Statement begins. The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game is based on a horror podcast that helped me get through a dark time in my life. The anthology series created by Jonathan Sims and Alexander J. Newall has a dedicated fanbase thanks to its blend of interesting characters, clinical office drudgery, dry British humor, and horror stories slowly weaving a tapestry of human suffering and cosmic terror. It, ironically, was a place of comfort for me during Covid lockdown.
So I had to see how Monte Cooke Games would adapt it into a TTRPG. The result is a game that is the Cypher System's answer to Call of Cthulhu or Arkham Horror. Thanks to some smart design decisions and a dedication to the source material's core themes, this is a licensed RPG that manages to appease fans while giving general players room for their horrific imaginations to run wild.

The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game – Another Day At The Office
In The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game, players take on the roles of employees at the Magnus Institute, an organization dedicated to archiving and investigating supernatural accounts.
But for every overworked college student who claimed to see a ghost or some conspiracy theorist going on about shadowy government dealings, there are statements that demand further investigation.
Missing persons cases. Serial killers with strange motives. A string of unexplained phenomena around urban legends or mysterious books. These are the statements where the players' skills are greatly tested.
As these investigations continue, the players will uncover dark secrets at the heart of the world. Cults. Artifacts on untold power. World-changing Rituals. All of these are tied in one way or another to eldritch horrors known as Entities. As the players dive further into this world of madness and horror, they will learn to fight back against these Entities and their followers, forever changing in the process. That is, assuming they survive that long.

The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game – Gazing Into The Abyss
Character creation in The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game is similar to other games that use the Cypher System. Your character is determined by four Types: Occultist, Elocutionist, Investigator, and Protector, and are made more distinct with Descriptors and Foci. Each character has three stats each with a pool of points. These points can be spent to use certain abilities or provide bonuses to dice rolls.
Each investigation in The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game is broken up into two parts. First is The Statement. This is a written statement submitted to the Institute by someone describing something unusual that happened to them. The statement can be written in isolation by the GM or it can be made collaboratively by all players at the table with final adjustments made by the GM.
The second part is The Investigation. Using the Statement as a reference, the players go into the field, checking areas of interest, interviewing eyewitnesses, or finding corroborating evidence. This investigation usually ends with the group encountering something supernatural, leading to a dangerous chase or fight for their lives.

Overall, this structure is great at building atmosphere. Magnus Archives fans should be familiar with The Statement portion; it was the main structure of the podcast after all. The Investigation serves as the second half of a horror story where all the intrigue and suspense pays off with jump scares, existential revelations, or bloody violence.
It is where the Call of Cthulhu parallels are apparent. This is most obvious in the introduction of the Stress system. Players gain Stress from both minor and major events during an investigation. Getting lightly cut on broken glass. Witnessing a person sink into a pool of brackish water. Being trapped in a corridor that goes on forever. Reading a certain book.
When Stress hits certain levels, their skill rolls are hindered. At higher levels, Stress can cause physical damage or even outright kill players. Lastly, relieving Stress will take time, leading to persistent maintenance.
The Stress system is the mechanical highlight of The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game. It's an elegant addition to the Cypher System that conveys the game's cosmic horror roots

It doesn't undermine the core of Cypher thanks to small mechanical tweaks made in the system's foundation. For players, getting hurt doesn't drain a character's different resource Pools. Furthermore, reducing Stress is separate from a recovery roll, taking about an hour of in-game time.
On the GM side, there is a mechanic called Horror Mode. This mode, meant to signal a shift into danger and suspense for the party, can cause further Stress and even cascading complications if the dice turn bad. The result is that players can push their luck with more Effort but are harrowed by managing their mental health.
The latter is important since Stress can serve as a perverse form of character progression. Players are encouraged to keep track of how much Stress they have gained throughout a campaign, including the causes of that Stress. The reason for this is if a character gains a certain amount of Stress, they can gain access to supernatural powers. If they go further, that character may become an Avatar: a supernatural agent of an Entity.

It makes for great drama. An extroverted character turns into an Avatar of The Lonely, isolating themselves from their peers until vanishing from sight. Highly individualistic investigators getting twisted into caricatures by The Stranger. The list goes on.
It's a well-thought-out system. Avatars have access to terrifying powers like boiling people from the inside or changing their bodies into deadly claws, but every time they call upon this power, they gain Stress. And Avatar or not, Stress can still kill.

The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game – Adaptation and Inspiration
Monte Cook Games' went the extra mile with The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game. As an adaptation of the source material, the book does a great job of portraying the world of the Magnus Institute and its various characters. The book is well-formatted, making rules reference quick and painless. The artwork is stunning, portraying iconic sequences from the podcast courtesy of Bear Weiter, Roberto Pitturu, and Javier P. Beltran.
On the fan service side of things, just about every iconic artifact and monster from The Magnus Archives is represented in this core rulebook. There's an entire section of the book dedicated to the library of Jurgen Leitner from The Boneturner's Tale to The Seven Lamps of Architecture. The book's bestiary also contains memorable monsters like the NotThem, the Monster Pig, and The Man Who Wasn't There. There are even entries for entities and artifacts mentioned in throwaway lines like a certain spooky wardrobe.

But these inclusions are expected for a licensed RPG. What puts The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game on another level is how it uses the text of the source material to give its players carte blanche in its world.
One section of the book discusses the broad story beats of all five seasons of the podcast, including its apocalyptic finale. Near the end of this recap, it explicitly states that due to the nature of how the podcast ends, there are multiple parallel realities where the Entities are free to spread their terror anew. Essentially, every campaign in The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game is an alternate reality where things play out differently.
That malleability is a persistent feature. Major characters don't have stat blocks; they are represented as archetypes. Jurgen Leitner is The Book Collector, Mikaele Salesa is The Artefact Dealer, Michael/Helen is The Distortion. This means your campaign can have different characters fill in these archetypes as you wish, keeping your campaigns interesting for both fans and newcomers alike.

This extends to monsters as well. There are simple but effective rules for creating original monsters and mixing and matching elements of different Entities. The book even has suggestions for adapting famous myths like Bloody Mary or The Hat Man.
This express permission to adapt and change made my home campaign all the more memorable. Instead of working for The Magnus Institute, my players were hired by The Usher Foundation, the US-based sister institution. Thanks to some tweaks provided by the core rulebook, the switch in location and voice felt like a natural extension of the Magnus universe. For someone whose GM style errs more on creative expression than adherence to text, it is a design decision I cannot praise enough.

Should I Pick Up The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game?
The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game may just be my favorite cosmic horror TTRPG. It takes the foundation of the award-winning podcast series and expands it with both reverence and creativity. In addition, it adds a welcome layer of horror to Monte Cook's accessible Cypher System.
If you are looking for a new twist on stale Lovecraftian tropes, check this book out. Statement ends.
The copy of The Magnus Archives Roleplaying Game used in this review was purchased by the author - all screenshots were taken by the author.
Review Summary
Pros
- Lovingly Adapts The Source Material
- Elegent, Effective Stress System Adds Tension and Suspense
- Gives Players and GMs Creative Freedom and Tools
Cons
- May Not Be For You If You're Not Into Investigations