If you're a fan of board games but find the strategic elements of conquering lands or optimizing economic engines a bit dry, you'll be thrilled to discover the vibrant world of role-playing board games (RPGs). These games offer a perfect blend of exploration, adventure, and narrative depth, all while maintaining a strategic core that keeps gameplay engaging. Whether you're competing or collaborating, these RPGs transport you to fantastical realms where you embody characters facing quests and challenges. Here's a curated list of top RPG board games that promise endless hours of enjoyment in 2025 and beyond.

Top Role-Playing Board Games at a Glance

Gloomhaven: Jaws of The Lion

6 See it at Amazon!

WizKids Dungeons & Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil

1 See it at Amazon!

The Witcher: Old World

3 See it at Amazon!

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

6 See it at Amazon!

HeroQuest

4 See it at Amazon!

Arkham Horror: The Card Game

2 See it at Amazon!

The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

2 See it at Amazon!

This War of Mine: The Board Game

0 See it at Amazon!

Descent: Legends of the Dark

3 See it at Amazon!

Mice & Mystics

1 See it at Amazon!

Tainted Grail The Fall of Avalon

5 See it at Amazon!

Don't have time for reading blurbs? Scroll sideways to see all the games featured on the list above.

Gloomhaven / Jaws of The Lion / Frosthaven

Gloomhaven: Jaws of The Lion

6 See it at Amazon!

Let's start with the dragon in the chamber: The Gloomhaven series is widely acclaimed as the best board game ever made, let alone the best role-playing board game. You step into the shoes of a series of adventurers, working together, with the roster changing through the game's labyrinthine campaign as protagonists retire or meet a sticky end in a dungeon. The game is powered by a compelling tactical combat system that sees you gradually building a deck of multi-use ability cards, each scenario building tension as your deck runs down. The original game is currently out of stock, but the prequel, Jaws of the Lion, offers much of the same gameplay in a more affordable package. Meanwhile, sequel Frosthaven ups the ante by including an entire town you can explore, build, and populate as part of the action. These games also make great solo board games for those times when you're without a game crew.

Dungeons & Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil

WizKids Dungeons & Dragons: Temple of Elemental Evil

1 See it at Amazon!

Role-playing is a broad term in board gaming, but the cooperative adventure system series, based on the world's most popular pen-and-paper RPG, is a fantastic blend of the two. Each box comes with a huge stack of tiles which you draw at random to create the dungeon, populated with a random selection of traps and monsters that operate according to simple flowchart routines. The result is astonishingly dynamic, conjuring the sense that you're exploring a mysterious labyrinth controlled by a dungeon master. This system powers you through an included narrative campaign. Temple of Elemental Evil, based on one of D&D's most famous old-school scenarios, is perhaps the pick of the bunch.

Check out our beginner's guide to Dungeons and Dragons if you're interested in classic D&D gameplay instead.

The Witcher: Old World

The Witcher: Old World

3 See it at Amazon!

The Witcher: Old World is set years before the events of The Witcher video games and novels, casting players as other Witchers hunting and fighting monsters, and occasionally each other, to see which competing style can earn the most coin and glory. The different styles feed into a compelling game of deck-building as you seek to create card combos and strategy synergies to boost your power ahead of your rivals in a race to take down ever more fearsome foes. There's also a solo mode for those who want to explore this fascinating fantasy world and kill its mythical monsters.

See our The Witcher: Old World board game review for more information.

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

Star Wars: Imperial Assault

6 See it at Amazon!

Not all role-playing games fit the fantasy archetype, and if you're a sci-fi fan, you'll love this excellent entry that swaps the tombs and traps of its peers for starship interiors and high-tech bases. Set after the events of the original Star Wars film, one player commands the forces of the Empire while the other players work together, controlling a team of plucky Rebel operatives working to undermine the Emperor's tyrannical rule. The engaging tactical combat system is easily good enough to support one-off scenarios, but the real draw is the game's campaign, which links a series of battles together into a grand, cinematic narrative, allowing you to fight alongside iconic figures like Darth Vader and Luke Skywalker. Many other famous figures from the big screen are available in the game's huge range of expansion packs.

You can check out our guide to the best Star Wars board games overall for more like this one.

HeroQuest

HeroQuest

4 See it at Amazon!

Older readers may remember this dungeon-crawling board game from their childhoods, originally released in 1989. Now back with new, improved miniatures, its RPG-on-a-board approach, complete with a games master, is still top of the range. The GM has a booklet with the scenario secrets while the other players take the role of heroes exploring the dungeon, which the GM reveals as they round corners and open doors, fighting GM-controlled monsters and looting treasure. It's still perhaps the closest thing you'll get to a true role-playing experience, full of mystery, narrative, and upgrading your heroes, but with family-weight rules and the tactical chops of a board game. Once you're done with the campaign in the box, there are plenty of additional HeroQuest expansions crammed with new adventures.

Arkham Horror: The Card Game

Arkham Horror: The Card Game

2 See it at Amazon!

Horror board games are another popular frontier for role-playing, but it's a hard call for board games because the players need a degree of control to make tactical decisions, which, in turn, detracts from the horror. This is the best candidate: Based loosely on the works of H. P. Lovecraft, players work together to solve mysterious hauntings and horrid crimes linked to alien worlds and beings beyond our imaginations. The horror comes both from a challenging difficulty level and the bleak narratives that underpin each adventure, with an ongoing series of expansions spinning the yarn into ever-more surprising places. The strategy, meanwhile, is down to your deck-building skills as you improve your character, and staying atop the statistical probabilities offered by the aptly-named chaos bag. This is one of the best trading card games on the market right now.

The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

The Lord of the Rings: Journeys in Middle-Earth

2 See it at Amazon!

Given the appeal of fantasy settings in role-playing board games, it's no surprise that Middle-earth, the setting that arguably popularized the whole idea of fantasy world-building, gets a look-in. It's a great adaptation, nestled comfortably between Tolkien's famous stories, allowing players to feel a part of his epic creation without stepping on his narrative beats. The core of the game sees the heroes building card decks to represent their powers and abilities, supported by lots of novel ideas. Some, like the tile scale-flipping to combine overground and underground exploration, are in cardboard while others make great use of the supporting app, such as solving carefully constructed mysteries based on clues drip-fed by the narrative text.

You can also check out our review of The Lord of the Rings Roleplaying board game, which we also loved.

This War of Mine: The Board Game

This War of Mine: The Board Game

0 See it at Amazon!

Not all heroes wear capes, and in This War of Mine, heroism is just desperately trying to keep your friends alive against the odds in a war-torn city. It's an unusual and powerful setting for a role-playing board game, as it was for the computer RPG that inspired it. During the day, your little band needs to scavenge the resources they need to survive, hoping against hope to find what's required. At night, you'll need to barricade your hideout and keep watch for raiders, soldiers, and other hostiles who might come for whatever meager scraps you've managed to pull together. The mechanics of resource gathering and base-building are supported by a book of narrative text, forming a shocking indictment of the horrors of living in a conflict zone, made personal by the way the board game places you in charge of your survivor's fate.

Descent: Legends of the Dark

Descent: Legends of the Dark

3 See it at Amazon!

Part of the appeal of having role-playing on a board, rather than a screen or paper character sheet, is the look and feel of the thing. In terms of visuals and production values, Descent: Legends of the Dark is king of the pile with its trays of finely sculpted miniatures and extraordinary three-dimensional cardboard terrain, allowing you to construct swamps and dungeons that pop out of your tabletop in almost magical detail. Thankfully, the game engine underneath all that window dressing is very much up to par, with a supporting mobile app sending your party on a series of quests, complete with narrative and inter-scenario links that see you shepherding the treasures you've found to gain access to new powers and equipment.

See our Descent: Legends of the Dark review for more info.

Mice & Mystics

Mice & Mystics

1 See it at Amazon!

Role-playing board games, with their grand tales of adventure and lovely components, often attract younger players, yet many are too long and complex for shorter attention spans. Mice & Mystics bridges this gap by telling a compelling story of a band of loyal adventurers turned into mice as they try to save a fantasy kingdom from a tyrant. They'll still need to pull what strings they can as they seek to return to human form while thwarting evil and a worrying number of cockroaches. With simple tactical mechanics and lots of whimsical adventure, this is a crowd-pleaser for all ages.

Tainted Grail The Fall of Avalon

Tainted Grail The Fall of Avalon

5 See it at Amazon!

While most role-playing board games focus on their mechanics, Tainted Grail wants to tell an extraordinary story. It heaps Celtic legends on top of its Arthurian base to create a rich world, but one beset by challenge in which your characters must band together to survive. Doing so means finding and managing resources in a satisfying strategic puzzle, but the real focus is the colossal, branching narrative campaign, ably supported by superbly written and plotted text, which has so many different paths that you can play this monster game multiple times and still not see the same tales told.

How Do RPG Board Games Relate to Tabletop RPGs and Video Game RPGs?

The term "role-playing game" (RPG) originated with Dungeons & Dragons, the first published ruleset to formalize narrative character-based storytelling using miniature wargame rules. These games were distinct enough to warrant their own term, and "role-playing" succinctly described the way players inhabited characters in a make-believe world full of challenges and adventures.

These "pen-and-paper RPGs" are celebrated for their creative and imaginative potential, allowing players to conjure up limitless scenarios. However, many players also enjoyed the tactical elements, like skill checks and character advancement. Early pen-and-paper RPGs often required a Games Master, a role not everyone was eager to take on.

This led to the development of board games and video games based on the RPG concept. In these formats, the board, cards, or computer took the role of the Games Master, using either the programmer's imagination or random factors to create a world for players to explore. The strategic aspects satisfied players interested in leveling up characters and mastering game mechanics.

In video gaming, role-playing has become an established genre, spawning sub-genres like JRPGs and Rogue-likes. However, in board gaming, there's no equivalent term, with games often referred to as adventure or quest games. This distinction might be due to the different engagement players feel when controlling a plastic avatar on a board versus a character on a screen.

The terminology can be confusing, especially with the cross-pollination between these genres. Dungeons & Dragons has inspired both board and computer RPGs, some of which have been adapted back into material for the role-playing game. Many board game RPGs have computer versions, and vice versa, creating a rich, interconnected ecosystem of gaming experiences.