2024 has come and gone, while 2025 promises to bring new challenges. Yet there’s a lot we can learn from looking back at the past year. For our StartPlaying professional Game Masters, it naturally benefits you to see what games players want to play. But the following list can benefit you too, dear player, as it shows you what new tabletop RPGs are actually attracting players.
No more posting hopeful listings to a dead forum, no more begging your friends to try your shiny new Kickstarter game. The following list shows the top 50 TTRPGs of 2024. Well, on StartPlaying and it’s technically 49. Still, this should give you a solid idea of what games saw a spike in interest, which mainstays stayed strong, and what new products actually lived up to the advertising hype.
Here it is, StartPlaying’s Top 49:
1. Dungeons & Dragons 5e
2. Pathfinder 2e
3. Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
4. Pathfinder 1e
5. Call of Cthulhu
6. Cyberpunk Red
7. Pokemon Tabletop United
8. Lancer
9. Powered by the Apocalypse RPG
10. Star Wars RPG by Fantasy Flight Games
11. Monster of the Week
12. Fallout RPG
13. Starfinder
14. Blades in the Dark
15. Star Wars 5e
16. Savage Worlds
17. Masks: A New Generation
18. World of Darkness
19. Indie TTRPG
20. Fabula Ultima
21. Level Up Advanced 5th Edition
22. Shadowrun
23. Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
24. Shadowdark RPG
25. GURPS
26. Alien RPG
27. Cypher Systems
28. Dungeons & Dragons 3/3.5e
29. City of Mist
30. Dragonbane
31. Tales of the Valiant
32. Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game
33. Vampire: The Masquerade 20th Anniversary Edition
34. Year Zero Engine
35. Delta Green
36. Avatar Legends: The RPG
37. Exalted 3rd Edition
38. Chronicles of Darkness
39. Forged in the Dark
40. Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition
41. MonsterHearts 2
42. Traveller
43. The One Ring 2e
44. Star Trek Adventures
45. Old School Essentials
46. FATE
47. Candela Obscura
48. Vaesen
49. OSR Games
As we can see, fantasy continues to reign as champion via DnD and Pathfinder. Yet sci-fi is also staking a claim thanks to Cyberpunk’s rise, the evergreen popularity of Star Wars, and the recent release of Lancer. Horror/investigation themed games also have a strong community in Vampire and CoC. Fallout also deserves a mention for almost breaking into the top 10 thanks largely to the Amazon Fallout show.
The biggest surprise, at least to me, is the sudden appearance of Pokemon Tabletop United in the top 10. This should be a sign to Nintendo that fans crave official TTRPG content of their favorite series. After all, Critical Role did it with Zelda. Until then, StartPlaying’s got you covered. You can see here that our GMs are ready to run anything be it your classic favorites, new trends, or surprise hits.
