Run into a few TTRPGs based on board games recently, which is an interesting trend. Only really going to work where the board version has a rich world for a setting - you could do Chess the TTRPG, I guess, but you'd have to invent so much out of whole cloth that it wouldn't really
The TV show, alas, threw away everything that was good about it tho.
There is 2 new books just out in the series, Blitz and Royal Gambit.
Dread (and Star-Crossed) are my first thought examples. How do they sit in your typology?
I don't know either, I'm afraid.
oooh, nice!! you're in today's Lucky 10,000! Dread is horror movies done with Jenga. Rack up the tension with each block drawn. Star-Crossed is even better - it's first dates done with Jenga.
OK... neither sounds an instant fit for a tabletop role-playing game.
In that, yes, horror TTRPGS, yes even romance TTRPGs, but do the board games have unique enough settings that they'd make a distinct rather than a generic RPG, given the mechanics won't really translate over.
Dread is a TTRPG - it uses a Jenga tower instead of dice for action resolution i.e. you pull a block to succeed in a feat, with the tension cranking up as the tower becomes more precarious. If it collapses, you fail - and probably die
Ah, ok.
This. Sorry, I was unclear. Both are published TTRPGs, and reasonably successful. (tone note: in case my typing doesn't come across how I intend- I'm delighted with this discussion, here to learn and share) I ask about these precisely because they are generic RPGs, that use their boargame
mechanics (Jenga, in this case) to drive that tension and escalating risk their RPG genres want, and expect any play group will know and share the tropes of horror and rom-com enough to easily make it up and be on the same page. and I ask cos your post seemed to assume that substantial
worldbuilding is fundamental to rpgs. And I wondered how much that was your assumption, or preference, and where this kind of thing (rpg taking boardgame mechanics not setting) would fit for you.
Whilst imho world building is needed for a ttrpg, that’s a personal pref. but for a board game being converted to a ttrpg I think it’s essential or what are you converting exactly. For Dread et al the jenga mechanic is fascinating, though I’d worry it would
My buddy GM'd a game of Arkham Horror once as a holiday one-off. It was just the base game + few teeny homebrew rules and flavor layered on top + a custom Horror + we were in character. Yeeeeeeeah, we lost and ended the game singing "Frosty the Snowman" in brainwashed culty voices 😆. It was amazing.
Ooh - & The Old King’s Crown - when it comes out!
Monopoly could be a fun one-sheet TTRPG to play on those days you just want chaos. A Shadows of the Apt TTRPG would be 🔥.
my brothers and I attempted to combine Monopoly with Middle-Earth Role Playing (MERP) to make MERPopoly. It didn't work.
Oh, so *you* are why there have been earthquakes in Oxford…
Sutcliffe's "Chess-dream in a Garden" would be a good springboard, especially if you add in @uel.bsky.social 's Forbidden Chess Pieces. Probably still more of a flavored skirmish than sandbox RPG.
I could see a chess RPG working with a sort of encounter based conflict, where you build an increasingly strong side for your board, and face off against progressively more challenging boards with unusual properties. Could be fun as a steppe warlord/sword and sorcery sort of system
I don’t see much role-playing in that! But then tactical combat ttrpgs were never my thing :)
be much to do with the original. I'm almost surprised there hasn't been a Twilight Imperium TTRPG though, for example (or there has and I missed it?). Of the ones I have seen, the first was Root, from Magpie Games, an Actual Play of which I ran for How We Roll a while back. It's a
There is! For FFG's Genesys.
There are two! Fantasy Flight put one out in 1999 (that was then quickly forgotten) and there’s a newish one called Embers of the Imperium.
There is a Twight imperium TTRPG www.edge-studio.net/games/embers...
Aha! Thank you!
Sadly the Genesys core book to go with it is impossible to find, at least in hard copy. (Maybe there is a PDF?)
Ah right. I have the Star Wars game they did, I think, but not the generic one (very seldom buy generic systems)
www.allrolledup.co.uk/product/gene... Here I think.
or PDF on DTRPG
Oh, I've got that one. But it is hung off a multi-genre core book (the same way most GURPS settings are hung off that core system). And that is deeply out of print. But probably on Drive Thru, as you say.
good implementation of the PbtA system where you play a band of vagabonds playing all the clashing factions off against one another, keeps the spirit of the board game whilst giving the players a lot of room and choice. There's also a "World of Arzium" game
One of the ideas I loved in the Root RPG is the (optional) method of playing through several turns of Root proper, and using the resulting board state as initial conditions for your RPG game. Not sure the execution sings but the concept of integration is super cool.
based on Ryan Laukat's various games in that world (Above and Below is one of my absolute favourites, but there are quite a few now) - because this stretches to give a nod to a lot of games, set in different places and even time periods, the setting is spread thinner
and requires more GM work to build the game, but the character options certainly give the feel of the games (optimism, exploration, weirdness, quite cosy). Finally I just received the TTRPG of Defenders of the Wild from Outlandish, a very recent board game. This is a co-op
game where four factions of animal people fight a machine incursion. The rulebook has a fascinating setup where the setting is presented as an almanac over 2 years, the first of which details the factions and their squabbles
I'm sold on that premise.
but overall details a pleasant and peaceful world, the second of which is a resistance pamphlet exhorting everyone to unite against the mech invasion. It's a really effective way of bringing home the main source of grief in the setting.
The system is also completely new with some novel elements around how character skills and abilities work, and are acquired. In all three cases the TTRPGs aren't just afterthoughts, but eminently playable games in their own right, allowing for a
deeper (and more varied) exploration of the settings introduced by the board game originals. Definitely interested in more of the same if other suitable board games were given a similar treatment. Any thoughts as to possible candidates?
Something based on the totally delightful Moon Colony Bloodbath would be super fun.
I once made an entire TTRPG system based off CandyLand. With the different kingdoms, factions, etc. but none of my edgelord friends ever wanted to play it. 🤷♂️
Please can I have a copy?
Scythe is my immediate thought
Some years back there was talk of the same - when news went dead I contacted Stonemaier - & got the reply that Jamie had decided they were out of their depth Re:Rpgs (they didn’t play them), and hence decided to drop the idea.
Oh lord yes, why is there not a TTRPG of Scythe? That would be amazing.
Arcs would be another candidate from the same stable.
Absolutely. I can see Oath making a good game too. Very weird world there.
There is a deep adaptation of Tidal Blades (1 & 2) done in the Cypher System that is worth checking out.
Also, gloomhaven/frosthaven RPG is on the way.
Lords of Xidit/Seasons. I'd buy a sourcebook for the art alone, but the setting is perfect for a low-stress adventure. Whimsy with a bit of darkness hiding in the corners, it'd be a blast.
There was a Genesys-system TI RPG that came out a few years ago during the pandemic, and kind of imploded like all the non-Star Wars Genesys system RPGs.
I guess if they can make a whole movie out of "Battleship"…
Alice Through the Looking Glass gives you the jumping off point for a chess TTRPG.
Wan't that John Crowley's early novel The Deep?
