Terry Pratchett’s Discworld gets its first new tabletop RPG in over 25 years, with board games also on the way
“Terry had a lifelong affection with roleplaying games.”
The beloved and hugely influential comic-fantasy universe of Discworld, created by late author Terry Pratchett, is returning to the world of tabletop RPGs for the first time in over 25 years. Alongside the new Discworld RPG will be new board games set in the home of The Colour of Magic, Night Watch, Going Postal and more.
A new Discworld RPG was announced by Modiphius, the British roleplaying publisher known for its TRPG adaptations of Star Trek, Dune and more. The upcoming RPG will be created with the backing of Pratchett’s estate, with Modiphius saying that its tabletop games will “honour the humour, satire and darkly entertaining fantasy series”.
Modiphius’ first tabletop RPG based on Discworld will delve into the city of Ankh-Morpork, home of numerous Guilds and the City Watch, the police force who were the subject of many of Pratchett’s Discworld novels including Guards! Guards!, Thud! and Snuff. As well as exploring Ankh-Morpork in detail, the RPG’s setting will venture out into the wider Disc.
The currently untitled RPG won’t be the first time Discworld has been made into a tabletop RPG, with Pratchett himself having co-designed an adaptation of Steve Jackson’s GURPS system alongside Phil Masters in 1998. That game was last re-released as a fourth-edition PDF in 2017. However, Modiphius’ new adaptation will mark the first wholly original Discworld RPG in over a quarter of a century.
“Terry had a lifelong affection with roleplaying games and it’s an entirely logical path along which you can follow his career from dungeon master to him becoming one of our most celebrated and beloved fantasy authors of all time,” said Rob Wilkins, Pratchett’s longtime assistant and manager, who has managed the author’s literary estate since his death in 2015.
As well as a Discworld tabletop RPG, Modiphius confirmed it plans to develop new board games based on the series. Past Discworld board games have included the hnefatafl-like abstract strategy game Thud! - the 2002 release of which preceded the novel of the same name by three years - and Discworld: Ankh-Morpork and The Witches, two-thirds of an finished Discworld trilogy by Brass creator Martin Wallace that saw its third title unreleased. Discworld: Ankh-Morpork was re-released outside of the Discworld universe as the Victorian London-set Nanty Narking in 2019.
Modiphius will launch a Kickstarter campaign for its Discworld RPG in late 2024. The publisher is yet to announce details of its plans for Discworld board games, asking fans for feedback via a survey in an effort to “want to make sure that we do Discworld justice”.