Tavern Crawler by Josh Labelle
From the subtitle, one might well expect Tavern Crawler to be a satire on dungeon crawling roleplaying games: “A story about what happens AFTER you slay the dragon.” That sounds like it’s going to be a pretty facile take on how unrealistic RPGs tend to be. But my experience was the same as Mike Spivey’s, who wrote:
The point of Tavern Crawler is to create a traditional RPG experience focused on quests, conversation, choice, relationships and character improvement; and notably, without any combat. That may sound a bit like it could describe Planescape: Torment or Tides of Numenera; but where those games are dark and profound, Tavern Crawler is definitely more on the lighter side. It doesn’t shy away from seriousness and never veers into the zany; but it steers away from tragedy and tends to affirm your moral choices as being okay. Having two character along representing the two ends of the game’s moral spectrum (altruism versus looking out for yourself) certainly helps with this.
Perhaps the neatest trick pulled by Tavern Crawler is that it reinterprets the traditional RPG roles in moral terms. In this game, to be a mage means to choose the altruistic and non-violent; to be a rogue means to choose the sneaky and wily; to be a tank means to choose the straightforward and unsubtle. I really like how this transforms the roles from a set of toolkits which you acquire in order to solve problems into expressions of character. (Although, to be honest, the effect is undercut by some of the ways you acquire skills – e.g. you can level up rogue by spending money on drinks, which has nothing to do with its supposed meaning.)
What makes Tavern Crawler fun to play is not so much the story or the individual quests, none of which are too original; but the deft touch and confidence with which all the game’s elements have been woven together. It all just works. Pursuing the quests will at the same time push you to develop your relationships, improve your character, explore the story and make choices. All of it happens at the right pace, in the right mix. This game is just a lot of well-made fun.