The Top Full-Spectrum Tabletop RPGs

What the heck is a full-spectrum setting? Here’s a definition for you: A full-spectrum setting is a tabletop RPG world where success systematically requires mixing multiple gameplay modes—combat, stealth, hacking, diplomacy, magic—often in the same adventure.

These modes interact by design, and the system pushes players toward versatility. If your character’s only good at one thing, the world’s challenges will eventually expose that gap. One caveat: with the exceptions of Numenera and Starfinder 2e these games are more for experienced players, as almost all have a steeper learning curve than something like D&D.

Instead of doing a numbered ranking, which is ultimately arbitrary, I’ll do a tiered ranking. I will start with B-Tier first. I’ll also include a quick guide at the end, which may help you determine if you’re the kind of player that would really thrive in this type of ttrpg.

How I Chose

Each game was scored on five core criteria. I deliberately ignored systems like Fate or Powered by the Apocalypse because their diversity comes from the system, not the setting. Here are the criteria:

1.  Well-Rounded Characters Matter (Most Important). The game either rewards characters who can handle different kinds of situations (like fighting, talking, sneaking, solving puzzles), or it punishes groups that don’t have that kind of variety. If a game lets you coast with one-trick characters, it’s not Tier A.

2.  You Have to Use Different Skills to Succeed. To get things done, the gameplay must actually require switching between modes. You can’t just solve everything with swords or talking—you’ll need to mix it up. This has to show up in the actual adventures, not just in theory.

3.  The World Makes You Switch Modes. The setting and story naturally push you to shift between action, investigation, diplomacy, survival, or whatever. It’s about why switching modes makes sense in the story or setting. It shouldn’t feel weird or jarring to go from one kind of problem to another—it should make sense in-world.

4.  Lots of Supported Activities (With Real Rules). The game should have at least six different types of things you can do, and all of them need solid rules—not just make something up. That could mean combat, stealth, social scenes, crafting, downtime, hacking, exploration, research, etc.

5. Smooth Transitions Between Gameplay Styles (Least Important). Switching between different types of play—like from a fight to a negotiation—should feel easy and natural. It’s okay if there’s a little clunkiness here, but the best games make it seamless.

Finally, heads up—I earn a small commission if you buy anything through my links. No extra cost to you, and it helps support the site!

Tier B

GURPS: Infinite Worlds (Steve Jackson Games)

GURPS: Infinite Worlds makes the cut because it gives you one clear, unified mission: playing agents of the Infinity Patrol, jumping between parallel Earths to keep reality from falling apart.

The hook is each Earth is its own genre—sci-fi, fantasy, horror, alternate history—you name it. One week your team might be sneaking through a corporate-controlled cyberpunk dystopia, the next you’re navigating diplomacy in a world where the Roman Empire never fell, and after that you are fighting off cultists in Cthulhu-dominated Earth. It’s all part of the job—and all held together by the ongoing shadow war with Centrum, an interdimensional power trying to control the multiverse. The setting connects everything through the story of the Infinity Patrol.

One note about GURPS is that it’s not easy to break in to. I have written a guide on how to onboard a GM and the players. G:IW lands in Tier B because even though it can handle any type of gameplay you throw at it, it doesn’t push you to mix things up. The system is crazy flexible, which is great, but it won’t challenge players to be well-rounded unless the GM specifically designs for it. Tier A requires the game itself to force versatility.

Numenera (Monte Cook Games)

Numenera. Designed by the legendary Monte Cook, it’s a full-spectrum game that pulls off something many others struggle with: fusing science fantasy, deep mystery, and varied gameplay into a world that feels like one continuous experience.

Set a billion years in the future, it imagines a world where ancient tech from past civilizations is so advanced that people treat it like magic, but everything still follows a kind of strange logic. The system Numenera runs on—the Cypher System—was built specifically for this world, trading mechanical depth for smooth integration.

If you want a world where in one session you’re bargaining with a three-headed diplomat and the next you’re unlocking an alien gravity core with ancient tech, and it all feels like part of the same adventure, Numenera excels.

It gets a B because while it lets you do all kinds of cool stuff, it doesn’t compel you to switch things up. You can mostly rely on the same few skills or tricks all the time, and the game doesn’t really push you to build a well-rounded character or make your team cover all the bases. Its clean, simple rules are part of the appeal but there’s not much pressure to branch out.

Ultraviolet Grasslands (WizardThiefFighter Studio)

Ultraviolet Grasslands is built around one big idea: you’re leading a caravan across a trippy, post-apocalyptic wasteland full of ancient ruins, strange factions, mutant creatures, and totally broken laws of physics.

The setting doesn’t just allow different kinds of gameplay, it encourages it. So you will manage supplies and trade goods, negotiate with cat-people aristocrats, fight sentient diseases, explore ruined cities inside crashed spaceships, and get tangled up in bizarre regional politics. What ties it all together is the journey itself—each stop along the caravan route pushes you into a different challenge or genre, but it is all part of the same universe. That’s the magic: it’s all strange, but it all makes sense for this world.

That said, it’s not plug-and-play—you’ll need a good GM who can make rulings and improvise, because UVG gives you the big ideas but not always the rules to handle everything. UVG isn’t in tier A because the world begs you to do all kinds of stuff but the rules don’t actually push you to do it. There are no mechanics forcing you to build flexible characters or switch play styles to succeed. It’s a brilliant sandbox, but it doesn’t check the all the boxes to make Tier A.

I wanted to include other Tier B games just as good as those I wrote about, but figured this post is going to be long enough already. For those interested they are: Forbidden Lands, Pendragon, Warhammer FRP, Symbaroum, Stars Without Number and Invisible Sun.

Tier A

Ars Magica 5th Edition (Atlas Games)

Ars Magica 5e earns its spot because the game straight-up forces your group to be good at a bunch of different stuff if you want to survive and thrive.

You’re not just casting spells: you’ve got to manage a magical base, deal with nobles and church politics, keep your finances in order, and go on dangerous adventures. The game makes this happen through a system where each player controls multiple characters: a wizard who’s amazing at magic, a companion who handles social or investigative stuff, and some grogs who do the dirty work.

The covenant you all build together becomes the center of the game, and everything—seasons passing, research, court drama, monster-hunting—is baked into how the game works. Even though your individual characters aren’t versatile, your group as a whole has to be.

That’s why it nails A-Tier, it shows just how good a full-spectrum game can be when the system actually cares about well-rounded play. I’ve also written a guide for onboarding a GM and the players, as it has a steeper learning curve.

Blue Planet Revised (FASA Games)

Blue Planet is an exceptional full-spectrum RPG because it does a great job of making players adapt to a multiple challenges tied to its underwater world and corporate politics.

The game is set on Poseidon, an ocean planet where humans are trying to build colonies deep underwater while dealing with hostile environments, powerful corporations, and alien lifeforms. It’s not just a setting—it shapes the gameplay in a way that rewards players who can switch between different skills like tech work, social bargaining, underwater missions, and combat.

The way the game structures these corporate expeditions means you’re constantly managing resources and facing political consequences, which adds a lot of pressure to diversify your character’s abilities. Mechanically, the game uses a d10 dice pool roll-under system that helps keep things smooth whether you’re piloting a sub, running scientific tests, negotiating deals, or fighting off enemies.

BP really shows that when a game’s core idea is about surviving as pioneers in a dangerous alien ocean, it’s going to naturally make you develop a broad skill set rather than letting you specialize too much.

Eclipse Phase 2nd Edition (Posthuman Studios)

Eclipse Phase is the only RPG that is both on the list of best full-spectrum settings and my previous list of well-rounded RPGs. EP earns its spot because it takes one idea—transhumanity on the brink after an AI apocalypse—and turns it into a whole campaign world where a ton of different play styles make sense.

The game provides dedicated systems for hacking, social manipulation, investigation, and combat rather than relying on abstract skill resolution. You are usually working for Firewall, a secret group trying to stop future existential threats. That means one mission might have you infiltrating a corporate base on Mars by charming (or blackmailing) an executive, the next could be breaking into a server system to find TITAN activity, and then suddenly you’re in a firefight against people infected by rogue nanotech horrors.

And because people can transfer their minds into new bodies, you’ve also got identity questions, backup stress, and philosophical dread in the mix. It all feels like one coherent world. The only downside is EP isn’t a great setting for new players–there is a fairly steep learning curve involved. This game comes very close to Tier S.

Legend of the Five Rings 5th Edition (Fantasy Flight Games)

Legend of the Five Rings 5e is here because it really makes you play a complete samurai—not just a fighter but a politician, a spiritual seeker, and a strategist all at once.

Set in Rokugan’s feudal world, the game’s unique Ring system gives you five different elemental styles to solve problems, and it rewards players who can switch between them smoothly. If you rely too much on just one approach the Strife mechanic builds up, pushing you to diversify your tactics or suffer penalties.

The game’s clan politics and honor codes aren’t just window dressing, they demand that your character be ready for court intrigue, martial duels, spiritual rites, and social diplomacy, all intertwined in ongoing stories of power and loyalty. Plus, the symbol dice system applies across all these different kinds of challenges, making it feel natural to jump from a tense negotiation to a battlefield clash without rule changes.

While L5R 5e has enough mechanical complexity to sometimes slow new players down, it balances that with deep authenticity and system incentives for versatility, making full-spectrum play feel like an essential part of embodying the samurai ideal rather than just a fun option.

Shadowrun (Catalyst Game Labs)

Shadowrun is the game that got me thinking about full-spectrum settings. It’s an exceptional full-spectrum setting because its world demands you play across every style of challenge, and it all makes perfect sense.

This is a future where magic came roaring back just as the world was being swallowed by cyberpunk megacorps, so your team of shadowrunners have to be ready for everything. A typical job might have your Face sweet-talking a security chief, your Decker slicing into a corporate host to kill alarms, your Mage checking for wards and spirits in the astral, and your Samurai getting ready to kick down a door when it all goes loud.

Each character has their main job, but the best runners also pick up extra skills so they can handle different kinds of situations. You’re juggling social engineering, Matrix infiltration, stealth, magic, and tactical combat—all in the same run.

What makes it work is that SR’s setting blends magic, tech, and intrigue so seamlessly that even when the rules are fragmented, the experience feels unified. I think 4th edition strikes the best balance.

Starfinder (Paizo)

Starfinder earns its place because it gives you a galaxy-wide civilization where magic and technology are side-by-side as core gameplay.

You can be a starship pilot one day, a spellcasting explorer the next, and a corporate negotiator in-between. Your group could be battling in space, sneaking through alien ruins, blasting enemies with laser rifles or fireballs, cutting deals with alien dignitaries, and managing ship supplies or faction relationships—all framed by one story: you’re navigating frontier politics and ancient mysteries after the Gap.

The real cohesion is that magic-tech is everywhere: alien worlds, corporate boardrooms, even starship bridges. Every game mode flows naturally due to outstanding mechanical integration; laser rifles and spell scrolls are just tools in the toolbox.

While 1e is crunchy, SF2e is built on the same core strengths as the Remastered 2e Pathfinder: accessibility, mechanical elegance, rule modularity, tactical play, deep character customization. The three action system in particular rewards versatile characters. SF2e will be easier to break into, and GM prep is relatively low.

What, no Tier S? Sadly no, while a couple of these come very close the industry isn’t quite there yet. Having said that, the settings I’ve listed are especially rich and enjoyable for any player who likes full-spectrum RPGs. What kind of player would do well? I think there are four kinds that would:

There are ttrpgs out there can offer a good time with whatever you are specifically looking for, but if you want the most diversity of experience look for a full-spectrum setting. These are the best ones I know of, and they all deliver very solid experiences. From rules-light to significant crunch, from flavor to flavor, there is likely something here for you.

What have you run or played as a full-spectrum setting? Have I missed one (or more)? Drop your experiences in the comments.

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