The Role Playing Public Radio Forums
General Category => RPGs => : Addled GM July 13, 2010, 08:21:41 PM
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With a huge list of free RPG's also comes a huge list of stinkers. For many of these obscure free games there are no reviews, so what is the best free rpg system?
Try not to bash on games you don't personally like in this thread. When you list them try to list the genre too.
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Risus (http://www222.pair.com/sjohn/free/risus-1p53.zip) is pretty good, its simple and easy to pick up, and its versatile so it doesn't really have a genre, it can be anything you want it to be (Hence why its called Risus: The Anything RPG).
Can also check out http://risusiverse.wetpaint.com/ for premade characters, ideas, settings, conversions whatever.
Also, if you play with Maptools, there's a framework (http://forums.rptools.net/viewtopic.php?f=33&t=9694&view=next) available that keeps track of your cliches, etc.
If I had any complaints about it, its that it needs more dice in the pool.
Also, Call of Cthulhu has free rules available - http://www.chaosium.com/article.php?story_id=87
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wushu is cool.
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Where can I get a copy of Wushu's PDF.
I go to their website and get no PDF of the rules.
The rtf file also goes nowhere ???
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http://www.mediafire.com/?jjimmykzgmzgw2n
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Thanks for the link ;D
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Is the D6 system any good? It seems that they went to a OGL and most of the books are now free on Drivethru RPG.
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risus
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This looks pretty interesting - steampunk rpg with prebuilt adventure and pregen PCs http://www.onesevendesign.com/ladyblackbird/
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Risus is awsome. Played a zombie apocalypse game and had some interesting characters.
Player 1: Chuck Norris
Player 2: The Transporter
Player 3: Generic Scientist
Player 4: Dick Tracey
Player 5: Generic Soldier
Player 6: Fox Mulder
The games great for a diversion from your normal campaign. Its fast playing and easy for any new gamer. It has its flaws, but it really got the players on their feet. Everyone had fun so I'd recommend it and would play it again.
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I became a little burned out with working my two jobs so the adventure that I’m running for Savage Worlds is so under par that I have to come up with a different game to play. Being short on bucks, I ask the friendly forum goers what a good free RPG is. They point me in the direction of RISUS. I read the small free game a couple of times and find it to my liking. Do to the fact that I’m down to maybe three hours before the game, I have very little written.
I decide to polish off an old chestnut that I run for my players every couple of years and decide its time for a zombie apocalypse. The basics of the plots are find a cure. How they do it is up to them. If they want to run from the zombies instead that’s always good for a game too.
I sit down at the table with only the words zombie and some stats and start up the game. The players arrive and I tell them that we’re going to take a break from savage Worlds. I get the normal sighs and shouts for my blood, but they relent and I give them a bare bones explanation of the rules. Then...
The players go nuts on me and have no idea what to do for traits. I had no idea that this would be the longest part of the game. I thought that my players were going to make characters in about five minutes but that proved to be very wrong. This took over an hour, but ended rather spectacularly as every character had a relationship of some kind to another character in the group.
On a side note, this pissed me off a bit because I ran a pulp game and told them all to create a back story for their character. That ended with one out of eight players coming up with something. That gripe aside the game began.
Player 1: Chuck Norris
Player 2: The Transporter
Player 3: Generic Scientist
Player 4: Dick Tracey
Player 5: Generic Soldier
Player 6: Fox Mulder
The players are in the middle of a city that I never got around to naming. The players start off in a restaurant and are each there for their own reason. The transporter is transporting a government package to the scientist and his bodyguard (the soldier), while Dick Tracey stealthily watches from across the bar. Chuck Norris just happens to be eating the best hamburgers in town and Fox Mulder is investigating something but does not know what.
The game opens up with the sounds of gunfire from outside the diner. Chuck Norris sees a car coming towards the window and jumps out of the way while yelling for everyone else to do the same. Some dice are rolled everyone’s OK. The person in the car is a woman and the scientist sends his bodyguard to get her out. They find out that people are becoming feral and attacking one another. Those that arec attacked seemed to become feral themselves. They go outside the diner and find a few infected and make quick work of them. One Metagame later, the PC’s decide the world is being overthrown by zombies.
She tells them that something’s wrong. The PC’s go outside and then split up. That’s right the game broke up into three games. The transporter and Fox Mulder try to get out of the city traveling one direction. The scientist and the soldier try to make it back to their base. The scientist carries the woman away with them. Chuck Norris decides he’s such a badass that he’ll get out by himself.
Chuck Norris runs into a bunch of people that are stampeding down a street. He ends up turning back after his open a Can of Whoopass skill lets him down. Dick Tracey ends up jumping out of a building after it becomes overrun. The transporter jacks a car but rolls poorly so he ends up in a pinto. He then hits a large clump of Zombies, so he decides to turn back. The scientist and the soldier start being chased by a giant zombie and the soldier faces off against it. The scientist and the girl run away further towards the base. The soldier traps the zombie by collapsing a few buildings in front of it.
The soldier catches up to the scientist and the girl as they make it to the base. The transporter and Mulder come upon and Dick Tracey and Chuck Norris and one of the oddest things that has ever happened in one of my games occurs: the transporter and Fox Mulder pull up in a pinto and ask Chuck Norris and Dick Tracey if they want a ride.
After a moment of awe the game continues.
The scientist takes his package into the base and starts using “science” to cure the zombies. He finds out that the woman that he was carrying is infected. The Soldier smashes her in the brainpan and she gets knocked out. The transporter and the rest are let into the base by the remaining soldiers. The scientist tries to cure the disease but rolls awful so I pull a bastard and let the PC think that she’s cured and then she turns back. Before she turns she says that he can save the world and that she loves him for trying. He goes back to the drawing board. While this is occurring soldiers start to leave until it is two soldiers and the PCs.
The soldier PC says that they’re staying to protect the base. Fox Mulder goes outside the base and sees the zombies are flooding the outside of the base. He yells to the others that they’re coming. The two remaining soldiers tell them that there is a boat that they can take away from the base. The transporter is asked if he can pilot a boat. He says I can drive anything and then the soldier says, “good, then you can drive the scientist and I out.” Chuck Norris ain’t havin’ none of that, so Chuck Norris and Dick Tracey team up on the PC that played a soldier.
The game time is running down so the player says he’s going to go all out on his science roll. He cures the zombie plague but only has one shot. He uses it on the woman and she’s cured. He now knows how to cure the plague but the zombies are overrunning the base. He’s able to make one more dose and runs as the zombies take the base.
The players are on their feet as the soldier and Chuck Norris square off. The soldier is finally downed by Chuck Norris’ powerful roundhouse kick. They throw him to the zombies as they flee. They all get on a boat and get away. The game ends and everyone has a great time. Long story short I came to the game with an idea and only the word zombie on a piece of paper.
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Sounds like you have some awesome players and were really on your game that night. I should keep that in mind the next time I need a quick one shot.
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Combine it with your zombie apocalypse scenario. It will fucking melt faces.
Shit, I'm gonna go run that right now. Thank you for the most awesome idea ever.
Thanks for the props on the zombie scenario and on WUSHU Rock and Roll.
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Sounds like you have some awesome players and were really on your game that night. I should keep that in mind the next time I need a quick one shot.
>quick one shot
Always sounds sexual to me.
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>quick one shot
Always sounds sexual to me.
With me, one shots are always quick! Wait. . .
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So as I keep just throwing around the forums, I ran a Wushu game last night. I had wanted to run a game for awhile, but was sorta nervous about it because I like to be able to pad out my games with combat, and Wushu combat lasts for maybe 2 rounds. I liked the system, as did everyone else, but it's a pretty solid mental strain to play that game for more than 2 hours. I think the last time I felt that drained after a game was a M&M session that ended up going on for like 6 hours.
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running a good rules light game is more mentally taxing than one would initially think. Since less time is spent on game mechanics, you have to make up for it with story and role playing.
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oh rly?
"I need work"
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running a good rules light game is more mentally taxing than one would initially think. Since less time is spent on game mechanics, you have to make up for it with story and role playing.
better?
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oh rly?
"I need work"
what
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I believe he's calling shenanigans on your "story and roleplaying argument" by citing your Cinco De Mayo game.
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I believe he's calling shenanigans on your "story and roleplaying argument" by citing your Cinco De Mayo game.
there were margaritas involved
also in rules light games, you can't pad out sessions with long fights - you have to have more content because the players will chew through fights quickly.
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I find rules light games to be much, much harder to run than that of a more structured game. This is simply a result of the limited amount of time that a GM has to respond to the players being coupled with the limited amount of dice rolls to determine failure and success.
Take this 3.5 example:
A thief is leading the party down a hallway with a trap in the middle and a door at the end.
A thief first needs to find a trap. Time for a roll. Time for calculations. Then if the trap is found, a second roll to disable it. Time for roll. Time for calculation. If he doesn't find the trap. Time for GM to roll damage. Time for calculation and determination of effects. Time for player to subtract hitpoints and call GM asshole.
The thief then goes to the door. Looks at the door for traps. Rolls. Calculates. Listens at the door. Rolls. Calculates. Picks lock. Rolls calculates. Then opens or has the fighter bust down the door. More rolls. More calculation.
All in all that's about five wasted minutes of game time to go down a hallway. A rules light game cuts that number of rolls down to less than half or none at all. This means that if the time it takes to do things like this are cut down, then the amount of content must also be doubled so that the same amount of time can be filled. This in turn means the GM must work twice as hard on the game to keep it flowing.
In my experience, running a rules light game is less math intensive than a more structured game so it takes more ability to roleplay and come up with ideas on the fly. A rules light game focuses on narrative and roleplaying (even if Mr. T is eating Gremlins) whereas a structured game focuses on die rolls in order to create a game with a sense of fairness.
I find that rules light games tend to fall prey to the "nuh-uh. No way you do that" problem and structured games fall prey to the "well the book says it works like that" conundrum, so nothing's perfect.
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I tried to pick up the Risus but the site looked down. Where can I get the PDF?
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The site's working fine for me. Try again.