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 envisioned this game with several goals in mind.

1. Utilize the ingredients and ideas of the Game Chef contest. It integrally incorporates the theme of basing on a historical period, as well as all five ingredients and four of the limitations. The game is not just set during a historical period and vaguely related to insects, but about history and specifically the discipline of entomology.
2. I wanted a game which is non-violent yet interesting, in reaction to what I feel is an excess of violence in RPGs.
3. I wanted a game which is educational, specifically showing a microhistory which links together the scientific, political, and religious sides of the debate.
4. I wanted to convey some of the passion and drama of the turbulent times. There are many recriminations lingering from the failed Commonwealth, on both sides. Rebellions will continue to arise for the next few decades. There is a very current issue of religious tolerance, as conflict remains the Puritanical elements among the people with the Anglican mainstream and the king’s Catholic sympathies. Lastly there is the question of sexuality, closely tied with religious views.

Each of the following powers should be represented by a card

Lord Clayton Wyndham (The Dragonfly):

• Hover — ???
• Fly Backwards — You may take back your last sentence or action. Instruct those who are present to ignore what just happened as if it never happened.
• Toughness — Ignore the effects of insult.

Lady Melissa Wyndham (The Bee):

• Social Sting — You may invoke this to immediately do damage of 1 Social Confidence to someone you are talking to. You must give them an opportunity to avoid this by backing off, apologizing, or some similar easily fulfilled act.
• Direction Dance — You may communicate a specific message wordlessly to another player. Simply hold up the card, walk up, and whisper to the player, then return to your place and restart in-character play.
• Collectivity — draw everyone’s attention for something

Julian Arkwright (The Fly):

• On the Wall — You may force another player to briefly but truthfully say what their last conversation was about.
• Escape — Automatically leave a conflict without taking damage.

The Honourable Richard Bagwell (The Grasshopper):

• Chirp — attract attention

Malcolm Sterk (The Ant):

• Endurance — You may immediately retry any action.
• Trail — You may make and consult notes out-of-character. Effectively this allows you to freely time-out to your own advantage.

Katherine Sterk (The Silkworm):

• Consume — take social confidence from another player
• Entangle — prevent another player from leaving

Astrea Philips (The Butterfly):

• Charm —
• Poison — damage those who damage her

George Ringer (The Flea):

• Infect — …

The game is about the eight guests at Lord Clayton Wyndham’s home in London just off the Strand. It is not very large but richly furnished and well stocked with amenities. Each of the guests is an exaggerated fictional character based on historical figures of the time, and each is identified with an insect. The game will primarily be conversation, but it will be thick with subtext since discussing insects is a subtext for talking about the characters themselves.

Your character is represented by up to three things:

• A set of two or three cards representing powers based on the character’s personality and the insect which symbolizes them.
• A single sheet of paper representing a potential secret: Treason, Crime, or Affair. These are the goals of the game, and there are three distributed randomly among the players at the start of the game (along with five blanks).

Other than the cards and secret, there are no game traits distinguishing the characters, so there is no need for individual character sheets per se. All character backgrounds should be open — i.e. all players can see the complete backgrounds for all characters, though obviously not the secrets once distributed. In addition, all players should have the following:

• A name tag. This should have your character name, the symbolic insect, and Intoxication Level.
• A supply of six Social Confidence points. This is the currency of the game, and may be lost through conflicts. These may be represented by six slips of colored paper, which are torn if the point is lost.
• A set of ten chits marked 1 through 1, which can be kept in a pocket. These are used to generate a random number from 1 to 1 in contests. You draw one chit from your pocket, and your opponent draws another chit randomly from their pocket. Sum the two drawn numbers, and numbers from 11 to 2 count as 1 to 1.

Powers are represented by the cards. To use a power, you simply hold up the card itself. In-character dialogue should immediately pause while you show the power card and explain its use. Powers will always succeed when used. The effect is explained on the card, along with a listed power level (see below). After any use, an opposing player may elect to spend a Social Confidence point to attempt to eliminate the power. The player must mention this immediately after you use the power. If the drawn sum is less than the level of the power, the power is eliminated. You should put the card away onto a central discard pile.

Intoxication Level is represented by 1 to 1 dots on your nametag. Each character begins at Intoxication 1. These can be easily self-reported, as level of intoxication is largely voluntary and is a trade-off of ambiguous advantage. Being more intoxicated insulates you from adverse social effects — both by being personally less sensitive to slights, and by having the excuse of being drunk for your behavior. However, it also makes it easier to interrogate you. Ideally, the host should have a several actually alcoholic and non-alcoholic beverages, and rate them as in-game intoxication points. A full glass of wine should typically be two intoxication points, a smaller drink or beer as one.

Secrets are represented by sheets of paper handed out folded and/or in envelopes at the start of the game. There are three secrets: Treason, Crime, and Affair. One character has the secret. One other character (the “informer”) knows the secret, and wants it revealed but without it being known that they are the one who revealed it.

Intoxication is represented by dots on the nametag. These can be easily self-reported, as level of intoxication is largely voluntary and is a trade-off of ambiguous advantage. Being more intoxicated insulates you from adverse social effects — both by being personally less sensitive to slights, and by having the excuse of being drunk for your behavior.

Actions

Besides individual powers, there are four actions which you may attempt. Except for “Accuse”, these do not have any cost.

• Detect Lie: By holding up two fingers angled towards someone, you indicate that you are trying to detect if someone’s last statement (say three sentences) was a lie. Draw chits, and if the sum is less than or equal to the target’s intoxication level, the player must report what of that statement was a lie. There is no cost for this except that you cannot attempt to detect lie on the same person for 15 minutes following an attempt (successful or not).
• Snub: By making a pushing motion with the palm facing outwards towards another player, you may indicate an attempt to snub the character. Draw chits, and if the sum is greater than or equal to the target’s intoxication level, they are forced away. The player must move out of earshot of a quiet conversation (i.e. the other side of a large room) for at least five minutes.
• Insult: By making a chopping motion with your hand, you may indicate that the current dialogue is a forceful put-down or insult to the other party. Draw chits, and if the result is greater than the target’s intoxication level, they lose 1 Social Confidence point. Only one such attempt may be made on any given target within 15 minutes.
• Accuse: By touching or almost touching another player with a pointed index finger, you may indicate that you are accusing them of a particular secret. At the same time, you should also name who you think was the informer. If you are incorrect about the secret, then you lose two Social Confidence points. If you are correct about the secret but incorrect about the informer, then you get 4 points towards victory and the informer also gets 4 points. If you are also correct about both, then you get six points and the informer gets none.

Goals

At the end of the game, there are scores totalled. You get one victory point for each point of Social Confidence you have remaining. You also get either 4 or 6 points for successful accusations.

Morpho Londinium specifically refers to London in a period of literal transformation. “Morpho” is the Latin designation for butterflies, which refers to their metamorphosis. “Londinium” is the original Latin name for the city of London. In 1699, London is being transformed in many senses. Politically, the city is settling into a newly restored monarchy which followed after almost a dozen years of kingless Commonwealth (from 1648 to 166). Religiously, the recent civil war was a storm of opposing religious beliefs which remain unresolved — ranging from the pantheistic Ranters, to Quakers, Puritans, Anglicans, and Catholics. Physically, the city has been literally devasted. The Great Plague of 1665 wiped out nearly 1, people — roughly 15% the population. The following year, the Great Fire wiped out an area of one and a half miles by half a mile, destroying 87 churches and 13,2 houses. Three years later, the city is still rebuilding itself. Intellectually, the Royal Society, which is to become a central institution of developing science, was founded in 166 immediately upon the restoration of the monarchy.

The game is about the eight guests at Lord Clayton Wyndham’s home in London just off the Strand. It is not very large but richly furnished and well stocked with amenities. He has been a patron of the arts and sciences as well as a scientist himself, and is throwing this party to celebrate the publication of Malpighi’s work. This is not a delicate Victorian tea party, but rather a meeting of opinionated and often pugnacious minds in a rowdy, tense period. There should be plenty of drinking and lively discussion. As you drink, your character has an intoxication level which goes up. This makes it more difficult to lie, but insulates you from social snubs and insults.

Each of the guests is an exaggerated fictional character based on historical figures of the time, and each is identified with an insect. Three of the characters will have secrets that they are trying to hide. These are not necessarily punishable or fatal secrets, and they might even stay within the circle after the party. However, they do have real risk. For each character with a secret, there will be one informer who wants the secret revealed but does not want to be known as the source of the secret. The game will primarily be in-character conversation. Ostensibly they are there to celebrate and discuss the Royal Society’s latest publication on entomology. However, beneath the surface they are probing each other for secrets.

In addition, there are conflicts among the characters. These may often be disguised as discussion about insects — since each character is identified with such. Comments about ants, bees, and other insects are veiled comments about the other characters at the party. In addition, each character has a set of absolute abilities based on their sphere — represented by a card. For example, the hostess is symbolized by The Bee, and has a social string power that will force anyone to back off in some way. Powers will always succeed when used, but they may be lost after being used.

Owlbears have always ruled the Forest, more or less. Lately, things are pretty much about gathering up honey from the hives in local trees. Your boss doesn’t have a very satisfying explanation for this, but it’s not as if you’ve thought of anything else to do with your life, and it pays the bills. But what’s it all for? What explains the strange things you’ve been seeing? And does the guy with the most honey really win?

This game is part of the BPG Owlbear Challenge.

Getting Ready to Play

1. Enlarge and print the map of the Forest (or draw it to fit) on an 8.5?x11? sheet of paper.
2. Print and cut apart the Goal cards.
3. Gather up 3 to 5 players willing to play a board game where some of the rules just result in amorphous story-telling rather than anything really happening and you aren?t allowed to know how you win.
4. Place 1 Bee tokens (pennies are appropriate) and 5 Honey tokens (yellow glass stones are good) on each Hive space on the Forest board.
5. Have each player create their Owlbear character, as described below.

Creating Your Owlbear

1. Choose a name. “Steve” is appropriate, although if everyone picks Steve that?ll be confusing. All Owlbears have the surname Owlbear.
2. Assign 8 points between your two attribute scores. Your attributes are Owl and Bear. The number of points you put into your Owl attribute will come into play when your Owlbear does things like flying, thinking, seeing, and civil negotiation. Your Bear attribute will be used for things like running, fighting, lifting things, intimidation, and eating. Use your better judgment.
3. Find a small token to represent your Owlbear. It should be different from other people?s.
4. Place your Owlbear?s token on any Roost space on the Forest board.
5. Take two Honey tokens and put them in front of you. Your Owlbear has these to start with.

Haunted Houses Solitaire RPG is a roleplaying game played by one player using only a regular deck of poker cards, a pencil, and some paper.

In the game, the player takes the role of a character known as a seeker, an investigator of the supernatural that explores haunted houses for adventure and to rid the world of supernatural evil.

Seekers

There are six types of seekers: Hunters, Occultists, Holymen, Psychics, Mediums, and Parapsychologists. Each seeker type has twelve ‘advancements’, an advancement being a special skill unique to the seeker class. Hunters are skilled in hunting and fighting, Occultists are skilled in arcane spells, Holymen are skilled with holy blessings, Psychics are skilled in psychic/psionic ability, Mediums are skilled in spiritual mediation, and Parapsychologists are skilled with parapsychological technology. A seeker starts with 1 advancement, and can get the rest by accruing advance points which are gained through exploration of haunted houses. Once a seeker gains all twelve advancements of their class, they can retire or continue to explore haunted houses. If a seeker retires or perishes, the player creates another seeker that can explore new haunted houses or delve into ones past seekers have explored.

Mechanics

Game mechanics revolve around eight attributes: Physical, Spiritual, Investigation, Luck, Vitality, Fright, Run, and Hide. Seekers ‘visit’ haunted houses; A visit includes mapping the haunted house (rooms are generated randomly). Each room may contain a monster and/or a haunting (a supernatural manifestation that is not a monster), and there are even mystic items/weapons that can be found to the seeker’s benefit. There are twenty different kinds of rooms, forty different kinds of monsters, and sixty different kinds of hauntings, allowing for quite a bit of variation within each haunted house explored.

A story-game about a monster.

“And even as its claws sunk into a man’s shoulders, even as it tore through yet another one of my friends, I looked at its red-rimmed eyes and just had to wonder: had it just been crying?”

you are an adventurer

You have been slaying the evils of the world for countless years. You’ve slain goblins and orcs before, and seen their green blood etched across the rocky ground. You’ve slain small dragons, and dodged their last breath of fire. You’ve slain enemies, and once or twice you’ve slain friends.

Or maybe you haven’t, and you are new to the world of heroism. Maybe your sword is still virgin steel, and you’ve never witnessed the agony of bloodshed. Maybe you are still hot for your first real hunt. Maybe you don’t really know what you’re doing out here.

Regardless of your past, you are here now. You have been hired by the mayor of Joshuan to rid the forests of a deadly beast that has terrorized the town for months. You have been hired to kill a ferocious beast that you’ve never heard of before. An owlbear.

you don’t live in Joshuan

It’s a charming community, it really is. But its important to always keep this in mind: You do not live in Joshuan, and the people you are adventuring with are not your friends. You have been assigned to an adventuring party with a bunch of strangers. These people are do-gooders, paid mercenaries, and militia members. You don’t know if they have families or live alone; whether they have jobs or are transient bums; whether they are poor or have overflowing coffers.

you aren’t perfect

It’s important to admit that to yourself every once in a while. Sometimes you do the wrong thing. When you’re a powerful, broad-shouldered warrior, a single mistake can leave quite a lot of impact.

It’s important to keep that in the back of your mind: You’ve done wrong before, and you’ve seen the bloodshed that can result. You don’t like doing the wrong thing.

Long ago, the world was in balance, and Owlbears lived together happily. Then humans came, scattered the Owlbears and destroyed the balance.

In Owlbear: Fragile Duality, you play Owlbears who roam the Borderlands, searching for other Owlbears and restoring balance to the world.

Starting the game

To start the game, the GM describes the Owlbears entering a region where something is out of balance. For example:

“You enter a forest. In the distance, you can see humans constructing a castle. You hear them sawing down trees to make room for the castle.”

He also describes other Owlbears nearby, but presently out of reach:

“Sometimes, you hear an Owlbear cub scream, as they kill it to make the castle safe.”

The Owlbears must react: taking whatever steps are necessary to restore the region to balance and reunite with their fellow Owlbears.

“We creep up and observe the humans, making an attack formation.”

And the GM should attempt to provoke the players by using their Marks:

“You see a group of humans, talking and relaxing after a morning?s work. One is wearing a jacket which is, unmistakably, made of Owlbear cub fur.”

It’s a game by “Samuel Clemens”, a young man with lots of energy. His mother isn’t very pleased with Sammy’s game and would rather it wasn’t published — but I think we should publish it anyway, don’t you? Oh – and I don’t recommend playing this game at all

To whom it may concern,

Please remove all copies of the “Owlbears” game by Samuel Clemens from your website at once!

I don’t know who put Sammy up to this nonsense, but I hope you’re very ashamed of yourselves! This “game” of his has caused a lot of injury, hurt feelings, and general mayhem in our home.

It’s very irresponsible for you to encourage young boys to act out in this manner, and I only hope no other children have read this material and thought it sounded like a fun game. IT IS NOT!

I don’t think a game involving wild horseplay, breaking furniture, and multiple bee stings is something you should be encouraging children to play! These ?Role-Playing? games are a negative influence, and we’ve removed all of them from our home, including all of the “Dragons & Dungeons” games we found in Sammy?s brother?s room. Good Riddance!

Please respect our wished and remove the Owlbears game from your website immediately. If you do not remove the game from the internet in 24 hours, we will be contacting our Lawyer.

Sincerely,
Mrs. Clemens

Exemplar is a fast paced martial arts action role-playing game set in the distant future. As the noble houses of the Intersystem Government and Clergy squabble over ancient feuds, the shadowy Guild of Navigators bends an empire to its whim, and the Free Order struggles to throw off the yoke of IGAC oppression, how will your hero secure their place in history? This version of Exemplar — the game’s fifth incarnation — is compressed down into only two pages, including a full character sheet. Features d6 based opposed roll mechanics, unified conflict resolution, a pacing system that puts the plot into the hands of the players, and more information density than you can shake a stick at.

Exemplar is a role-playing game of martial arts fantasy set in the far future. Corrupt noble houses use an oppressive state religion, drugged diets, constant propaganda and the military might of the Marines Templar and Marines Justicar to keep the citizens of the Intersystem Government and Clergy (IGAC) under their control. Space travel is monopolized by the shadowy Navigator?s Guild, for their prescient psychics are the only human beings capable of guiding Warpships from one solar system?s Jump Point to another — the few independent worlds and planetary federations, and even the IGAC itself, have no choice but to submit to the Guild?s will. Conflict exists everywhere: free planets struggle to gain control of resources, IGAC nobles jockey for power, and the Free Order attempts to shrug off the yoke of IGAC oppression.

Players portray the Exemplar: those who, through natural talent or iron will and rigorous training, have obtained a measure of psychic proficiency. Exemplar are trained by the Guild, by the twin Marine Orders of the IGAC, and by sundry other traditions — the Exalted Knights of Sha, who use needles to manipulate the flow of life energy; the Brotherhood of Infiltrators, who mask their presences with psychic shields; and more.