Dark Dungeons is a clone of the old school D&D game. There’s been a real renaissance in the retro style RPGs, and its one I welcome after all those years of angst ridden vampires and new-style gaming.
RPG Fantasy
Microlite 74 Free RPG System
Party like it’s 1974!
The Microlite 74 RPG system is a slimmed down, old school fantasy RPG:
Microlite74, like its parent game, Microlite20, is a trimmed-down, sub-miniature version of the Primary Fantasy SRD rules that has been designed to be quick and easy to play. The goal of Microlite74, however, is to recreate the style and feel of that very first (“0e”) fantasy roleplaying game published back in 1974. If you are at all familiar with any game based on the 3.5 edition of the Primary Fantasy SRD, you will find Microlite74 easy to play and easy to run as a GM, but with an extra helping of “old school” flavor.
While Microlite74 is designed as an introduction to “old school” play for players more familiar with modern rules systems based on the Primary Fantasy SRD, it is a rules-lite OGL based game system that old school grognards – especially those who cut their gamer teeth on “0e” – should find equally enjoyable. It is also easy to modify with your own house rules or rules drawn from your favorite edition of the world’s most popular fantasy roleplaying game.
Basic Fantasy Free RPG
The free Basic Fantasy RPG is yet another attempt to recreate the feel of the classic RPGs that so many of us grew up on. The author writes:
The Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game is a rules-light game system based on the d20 SRD v3.5, but heavily rewritten with inspiration from early RPG game systems. It is suitable for those who are fans of “old-school” game mechanics, and it’s simple enough for children in perhaps second or third grade to play, yet still having enough depth for adults as well.
Under The Moons of Zoon Free RPG
Under the Moons of Zoon is a John Carter of Mars inspired free RPG.
The author writes:
Under the Moons of Zoon (also UTMOZ) is the grand child of a previous project of mine Kalevala.
Kalevala was originally born in 1991 as a one of many cheap italian role playing, live action and board games collectively known as “Giochi del duemila”. Of all these mini-games Kalevala was chosen to be published in Kaos a games’ magazine published at the time by Nexus Games.
Kalevala used a sort of universal mechanic based on 1d20 and used a free-form magic system simialr to that of early versions of Ars magica.
Later on -circa year 2000- Kalevala got translated to English and completely revamped to use only d6s for publishing under Demian Katz’s Aegis.
While rewriting kalevala I had the distinct impression that the new system had potential, and already at that time I had a compulsive need to write COMPLETE rulesets, as complete as my beloved D&D Rules Cyclopedia.
UTMOZ was born from the revamped system for Kalevala, adding psionics, weird science and much more and removing magic. The main inspiration for the background setting is John carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs.
FAST RPG
FAST stands for Flexible Adventure System, Task Oriented. It’s a free, “throwback” RPG. As with so many of these, I think that there are ideas here for miniature wargamers to lift for skirmish games. I’m in the process of writing one myself.