Hi! I'm an apprentice librarian at a university of education, and I'd like to suggest our library get some TTRPGs, ones that are available in print and suitable for school (since our userbase is mainly aspiring teachers), ideally with a German translation (I know that part may be difficult).
Do you have some suggestions?
Theme: Available in German!
Hello friend, so my strategy for this was to find some German websites for roleplaying games and then try to see if they sold physical copies of certain games. This is going to be a bit different from my regular recommendations, mostly because I can’t read German! So I figured I’d send you to these different publishers, and point out specific games that look like potential candidates.
(Also German-speaking followers please sound off in the tags and comments!)
Plotbunny Games @plotbunnygames
From what I can tell, this is a small publisher with a number of indie ttrpgs, and most of these games look to have physical copies. The games that really stand out to me here are Follow, and Miss Bernberg’s Finishing School for Young Ladies. Follow is a game by Ben Robbins, the creator of Microscope, and is a GM-less collaborative storytelling game about going on a quest. I think it would be a great game for collaboration and quick brainstorming sessions. Miss Bernberg’s Finishing School for Young Ladies is made in-house, and is a Firebrands game, which means that it uses a number of small mini-games to tell a bigger story. Great for focusing on narrative over complex characters. There’s also a German translation of ImproVeto, which is a great tool for introducing safety tools, good for any roleplaying group.
Obscurati has two games that I recognize: Tiny Dungeons and Into the Dark. Tiny Dungeons is made by Gallant Knight Games. It is very streamlined, and has a lot of supplements for you to customize your setting. Obscurati appears to have a large number of physical Tiny Dungeon components, including a hardcover book. If you want traditional fantasy, this is probably worth checking out. Into the Dark is a Forged-in-Dark game by Off Guard Games, and is a dark-fantasy dungeon delving game that gives you character playbooks, tables for adventure generation, and a streamlined game system. I’m generally a fan of Forged in the Dark games because they give you some easy-to-understand mechanics that can carry a story really far. (This game is also in hardcover!)
Ulisses Spiele looks to be a pretty major publisher, with D&D, Warhammer, and Pathfinder all in one house. I'm assuming you're probably familiar with them. If you want a big-name roleplaying game, this is the place to be. Many of the games from this publishing house are pretty crunchy, so they’re more suited for folks who want to go through the traditional process of complex character creation, and specific rules for things like range, inventory, specific types of damage, etc.
If you’re looking for games that hearken to popular media, Dune and Tales from the Loop both come from Modiphius, a games company with a pretty good reputation for mechanically sound games, although they generally require a lot of bookkeeping. World of Darkness is the game system I’m most familiar with in this list, using dice pools of d10s, although much of the subject matter in these games is rather dark - especially since the bulk of their WoD catalogs appears to be Vampire: the Masquerade. I’m actually really intrigued by Die Schwarze Katze, of which I’m not entirely sure there is an English equivalent, and appears to be a fantasy game with cat characters!
Truant has a number of games that I am unfamiliar with, although I may have heard of their names before. Kult is labelled as an adult roleplaying game, so if you want something child-friendly, I’d stay away, and The One Ring has not received many friendly reviews - but Warbirds is a fantastical-historical game about fighter pilots and aerial combat, which looks pretty lighthearted, although this looks like a game that can have winners and losers. There’s also The Witcher RPG, a class-based system all about fighting monsters in a well-loved world based on that of the video game. The Witcher looks to be a bit on the crunchier side of things, so I’d see it as a better candidate for long-term campaigns rather than quick pick-up sessions. Finally, they carry Cyberpunk Red, which I’ve heard rave reviews for, with pre-generated enemies, a giant swathe of lore, and plenty of player support.
There’s a physical German version of Fiasco on the Pro-Indie website, along with a number of supplements. Fiasco is a game about a making a terrible movie using card stock and dice, and is great for lighthearted games and ridiculous stories.
Now, for some digital runners-up.
Pegasus Digital looks to be a German version of DriveThru Rpg, with a smaller catalogue but a lot of resources for Cthulhu 7, Shadowrun, and Avatar Legends. If you get folks who want to see what else is out there, this might be a handy website to direct them to.
Hero Kids is a game that only has a physical version in English, but it has a digital German equivalent! This is a great game for young role-players and folks who want a kid-friendly style of role-play.
DURF is a minimalist fantasy game with a number of different translations, including a German one. It isn’t available in print, but the game itself is small enough that printing copies of the game for yourself and fellow players shouldn’t be very expensive. DURF is based in OSR style play, so expect very small character sheets and an emphasis on your inventory.
Brindlewood Bay is only available in English and Polish, as far as I can tell- but there is a collection of play materials available in German! This game has such a big following because it has a reputation for being easy to teach, and it has a really wonderful mystery system, so I think it might be worth checking out.
