Alas, we had to miss attending this year’s Free RPG Day, due to work schedules and other schemes of Darth Real Life. But, our FLGS, Game Goblins, had plenty of booklets left this week, when we paid a visit. I just finished reading through the four we picked up, for RPGs new and old (but in new formats!) All but one of these are in my ideal Free RPG Day style–a scenario booklet that has everything needed to play it: the adventure, mechanics, and pre-genned PCs with gear.
First up is “Skitter Shot,” a free adventure for Paizo’s new Starfinder space opera game, based on the Pathfinder fantasy RPG. This is my second favorite of the four. It’s a good 3-act story, for four PCs (all skittermanders) about a salvage-operation-gone-bad that looks like it would take a session to complete. If your group belongs to the Starfinder Society Roleplaying Guild, “Skitter Shot” is sanctioned for Guild play, per the product page. It also looks easy to convert to other space opera/SF systems (including the more narrative ones). As of this writing, Paizo publishing planned to have a free PDF available for download on July 1, 2018, as well as selling a print edition (availability not given).
“Maria in Three Parts” is a module for another 2017 release, Unknown Armies third edition. The is a dark urban fantasy game. It’s about magick-users in a world very much like ours, but with even less credulity towards the supernatural. The four pre-gens, representing two of the game’s sub-types of magick-users, are called to help locate a missing woman who consulted for the police on weird cases. Might be a good fit for gamers who like the style of the earliest Dresden Files novels. Suggested retail price is $29.95 – 39.95 US (print), $14.95 (digital), for each of 3 volumes.
[Mini-rant warning] Alas, the writers/developers managed to turn me off any interest in trying this game–by the time I finished reading the introduction. Seriously, 30 (Yes I counted!) cliches, (not-so) clever metaphors, and pop culture call-outs, all in a 22 paragraph introduction. Good writers don’t do that! Bonus Demerit: one of those metaphors was a bad taste/worse judgment a–hat joke about an aspect of female physiology. It’s even more disgusting, considering that a number of the credited Contributing Authors are women. What kind of publisher or editorial staff doesn’t remove something that has a high chance of offending potential players? I won’t support that kind of company, Atlas Games. [/mini-rant]
Renegade Studios, which has published mostly board and card games, is debuting its fantasy RPG Overlight in September. (Hardcover price is $50.) Renegade describes Overlight as “The Role-Playing Game of Kaledioscopic Journeys,” but I still don’t understand what they mean by “Kaledioscopic Fantasy” after reading their explanation, which names name that I recognize, like J. R. R. Tolkien and Peter S. Beagle, plus a lot more that I don’t know like Roger Dean and Joe Abercrombie. The artwork is very nice, some of it brightly-colored.
Nonetheless, Overlight has a very interesting setting with seven floating continents (“shards”) with unique climates and societies. One of the mechanics is “Chroma,” which seems to be a sort of magic system based on colors. “Birthright of Khar-Ulan,” the included module, takes place on the shard of Pyre. The plot could be adapted for other fantasy RPG systems, if the GM substitutes nearly everything–locations, cultures, and MacGuffin. Note that this Free RPG Day booklet doesn’t include quick-start rules or pre-gen PCs, which is a problem for me.
However, it may be possible to try the game before then. The top of the downloads page has a number of Overlight links including pre gen PCs and “preview” mechanics, enough for a GM experienced with other systems to teach and run the game more or less successfully. As best I can figure out from going back and forth between a character sheet and the preview Game Mechanics chapter, Overlight uses standard polyhedral dice for tests and each ability (Virtue) score and Skill rating is a type of polyhedral die, rather than the more usual numerical value. Dice pools consist of 3 dice each of the Virtue type and Skill type plus a Spirit die for a total of 7, with levels of success from 0/1 to 6. Each PC also has access to a “Spirit Pool,” that seems to function like a personal, players-only version of a Star Wars Destiny Pool. While I like the background, I don’t feel like putting that kind of effort into trying it out. YMMV, however.
The last game, is the oldest and my favorite of the four. Flying Buffalo presents the venerable Tunnels and Trolls, which is still quite popular in Japan, it says. The module in this booklet is a solo Japanese adventure, and yes there are instructions for creating your PC included. I haven’t tried the solo “Coming Down the Mountain” module (written like a Choose Your Own Adventure book) yet–but I will, and I promise to tell you all about it in a future “Try Before You Buy” segment.
What else comes in the booklet? A charming how to play “manga” featuring, among others, a cute fourth-wall violating elf wizard. (If you must know, I put manga in quote marks because the comics read front to back, rather than the traditional back to front.) Stat blocks for all four “manga” characters. A selection of spells for Wizards and Rogues (read, “fighter/magic-users” not “thieves”). Mini (quick-start) rules, including character creation. Plus, something near and dear to many fantasy adventurers’ hearts, but seldom included in Free RPG materials–a mini Treasure Generator.
And that’s not all! The booklet touts a free-to-play T&T mobile game app for iPhone and Android, available through iTunes and Google Play, respectively. There are currently 20 adaptations of older T&T solo modules to play through. Sounds like more fun to me.
There are a lot of price points for T&T rulebooks and supplements. The 60 page T&T Adventures Japan is $15.95, the hardback combined T&T/Trollworld is $60 (both products are here). Drive-thru RPG has T&T PDFs priced from $0-20.
So a variety of RPGs for you to try, or try again. Did you pick up any of these and what did you think of them? Were there other goodies my clan missed this year?
Linda Whitson
Latest posts by Linda Whitson (see all)
- Astral Projections – The Ripperdoc Is In - May 8, 2023
