Best Horror Tabletop RPG Board Games

Horror is a staple of tabletop role-playing. Dark mysteries and vicious monsters have been stalking tabletop gamers for almost as long as tabletop role-playing has existed, and there are numerous games dedicated to exploring the dark and sinister worlds in which such creatures lurk. These games span the length and breadth of horror, from the impossible and cosmic to the viciously intimate.

If you’re looking to lead a group of players through a horrifying experience, or if you’re a player looking to take a jaunt through the world’s dark places and grapple with terrible monsters, here are some of the best tabletop RPGs you can use to have a scary fun time.

Updated October 6, 2024 by Sai Vsr: As the immersive world of TTRPGs continues to expand, so too does the selection of spine-tingling horror games. This update ensures you have the latest and greatest options at your fingertips to craft unforgettable horror experiences.

Best Horror TTRPGS

Blades in the Dark really shakes up the tabletop RPG scene by bringing high-stakes heists and gritty underworld drama to the gameplay experience. The setting is the haunted industrial city of Doskvol, where players take on the roles of audacious scoundrels looking to build up their own criminal network. What makes this game special are the innovative rules, like the flashback system that lets you retroactively scheme your way through a heist step-by-step.

The worldbuilding here is top-notch and dripping with atmosphere, blending dark fantasy and steampunk vibes. It’s a place where ghosts are real entities, massive lightning barriers hold back horrors, and rain-slick streets host endless shady dealings. The complex rules demand some upfront investment from new players, but ultimately pay off by fueling an incredibly rewarding experience for those willing to put in the time

Call of Cthulhu has been a major player in the TTRPG scene for decades; its various editions having been among the most popular horror TTRPGs of all time. The game’s current iteration is the award-winning 7th edition, by Chaosium Inc. This game is set in the popular and expansive Cthulhu Mythos, a beloved cosmic horror setting created by H. P. Lovecraft.

In a doomed world full of powerful monsters, deadly mysteries, and vast, unstoppable threats, players take the role of investigators clinging desperately to their own sanity as they scramble to make the world last just a little longer. The horrors of this game don’t just damage the investigators physically.

They’re also mentally scarring, and, over time, the dark truths your players learn about their world can drive them mad. Though Call of Cthulhu games stereotypically take place in the 1920s, this particular edition also contains all the rules you’ll need to play a game set in the modern day.

In many ways, the SCP Foundation is the 21st century equivalent of the Cthulhu Mythos.

A mainstay of internet culture, the SCP Wiki is a massive shared-universe collaborative writing project which catalogs thousands of strange and inexplicable objects, from terrible monsters to powerful treasures, all of which are kept locked away by the SCP Foundation, a ruthless organization dedicated to maintaining the paper-thin farce of “normalcy” in a world where hardly anything behaves as our science says it should.

This game places the PCs in the role of Foundation agents, charged with finding and containing new anomalies, defending Foundation sites, and battling the setting’s countless other factions to maintain their iron grip on the world. Though the SCP Wiki is best known for horror, its thousands of anomalies allow players to explore an enormous variety of scenarios. In a universe so vast and varied, there’s no telling what Foundation agents might encounter.

Also set in the Cthulhu Mythos, this game differs from Call of Cthulhu in that, instead of placing the players in the role of overwhelmed investigators fundamentally unequipped to handle the threats they encounter, this game has them playing elite government agents whose training and resources make them a bit better equipped to fight the things that lurk in the dark. A bit.

The horrors they battle are still formidable, their battles are sure to take a terrible toll, with the revelations of this world still being more than capable of driving them mad. To make matters worse, while Delta Green’s agents have the training and connections of federal agents, the organization itself lost its official sanction decades ago, forcing its agents to operate in secret.

All of this makes for a tense yet action-packed gameplay experience, where players are forever struggling to overcome powers that, though not immortal, forever seem to be just a little bit beyond them.

The last entries have been works of cosmic horror, full of overwhelming threats whose very existence can drive you mad, and which only powerful institutions are in any position to oppose, but maybe that’s not your style. Maybe you’re looking to battle the horrors that stalk the night as a scrappy group of heroes who, while still underdogs, are ultimately able to handle what’s in front of them. If that’s the case, Monster of the Week is the game for you.

This game places you in the role of a monster hunter, facing off against difficult odds to defend the innocent from the things that stalk the night. The game’s character creation rules have you building off of one of several archetypes similar to D&D classes, allowing you to play as one of a wide variety of hunters, from a chosen hero, to a holy crusader, to a bookish expert, or serious professional.

You can even be a monster yourself! Most tabletop RPGs have struggled keeping character creation simple while allowing for customization, but this game is an exemplar of both, which is no easy feat.

Perhaps you’d prefer to grapple with monsters in a more exotic setting? Perhaps there’s no place on Earth that is horrifying enough for you, and you’re looking to do battle with alien horrors in the depths of outer space. If so, you can’t do much better than the Alien Tabletop Role-playing game.

This officially licensed TTRPG positions you as a lowly trucker or colonial marine facing off against some of Hollywood’s most iconic monsters. The game’s combat systems are designed as much around panicked fleeing as they are around combat, and the game contains systems designed to support both longer campaigns and horror movie-like one-shots where most of the cast is not expected to survive.

What if, instead of hunting the monsters, you want to be the monster? What if you want to struggle with the monster within yourself? If you want to be a vampire, and be treated to an in-depth exploration of everything that entails, Vampire the Masquerade is the game for you. It’s another decades-old mainstay of tabletop horror. In it, you play a vampire, drawn from one of several clans, each with their own strange quirks.

You are forced to spend your nights grappling with your monstrous nature, struggling to maintain your humanity in the face of your bloodlust, all while dealing with monster hunters, fellow vampires, and other creatures of the night. The current edition, published by Renegade Game Studios, stays true to the game’s roots and preserves its original setting while providing a modern play experience.

Most horror games take place in the modern day, and represent an alternative experience to the Fantasy adventures tabletop role-playing is most famous for. However, you don’t need to choose between fantasy and horror.

The Zweihander Fantasy Horror RPG offers you a fantasy experience which, in many ways, is similar to Dungeons and Dragons, but in a world skewed toward, and optimized for, darkness and horror—not the over-the-top gothic horror of Ravenloft, but the gritty, grounded horror of the Dark Fantasy subgenre.

In a world of terror, ignorance, superstition, and moral ambiguity, your fantasy heroes will battle monsters from without and corruption from within, struggling not to win glory, but simply to survive. Will the darkness consume them, or will it make their deeds shine all the brighter as they triumph against all odds?

Craving an adventure that’s more cosmic horror than high fantasy? HEART: THE CITY BENEATH QUICKSTART RULES might be your ticket to a delightfully disturbing time. This slim rulebook gives you a taste of what the full game has to offer, throwing you headfirst into the nightmarish world of the City Beneath.

It streamlines the core mechanics, so you can focus on exploring this sunken world and facing its deranged denizens. You won’t be creating your own character from scratch here, but the included pre-generated options are interesting – a magic-addled Junk Mage or a zealous Heretic, for example. Each brings their own unique skills and quirks to the table.

The quickstart adventure, “Drowned,” throws you right into the action. You’ll be tasked with retrieving parts from a lost settlement to stop monstrous floods from reaching a sacred temple. It’s a great way to get a feel for the game’s atmosphere and the challenges you’ll face.

This game takes you to a hauntingly beautiful 19th-century Scandinavia, where forgotten myths come alive.

Instead of the usual dungeon-crawling, Vaesen focuses on investigation and confronting the supernatural. You’ll play as a monster hunter, using your wits and skills to unravel chilling mysteries and face terrifying creatures from Scandinavian folklore.

The game boasts a beautiful rulebook with stunning artwork and streamlined mechanics that put the story first. You can choose from pre-made characters or create your own, and even develop your own monster-hunting society as the campaign unfolds.

Bluebeard’s Bride, a tabletop RPG inspired by the chilling Bluebeard folktale, takes players on a descent into gothic horror. Designed for 3–5 players in a single session, it weaves a hauntingly unique story through collaboration between players and the facilitator (Groundskeeper).

Players embody different facets of a woman’s mind as she explores the secrets locked within her new husband’s mansion. The mansion itself is a character, filled with unsettling discoveries and ever-shifting horrors.

Bluebeard’s Bride excels in its thematic storytelling. The mechanics encourage collaboration and character development, making the bride’s exploration a truly immersive experience. However, the Groundskeeper holds significant control over the story’s direction, which might limit player agency for some.

Despite this, Bluebeard’s Bride is a fantastic choice for horror fans and anyone who enjoys collaborative storytelling. It’s a unique and unforgettable game that will stay with you long after the final die is rolled.

FAQ

I Really Like the TV Show Supernatural. What Game Should I Play?

You want Monster of the Week. Out of the games on this list, it is the most optimized for an underdog-focused urban fantasy experience, and it is consciously designed specifically to imitate shows that follow its namesake format, like Supernatural.

As A DM, How Do I Make My Game Scary?

An entire book could be written on this question, but the short answer is that fear comes from the unknown. The best way to build tension is to show your players evidence that there might be something dangerous around—bumps in the night, distant screams, unexplained bloodstains—while limiting their understanding of what’s going on. Of course, some of those mysteries will eventually be solved, but as long as you introduce new mysteries to replace them, you should be able to keep things tense.

Can I Run a Long-Term Campaign in a Horror Game?

Yes! Horror TTRPGs have a reputation for being meat-grinders, where characters die often and ingloriously, but frequent character death isn’t required for a horror experience. There are other sources of tension and horror, like how characters in Vampire the Masquerade struggle with their humanity in the face of their need to inflict death.