Survival
The survival genre is all about humanity's struggle against nature. Harsh environments, scarce resources, hostile creatures, and maybe even other people threaten its heroes, who must use their strength, wits, and knowledge to gather the resources to survive. Nothing is guaranteed; ready access to food, shelter, weapons, and tools rely entirely on the characters' resourcefulness and ingenuity. If they can succeed, however, they can begin to build. Gradually, surviving can become thriving if characters get a chance to build on their own success. The promise of the survival genre is building a sustainable future. Survival tabletop roleplaying games are very popular, and are in fact some of the oldest games in the hobby. They work so well because they emphasize advancement: new and better gear, stronger characters with more powerful abilities, and growing resources are extremely satisfying to acquire, rewarding to use, and easy to understand as direct improvements. Because characters in survival RPGs often start with little to nothing, every gain is an obvious improvement. The process of beginning with nothing and fighting your way to the top can be thrilling, and the sense of victory that comes with success feels earned.
Popular Survival RPGs
Hunter: The Reckoning
A Storytelling Game of Desperate Measures. You saw what you shouldn’t have, the veil pulled back from the secret world and the monsters who prowl it. You chronicled the tragedies they wrought, these monsters, and the victims upon whom they preyed. You grasped the extent of their influence and witnessed the corruption of the organizations formed to keep them in check. And you vowed to do something about it. Tonight, you act. It’s time for a Reckoning.
Mutant: Year Zero
Mutant: Year Zero takes you to the world after the great Apocalypse. Humanity’s proud civilization has fallen. The cities are dead wastelands, winds sweeping along empty streets turned into graveyards. But life remains. Among the ruins, the People live. You are the heirs of humanity – but not quite human anymore. Your bodies and minds are capable of superhuman feats. You are mutants.
Fallout: The Roleplaying Game
How will you re-shape the world? Will you join with a plucky band of survivors to fight off all comers and carve out your own settlement? Will you team up with pre-existing factions like the Brotherhood of Steel or Super Mutants to enforce your own ideals on the wasteland? Ghoul or robot, paladin or raider, it’s your choice - and the consequences are yours. Create your own survivors, super mutants, ghouls, and even Mister Handy robots, and immerse yourselves in the iconic post-nuclear apocalyptic world, while gamemasters guide their group through unique Fallout stories. This 2d20 edition of Fallout is as close to the bottlecap-bartering, wasteland wandering, Brotherhood battling excitement of Fallout you can get.
The One Ring 2e
Twenty-four years ago, an alliance of Elves, Men, and Dwarves defeated a horde of Orcs and Wild Wolves, under a sky darkened by Giant Bats, inaugurating a new era of prosperity for the Free Peoples. But twenty years is a long time for peace to last, and in many dark corners of the earth a shadow is lengthening once again. Enter the world of Middle-earth with The One Ring™, the official tabletop roleplaying game based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien. Designed specifically to evoke the atmosphere of The Hobbit™ and The Lord of the Rings™, the game contains rules for creating heroes and sending them off on adventures in a land threatened by the growing Shadow.
Death in Space
The world is broken. In a collapsing universe, your crew is your only family. Death in Space takes you to a grimy blue-collar future in a universe filled with risk, but also opportunity. Death in Space is a game about adventure and uncertain journeys out into the darkness of space, where the void whispers to the unlucky and imbues travelers’ bodies with strange powers. It is about you and your crew making a home of your spacecraft or station, your only sanctuary in a dangerous universe. Most of all, it is about surviving in an abandoned frontier system where resources are scarce, and competition is fierce. Engage in power struggles and build your crew’s reputation. Salvage and steal to endure a ruthless universe. And above all, do anything you can to get that next job. Your life will depend on it.
Mörk Borg
MÖRK BORG is a pitch-black apocalyptic fantasy RPG about lost souls and fools seeking redemption, forgiveness or the last remaining riches in a bleak and dying world. Who are you? The tomb-robber with silver glittering between cracked fingernails? The mystic who would bend the world’s heart away from it’s inevitable end? Confront power-draining necromancers, skulking skeletal warriors and backstabbing wickheads. Wander the Valley of the Unfortunate Undead, the catacombs beneath the Bergen Chrypt or the bedevilled Sarkash forest. But leave hope behind – the world’s cruel fate is sealed, and all your vain heroic efforts are destined to end in death and dismay. Or are they?
Vaesen
In dark forests, beyond the mountains, by black lakes in hidden groves. At your doorstep. In the shadows, something stirs. Strange beings. Twisted creatures, lurking at the edge of vision. Watching. Waiting. Unseen by most, but not by you. You see them for what they really are. Vaesen. Welcome to the Mythic North – northern Europe of the nineteenth century, but not as we know it today. A land where the myths are real. A cold reach covered by vast forests, its few cities lonely beacons of industry and enlightenment – a new civilization dawning. But in the countryside, the old ways still hold sway. There, people know what lurks in the dark. They know to fear it.
The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game
The Walking Dead has always been about characters facing impossible choices in an unforgiving world. In The Walking Dead Universe Roleplaying Game, you enter into the world of the dead and must face these choices head on. You can do this at any point in the timeline – encountering familiar faces and locations, or new ones – but the hardest choice will always be the same: Who are you going to be? You will play as people struggling to survive in a hostile world. Exceptional challenges can appear from anywhere – from the lack of essential supplies, from conflicts brewing within the group, from hidden construction flaws in your safe haven, or from approaching walkers hungering for your flesh.
Forbidden Lands
Forbidden Lands is a new take on classic fantasy roleplaying. In this sandbox survival roleplaying game, you’re not heroes sent on missions dictated by others – instead, you are raiders and rogues bent on making your own mark on a cursed world. You will discover lost tombs, fight terrible monsters, wander the wild lands, and if you live long enough, build your own stronghold to defend.
Alien: The Roleplaying Game
The official ALIEN tabletop roleplaying game pits a crew of space truckers, scientists marines, synthetic human androids, corporate stooges, and other explorers against the cold, harsh void and the lurking horrors that haunt it. Save your oxygen—in space, no one can hear you scream.
Frequently asked questions about Survival
Blog links about Survival
8 Zombie TTRPGs to Survive the End of the World
When the dead rise again, what will you do? Fight? Sneak? Run? Or join their shambling ranks?
This Is The Way The World Ends: 6 Apocalyptic TTRPGs
Jordan Hunt explores several roleplaying games dealing with the end of the world as we know it.
What Is an OSR Game?
An introduction to the wonderful world of the OSR, one of the largest independent RPG movements of all time.
Survival Reviews and Actual Plays
Modiphius Live | Fallout: The RPG
The publisher of the Fallout roleplaying game hosts an actual play where a ragtag band heads out into the Wasteland.
Forbidden Stream: Forbidden Lands
Third Floor Wars explores the Forbidden Lands after the Blood Mist lifts from the world, allowing them to explore the wilderness.
Oxventure Plays the Alien RPG
Oxventure creates a (mostly) blue-collar spaceship crew trying to survive in hostile space in the Alien RPG.