That’s right, today’s the day when game stores across the country are giving away free goodies and having special sales! Judging from both the past and current selection of freebies, there’s plenty of stuff that should be of interest to horror fans. If the stuff shown here aren’t enough to convince you to head out to your local participating store, perhaps this vintage GdL16 article (complete with links to free adventures) will.

Although we’ve promoted Free RPG Day before, I was previously unaware that they also give out free specialty dice in addition to free gaming adventures. This year’s elven dice, while not as spooky as glow-in-the-dark Cthulhu dice, could also be of potential use to home haunters. Imagine a creepy wizard or cultist stopping visitors and rolling an exotic-looking magic dice to “determine their fates” and expressing concern on whatever face it lands on.

Don’t have a gaming store in your area or simply can’t make it? According to the official Free RPG Day Facebook page: “Many, but not all, of the participating game publishers put up their give aways on their sites after June 18th.” But if you don’t want to wait, fear not. Although we don’t have the same freebies as the stores do, we are pleased to offer the following collection of free RPG goodies. We even have free dice! Just keep in mind that not all of the content is appropriate for all ages:

Pinnacle Entertainment Group, makers of the Deadlands Weird West game, are offering a variety of free goodies on their website, such as the Savage Worlds “Quick Start” rules.

Yog-Sothoth has numerous Call of Cthulhu (and other Lovecraft-related RPGs) freebies available. If you don’t have the CoC rulebook, you can use these free quick start rules. Also of interest to Lovecraft gaming fans are the freebies at Pagan Publishing, including blank character sheets and the Delta Green scenario “PX Poker Night.”

Fans of giant robots and cyberpunk should appreciate the free stuff available at R. Talsorian Games.

Green Ronin Publishing, makers of RPGs like Spaceship Zero and Mecha vs. Kaiju, are offering a bunch of True20 system freebies here.

Speaking of Spaceship Zero (co-created by of Toren Atkinson of The Darkest of the Hillside Thickets), its official website is offering three free adventures: “Asteroid X,” “Slave Ship of Despair” and “The Strange Secret of Dr. Quisling.”

Those who love a good zombie slaughterfest will appreciate the freebies available at the official All Flesh Must Be Eaten website. Those who prefer hunting other supernatural beings will be pleased to find that, not only is there a free startup edition of InSpectres available, but there are also several free supplements available.

The makers of Nemesis have gone a step further and made the full version of the game available for free, as have the makers of Violence.

GURPS (Generic Universal RolePlaying System) is renowned for allowing gamers to play in any setting they choose. You can get in on that action by downloading the free Third Edition of GURPS Lite. You can find more free goodies from the makers of GURPS here.

The full version of a similar universal RPG, Fudge can be found here.

But what good is a free roleplaying system for horror fans without any adventures? Thankfully, the website Tales of Terror is here to offer free “adventure seeds” to help gamers create horror adventures quickly and easily.

The Pathfinder Roleplaying Game is intended to be both a standalone game and backwards-compatible with Dungeons and Dragons 3.5th Edition. That means that the game’s various free bestiaries can (theoretically) be used for both systems.

Similarly, the free Amazon previews for the Dungeons and Dragons books Heroes of Horror and Book of Challenges: Dungeon Rooms, Puzzles, and Traps contain information that could be used in both Dungeons and Dragons and other RPGs. The same might also be said for this neat fan-made D&D map.

This review of the Grimtooth’s Traps series provides a fiendishly clever trap involving giant spiders that can be adapted for use in just about any RPG.

Those who yearn the days of Dungeons and Dragons1st edition should appreciate these quick start rules for Goodman Games’ Dungeon Crawl Classics beta.

Do you play by a computer or use a smartphone? Then you can try gaming along to the music of Dronolan’s Tower, thanks to the 13 streaming music videos on their official Youtube channel. If you enjoy what you hear, do yourself a favor and buy one of their CDs.

Ravensblight offers a wide selection of free printable dice, buildings, miniature monsters and other goodies that may be of use to gamers. More potentially useful printable items can be found in these two classic Gravedigger’s Local 16 articles.

Judging from this, a gamer needs at least a d4, d6, d8, d10 (which can be rolled twice to represent a d100), d12 and d20. Ravensblight only has 6 and 8 sided dice and a 4-sider is pretty easy to make from scratch. Two d6 could substitute for a d12, two d6 -2 could fill in for a d10 (except for a roll of two or lower) and four d6 -4 could fill in for a d20 (except for a roll of 4 or lower). Alternately, you can either mock up “spinners” to fill in for those dice or you can just use this free online dice rolling utility.

I guess that should let you get enough of a feel for the games until you decide whether or not you like them enough to invest in real dice

Happy Free RPG Day!

As always, Gravedigger’s Local 16 is not to be held responsible for anything that may occur (be it good or bad) as a result of downloading or streaming from any links given here. Attempt at your own discretion. Some downloads may not work in certain regions. Blah blah blah…

With June comes the last of the “free goodies” retail holiday that may be of interest to our readers: Free RPG Day. So if you’re interested in gaming, clear some time in your schedule for June 18th!