Every fan of Dungeons & Dragons Wizards and works from the Harry Potter franchise has, at some point, dreamed of what it would be like to own or wield a genuine spell-book. Would it be an ancient tome of hard leather cover and vellum, filled to the brim with archaic calligraphy and mystical diagrams? Would it more modern in form, a moleskin notebook, e-reader, or even a smartphone app? Would this spell-book have a life of it's own – pages nipping at the fingers of unworthy practitioners? With the following indie Tabletop RPGs, players can take a stab at answering questions like these through the medium of collaborative storytelling.

"Spellbooks" have existed in many different shapes and forms since the dawn of human civilization. There are ancient magical incantations written down on cuneiform tablets from Mesopotamian ruins, ancient scraps of papyrus with Coptic spell formulas from ancient Egypt, lead curse tablets from classical Greece and Rome, paper talismans from China and Japan, and thick Grimoires from Medieval/Renaissance Europe. Some of these spell-books contain rather impressive-sounding spells for cursing enemies, summoning magical entities, manipulating shadows, or talking to the dead. Other historical spells are focused around making people's lives easier in small ways: safety in childbirth, protection from illness, locating lost objects, predicting the future, etc.

Related: Games Like Harry Potter: Tabletop & Video Game Magic School RPGs

In works of fiction, Magic is seen as variably a profound system from understanding the true nature of reality, a deadly weapon of mass destruction, or a sinister art capable of corrupting its wielders or driving them mad. Strip away the bombast, however, and the fictional art of Magic is much as it is in the reality - strange imaginative rituals designed to make life easier (in good and bad ways). The following magical Tabletop RPGs are centered around creating fantasy narratives where player characters create or discover spell-books of their own - in effect, dreaming up their own rites, cantrips, and incantations for making the impossible probable.

Tabletop Spellbook Game: Wreck This Deck

Tabletop RPGs About Making Spellbooks Wreck This Deck

Wreck This Deck, a solo journaling game on itch.io published by Black Armada, the makers of RPGs like Last Fleet, is about gritty demonologists who bind strange demons into playing cards. After acquiring a standard 52-card deck, players "wreck" it by inscribing each card with the names and sigils of different spiritual entities - by default, demons inspired by the entities described in old grimoires like the Ars Goetia. After customizing this deck, players can use it to perform divinations, creates fictional "rituals," and create micro-fiction urban fantasy narratives about occult "Deck Runners."

Tabletop Spellbook Game: The Shape Of Shadows

Tabletop RPGs About Making Spellbooks The Shape Of Shadows

The Shape Of Shadows, like Wreck This Deck, is a solo roleplaying experience about magical spell-books that also features playing cards as a motif. In this particular game, players take on the role of an apprentice to a stage magician who knows how to perform real magic; when said magician goes missing, the apprentice PCs works to save their beloved teacher by deciphering the contents of his day planner and coming into their own as a master of illusions and mysteries.

An article on Dicebreaker describes how The Shape Of Shadows blends the concepts of journaling RPGs with scavenger hunts, craft hobbies, and "Alternate Reality Game" ARGs. As players who sign on the "live core game" experience write down journal entries describing their character's journey towards mastery of both stage magic and real magic, they'll also receive messages in the mail containing story prompts, suggested activities, and interesting fictional documents encouraging them to create stories in, out, and around their home.

Tabletop Spellbook Game: The Wizard's Grimoire

Tabletop RPGs About Making Spellbooks The Wizards Grimoire

The Wizard's Grimoire, from a fantasy RPG Zine recently funded on Kickstarter, is a narrative RPG made by Vincent Baker, the designer famous for creating Apocalypse World. In The Wizard's Grimoire, one player takes on the role of a Dungeons & Dragons-style wizard who wrote a grimoire filled with puissant spells, while the other 2 to 3 players take on the role of novice spell-casters trying to decipher the book's secrets. The apprentice PCs try to decipher the book's cryptic language, induce the purpose and effects of each spell, and learn how to cast them properly, while the "Wizard Player," fully aware of how the book works, reveals the books secrets bit by bit, and describes what happens to the apprentices if they trigger hidden safeguards or bizarre curses imbued within the grimoire.

Next: Tabletop RPGs With Avante-Garde Systems of Magic

Source: Kickstarter, itch.io, Dicebreaker