Top 5 Free Roleplaying Systems

Roleplaying games of every type are enjoyed by millions of people around the world. These fascinating games allow their players to interact in the creation of dramatic tales of adventure. Usually under the leadership of a gamemaster, the players use character sheets, dice, and their own imagination to tell collaborative stories set in the particular environment of a given RPG.

This is all well and good for the fans, but what about the new or casual gamer? These systems, after all, have to have rules, and all of the players have to be able to look at them. A boxed set of the three main instruction manuals for Wizards of the Coast's Dungeons & Dragons (perhaps the most famous of all RPG's) carries a hefty price tag of $89.95 - an expensive proposition for someone interested in giving the hobby a try. Most players only require the Player's Handbook: Core Rulebook I, but even that has a retail price of $29.95. What is a player on a budget to do?

Independent game designers come to the rescue. A good number of games are available on the market that cost between $5 and $20 for their core rules, and for the savvy gamer willing to either read off their screen or print their own books, services like RPGNow.com sell rules in PDF format at a discount.

For the shopper interested in saving money, however, nothing sounds quite as good as free. To that end, here are five RPG's thrifty gamers might want to check out. They offer different gaming experiences for hobbyists of all levels from the beginner to the expert - and for those new to the genre it can be surprising what can be had for free.

DUDE - Not everybody needs to play tournament-level basketball with full NBA regulations. Some people prefer a nice, friendly pickup game every now and then. In the RPG world, games designed with this in mind are commonly known as "Beer and Pretzel" games, or more formally as "Rules Lite" games. The objective is simple - keep the game simple enough for anybody to understand and play while interesting enough to keep a gaming group engaged. Hardcore gamers might not care for their simplicity, but new gamers will appreciate it as a stepping stone to harder games, and most people enjoy a game that you can just pick up and play for a quick night of entertainment.

One such game is DUDE, by Mark Damon Hughes. The Diceless Universal Determination Engine (see? It spells "DUDE" - this is a common trend in gaming) is designed to give you flexibility in your gaming and encourage more actual roleplaying by making the mechanics almost ridiculously simple. At Hughes' DUDE Index you'll find not just the DUDE rules and character sheets, but also the additional rules for playing setting-specific variations on the game. The first such variation? The Alan Smithee Project- "a roleplaying game of movies that should not be; bad crossovers, bad sequels, bad adaptations, bad remakes, and even bad new movies." It may not lead to epic roleplaying campaigns, but it certainly makes for a fun party.

Dice Chucker - People drawn to old-school RPG's might want to consider Dice Chucker, by Bobby R. Wallen Jr. The deceptively simple manual clocks in at a mere 25 pages, but don't let that fool you. The learning curve is steep for new gamers as Wallen wastes little time explaining common roleplaying terms. The result is a fast-paced game that - as the title suggests - offers plenty of dice chucking. Specifically, Wallen warns that you'll need "a LOT of six-sided dice" - not all that common an element in roleplaying games. Beginners might get left behind unless they have an experienced game master, but even so Dice Chucker offers a lot of flexibility and fun for the low low cost of nothing. The game itself is available for download from 1KM1KT - a treasure trove of indie RPG's. At the official Dice Chucker website you'll find a handful of expansions, also free for download - as well as multiple pop-ups and pervasive ads.

GURPS Lite - In gaming circles, GURPS is often spoken of in reverential tones. The Generic Universal RolePlaying System was created by Steve Jackson Games in 1986. Prior to the publication of GURPS, almost every roleplaying game was focused on a specific world setting, each with its own proprietary rule system.

GURPS was not the first roleplaying game to buck that trend, but it was certainly the first to do so and be commercially successful. Instead of building a specific world, a specific set of character classes, and a specific set of available skills, the system was designed with flexibility in mind, potentially allowing gamers to create any setting or storyline their hearts would desire. That openness has led not only to genre-based expansion rules like GURPS Horror and GURPS Steampunk, but also to fan-created, unlicensed expansions allowing users to play in the worlds of popular series like Hellboy and Star Trek.

Today, GURPS is in its 4th edition - and yes, it still costs money. But for the frugal, a stripped-down version of the rules was released in 2004 under the name GURPS Lite. According to Steve Jackson Games, the stripped-down version "covers the essentials of character creation, combat, success rolls, adventuring, and game mastering," and is designed "to help GMs bring new players into the game, without frightening them with the full GURPS Basic Set and a stack of worldbooks!" The Lite version of the rules is available as a free PDF file from e23, Steve Jackson Games' digital goods store.

Saga - With Saga, the frugal consumer gets a completely blank slate. This truly universal system not only doesn't suggest a setting, it doesn't even suggest a genre. Released under a Creative Commons license, Saga encourages its users to build their own games around the mechanics, creating their own settings.

Saga has been pretty heavily playtested at this time, but is still available only in Beta form - just like good software. Brian Engard welcomes suggestions for improvements at his website, The Gamecrafters' Guild.

With its Creative Commons license permitting even commercial use of the work, Saga presents an interesting alternative to experienced gamers interested in toying with something other than the d20 system. And speaking of the d20 system...

The d20 System - If you've spent any time looking at roleplaying games, chances are that you've heard a lot about d20. A large number of popular games on the market today are based on the d20 system. Call of Cthulhu, World of Warcraft, Big Eyes Small Mouth, and even Dungeons & Dragons itself are all powered by d20. The powerful and versatile gaming system is adaptable to almost any setting, and thanks to the Open Gaming License it's free to use under certain easily-met conditions.

What casual gamers may not realize is that the bare bones of the d20 system are available online as a free download from D&D publisher Wizards of the Coast, meaning that the same mechanics that drive the $89.95 core rule system are available for free to anybody with internet access.

Even so, a free download is not going to give the frugal gamer immediate and full access to all of these popular commercial systems. This particular option is not for the faint of heart. Downloading the d20 system and attempting to play a game with it is somewhat akin to ordering a crate of loose parts from General Motors and attempting to build a Buick out of it. Some will relish the challenge, and others will never make it past the first glance at the list of components.

These popular systems charge so much for their own brand of d20 because they do a lot of heavy lifting in adding the character and gameplay nuances that gamers crave. d20 comes to its downloaders with only the barest of generic game settings and character ideas. The System Reference Document (SRD) - while certainly playable in its raw form - is intended not as a game in itself but rather as a framework on which to build the games consumers want to play.

The added bonus of this system is that under the Open Gaming License if one has the dedication and the desire to build their own d20-based game, they are allowed to publish it commercially with no further licensing fees. All the owners of the d20 trademark ask is that the new games point people to the D&D manuals for instructions on creating characters.