Dungeons & Dragons celebrated its 50th anniversary this year, a major milestone not just for Wizards of the Coast but for the entire tabletop role-playing game industry. Even as Wizards sought to simultaneously take a victory lap and secure D&D’s dominance by releasing new core rulebooks, other publishers looked back to the hobby’s history to put fresh spins on what old-school gaming means. The hobby’s growing popularity also leaves plenty of room for innovation, as designers craft fantastical new worlds and put strange spins on history.
This alphabetical list of the best tabletop role-playing books of 2024 includes items from the industry’s top designers and standout work from brand-new publishers. Whether you’re looking to hunt monsters or for hope at the end of the world, deep mechanics or plenty of laughs, these books show off the power of TTRPGs to unleash the imagination and how far the hobby has come in the past half-century.
Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts
Blades in the Dark is one of the best indie RPGs out there, and John Harper made it even better this year by quietly releasing Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts. The book updates the original rules based on Harper’s experience running the game for years, cutting dice rolls during downtime actions to remove the potential for disappointment and changing the way that threats work to present players the risks of their actions upfront and make them figure out how to avoid the consequences. Deep Cuts further fleshes out the already rich setting of Duskvol, placing the haunted city on the brink of explosive change thanks to a mix of new technology, union movements, a paranoid empire, and occult forces.
A dark wish shattered the realm of fairy tales in the Ennie-nominated Broken Tales by breaking all the stories. Now villains like Captain Hook and Bluebeard serve as hunters, tracking down warped versions of fairy-tale heroes who prey upon the people of 1700s Europe. Filled with evocative black, red, and white illustrations from Daniel Comerci, the book by Alberto Tronchi offers horrifying adventures based on Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland, “The Three Little Pigs,” and other classic stories perfect for playing as one-shots. The flexible rules also make it easy to devise your own twisted stories and characters.
Dreams and Machines Player’s Guide
There are plenty of games set in dark post-apocalyptic worlds, but Modiphius Entertainment’s Dreams and Machines takes a more optimistic approach to imagining what comes after. Long after a war between man and a twisted AI ravaged the utopian world of Evera Prime, new societies have formed with their own traditions and views on how much of the old technology can be trusted. The system encourages players to make an impact on the world not just through their adventures but by becoming mentors and inspiring figures, offering the option to retire a character or have them die to fit the narrative. It also has a fairly ingenious version of “magic” as some people can use GLIFs and forgotten words and gestures to control advanced technology.
Designed to played in one to three bombastic sessions, Eat the Reich is the gore-soaked, over-the-top game for fans of Inglourious Basterds and The Suicide Squad that won several awards at this year’s Gen Con. A group of vampires that can include a man-bat and a flesh-eating cowboy are coffin-dropped into occupied Paris with the goal of making it to Hitler’s zeppelin docked at the Eiffel Tower and drinking all his blood. The adventure by Grant Howitt is packed with stunning illustrations by Will Kirkby, keeping descriptions short while providing plenty of wild settings and antagonists. Players can meet up with the French resistance, rescue “degenerate” art, ride around on Napoleon’s undead horse, and level up by defeating Nazi underbosses. What more could you want?
Historica Arcanum: Era of the Crusades
Metis Creative produces extremely high-quality supplements for history buffs, and its latest book, Historica Arcanum: Era of the Crusades, brings players and game masters to 12th-century Cairo and Jerusalem. The detailed maps and explanation of the power players of the time provide plenty of material tied to the setting-specific campaign The Sigil of Jerusalem, but this book also offers plenty of subclasses and systems that can be easily ported into other games. Evocative character options include a doomsaying bard and a self-flagellating cleric, and there are rules for magical backlash and having characters feel the stress of bloody battles and encounters with the unknown that will add stakes to their actions.
Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide
TTRPGs have a long history of Orientalism, and Paizo worked to combat that by assembling dozens of writers of Asian descent to bring their perspectives to crafting a setting book rich with character options that any Pathfinder player will want to check out. Celebrating the diversity of Asian fantasy, Pathfinder Lost Omens: Tian Xia World Guide features acupuncturists and street food vendors, oni and tanuki, and options for martial artists who draw on the powers of the zodiac — like a character from Sailor Moon. The book is filled with vibrant art showcasing not just a wide array of creatures but apparel, food, and architectural styles.
Dungeons & Dragons Player’s Handbook (2024)
A decade after launching the D&D 5th edition rules, Wizards of the Coast released a revised Player’s Handbook to reflect the way the game has evolved through both official supplements and the efforts of performers, third-party developers, Dungeon Masters, and players. While remaining accessible to newcomers, the book pushes forward the levels of choice and complexity for those who want it through redesigned character classes, species, and weapon rules. Its art showcases the breadth of the game’s multiverse and the play experiences it provides, from epic battles to the chance to just share some laughs with a table of friends.
$50
The latest version of the Player’s Handbook features a lighter rules introduction and relegates its crunchier mechanics to a rules glossary.
The award-winning Shadowdark RPG uses a light ruleset but calls on the art style, monsters, and generally brutal vibe of the earliest versions of D&D. Players are encouraged to start with a reserve of several level 0 characters and see which one makes it through the brutal gauntlet of their first adventure alive. The lucky ones get to continue their career of avoiding deadly traps and fighting monsters in a setting where the darkness is so dangerous that you’ll want to keep very close track of how long your light source will last — that is, if the monsters don’t find a way to extinguish your torch or dispel your light magic. The book is packed with tables for rolling up rumors, encounters, and loot, making it easy to pull together ideas for a quick adventure.
Starfinder Second Edition Playtest Adventure: A Cosmic Birthday
The rules for Paizo’s Starfinder Second Edition are a work in progress, but Jenny Jarzabski designed A Cosmic Birthday as an adventure game masters can keep running for years with just some minor tweaks when the new core books come out next year. She’s succeeded in devising a warped story that kicks off with an elevator malfunction sending players falling into a parallel dimension. Players can rob a bank, fight eldritch horrors, and navigate traps including some very aggressive advertising. It’s a fantastic intro to the setting and system, encouraging creative thinking and offering plenty of opportunities for role-playing by helping out a cast of quirky NPCs.
One of the funniest TTRPG rulebooks out there, Triangle Agency evokes the warped humor of Paranoia and Better Off Ted for a game about a totally trustworthy company tasked with preserving mundane reality by locking up anomalies created by common thoughts. The art in the game master section is especially great, but the whole book offers a deeply meta approach to explaining how to play agents with supernatural powers who have to manage their standing within the company, commitments in the real world, and the anomalies that have bonded to them. The focus on how will affects reality also makes it one of the better manifestations of collaborative storytelling.
