6Q-System: A Free RPG

6Q-System: A Free RPG

Hey, from the numbers, it looks like you all like free RPGs! This has given me such a positive boost, that I finally finished up the GM side of things and updated the previous release with clearer language. The images hold the whole game. To celebrate, I also put in more community copies of the PDFs on Itch.io. Enjoy!

Since it is CC BY 4.0, you are welcome to hack it to whatever you want. If you do, please tag me, as I would love to see it.

itch.io

6Q SYSTEM - Powered by FU by Chaosmeister

Setting agnostic 1pg TTRPG based on FU. Just answer six questions to play.

Cloud Empress is an ecological science fantasy TTRPG, inspired by works like Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind, Dune, and Full Metal Alchemist!

Working on Wyrdland

I have been working on my submission to the Open Gaming Jam for a while. It is shaping up nicely, though, as always lots to do. This evening I have the opportunity to run the playtest to see if the mechanics work at the table. It is a fantasy game where I mash together some of my favourite things from various TTRPGs. It started as a hack for my WARDENS game that uses the 24XX rules. You can still see it in parts, but this game is vastly different. The hardest part for me in any game is writing the GM section, as I am constantly stuck on that. Will have to consider what I want to include. Action Based Monster design is a big one I want to tinker with. And I sadly have that not done for today's test. The current draft can be found here if anyone wants to look at what I have so far.

Working to get my game out, however I must face the fact I have no budget for commissions so will either make it artless or will have to use stock. Fellow budget constrained designers, any tips on stock art? Or other frugal art tips that don't involve AI?

d12 Fantasy by Chaosmeister

Explore an unknown world full of wonder and mayhem.

Just posted the playtest edition of my d12 Fantasy Game on Itch. Any Feedback is highly appreciated! :-D Compared to my usual 1 pagers this is going to be a banger.  

Any games with a lot of collaborative world building?

THEME: Collaborative Worldbuilding

Hello friend! I have so many games for you. At the end of this recommendation post is a list of other posts I've made that are directly related to this theme!

Data, Nerves + Acquisition, by Ben Newbon

Based on the Beak, Feather & Bone SRD, this game gives you a way to build out your world and develop communities within it organically, all the while creating your own stories and lore to fill in the gaps.

Built on another critically-acclaimed city builder, DNA uses a deck of cards to generate a city and the factions that live within it. Players will generate Data, which corresponds to a person or faction; Nerves, which corresponds to the faction the characters interact with; and Acquisition, which represents what each new faction’s goals are. At the end of the game you should have a city that is criss-crossed with territory, relationships, and threats that give the city a unique feel.

Data, Nerves + Acquisition is designed to create a cyberpunk or futuristic city, although the creator states that the setting is still rather flexible.

In This World, by Ben Robbins

Nations have borders. Police have badges. Dragons breathe fire. You work for money. That's the world we've come to expect. But in this world—the world we create together—we can question those assumptions and imagine alternatives. And instead of just making one world, we'll make a whole string, each exploring a different slice of what could be… all in a few hours.

In This World is a fast game of big creativity, by Ben Robbins, the creator of Microscope and Kingdom. It is designed from the ground up so that anyone can play it, even someone who has never played any kind of story game before, and have no problem just jumping right in.

It overcomes the usual challenge of inventing ideas out of the blue by starting with a framework of real world facts, things we already know, and then inviting players to stand those ideas on their head and imagine how the world could be different.

In This World is designed for making more than one world at once, using a series of speculative questions - a number of what-if’s. What if vacations were much more common? What if everyone in this world travelled by train? What if this world had libraries for more than just books?

In This World is also designed to be no-prep and GM-less, which gives everyone equal control over the creativity of the world, and doesn’t require a lot of work or set-up beforehand.

Gathering Storm: Origins, by David Blandy

This is the time of feeding, A steady glut, Of fruit and labour That has made them drowsy and complacent. The store grows, Of their alien fruit While the others, Hear whispers Of a reckoning. A different time is coming. But how will the Authority fall?

By placing your characters on a faraway planet, Gathering Storm: Origins hopes to tell a story that has parallels to a real series of events that happened in Geneva, Switzerland in ours. It uses a deck of cards and an oracle to create characters as well as events that these characters will have to navigate to determine how the people of your planet will react to the actions of an Authority that demands the production of their Alien fruit, even though that production is to the planet’s detriment. If you want a futuristic metaphor for political actions that have had a very real effect on our world, you might want to check out Gathering Storm.

Planetes, by Cambilla Zamboni

Welcome to Planétes, a language-learning tabletop role-playing game in which you will create cities and communities, and you will become Dwellers and Wanderers. While shaping and exploring your communities, you will discuss and compare your values, and decide whether to stay in your city or explore new ones. Throughout this process, you will use the target language to interact with other communities, enriching your perspective and reflecting on your experience without relying on familiar structures. 

This is not just a roleplaying game - it’s also a language learning exercise meant to be used in a room of language learners, and it’s designed to work with very large groups. Multiple tables create their cities and their characters, and then each city sends one Wanderer to another city to visit and learn about the culture. Wanderers will ask the new cities questions, and the city members will do their best to answer. The Wanderers return to their home cities with the new information, coloured by their character’s worldview and values. At the end of the game, each character will have to decide to either stay in their city of origin, or move to another city - and the migration that happens will change core elements of the city.

Planétes exists on a single brochure, making it easy to print and hand out to a large group of people. If you want a game that works for large groups and can double as a learning exercise, I recommend this game.

The First Epoch, by Tib Winterfield.

Work with your players to build out the pantheons of your world, give them the gift of creation and allow them to put their own mark on the world. 

Completely system agnostic, a light-weight and simple game to help you build a co-operatively build your campaign world. 

The First Epoch is a world-creation game from the perspective of the gods, creating a mythology alongside a series of truths that will exist in the world that you create. Each player embodies a god and chooses specific domains. Every turn, one player will establish truths about how their domains work, and then roll Fate dice (dice with + and - on them instead of numbers) to determine the impact these truths have on the world. At the end of the game, there is a twist that will challenge all of the gods, and leave you with an end-state that you cannot predict.

If you really like mythology and want to re-write physics, magic, or how death works in your game, this is probably the game for you.

City Upon A Hill, by Hunter J Allen

City Upon A Hill is a table top collaborative city building game for any number of players. It requires a full deck of playing cards and note taking tools.

This is a game about building up a city and watching it fall. Work with your friends to populate a city full of life, commerce, legends, traditions, and secrets, and then bring the city to its knees through death, conflict, deficit, and crumbling infrastructure. Bring the city to a peak during its Boom era, and guide the city down to ruin in its Bust era, creating a setting rich in history and tragedy. Draw cards to decide the city's fate, working together to weave a tapestry that tells the story of your City Upon A Hill.

City Upon A Hill is divided into two phases: Boom & Bust. Boom follows events and details that define the city’s success, and reflects a heyday of some kind. Bust marks the decline of the city, through a series of unfortunate events and changes that affect the citizens’ well being. The game is played using a deck of cards, with the first Joker draw sparking the transition to the Bust, and the second Joker draw ending the game. I think this game is a really interesting way to create the history of a once-great city, baking in information about industry, tourism, infrastructure, and economic changes that affect the city and likely also the world around it. If you want a game that has somewhat of a melancholy ending, I recommend City Upon A Hill.

Our New Neighbours, by Whimsy Machine

In this small village, at least a few hours’ drive from any city of note, a small community has grown a bizarre polyp. As spring turns to summer, the roiling heat hatches the eggs of a startling development. New neighbours scuttle and squirm and gallop from the bushes and dirt and into unlocked sheds, messy mudrooms, and stinky attics of the village. Mutants are here, they’re weird, and they’re not sure what to bring to the potluck.

This is a collaborative storytelling, community-building, and map-making game, telling the unraveling tale of a village beset by oddities. The players take on non-specific roles, occasionally dipping into the voice of individuals, to weave something larger together.

Our New Neighours uses both a deck of cards and polyhedral dice to flesh out your map. The dice are first rolled onto a piece of paper to determine where on the map specific locations can be found, and the numbers rolled will determine how various places feel about the new arrival of Mutants. The cards are used to both generate mutations for your characters, as well as their needs. Once you have these defined, the cards will be used to generate events that may help or hinder the mutants - and prompt you as the players to respond.

Other Recommendation Posts To Check Out…

Two-Player Worldbuilders

World-Building & Roleplaying

Town-Builders

Map-Making Games