Urban Fantasy
Why should medieval society have all the fun? Urban fantasy is a genre that takes the fantastical elements like monsters, magic, elves, and dragons and brings them into the modern day. Blending magic, technology, old-world superstition and folk lore, and modern rational thought and setting it all in a familiar city, urban fantasy deals in contradictions. The genre blurs the line between the real and the fantasy world; sometimes magic is a hidden or secondary world concealed from normal people, sometimes it's an open fact of everyday life. Urban fantasy explores the tension between the traditional and the modern, the fantastical and the disenchanted, and the faithful and skeptical. Urban fantasy is a much-beloved setting for tabletop roleplaying games. A modern-day setting is frequently the first adaptation that players make to a fantasy setting, and ready-made urban fantasy games offer players lots of options. This genre is often maximalist, retaining all the options from fantasy, including species, magic, and gear that would otherwise feel out of place in a modern city, and adding new technology, like cars, computers, guns, and even robots. Characters might be mundane, magical, or something in between, caught in the balance between the fantasy world and the realistic struggles of modern life.
Popular Urban Fantasy RPGs
Monsterhearts 2
By the time they hit adolescence, most people have gotten over their fear of the dark. They spend their midnight hour on gushy phone calls, diary ramblings, and wet dreams. They fall asleep peacefully, assured that the shadows hold no monsters. But the shadows do hold monsters. You know because you’re one of them. Wickedness dwells within your heart, hunger courses through your veins. High school weighs on you and teen drama puts you on edge, but you have power. What do you do next? Monsterhearts 2 lets you and your friends create stories about sexy monsters, teenage angst, personal horror, and secret love triangles. When you play, you explore the terror and confusion of having a body that is changing without your permission.
:Otherscape
In the not-so-distant future, the constant bombardment of technological stimuli, known as the Noise, have made human minds so overloaded and numb, that previously hidden occult forces can now operate in the open. :Otherscape is a fantasy-cyberpunk role-playing game that combines supernatural powers inspired by mythology and legend with the gritty neon-lit streets of a sprawling futuristic Megacity. It takes your game group on a rollercoaster ride of gunfights, vehicle chases, cyberspace heists, urban wasteland exploration, clashes of mythology and technology, faction wars, and philosophical questions about the nature of being human — and how to transcend it.
Blades In The Dark
A crew of scoundrels gathers round a stolen blueprint as they plan their big score. Their target has them outnumbered and outgunned; they’re just a no-name street gang up against the rich and powerful. But they have something their mark never expects: the stone cold audacity. The guts to risk everything. And a desperate hunger to get rich or die trying. Blades in the Dark is a tabletop roleplaying game, or TTRPG, about building a criminal empire in the industrial fantasy city of Duskwall. Inspired by video games like Thief, Dishonored, and Bloodborne, as well as crime drama films and television like Heat and Peaky Blinders, players create scrappy scoundrels who commit crimes in a haunted city. They might play a smooth-talking Slide, a bloody Cutter, an ingenious Leech, or a weird Whisper (among others) to lie, cheat, and steal their way to the top. They’ll also create a Crew, the gang they operate, and which, through a series of criminal jobs, will attempt to conquer the city’s underworld. One player, the Game Master (GM), takes on the role of the world those players inhabit; they’ll play as the rival gangs, wealthy nobles, and corrupt Bluecoats that pressure the player characters from all sides; the haunted, sunless, industrial city of Duskwall; and the ghosts, demons, and occult forces that lurk behind it all.
Call of Cthulhu
Call of Cthulhu is a horror TTRPG that has 3-5 investigators go from normal, everyday people to firsthand combatants of the horrors of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu Mythos. Fans of Locke and Key, Lovecraft Country, and Stranger Things, will love Call of Cthulhu. Everything from the space-traveling Byakhee, to the towering monstrosities known as the Great Race of Yith can be encountered in the tales the Keeper spins. Whether it is reality-bending gods or violent cultists enacting dark rituals; no matter the case: it’s up to the Investigators to stop these horrors and come out of it alive... If they are lucky.
Candela Obscura
Candela Obscura is a tabletop roleplaying game, or TTRPG, about a circle of paranormal investigators who analyze occult phenomena in the turn-of-the-nineteenth century industrial fantasy city of Newfaire. In this game of monstrous gaslamp horror, players create intrepid characters who solve mysteries and defeat monsters with their various skills and specialties. They might play a smooth-talking Face with a knack for mesmerism, a soldiering Muscle bearing scars from the Great War, an ingenious Scholar of magick from the university, the sly Slink of a private detective or a Weird spirit medium. This crew, called the Circle, will take on jobs to set right the problems caused by supernatural phenomena. One player, the Lightkeeper or Game Master (GM), takes on the role of the world those players inhabit. They’ll play as the eponymous Lightkeeper, a character who dispenses assignments and information from the occult organization Candela Obscura. They’ll also play the environment, the city, and of course, the mysterious and even malevolent forces the Circle is called to confront.
City of Mist
Here's the lowdown: City of Mist is set in a modern city where legends are real people. Heroes, tricksters, and monsters are reborn inside ordinary people, regular Joes and Janes, who gain supernatural powers connected to their legendary alter-egos. Someone is running the show in this City, and it's up to you to find out who. Hit the streets. Collect the clues. Face small-time villains and demi-gods in epic showdowns. Solve not just the case, but also your own personal mystery and the secrets at the core of this very City. This is your City: gritty, corrupt, and rife with magic and mystery.
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.
Werewolf: The Apocalypse 5th Edition
Gaia is dying. The ices melt, while the seas swell. The heat rises, while the forests wither. Extinction threatens millions, in favor of the few. The Garou — warlike shapeshifters torn between Rage and spirit, between Wolf and Man, and champions of the earth-mother — have failed. The Apocalypse is here. Yet, a new generation of Garou now call upon their Rage to confront the forces of destruction, avarice, and greed ravaging the earth-mother. With tooth and claw the Garou will wrest her from the brink of death — or follow her enemies to the grave. Will you answer their howl? What legends will the Garou sing of you? When will you Rage? In Werewolf: The Apocalypse, you play as the Garou, a creature of flesh and spirit, blessed and cursed with primal rage. Born to fight and die in a desperate war to protect Gaia — the very living earth — you engage in an unequal battle against the greed and power-hunger of human civilization that has trapped the world in a choking web of technology and corruption.
Vampire: The Masquerade 5th Edition
Vampire: The Masquerade presents a more dramatic, contemplative world than most tabletop roleplaying games (TTRPGs). While the average TTRPG experience is a Dungeons & Dragons inspired one (fighting monsters and getting treasure), Vampire is about simply surviving and keeping a piece of yourself intact. Players in Vampire become the titular mythological figure in a version of our modern world. And while near-immortality and superpowers seems cool, they come at the cost of existing in a secret society where hunters and other clans are out to get you. And there’s also the whole hungering for blood thing. In a typical Vampire game, holding onto humanity is just as tough as fending off foes.
Monster of the Week
Monster of the Week (MotW) is a tabletop roleplaying game, or TTRPG, about a group of monster hunters taking on the terrors that prey on humanity. Inspired by media like Buffy the Vampire Slayer, The X-Files, and Supernatural, players create characters based on archetypes. They might take on the Chosen, a hero with a grand destiny; the Divine, an angel or holy warrior here to protect humanity; the Monstrous, fighting against their own evil nature; the Professional “man-in-black”; and many more! One player, the Keeper or Game Master (GM), takes on the role of the world those characters inhabit. They’ll create the mysteries the hunters must investigate, the environments they’ll explore, and the victims, meddling authorities, and of course, monsters they’ll face.
Frequently asked questions about Urban Fantasy
Blog links about Urban Fantasy
How to Create a Character in Urban Shadows 2e
Looking to join the shady supernatural underworld of Urban Shadows? You've found your way in.
The Best Place to Find a Group for World of Darkness Games
StartPlaying.Games stands out as an excellent hub to find a group playing in the World of Darkness.
How to Create a Character for Blades in the Dark
A guide to creating a scoundrel, soon to be Doskvol's most wanted.
Urban Fantasy Reviews and Actual Plays
Dimension 20 Presents: The Unsleeping City
The cast of Dimension 20 plays an urban fantasy campaign set in a mystical alternate version of New York City.
City of Mist | Total Party Chill
Total Party Chill ventures into the City of Mist, a neo-noir urban fantasy TTRPG where players play embodiments of myth and legend.
L.A. By Night | Vampire: The Masquerade
A modern gothic tale of California vampires from Geek & Sundry spanning multiple seasons and story arcs.