Last weekend I went on a rampage, scarping up everything I could find for free or Pay What You Want (PWWYW) on DriveThruRPG. I’ll be honest–there is a lot of crap out there that is not even worth the download. But there is a lot of great stuff that really is worth the time to download–especially if it is free!
Free Rule Sets
The first thing I started going through was the free rule sets. Even though I love <The Fantasy Trip, I am bit of a collector of RPG rulebooks. Why? They give me ideas for house rules for different parts of the game that TFT may not cover. It’s also interesting to see how other game designers solve the various problems in RPG design, especially in areas that TFT does not.
Another reason I collect them is that it is just freaking fun! Most of the rulebooks I get are not sterile, black and white books. They have artwork and other things that give me inspiration and make me feel good about being a gamer. And it’s fun reading more about my chosen hobby.
OK, so what rules did I get on DTRPG? A lot. Just do a search for "free" and see what you get…
WARNING: You get a lot of bad stuff. Really bad.
(Did I mention that it’s free?) Anyway, you can get a feel pretty quickly if something is worth your time to download. What’s fun are the surprises you get when something looks bad, but has some gem that makes it all worthwhile. It could be a neat hack for handling social interactions or a village design, or even some cool artwork–it doesn’t matter. Those gems are what you are mining for!
Free Campaign Settings
The next thing I went through was the free campaign settings. This is where the true inspiration can come from. There are tons of them on DTRPG. A lot of them are free introductions to a pay version. There are also a lot of ones that are just free or PWYW documents that someone put out there for the fun of it or for publicity. That doesn’t matter, either.
What matters is that you have an opportunity to download and read a number of campaign worlds, with settings, people and monsters all fleshed out. I love these things, too–they give me ideas and help spur my own imagination. And they are just cool to read!
What to Do With Them All
Well, if I was buying the print versions, my wife would have already have had an intervention because they would have filled up the guest room where I "play" and have all of my books. Since they are all electronic, though, they just soak up my hard drive.
But what do I do with them? Well, I read them! I get ideas for new monsters. I get ideas for house rules. I get ideas for NPCs. I get ideas for plots and for adventures. (OK, you get the idea…) I take all of these and fold them back into my campaigns and adventures. Even though I only play solo these days, they still help me play better.
And with that note, one last thing: they also help me learn what is good design and what is bad design. I am not a professional game designer, nor do I claim to be. I am just an enthusiastic amateur. But I want to learn to be better at my chosen hobby. And if you do, too… downloading and reading some of these games and settings will help you, too.
Now if I can just find the time to read all of the dang PDFs I just downloaded!
Have you found any gems for free on DriveThruRPG/RPGNow? What have been your experiences? Let me know in the comments!
Marko ∞
(Originally published on inthelabyrinth.org, on 6/29/2018.)
