Friday, August 7, 2015

#RPGaDAY2015 Day #7: Favorite Free RPG

There was a time when a "Free" RPG was a virus-laced copy on your local BBS, or the mad ravings of the FLGS weirdo, in a three subject notebook that smelled like Jim Beam and despair.

Thank God the internet has made us civilized (and even cheaper than before).

My go-to free system when I want to run something quick and "fun" is Risus: The Anything RPG.


Risus is a d6 based system where your stats are simply cliches with a number value attached to it.   The cliche, be it Viking (4),  Gigolo with a golden heart (3), or Lorenzo Lamas Impersonator (1) should explain what actions he should be able to use with that cliche, and the number following it is the number dice rolled when using that cliche.   Sometimes there's target numbers to hit, other times its dice offs between like cliches i.e. Viking (4) versus Barbarian (3).

I love the system for it's simplicity, especially when I use it to run Illuminati University  (IOU).  Early games of IOU were run using GURPS 3rd Edition (IOU is a sourcebook for GURPS), but the crazed freedom of four cliches and some associated equipment became far more effective.

Check out my Illuminati University Characters page for more examples of PCs and NPCs using this system.

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