13th Age Second Edition Gamemasters Guide + complimentary PDF

Story and Crunch!

13th Agecombines the best parts of crunchy d20-rolling fantasy gaming with story-focused rules that help the gamemaster and players collaborate to create unique campaigns.

Storytelling

• Every character has One Unique Thing that sets them apart from all others and provides the raw materials for adventures and plotlines focused on that hero.
• Each characters backgrounds provide bonuses to relevant skill checks so that every skill roll can reveal new details of that heros backstory.
• Connections with the iconshigh fantasy archetypes such as the Archmage, Lich King, or Prince of Shadowsgive even 1stlevel heroes an introduction to the conflicts that shape the world.
• The evocative but deliberately non-canonical setting helps each campaign surprise itself with new twists! We dont tell the storyeach of your campaigns tells new stories.

Crunch

• Streamlined combat rules harness the good bits of crunchy tactical combat without ticky-tacky measurements.
• Innovations like the escalation die ensure that battles crescendo instead of getting bogged down.
• Each of the nine character classes has unique features, advantages, and play styles; the flexible fighter is nothing like the wild sorcerer or the elegant bard.
• In this second edition of the game, thirteen years of experience with the system and hundreds of playtest reports helped us revise the games class features, talents, spells, kin powers, and monsters (!) so that there are only interesting choices.

Splendid Art

• Fantastic art from the artists listed at left, coordinated and in some cases highlighted and illuminated by paints from Lee Moyer.

Gamemasters Guide

Players will want13th Age Second Edition Gamemasters Guidefor treasure and information on the default setting of the Dragon Empire. Gamemasters need the GM books 250 pages of rules for running the game, campaign advice, rules for quickly creating exciting and balanced battles, hundreds of monsters, guidelines and tools for designing new monsters, and an introductory adventure in a living dungeon!

A Whole Line of Supporting Books

All the adventures, settings, monsters, magic items, kin, and classes already published for13thAgeare compatible with this new edition.

In 2013, our game 13thAge showed fantasy roleplayers a way to combine vibrant storytelling with high-energy combat. Earlier, we had been the lead designers of 3rdEdition and 4thEdition of the worlds oldest roleplaying game, and in 13thAge we wrote for gamers like us, not for corporate shareholders. Our new second edition makes the game better, thanks to years of listening to fans and of testing ideas at our gaming table. The character classes have better options, the monsters are scarier, the magic items offer more choices, and the narrative rules are better defined. We hope you love it.

Rob Heinsoo & Jonathan Tweet, August 2025

About Rob Heinsoo

Rob Heinsoo has created dozens of role-playing games, card games, miniatures games and board games. He led the design of the fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons and wrote or led the design of many 4e sourcebooks as well as overseeing the13thAgeline and co-designing13thAge Gloranthawith Jonathan. Other notable designs include the various incarnations ofThree-Dragon Ante, the first two sets ofEpic Spell Wars,Wrestlenomicon, the upcomingArmello: The Board Game, and the upcomingLegendary: Game of Thrones.

About Jonathan Tweet

Jonathan Tweet is the perfect collaborator for Rob on 13thAge. Jonathan was the lead designer of 3rd Ed D&D, and his other game designs changed the way people design and play roleplaying games (seeArs Magica,Over the Edge, andEverway). Hes also worked in card games, miniatures, Facebook games, and fiction. His games have won three Origins Awards, and he is in the Origins Award Hall of Fame. Finally, hes the author ofGrandmother Fish(Macmillan 2016), the first book to teach evolution to preschoolers.