My Accidental Free RPG Day

Yesterday was my birthday and I spent most of the day out & about, picking myself up a sweet-ass Bday gift that is not at all RPG related. On the way home I decided I should stop by my local Game Store to see about the newest HeroQuest expansion written by Friend of the Tavern Levi Combs. 

As I wandered in I was asked if I was there for Free RPG Day.

I had completely forgotten about Free RPG Day! After choosing a couple of minis that I will 100% most definitely paint....someday, I looked at the freebie table. Lots of stuff to be had, but I really try not to be "that guy" and I picked up two....only two items:

I really wanted to check out the Goodman Games offering and a 10 page (content) 1st level DCC adventure that has a couple pages of player handouts....hell yes!

I also grabbed up the Plague Bearer game offering from...Guillotine Press and CMON Games. As I was grabbing that up the owner of the shop told me someone was running the free adventure and was looking for players......

....I figured, why the hell not. I've got nothing better to do and checking out a new "Dark Fantasy RPG" would be fun. The shopkeep and his Mrs. joined in and he had a party of five. I did what I usually do and grab an archer type (I really try to play an archer when checking out a new system because my 1st D&D PC was an archer type and by doing this I can more easily compare one system against another).

The GM altered the adventure a bit to fit the time allotted and we all had a good time. I got to slay the BBG "single handedly" (not really, the rest of the party figured out just how awesome my PC's new ability was and they rallied around me and had my back. It felt like it was "all me" but it really wasn't). I think calling Plague Bearer a RPG is a bit of a stretch though. It was more of an amalgamation of a RPG, a board game, and a tactical miniatures game. While the GM did a good job running the game as a one-off, it felt like the game really needs a much longer playtime and I think if we created PCs instead of using pregens there might have felt more RPGish.

As a bit of an aside...there were RPG Pencil Dice! Smaller pencils, with erasures and the numbers 1 through 6 on the face of each side of the pencil. Noteworthy because our buddy Ken Whitman, or it is Whit Whitman (?), is still....well his last update on RPG Pencil Dice was nearly six years ago!

At the beginning of the game, the store drew names for some Free RPG Day prizes and I won a set of  The Legends of Drizzt Dice Set.

The store owner also brought over a quickstart rules set for the +1 System from Wet Ink Games that was used to run a one-off of Garbage & Glory Trashrun. He played it that morning and loved playing an anthropomorphic raccoon going on a literal trash run.

I'm looking forward to seeing if I like Wet Ink Games' Never Going Home, but I'm not sure if that will use the +1 System of not....

After the Plague Bearer game it was early evening and it felt like things were winding up a bit. I did a stroll by the freebie table and noted that most of the products I looked at were quickstart rules for new game systems....Runescape Kingdoms, Arzium, and Dragonbane. There might have been more, but I didn't look at everything on the table. I suspect there were at least a couple more new systems.