Moonlight on Roseville Beach vs Thirsty Sword Lesbians - which queer RPG fits your table?
The short answer
Pick Moonlight on Roseville Beach if you want a slow-burning mystery: a queer beach town in the summer of 1979, housemates who work by day and investigate by night, and something old stirring under the boardwalk. Pick Thirsty Sword Lesbians if you want drama at full volume: duels, flirting, rivals who become lovers, and a rulebook that treats a broken heart as seriously as a broken arm. One game is a whispered secret on a moonlit beach. The other is a sword fight that ends in a kiss.
What these two games have in common
Both are queer at the core, not as a coat of paint. In Moonlight on Roseville Beach the village is queernorm: LGBTQIA+ residents are the default and everyone assumes you belong. In Thirsty Sword Lesbians the title says it, and the book means it; the game master is even called the Gaymaster. Neither game asks you to justify who your character loves. That is simply the ground you play on.
Both put relationships ahead of tactics. There are no battle maps, no initiative counts, no five-foot squares. What matters is who your character cares about, who they are afraid of and what they are willing to risk for the people around them. Both books also take safety seriously and hand you tools for it: Roseville Beach ships with a content and calibration sheet, Thirsty Sword Lesbians with its Setting Palette and check-in card.
And both are decorated. Thirsty Sword Lesbians, by April Kit Walsh and published by Evil Hat Productions in 2021, won the Nebula Award for game writing, the first tabletop RPG ever to do so, and took ENnie gold for Best Game and Product of the Year in 2022. Moonlight on Roseville Beach, by Richard Ruane and published by R. Rook Studio in 2023, earned an ENnie nomination and a warm reception across the indie scene. These are not niche curiosities. They are two of the most admired queer RPGs of the past few years.
Where they really differ
Genre. Moonlight on Roseville Beach is cosmic horror with disco on the jukebox. You investigate phantasms in the woods, monoliths that appear overnight and music that drifts in from nowhere, and the police cannot be trusted, so the residents protect the town themselves. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is romance and adventure: swashbuckling, space opera, cyberpunk, whatever setting the table picks. The threat is an oppressive power, not an elder god, and the goal is as much a confession as a victory.
The dice. Roseville Beach uses pools of six-sided dice, inspired by Psi*Run and Goblinville Gazette. You build a pool from your circumstances, then assign each die to a separate risk: a Goal die for success, an Injured die, a Scared die, a Clue die if you want to learn something extra, and optionally a Trouble die that helps now but guarantees one of your Troubles shows up later. A pool of four dice rarely covers every risk, and choosing what to leave exposed is where the tension lives. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is Powered by the Apocalypse: roll two six-sided dice, add a stat (Daring, Grace, Heart, Wit or Spirit), and read the result as a full success on 10 or more, a success with a cost on 7 to 9, and a complication on 6 or less. Every roll triggers a named move, such as Fight, Entice, Figure Out a Person or Defy Disaster.
What hurts. In Roseville Beach you track Injuries and Scares; three of either and your character is Out of Action. In Thirsty Sword Lesbians there are no hit points at all. You mark emotional Conditions instead: Angry, Frightened, Guilty, Hopeless, Insecure. Each one changes how you play until someone talks you down, which is exactly what the Emotional Support move is for.
Love as a rule. Thirsty Sword Lesbians builds romance into the machinery. Strings represent emotional hold over another character, and you spend them to sway people or to help them. When your character falls for someone, you mark Smitten, and the game gives you moves for what happens next, including a move called Finally Kiss in a Dangerous Situation. Moonlight on Roseville Beach has romance in its DNA too, but it lives in the fiction rather than the rules: in the housemates you chose, the jobs you hold and the Strange Events you have already survived together.
Scope. Roseville Beach is one town, one summer, one book. The setting is drawn in loving detail, from the Cedar Point Hotel to Rosie's bar, and the five included mysteries all happen here. Thirsty Sword Lesbians is a toolkit. The core book includes several ready-made settings and scenario seeds, from the cyberpunk of Neon City 2099 to the laser swords of Starcross Galaxy, and a worksheet for building your own.
What it feels like at the table
An evening with Moonlight on Roseville Beach: it is past midnight and your housemate has not come home from her shift at the Cabana. You and two friends find her footprints leading into the dunes, and beyond them, something that is not quite a monolith. You build your pool, three dice. One goes on Goal, one on Injured, and you want the last one on Clue. That leaves nothing for Scared, and when the roll lands, it is your character who cannot stop shaking. You still find her. You also find out what she saw.
An evening with Thirsty Sword Lesbians: the rival captain has you cornered on the deck, blades crossed, and you roll to Fight. A 7. You land a hit, but the Gaymaster says she gets a String on you, because you hesitated. Two scenes later she spends it to make you listen, and she is right about the admiral. Your Angry condition is still marked. It takes another player's Emotional Support move, and an honest conversation neither character wanted, to clear it. Then someone suggests the two captains should stop fighting and finally talk, and the table goes quiet in the good way.
What you actually need to buy
For Moonlight on Roseville Beach you need the core book (EUR 49,95). It is all-in-one: player rules, a full Game Master section, the setting, five complete mysteries and more than twenty Guest Star characters for friends who drop in for a session. Add a handful of six-sided dice and you are ready. There is no starter set, no screen and no expansion you need first.
For Thirsty Sword Lesbians you need the core book (EUR 34,95), two six-sided dice per player, and a printout of the playbooks, which Evil Hat offers as a free download. The book contains nine playbooks, several settings and scenario seeds and the full GM chapter. An expansion, Advanced Lovers & Lesbians, adds more playbooks and settings, but the core book is complete on its own.
Both games work best with three to five players plus a game master, and both are happy to run as a one-shot or a short campaign.
Choose Moonlight on Roseville Beach if ... / Choose Thirsty Sword Lesbians if ...
Choose Moonlight on Roseville Beach if you want mystery and investigation with a heart. Choose it if a single, richly detailed setting appeals more than a toolkit, and if you like the idea of a horror game that is warm rather than cruel. Choose it if your group enjoys talking to bartenders and reading handwritten notes as much as rolling dice, and if the tension of assigning dice to risks sounds like your kind of fun. And choose it if the year 1979 and everything it meant for queer people gives the game a weight you want at the table.
Choose Thirsty Sword Lesbians if you want your feelings on the character sheet. Choose it if the best scenes in your games are the confrontations, the confessions and the kisses, and you want rules that make those scenes happen rather than hoping for them. Choose it if your group likes to pick a genre together, from swashbuckling to space opera, and if you already know Powered by the Apocalypse or want an excellent place to learn it. And choose it if you want a game that is openly, joyfully romantic, with swords.
Where to start at Netherbook
Moonlight on Roseville Beach (EUR 49,95) is the complete game in one book, and our starter guide walks you through Roseville Beach, the dice and your first mystery. Thirsty Sword Lesbians (EUR 34,95) is the core book with everything you need for a first duel. Both games live in our Crushes & Quests collection, where romance and adventure share a shelf. If the cosmic horror side of Roseville Beach is what pulls you, our Horror collection has plenty of darker company waiting; and if it is the Evil Hat design you admire, their other games sit together in the Evil Hat Productions collection.