While many tabletop RPGs focus on fantasy settings like Dungeons & Dragons, some humorous TTRPGs take different routes. These typically involve games about monsters, aliens, robots, demons, and cryptids desperately trying to keep up their human disguises among their human neighbors. Gamers who enjoy video games like Octodad or TV shows like What We Do In The Shadows will enjoy these roleplaying games about “perfectly normal humans.”
No small number of people in the modern world suffer from imposter syndrome - the fear that people in their social group will notice and reject them for being a so-called fake. Imposter syndrome, and the struggle to “blend in,” underlies most of the tabletop RPGs below - but in humorous ways. In funny movies, TV shows, and video games with aliens, robots, and monsters hiding among humanity, the creatures in disguise frequently attempt to pass as humans that only betray the fact they have something to hide.
Many of these TTRPGs have narrative rules and gameplay modes themed around interactions and conversations between players and NPCs - the PCs trying to blend in, the NPCs poking and prying at the gaps in the PC's stories. There may be moments of combat, espionage, sabotage, and flight in these tabletop games. But just as often, the humor and drama stem from the PCs fumbling their way through grocery shopping, cocktail parties, and other mundane human activities.
Humans Is A Fun Party Tabletop RPG About Pretending To Be Human
Humans is a party RPG that, contrary to the title, that is not entirely about human beings. During a session of Humans (played with six-sided dice and playing cards from a deck), one set of players portrays a group of non-human creatures with human guises and quirks seeping through their disguises. The other set of players role-play as actual humans who are politely pretending not to notice the oddities of their fellow partygoers, even as their quirks grow more pronounced.
Demon: The Descent Is A TTRPG About Demons In Human Disguises
In Demon: The Descent, an Onyx Path RPG from the Chronicles of Darkness setting, demons are angelic cyborgs who’ve disconnected themselves from the network of an inscrutable, techno-magical God-Machine. In tabletop RPG sessions of Demon: The Descent, demon PCs work to evade the God-Machine’s hunter angels, engage in covert actions of sabotage against their former master, and explore the delicious implications of their newfound freedom. To maintain their human disguises, Demons in this game strike Faustian bargains with humans, granting their wishes in exchange for portions of their life - a memory, a job, a romance, a relation - to metaphysically graft onto their “Cover” identity.
Passing Is A TTRPG About Aliens Pretending To Be Human In American Suburbs
Passing, a “Powered By The Apocalypse” RPG published by Magpie Games, is about shape-changing aliens laying low in 1950s American suburbs. Passing draws on the historic Red Scare, spy dramas, and movies such as The Day The Earth Stood Still. A session of Passing alternates between scenes of domestic life where alien PCs try to blend in, and scenes of high-stakes espionage that threaten to shatter their guises.
Low Stakes Is A TTRPG Inspired By What We Do In The Shadows
Low Stakes, recently funded on Kickstarter, is explicitly inspired by What We Do In The Shadows, the mockumentary and TV series about a group of bumbling vampires living together in a New Zealand flat. Players of Low Stakes take on the roles of vampires, werewolves, ghosts, spell-casters, and other immortal beings residing in a modern house, rolling dice to see if they can blend in with humans and get the upper hand over their room-mates. Like the other tabletop RPGs mentioned above, they offer some fun alternatives to the typical high fantasy settings found in games like Dungeons & Dragons.