Ultimate Free RPGs - Because Stealing is Caring

So, this is a post inspired by Ryan Macklin who was inspired by John Harper. Instead of putting out what's the must play games for designers, or ... whatever John Harper said because I didn't look that far back, I have a question for the few, the proud, etc.

What would you consider to be three free RPGs that you would recommend to people as some of the best free RPGs that are out there and why? Now, you don't have to have played them or even liked them, but what ones do you think people need to read.

Here are my three.

1. Warrior, Rogue, Mage
This is one of the tightest free fantasy games out there. It doesn't have a setting so you can drop it anywhere, and it's got a great premise in regards to how your characters are made. You're just basically made up of how much of a warrior, rogue, or mage you are. Any skill stuff that you do is based off of that, and for a traditional RPG it's so fast to plug and play that it's a great introduction game for a lot of people. They've got a pile of supplements, and you should check them out.

2. Metropole Luxury Coffin
One of the best cyberpunk games ever made that you might never have heard of.  The link for the game is in the review over at the Free RPG Blog, but it's great because it's not about doing all the cybercrime that you'd find in something like Shadowrun, Cyberpunk, Tech Noir etc.  No, it's about the every day existence in a world where your credit is the only thing keeping you from being dragged off to the work camps. You and the other players are all living at the Metropole Luxury Coffin and you're all working on schemes that will help you get enough face time to get out of that dive. It's totally the cyberpunk version of the Trailer Park Boys. It has rules for fashion people, fashion!

It was the winner of the Cyberpunk Revival Project on 1km1kt.

3. Eclipse Phase
Now people might feel that this is a bit of a stretch, but Eclipse Phase is licensed under Creative Commons. That means you can get many copies of the book for free, they provide a bunch of epub formats on the website and have lots of different places you can pick it up. That said, if you like it buy the product because that's how they can keep making more stuff. What they're doing is allowing you to check it out before you buy, and you should the stuff is damned pretty.  That being said, they're really the only Transhumanity game out there, and they do a damned good job with it which means it's probably going to be the only Transhumanity game for a while.

"Free RPG Day" - Every year, the games really aren't free

Now this seems to be a thing because there is "Free Comic Book Day" and now the past couple of years have had "Free RPG Day."  While this is a great idea, I would perhaps like to draw your attention to some games that are actually Free.

1. Eclipse Phase

What is this Jonathan?  But this is a game with high production values!  Clearly it can't be free.  Well, the whole game is licensed under a BY-NC-SA (the text, which is the important part).  That means that if you want, you can download the game on their resources page in epub and other formats.  Download the game, try it, if you like it don't be a douche bag and buy their very reasonably priced PDF for 15$.

2. Leviathans

While the minis aren't free, the game is licensed also under a BY-NC-SA license, though I think it's a lot less than what's licensed under Eclipse phase.  That being said, there's a lot of free perusing under there that's worth your time.

3. 44: A Game of Automatic Fear

This is now available in print, but you can still pick up the free copy of the game on 1KM1KT.  Matt Snyder's game about alien take over is pretty damned fun, and I can say that because I played it too.  It's a blast to run and you'll constantly have your characters running away from whatever has come to take them over.

4. FATE

The FATE system is under OGL, which means that you can find a lot of resources on how to use it for free. That's right, there many online SRDs and other such things to get you going on playing just straight FATE if you haven't heard of it (which mean you have been living under a rock as of late).  There are also a bunch of great games you can pick up that use FATE like Bulldogs!, or the Dresden Files, or the Kerberos Club.

5. Critical!: Go Westerly

This is your own game, you might say.  I would say in reply yes it is.  It also has a Creative Commons version which is free.  Play it, try the game out, see what you think and then if you like it spend the 5 bucks on the full version of the game.  It's a lot of fun, and Free for Free RPG Day.

As always a lot of these free games have a pay version of the game.  Unlike a lot of the games you'll find on Free RPG Day they are fully playable in an of themselves.  There isn't a "quick start" game where you get some of the rules, but if you want the whole thing you're gonna have to pay.  There are no teasers, or trailers.  You can read these rules and go ahead and play the game.

That being said, if you like the game support the designers that made playing that game possible.  That way, you can make sure that you end up getting more games from those same designers which means that you'll have more things that you can play.  It's pretty simple, actually when you think about it.

Critical!: Go Westerly - You All Meet in a Tavern

Hey Folks,

We've published our first Adventure for Critical!: Go Westerly.  It's called You All Meet in a Tavern and it's a lot of fun.  I know, I've run it several times.

The description of the adventure is as follows:

Embrace the Standard Fantasy Trope!  As a fledgling adventurer you have decided that the best way to get into the business is by attending the monthly Adventurer-Nite at the local White Griffon Tavern.  You meet your fellow companions, you get Your First Quest™ and are about ready to go when events happen that change the course of history.  Or at least it's something more interesting than whatever Your First Quest™ was going to be.

It can be had at Drive Thru RPG and eventually up at IPR, I still haven't totally figured out how to get things set up there properly.

Previously Generated - How to Destroy your Hometown

The folks over at 1km1kt.net (or more specifically Rob) have come up with a fun little rolling system to mess up your home town. It needs a map, and some crayong and the fun little list.

You should check it out on 1km1kt.net. The thread is here.

Critical!: Creative Commons

Hey Folks,

For all those looking for the Creative Commons version of Critical! it's up on Drivethru RPG. The link is here.

I didn't really learn my lesson from Rob over at the free rpg blog. It's a cut and paste job from the rules, hopefully though they will still make sense.

Check it out, tell your friends, let the world know!

Previously Generated - Shelter In Place - Character Sheets

Some of you might already have Shelter in Place by Galileo Games. It looks like a lot of fun and I'm running it for my partner's son for his birthday this weekend. I went through the book, figured I'd go and print out all the character sheets on nice solid stock so that they can take a beating from the bunch of teenagers that are going to mangle the things.

To help me out I went digital and went to their website to find the cool stuff that's going to be there. Except that ... well ... there isn't anything there. There are some nice links you can visit where you can hear the game is awesome. You can check the downloads page and find downloads for all the games ... except Shelter In Place.

So ... yeah. That kind of sucked. However, with some can do spirit and some layout software I managed to make up my own set of Character Sheets. These will fit on a regular 8.5 x 11 page, landscape, and it is set up so that if you print them double sided you will get a zombie on the back of every page. That mean you can hand them out, and then let people switch sides without having to deal with a whole new batch of character sheets.

You're welcome.

If you want to download the file, you can do so here.

Signal Boost!: Curse the Darkness - Playtest Stuff!

Okay, I don't know if you've been following Matthew MacFarland's Curse the Darkness? It looks like a lot of fun, and it touches on post-apoc stuff which is very firmly in the category of games I enjoy playing.

What I'm doing is letting everyone know that he's got a playtest booklet out that you can download from his website. It looks great and I'll let people know what it's like after I've read it more and played it.

Suggestion Box - Free Games

Dr. Rob Lang who run the wonderful site 1km1kt.net (at the behest of OUR GLORIOUS BENEFACTOR!) and has The Free RPG Blog put forth a request over at Story Games asking for feedback on his How to Write a Free RPG stuff. Personally I like it, I think it's fun and informative and with any How To Guide you pick what you want and discard the rest. Rob gives good advice that you can use to write large scrawling RPGs, or as Jonathan Walton mentioned you could even use this advise to write campaigns and large story arc games.

However, the good old fashioned "STOP MAKING FREE GAMES" nugget rose up again. Which I'm disappointed to have heard considering that Story Games does a lot of work with Game Chef, see Jonathan Walton championing free games.

I disagree with the STOP MAKING FREE GAMES! argument. To me it's pretty similar to the whole "STOP MAKING GAMES" gem that dropped in December. To that I say keep making games, make all the games that you want and put them out there however you want.

Because it's worth repeating, I figured I would relink all the games that are Free that I think are awesome. Feel free to download them and play them with your friends, family, allies, and enemies. Recommend them to anyone and everyone you know.

1. Warrior Rogue Mage
2. Lady Blackbird
3. Metropole Luxury Coffin
4. Action City
5. The Droog Family Songbook
6. Geasa
7. Three Black Crows, Three Dead Men

What Free Games do you suggest? There are already some good ones in the comments of a previous post on the subject.

Dave's Mapper - Amazing stuff

I'm going to be lazy and just link to Rob's blog in regards to Dave's Mapper.

OMG it's amazing and you should check it out. The best part is that it's free.

Free RPG adendum - Because It really needs to be here

Hey folks, one more quick free game for you to enjoy on this Free RPG weekend.

6. Three Black Crows, Three Dead Men

Brennan wrote a lovely little macabre game where you play three crows talking about the three corpses that are hanging in the gallows. You will use various pieces of the corpses to describe who they were as you play three crows with varying personalities. It takes about 30 minutes to play and is a riot the whole time.

Free RPG Day - Ode to Free RPGs and not just whatever was put out ...

Today was free RPG day and while I appreciate the sentiment I think that there's a lot of people who need to understand that it can be free RPG day every single day and not just when people feel that it's an opportunity to provide a marketing push for RPGs as a whole, though really only the ones that can afford to print a whole pile of free material in the hopes that you will pick up their books.

Where to begin? I guess the first thing is to try to see if you have a bias against free RPGs. I know I developed one over the years. I know when I was a teenager and this new-fangled internet thing was still new I used to look everywhere for free RPGs. I was but a youth and had no cash and this looked like it could be used to provide hours of entertainment.

Then I got a job and started being able to buy stuff and soon fell into the siren song of paid for RPGs. Clearly they have to be better than the free alternatives right?

That is not the case at all. In fact, I think there are some brilliant ideas coming out of Free RPGs that people really need to see.

How do I start?
Well there are a couple of good resources to go for Free RPGs. The first is Dr. Rob Lang's Free RPG Blog where he goes over and reviews a wide variety of Free RPGs.

There is also the Free RPG community over at 1km1kt.net where a lot of free games are hosted. There's also a forum where there is chatter by a pile of monkeys about games in general.

There is also an wiki that has a list of all the free games called the Year of Living Free by Sanglorian. Definitly worth a check out.

There are too many of them! I am paralized by choice!

Allow me to make some recommendations.

1. Lady Blackbird

A wonderful setting with quick game play, Lady Blackbird is one of the most popular free rpgs. It's also been hacked a lot, so if you know how to play this one you'll have an idea on how you can play the million or so renditions of others.

2. Metropole Luxury Coffin

A Cyberpunk Future where fashion is king, your face time is your currency and you all dream of finding a way to raise your status enough so that you can leave the Metropole Luxury Coffin Motel. It's a great game, with a great dynamic between the players and the world. It very much deserved to win the Cyberpunk Revival Project contest.

3. Action City

This is a great game if you want to play that Action Movie(tm) kind of game. Seriously, at the end of every major scene there needs to be an explosion of some kind, and it's hard wired in the rules. How do you go wrong with that!?

4. The Droog Family Songbook

What if you mashed up the Sound of Music with A Clockwork Orange? You would get the most amazing bit of music mixed with ultra violence. Protect your favourite things against the invading Nazi hoards in 1995 by relying on fate, or acts of ultra violence.

5. Geasa

Yes this is my own game, and the link is to the free version. If you want a co-operative and competitive storytelling experience then you want to play Geasa. The Free version contains all the rules, not just the ones that might give you a feeling for how the game plays, but all the rules are there. You can even modify them and print your own game since it's under a Creative Commons BY-SA license.

It's free! Check it out.

There you go. Five games to get you started. Anyone else want to suggest their favourite Free RPG?

Previously Generated - Geasa Theme

Time to do a theme for Geasa. I feel like I should do something slightly off the wall and fun to commemorate the fact that the book is finally at the printers. I have been on a wrestling kick as of late, so I figured let's try to make a wrestling scene for Geasa.

Setting
Weird things happens when you're a group of people who end up traveling together, especially when your job consists of beating up on your co-workers. You are all members of a traveling independent wrestling promotion. You're good enough that people who are in the know are interested in seeing you, but not good enough that you can get a TV deal or anything like that. You just put in your time, collect your meager pay check and hope that someone who can pay you better notices you. It's not that bad, you're just risking life and limb to see the smaller cities of the North East. I mean, who wouldn't want to get stranded by a mechanical failure in picturesque Baldwinville, Massachusetts. Population 1,852, with a full functional high school gymnasium and about fifteen really bored people waiting for someone to finish fixing the bus so you could move on to the ever hopping Conant High School gymnasium in Jaffrey, New Hampshire.

It's a glamorous life. The only hope is that the next town has someone who can pick you up out of this pit and put you where you belong, on a pedestal.

Characters
* Dante "Freedom" Bell - You are the star of the show, for what that is worth. You know that there isn't anyone here who can match you for your actual skill in the ring and on the microphone, when there are microphones. You're also annoyed that no one else seems to recognize this. You just want what's yours, and that's the spotlight.

*Britney Myers - You're the one who does the actual work around here. You're the mechanic, the driver, the cook, the ring announcer, the therapist, and the mother to this group of grown up children. You don't complain, but you do feel the strain of having done this tour for a couple of years now. What you really want is everyone else to recognize that you contribute a hell of a lot, and maybe appreciate you for it.

*Loyd Henderson -- You own East Coast Wrestling Entertainment, or ECWE, and have been trying to find a way to make it big. You want the big television contract even though you've done nothing to deserve it. You've got a stable of wrestlers that are at best lack lustre, and at worst full of delusions of grandeur. That hasn't stopped you from bothering anyone who might have the slight odor of being associated with a TV station. You know that if you could just get that contract, everything else will fall into place.

* Holly Sharp -- As one of two women wrestlers in the promotion, you're both really good at working together and really bored with what's going on. Despite what other people believe, you are actually the best wrestler here but women's wrestling is still the domain of thin and plastic, and while you are athletic and fit you don't fall into either of those categories. That means you got looked over the few times anyone actually important showed up. You keep pushing that you can wrestle with the guys, but Loyd freaks out every time you mention it. You just want something to challenge you.

*Stanton "Rage" Lawson - You were burned while you were working, doing some sort of extreme stuff involving flaming tables, and as such you've got scarring on your face. That's when you changed your shtick to a mask wearing monster called Rage. You scream a lot, stomp a lot, and grab at your face whenever someone brings up your scars. You're happy with your lot in life, you're doing what you wanted to do with some people you like. There's a special someone inside the company that you wish you could approach and ask them out, but you're nervous because Loyd doesn't like "fraternizing" and you're worried about they will react to your scarring.


* Christi "Stacked" Stark -- You remember watching your first wrestling match as a kid and being enthralled. Then you looked at what it took to be a women's wrestler and then you bit the bullet and did what you thought would get you on TV with the lights, and the microphone and the accolades. It hasn't gotten you anywhere you really wanted to go, and while you may regret some of the decisions that you've made you're still pushing to make it to the top. Everyone may think you're an airhead, and again you play what you think the people want, but you've got the focus and dedication to beat anyone who gets in the way of what you want.


Fae

* Spartacus - An ancient Roman gladiator that shook off the shackles of slavery and attempted to lead an army of slaves to freedom. Now, as a spirit he wishes to free all those he believes to be in bondage.

* Competitiva - The spirit of competition, it believes that all competition is good, and if there is any chance that two people can be in conflict, it will support that. It believes very clearly that there are winners, and there are losers and only by conflict will the two be separated

* Lumi -- A spirit of light that's always looking for the brightest light and the shiningest star. It feels that by going to the light, lies and deception can't survive the exposing power of the light.

* Ignacio Nixon -- The Spirit of a Dead Wrestler who was killed while wrestling for ECWE, Loyd doesn't mention him to the other wrestlers and that has stuck in the craw of the dead Ignacio. He wants nothing more than to expose Loyd as a fraud, and a cruel task master. If he can destroy him then maybe he can rest.

* Letzul - A Gremlin that enjoys causing mechanical havoc. It's had a great time with this group, causing all sorts of problems with the truck, and the ring. So far the wrestlers have handled the failures, but Letzul hopes that one day he can match the previous Gremlin's achievement of getting someone killed through a mechanical failure.


Other People
If you want to not play with these characters, here are some other options for you. Roll a d6 and let random chance help you out.

1. The Principle of the School where the wrestling match is located
2. The Local Promoter who invited the company
3. The Worst Wrestler in the Promotion, looking for a fast way to the top
4. A Concerned Parent who doesn't want this trash in their town
5. Another technician, someone who works the lights or the sound
6. Someone who works in TV, who is looking for something to put on the air.

Idea on the Fae
If you're looking for other Fae to play, then what you really want to do is work with Fae that enjoy conflict and can't tell the difference between created conflict for entertainment purposes and real life and death struggles. Another option are Fae that enjoy causing mischief, mechanical mischief in particular, since a lot of things that go on in the show require some sort of machines for effect.

Some Thoughts on my 24 Hour RPG

I finished my 24 Hour RPG because I really wanted to get that off the ground for a couple of reasons. It was a break from writing CyberGen 3.0 and Critical!: Go Westerly. It was a chance to get the creative juices flowing again in a different direction, which always makes them come back better when working on projects.

It was also a quick mental challenge that, while draining, is something I think served me a little better than the Game Chef competition did. It gave me a much tighter deadline. I ended up writing 10k words for Game Chef and in retrospect that's far too much. I wanted to be more concise.

I also ended up showing that I can use Geasa and modify it to fit something different. I hope by showing that I can do it, other people can do it too. If I get it polished enough what I might do is put it up on Drivethru as a free download because I think it's a good way to get people to understand that the system is there to be used.

Anyway, if you want to check out the game you can download it here.

Geasa The First Week - What I've learned

It's been a little over a week that Geasa has been on the market.

The sales have been surprising for me. Mainly because when we put out Mile High Dragon to say that it was met with very little fanfare, or anything remotely considered to be a single ticker tape made me uncertain as to what might happen.

Well, Geasa was a very pleasant surprise. For the first week, the sales at Drivethru have been pretty good. We've got 18 total sold of the full book and 23 total downloaded (from review copies, that means 5 people who are on the drivethru review list have it. We'll see where it goes from there).

What's doubly surprising is the amount of people who downloaded the free version of the game. The free version has gotten 337 total downloads. These are numbers that I certainly couldn't have dreamed to match with any product ever. That's a lot, and if I can convert even a 1% of these people, that's 3 sales I wouldn't have gotten without a free product. Hell, maybe someone will take the rules and make their own game with it. I'm already trying to think of how to do that with a game called Teenage Wasteland. I'll jot some ideas down, but that game is going to have to wait until I'm done with CyberGen 3.0.

This also tells me that .pdfs are doing fine and dandy thank you very much. I barely cracked the top 10 of the "sales of the month" category before I dropped quickly out of those rankings to be replaced by others. However, when that happens with only 16 sales, you know that there is a lot of people buying electronic formats to the games.

Also, it blows my mind that people would put any type of DRM on their electronic documents. Quick, I want people to be able to access the game as quickly as possible, let's put something that will slow them from enjoying the product. BRILLIANT IDEA!

Geasa - The Free One

Part of Geasa is that the rules are under BY-SA license. Which means that I created a document that was a pared down version of the main book to be used as a reference.

I had some advice from someone who has been spending a lot of time with free RPGs and they feel that it could be better. I agree, anything can always be better and since this is the free document I'd like people's advice on how to make the free version better?

Submitted examples from people playing the game for each section?
More detail on how to do things?
Cut out any extraneous text and just go to the heart of things?

Post here to tell me how I can make the free product better.