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Monday, June 27, 2011

How Many Freely Available RPGs Are There?

Well, it isnt infinite, but the list on the left of this post just keeps growing.  It seems I'm constantly having those "how the hell did I forget THAT one?"

Added, in no particular order of preference to the List of Free RPG Rules:

Bill Coffin's Septimus and the D6 core Bundle from West End Games.  The same engine that powered Star Wars back in the day.

FUDGE, cause, like, its  been around forever (and is a pretty cool ruleset)

Old School Hack - hey, people play it and like it.  It's Old School and New School.  It's a Reese's Peanut Butter Cup!

The System - Old School crunch heavy.  Missed it the first time around, which isnt a surprise.

Pars Fortuna - a Swords & Wizardry variant - 'nuff said!

Lost Souls (i own a 1st printing), Legendary Lives (another 1st printing), Khaotic (never owned) and Crimes People Play (never released back in the day) original published by Marquee Press and released to the masses for free in PDF by the author, Joe Williams.  Good stuff from the early 90's.

Oh, and Mapping Resources is now its own list.

10 comments:

  1. Stay away from http://www.thefreerpgblog.com/
    He lists dozens of them & has a delicious list of hundreds... and his isn't the longest out there. However the longer ones are mostly dead & have lots of linkrot.

    ReplyDelete
  2. I was about to link freerpgblog as well. Lots of good stuff there.

    Also, Risus: The Anything RPG is a great free game.
    http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/risus.htm

    ReplyDelete
  3. Stargazer Games has some great freebies, most notably Warrior, Rogue, Mage http://www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/ which is spawning fan hacks in other genres (pulp, spy, cyberpunk, scifi)

    Atomic Sock Monkey also has some good freebies. I heartily recommend PDQ# for a robust, rules-light system: a swashbuckling take on the more generic system PDQ. PDQ# is the engine that Swashbucklers of the Seven Skies uses. http://www.atomicsockmonkey.com/freebies/PDQ.pdf

    ReplyDelete
  4. Mazes and Minotaurs is one of my favorite free systems!

    http://storygame.free.fr/MM1.html

    Its a game that started out as a question. "What if Gygax and Arneson were inspired by Greek mythology instead of sword and sorcery fiction?" So imagine original D&D written from that standpoint. Its a full system with lots of supplements, etc. and its always and forever 100% free. The game plays as well as most old school games (including 1st and basic edition D&D). Its a really cool game system!!

    ReplyDelete
  5. John Higgins of Relative Entropy Games has both Engines & Empires and Retro Phaze up on Lulu for free.

    http://stores.lulu.com/relative-entropy

    Not direct links to the downloads but to his store front.

    ReplyDelete
  6. We play AssassinX at least a couple times a year still. Although to be honest I run it less often now that the author is part of my gaming group.

    http://www.1km1kt.net/rpg/assassinx

    ReplyDelete
  7. Second the nomination of Risus and PDQ (and PDQ#).

    ReplyDelete
  8. @canageek & cityofdoors - I love thefreerpgblog.com. I grabbed Dave'sMapper from there, and plan on grabbing a few more

    @atminn - how the heck did i forget Stargazer Games?!? oh, and Risus and PDQ too?

    @lordofexcess - Mazes & Minotaurs is on the list ;)

    @Smackcrow - gonna give them both a look

    @Dyson Logos - will peek at that too

    @Risus Monkey - Ithink this list will need to be broken down, its getting huge... heh

    ReplyDelete
  9. It's worth adding Cascade Failure, a free D&D based sci-fi system from Greg Christopher of Dark Horse games (the same guy who did Errant).

    ReplyDelete
  10. I'd also vote for WR&M by Stargazer www.stargazergames.eu/games/warrior-rogue-mage/

    and think you should add Dungeonslayers: www.dungeonslayers.com/

    ReplyDelete

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