But like any person, I enjoy certain themes more than others. You can probably guess some of them based off of the games that I talk about the most, but let’s run down my Top 10 favorite themes in board games.

The List

On this list, going back to yesterday’s post, you are going to see some things where you’ll think, that’s theme is a subset of another theme on the list. Some themes, Sci-Fi and Fantasy, for example, are really broad.

10. Fairy Tales

This is a theme that I don’t see enough in games that target adults. Fairy Tales are often used for kids games, and while that’s a great spot for them, let’s not lie, the original fairy tales were messed up stories that didn’t end well. The versions that we know, those aren’t w hat they first at the start. So I love to see that twisted, but maybe closer to the actual theme fairy tale games.

The Grimm Masquerade

So, my example is going to be The Grimm Masquerade. This creates a hidden role game that is actually pretty interesting for me. I don’t love games like Mafia, Werewolf, or the Resistance because they are generally too simple. The Grimm Masquerade is all about figuring out who is what character, but how it is done is really interesting. Mainly because you have a draw a card and either keep it or give it away, and then the other action with your second card. Simple mechanics and fun game play.

9. Exploration

Honestly, I think if I do this again in two years, explorations will be higher on my list. I have mainly played a couple games that use this theme. And you could argue that it’s more of a mechanic, but I am thinking of that Indiana Jones type feel, where you have fantastic things going on, and you are discovering it with the other people at the tables. There are a few other games that dabble in this in another category that comes up. But I like the feeling of going into that new area and not knowing what I might find.

Tainted Grail

Now, Tainted Grail falls into a few other themes coming up here as well, but it works well here. The biggest element of Tainted Grail is diving in and exploring the massive, well written world that Awaken Realms has created. They even have an exploration journal which has so many things that you can do in it, and some many different paths you can go. It is probably impossible to actually find all the different options which is amazing.

8. Zombies

Yes, Zombies get their own theme. There are so many zombie games out there, and I tend to like them. Zombie games fall mainly into two categories. You either are mowing down zombies to get away from them, or you are trying to survive and it’s about the people versus killing zombies. Both are a lot of fun, and I have games with both types. I even have one where you are the zombies, but that one is a bit themeless really with Zombie Dice.

Dead of Winter

No shock which one I picked here, there are a lot of zombie games, but this one I have played the most. This is one where it is about the survivors and trying to make it through the cold of winter and complete your objectives. It’s interesting because it is cooperative with the possibility of a traitor, but it’s not as well. Because each player has a secret objective they need to complete to be part of the winning group. It is an interesting dynamic that works pretty well but won’t be for everyone. It does help simulate what your survivor(s) might care about most.

7. Lovecraftian

So another one that has a darker theme, we’re talking about Lovecraft. Now, this is not like Lovecraft’s books, but more the investigative, pulp, noir, theme that has been put on it by Fantasy Flight Games, mainly, and other companies as well. The main thing that ties it back to Lovecraft is that it uses his monsters to create a more fleshed out world of intrigue, investigation and tentacles.

Mansions of Madness

A few options I could have gone with, there are a ton of games with a Lovecraftian theme because, well, it is a public domain. Don’t have a theme, slap Lovecraft on it. But Mansions of Madness is my favorite. It is taking this city view or world view that some of the other games have and focusing it down to a neighborhood or a mansion. Add in the app which changes things up so you can play the same scenario multiple times and things will vary slightly. Just a nice, deeply thematic game.

6. Detective

Building off of what Lovecraftian themes do with their horror added, I like games where you are the person trying to figure out who done it. I would still even play something like Clue which is one of the first games that did that. But the genre has improved so much over time and you can have Sherlock Holmes, though I haven’t played any of the Sherlock Holmes: Consulting Detective games.

Detective: A Modern Crime Board Game

It has Detective in it’s name, it has to be good, right? Well, not really, but it was very good. This takes all of the best parts of those procedural cop shows and drops you into it. You are the one making the decisions, picking up on clues, and trying to solve the case. The base box is amazing, and I have a bunch more stuff to play for it. They are now even doing a spy theme using the same system that I am really excited about.

5. Mythology

Welcome to the second category that Tainted Grail falls into it. But I really like games that can pull from different mythologies, Norse, Greek, Roman, Mayan, and more to create interesting board games. And the idea of playing as the gods or adjacent to the gods is always interesting. Especially because of the different powers the gods have and how that can translate into what you are doing. I also get to learn stuff about mythologies that I might not know much about.

Lords of Hellas

This takes a few things and puts them together. It is a bit like the world of Horizon Zero Dawn where the monsters look like creatures but are machines, and it has a cyber punk element. This game definitely leans more into the mythological side of things as you play different heroes and build towers to the gods. I love the different win conditions and the theme just makes the game that much more compelling.

4. Sci-Fi

Broad category #1, science fiction. There are a few different types, and I tend to prefer space exploration type of Sci-Fi versus weird future worlds. Though, things like Shadowrun are technically Sci-Fi and I like that Cyberpunk theme. However, I really like the grander feel that space exploration has in general. And there are a ton of great board games that fall into the realm of space.

Star Wars: Rebellion

Now this could be consider cheating a little bit because Star Wars could be it’s own theme. But it is also a space game. While you aren’t exploring as much, the empire is exploring planets trying to narrow down where the rebels can be. This feels like the original trilogy as it is cat and mouse. The empire trying to squash the rebel fleets and find their base, and the rebels trying to subvert the empires plan. It is also a big game, probably playing in about three hours or a bit less, if you know what you are doing. Ton of fun, Star Wars in a box.

3. Fantasy

Now, the second to last category that Tainted Grail could fit into, I love fantasy games. Unlike Sci-Fi where I prefer space sci-fi, I like almost any type of fantasy. Whether it’s a grim dark world like Tainted Grail, urban fantasy like The Dresden Files Cooperative Card Game, or silly fantasy like Smallworld, I like games that have fantasy in them. There’s just something about slinging spells and fighting dragons or other crazy monsters that is a lot of fun.

Gloomhaven

No surprise what game I am going with here, Gloomhaven is my favorite game of all time. It has you on this massive epic adventure as you try and figure out all that is happening in the lands. But beyond that, the game has amazing card play and really unique fantasy creatures to fight and play as. The amount of world building that went into Gloomhaven is amazing.

2. Superhero

I flipped the last two at the last second, but Superheroes, they are just below my #1, because, well, there are a lot of poor superhero games out there. So this theme will always get me interested whether I’m playing as a superhero or fighting against them. But because DC and Marvel are both very popular in general, that means that there are some poorer games out there. But tell me that a board game has a Marvel theme, I am always going to check it out.

Marvel Champions

A Marvel game, no surprise there. I really like Marvel Champions a lot. It is a great game that they keep on adding more great content for. This is the one that has me playing a hero that I know and love from Marvel and I feel like that hero. If I am playing Spider-Man, I can go in there with a swinging web kick, or I can flip over to Peter Parker, the bad guy won’t fight me, and I can recover. Of course, then the bad guy is scheming until I can get in there again to stop their plans and take them down.

1. Horror

Finally, my number 1, Horror. I love horror in board games. From games where it is a one off scenario to games where it is a full campaign. The grim dark fantasy nature of Tainted Grail makes it also dabble into horror. But Zombie and Lovecraftian games also fall into that category as well. Zombies can be more survival and Lovecraftian can be more investigative, so horror get’s it’s own. I love not knowing what’s around the corner, what horror might be popping up and the feeling of the impending doom if things don’t go well.

Betrayal at House on the Hill

Now, I know this one will be controversial. There are people who do not like this game, I love it. I think that it is really well done and it gives you that feeling of horror movies. You don’t know what is around the next corner, if a good twist happens, you don’t know who is going to be betray you, and you don’t know if you will survive. Is it well balanced, probably not, but I really like the thematic and cinematic feeling it gives me.

What Is Your Favorite Theme?

Let me know in the comments below or over on Twitter what themes in board games you like best. There are a lot of them out there. I could have broken down Fantasy and Sci-Fi more as well. Are there any that you feel are used too much?

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10 – Lords of Hellas
You’re playing as a mythological Greek character, of course they are going to have their own powers. They have a couple of things that are unique, first they have something that they get while setting, up, in my case, I was getting a priest/priestess to start the game. And then you have a special ability that only you can do. It kind of helps focus you on what you want to do for a win condition because those are so diversified as well. The game has a lot of unique things that you can do as well, because when temples are built, it might trigger drafting a blessing. And those blessings are unique powers to you a well so you become more unique and diversified as time goes on the further you get into the game.

9 – Dice Throne Season 1 and 2
These characters are completely unique in the game. They roll their own unique dice, they have their own unique decks, and their player board is going to do unique things as well. The game is pretty simple in concept as it uses Yahtzee and King of Tokyo style rolling where you can roll three times and you see what you get, but when you actually dig into what the characters can do, there’s a lot of interesting things that allow you tweak dice or that you can focus on. The Pyromancer plays very different than the Shadow Thief who plays different than the Gunslinger who is different than the Cursed Pirate, so you do need to plan out your strategies and hope that you have the cards to make the dice rolls work. It’s probably the simplest game on the list, but it gives you that feeling of playing a special character without you learning so much that’s new.

8 – Aeon’s End: War Eternal
There are a number of things that make you unique in this deck building game. First, your deck is going to be constructed differently at the start, you are going to have a card in there that is special to you. So that’s a unique power. The set-up of your breaches for casting spells is also unique, but not really a power. Finally, on your player board, you have an ability that you can charge, that ability is probably pretty powerful and it’s unique to you. All of that gives you a unique feel and a unique focus. If you plan it right, you can set-up good synergies between the characters where one character can get a spell cheaper and pass that spell to another player, and that other player can then focus on getting breaches open to cast more spells for better use of the games money.

7 – Mansions of Madness 2nd Edition
Spoilers, this isn’t the only Arkham game on the list. Fantasy Flight does a good job of making all the characters with unique powers. Not only do you have a unique skill set and health and sanity levels. But it’s the character powers and unique character items that really can set you apart. And generally, you’re going to need to use those powers because it’s going to give you something that you can do that is just better than a regular action. Now, they don’t always come into play, but to really optimize your game, you’re probably going to want to use those powers. There’s just a lot to love about this game and the variable player powers is just the icing on the cake.

6 – XenoShyft: Onslaught
Not one that jumped out to me at the start as having variable player powers, but when I thought about it, you do have unique roles that you do. At the start it’s just that every role can buy a certain type of item cheaper. But as you get further into waves, you unlock more special abilities that make your character unique. Plus, in your starting deck, as this is a deck builder, you get unique things. It might be weapon or armor or a soldier, but you are going to have a unique starting deck compared to everyone else. That really drives the game because you need to support each other, and it has the interesting mechanic where you can trade cards or play cards when another person is going in order to help them get through their line up of alien bugs. So while some of the variable power games on the list have you really as your own unique character where you do that thing, this one is set-up so that you can help the other players which is a unique twist.

5 – Arkham Horror: The Card Game
First of two living card games, but all of Fantasy Flight’s Arkham line of products (seeing as this isn’t the first on the list) do a good job with variable player powers. You always are going to have different stats for things like lore, agility, and strength, but you also are going to have a special character power that only you can do, and beyond that, your health and sanity ratios are going to be different as well. Beyond that, each character is going to have a deck that is uniquely built for them. While some of these aren’t technically powers, they are things that make your character feel very unique. And it can help tailor your play style, you’re probably always going to need to be okay at getting clues, but some characters are going to be better at that while others are going to be stronger at attacking. Overall, it’s just a good system and makes any Arkham line of game feel unique.

4 – Marvel Champions
Marvel Champions hits what I want for variable player powers, giving it to me not just because my deck of cards is unique, but because I can do something special as both my super hero side and my alter-ego side. In this game you’re facing off against a villain as a Marvel superhero such as Spider-Man or Captain America. Captain America can do something different as Steve Rogers and as Captain America and those things are different than what Peter Parker can do or Spider-Man. And each character that they release is different. So in a multiplayer game of Marvel Champions, you feel like your hero is that hero and that you can do different things. Then you add in aspects, which are part of the deck building piece, so you might have protection where you are better at defense or aggression that make you even more unique.

3 – T.I.M.E. Stories
This one is a bit trick to talk about because everything is kind of part of the stories in the game. But I’ll give you the premise for the game, you are part of a time agency who is meant to stop time incursions from coming through and messing up the timeline. But it isn’t like you are fully transported back in time, just your conscious is transported. That’s where you get your variable powers from. And the powers your “vessel” as they call them in the game, has, depends on your scenario. Again, I don’t want to go into it too much as it’s fun to determine what a scenario is as you open up the thing, but some of them are fairly obvious at least to the setting with names like Under the Mask and the Egyptian images on the box or The Asylum is probably about an Asylum. I’ve really enjoyed the puzzle nature of the game, and while I think that the player powers sometimes are just okay or won’t be used at all, it is part of the game and you can find some decent combos.

2 – Pandemic Legacy Season 1
This is true for all Pandemic games, so if you don’t want to get the Legacy version of the game, just get basic Pandemic. In the game you take on different roles of people trying to stop a Pandemic. The Medic is able to remove disease cubes easier, the Dispatcher can move players around the board faster, the Scientist can discover a cure with fewer cards. And you can upgrade and improve the characters as you go so that they get more diverse and more variable in what they can do. I won’t go into what those upgrade are as it would be a little bit of a spoiler for some of the stuff that you unlock in the game, but it’s a great experience and the fact that you can customize and streamline your team in hopes of being able to better win games, it’s a ton of fun.

1 – Gloomhaven
It’s my favorite game, of course it has variable player powers. In the game, you play as a character and you have your own unique hand of actions that you can do. Some characters are going to be manipulating elements to perform stronger attacks. Others are going to be supporting with healing or they might be the tank or maybe they’re a ranged attacker. But each character is really different and it makes you feel like you are unique. It can be mechanical in what the character can do, but it really does feel like you can do something else compared to your fellow players. And every time you unlock a new character by retiring your old one, it’s something different. Yes, this game is massive, but if you want something that just has so much diversity in the characters, you can’t go wrong with Gloomhaven.

So, I have so many more that I could put on as well. Literally, all of those games are probably in my top 15-20 of all time (20 as of 2019, minus Lords of Hellas that I hadn’t played yet). I also considered another game in my top 15, Star Wars: Rebellion. Board Game Geek has it listed as variable player power and they definitely are. However, it is so asymmetrical that I feel like I need to put it in it’s own separate category, because everything is so different. Sure, you’re still producing things in a similar way, but it’s more asymmetrical for me. And there are others like Sword & Sorcery and Dead of Winter just missed my list, like I said, I love games with variable player powers.

What are some of your favorite games with variable player powers? What are some that I should checkout?

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This can be a daunting task to figure out all the deities that you might need. Do the Elves, Humans, Dwarves,  Halflings, Tieflings, Orcs, etc. all worship their own god’s? If so, now you got to create not just a pantheon, but several of them.

I would go that they don’t all need their full pantheons, you can overlap some of them. If you think about it, a deity of nature might go by different names if they races are separate enough, but why would you have to have a Elven deity of nature who takes care of the forest and makes it grow and the human deity of farming that makes the crops grow be very different? That’s mainly just a lot more work for yourself. Along with that, do you need to know much about the Elven deity of the forest if they aren’t going to be part of the story? Figure out which ones you need at the start of your story and create the information on them, then if you need more, you can always add them in later as they come up.

Let me list out the pieces of advice I’ve already said and what I’m going to be talking about still, so it’s easy to understand the information:
1. Overlap Pantheons to reduce number you have to create.
2. Don’t come up with all of them, just as many as you need right now.
3. Let your players help you come up with them as needed.
4. Combine the areas that a deity might rule over.
5. Put most effort into the ones who are going to talk to your players, however that might be.

So, I’ve generally covered the first two on the list. Both of those are going to help you focus down on the number that you have to come up with, but let’s unpack them a little more.

Overlap Pantheons to reduce the number of deities  you have to create.

Now, you might be thinking that your Elves, Dwarves, Humans, etc. are going to be very separate. So they are all going to have their own set of gods to work with, and that seems like a lot of work. You really want to keep them separate, because the Elves, Humans, and Dwarves don’t get along and if they worship the game gods you’re going to have to make them get along. I would still give them a lot of overlap and maybe a unique one or two deities for each race. The way you can have them overlap, though, so that they still won’t be worshiping the same gods is let them have different names for each race. So Etheilien the Elves goddess of the sun, Manakal the Dwarven goddess of light, and Sepheria the Human goddess of the sun can all be the same deity, but all of the races can still deny that they are the same goddess. Or maybe it’s only the Elves who simply refuse to believe that the deity is the same for all three of them because they are Elves and they are special damn it. But this is going to keep your pantheons a whole lot more condensed and easy to work with.

You don’t need to know your full Pantheons at the start.

Unless your player characters are supposed to be demi-gods who interact with the pantheon all the time, you probably don’t need to know them all. If your party is a Dwarven cleric, Human ranger, and a Halfling rogue, you can probably cut down on everything you need to know. In this case, let’s say that all of them are tied in with a deity, and that’s kind of the focus of your game, the Dwarf would need to know about their deity that the cleric follows, probably a god of the forge, the Human who has a farming background would probably know the god and goddess of nature and fertility, and the Halfling rogue would probably follow some trickster god or maybe even a dark god of assassins. But start with the ones that are plot critical and work out from there as you need more.

Let your Players help come up with them.

This can even by tied in to the one above, but you don’t need to come up with everything on your own. Maybe you know that you have a few deities who you are going to focus on who need to be in the story. So spend your time creating those, however, you also know that you want your PC’s (player characters) to be connected to deities as well, just lesser ones. When you are having session 0, let your players know that, and work with them then and help them create their own deities that you can slot into the pantheon. So, maybe the Dwarven cleric still is going to follow the god of the forge, and the rogue follows the goddess of assassins and those are normal. But then you get the Human Ranger who follows the spirit of the great toad in the sky. Now you’ve got a toad in the sky as part of your pantheon, and that’s something that will probably be unique forever to your world, but you didn’t have to come up with any of them yourself, and your players are really able to tailor the deities to their characters backstories.

Give your deities a broad domain to rule over.

The extreme example of this would be to have a goddess of crops who then has lesser gods and goddesses under them for wheat, corn, flax, barley, etc. That’s too much effort, especially if it isn’t critical to the story. Now, if the story is that these lesser gods and goddess are fighting which is destroying crops and sending the lands into a famine, that could be interesting, but normally, you aren’t going to need that. In fact, you probably won’t even need the goddess of the crops, just make her the goddess of life. Now her domain stretches from plants, to fertility and birth, and where ever else makes sense. You’ve probably just saved yourself from having to come up with four or five other deities for the pantheon. So keep the areas broad and that will make your work easier.

Put Your Effort into the ones who are active in the world.

It’s very possible that you will need some elder gods who haven’t been involved with your world in a long time. Maybe they are still worshiped but they are less active. With those, don’t spend as much time on them. You’re going to create some lore for them, I’m sure, but if you also have some newer gods and goddesses who are active in the world, focus on those, because those are the ones that you’re players are going to interact with, not the elder gods in the background. Just focus on the ones who are important for the plot of the story you’re telling and the ones the PC’s are going to be interacting with.

Hopefully this has made what could be a very daunting task less daunting. I would really recommend just stealing from an existing mythological pantheon. If you don’t want it to be as obvious, change up a few abilities and rename them, you could keep everything else the same, and you’ve made it yours enough that your players aren’t going recognize it easily, and even if they do, that doesn’t really matter.

Have you run an epic game about the gods and goddesses of a realm. What tips do you have for creating a pantheon?

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