Best RPG for Arabian adventures

[jian]

I say Arabian adventures, but what I really mean is “what’s the best TTRPG we have to run a game set in the world of The Adventures of Amina al-Sirafi by Shannon Charkraboty?”

Several of us have read this recently, as noted in the What are you reading in 2025 thread. In short, Amina al-Sirafi is a pirate captain in the Indian Ocean around 1100, and the adventures of her crew are therefore mostly based in the seas around Yemen, especially the island of Socotra. The initial tone is fairly gritty and the fantasy elements ramp up slowly. It’s clear from the beginning that Amina and her crew have Seen Some Stuff and we mostly talk about myths such as the Queen of Sheba, djinn, marids etc before the story passes the Pirates of the Caribbean horizon and ends up firmly in some mythic fantasy territory.

So, obviously, you could run this campaign with whatever fantasy system you like best. D&D of any flavour, GURPS Fantasy, Tiny Dungeons, Barbarians of Lemuria, and so on. WFRP or Warlock! wouldn’t be a bad fit either, in my opinion. But really, I thought this a good opportunity to take stock of what RPGs we have that are about medieval Arabian and Middle Eastern settings, and what we think of them.

The first obvious contender is Al-Qadim, from D&D 2E. Arabian Adventures, the clue is in the name. I do have a copy of this venerable tome, and it’s nicely atmospheric and mostly xenophobia-free but I do wonder how culturally accurate it is.

There are others, such as Tales of the Caliphate Nights for True20 and Scheherazade. I should take a look at both but I don’t know much about them. Any other suggestions? What do you think would work well?

 

[overgeeked]

That's in my infinitely-long TBR pile. It does sound fantastic. Can't wait to finally read it.

For the pirate angle, there's always Pirate Borg. It's a perfect resource for all things pirate, but it's decidedly Golden Age of Piracy and the Caribbean. Still, useful book to have.

There's also GURPS Arabian Nights. They always do great resource books regardless of if you're using their system.

There's the City of Brass by Frog God. It's not great, but it's good. Has a fair amount of the same cultural insensitivity of TSR's Al-Qadim products.

Semi-related is the recent Mr. Rhexx module, Sands of Doom. It's more Egyptian undead and pharaohs than Arabian Nights, but it might be able to add something of value.

mostly xenophobia-free but I do wonder how culturally accurate it is.

It's neither xenophobia-free nor culturally accurate.

The Asians Represent podcast did an 18-hour critical analysis of Al-Qadim. It's well worth the listen. TSR did not do well with this product line.


They also released a book on DriveThru cleaning up the culturally-insensitive mess that was Al-Qadim.

https://www.dmsguild.com/en/product...fate-al-qadim-and-forgotten-realms-sourcebook

There's also the rest of the Al-Qadim line from TSR. There's a lot of great resources, modules, etc in those old books.

There are also dozens of Osprey books on any relevant culture and time period. For example, The Armies of Islam 7th-11th Centuries, The Moors 7th-15th Centuries, and so many more. Lots of books on pirates, too. I'd be surprised if they didn't have something that was exactly what you're looking for.

Anything on the folklore of the area, of course, especially pre-Islamic beliefs.

To add a bit of something different, but semi-related, you could expand your scope across north Africa to Morocco and north to Moorish Spain, often called Al-Andalus.

Any of them are great rabbit holes to fall down.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

The book is zippy and, while people can and do die, the characters aren't OSR fragile (and I'd rule out Pirate Borg for the same reason). And while some characters become quite powerful, there isn't the sort of escalator to superpower that 5E promises.

So something quick, low fragility, but not superpowered. Maybe Outgunned Adenture?

Obviously, from a content standpoint, there's a danger of colonialist viewpoints in Indiana Jones-style games, though. Hmm.

 

[kronovan]

Tales of the Caliphate Nights is a setting which I'd rate as excellent. IMO next to Shadows of Cthulhu, it's among the best settings ever released for True20. I consider it classic Historical Fantasy due to the amount of research that went into it and how much of the culture of the Abbasid Caliphate's golden age it highlights. But it's not just all history, with a dizzying number of options for players and some quality tools and content for the Narrator.

It is closely tied to the True20 rules though, so it could be farily challenging if your desire to run it with another TTRPG. I've only ever adapted other TTRPG settings to T20, so I couldn't comment on how much effort that might be. If you know True20 and are comfortable narrating it, TotCN is a terrific setting to run and play in.

 

[The Soloist]

Capharnaum – The Tales of the Dragon-Marked:​

Capharnaum – The Tales of the Dragon-Marked

“I came seeking adventure, death, and vengeance… and I found Capharnaum. It called to me with its ancient gods and enmities, its mysterious quests, desert caravans and dusty souks. I was tracking a…

mindjammerpress.com

 

[Koloth]

Green Ronin's Freeport City of Adventure is a good pirate resource.

 

[Libertad]

Tales of the Caliphate Nights is quite detailed, and it does introduce a number of non-combat minigames and subsystems to encourage alternative playstyles than violent dungeon-delving common to D20 fantasy. For example, there are rules for running court trials, debates, even rules-lite "framed story" where the GM gives temporary control of the narrative to a player telling a tale. It also has a good amount of detail on the Islamic world during the early medieval era, too.

However, True20 isn't a system that has aged well in my opinion, and has quite a bit of weaknesses. Such as using Mutants & Mastermind's Toughness saves in lieu of hit points, but as you don't increase them as you level up, one shots become a lot easier at middle to higher levels when a lot of magic and monsters still scale damage-wise.

Al-Qadim has a 5e sourcebook now on the DM's Guild. It had cultural consultants from Arab countries help write the book, so the designers are definitely seeking to avoid the pitfalls of the original AD&D version.

I would recommend against Frog God's City of Brass. It has an awful lot of bigoted dogwhistles that mirror a lot of anti-immigrant, anti-Muslim, and anti-Arab/Middle Eastern talking points. I go over it in the linked thread, but examples include how there's precious few Fantasy Middle Eastern NPCs who are in a non-villainous light, and those who aren't are usually damsels in distress. Or how mosques being built in fantasy counterpart European kingdoms are part of a covert invasion force by the BBEG. While I admit that it does have its good points (the City is quite the detailed planar metropolis), the aforementioned elements are prevalent enough that you'd have to significantly revise big pieces of the adventure path to make it less bigoted.

 

[humble minion]

It's neither xenophobia-free nor culturally accurate.

The Asians Represent podcast did an 18-hour critical analysis of Al-Qadim. It's well worth the listen. TSR did not do well with this product line.


They also released a book on DriveThru cleaning up the culturally-insensitive mess that was Al-Qadim.

While I confess I have not watched the 18 hours of this analysis, in defense of a setting I am extremely fond of, I should point out that this is not a unanimously held opinion.

The 20ArabiaRPG youtube channel also did a multi-part analysis of the line (at least of the main setting box) at around the same time. This is a group of relatively young natives to the region (I think they are Yemeni or Qatari, from memory?) who were reading the product for the first time and reacting to it as they went (unfortunately, their newness to the product meant they read the two booklets from the Land of Fate box in the wrong order, which got confusing for all concerned). While they certainly found things that could be improved, they on the whole had a reasonably positive impression and ended up streaming a (regrettably short-lived) game in the setting.