Tactical Mechanical Heroic

Draw Steel

This is the TTRPG from Matt Colville and the MCDM crew. Its touted as **Heroic, Tactical, Cinematic,** and **Fantasy**. Its very much a tactical miniatures game, and it has a lot of wonderful concepts that draw from war gaming and board gaming. Currently this write up is for the Beta version, since the actual release is still a year away.

Familiar Flexible Tactical

Cosmere RPG

The Cosmere, by Brandon Sanderson, is being turned into a TTRPG with both new and familiar design elements. There are interested choices, and highly thematic concepts in this game

Thematic Nomenclature Fast

Distal

The game really nails start-up, with interesting Background Prompts and establishing an Organization for the party. There is a fair bit of crunch to the game with keywords, but mechanically it feels lighter than most.

Heroic Theatre of Mind

ICONS

Icons by Ad Infinitum Adventures is a superheroic RPG that aims to replicate the feel of superhero comics. The game is generally assumed to take place in the modern world, with the usual conceits of a superhero world like super smart heroes or aliens with incredible technology. The base method for creating heroes is random, with the opportunity to customize your hero at the end of character creation. This is done to help create heroes with powers that replicate the seemingly haphazard suite of powers from their comic book counterparts. There is a point-buy option, but if you choose to use this option, definitely discuss it with your players first, as it is pretty easy to create a too powerful character with this optional method.

Clever Quick Rich Lore

Crown & Skull

Crown & Skull is a highly flavorful game with some streamlined mechanics and tense decision making. These are the kinds of rules you expect fromt he creator of ICRPG

Heist Theatre of Mind

Mistborn

The Mistborn Adventure Game by Crafty games is a roleplaying game based on the Mistborn fantasy book series. The design of the core RPG seeks to allow you to play characters inspired by those from the trilogy in a campaign setting based on the first book. While you certainly can play in later settings, the game is best as a heist game, where you are part of a crew attempting a seemingly impossible mission.

Shadowdark

A blend of OSR style of play with closer math and mechanics to 5th Edition Dungeons & Dragons. This game ratchets up the tension by making players manage resources like Light and food. The mechanics lend themselves to the idea of exploring a dungeon. This GM section is one of the best in the game for its shear number of quick reference tables you could use with any other TTRPG you have. Its an OSR style game, but the math is a bit more lenient. However, its very cool that it was not designed with any particular hard and fast rules for dice modifications. This really lends itself to players using their own RP to gain these sorts of advantages (and disadvantages).

Tactical Solo Fast

Vagabond

This game definitely has some interesting ideas. Its tactical, runs pretty quickly, and has some built in solo play that allows you to test out scenarios as a GM. It has two different mechanics for resolution (action vs skill)

Fast Deadly Flexible

Dragonbane

Solid OSR style game from Forbidden Lands. Has some fast paced combat, with very streamlined character design and one of the best character sheets i've seen in awhile!