Part of the point of gaming is to escape reality, to travel into another world, where you are a hero, and anything is possible. Obviously,D&Dhas been the biggest name in TTRPGs for as long as they have existed, but the fantasy genre has played a major role in ordinary board gaming as well.
Here, we will look over some of fantasy’s biggest contributions to board gaming. These games may have a heavy role-play element or be inspired by Dungeons & Dragons (as all of fantasy gaming has been for about fifty years), but, though they may be long and complex, these games manage to include most of their elements in a single box and do not require a game master.
Updated June 26, 2025 by Davis Collins:The original version of this list did a good job showcasing campaign-length dungeon crawlers and other RPG-lite or RPG-in-a-box experiences, but it was ultimately too focused on such games at the expense of many of the other interesting things fantasy board gaming can do. We’ve come back to this list to add some games with fantasy flavor that center around things other than adventure and dungeon crawling.
The Red Dragon Inn
An absolute delight for fantasy fans
This party game follows a group of traditional fantasy adventurers chilling out at a tavern in the aftermath of one of their adventures, waiting to see who can last the longest and drink the most before passing out.
A lot of games, including many of the games on this list, center around parties of fantasy adventurers and the, well, adventures they get up to. However, despite stereotypes about adventurers frequenting taverns, not a lot of games are centered around what those adventurers do after they’re done adventuring.
This game is about exactly that. It uses some very well-made card game mechanics to simulate a night of drunken revelry. As players take different actions during their turns, they’ll find their health, drunkenness, and gold fluctuating, and if those numbers turn against them, they’ll pass out or run out of funds, leading to their elimination.
The core version of this game has four decks for four players, but expansions have added way, way more. There are now more than 60 characters to choose from, and, while a sixty-player game is probably a bit ambitious, this game is at its best with a large table using a wide variety of different characters.
Betrayal At Baldur’s Gate
Dozens of completely different scenarios
Based on the excellent Betrayal at House on the Hill, but set inside the D&D universe, Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate gives a horrifying take on fantasy adventuring, full of tension, twists, and amazing replayability.
This game isbased on the extremely well-made horror survival game Betrayal at the House on the Hill. The original Betrayal tells the story of a group of friends who are exploring an old mansion. They’ll poke around for a while, discovering rooms and items, until eventually The Haunt occurs.
One of the players will be revealed as a traitor, and they will attempt to kill the other players. How they do this, and how the others can survive, is completely different from game to game, and that’s what makes Betrayal so special.
Betrayal at Baldur’s Gate takes that idea and moves it into the D&D universe. Instead of exploring a spooky mansion in an ostensibly modern setting, the players are exploring a fantasy city, and instead of the haunts being gothic horror tropes like vampires, werewolves, ghouls, and demons, they’re D&D monsters like… well, those are all also D&D monsters, but the point is that the haunts here are D&D themed, including iconic monsters like beholders and common adventuring situations.
Flamecraft
Be a merchant who sells dragon-crafted gear
Another game that shows fantasy adventure from a different perspective, Flamecraft casts the players as merchants making magical gear with the help of their well-drawn draconic assistants.
This worker placement, set collection card game casts players as Flamecrafters, whose job is to team up with dragons to forge magical items. Though it has plenty of fantasy trappings, this is a business simulation game, full of all kinds of interesting things you can do to make and enhance various items.
To be an effective merchant, you must manage resources, recruit and utilize dragons, and take advantage of the variety of shops. It’s a great example of how a game that is not primarily about combat or adventuring can still make excellent use of a fantasy setting.
Mice & Mystics
An amazing place to start for new gamers
A beginner-friendly game that still manages to pull off a good role-playing experience, Mice & Mystics is an “RPG in a box” (get ready to hear that term a lot) containing everything you need to play through an 11 chapter campaign with your friends.
“RPGs in a box” are games that play similarly to tabletop RPGs, but have no game master and come in a single box that contains everything you need to play. Many of the games on this list fall into this category, beginning with Mice and Mystics, which casts the players as heroic adventurers who have been turned into mice by an evil sorceress. They must now fight their way through their own castle in order to stop her from killing the king.
This game is meant to be played in a long-term campaign with eleven chapters, though each chapter can also be played as a stand-alone adventure. It offers a complete RPG-like experience in a single tight package, and, unlike many similar games, it’s quite simple (compared to other entries in the same genre), sonew gamers will be able to follow and enjoy it.
Descent: Legends of the Dark
Everything that could possibly be squeezed into a single box
Occupying the opposite end of the complexity spectrum, Descent: Legends of the Dark is a dense and ambitious game that seeks to provide the richest dungeon-crawling experience you can have without a game master.
Another RPG in a box, Descent: Legends of the Dark is a follow-up to genre-codifying dungeon crawler Descent: Journeys in the Dark. This is the most ambitious game on this list. This game provides a 14 chapter dungeon-crawling campaign which you and your friends play through as one of six characters.
This game uses incredible ingenuity to cram all of its adventures inside a single physical box. There is an enormous number of board pieces inside that can be rearranged in numerous ways to assemble each map. The game uses (and, indeed, requires) a tie-in app in order to stretch beyond what a pure tabletop game could ever accomplish.
This game has a lot of meat on its bones, so much so that some players risk choking on it. Playing through this monster is a huge endeavor. It will take over a dozen multi-hour sessions, just as a TTRPG campaign likely would. However, for all that, it offers the most complete experience that could possibly be crammed inside a single box.
Frosthaven
100 Scenarios, Hundreds of hours
If Descent is the richest RPG ever squeezed into a single box, Frosthaven is the longest. With a hundred scenarios to play through, this game will last you as long as many TTRPG campaigns, all without any need for a GM to design their own adventures.
Frosthaven is our last RPG in a box for today. It’s just a smidge simpler than Descent, and doesn’t require an app to play through. What sets it apart is the sheer amount of pre-prepared content it contains.
This game has a staggering one-hundred scenarios, and is compatible with the hundreds more scenarios present in the Gloomhaven series. Each of these adventures will take close to two hours to play through, depending on the player count, meaning you can play this game every week for years without running out of content.
You can also play any individual scenario on its own, but this game will shine brightest when you string its many adventures together into a long campaign, where characters will be able to advance and grow just as they would in a TTRPG.
Another thing this game has in common with Tabletop RPGs is the sheer amount of stuff it can simulate. Where its predecessor, Goomhaven, was firmly a dungeon crawling experience, Frosthaven has mechanics for other forms of adventuring, like mystery solving and intrigue. It really is staggering how much is going on here, and all of it makes for an incredibly fulfilling experience.
Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition
you may make this game work all on your own
Combining the classic fantasy board game Mage Knight with its multiple expansions, Mage Knight: Ultimate Edition gives you everything you need for a wonderful fantasy gaming experience that can be played alone, cooperatively, or competitively.
In a game that can be playedcooperatively, competitively, oron your own, Mage Knight combines traditional board gaming, RPG elements, anddeck-building mechanicsinto a rich experience that casts players as mages gathering resources and powers to raze cities, gather armies and accomplish related objectives.
Emphatically, you are not a hero in this game. Indeed,your character resembles a classic fantasy villain, plotting to use their magic to gain power and attack the innocent. This is a challenging game, and a complicated one, probably too complicated for non-gamers, but if you have a group that wants a complex fantasy experience that doesn’t feel too much like D&D, or if you’re looking for something that will work very well when played alone, this game is for you.
Zombicide: Black Plague
Put loads of monsters to the sword
Based on Zombicide, the high-action post-apocalyptic splatterpunk board game, Zombicide Black Plague moves that high-adrenaline zombie-killing action to a medieval fantasy setting, putting its players up against evil necromancers and their undead minions.
Simpler than our last few entries, this game is meant to be played in single sessions rather than a longer campaign, though it still has quite a few scenarios in it for the sake of variety. Zombicide: Black Plague takes the cooperative splatterpunk zombie-killing action of the original and moves into a fantasy setting that lacks modern technology and firearms but makes up for it with magic and cool swords.
The characters here are simple, and there are loads to choose from. you’re able to play through scenarios with a wide variety of objectives, working to complete them before the enemy necromancers can create enough zombie spawners to spell your defeat. It’s awesome, action-packed, and tense, and a great spin on both zombie and fantasy board gaming.
Legends of Andor
A lighter commitment still carrying a multi-session story
Another cooperative fantasy adventure game, Legends of Andor has a five-session campaign to play through, but is much simpler than many of the games on this list.
A lot of these games have been long-term campaigns, requiring a long-term commitment that could last weeks or months. If you like the sound of that, but would prefer a simpler game with a lighter commitment, this game could be for you. This cooperative game—with far lighter, less RPG-like mechanics—has five scenarios to play through. It’s still likely to take multiple sessions, but nowhere near as many as Descent of Gloomhaven.
Though it plays more like a standard cooperative board game, this is still very much a game of fantasy adventure. It uses a large map to track your efforts to defend an entire kingdom from the monsters invading it. The game takes advantage of its multiple sessions to tell an interesting story, while still being relatively approachable. If you’re not into RPG mechanics, but still looking for a multi-session fantasy adventure experience, this is the game for you.
Legacy of Dragonholt
You can’t get much more story without a GM
This intriguing fusion of a TTRPG and a choose-your-own-adventure book gives you everything you need to play, on your own or cooperatively with friends, through a rich story with your own custom-created characters.
Another shorter campaign commitment, Legacy of Dragonholt has six scenarios, each of which will take less than two hours. This allows you to play through a six-part fantasy story with no need for a game master. you may even play it alone! It uses concepts borrowed from choose-your-own adventure books which allow its preprepared scenarios to function without a game master while still containing rich narratives, and even character creation.
If Descent: Legends of the Dark worked to accomplish everything it could mechanically without being a full-on TTRPG, this game works to accomplish everything it can narratively without being a TTRPG, allowing you to play through a rich story with your own character.
Terra Mystica
Magic can be good for business
By far the least RPG-esque game on this list, Terra Mystica uses Eurogame mechanics to cast players as the leaders of several fantastical factions who seek to use powerful magic to alter the very earth on which they stand.
Even when they’ve not been full-on RPGs, the other games on this list have been about combat and adventure, putting you through the same kinds of adventures you’d experience in a TTRPG, even if their mechanics were very different.
This game isn’t like that. It’s aboutintrigue, resource management, and board control. It casts each player as the leader of one of fourteen factions, each competing against each other to accomplish their own goals. This is not a particularly simple game, but it’s more reminiscent of an ordinary board game experience, and is meant to be played through in a single session. If you’re looking for a more traditionalEurogameexperience that happens to have a lot of fantasy theming, this is likely to be the game for you.
FAQ
What is the most complex fantasy board game?
Probably Mage Knight. While some of these other games have more content, Mage Knight has the most complicated moment-to-moment experience.
Which of these games is best for beginners?
Of the dungeon crawling games, it’s Mice & Mystics, no question. If you’re attempting to use an RPG in a box to get a group of new gamers to play with you, that’s the game you want. It’s simple enough for new players to handle while still having plenty of content to chew through and enough depth to hold your interest. Flamecraft is also a reasonably simple game, enough so that you’ll be able to get non-gamers to sit down and learn it.
