THEME: Non-Western Fantasy
Hello friend! For this recommendation, I wanted to highlight games made about non-western fantasy by authors who hail from the cultures that inspire the games. For that purpose I really want to shout-out to rpgsea and rpglatam, two community/movements that have made it much easier for creators from Southeast Asian and Latin American cultures to advertise and publish their games. Not all of my recommendations come from these communities, but they’re a great jumping-off point to find more games with unique settings, fresh ideas, and beautiful, beautiful art.
Nahual, by Miguel Angel Espinoza.
Nahual is a tabletop roleplaying game about brjos nahuales, humans of mestizo and indigenous ancestry that have the power to shapeshifter into an animal form. These nahuales hunt angels to make a living, running a changarro - a business - together to sell the products they make from the bodies of the angels they have killed. These are stories about underdogs, struggling to find their place in a Mexican world of fantastical and overwhelming forces.
Miguel Ángel Espinoza is a Mexican layout artist and game designer, and the head of Smoking Mirror Games. His ttrpg Nahual really picked up steam on Kickstarter, unlocking stretch goal after stretch goal. At its core, this game is PbtA game about underdogs going up against celestial parasites. Angel Dust is a potent drug, and angels are used by corporations, politicians, and the Church to lure in worshipers and make money. You play the labourers at the bottom of this pyramid, aching for freedom but trapped inside a concrete jungle. Your biggest asset? The special gifts you’ve inherited from your ancestors, watered down as you’ve lost your cultural memories.
This game is more urban fantasy than anything else on this list, but if you want to explore a game about reclaiming something that you’ve almost lost, you should definitely check out Nahual.
ARC, by momatoes.
Ready Yourself. For Tonight, we save the world.
The RPG to slay the apocalypse. Capture your imagination with near-inescapable dooms that threaten infinite worlds. Be a hero or be the guide to facilitate a heart-racing story to remember.
ARC enables people wishing to run a game with limited experience. The Doom and its Omens help create tension and manage the story’s pacing. The rules are approachable so you can focus on helping make the best story for the table. Additionally, the last chapter of the full book is filled with tips for building a good experience for you and your friends.
The creator, Momatoes (aka Bianca Canoza), is from the Philippines, and is the custodian of RPGSEA, as well as a Winner of the Diana Jones Emerging Designer Award. Her game, ARC doesn’t have a lot of setting decided for you - instead, you decide elements of the setting yourself. There’s even a license for creators who want to publish their own content!
The biggest selling point of ARC is the Doom, a terrible event that the Heroes want to prevent at any cost. The GM will set up Omens, which are pieces of the story that advance the Doom - pieces the characters will need to investigate and interact with in order to resolve. Finally, the Doomsday clock is a tool that can be used to keep the sessions tight and focused: every moment on the Doomsday clock has the GM roll 1d6 per unresolved moment - the higher the roll, the closer you tick towards catastrophe! If you want a beginner-friendly game that allows maximum creativity, you should definitely check out ARC.
Arunika, by Anonymocha.
Darkness and gloom threaten to shroud the entirety of this world you call home. Or perhaps, it already had. However, there’s hope.
You are a Light Bearer. This beacon of light you hold is the key to reviving the world’s gleam and hope, through your own. You are bestowed with the pursuit of rekindling the world, forging bonds with its inhabitants along the path, and freeing it from the murk with what you can offer.
Arunika is a TTRPG of maintaining hope, sharing it with the world, and most importantly, caring for yourself while you’re at it.
The rulebook reflects a world’s journey towards revival from the characters who escalate it. It is made with the vision of a game that has a non-violent, narrative-first, and feelings-focused system which can be interpreted in many optimistic, creative, whimsical, melancholic, or introspective ways.
Mocha, the creator, is an Indonesian artist with a beautiful and unique art style, visible in the projects they create and contribute to. One person plays the Light Bearer, a character who holds the Light, a beacon that needs to be used to rekindle the world. Other players can play the Companions, friends and old foes that accompany the Light Bearer on their journey. This game can be run with just a GM and one player, with all of the Companions as NPCs. The stats of your character will fill or deplete depending on the events of the game, so Heart will increase when the party has a positive interaction, while Hurt will increase from suffering harm, or decrease when your character is comforted. If you want a game that is easy on the eyes, gives you the basic premise and lets you build your own world, you should check out Arunika.
Hearts of Wulin, by Lowell Francis and Agatha Cheng.
Hearts of Wulin is a game of wuxia melodrama, Powered by the Apocalypse. Players take the role of skilled martial artists in a world of rival clans, conspiracies, and obligations. The game emulates films like Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Chinese wuxia TV series like The Smiling Proud Wanderer and Fox Volant of the Snowy Mountain, and Chinese martial arts novels from the second half of the twentieth century. In these tales, romance is as dangerous as a blade. Everyone has ties to factions, loves they can’t quite express, and secrets which will shake them to their core. As in the source material, stories in Hearts of Wulin are driven by the characters’ duties, romantic desires, and entanglements with other characters.
You get everything you need to play the game in three different styles: Core, Courtly, and Fantastic. The core game is as described above: a game of wuxia melodrama featuring wandering wulin warriors. The courtly style of play sets the game in a world of politics and factional scheming. The fantastic game adds strong elements of the superrnatural to the story. Each style of play has its own playbooks and moves—it’s like having three games in one!
Agatha Cheng is a cultural consultant and a podcast host, on top of being a co-author of this wuxia-inspired game, in a genre she’s loved since childhood. Hearts of Wulin is an homage to melodramatic stories about protagonists, torn between equally treasured relationships. You may be in love with your teacher’s greatest rival, or perhaps your master and your father despise each-other. The PbtA system that Hearts is built on prioritizes emotional conflict and failure that moves the story forward, while slimming down the mechanics to simple 2d6 dice rolls. If what you’re looking for is story beats that rip your heart up and make you feel all of the feelings, you should check out this game.
Gubat Banwa, by makapatag.
Gubat Banwa is a game of rapid kinetic martial arts, violent sorcery, heartrending convictions and bouts of will. Warriors that channel gods face sorcerers that master black arts, martial artists who have unlocked a new form of cultivation clash swords with those that perfect the night alchemies.
Gubat Banwa is a Southeast Asian fantasy martial arts Role-Playing Game, inspired by the refulgent cultures of Southeast Asia. Raise your spears, KADUNGGANAN, you elite warrior-braves and asura-knights who travel The Sword Isles to prove their conviction and dictate the fate of the world. Revel in larger-than-life war drama like in Asian Dramas, ballistic tactical martial arts grid gameplay in the vein of Lancer or Final Fantasy Tactics, and find glory beyond heaven. Wield the Thunderbolt of Liberation! Rejoice! In the Glory of Combat!
Makapatag, or Waks, is a Filipino creature who loves creating tactical ttrpgs. All of their games have strong Southeast Asian inspiration, but Gubat Banwa is what you’re looking for if you want good old fantasy. Rules-wise, the author credits Lancer, Pathfinder 2e, ICON, Ryuutama, Apocalypse World, and so many more iconic, well-loved games for their inspiration. This game is made to specifically centre Southeast Asian cultures, and the setting is not solely based in a specific historical setting, but is rather inspired by many cultures and stories of these cultures. I strongly recommend you read the Note On Intended Audience on page 4 if you get this book.
And what a book it is. 400 pages, with maps, roll-tables, an extensive dive into the lore and terms created for this book, and pages and pages of gorgeous gorgeous art. Character creation is heavily involved, incorporating the culture you hail from, the ideal you’re fighting for, major life events and debts, as well as different Disciplines, combat arts that each have their own styles, weapons, and techniques. Fighting in this game is not just a matter of survival - it is a science. If you want a game that gives you in-depth characters and hours and hours of material in a world in which every piece of lore has been carefully thought out, I heavily recommend Gubat Banwa.
Mangayaw, by goobernuts.
Mangayaw is an RPG for one facilitator (the Mangaawit) and at least one other player. Players act as Binmanwa, adventurers and survivors in an archipelago of bloodshed and goldlust. This game is inspired by Philippine legend, folklore, culture and history. The game and its setting is still a work-in-progress. Based on and inspired by Cairn, Into the Odd, Mausritter and numerous other games.
Benj, the creator, is a member of RPGsea, and draws heavily from Philippine folklore and history for this game. This is absolutely for OSR fans, with delay fast combat, class-less and level-less characters, and a ton of equipment and magic items inspired by Philippines folklore.
Whereas many OSR games present the rules with the assumption that the GM knows what they’re doing, Mangayaw contains a page of principles for the Mangaawit, outlining narrative focus, the purpose of danger and treasure, and advice on how to present the characters with choices, NPC motivations, and the benefits of random generation. It also contains principles for the players, and principles of the World, providing guidance for folks who may be unfamiliar with the culture that inspires this setting. There’s suggestions for names, descriptions of unique items, and tables for magic and sorcery. If you love roll tables, you’ll love Mangayaw.
Brave Zenith, by Roll 4 Tarrasque.
Brave Zenith is a post-fantasy tabletop RPG, set in a world inspired by Brazilian culture and long summer nights playing JRPGs on a pirated PS1. With a set of simple interpretative rules, that focus on player creativity and imagination, explore the ruined world of pastpresent, meet colourful (and deadly) creatures, see the sights of the Second City, partake in delicious Monkey Oil and become an adventurer.
Roll 4 Tarrasque is a team of Latinx creators whose efforts won Game of the Year for 2022 at the Indie Groundbreaker Awards with this game. Brave Zenith is a game about fantasy odd-jobs, rather than epic quests - your characters are cleaning up houses, hunting ghosts, stealing from the rich, etc. The people and creatures of the world are unique and enchanting, from the friendly Jelly shopkeeper to the slippery butter construct, to little porcini goblins.
Characters have 3 stats, gain abilities based off of their occupations. There are three suggested origins to help you determine what your character looks like, but you’re also welcome to create your own! There are typical hallmarks of dungeon delving here, such as loot tables, monsters to fight, and spells to cast. For the GMs, there’s a chapter full of advice on how to prepare for a session, quick NPC generation, and tables to help you write an adventure on the fly. Finally, the rulebook itself is bright, colourful, and fun - perfect for communicating the kinds of games it’s designed to run!
Lutong Banwa by Sinta Posadas (Diwata ng Manila).
We, the Tamawo, we have no concept of hunger, food, or of a nuclear family. We wandered aimlessly for a long time. Then, we met a Giant Grab. She took us in like her own children. Clothed and sheltered us like we were her kind. We call her Mama Kasag. She showed us more about the people that came before us. The ones she calls “Humans”.
Lutong Banwa is a cooking game, where you set out to adventure and find ingredients from Spirits and recipes from old civilizations. Embark on this anti-canon storygame adventure with its own custom system and play to find out just what sort of zany adventures you can get up to in this weird, wild world. Do whatever you want.
Sin is a Filipino game designer who loves designing games that incorporate magic realism. Lutong Banwa is no different. You play Tamawo, who have bodies that appear similar to humans, but live in an age in which humans are long gone. Humans are strange beings of a past age, with unfamiliar customs, such as cooking. You’ve picked up cooking as something to explore, and thus go out on errands to find new ingredients for Mama Kasag. This game is charming and small, quick to learn and easy to play. It even includes recipes to get you in the cooking mood! If you like cozy games with low stakes and a charming setting, you should absolutely check out this game.
A Thousand Thousand Islands.
This is not a game, but rather, a collection of system-agnostic zines for use in fantasy tabletop games. This collection is designed by a trio of Malaysian designers, and contains places such as Mr-Kr-Gr, a river kingdom ruled by crocodiles, Korvu, a maritime nation of tenant mercenaries, and Ngelalangka, a market inspired by Southeast Asian bazaars. If you have a game system that you’re already comfortable with and you want to explore fantastical places within that system, I heavily encourage you to check out these zines.
makapatag
