now and buy Bubblegumshoe. If you're not sold on playing out your own teen drama of sleuths solving mysteries and getting into trouble, you may yet be convinced. Bubblegumshoe is probably the family-friendliest game on this list, but don't let that fool you into thinking it's only fit for the kiddie table.

Bubblegumshoe will feel familiar if you've played other investigative games like Trail of Cthulhu. However, it makes a few brilliant changes that reinforce the teen mystery feel, changes that game masters may be tempted to repurpose for any other social-focused game. Relationships with non-player characters are codified into skill-like stats, letting players call on friends or loved ones to help out in a jam - or even throw them under the bus to deflect a serious hit to their Cool (think HP for your social life). Did I mention all conflicts are called Throwdowns, and they make trading hallway putdowns or dance battles just as dangerous and dramatic as fistfights? Yeah, Bubblegumshoe's great.

Best for… living out high school dramas where you're always the brilliant hero. 

Even if you only have a passing interest in Gene Roddenberry's optimistic vision of our future, Star Trek Adventures is a well-designed tool for creating teamwork and triumph among the stars. It typically focuses on the bridge crew of a Federation starship (The Next Generation's era is the default setting), with each player character occupying a position like operations officer, security officer, or captain. The game system also empowers players to quickly create and control supporting characters as needed - so nobody's stuck playing the medical officer for an entire injury-free session.

Clever rules for extended tasks, like retrofitting a shield emitter or negotiating with testy Romulans, make non-violent conflict resolution just as fun as trading phaser fire. It can sometimes be unclear when to use each character's 12 stats - always picking one stat each from two sets of six - but that also encourages experimentation and unique approaches for all manner of activities. If you can imagine it happening in an episode, Star Trek Adventures can make it fun for you and your crew to play. Granted, those custom six-sided "Challenge Dice" are a little silly.

Best for… players who like to cooperate and can start a session with the words "Captain's Log: Stardate..." without anybody cracking up. 

Tabletop RPGs are all about imagination, right? So maybe you want to collaboratively imagine your own world with a group of friends then dive into a campaign. Fate Core does that. It's a setting-agnostic system that's focused on two things: being customizable as all get out and fostering player-focused narratives. Honestly, so is Fate Core's rules-light counterpart Fate Accelerated Edition - all in a friendly booklet you could read in half an hour - but Fate Core has more options built in.

Fate Core's worlds, campaigns, and characters are given life by aspects, short phrases that say something about what makes them unique. You could invoke your "Short-tempered soldier" aspect to get an edge in intimidating an opponent, but then the game master could compel that aspect to tempt you into an inadvisable brawl. It's all managed with an economy of Fate Points: playing to your character's traits in interesting ways will earn you points which you can then spend to get out of trouble or otherwise have more control of the story. It's smart from top to bottom and strong enough to overcome a few areas where rules could be clearer... like what the heck is a boost, anyway?

Update: A new edition of Fate, called Fate Condensed, is now available. It lightly revises the rules of Fate while shrinking the whole thing down from several hundred pages to just about 50. We'll keep an eye on community reaction to see if and how it merits its own conclusion on this list.

Best for… rolling your own world and focusing on storytelling over statistics. 

You don't have to know Starfinder is the sci-fi followup to Pathfinder to enjoy it. You just have to like laser swords and ship combat and strange alien species and, ideally, a wee bit of fantasy mixed in with your sci-fi. Starfinder uses a familiar array of stats to modify your usual D20 attack and ability rolls, and it also leaves the door open to bringing in straight-up space dwarves and space elves if you can't stand to role play without them. However much you want your campaign to feel like Pathfinder in space, new ideas like character themes - which emphasize your place in the galaxy, not just how you fight - and the health/stamina system ensure Starfinder plays like a game of its own.

It's also streamlined… a bit. Starfinder's core rulebook is still a meaty 528 pages. At least they're a well-designed and lavishly illustrated 528 pages. One last word on Pathfinder: its relatively new second edition hasn't had quite the same enthusiastic adoption as its first edition so far. We'll keep an eye on Pathfinder 2E to see if further updates stir up more interest, but for now we feel more confident continuing to recommend Starfinder.

Best for… going on detailed space adventures with fantasy flare.

The tagline for Fiasco sells it: "A game of powerful ambition and poor impulse control." It's about building and playing through your own imaginary criminal caper movie, directed and acted by you and your friends instead of the Coen brothers and John Goodman. Fiasco's also the only game on this list that doesn't require a dedicated game master role. There are rules and dice rolls to help create interesting situations, but it's up to everybody playing to make sure the story stays pointed in an entertaining direction. Therein lies Fiasco's greatest strength and its greatest liability.

If your friends buy into that 'powerful ambition and poor impulse control' premise, you'll have a good time. If they're into all that and are good at improvising cinematic scenes, you'll have a fantastic time. But Fiasco can easily stall if anybody insists on keeping things sensible or squabbling about how many bearded dragons you could really fit under your shirt without a customs officer noticing. Thankfully the book is pretty cheap and all about one-shot sessions, so it's worth keeping on hand just in case the conditions are ever right.

Best for… playing through heinously bad ideas with funny people. 

Numenera is a grand game. It's set on a huge world with billions of years of history, and it has equally sweeping ideas about how to design and run an RPG. Players create explorers of the Ninth World (for reference, you and I live in the First World) and they journey across familiar yet alien lands, finding ancient artifacts that seem like magic to them but are probably just smartphones or killer nanobots. On the other side of the table, Numenera reduces the game master's typical workload while loading them up with options: monster stats begin and end at their level but ample descriptors can still make each one feel unique; "Game Master Intrusions" offer a codified way to make impromptu changes to the story without squashing player agency.

Numenera has been around since 2013, but in 2018 it got a new pair of corebooks (Discovery and Destiny) that lightly revise and reorganize its rules while adding a bunch of new options. Both are thoughtfully designed and gorgeously illustrated, though you only need Discovery to start playing or running your own campaign.

Best for… wild, weird fantasy adventures that give both the GM and players narrative control.