RPG Magnifico 2025
2025 WINNER
Oceania 2084
Design: Johan Erikkson
Publisher: Jocher Games
Innovative and well-balanced mechanics that create a powerful story engine. Uses the rules to effectively evoke the atmosphere of the source material. Successfully applies the principle of “Show, Don’t Tell” to the game. Fragments narrative authority in a highly interesting way. Makes innovative use of roles that are explicitly in opposition to one another within the game.
FINALISTI 2025
The Hidden Isle
Designers: Daniel Adams, James Patton
Publisher: Causa Creations Interactive Media
A game that is easy to prepare and play but makes an interesting use of tarot cards as elements for both game management and fiction.
Inevitable
Designer: Zachary Fox
Publisher: SoulMuppet Publishing
An uncharted and well-detailed setting. An interesting quests system for the construction of progressive narrative arcs.
Raven
Designer: Daniel P. Espinosa
Publisher: Shadowlands Games
A game with a fascinating and engaging story, featuring well-crafted and engaging game materials.
Triangle Agency
Designers: Caleb Zane Huett, Sean Ireland
Publisher: Haunted Table
A game that offers extreme narrative freedom by making use of the unspoken. On the surface, it is ironic and light-hearted, yet unexpectedly profound.
Xenolanguage
Designers: Kathryn Hymes, Hakan Seyalioglu
Publisher: Thorny Games
Uses a game board in a clever and innovative way within the role-playing game landscape. Great coherence of the play experience.
RPG Magnifico 2024
2024 WINNER
Die: The Roleplaying Game
Writing and Art: Kieron Gillen, Stephanie Hans
Publisher: Rowan, Rook and Decard
More than an adaptation, it is the other half of the eponymous comic, developed in parallel by the same team as part of a remarkably original multimedia project. A game that uses metatext to cleverly blur the lines between players and characters.
FINALISTI 2024
Blade Runner:The Roleplaying Game
Lead Designer: Tomas Härenstam
Publisher: Free League Publishing
Brings the film’s noir and visceral atmosphere to the table with great fidelity. In this version, the Year Zero Engine is enhanced with a procedural investigative system, which in reality supports themes of identity and humanity inextricably linked to the setting.
Desperation
Writing and Desig: Jason Morningstar
Publisher: Bully Pulpit Games
A card-based RPG requiring no preparation, featuring two ruthless survival horror settings: Dead House and The Isabel. Players do not adopt a character’s perspective, but decide on the spot who will carry out what must inevitably happen.
Old Gods of Appalachia RPG
Lead Designer: Shanna Germain
Publisher: Monte Cook Games
The Cypher system lends itself well to the dark folklore of the Appalachians featured in the podcast of the same name. A dense and richly detailed setting, rooted in a rural American imagery that rarely finds a place in RPGs.
Werewolf: TheApocalypse 5th Edition
Development and Design: Justin Achilli. Karim Muammar
Publisher: Renegade Game Studios
One of the pillars of the World of Darkness returns, with updated mechanics and a theme more relevant than ever. Poised between despair and blind rage, the Garou return in a conceptually and aesthetically polished edition.
