Recommending Free RPGs

[jeffmoore]

There are so many free RPGs available on the web for those who want to look. Some are great! Others... not so much. I tend to prefer smaller packages... there are plenty of 100+ page volumes out there too and these are also excellent... (look at Icar, or OSRIC or FATE or Brutal... fantastic!) But my tastes gravitate towards the smaller more easily digestible package... quick to read, cheap to print, easy to share.

I was telling some friends that I could likely run a different RPG every week for the rest of my life and never spend a dime. There just might be that much good stuff is out there...

I have a blog page that I neglect terribly so I decided to make it about recommending free RPGs ... this will give me a reason to stay active with the page ... the first RPG that I have recommended is Gangland from here at 1km1kt.com by Jason Kline. It's clean and easy and a great game in a small package.

The next one I have recommended is Legends of the Ancient World by Dark City Games... I will continue to make recommendations the plan is at least one a week and to only recommend games I actually would like to play. (This I think will set me apart from various free RPG archives... this isn't a collection of everything... just my person picks from the cream of the crop.)

If you are curious my blog page is:

If you have a recommendation for me of free games that I might like to play... I'd love to hear them.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

Thank you for listing one of my games in your list of recomendations. (And first no less!) My last name is mispelled in the blog - its Kline - but no reason to make a big deal of it.

This is a valuble service you're providing. I've got over a gig of free rpgs on my computer. However, I'm more of a collector since I haven't had the time or players to try most of them out. There is a lot of good stuff out there, recomendations on where to start will prove helpful.

Two games I'd recomend off the top of my head are Zaibatsu (a cyberpunk game set in Japan) and Incarnate (where PCs can acess skills from past lives in times of need)





Unfortunatly, some of the games in my collection are no longer availible onthe net, so it will take a while for me to comb through and offer anymore sugestions.

Keep up the good work, and thanks again.

[jeffmoore]

Oops sorry about the misspell... fixed it right away! Thanks for the recommendations!! I'll check them out!!

[ErrinF]

When I first discovered all the free RPGs in pdf form that are available for download online, I got just about every one I could get my hands on. While I do believe in the motto "to each their own", I discovered over time that a lot of the free RPGs just weren't keepers. Too many were too massive, and even more were just not innovative or designed well. So I ended up getting rid of a lot of them, and have instead created a library of free RPGs that are almost all from the 1km1kt/RPG Lab crowd, as we have quite a number of talented people among us who know how to make an innovative, well-designed, easy-to-read RPGs. I totally subscribe to the 'less is more' principle when it comes to RPGs, as I believe many of us have exemplified time and again via the one page RPG challenges. Though one page RPGs are a breed of their own, they still sum up what I feel makes an effective RPG: A truly accessible, playable RPG should be of short to medium length, easy to digest and easy to start playing. It should be designed well to look good, so as to make the reading of rules all the more enjoyable and easy. It's surprising how many game designers seem to lose track of that, and I wonder what some of them were thinking by making some of the truly massive free RPGs out there. I guess I've just never expected any players to be THAT into my free RPG. The largest pdf file for one of my free RPGs is probably Haunted Houses, and, while I enjoyed making it and am proud of it, I am never making a RPG that big again. And it's size is nothing compared to some of the deadweight out there in free RPG form!

On a side note, I quickly checked out your blog (not sure if blogspot actually gets that much traffic, but good luck with your blog there), and noticed you were promoting Vs Monsters as an excellent example of a 24 Hour RPG. It is indeed an excellent game (I have it in my collection), but I have always had big reservations about truly accepting it as a 24 hour RPG. While I'd like to take the author's word for it, that would have been a very busy 24 hours to make an RPG pdf with that good of a design and layout. I doubt if I'm the only person to have such suspicions. While the majority of Vs Monsters probably was made in a 24 hour period, I think the artwork and concept might have enjoyed a pre-production period. Since the game's designer is innocent until proven guilty, I accept his word that his game was made in 24 hours, but that doesn't mean I can't have my doubts. It's all secondary, though... all that matters is that Vs Monsters is a truly excellent RPG, and probably one of the better laid out designs out there in the free RPG world.

[ravensron]

You certainly know how to pick 'em! Loved your link to Animalball site. Where have these guys been the past 30 years??!! The e-mail address on the site didn't work, so couldn't express my appreciation directly to them but want to thank you for your perception in picking them out.

[jeffmoore]

Isn't "Animalball Melee" fantastic! The next time I run a fantasy campaign I am going to use Animalball Melee for my core rules... it's a OGL product so adapting existing D&D materials (modules, spells, etc...) should be a breeze. The "Melee" game is completely magic free so I can start the game as a "low magic" / "low fantasy" campaign and introduce the magic as I go... this should make it all really rare and special. (Although I'd love to see these guys write Animalball Wizard as a supplement in the same vein as Animalball Melee.)

[Max W]

They're talking about free pen and paper RPGs. Not computer games.

I'd recommend Roguelike, but only if you can handle the bad system. Aside from a few glaring (but easily corrected) flaws, I really like it.

[Chainsaw Aardvark]

While I haven't had a chance to play most of the games you've suggested, I have started reading YAFGC - and gotten about 200 strips in over the past two or three days. Thanks for pointing it out!

I don't recall if has been mentioned around here, but its something to check out. It began as an attempt at re-imagining how someone might go about making the very first RPG in the 70s. At some points its intentionally a little less than smooth (ie all weapons do the same damage, limited number of classes) but there are some very interesting elements included as well. (the random roll for spell costs obsfucating the number of spells you can cast per day in rather unique!)

The project even goes so far as to include a "second edition/Advanced M&M" set of PDFs as well.

is a nice game about modern day supernatural events. It has mechanics for players to call upon their past lives to gain new skills in times of crisis.

Unfortunately, my favorite fantasy game - Sacred Steel - has disappeared from the net.

[Max W]

Oh yeah, speaking of Mazes and Minotaurs, I think someone here might have said that they couldn't get a copy compatible with their operating system. If that was someone here, I think I can get you a readable copy in an image format. But it was probably on some other forum.

And I just checked out Sacred Steel (archive), and it looks really good. The thing about necromancers developing necrophilia is hilarious.

[alexwm1234]

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