5 Halloween RPGs For The Spooky Season

At the heart of tabletop roleplaying games is that spirit of sitting around a campfire and telling ghost stories as a kid. That makes the season a great time to gather some friends for a Halloween RPG session and run a fun one-shot adventure (or even a brief campaign if you can find the time). After all, there are plenty of ways to implement horror elements into traditional RPGs like Dungeons & Dragons or Pathfinder, especially with homebrew repositories like the Dungeon Masters Guild to offer inspiration.

However, Halloween is an even better opportunity to check out some other RPG systems that are more catered to the various forms of horror. The indie game scene is chock full of alternative options that fill just about any genre niche you can imagine, and when it comes to scary settings, the bases are definitely covered.

Whether you want the thrill of hunting classic monsters to get into the spirit or to recreate the dread of your favourite scary movie after handing out candy, these systems go light on the rules to facilitate collaborative storytelling and typically don’t demand the same time investment from game masters or players.

For your Halloween game night considerations this year, here are our top recommendations for spooky-themed systems you should check out before All Hallow’s Eve:

5) Dread

Oddly, one of the best Halloween RPGs out there is also one of the most mechanically simple: Dread. In fact, there’s a good chance you’re very familiar with its core mechanic, because the game itself is simply Jenga.

Dread is about as rules-light as it gets. Take all the dice and elaborate character sheets of Dungeons & Dragons and Pathfinder, throw them out the window, and set up the Jenga tower instead. Essentially, if another TTRPG would have you make a roll to determine if you pass or fail, Dread commands you to pull from the Jenga tower instead. If the tower doesn’t fall, you pass; if the tower falls, you fail and face the consequences.

In the process, players get to focus on the pure storytelling and characterization, and the sky is the limit in terms of campaign settings and tone. Many premade scenarios for Dread lend themselves well to Halloween, or you can make your own spooky scenario. Granted, this approach can make the stakes pretty low to start, but they quickly ramp up as the tower gets wobbly. The emotions run hotter, whether you’re making an impossible pull for a critical in-game action, or if you blow a move that should’ve been super easy.

4) Vaesen

Vaesen, also from Free League Publishing, was one of the most refreshing experiences I’ve had with spooky tabletop RPGs. Its setting evoked the same feelings I had when I discovered Lovecraft’s short stories—both the dread of being watched by larger, occult threats, and of savouring something novel and unconventional, but with more modern sensibilities.

Vaesen draws inspiration from less likely sources than other Halloween RPGs. The base game hails itself as “Nordic Horror Roleplaying,” with a hauntingly-illustrated take on Nordic forklore. As in Kids on Bikes, players choose an archetype character to base their in-game persona on. You might play an intellectual like an Academic or Doctor, a lawman like the Private Detective or Officer, a tortured Writer, or lean into the occult elements with the Witch or Occultist.

Attributes and skills are generated accordingly, but Vaesen also encourages character and team development by having players choose a Dark Secret for their persona, and determine relationships with the other characters (whether they’re close connections, or more recent acquaintances). It’s these elements that help elevate this unique setting, and make it a perfect Halloween RPG for a themed game night (or really, at any time when the days are short).

3) City of Mist

Published by Son of Oak Games, City of Mist blends everyday people with the legendary in a malleable, noir-inspired setting. Player characters are a combination of a regular identity (like an old-money socialite, or a hardened detective), called a Logos, and a mythical figure or concept (like King Arthur’s legendary Excalibur, or Enkidu from the Epic of Gilgamesh) who grants them otherworldly power.

What makes City of Mist a great Halloween RPG is the ability to take any existing myth, legend, or even concept and use it as a source of power for your player character. If you really want, your in-game persona (called a Rift) might tap into the skill set of any legendary character in your favorite scary movie or book, like Freddie Krueger’s ability to enter nightmares or Van Helsing’s knowledge of the occult, and use that power to solve mysteries in City of Mist’s unique take on Noir.

The system uses minimal dice rolls, with the GM never rolling anything. Wrapping your head around its use of “Tags” instead of some more traditional RPG elements is one of its bigger challenges, however. “Tags” are mechanical elements that inform a character’s personality, equipment, and ambitions, while “statuses” replace and expand the hit point system in most other RPGs—if one gets shot, for instance, they don’t subtract a number from their maximum HP, but might gain the “gunshot-wound-3” status, which reflects the severity of the wound.

It takes some time to adjust if you’re used to straight d20-based systems, but once you’re acclimated, City of Mist can help you realize some truly ambitious and creative scenarios beyond your wildest hopes.

2) Candela Obscura

Critical Role’s publishing division is hard at work singing the praises of Daggerheart, but one of their first forays into publishing their own game is the perfect Halloween RPG if you’re look for a taste of the eldritch (especially without invoking the name of Lovecraft).

Candela Obscura has a compelling original setting drawing on the atmospheres of things like Arkham Horror and gaslamp fantasy. Player characters are members of a titular organization, investigating mysteries and strange occurrences to protect the daily world from things that go bump in the night. There’s a delightfully dark tone to its world, where corruption and eldritch influences are a constant risk—a perfect fit for the season.

At its core, the dice-rolling method revolves around d6s instead of polyhedrals and uses degrees of success. A roll of 1-3 is a failure; 4-5 is a mixed success (you accomplish what you wanted but there are consequences); while 6 is a critical success (giving what you wanted to do with a little something-something). The big dice can be scary to newcomers sometimes, but d6s are familiar and easier to acclimatize to, so you may find Candela Obscura has a knack for drawing new overall plays in, especially with a fun, no-strings-attached Halloween RPG session.

If the concept seems daunting and you want something a little closer to D&D, try Daggerheart and the “Age of Umbra” campaign frame, as demonstrated on Critical Role earlier this year, or just watch/listen to it through Critical Role’s channels.

1) Monster of the Week

Our top choice for a Halloween RPG session is Monster of the Week from Evil Hat Productions. This system allows you to live the sort of scenario you might find in any given episode of “monster of the week” TV shows, like Buffy the Vampire Slayer or Supernatural. It taps into this common conceptual structure to make a system that plays with familiar conventions while facilitating roleplay intuitively.

Players make characters by choosing a “Playbook” (like a class in other RPGs) that informs their personality, abilities, and role in the story. A Chosen like Buffy has certain powers and fate-bending luck, a Searcher’s skills make them good company for Agent Mulder from The X-Files, and a Meddling Kid would fit right in with the team of the Mystery Machine.

The thematic influences make the game easier to learn, and the system itself strikes a compelling balance—it’s lighter on rules than D&D, but with enough mechanical elements to give players options and agency, and the complete package intuitively facilitates roleplay. For all of this, Monster of the Week is our top pick for a Halloween RPG event—or any other time.

(Alternately, Kids on Bikes or its magic school variation Kids on Brooms offer similar experience and mechanics)