The Mayday Games Blog

Storytelling is a vital art. Combine that with tabletop games and you are transported to a new world! We love playtesting and learning about the newest games available. Here are some of the best story based board games that we enjoy each time we play.

10 Best Story Based Board Games

We scoured our collection for some of the most popular and innovative story-based board games of all time and picked our favorites for immersion, design, and especially fun! Here are our picks, in no particular order. They each bring something wonderful to the table.

Stuffed Fables

"Stuffed Fables" is an imaginative adventure game where players take on the role of a brave stuffed animal trying to save the child they love from a monster under the bed.

• 2-4 players
• 60-90 minutes
• Ages 7+

Choose one of six adorable stuffies to safeguard your child's sleep as you delve into The Lost, the dark under the bed where you can battle Minions. The "AdventureBook Game" module includes the story and rules, and the book opens flat, with each page containing a game board for the chapter. Stock up on gear, stuffing, buttons, and hearts to grow through a story that explores the milestones of childhood.

Pandemic Legacy

This story-driven Pandemic board game has you rushing to cure mutating diseases to save humanity over four escalating scenarios.

• 2-4 players
• 60 minutes
• Ages 13+

Cooperate with players through a campaign of 12-24 sessions. "Legacy" starts much like the classic "Pandemic," but then the story evolves along with the pathogens you must defeat. Players must move around the world map to cure hot spots and make choices that will permanently alter locations, cards, items, and objectives month after month in the timeline of curing the global pandemic.

Tales of the Arabian Nights

Experience the classical Arabian legends of Scheherazade with groundbreaking storytelling gameplay to travel the land of the Arabian Nights and create a unique destiny.

• 1-6 players
• 120 minutes
• Ages 12+

This vintage story game rewards characters with fortune and skills while encountering heroes like Ali Baba and Sinbad to face genies, scheming viziers, and mad magicians. The included "Book of Tales" has over 2002 tales to immerse you in the fabled world of the 1001 Nights.

Dungeons & Dragons: Castle Ravenloft

One of the greatest D&D adventures is now an accessible story-driven board game. Fantasy adventure meets horror in the castle of vampire lord Strahd!

• 1-5 players
• 60 minutes
• Ages 12+

Take on the quests inside Castle Ravenloft to unlock its mysteries and ultimately fight to choose the destiny of everyone involved. The romantic, gothic horror story is beloved for a reason! Equip your party of tabletop heroes with the magical gear and clues they need to stay alive in a gothic map complete with minis, cards, and dice.

Sleeping Gods

The campaign and open sandbox result in one of the best story based board game experiences out there.

• 1-4 players
• 60-120 minutes
• Ages 13+

You and up to three other friends guide the tale of Captain Sofi Odessa in 1929 as she and her crew embark on a voyage in their steamship to restore the totems of the gods. Every new page of the adventure atlas reveals treasures, obstacles, and choices with dynamic story results.

Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger

The iconic Choose Your Own Adventure series is realized as an interactive, book-driven game true to the original spirit.

• 1-100 players
• 60 minutes
• Ages 10+

Pick your pages carefully as a psychic detective exploring a haunted mansion. Keep track of your powers and explore the powerful meta of storytelling by replaying key scenes to retrieve items imbued with psychic power and solve the mystery waiting at the end of the pages.

Sherlock Holmes Consulting Detective

Solve cases alongside Sherlock with case files, maps, and an interactive network of informants.

• 1-8 players
• 60-120 minutes
• Ages 13+

This robust story game series lets you live in the accurate, literary world of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. A bundle of cases, clients, witnesses, dossiers, and locations are available to test your detective skills and build your narrative arc. Solve murderous conspiracies, analyze clues and testimony, and catch some of the most cunning criminal masterminds Victorian London has faced!

Mansions of Madness: 2nd Edition

This procedural horror game uses an immersive app and has you explore a modular, city board filled with lurking horrors and cursed relics.

• 1-5 players
• 120-180 minutes
• Ages 14+

The immersive app is the storyteller that guides you through the randomized board of the cursed Arkham mansion. Choose from one of eight special investigator characters and manage their sanity while collecting information, solving puzzles, and uncovering the truth of the evil hidden in the town.

Gloomhaven

This fully realized world is a dark fantasy board game that tells an epic, deep story with a fully customizable board and pieces.

• 1-4 players
• 60-120 minutes
• Ages 14+

"Gloomhaven" and all of its expansions are renowned. The setting, the cast of characters, the overlapping plot hooks, and the ways you can affect the story are all remarkable. The innovative game accessories help keep track of all the relevant discoveries, stories, and skills. It's like roleplaying without a game master!

This War of Mine

This tabletop adaptation of an award-winning video game has you making the very mature choices facing a civilian during a raid on war-torn Sarajevo.

• 1-6 players
• 45-120 minutes
• Ages 18+

This game is a hard-hitting, survival strategy board game. You must make choices that mean the life and death of other survivors, including food, shelter, medicine, and hiding from soldiers in ruined tenement housing during the day. The goal is to survive until the cessation of hostilities. The epilogue system compiles your choices to tell you how your story ultimately ends. It is always a truly unique and human experience to play through.

Find the Best Story Based Board Games

These are only some of our favorite gaming experiences. Ultimately, what makes a board game the best is that everyone is having fun with the story! If you want a few more of our honorable mentions, we recommend "Viceroy," "T.I.M.E. Stories," "Destinies," and "The Adventures of Robin Hood." There are so many innovative board games!

Board games with original artwork and captivating stories will transform your game night into an adventure. Check out some of the original board games we create and our board game accessories at Mayday Games.