Free RPG Games

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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.

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.

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.

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

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.”

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.

Rule of Three is a simple RPG system which uses character generation and an entertaining “question game” of setting generation to drive narrative roleplay.

The Setting

The setting can be anything you wish, based on reality or fiction, your own or someone else?s. A useful way of generating the details of the setting can be to play a game of Open Questions before each act.

Open Questions is played by going round the players in a circle. One is chosen to be the initial holder of a six-sided die, and speaks first. Each player states a fact about the setting. The die is then rolled. If possible, obtain an “interrogative die”, which has the words Who, What, When, Where, How and Why on the six faces; otherwise, use an ordinary six-sided die and convert the numbers into the words in the order just given. The player who has just stated a fact must ask an open question (one requiring at least a sentence answer), beginning with the word indicated by the die roll, and the next player must answer it. This is their statement of fact, and the die is then rolled again and they ask a question of the next player.

When the turn comes around to the player holding the die, he or she may either declare “more” (indicating another round on the same topic), “change” (indicating a new topic should be begun), or “enough” (indicating an end to the game). In either of the first two cases, he or she then hands the die to the person on his or her left, who begins the next round with a statement, rolls the die, and asks a question of the next player. If the die holder declares “enough”, the rest of the group must agree, otherwise it is treated as a call of “change”.

Someone should record the facts stated about the setting as they are stated.

Further facts can be established about the setting during play by simply introducing them into the narrative, providing the group does not veto them.

O.B.Howard is an aspiring author of Fantasy who’s determined to put his foot in the door. He has created a new world of Fantasy that initially breaks tradition, but holds true to the magic of the Fantasy genre. Below is an excerpt from a short story written about the history of events that led to this new world. Please visit his website at: www.beetlebooksllc.com.

THE SEERS

From the beginning of civilization we have been called by the Great Brother. One by one, from all walks of life, he has called us to his keep of endless knowledge. He has taught us the reason for our visions and gave us purpose. Our sight allows us to see past, present and many futures and our purpose given were the record keepers of Gennisia. Though our vision is clear and vivid and our sight can stretch through the many hands of time, our strength cannot compare to our Great Brother s. He had the ability to see many worlds through different spans of time and many different forms. He has seen this world in it s many past forms and was the only one who knew the reasons behind this current form called Gennisia. Our Great Brother Nemlar is not with us any more, he has passed beyond our sight in worlds higher than this one. He has left us many records to safeguard, but we will reveal the events inscribed in his own words that led to our current world, a brief history of this world up into this current year of 1, A.C (after the cataclysm), the year our Great Brother has left us. The following passages are taken from his personal writings preferably named the Chronicles of Nemlar. We have seen that this chronicle was written just days before his death, for what reason, only the Great Brother knows.

Gennisia is part of an ever changing world, an existence of countless reborning. With my gifted vision I have delved into the past and future and have seen many forms of this world. I have seen this world ruled by animals and man was non-existent. I have seen this world covered in one giant ocean. I have seen this world where Man was dependent on machines and ironically I have seen Man enslaved by machines. Every existence different, yet one thing always held true. There is always some natural catastrophe, some severe climactic change within the earth that happens every so many countless years apart, like a cycle, that changes the existence of this world. But the last cataclysmic change was wholly unnatural. This event has thrown off the cycle and altered the spirit of this world, bringing about changes that makes Gennisia a unique story to tell.
I do not know the exact year, maybe around the years of 62 B.C to 68 B.C. It was a time when Man had no rival, the world was his kingdom and every other species was beneath him. He believed himself the prime glory of creation and blessed with the will to dominate all life for the rest of his existence. He awed at his own accomplishments, swelling with pride at every feat.

But the repercussion of his arrogance was his own worst nightmare.

The terror came from the sky.

Without warning, out of the heavens had come chariots of gleaming silver. They moved like many arrows shot through the sky in all directions. These chariots spat lines of fire to the earth turning whole structures to dust. Man fought back, but his efforts were feeble and useless. In a matter of months the invaders had destroyed all what Man had accomplished. Only few survivors had escaped, fleeing to the dark corners of the world, the rest had been enslaved. Man believed them to be gods, but my vision tells me better. Man had been usurped.

These raiders from the heavens were a hideous lot; they were tall with huge heads, opaque skin that wrapped around appendages protruding from their faces, huge eyes and gaping mouths. A peculiar thing about them was that they constantly wore a silvery armor, which fitted their bodies perfectly, at all times. They built kingdoms of metal, using machines that seemed to be powered from something within the earth, something invisible I m quite sure, that existed in certain parts of the world, mainly extreme north or extreme south. The invaders also used machines to mine the mountains and the seas. As for Man, he seemed to be the invaders favorite pastime. They had built metal dungeons filled with their machines that tampered with Man s lifeblood. The horror that resulted in this unnatural tampering would exists for many years. The invaders had crossed Man with many beasts; land walking animals, sea creature and even the blood of many creatures that were not of this world. These monstrosities were an insult to the natural world.

These atrocities were used as servants, mine workers and even for food, but the most favorite were used for amusement. The invaders built an arena for the pure satisfaction of watching their strongest and most vile monstrosities fight to the death.

The invaders had made a haven for themselves in this new world. Fate had favored them.
But Fate s work was not complete.

I do not recall how it had started but the invaders broke out in civil war and years of destruction followed. Their metal kingdoms fell one by one, reduced to rubble. This war had another effect that was more detrimental to the world. The constant use of their machines and weapons had put a strain on this power source that inhibited the earth. I strongly believe it was the worlds spirit being drained of it s life-force. Whatever the case had been the consequences of it s use was the cataclysm. It began when all clouds disappeared, being replaced by dark lines that crossed one another. Then wicked storms that shot thunder to the ground, burning everything it touched. Then came the shifting of the lands, colliding with each other and some sinking deep into the ground carrying many cities with them. The sky changed again, omitting displays of every color imaginable from light to dark. Mountains spat fire and burned entire forests to nothing but ash. And the oceans began to twist and swirl, drowning entire landmasses and cities.

The remaining invaders had ceased their warring. Then as one they mounted their silver chariots and returned to the heavens from which they came, leaving behind their works of monstrosities to perish in the inevitable destruction.

But they were wrong. Fate had spawned another reborning.

Copyright and copyright protection is a weird thing. Here’s how it works:

Once you create an original piece of work, you own the copyright until you sell those rights or die (lots of interesting details on the death part, but we won’t dwell on it).

Q: What guarantee do I have that I will receive credit for my own work?

None really. Although you can uphold a copyright claim in a court of law, the expense is almost never worth it. The movie and music industries are fighting this battle on a daily basis. However, before you put your work back on the shelf, I will tell you that the inherent goodness of people (or their overiding fear of prosecution) keeps most people from using your work and claiming ownership without your permission. At 1km1kt, one of the tenets of our site is actually to encourage people to take and republish elsewhere with the stipulation that they must give credit where it is due.

Q: Are there any preliminary steps I should take to secure my own work prior to submitting it to you?

You can put that little © thing and a date on it if you like (most people do), but it’s just a reminder for others – either way you still own the work. Owning a copryright to a piece of work means it’s illegal for someone else to copy it without your permission. That’s really all there is to claiming a copyright. If you really want to go crazy, you can do something to prove that you created the work first in case you ever go to court, like taking it to a notary.

These are just two of the high points – there’s more that goes on and this is not meant to be specific legal advice, but should be sufficient for most small press RPG game publishers. Theft of copyright is a fact of life, but I would encourage our readers to devote their time to making something worth stealing and showing it to the world rather than living in fear of having it taken from them. I’ve been doing this long enough to know that most of the time goodwill begets goodwill.

In this game you play an antisocial shut-in who doesn’t want to leave his room. Appropriately, you play this game by yourself. It’s sort of like a cross between a choose your own adventure and a writing exercise, only with more ten-sided dice and insanity.

Introduction

The term hikikomori refers to a phenomenon that’s become a problem in Japan, where adolescents and young adults (mostly but not entirely guys) start seeking social isolation, shying away from normal human contact as much as possible in favor of hiding in their rooms. Some of them have hobbies that keep them busy, while others just stare at the ceiling. I could try to go into detail about this, but (1) this is a 24-hour RPG and as of 2:2 p.m. PST on Monday, June 12, 2006 I’m on the clock, and (2) I’d probably screw it up, especially since a lot of my sense of what a hikikomori is like comes from the novel NHK ni Youkoso (“Welcome to the NHK”) by Tatsuhiro Takimoto (which I recommend reading for reference… if you happen to be able to read
Japanese). For some info on the subject that’s somewhat better than anything I could write, either do a Google search, or look here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hikikomori

Jhonen Vasquez’ comic Jhonny The Homicidal Maniac probably played into this a little bit too, especially with the imaginary friends.

Anyway, this game is a “solo RPG,” which admittedly is kind of an oxymoron. But I figured that if I’m going to make a game about antisocial shut-ins, it ought to be a game you could play by yourself. In this game you’ll be rolling dice (you’ll need plenty of ten-sided dice) and following instructions to generate events, making some choices about those and rolling a few more dice, and then writing a fictional diary entry based on the results. Out of necessity it’s not as open-ended as a normal RPG, but then it’s mostly a writing exercise. You can write on paper, type them up, or put them in a blog. Needless to say I’m curious what the results will be like, but you can do whatever you want with them.

By default, the game ends after your character goes through seven unusually eventful days. One of the ways in which it’s like a typical RPG is that there isn’t any particular way to “win.” If you want your character to get out of his rut and rejoin society, or stay the same, or kill himself, or whatever, you can try to steer him that way, but a lot of stuff will come down to how the dice fall. The real game is turning all this nonsense into coherent writing.