Free RPGs

Welcome to the RPG section of 1KM1KT. Here you’ll find member submissions of tabletop pen and paper role-playing games. All of the RPGs available in this section are free for download and are generally in .pdf format. If you’re interested in submitting your own RPG for publication, please visit our submissions page for details or send it to us using our contact form.

Sword of the Skull is a two-player game of searching for magic items in a dungeon-crawl environment, with one player playing the adventurer, and the other playing the gamemaster.  It features rules for budgeting the gm’s design of the dungeon, based on how difficult the adventurer wishes to make the challenge- and how lucrative his reward.

A very short game, 20 minutes or so. It’s main feature is that if you engage it’s scenes, the scenes are described from the diary of an NPC and their subjective outlook. Ie, there are no objective facts given about the game world.

Written for a 24 hour game comp. (2011 Ronnies)

The water pipe you and your buddies are passing around is actually a powerful demilich. It will take you a magical world where you are a powerful wizard. What fantastic things can you accomplish before your life and ambitions pass you by?

Memento Mori. Remember that you must die.

This Latin reminder, which rose to prominence during medieval outbreaks of the Black Death and which has served as a motif for artists and writers throughout history, remains universally true. There is no need to make exceptions or equivocate. We must die.

An old, weathered skull, flanked by vases, books, or other common household objects is one of the most widespread depictions of the Memento Mori. The image of a universal symbol of death in the center of the bits and pieces of mundane everyday life presents a clear message: don’t be complacent or falsely confident, death is always present and always possible.

This is the same message presented by the Danse Macabre, the dance of death, a motif used in painting, sculptures, engravings and other art, particularly during the Middle Ages. The Danse Macabre depicts men and women of all ages and social classes dancing among skeletons and corpses, reminding viewers that even during life’s most joyous and frivolous moments, death is nearby. All of life’s hectic, rhythmic  steps must end in a full stop.

Danse Macabre is a role-playing game about death. It uses content, scenes and mechanics based on the Memento Mori and the Danse Macabre to allow players to engage with death and mortality. In Danse Macrabre, the lives of characters are short and, often, incomplete. One player character dies during each cycle of scenes, and players will actively take on the role of a personified Death. The game uses music and a mechanic loosely based on musical chairs to simulate the dance.  Ultimately, Danse Macabre culminates in a series of direct confrontations (and conversations) with Death where the characters and, eventually, Death itself must answer difficult questions about how and why we die.

This is a game about the piecing together of disparate fragments to reveal threatening conspiracies. The characters are vehicles for turning this process of creation and revelation into a narrative. The tone of that narrative is up to the group.

My biggest influences are Illuminatus! and Foucault’s Pendulum, but feel free to draw inspiration from other far-reaching conspiracy fiction. The following movies come to mind: Indiana Jones (Raiders & Last Crusade), The Da Vinci Code, Stigmata, Shutter Island, Sherlock Holmes.

Swords of the Skull-Takers

A solo survival horror RPG. I am Legend meets Play Your (tarot) Cards Right.

By Joe J Prince (www.princeofdarknessgames.com), for the Ronnies Jan 2011 (www.indie-rpgs.com).

You are the sole survivor of the Skull-Taker incursion. With only your journal to keep you sane, you must hold out as long as possible against the encroaching horror.

The swords are out for you!

In DEATH’S HEAD, players are dropped in the boots of SS-TV troopers as they administrate a concentration camp. What starts as a relatively routine “day at the office,” however, turns supernatural. Like something out of the most vicious of blood libel rumours, concentration camp prisoners become flesh eating monstrosities. There’s really no easy or  politically correct way to say this, so I’ll just say it: yeah, this is a zombie game set in a concentration camp.

This game is about exploring the three-way pull of Destiny, Duty, and Fate- our individual desires vs. our corporate responsibilities. The tug that we feel from our families, our jobs, our friends, and our supervisors is often compatible with the tug we feel from our ambitions, desires, dreams, and aspirations…and sometimes they are not.

In those moments, when we are faced with a choice, which gets priority? Our desires or our duty? The Knights of Arathess are faced with this choice over and over as they fight for their king and fight for their yearnings.

Facing the End is a roleplaying game for a single player. The point of play is to explore themes of Grief, Regret, and Loss associated with End of Life. This is accomplished in the setting of a fantasy world where the Protagonist of the game is asked to sacrifice himself to save humanity, and in the process he brings about the personal Loss and Regrets pertinent to the Themes.

In this game, you take the role of The Master Wizard, an ageing veteran wizard who is approaching the end of his or her life and now realizes that the accomplishment that made him or her famous was but a fleeting victory. Prior to yet again performing the Ritual that made him or her famous, he or she must vanquish any lingering Grief or Regrets, and overcome his sense of Loss at the prospect of losing his or her life.

This was my submission for the Ronnies and utilizes the ingredients of Old and Soldier. Inspirations come most directly from an exercise I participated in during my palliative care clerkship in medical school, which taught me a lot about Loss, how an RPG might work as a solo experience, as well as how to make game elements intensely meaningful to players. Other inspirations include the boardgame Pandemic, various RPGs including but not limited to Dogs in the Vineyard, The Leverage RPG, Capes, Committee for the Exploration of Mysteries, Apocalypse world, and the 1st edition AD&D DMG!

As a first draft, it needs many things, most especially a little playtesting.

Demilich is my entry for the 2011 Ronnies, using skull and old as ingredients.

You were once an ancient, powerful wizard, your power unrivaled except by the Gods! Your
magic had even preserved you; for a time. Flesh became gaunt; gaunt flesh became bones,
bones became brittle, until finally you’re just a skull on a shelf. Sure, you still have eons of
experience and knowledge at your command, but no hands!

You try and exert your influence over those that come across your paths. You’ve built networks
of spies, gotten comfortable in your new digs when someone starts swiping up all the talent.
Seems like there’s other skulls out there, wielding their power in your turf and that JUST.
WONT. DO!

Demilich is a 2-3 player competitive story strategy game where you will play a demilich (a
magical ancient skull), build their fortress, minions and network of influence and destroy those of your competitors. Explore the angst and isolation of being a magical skull…or just crush your opposition. The game plays in approximately 2 hours from start to end.