X Meets Y / Tabletop Games

Board games meet Video games:

---

Examples:

• 7th Sea is One Piece meets Pirates of the Caribbean meets Dishonored crossed with a 17th century setting.
• Albedo: Platinum Catalyst is Albedo: Erma Felna EDF meets Mobile Suit Gundam (without the Mecha) meets Rainbow Six.
  • Albedo Combat Patrol 164 is Albedo: Erma Felna EDF meets Warhammer 40,000.
• Anima: Beyond Fantasy is Rolemaster meets Exalted with a pinch of Final Fantasy.
• Ars Magica is Dungeons & Dragons meets The Once and Future King.
• BattleTech is Fang of the Sun Dougram meets A Song of Ice and Fire (without the Ice Zombies) meets Robotech meets Crusher Joe.
  • The Clans are Mandalorians meets ZAFT.
  • The Word of Blake are Adeptus Mechanicus meets the Titans.
  • Katherine Steiner-Davion is Cersei Lannister meets Martha Vist Carbine.
• Big Eyes, Small Mouth is GURPS meets late-80's-to-mid-90's Anime and Manga.
• Blades in the Dark is Dishonored's Gaslamp Fantasy setting meets Fallen London's post-apocalyptic Urban Fantasy, meets Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within's walled-off-city setup, meets classic Gothic Horror in the vein of Dracula, meets Lady Blackbird's dice mechanics, meets Apocalypse World's character-driven role-playing, meets Saints Row's urban crime sandboxing, meets Ocean's Eleven's heist planning, meets PAYDAY: The Heist's caper action, meets Darkest Dungeon's downtime and stress mechanics, meets Warhammer 40,000's Immortal Emperor protecting humanity in the backstory. The game has a lot of inspirations.
• Bliss Stage is Neon Genesis Evangelion meets Inception.
• The Burning Wheel is The Riddle of Steel meets Vampire: The Masquerade meets The Lord of the Rings.
• Cards Against Humanity is Apples to Apples meets Encyclopedia Dramatica.
  • Alternatively, what would happen if Apples to Apples and Mad Libs had a baby who was then raised by Seth MacFarlane.
• Call of Cthulhu is literally The Cthulhu Mythos meets RuneQuest.
• Cerebos: The Crystal City is Heroine meets Infinity Train.
• Champions/Hero is Villains & Vigilantes meets Traveller (especially the spaceship-building rules).
• City of Mist is folklore meets Film Noir.
  • Alternatively, The Wolf Among Us meets Once Upon a Time.
• Clue: Lost in Vegas is Clue meets The Hangover.
• Crimestrikers is Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. meets Zootopia, with a side helping of C.O.P.S. (1988).
• CthulhuTech can very easily be summed up as "Neon Genesis Evangelion meets Macross meets RahXephon meets the Cthulhu Mythos" as stated. This is a selling point.
  • "Cthulhutech, by Hideaki Phillips Loveanno."
• Cyberpunk is Traveller meets Neuromancer.
• Delta Green was born when Call of Cthulhu was slammed headlong into The X-Files-style UFO mythology and government conspiracies.
• Disney Lorcana is Magic: The Gathering meets Yu-Gi-Oh! meets the Disney Animated Canon with some of the aesthetics of Disney Mirrorverse.
• The Doom that Came to Atlantic City is Monopoly meets King of Tokyo meets the Cthulhu Mythos.
• Most of the Dungeons & Dragons campaign settings can be described as the basic game rules meeting something else:
  • Al-Qadim is Dungeons & Dragons meets Arabian Nights.
  • The Dark Sun setting was described by some reviewers as "D&D meets Mad Max and John Carter of Mars."
  • Eberron is Dungeons & Dragons meets Pirates of the Caribbean meets a whole load of other stuff.
  • Ravenloft is described as D&D meets Gothic Horror, but it's more like D&D meets Universal Horror and Hammer Horror with some Silent Hill elements.
  • Spelljammer (on a demotivator) was once described as "Star Trek meets Dungeons & Dragons. It's like porn for nerds."
  • Dungeons & Dragons itself can be described as the wargame Chainmail meets pulp fantasy like Conan the Barbarian, The Elric Saga, Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, the collected works of Poul Anderson, and a variety of mythologies.
• Eclipse Phase is Delta Green meets Takeshi Kovacs as written by outspoken anarchists.
• Exalted, one half of fantasy fiction meets the other half.
  • Alternatively, Exalted is The Lord of the Rings meets Tengen Toppa Gurren Lagann.
• F.A.T.A.L. can be summed up as D&D meets hardcore porn and math textbooks. But that's an insult to D&D and math textbooks, and most hardcore porn.
  • FATAL is European folklore meets untreated schizophrenia meets I'd really rather not think about what else.
  • FATAL is Dungeons & Dragons written by all the most bigoted, obnoxious white guys on 4chan.
• Final Girl is Hostage Negotiator meets over a dozen horror movies and TV.
• Gone to Hell is Polaris: Chivalric Tragedy at Utmost North meets Doom (2016).
• GURPS is d20 Modern meets Champions.
  • Or, perhaps, TV Tropes meets Point Build.
  • GURPS Cthulhupunk is quite literally Call of Cthulhu meets GURPS Cyberworld.
• Infinity is Warhammer 40,000 meets Cyberpunk.
• Ironclaw is Game of Thrones with the cast from Disney's Robin Hood (1973).
• Lancer is Titanfall meets Kill Six Billion Demons.
• Lost Worlds (and its Japanese twin series Queen's Blade) is Dungeons & Dragons meets Street Fighter, with a dash of Conan the Barbarian and Blood Sport. And Fanservice by the ton.
  • Queen's Blade Grimoire is Queen's Blade meets fairy tales meets Fist of the North Star.
• Magic: The Gathering: Phyrexia is the Borg meet H. R. Giger (minus the sexual imagery, most of the time) meet The Legions of Hell meet Nazi Germany. They're generally pleasant guys.
  • The Eldrazi were specifically designed as Cthulhu meets Galactus.
  • The plane of Eldraine, setting for the set Throne of Eldraine, was explicitly set up as Fairy Tales meets Arthurian Legend.
  • The plane Ikoria is Monster Hunter meets Pokémon meets Godzilla.
  • The game itself can be described as Dungeons & Dragons meets UNO.
• Mekton is Gundam meets Traveller, with optional rules adding Macross and Zoids into the mix.
• Monsterpocalypse is Mazinger Z, meets Godzilla, meets Ultraman, meets Cthulhu, and every other Kaiju stereotype thrown in.
• Monster of the Week is Supernatural, Buffy the Vampire Slayer and as many other shows of that nature they could find, run into a blender.
• Mortasheen is Pokémon (or Digimon) meets David Cronenberg, but far, far stranger than you can possibly imagine.

  • Alternatively, Pokémon meets Warhammer 40,000 meets Gamma World meets The Nightmare Before Christmas

• Night's Black Agents is Burn Notice meets The X-Files, assuming you run a brief find/replace that replaces the word "alien" with "vampire".
• Paranoia is basically Portal meets I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream.
  • Paranoia is described by its creators as Kafka meets Orwell meets the Marx Brothers.
  • Alternatively, Paranoia is Judge Dredd meets Brazil
• Pendragon is RuneQuest meets Le Morte d'Arthur.
• Pokémon Trading Card Game is Pokémon meets hanafuda. (In fact, Nintendo is still making hanafuda cards, including Pokémon-themed hanafuda cards, but Pokémon TCG can be seen as a Spiritual Successor to the hanafuda playing cards made by Nintendo.)
• The Riddle of Steel is Rolemaster meets RuneQuest.
• Rifts is Dungeons & Dragons meets Mad Max meets Robotech.
• Savage Worlds is Deadlands meets GURPS.
• Scion insists it's American Gods meets Exalted, actually Class of the Titans (though multi-pantheon) meets Exalted would be a much closer summary.
  • Or Percy Jackson and the Olympians meets Supernatural.
• Shadowrun is Warhammer meets the collected works of William Gibson meets Blade Runner meets the collected works of Neal Stephenson.
  • Or Warhammer meets Final Fantasy meets Cyberpunk, with dash of Dungeons & Dragons.
• SLA Industries is Blade Runner meets A Clockwork Orange.
• Splicers is Terminator meets Guyver.
• Superfight! is Apples to Apples meets "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny".
  • With the "Not-4-Kids" Red Box Expansion, it becomes Cards Against Humanity meets "The Ultimate Showdown of Ultimate Destiny".
• Teenagers from Outer Space is Urusei Yatsura meets Saved by the Bell.
• ToeShamBo is Tic-Tac-Toe meets Rock–Paper–Scissors.
• Warhammer 40,000 is the original Warhammer meets Dune, Go Nagai (especially Devilman), Alien, Starship Troopers, Foundation, Star Wars, Judge Dredd, Traveller, Nineteen Eighty-Four, Doom, and pretty much any science fiction, dystopia, or horror trope or story the current author feels like mixing in.
  • Alternatively, for non-fans and newer fans of the series, it's StarCraft meets Berserk.
  • It could also be described as your Standard Sci Fi Setting injected with a cocktail of every drug known to man and genuine lunar dust, stuck in a blender with Alien, Mechwarrior, Starship Troopers, Star Wars, and teeny, tiny sprinkles of Judge Dredd and 2000 AD, embellished with spikes and prayer scrolls, bathed in blood and turned up to Eleventy Zillion (and then set on fire). Twice. With 8ft chainsaws.
  • Or Warhammer meets Starship Troopers, Dune, Judge Dredd and Nemesis the Warlock.
    • The Imperium is House Atreides meets The Galactic Empire meets The (Late) Roman Empire meets The Spanish Inquisition meets Nazi Germany meets Soviet Russia, with a bit of The Party. Yes, it is that sort of place. And they're the good guys, theoretically.
    • The God-Emperor of Mankind is Sigmar Heldenhammer meets Leto II Atreides with some elemets of Big Brother and King Arthur.
    • The Forces of Chaos are Warhammer 40,000 meets Planescape meets Spelljammer meets Nobilis meets C°ntinuum: roleplaying in The Yet meets Dragon Ball Z meets AKIRA meets DC's Green Lantern comics meets Orion's Arm meets Transhuman Space meets Rifts meets Gamma World meets the The Invisibles comics meets Deus Ex meets The Illuminatus! book trilogy meets the Night's Dawn trilogy by Peter F. Hamilton meets the collected works of Robert A. Heinlein.
    • The Eldar are the High Elves from Warhammer Fantasy crossed with Ninja and Samurai plus a whole load of xenophobia and giant mechs.
    • The Dark Eldar variety are the Dark Elves meet the Cenobites and Reavers to the mix.
    • Meanwhile, the Exodites take the Wood Elves and Na'Vi path instead.
    • Orcs are The Lord of the Rings Orcs meets British football hooligans. Same in Warhammer 40,000, only IN SPACE and crossed with the villains of Mad Max.
    • Tyranids are Xenomorphs plus Arachnids plus Real Life hive mind type insects like ants or bees.
    • Necrons are the Terminators meets the Tomb Kings.
    • The Adeptus Astartes are the Marauders and the Sardaukar meet The Teutonic Knights and The Knights Templar.
    • The Imperial Guard is the Mobile Infantry meets Sturmtruppen.
    • The Adepta Sororitas are the Bene Gesserit with trappings of Joan of Arc.
    • Fulgrim is Ryo Asuka meets Char Aznable meets Frieza meets Terry Silver.
    • Horus Lupercal is Archaon the Everchosen meets Anakin Skywalker/Darth Vader.
    • Abaddon the Despoiler is Horus Lupercal meets Morgoth meets Megatron meets Cobra Commander.
    • Fabius Bile is Victor Frankenstein meets Josef Mengele meets Red Skull.
    • Ferrus Manus is Akira Fudo meets Sandor Clegane meets Daniel LaRusso meets Johnny Lawrence.
    • Roboute Guilliman is Karl Franz meets Julius Caesar meets Augustus meets Aurelian meets Optimus Prime meets Obi-Wan Kenobi meets Paul Atreides.
    • Jaghatai Khan is Genghis Khan meets Takeshi Hongo.
    • Leman Russ is Wulfrik the Wanderer meets Thor (both the mythological and comic book one) meets Wolverine.
  • The Warhammer 40,000 RPG's are Warhammer 40,000 meets Dungeons & Dragons. Sort of. For individual games:
    • Dark Heresy is Warhammer 40,000 meets Shadowrun meets Paranoia.
    • Rogue Trader is Warhammer 40,000 meets Traveller meets A Song of Ice and Fire.
    • Deathwatch is Warhammer 40,000 meets Exalted meets Delta Green.
    • Black Crusade is Warhammer 40,000 meets The World of Darkness meets Darth Bane.
    • Only War is Warhammer 40,000 meets BattleTech meets Aliens.
• The original Warhammer is Tolkien's Legendarium meets The Elric Saga meets Conan the Barbarian meets Discworld meets Cthulhu Mythos meets Devilman meets Berserk filtered through the satirical dark comedy of Monty Python's Flying Circus and set in the 15th-17th century.
  • Alternatively for newer fans, it's Dungeons & Dragons meets Game of Thrones meets 1980s British satire.
  • Malekith would be a cross between Revan and Satan, with a measure of Ferdinand Magellan thrown in, but he predates Revan. Alternatively, he's Darth Vader meets The Fair Folk.
  • Nagash is Sauron meets the Lich King meets Voldemort.
  • Sigmar Heldenhammer is Charlemagne meets Jesus meets Conan the Barbarian meets Thor.
  • The Ogre Kingdoms are Shrek meets the Hordes from the East with the gluttony and mentality (especially the gluttony) of Homer Simpson.
  • Archaon the Everchosen is Jagreen Lern meets Arthas Menethil.
  • Balthazar Gelt is Albus Dumbledore meets Scrooge Mcduck meets Colonel Kilgore.
  • Sigvald the Magnificent is Joffrey Baratheon meets Vega
  • Wulfrik the Wanderer is Karsa Orlong meets Violence Jack meets Kraven the Hunter meets the Heroes of the Icelandic Sagas.
  • Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay is Warhammer meets Call of Cthulhu with even more Dung Ages and Gallows Humor.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar is basically Warhammer Fantasy meets Warhammer 40,000. The setting has also been called Norse Mythology meets the Stargate-verse.
• Old World of Darkness might overall be best described as Hellboy meets Shin Megami Tensei. As for the individual gamelines...
  • One may describe Vampire: The Masquerade as John Wick meets basically any kind of vampire media, but especially Interview with the Vampire
  • Werewolf: The Apocalypse is Princess Mononoke meets The Toxic Avenger AT THE END OF THE WORLD.
  • Mage: The Ascension is Hellblazer meets The Matrix meets Twin Peaks meets Steins;Gate meets SCP Foundation meets... well, we could be here all day.
• Yu-Gi-Oh! is Magic: The Gathering meets Shin Megami Tensei.
• Zombicide: Black Plague: Zombicide meets Dungeons & Dragons.

---