Blades in the Dark

• Heist, steampunk, supernatural
• d6 pool, highest die result

It’s a gang of criminals in a haunted shadow of Victorian London, out to make that big score that will set them up for life or at least until the next job comes along.

It’s an odd mix of dice crunch (such as found in the Downtime phase) and improvised outcomes (fail, partial success, full success, and critical success), but the emphasis is on following the narrative and letting the dice tell a story. Drawing from the Powered by the Apocalypse school of gaming, the mechanics are distinct and the core of several other games in different settings (pirates, weird west, space opera, war). A single adventure cuts straight to the action and can usually be completed in a single session or two. The setting is chock full of details but players are encouraged to add their own.

The very nature of the game is largely improvised so there are not so much adventures available as there are single pages with a scenario prompt.

Call of Cthulhu 7E

• Modern-ish, investigation, horror
• d100 (percentile) skill mechanic

Traditionally set in the 1920s of H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional universe of eldritch horror, where investigators seek out clues while the answers they encounter threaten to drive them mad.

I originally ran Call of Cthulhu from a hardcover edition using the starting adventure in the back. It’s a game system I’ve home crafted a few adventures and run some adventures from the numerous modules they released over the years. Recently I’ve been using bits and pieces from Pulp Cthulhu and Cthulhu Eternal but nothing really from the Modern or Historical settings to date.

Dungeons & Dragons 5E

• Magical, fantasy, action
• 1d20 vs. Target Number

D&D is the eponymous brand for pretty much every RPG so it needs little description. It’s a classic high fantasy setting with an overwhelming amount of options for players and multiple world books.

I was a little late to picking it up when it released, but I’ve become a fan of how it pulled together the best bits of previous editions though it is not without it’s flaws. Previously, I had run some 2E but have played some of each of the other editions. I’ve run adventures in the settings of the Forgotten Realms, Eberron, and home brew.

Mothership

• Sci-fi, horror, investigation
• d100 (percentile) vs. skills and saves

Space truckers and colonial marines face the horrors of isolations and xenological threats.

A recent game that has a stripped down old school feel to it. The character generation flowchart doubles as the character sheet, making rolling up a character simple and quick. There’s a lot of randomness along the way including trinkets, patches, and starting equipment. It’s great for a one shot with pamphlet sized single session adventures out there as well as some more sizable campaigns like Another Bug Hunt that came with the boxed set. There isn’t an official setting as of yet, so how the adventures fit together is very piecemeal. The Warden’s Manual (game master guide) has some really good advice in it.