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Ishanekon: World Shapers is the (probably) biggest free Indie TTRPG with over 2,500 character options. It has been mainly developed by Jan Luyken, aka Blaze Reason, with the aim of creating a game that can compete (if not surpass) the current biggest games on the market while remaining affordable for anyone. With its easily adaptable rules and wide range of options, from beginner-friendly to highly complex, it is designed to satisfy the needs of almost any story and play style. Description From epic fantasy and sci-fi to mundane humans facing everything from common threats to cosmic horror, Ishanekons: World Shapers’ modular design lets you easily adjust the rules to help you experience your stories. This game is designed with the idea that you bring the flavor, and the mechanics help you bring it to life. The 10 Archetypes with over 200 Sub-Archetypes, 1000+ Abilities, 600+ Talents, 300+ items and upgrades, and more allow you to build anything from a simple cat to a city-destroying kaiju. Role and complexity filters let you find what you need quickly while helping you avoid those features that might be too overwhelming for your liking.

Mothership is an action-packed mixture of sci-fi and horror themes, combined into a streamlined gaming system about surviving in the cold, deadly vacuum of space while everything around you is trying to kill you. All at the same time as you are fighting (or fleeing from) alien creatures who aren't there to make any new friends. Chaos. It was published by Tuesday Knight Games and released in 2024.  It is a survival horror system designed for one-shots and campaigns, inspired by classics like Alien, Event Horizon, and Pandorum. Famous for its streamlined ruleset and award-winning graphic design that prioritizes ease of use at the table. The game, at the same time simplistic and streamlined in design, will challenge the characters at all times, allowing the game to focus on the storytelling and less on having complicated rules. The system it is inspired by is Old School Renaissance Description In Mothership, players take on the roles of blue collar workers in space, such as Teamsters, Scientists, Androids, and Marines. You are not powerful or heroic soldiers; you are vulnerable humans trapped in high pressure environments with alien monsters, failing life support systems and the crushing weight of corporate greed. The game is designed to be fast-paced and unforgiving, where the primary goal is not to win, but often enough - to survive. System Overview & Key Features d100 Percentile Resolution In the core of the game system is the d100 percentile system. Roll two d10 dice and get a number from 00 to 99. Success means rolling a lower result than your character's appropriate stat or skill for the task. Rolling a double, like 11, 22, or 33, is considered a critical success if it succeeds or a critical failure if it fails. Rolling low is the target for survival. Stress and Panic As characters encounter horrors or suffer trauma, they accumulate Stress. When a character experiences a terrifying event or rolls a critical failure they must make a Panic Check. The more Stress they have, the more likely they are to suffer a catastrophic mental breakdown, ranging from a heart attack to a violent psychotic break. The Save System Instead of a long list of saving throws, characters have four primary Saves: Sanity, Fear, Body, and Armor. These are used to resist different types of potential trauma. Fear saves are rolled to keep your cool under pressure, while Sanity saves represent your ability to process alien truths without losing your mind (think lovecraftian horrors). Class Based Skills The game features four distinct classes. Marines are obviously combat focused, Teamsters are pilots and laborers, Scientists are experts in medicine and biology, and Androids are cold calculating, yet efficient machines. Each class has it's unique starting stats and specific triggers for when they gain or lose Stress, which is based on their personality. Lethal Combat and Healing Combat is extremely dangerous and often a last resort. Weapons are likely to deal potentially excessive damage when compared to a character's total healthpool. Healing will be slow and require resources that are hard to come by in the middle of the constant crisis, making every injury feel like a significant threat to the character's chances of making it out alive. Deadly Ship-to-Ship Combat The game includes a streamlined system for starship encounters. Ships have their own stats and modules that are likely to be damaged during a fight. Players must work together to manage various roles and stations, like Engineering or Piloting, to keep the ship's hull from breaching while under fire or fleeing from cosmic anomalies. Additional links tuesdayknightgames.com - Official Tuesday Knight Games website mothershiprpg.com - Official Mothership portal and digital resources

Basic Roleplaying is the venerable "D100" engine that has powered Chaosium’s greatest hits for over four decades. Originally appearing as a slim booklet in 1980, it was most recently revitalized as the Basic Roleplaying: Universal Game Engine in 2023. In 2026, it stands as one of the industry's most important open-source platforms, released under the ORC License, allowing independent creators to build and sell their own games using its legendary, time-tested mechanics. Description BRP is a "genre-neutral" toolkit that discards character levels and rigid classes in favor of a pure skill-based system. Whether you are playing a Bronze Age warrior, a 1920s detective, or a futuristic mech pilot, the core experience remains the same: your character is defined by what they can do. Because it uses percentages (e.g., "I have a 65% chance to climb this wall"), it is widely considered the most intuitive and "transparent" RPG system for new players to understand at a glance. System Overview & Key Features The Universal D100 Engine Every action is resolved by rolling two ten-sided (d10) dice to get a result from 1 to 100. If you roll is equal to or under your skill rating, the action is deemed a success. This approach simplifies the mechanical process of the game, as there are no complex tables to keep track of and compare to decypher whether it is a success or failure. Organic Character Growth There is no "Experience Points" system in the traditional sense. Instead, when you succeed in using a skill, you mark a "Skill Check" on your character sheet. At certain stops in the game/story, the player rolls to see if the character improves in those skills, meaning your character evolves based specifically on the actions they performed (and succeeded at) during the game. Modular Rule Design The Universal Game Engine is designed with variations and systems to choose from. GMs can choose whether they prefer to just use "Hit Points" or add a more detailed wound system with "Hit Locations" for more realistic tactical consequences. Systems for Magic, Sorcery, Mutations, or Superpowers (depending on the setting) can be added, instead of being baked in the core mechanics, ensuring the mechanics always fit the theme of the game. Deadly and Tactical Combat BRP combat is grounded and dangerous. Unlike high-fantasy games where adventurers have a vast health pool, a single strike of a sword or bullet in BRP can be fatal. This encourages players to think creatively and use mechanics and terrain to their advantage. Talking their way out of situations is often seen as more reasonable (and survivable), than just treating every conflict as a forced combat situation. The ORC License Revolution By introducing to the Open RPG Creative (ORC) license, BRP started a wave of third-party "Powered by BRP". This has expanded the system into new genres like Cyberpunk, Wuxia, and Cozy Fantasy, all supported by a single, unified ruleset and system, compatible with most themes. Compatibility with "The Big Three" Because the core mechanics have remained the same since the beginning, a monster or spell from a 1980s supplement is almost always compatible with the modern 2026 engine. This gives GMs access to one of the largest libraries of pre-written adventures in tabletop gaming, spanning Call of Cthulhu, RuneQuest, and Pendragon. Additional links chaosium.com/brp : Official BRP Universal Game Engine portal basicroleplaying.org : The primary community hub and "BRP Central" forums

The topical TTRPG podcast you were destined to encounter no matter what choices you made. Join Jorbin of Elder Goblin Games and his ever-changing round table of guests as they explore casual TTRPG topics and put the FUN back in FUNgeon! Get it...? Because Dungeons... and Quantum Ogres... idk just listen if you like roleplaying games... Links youtube.com - Podcast playlist

ClockSync is a browser-based tool for game masters that shares progress clocks, counters, timers and switches with players in real time. What it does: Create and manage Blades in the Dark-style progress clocks Share your clock board live with players — no login required Link items through a trigger system: when one clock fills, others react automatically Use counters for resources, timers for pressure, switches for states Trigger system: Items can be linked so that game events cascade. A clock filling up can start a timer, flip a switch, or advance another clock — creating the kind of ticking-bomb tension that makes sessions memorable. Built for Blades, works everywhere: Designed with Forged in the Dark games in mind, but ClockSync works with any system that uses progress clocks — Apocalypse World, Trophy, Agon, or your own homebrew. [h2[Links mrrettich.itch.io - ClockSync itch.io page

In the world of tabletop gaming, there is one system that towers above all others. Whether you are a veteran of the hobby or just getting into it, you are aware of the elephant in the room. As the hobby evolves with new rulesets and indie titles, we dived deep into the numbers we are seeing on Groupfinder. Based on the currently active posts on Groupfinder, which comes down to 1560 active players and 688 active groups, here are some numbers that better describe the current landscape. /images/general-media/1775486691_3CWZADDB.pngThe current active posts on Groupfinder, as of April 6, 2026. You can see the live numbers here. The dominance of D&D It will come as no surprise to most of us, that Dungeons & Dragons remains as the dominant force in the hobby space. And while some of us (generally veterans who have played for a long period of time) feel like D&D has outlived itself and is losing to the newer titles. The numbers tell another story: Groups: ~60% of all the groups currently looking for players are for Dungeons and Dragons, either 5.5E, 5E or some previous edition. Players: If groups are over half, then the player side is even steeper. As 90% of all player posts on Groupfinder are looking for a D&D game. While many players are also open to playing other game systems, the vast majority still treats D&D as their go-to system. Looking to start your TTRPG hobby journey? It seems like you should find a dungeons and dragons group first. Beyond just D&D An encouraging trend we can see from our data, is the players' willingness to experiment and also try something else. While 90% of the players are looking to play D&D, they aren't only looking for a D&D group. When we exclude Dungeons & Dragons from the statistics, we can draw a clear "Top 5" of adjacent systems. Based on the currently active posts in April 2026, these are the most popular systems on Groupfinder right now: Pathfinder 1 & Pathfinder 2 combined Daggerheart Call of Cthulhu Vampire: The Masquerade Cyberpunk RED /images/general-media/1775485987_rve3K01J.pngCurrently popular systems (players and groups combined) The Groupfinder Library We believe that exposing players to alternative systems will keep the hobby-space fresh and thriving. This is why we have created the Groupfinder Library - an all-encompassing collection of various resources: Tools, Platforms, Creators, Communities and Game systems. We are hoping that players looking for a D&D game, might stumble upon some other game system in the library and discover that the hobby isn't just Dungeons & Dragons. Perhaps their journey won't have a traditional start and their first game is something else entirely. By lowering the barrier to entry for non-D&D systems, we hope to make the hobby more diverse and vibrant for everyone. 10.04.2026 Edit: The library is now live - read more about it in our Update log. Are you already part of the data? Whether you are a DM looking for a party or a player looking for a home, your voice helps us understand where the hobby is going. Looking for a game? Browse the player profiles and let DMs find you. Looking for players? Take a look at all the groups looking for players and start your next adventure. What is Groupfinder? Groupfinder is a free global tabletop gaming "looking for group/players" matchmaking platform. The platform's growing userbase is a clear indication of a need for such an unifying place.  Read more about the platform here.