Free RPG Day has officially arrived, and tabletop gaming companies and developers around the world are celebrating by releasing tabletop games, dice, and other items for free--or at least for sharp discounts. It's an incredible opportunity for fans of tabletop games, and if the FreeRPGDay hashtag on Twitter is anything to go by, fans and creators alike are taking full advantage of this chance.
Started in 2019 by Gaming Days, an organization formed that same year by four veteran gaming retailers, Free RPG Day is a yearly event held in over 500 stores worldwide. It's designed to provide customers with free exclusive printed content for a wide variety of tabletop roleplaying games, with its publishing partners changing regularly. Attending an in-person event might give fans access to new RPG adventures, quick-start guides, accessories, and more for new and classic tabletop games, including the iconic Dungeons and Dragons.
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Paizo, the creator of the Pathfinder franchise that inspired Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, has released two new Pathfinder adventures for the event. The Starfinder Four vs. the Hardlight Harlequin tasks players with saving a sci-fi entertainment expo slowly being consumed by malfunctioning holograms, while Pathfinder: The Threshold of Knowledge offers level 1 players a short adventure with five pre-generated characters. The company is also offering the Pathfinder: Threshold of Knowledge SoundPack from Syrinscape. The two adventures will only be available in print on October 16, but they will be for sale on Paizo's website on November 19.
A variety of indie creators are also getting in on the celebration and encouraging new players to check out their works for free. One of those indie studios is Rowan, Rook & Decard, which is offering over 50 free one-page tabletop RPGs on its site today. The list includes Skyfarer, the officially licensed tabletop RPG for the darkly funny and transcendentally horrifying world of the videogame Sunless Skies.
Another indie creator celebrating the event is 500poundsofnothing, who goes so far as to provide a link to their horror tabletop RPGs in honor of the season. Their free works include The Beast of RS4, a sci-fi mystery game where players must solve a brutal murder at Research Station 4, and Carrion Protocol, a systemless microdungeon that allows players to explore a spaceship where the meat labs have begun producing lethal, fast-growing dog monsters instead of food.
Free RPG Day 2021 has gathered a lot of attention and offers gamers a wide variety of free goodies. Whether or not fans are able to participate in the in-person events, there's a lot to enjoy about this year's celebration of tabletop games.
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