Creatures and Caverns is an easy to play free RPG. From the author’s description:
In 1982 a 13-year old who’d just seen some neighborhood kids play Dungeons & Dragons decided to create his own game in which knights and wizards explored underground catacombs, defeated monsters, and took their treasure. This book represents a refined version of those rules appropriate for kids interested in transitioning from traditional board games to a more imaginative form of structured play.
Creatures & Caverns is a very basic “roleplaying” game in which players explore subterranean labyrinths, using imaginary heroes to defeat monsters they encounter and collect their treasure. Although it uses a map like a board in a traditional game, it also enables players to assume the roles of knights and wizards exploring underground. These heroes use an arsenal of weapons and spells to slay monsters; die rolls often decide their fate, determining whether they strike their foes and fend off attacks.
Creatures & Caverns includes all the rules needed to play, character sheets for knights and wizards, a bestiary of monsters to fight, guidelines for creating new foes, notes on traps and treasures, experience rules for improving characters, and two ready-to-play scenarios.
Peter Schweighofer is a writer, editor, and game developer with more than 20 years’ experience in the publishing field, including time working for many companies in the adventure gaming hobby. While best-known for his contributions to various iterations of the Star Wars Roleplaying Game, he’s also the author of period sourcebooks Pulp Egypt and Heroes of Rura-Tonga, as well as numerous other works for various roleplaying games. He pursues his game-publishing activities under the auspices of Griffon Publishing Studio.