This morning in a fit of
procrasti-tasking—really nothing spurs my hobby writing more than
having to complete a large real-world writing project--I started
compiling a big old master list of the free DIY rpg products (PDF and printed) that I
love to post blogside here.
There is a bewildering amount of free,
quality stuff out there and the minds of the crowd I hear outweigh
the mind of this individual, so this here's an all-call for
adventures, settings, compilations, games, monster collections or
whatever you love of freebies. Drop me a link and maybe a little
motivation regarding that little piece of the gift economy near and
dear.
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| Klallam potlatch |
Why do you enjoy it? Do you use it at
the table? Enquiring minds want to know.
A somewhat extensive but still curated list:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.necropraxis.com/2013/09/03/free-resources-annotated/
What I find most interesting about the free products is they show a range of imagination and invention lacking in published resources, largely I think for economic reasons. People can put out in old any old thing that fits their fancy in pdfs: Hereticwerks baroque re-imagining of spells in Space-Age Sorcery, Justin Davis b-movie obsession in Devastation at the Drive-In, and Jack Shear's use of the Gothic in Tales of the Grotesque & Dungeonesque, just to name a few.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite freebies are those from Distant Horizons Games: Eclipse: The Codex Persona and The Practical Enchanter.
ReplyDeleteThey're both d20-based products, and for me they're the fulfillment of that old d20 credo "options, not restrictions."
Eclipse, to be more specific, is a point-buy character-generation system that's unmatched in its flexibility while still being 100% compatible with the d20 rules. It finally breaks the shackles of exception-based design that are part and parcel of class-levels, so that you can actually build a character to your theme, instead of limiting your theme by what's mechanically available (as the co-author regularly shows over on his blog).
The Practical Enchanter does much the same, but for the mechanics of spells and magic items.
They're both great products, and I heartily recommend them.
"Petty Gods" by Peter Gifford
ReplyDeletehttp://gorgonmilk.blogspot.de/2013/04/original-petty-gods-free-pdf.html
"The Dungeon Dozen" blog by Jason Sholtis
http://roll1d12.blogspot.de/
Of course, most everyone in the OSR knows these two, but in case a newcomer finds your list of resources, these just have to be on it.