My favorite day of the year, Free RPG Day, is right around the corner. Saturday, June 22, over thirty publishers will be offering free products through local gaming stores. If you want to know where you can pick up some free swag near you, check out the Free RPG Day website!
Below is a breakdown of all this years offerings, sorted by type, with some of my recommendations, so you can get your wishlists ready.
Dungeons and Dragons Supplements
Itโs no secret that 5th Edition Dungeons and Dragons (5e) is the most popular RPG on the market and has been for many many years. This year boasts seven unique 5e adventures for players in need of new material.
Most of these adventures serve to introduce buyers to much larger product lines. Hit Point Press, for example, is releasing a 5e adventure for their animal-hero setting, Humblewood, Loke Battle Matsโ adventure showcases their eponymous battle maps, and 1985 Gamesโ adventure showcases their new Studio Ghibli-inspired Obojima setting.
Here are all the 5e adventures:
1985 Games - Mayhem in Okiri Village, an Obojima adventure
Crimson Herald x Samurai Rusk - Sink! Treasures of Deep Grotto
Hit Point Press - Shock in Stormcrag, a Humblewood adventure
Kobold Press - Shards of the Spellforge, an adventure for both 5e and Tales of the Valiant
Loke Battle Mats - Not a Drop to Drink, promoting their upcoming Calendar of Many Adventures 2025
Loot Tavern - Helianaโs Guide to Monster Hunting, a 5e rules expansion for monster hunting, with accompanying adventure
Roll & Play Press - One Shot Wonders, a list of 100 5e-compatible adventure ideas
Non-D&D Adventures
Adventures for games that are not D&D. While many of these can act as introductions for new players, most assume that SOMEONE at the table has at least skimmed the core rulebook. Deciding to pick one of these up is pretty easy. Do you play the game? Then grab an adventure for it.
One exception might be Need Games! Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed. Need Games! is a major Italian publisher who gained worldwide recognition last year for their game Fabula Ultima. Rojo is an adventure for their Terror Target Gemini RPG which, while technically available in English via itch.io, is all but unknown here in the States.
My other recommendations are The Sinking Tower for the Swedish Dragonbane RPG; Across the Veil of Time for my favorite old-school RPG, Dungeon Crawl Classics; and Return to Dark Tower for the underappreciated Mazes RPG.
The Adventures:
9th Level Games - Return to Dark Tower, Mazes RPG
Free League - The Sinking Tower, Dragonbane RPG
Goodman Games - Across the Veil of Time, Dungeon Crawl Classics RPG
Paizo - The Great Toy Heist, Pathfinder
Paizo - Second Contact, Starfinder
Renegade Games - Red Tundra, Werewolf: The Apocalypse
Renegade Games - Unnatural Disaster, a GI Joe, Transformers, Power Rangers, and My Little Pony RPG crossover
Need Games! - Rojo: A Kurosawa Inspired Bloodshed, Terror Target Gemini RPG
RPG Quickstarts
Now we get to the real meat and potatoes of Free RPG Day. The biggest reason to join FRPG Day is to try a game that you have never tried before. A quickstart is the fastest way of doing that. A quickstart, generally speaking, contains a condensed set of rules โ just enough to start playing โ and an introductory scenario. Anyone can pick up a quickstart, skim through it, and play a game in a matter of hours. I encourage everyone to pick up at least one of these. You may be surprised by what you stumble upon.
I highly recommend the Hollows RPG by Rowan, Rook, and Decard for anyone who loves Bloodborne, the Persona series, or tabletop games with unique combat systems. The PDF is also available through their Backerkit. Alternately, I recommend the Level 1 Anthology for anyone looking for something unique from the independent gaming sphere. Lastly, Lucky Duck Gamesโ new Paper App Dungeon looks like a great deal of fun, using simple pocket-sized dungons and a pencil in place of a six-sided die.
The quickstarts:
Guillotine Press x CMON - Plague Bearer RPG
Lucky Duck Games - Paper App Dungeon, a new game feature a six-sided pencil in place of a die and 4 pocket maps
Magpie Games - Avatar Legends
Marvel Multiverse RPG - MRPG
R Talsorian Games - Shadow Scar
Red Raven Games - Arzium RPG
Rowan, Rook, and Decard - Hollows
Steamforged Games - RuneScape Kingdoms: the RPG
Studio Agate - Shadows of Esteren
Studio Agate - Fateforge RPG
Wet Ink Games - Garbage & Glory
9th Level Games - Level 1 volume 5, a collection of independent mini-RPGs
Accessories
Iโll be up front, youโre not getting any of these. These are the high-value items that tend to disappear as soon as theyโre put out, or else held behind the counter until some specific conditions are met. If you really want one of these, consult your participating local game store to figure out how they handle giving these out and what your chances are of snagging any. Youโll know if you want any of these. Everybody could use more dice!
The Accessories
BCW - Dice Tray and Dice Bag
Dispel Dice - D20 dice set
Foam Brain Games - D20; miniature-pin; 5e adventure
Nord Games - RPG Accessory Decks
Roll20 - Free 1 month subscription
Story Engine Deck - RPG supplement
Sirius Dice - Legend of Drizzt Dice Set
Wizkids - D&D Miniatures
Magpie Games - Avatar Legends dice
In Other Newsโฆ
Itโs been a while since my last newsletter. A lot has happened in that time. I crowdfunded and published my very first commercial adventure: MรRK KรPHETS: A Dead Mall Dungeon Crawl for the MรRK BORG RPG, an experience I plan to share in-depth in a later post.
I also contributed to the Dungeon Masterโs Guild project Faces of the Cage, a Planescape supplement featuring sixteen ready-to-use NPCs for your next D&D game.
Itโs been a busy year, to be sure, but Iโve got plenty of material for future articles. On top of the above experiences, I also have some insights into the Japanese gaming scene, the Chinese sensation known as Jubensha, and more topics about gaming both digital and tabletop! If you have any recommendations for what I should write about next, feel free to leave a comment or send me a DM! (I guess Substack does that now?)
In any case, enjoy Free RPG Day and I will see you in the next one!
I'm late to the party, but there's some really cool RPG finds in here, Jonah - thanks! I'm especially interested in the Mazes FRPG and the Paper Apps Dungeon.