Shadowdark RPG (2023)

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

Risus: The Anything RPG is a universal, rules-light tabletop role-playing game designed by S. John Ross and published by Cumberland Games & Diversions. Originally released in 1993, with its definitive version 2.0 published in 2013, the system was created as a high-velocity framework to run casual, humorous, or completely impromptu gaming sessions across any narrative genre. Description Risus prioritizes improvisational storytelling and minimalist mechanics over granular simulation or tactical grid combat. Instead of tracking traditional numeric attributes, skills, or rigid character classes, characters are defined entirely by broad cultural or narrative tropes called "Clichés." The game operates on a high degree of system abstraction, utilizing a completely unified conflict engine where physical combat, intense debates, artistic competitions, and legal battles are resolved using the exact same mathematical pipeline. While frequently utilized for comedic play due to its loose restrictions, the system's structural logic allows it to be scaled for serious or dramatic campaigns. Links drivethrurpg.com - DriveThruRPG store page (Free) risusiverse.com - Risusverse, a community wiki

Get your table playing in minutes, not hours.   GATEWAY RPG is a free, rules-lite d20 system built for zero-prep adventures, sudden one-shots, and seamless intro sessions. Familiar 5E-style mechanics with all the bloat stripped out, so you can run any genre instantly: neon-soaked cyberpunk streets, grit-filled noir alleys, high fantasy, cosmic horror, and everything in between. The Definitive Edition is now the main book. This is the complete, current version of GATEWAY RPG: updated core rules, solo play, a starter bestiary, and homebrew variants, character sheets all combined into one source. New artwork, professional layout, and everything players and GMs need in a single 132 page PDF. Want the history? Every older version of the rulebook, spanning 2017 to 2026, is bundled in the Legacy Zip below for collectors and the curious. Download the complete PDF bundle. AI Disclosure: This Enhanced Edition of Gateway RPG features some AI-generated artwork and layout assistance. The rules were still hand written by me and human proofread/playtested since 2017. As a one-man passion project with $0 budget, and $0 revenue gain from this game, this edition utilizes AI imagery only to provide a visually richer and cohesive experience while keeping the game entirely FREE. The original Classic Edition from 2017, featuring human-created artwork, is included as a bonus in the download files. However, if you are only looking for a gaming experience completely free of AI-generated assets, the standalone Classic Edition can be found exclusively on its own dedicated product page at https://gatewayrpg.itch.io/gateway-rpg-classic-edition. What’s Inside? Definitive Edition (Main Book): The complete game in one volume. Updated rules, solo play engine, starter bestiary, and homebrew variants. Legacy Zipfile (2017-2026): Every prior version of the rulebook, character sheet, supplement preserved as released. For archivists, returning players, and anyone who wants to see how the game evolved. Core Rules: The streamlined engine for players and Game Masters, in both English and Spanish (Reglas en Español). Character Sheets: Multiple Printable and Form Fillable Character Sheets Ready-to-Play Content: Pregenerated characters and one-shot adventure modules spanning multiple genres. Jump straight into the action. Player's Toolkit: Printable and form-fillable character sheets, a one-page quick reference guide, and the d20 Oracle for solo play. Starter Bestiary: 25 adversaries across 11 settings, from High Fantasy to Space Opera to Lovecraftian Horror. Homebrew Variants: Over 20 pages of optional mechanics, including Spark of Heroism (Inspiration), Pushing for Success (partial success), and genre modifiers for Survival and Cosmic Horror. Pocket Character Sheets: Compact sheets designed for portability. Solo Play Quickstart Zine: A portable, zine-style guide for on-the-go solo adventures. NEW: Android Player Companion App Character Builder: Create custom characters or select from 30 curated pre-mades. Pocket Rules: Quickly search core mechanics and references on the fly. Sheet-Integrated Dice: Roll checks directly from your sheet. Solo Engine: Built-in oracle for quick, on-the-go solo adventures. https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.aistudio.gatewayrpg.app Designer's Note: GATEWAY RPG grew out of a personal passion for tabletop gaming. Back in 2015, I discovered S. John Ross’s classic 1993 game, Risus: The Anything RPG. It was free, modular, ultra-flexible, and simple to pick up, but as I played more TTRPG's like DND5e, I missed the iconic d20 and the drama of critical hits and misses. I created GATEWAY RPG to capture that same beginner-friendly spirit while bringing back the thrill of the twenty-sided die and being able to use it for any setting. Whether you are running quick one-shots, playing standalone adventures, diving into solo sessions, or modularly introducing advanced rules as your group learns, GATEWAY adapts seamlessly to your table. GATEWAY RPG and Aurican's Lair are a Not-For-Profit Tabletop Roleplaying Game publisher.

Wanderhome is a pastoral fantasy role-playing game about traveling animal-folk, the world they inhabit, and the way the seasons change. It is a game filled with grassy fields, mossy shrines, herds of chubby bumblebees, opossums in sundresses, salamanders with suspenders, starry night skies, and the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine. You might be a tamarin who dances with small and forgotten gods, a leporine mail carrier who relies on moths to get packages where they belong, a little lizard with a big heart and a mysterious past, or a near-endless number of other thrilling possibilities. No matter what, we’re always travelers—animal-folk who go from village to village and get to see the length and breadth of all the world of Hæth. The seasons will change as we play, and we will change with them. Description Wanderhome is built on the Belonging Outside Belonging engine by Avery Alder and Benjamin Rosenbaum. That means there’s no dice, no math, no Game Masters, and no complicated rules. It’s all about getting you into game as smoothly as possible, and filling your imagination with richly developed worlds and evocative text. The game is designed for any length of session, and with any number of folks. Whether you’re sitting down with a couple of friends for a cozy after-dinner hangout or throwing a party for a decade-long campaign, Wanderhome always has space for your experiences and needs. /images/general-media/1779960617_hvwl1UPt.webpThe World of Hæth Wanderhome is set in the wholly original fantasy world of Hæth, inspired by the works of Brian Jacques, Tove Jansson, and Hayao Miyazaki. The game hints at and builds a mythological language around forces like the bitter King of the Floating Mountain, the Lily Rebellion, the Slobbering God and the blade that killed her, and the fall of the great dragons of old, but refuses to elaborate or define them—leaving that exercise to the players through the journey itself. Instead, Wanderhome is focused on the lives of ordinary people, and the world that exists for farmers, merchants, and crafts-folk. Wanderhome is a world filled with animal-folk and their buggy livestock. Unlike many worlds with animal-folk, there is no morality or judgement ascribed to the various animals of Hæth—a snake is just as capable of being a kindly farmer as a rabbit, and you can’t assume much about someone based on what animal they are. You might find a fluffy shepherd with a herd of bumblebees, a shrewish merchant riding a stag beetle the size of a house, a lonely fox riding a grasshopper from place to place, or a praying mantis that hangs out in a gecko’s pocket. Links possumcreekgames.com - Official website reddit.com - Wanderhome subreddit

NovArchaic is a modern-day science-fantasy tabletop role-playing game focused on identity-first character creation, a structured-but-creative action system, and fun, rewarding crafting. Character creation focuses on a character with a backstory rooted in the setting and goals that, once completed, unlock new ways to improve. All actions use a unified passive and active skill system, tied into a flexible critical-effect system. But what about the setting? NovArchaic's core setting is a world that didn't know it wasn't whole. The core reality shard is our modern world, with its cell phones and memes. Then there are fractures and other shards containing magic and monsters. Slowly, as time passes, these parts of the universe try to come back together, but it's a complicated, bloody mess.

An absurd, over-the-top, comedy/horror D&D Actual Play Podcast starring some of History's most infamous monsters. Join the adventures of The Invisible Man, The Mummy, The Frankenstein Monster, The Phantom of the Opera, The Wolfman, and more as they're forced to ban together to survive the supernatural horrors of the "Engl-ish" Countryside. Table Talk Table Talk is a special interview series on the D&Dark Podcast where the host interviews other tabletop roleplaying game creators, game masters, and actual play podcasters about their shows, design philosophies and creative spaces. Links dndarkpodcast.com - Official website spotify.com - Spotify feed podcasts.apple.com - Apple Podcasts feed