Mapping the Mundane: How Fantasy in My Backyard Reclaims the City

Fantasy in My Backyard, the latest indie innovation from the TTRPG design space, effectively weaponizes the geography of your own neighborhood to create a localized urban fantasy setting. For years, Game Masters have struggled with the Dresden Files dilemma: how do you make a real-world city feel magical without spending forty hours cross-referencing Wikipedia and local transit maps? This system bypasses the labor-intensive world-building phase by utilizing the most powerful database at our disposal—Google Maps—and layering a sophisticated, card-driven mechanical framework over it. It is a rejection of the generic, pre-packaged city module in favor of something visceral and immediate.

The crunch here is surprisingly robust for an indie tool. Instead of traditional hex-crawling, players utilize a Node and Path system derived from real-world landmarks. You start by selecting a focal point—your local coffee shop, a historic library, or even a nondescript parking garage. From there, the mechanics utilize a standard 52-card deck to assign mystical properties to these locations. A King of Diamonds might turn the local bank into a literal dragon’s hoard, while a Three of Spades transforms a subway tunnel into a necrotic vein. This procedural approach ensures that no two neighborhoods play the same. It’s a design philosophy that mirrors the tactical depth found in modern skirmish games like Kill Team 2024, where terrain and positioning are paramount, but applied to the macro-scale of a city map. The interaction between the card suits and the map features creates a logic that feels earned rather than randomized.

Lore-wise, Fantasy in My Backyard operates on the Veil trope, but with mechanical teeth. The fluff isn't just flavor text; it’s a living document of your town’s secret history. The system encourages players to discover why the local park has a high concentration of Fey energy, linking the mechanical card draws to the narrative stakes. This isn't just a gimmick; it’s a way to ground high-concept fantasy in the familiar. When your party realizes the Blight is spreading from the local DMV, the stakes feel personal in a way that a generic fantasy kingdom never could. It’s reminiscent of the narrative weight found in the Commander Format, where the identity of the deck—or in this case, the city—defines the entire play experience. You aren't just playing a character; you are defending or exploiting your actual home.

At the table, the feel is one of constant discovery. There is a specific psychological thrill in seeing a familiar commute reimagined as a gauntlet of arcane hazards. Using high-quality tarot decks to draw these encounters adds a tactile, ritualistic element to the session that digital tools often lack. The game avoids the pitfall of being a mere map-maker; it is a catalyst for improvisation. The veteran GM will appreciate how the system handles scale—you can zoom in on a single block for a tactical encounter or zoom out to the entire county for a long-form campaign. It bridges the gap between the narrative freedom of 5th Edition and the structured exploration of older dungeon-crawling traditions.

Is it a replacement for a fully realized setting like Ravnica? No. But it isn't trying to be. It is a toolkit for the creative, a way to strip away the corporate fluff of pre-packaged modules and return to the roots of TTRPGs: making something unique with your friends. It demands that you look at the mundane world through a lens of wonder and danger, turning every dead-end street into a potential plot hook. For groups that have grown tired of the same old tavern starts, this is the mechanical shot in the arm your table needs to make the mundane world feel dangerous again.