While itch.io is running an absolutely fantastic Queer Games Bundle (which includes nearly 600 games for only $US10 ($14)), the sheer expanse of queer games might be intimidating to navigate. I’ve rounded up a selection of small, indie table top roleplaying games that I personally love, all written by queer people. Many of these have explicitly queer themes or premises, which means I’m extra excited to share them with you for Pride month. (Some are even included in the bundle!) You can buy or play them any month, but June seems like a good time to support queer art.
My Chivalric Bromance
“My Chivalric Bromance | Beta 1 is a game about exiled LGBT+ knights and their queer companions living as strangers in strange lands. This book includes the core rules for an old-school-style game of exiles (levels 1 through 5) wandering the world and having adventures.” — Richard Ruane
Goddess Tryst
“Goddess Tryst is a tarot-based divinatory RPG where players can have an erotic, romantic, and/or sexual encounter with a beautiful goddess. Designed for both single- and two-player experiences, readers draw cards and interpret their imagery to build a story about the moment where mortality meets divinity, and the divine feminine erotically merges with the mundane.” — Ana Valens
Superstars: Racing Icons
“Superstars: Racing Icons is a GM-less tabletop roleplaying game for 3-6 players, intended to be approachable for fans and players who aren’t very familiar with racing. It was framed with some touchpoints (real life motorsports as well as movies like Speed Racer, The Fast and the Furious, and others), but is intentionally built for expanding or translating the setting into whatever you are interested in.” — Tristan B Willis and Pete Volk
A Sovereign Design
“A Sovereign Design is a role playing game about courtiers vying for power in a sovereign’s messy succession. It is played by tying and cutting strings and telling stories through quick vignettes that explore the tangled relationships between the members of the sovereign’s court as they make moves to hoard power.” — Paolino Caputo
Visigoths Vs. Mall Goths
“Visigoths vs. Mall Goths is a tabletop roleplaying game and dating sim about the conflicts and romances among the warriors who sacked ancient Rome and 20th century spooky teens, set in a suburban Los Angeles shopping mall during 1996. There are a lot of bisexuals.” — Lucian Kahn
Ace Objections
“Ace Objections is a game about developing a relationship while ace. it requires a deck of cards, a couple of people, and a respect for boundaries.” — A. Fell
The Flower Court
“The Flower Court is a game about a group of incredibly powerful pop stars/feudal nobles backstabbing each other and turning against each other in the pursuit of their secret goals.” — Jay Dragon
For the Queers
“For the Queers is a Descended from the Queen game, that focuses on developing queer relationship dynamics. You play as a group on a mission for your war-torn land. Among you is a being of royalty. A radiant figure, free of gender and loved by each one of you. They are known as the Queen.” — CJ McCullough (Scholastic Dragon)
Fusion
“Fusion uses the Powered by the Apocalypse framework, and includes eight playbooks, basic moves, specific rules for creating and playing Fusions, as well as information on creating a setting and two default settings to play within.” — Random Tuesday
Bloom
“Bloom is a solo GM-less journaling game in which you play a teenage girl trapped in quarantine at a boarding school on an island infected by the Tox, a plague that makes the trees and animals grow huge and hungry, and mutates your body in strange and horrific ways. In it, you will draw cards and write journal entries based on specific prompts in order to craft a story of survival and love.” — Litza Bronwyn
Our Flag Means Kiss
“Our Flag Means Kiss is a short TTRPG is a love letter to Our Flag Means Death and to all the dramatic, love-sick queer folks who make the world go ‘round. For this collective story-telling game, there is no GM and can hold anywhere from 1 to 4 players.” — Steven Edwards
CHOKE
“In CHOKE you’ll play as ‘corporate knights,’ licensed killers, spies, and saboteurs on company payroll… The rules are GM-agnostic with a built in campaign structure that only ends when you kill your own CEO or die trying. Every piece of you and your kit is expendable and consumable, and you’ll churn through gun after gun and dollar after dollar as you struggle your way out of debt and into that penthouse office, knife in hand.” — Clove Fulminata
Make Our Own Heaven
“Make Our Own Heaven is a tabletop roleplaying game where players take on the role of hybridised human angel clones, raised from birth as experimental bioweapons, and trained to be tools for the Authority (the corporate rulers of Jov). On the run in Jupiter’s biggest city, you’ll need more than Skill and Divine Power to survive.” — Ray Cox
Lavender Marriage
“London, 1899. The Lord and the Lady are in an intentionally arranged marriage to cover the fact that one or both of them is queer, with both the Lord and the Lady enjoying extramarital relationships with lovers more to their liking. All of this is completely and totally unacceptable to Society’s standards. Both the sham of the marriage as well as the two affairs must be kept secret or else everyone involved will be ruined. In Lavender Marriage four of you will play four primary characters: the Lord, the Lady, the Lord’s Lover, and the Lady’s Lover. You will also play the host of secondary characters that make up their world and with whom they interact.” — Miriam Robern
Yearning Oracle
“Yearning Oracle is a lyric game about queer loneliness and the failure of language. It is about queer masculinity and people who cannot or have not accessed queer spaces or teaching. In it you take on the role of two people who are on the verge of a long absence and who need to speak their feelings but lack the language to describe it.” — Rufus Roswell
Heartmelter
“Heartmelter is a collaborative play-by-post storytelling game where you can do anything except roleplay. You’ll talk about your characters… but never as them.” — Sasha Stargazer
Noons
“Noons is a tabletop roleplaying game in two parts. The first part, ‘The Showdown at Low Noon’ is a game about deadly conflicts between vampires and vampire hunters.” — Matthew R.F. Balousek
Spindlewheel (Romance Pack)
“Spindlewheel is a tarot-like interpretive storytelling game where you use the cards as anchors to weave a story with your friends. Included in this collection are four minigames and a custom deck of 54 Spindlewheel oracle cards, featuring romantic- and feelings-focused archetypes co-designed with the collection.” — Sasha Renaeu (Teacabbage Studios)
The Boyfriend In My Head Isn’t Actually My Boyfriend
“The Boyfriend In My Head Isn’t Actually My Boyfriend features gay longing like you’ve never experienced it before. A somewhat dating-sim, slice of life game; Boyfriend was inspired by my many years of having no clue if men were flirting with me or just being ‘bros’. It can be challenging trying to weave through the complex social gymnastics required to get that answer, so I’m offering some rules and playbooks to help out. Made for 2-8 players!” — Patrick Conner Burke
Romantic
“Romantic is a series of mostly light-hearted Microgames that can be played alongside another TTRPG to explore the feelings and thoughts of an asexual character and their interactions with the world and their chosen romantic or sexual partners.” — Lauren Byrant-Monk
Lichcraft
“Lichcraft is a game about spite, necromancy, being trans, and a 300 year long NHS waiting list. Although the game itself deals with serious themes, it is set up to be tongue-in-cheek, satirical, super queer, and intimate.” — Laurie O’Connel
Athletics
“Welcome to Athletics, a fantasy magazine for fabulous adventurers. Every issue features the buffest orcs, strongest elves, and muscular humans we could find every month. Whether they’re telling you how they climbed the Mountain Of Doom, swam through the currents of the Infinite Waterfall, or wrestled naked with demigods, the authors of Athletics will regale you with all sorts of tales of triumph!” (A roleplaying game about fantasy muscle mags on the down low) — Riverhouse Games
Diàn Xīn (电心) Electric Heart
“Diàn Xīn (电心) Electric Heart is a Cyberpunk TTRPG about trying to survive in a world that doesn’t want you to thrive, without losing your sense of self worth or your will to keep going.” — Allison Huang
Beneath Our Own Flag
“Beneath Our Own Flag is a Belonging Outside Belonging / No Dice No Masters game set in a swashbuckling world of pirates and adventure. It is a game about intimacy — about love and adventure — and about building a family on the sea.” — Che
Himbos of Myth & Mettle
“Himbos of Myth & Mettle is a high fantasy, high camp role playing game of epic proportions (of body), for 2-5 players, one of whom will act as Game Guide. The rules centre around a simple roll under mechanic and prioritise narrative flair and cinematic descriptions.” — Maxwell Ander
In the Time of Monsters
“In The Time Of Monsters is a tactical combat TTRPG about bloodsoaked heroes vying for power at the end of the world. It’s inspired by Norse Mythology, Lancer, and Dungeons & Dragons 4th Edition. If you’re looking to tell dramatic fables about tragic warriors on a grid while rolling dice and getting big numbers, this is the game for you.” — Possum Creek Games
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