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.

I hate being kept waiting to kill someone. I’d been sitting in my car for so long that my backside had forgotten what it was like to not be numb. The abandoned church across the street looked exactly the same now as it did when I pulled up six hours ago. An old Three Doors Down tune drifted up from the CD player – softly, so that no one could hear it outside the car while the windows were up – and tried vainly to
tweak my soul in places that were as numb as my ass. I pulled out my bone-handled lighter and lit my umpteenth cigarette of the evening. As I took that first deep draw my familiar drifted up beside me. “Those things will kill you, boss,” he quipped.

I gave Dyson my best “up-yours” glare and blew a smoke ring where his face should’ve been. Dyson was a featureless ball who usually floated at about shoulder height (on me, anyway). He appeared to be made of glass, but God knows what my mentor had crafted him out of. Glass wasn’t bulletproof, and I’d seen Dyson
take a .38 slug at point blank and show not so much as a scratch. His color slowly shifted to match my mood, which meant that right now he was deep, non-reflective black. “Not likely,” I responded, “If guns and knives can’t kill me, I don’t think bad habits will.” I shifted in my seat in a vain attempt to restore some feeling to my nether parts. “How much longer is this gonna take, Dyson? I have other appointments to
keep.”

“Don’t get your knickers in a twist, boss,” Dyson said jauntily, “I scan that the mark will enter the building in 11.023 seconds.” I turned my gaze to the door just in time to see two figures fade out of the night shadows. I blinked the darkness out of my eyes to see them clearly. It was a girl and a boy, both Latino teens. She was a bit chunky but firm, cute if you like chubby girls, with a jiggle to her middle that suggested baby weight. He was tall and wiry with multiple piercings and the half-mohawk haircut that all the wannabe hardboys were wearing in these parts. No doubt about it, this was the mark and the expected companion. The boy jimmied the lock with the ease of long practice and pushed the girl through the door, then he slipped in behind her.

“About time,” I grumbled as I tossed my half-smoked cigarette into the Shadow. I opened the car door as the church door clicked shut, unfolded my six-foot-three height from the cramped confines of the Firebird and crossed the street in what I hoped was a confident swagger. Dyson bobbed along beside me in silence, all business now that it was go-time. I stopped at the door and eyed my familiar. Dyson gave an electronic sigh and willed the sounds inside to percolate through the wood and into my ears.

“I don’t know about this, Raphael,” the girl whined, “Isn’t there some other way?” I could hear her clothes rustle as she fidgeted and a squeaking sound that was probably one of her hands twisting a ring on the other. Various thumps and bumps told me that Raphael was moving things around. I needed more information than my ears alone could provide. I signaled Dyson to oblige, and he extended my other senses into the church. My projected vision revealed desolate absence. The pews and pulpit were long gone, probably broken up for firewood, and any curtains or hangings that had once adorned the walls had long since been
converted to blankets. Such is the way of the world after civilization collapses, yet the locals retained enough piety that the stained glass windows were unbroken. Jesus remained on the wall, staring forlornly at the empty space where the sanctuary used to be. I knew how he felt. The girl stood next to her boyfriend while he knelt on the floor surrounded by boxes. He was unloading ritual paraphernalia and carefully arranging it according to some formula. A ring of candles surrounded a thin sleeping mat that lay where a more suspicious girl would’ve thought a sacrificial altar might go. One box remained unopened as he worked. I didn’t see them carry any of this stuff inside, so Raphael must have stashed it here ahead of time. The
room stank of mildew, but over that I noticed an aroma of peaches from the girl’s hair. I couldn’t tell if it was homemade or pre-Burn, but it was distractingly pleasant. I grabbed my attention by the scruff of its neck and pointed it back to the business at hand.

Joe in Ten Persons is a role-playing game of choices, consequences and being your own worst enemy. It’s designed to be played in a single session for 3 – 5 players running anywhere from two to three hours.

In JiTP, each player will take on the role of one of ten versions of a man called Joe. These versions all come from different times and possibilities. One might be Joe when he was 12 years old, dealing with a school bully. Another might be a 20-something college student with a lecherous boyfriend.

Joe is a pretty obsessive person, so it’s unsurprising that all of his variants are as well. Each of them is obsessed with a particular decision that he has to make, but has avoided making thus far.

All of the Joes in the game have come into contact with a person they know only as Keeton. From one innocuous conversation, they have each gained the ability to meet other possible Joes and influence them and their decisions. Unsurprisingly, after gaining this ability, most of the Joes choose to wander through time and space visiting and watching other versions of themselves rather than dealing with the decision they were avoiding in the first place.

The Joes embodied by the players are different, though. They’ve all become stuck, fixated on one, specific variant that they’ve found in their travels. They’ve dubbed him “Joe Prime.”

Joe Prime is just like every other Joe: he’s obsessive and he’s avoiding an important decision. Unlike the player-characters, however, Joe Prime has not met Keeton.

Joe Prime’s decision has become incredibly important to the stuck Joes. They each want his dilemma to be resolved in a different way, for different reasons. Maybe his problem resonates with their own, or maybe he’s come to represent something about themselves that they hate. Regardless of why, they’ve each decided to marshal their influence amongst the variants and push Joe’s situation towards their chosen conclusion.

But the Joes are risking more than they know. Interacting with variant versions of themselves can begin to take a toll on their sense of self. In the end, they may have to decide which is more important: the safety of themselves and their variants, or the success of their self-imposed mission.

And what of Keeton? What does he want? Why did he give this peculiar power to Joe?

Only time will tell.

Hi. My name is Joe. I’m pretty normal. Nothing interesting about me, really. I’m [twenty / twelve / thirty-five]. I live here in the city. I’ve been here most of my life. What else can I say?

I guess the most interesting thing about me is what happened a few weeks ago. I ran into this [guy in class / kid at the playground / man on the bus] and we somehow struck up a conversation. I’m not quite sure how it happened.

I’ll admit I was distracted. You see, I’ve been a little obsessed lately. I was kind of avoiding this decision I had to make about [my boyfriend / this bully at school / my future career] and I’ll admit Keeton showed up at just the right time to pull me out of my head.

Oh did I mention that? He said that was his name.

Anyway, we talked for a long time. About decisions, ironically enough. About how they can affect you and everyone around you. About how we seem to come to these points in our lives – these moments of decision that can change everything for us. Those moments we go back to late at night, and wonder how things might have been different.

Keeton asked me a lot of questions about things I might have done differently in my life.

I haven’t seen him since. I went home with my head spinning.

The next morning, I knew something had changed. I felt different, though I’ve never been able to put it into words. The first time I traveled, though, I understood what Keeton had done. It was the day I met myself. One of myselves. Whatever the word would be.

I met a Joe that [had never gone to college / lost his mom when he was little / had joined the army], and while it was weird, we had a nice conversation about the other Joes that might be out there.

Since then, I’ve met a lot of me, as I’ve learned how to wander through time and possibility. But there’s one Joe in particular I’ve become…well, I guess I’ve become obsessed with him. I … well, I guess we call him Joe Prime.

See I’m not the only one who’s obsessed with this Joe. There’s this [geeky twelve-year-old kid / old-sad-man-me / gay version of me] that I’ve seen around, and he seems interested in Joe Prime, too. I’ve gone up and down Prime’s time-line and seen him lurking everywhere in the background.

And I’ve seen how the other Joes are obsessed, too. Obsessed with the decision that Joe Prime is facing. You see, I want him to [stand up for himself / get away from the mess he’s in / admit the truth to himself] but I don’t think the others want that.

So we’re kind of at a stalemate. Every time I try doing something directly to Joe Prime, one of the others shows up and messes everything thing up.

But I’ve got a plan.

I’ve got some other Joes on my side. [Blue-collar Joe / That sad other kid Joe / Army Joe] and I have been talking and I think I’ve got some pull with him. He’s agreed to go out for me and do a couple things along Joe Prime’s time-line. Try and convince him that our way is the best. Then, once he’s made the right decision, I think I can finally go back and [tell off my cheating ass of a so-called boyfriend / tell my parents about what’s really been going on at school / leave my job and find my true calling].

And then everything’ll be great. Right?

See. I told you. I’m pretty normal.

Hundedämmerung is something different in the world of role-playing games. Most games allow players to portray beings of greater than human power wielding forces that ordinary people barely understand. This game allows you to play… a dog. Not just any dog, but a dog that has been lifted to human levels of intelligence, albeit the lower end of the scale, and endowed with minor telepathic powers that serve as
speech. In this game you will fight for the survival of your pack or the safety of “your” humans. And always, in the background, there looms the specter of a cat that is many cats – the undead, the undying, the (probably) evil Ozymandias. In Hundedämmerung you have no spells, you wield no magical or high-tech weapons and your psionic abilities aren’t much good for combat. What you have are your wits backed by natural canine ability. Use them right and evil will be your chew toy. Mess up and Ozymandias will use you as a scratching post. Welcome to the doghouse, sucker.

Players control robot explorers searching through the mysteries of a devastated Earth, while trying to avoid system failures, coyote attacks, shorting out in a pond, or being blown to pieces by deranged war machines

2499: We return home.
The colonies of Mars, born in hope, grew up in pain, despair and hard decisions. Some thought that the nations of Earth had learned their lessons and put aside the bombs forever. As it turned out, “forever” meant just long enough for them to build the Busway and send our forefathers down it – their smartest and brightest, their pride, their best hope – before everything that the Two Thousand knew collapsed at their heels into genocidal fire.

We survived, some of us. We dug into this lye-bitter dust and took from it air to breathe and water to drink, for those who hadn’t choked on CO2 and gone to graves scraped in the red slag while we toiled. We broke down the ships that could have taken us home, to build tools, to make the tools, to build the cities that could lift us again into the heavens.

In 2499, Director Keeton’s calculations have convinced the Martian nations that we’re ready to turn again to
whatever is left of the Earth, as Earth once looked outwards to this worn-down old globe where we stand today. With a stretch, we can reach the Busway and load onto the old shuttlers a few suitcases’ worth of cameras, radars and clever processors to go in our stead.

We may not get much. The probes might get killed in high orbit by vampiric satellite-hunters, flying junk that
we have no way to detect or track, sleeting radiation in the overloaded Van Allen belts, or our own carelessness with orbital mechanics. It’s been almost four hundred years, after all, since people tried this sort of thing.

The landers might not live a minute in the acid rain clouds, the war-dusts and the automated missile defences in the atmosphere, or the absolute unknowns that rove the bombed-out ground.

We’ve learned, on Mars, the value of sacrifice. We’ll send them anyway, for whatever we can get in the descent and the first 24 hours. After that, every hour is a gift. We’ll just have to play it by ear.

Activate the Cosmo Drive! There’s a menace rampaging through the city demolishing sky scrapers with enormous chains made out of pure energy. The Army, Air Force and Navy have all been crushed by the towering robotic monster. You might be young and inexperienced, but you’re our last hope. Only Space Getnar V can take that thing down and you’re the one person who can control him. Get out there and hold that beast off until Getnar is charged up enough to fire the Hyper Wave!

Gamba Robo! It’s a celebration of those glorious old robot shows that let the imagination run wild. Blazing swords and projectile weapons that looked like animals flashed across the screen to the amazement of many a yound child. Sure, they were written for companies that wanted to sell toys, but they were AWESOME! This is your chance to project yourself into their world as a daring hero or to create your own “show” as the narrator and throw all kinds of havoc at the poor unsuspecting Do-Gooders.

The mechanic is very simplistic and both play and character-creation are left mostly to the whim of the Narrator. This is an extremely rules-lite game designed to capture the feeling of those fantastic classic super-robot shows.

Chain fists, drill arms and tomahawks made of lightning were a regular feature of the 1970’s giant robot shows. The robots had names like Daitarn, Voltes V and Mazinger Z. They had personality and charisma of their own. Those towering heroes were shunned by the next generations in favor of more “realistic” mecha that emphasized the vehicular nature of the machines. Blazing swords were replaced by machine guns and guided missiles. We were no longer watching super heroes. We were watching wars. As fabulous and sophisticated as the new mecha shows are, some of us will always long for the super robots of days gone by. Nothing thrills like a huge, laser-edged disk hurling from a giant arm to cut right through the
shoulder of some immense monstrosity because our hero screamed, “SPINNN… SAUCER!”

Take part in the fight to liberate Texas from its French oppression!

This is a mostly-finished alpha version of what will hopefully be a more in-depth system/setting.

Based on 2d6+mods resolution, fixed damage.

The year is 1844. Following their successful defense against Mexican forces, the Republic of Texas faced a new foe. Quick to take advantage of their weakened position, French forces moved in by sea, seeking to regain a foothold in North America. Their forces were more disciplined, more determined, and better equipped than the forces of the Mexican Army, and soon France was calling Texas a French Territory. The United States of America, while wary of their new neighbors, had no cause for war, and left the Republic to their own devices. No Texan was comfortable living under French Rule, however, and the native tribes were divided, some siding with the French and others preferring the devil they knew to this new invader.

Texans began to fight back. Not all at once, but slowly and surely, the movement began. Gunmen, drifters, and bandits from nearby territories heard of the profit to be made fighting off the French Occupancy.

In this swirl of native warriors, French soldiery, and Texan roughnecks, any enterprising man (or woman) can make their mark. Will you?

Jedi is an original RPG that used to be based on the Star Wars universe. It is simple, complete, and has been over 25 years in the making. Rules cover Character Creation, Aliens, Droids, Combat, Skills, Vehicles and starships (of all sizes), Force Powers and skills, World Creation, and much more. Uses 6-sided exclusively for simplicity.

This game was originally written during the summer of 1980. Back then, only “A New Hope” and “The Empire Strikes Back” had been released. “Return of the Jedi” was still in storyboards. Only a couple books had been written, and there was Marvel Comics’ Star Wars series trying to fill in some of the gaps between the movies. That was about it, as far as information on the Star Wars universe was concerned. When I decided to write a role-playing game based on the movies, there was a whole lot of stuff I had to guess at and as more movies and books were released, a lot of it turned out to be wrong. I’ve tried to incorporate as much of that as I could without disturbing the flow of the game. Some of my wrong guesses, such as the availability of Force training, the history of the Clone Wars and where Stormtroopers come from, I’ve left in because I think they result in a more rounded game. I’ve also kept the setting in a hypothetical era between the end of the clone wars and the destruction of the Jedi. A nascent rebellion is just beginning to make itself
felt, but isn’t big enough yet to be a problem to the Empire. This way we can have Stormtroopers AND Jedi together. And the limitations of my clever little ‘Droid system have been blown completely out of the water.
I’ve ignored the specialized combat ‘Droids of the Clone Wars and concentrated on the general service ‘Droid hulls with which Adventurers will have most contact and use. I’ve expanded the Force powers a bit, and
there are always more Aliens to add. And until George Lucas Himself tells me otherwise (in person, of course), I’m going to insist that Yoda was from Dagobah.

My original intention was to produce a fully featured, functional and playable game that would fit in about 100 manuscript pages, resulting in a 40 page magazine-sized book that could sell for about $5-$6 US. I also hated having to use all those weird shaped dice that cost way too much money. I wanted my game system to use 6-sided dice exclusively. This was way before West End Games got the role-playing license and made their d6 only system.

After my game was pretty much done, I started hawking it to different game publishers, and tried getting permission to do so from Lucasfilm and Kenner (the holder of the game & toy rights at the time). Neither would talk to me until I got permission from the other. As I continued to push, I got a “friendly” little cease-and-desist order (Included at the end of the book) that scared the bejeebeez out of me. So I ceased
and desisted. Until now.

I hope you enjoy playing this game as much as I did in designing it.

A super hero is a lot like a Squid. In its natural environment, its sleek, sleek, strong, cunning, and graceful. But when you really stop to look at them, they’re really kind of disturbing and otherworldly – the implications of their abilities are like tentacles splaying out in unknown directions.

“Quis custodiet ipsos custodes?” – who watches these powerful unlicensed vigilantes and cleans up after their rampages?

You, of course, as an agent of the Headquarters for Enforcement & Registration of Observed Supernatural.

Of G-men and Supermen is a 24 hour game I wrote for the 1km11kt.net contest, on the topic “Power Squid”. It casts the players as government agents keeping tabs on the rising population of super-powered individuals in 1958 America.

As one of the contest judges, I can’t win, but as an activity done for fun – I think it came out well.

The game is based on a standard deck of 54 (including jokers) playing cards.

The G-man in the window sighed, adjusted his hat, and lit another cigarette. As the menthol feeling filled my lungs, I realized that it wasn’t a window, but a mirror. Damn. When did I get so old? It seems like just yesterday that I was a kid enjoying his comic books and now I’ve got gray temples and a conservative tie. When did this happen?

Oh yeah – when those comic books came to life.

A lot of people are willing to call them heroes, and that is not wholly wrong. “Comics” do pluck falling airliners out of the sky, and stop ice ray wielding whack jobs.

But we have taken to calling them “Squids”. Because they’ve got tentacles that reach into everything, making our life pretty complicated. After all, they’re vigilantes, who refuse to reveal their identities, and become involved in the law with no certification or training. Their authority issues from the fact they can break what seem to be basic laws of physics, much as the Reds rule by the barrel of a gun.

What does it mean to have faith in god when you see miracle workers every day?

If a so-called hero wanted to level an entire city, what could we do to stop them?

Well, our organization for one. We might not succeed, but out agents would try their hardest anyway. To do any less would be un-American.

Everyday we get our orders from Mr. Keeton. Everyday he seems ten years older. It can’t be easy to direct an agency like this when his twin brother is one of the people we watch extra closely.

I have to wonder who is the hero in this amazing tale. Is “Normal” Keeton ultimately the white knight charging down chaos and disorder? Or are these people to be taken at face value, and Keeton himself the villain?

Insectum is a 24 Hour RPG challenge entry by Dennis N. Santana. It is a game that takes its inspiration from both the story games and the action games by incorporating classes, combat and magic with Scenes, Story Arcs, Tokens and much freedom for the Game Master.

It is also a game about bugpeople! In this fantasy roleplaying game, you take on the role of a human being in an odd fantasy society where everyone has traits derived from some insect or another. Characters have the power of hormonal and pheromonal supernatural abilities to help them achieve their goals & whatever their goals may be is up to the one writing the story!

This RPG was written through a thunderstorm, on the fleeting battery of a laptop during a blackout (in google documents that refused to save because the internet was out) and I like to think that makes it special. Enjoy!

Bug-People?
This game assumes that the character you’re playing is basically a human with some insect traits, rather than an actual insect or an “anthro” insect walking around on two legs.

This is done to simplify the game’s rules – while you can probably accept that a human with insect wings and clawed feet can stand on two legs, see like humans do, smell, taste and so forth, it is probably much more of a stretch to believe a bulky rhino beetle can do so, whimsical as that might be. It is also much easier for a Game Master to apply his common sense and logic in a game of humans with bug traits, than it is in a game of talking bugs. Rather than complicating its rules, the game assumes you’re playing bug-people. So you’re not really playing a butterfly – you’re playing a human being with butterfly wings and antennae.

These Bug-People (referred to from here on out as just Insects) wear clothes, have two eyes, stand on two legs, and have mouths, talk, and act like humans would, even living in a fantasy style society. How you visualize your character, however, is up to you, and the society your insects live in is up to your Game Master’s story. There is a section below that talks about such concerns, primarily to Game Masters.

Insect Society has many types of Insects and 4 Castes: Warrior, Servitor, Scout, Noble. All insects can be a member of any Caste, with some prerequisites. All Insects have two special powers, pheromones and hormones. These act as the magic of the game. Hormones are focused on helping or healing a creature, and Pheromones harm or influence a creature. Some creatures learn more of these powers, or are focused more on them, depending on their Caste.

Badass Presidents is an RPG about playing super-powered American Presidents as they fight against cthulean space horrors, Evil Jesus, and reborn deities in a post-apocalyptic world. Need I say more? No? Good.

Badass Presidents is a game of playing American Presidents who are sufficiently badass. The world has been destroyed, overrun by mutants, evil deities, and horrors from beyond the stars. As an American President, what can you do but dust off your knuckleduster and get ready to kick some ass.

Badass Presidents is a role-playing game, and additionally, one designed in 24 hours as a part of a contest. Therefore, the reader is cautioned in that when reading the content that you are about to behold, keep in mind that you got what you paid for. If you paid money for this document, you should find who sold it to you, and beat the crap out of them for making an idiot out of you.