Welcome to the Bundles, Freebies, and Sales News, the weekly column at EN World that helps make sure you don’t miss out on big tabletop RPG bundles, charity fundraisers, and sales from around the internet.
Freebies and Pay What You Want
Note: While “Pay What You Want” downloads are available for free, please support the creators if you are able!
Roll20 now has the Shadowrun Sixth World Quick Start available including the introductory adventure Battle Royale. This bundle includes streamlined quickstart rules, two maps, tokens and stats (3 vehicles, 2 drones, and 11 NPCs), five pre-generated player characters, and a collection of reference cards and hand-outs for gear, rules, and more.
CMON might be known for board games, but they’re spreading into roleplaying games with the quickstart for Broken Compass, a pulp adventure treasure hunting RPG. Inspired by The Mummy, Uncharted, Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, and others, Broken Compass uses a custom Fortune System d6 dice pool system based on rolling matching results on the dice. The Quickstart comes with a “Pilot Episode” adventure and four pregens to let you quickly jump into the chase for fortune, glory, and fortune (yes, I mentioned “fortune” twice because, well, treasure).
I wonder if Paths to Adventure reads my column because they just saved me so much hassle by collecting all of the recent Free Map Friday offerings in a bundle so I don’t have to do a bullet point list to cover them all. This collection features Free Map Friday #157 through #200, so I’ll let you do the math on how many free maps that is in one download.
The ATOMIC 2d10 System Reference Document from The Basic Expert is the SRD for Atomic Punk 2160. This BX-inspired OSR system is built for post-apocalyptic action, replacing the flat 1d20 for 2d10 to create a bell curve probability. The SRD itself, basic rules, weapons, and monsters are more than Creative Commons licensed, they’re public domain.
Speaking of OSR, bring your sense of humor for The True O.S.R – Obsolete S****y Rules (censoring by me) from Tin Hat Games. This “sickstart” one-shot is a parody of OSR that places the Player vs. Dungeonmaster up front and literal. You can also pick this up in Italian.
Daylight Publications released DayLITE: Sci-Fi Core Primer, a starter set for the DayLITE system. This book has six Lineages and six Careers with full character creation rules on top of ship creation rules and more to try out the upcoming d12-based system.
Personally, I’ve always liked magic items with more personality than a generic flat bonus, and Lucky Dice Games comes to the rescue with Cursed Swords and Other Bladed Weapons. The collection is system-neutral descriptions of magic weapons with a bit of their history and inspiration for what mechanics to use to bring them into your game.
Speaking of personal nitpicks, I’ve never been a fan of the binary “I have no idea what they’re saying” and “I’m fluent in every single dialect” switch in most fantasy RPGs when it comes to language. Nikola Ninkovic apparently feels as I do based on the release of Advanced Languages & Literacy from Pathfinder Infinite. This 13-page supplement provides a multi-tiered language familiarity system along with new skills and feats and a new Lexicographer archetype.
Every fantasy RPG ends up a reference-fest at the table with players quoting their favorite movies, books, comics, video games, and more. So why not lean into it in your game? Kolek Niewiary is here to help with Minor Chest of Major Nerdery. Stats for the Sword of Damocles as a magic weapon, snare foes with the Sieve of Eratosthenes, summon the Spectre of Communism, and more all compatible with 5e and easily adapted into OSR systems.
There are serious Fallout vibes in the Ruins Old Towe Road Encounter Map from Sesiana. This 25x25 map features a strip of broken two-lane highway with a collection of stalled-out cars, dead trees, and broken half-collapsed buildings.
Over on Dungeonmasters Guild, Ren Olrik released Lost Arcana, a collection of lore for characters to pick up during their travels. This 39-page supplement includes three new races, 15 subclasses, 38 new spells, and more.
And if you want more character options, Damian Paradiso has A True Blunderers Compendium #1 with two new races, a revamped Goyle, four new backgrounds, ten new feats, and five new spells.
Did you know that firearms pre-date rapiers? It’s a fun fact I love to bring up when people try to talk about “historical accuracy” in RPGs. Joshua Ohmer took this even further with Smoke & Thunder’s Timeline of Arms, a list of when various pieces of armor, weapons, and other adventuring gear first appeared in our history. There are no rules or stats here, just a reference for those who want to place their games in a specific point in history through the availability of technology.
Speaking of technology, if you’ve found the equipment lists for 5e a bit barren, Cheesecake DM has 100 Non Magical Items for DnD 5e. Expand your shopping options with 31 new weapons, 21 new armor sets and pieces, 21 new poisons, and more for a total of 110 new pieces of equipment (“because 110 doesn’t sound as good as 100”).
Cheesecake DM also has an adventure to try out that new equipment, Village Pillage. This adventure for 2nd level characters is a quick and easy one-shot in just five pages.
Place your bets place your bets, the games here are as honest as the day is long with Richard Kirke’s Two Simple Casino Games. These unique games allow you to quickly insert gambling into your campaign without having to come up with a whole new game from scratch, interrupt your session with poker night, or oversimplify things into a single die roll.
Over on Storytellers Vault, Chris “MrGone” Leland has a four-page character sheet for Hunter: The Reckoning ready for use in Fifth Edition (as in the 5th edition of H:TR not a 5e D20 version of Hunter). Multiple styles are included with Minimalist, Classic, 20th Anniversary, and Hunter: The Vigil inspired variants.
And DMs Guild also has a collection of subclasses this week. All of these are either free or Pay What You Want with the suggested price in brackets.
Bundles and Sales
Note: I have included end dates when listed for the following sales, but please be warned that those without published end dates may end suddenly so be sure to plan purchases accordingly.
While Project Black Flag is still in the design phase, you can still get in on Kobold Press’s Midgard 5e dark fantasy setting bundled for Fantasy Grounds. This bundle features ten products including rulebooks and adventures for Midgard and Southlands all ready to use on Fantasy Grounds.
With all the hubbub about animations on video tabletops, the Animation Sensations bundle on Roll20 might of interest. This collection of collections features animated effects for traps, portals, weather, lighting effects, and magical area effects ready to import into your Roll20 campaign.
Over on DriveThruRPG, the We Love Games Sale focuses on the romantic, both in the contemporary and the classic sense. Grab discounts on everything from Thirsty Sword Lesbians to King Arthur Pendragon, from 7th Sea to Blue Rose, and over eight hundred more titles.
Modiphius is kicking off their initiative for third-party publishers in the 2d20 System with a bundle for Acthung! Cthulhu featuring the Player’s Guide, Gamemaster’s Guide, and the Operation Vanguard adventure along with the 2d20 System Reference Document, an Achtung! Cthulhu art pack for publishers, and a collection of logos and templates.
Speaking of Cthulhu, Chaosium is back with another set of RPG Writer Workshop collections. To make the segue work, we’ll start with Call of Cthulhu featuring over 25 scenarios both for modern day and the classic 1920s era.
Of course, Chaosium does more than just Call of Cthulhu so they have Writer Workshop bundles for their other games as well.
Charity Bundles and Sales
On Itch.io, Peach Garden Games along with over 100 other creators have put together the Solo but Not Alone 3 bundle with 149 single-player TTRPG titles ranging from introspective journaling exercises to intense hexcrawls supporting suicide prevention.
Over on Bundle of Holding, there are a trio of bundles for the classic superhero RPG HERO System and Champions. The first is for the HERO System 6th Edition featuring the core rulebooks including an entire book to contain one of the most detailed and refined character creation systems in the industry, the rules system for playing the game, and a streamlined HERO System Basic Rulebook. The add-on for this bundle adds on nine additional sourcebooks with new character options from different genres outside supers and a bestiary.
And if you want something more focused directly on superheroes, Champions uses a more streamlined version of the HERO System and this bundle has the Champions Complete core rulebook along with three additional character options books. The add-on includes the Champions campaign setting (so fans of the Champions Online MMORPG can dig into the setting it’s based on) along with five other sourcebooks for the system.
And if you want some adventures to play using the system, the Hero Plus bundle collects several short, no-frills adventures for the HERO System. Each adventure is designed to be run in a single session and spans genres from fantasy to pulp adventure to science fiction to, of course, superheroes.
Handiwork Games collected together their 5e books based on the epic Beowulf. This RPG attempts to recreate the lone hero nature of the ancient epics with a duet play system for one player and one GM that allows control of various companions to fill roles or you can just adapt elements for your traditional 5e games with the core rules, four adventures, and an artbook.
Paizo and Humble Bundle have put together the well-timed (both due to recent events and the out-of-print status of some physical books) So You Wanna Try Out Pathfinder Bundle. The base level of this bundle includes the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Core Rulebook, Bestiary, Beginner Box, and Lost Omens World Guide along with a character sheet and character pawn pack. The mid level bundle adds on several flip maps, character options, Lost Omens setting books, adventures, and the Bestiary 2 book bringing the total up to 18 products. And the top tier? Well, it adds on another nine Pathfinder 2e products including the Gamemastery Guide and full Abomination Vaults adventure path. But not only that, you can get the Abomination Vaults ready to use on the Foundry VTT.
Humble Bundle and Kobold Press apparently set out the RPG Signal to put together the RPG Worlds Bundle featuring 52 titles from a wide variety of publishers. The base level features the core rules for Castles & Crusades along with an adventure, the 5e adventure City of Cats, the fantasy wild west RPG Tall Tales, and more with the second and third tiers adding even more OSR games and adventures, 5e supplements and campaigns, and original RPG systems ranging from fantasy to sci-fi to horror to the old west to 1920s gangsters.
That’s all for this week! If you know of any bundles or sales starting soon, please contact me on the EN World Discord, tag me on Mastodon, or send me a message here on EN World. Discount percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number and are based on the standard retail price provided by the site. Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, Fantasy Grounds, and/or DriveThruRPG may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
Freebies and Pay What You Want
Note: While “Pay What You Want” downloads are available for free, please support the creators if you are able!
Roll20 now has the Shadowrun Sixth World Quick Start available including the introductory adventure Battle Royale. This bundle includes streamlined quickstart rules, two maps, tokens and stats (3 vehicles, 2 drones, and 11 NPCs), five pre-generated player characters, and a collection of reference cards and hand-outs for gear, rules, and more.
- Price: Free
CMON might be known for board games, but they’re spreading into roleplaying games with the quickstart for Broken Compass, a pulp adventure treasure hunting RPG. Inspired by The Mummy, Uncharted, Indiana Jones, Tomb Raider, and others, Broken Compass uses a custom Fortune System d6 dice pool system based on rolling matching results on the dice. The Quickstart comes with a “Pilot Episode” adventure and four pregens to let you quickly jump into the chase for fortune, glory, and fortune (yes, I mentioned “fortune” twice because, well, treasure).
- Price: Free
I wonder if Paths to Adventure reads my column because they just saved me so much hassle by collecting all of the recent Free Map Friday offerings in a bundle so I don’t have to do a bullet point list to cover them all. This collection features Free Map Friday #157 through #200, so I’ll let you do the math on how many free maps that is in one download.
- Price: Free
The ATOMIC 2d10 System Reference Document from The Basic Expert is the SRD for Atomic Punk 2160. This BX-inspired OSR system is built for post-apocalyptic action, replacing the flat 1d20 for 2d10 to create a bell curve probability. The SRD itself, basic rules, weapons, and monsters are more than Creative Commons licensed, they’re public domain.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $0.00)
Speaking of OSR, bring your sense of humor for The True O.S.R – Obsolete S****y Rules (censoring by me) from Tin Hat Games. This “sickstart” one-shot is a parody of OSR that places the Player vs. Dungeonmaster up front and literal. You can also pick this up in Italian.
- Price: Free
Daylight Publications released DayLITE: Sci-Fi Core Primer, a starter set for the DayLITE system. This book has six Lineages and six Careers with full character creation rules on top of ship creation rules and more to try out the upcoming d12-based system.
- Price: Free
Personally, I’ve always liked magic items with more personality than a generic flat bonus, and Lucky Dice Games comes to the rescue with Cursed Swords and Other Bladed Weapons. The collection is system-neutral descriptions of magic weapons with a bit of their history and inspiration for what mechanics to use to bring them into your game.
- Price: Free
Speaking of personal nitpicks, I’ve never been a fan of the binary “I have no idea what they’re saying” and “I’m fluent in every single dialect” switch in most fantasy RPGs when it comes to language. Nikola Ninkovic apparently feels as I do based on the release of Advanced Languages & Literacy from Pathfinder Infinite. This 13-page supplement provides a multi-tiered language familiarity system along with new skills and feats and a new Lexicographer archetype.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $1.99)
Every fantasy RPG ends up a reference-fest at the table with players quoting their favorite movies, books, comics, video games, and more. So why not lean into it in your game? Kolek Niewiary is here to help with Minor Chest of Major Nerdery. Stats for the Sword of Damocles as a magic weapon, snare foes with the Sieve of Eratosthenes, summon the Spectre of Communism, and more all compatible with 5e and easily adapted into OSR systems.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $5.00)
There are serious Fallout vibes in the Ruins Old Towe Road Encounter Map from Sesiana. This 25x25 map features a strip of broken two-lane highway with a collection of stalled-out cars, dead trees, and broken half-collapsed buildings.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $0.00)
Over on Dungeonmasters Guild, Ren Olrik released Lost Arcana, a collection of lore for characters to pick up during their travels. This 39-page supplement includes three new races, 15 subclasses, 38 new spells, and more.
- Price: Free
And if you want more character options, Damian Paradiso has A True Blunderers Compendium #1 with two new races, a revamped Goyle, four new backgrounds, ten new feats, and five new spells.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $2.50)
Did you know that firearms pre-date rapiers? It’s a fun fact I love to bring up when people try to talk about “historical accuracy” in RPGs. Joshua Ohmer took this even further with Smoke & Thunder’s Timeline of Arms, a list of when various pieces of armor, weapons, and other adventuring gear first appeared in our history. There are no rules or stats here, just a reference for those who want to place their games in a specific point in history through the availability of technology.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $0.00)
Speaking of technology, if you’ve found the equipment lists for 5e a bit barren, Cheesecake DM has 100 Non Magical Items for DnD 5e. Expand your shopping options with 31 new weapons, 21 new armor sets and pieces, 21 new poisons, and more for a total of 110 new pieces of equipment (“because 110 doesn’t sound as good as 100”).
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $2.00)
Cheesecake DM also has an adventure to try out that new equipment, Village Pillage. This adventure for 2nd level characters is a quick and easy one-shot in just five pages.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $2.00)
Place your bets place your bets, the games here are as honest as the day is long with Richard Kirke’s Two Simple Casino Games. These unique games allow you to quickly insert gambling into your campaign without having to come up with a whole new game from scratch, interrupt your session with poker night, or oversimplify things into a single die roll.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $1.00)
Over on Storytellers Vault, Chris “MrGone” Leland has a four-page character sheet for Hunter: The Reckoning ready for use in Fifth Edition (as in the 5th edition of H:TR not a 5e D20 version of Hunter). Multiple styles are included with Minimalist, Classic, 20th Anniversary, and Hunter: The Vigil inspired variants.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $0.50)
And DMs Guild also has a collection of subclasses this week. All of these are either free or Pay What You Want with the suggested price in brackets.
- Vagabond (Rogue) from Gabriel Gro ($0.75)
- Love Domain (Cleric) from Gabriel Gro ($0.75)
- Oath of Reflection (Paladin) from Damian Paradiso ($0.50)
- Revised Artificer from Elly ($0.50)
- Way of the Tattooed Soul (Monk) from John Beardify ($2.15)
- Inquisitor (Ranger) from Andrew Fields ($0.00)
Bundles and Sales
Note: I have included end dates when listed for the following sales, but please be warned that those without published end dates may end suddenly so be sure to plan purchases accordingly.
While Project Black Flag is still in the design phase, you can still get in on Kobold Press’s Midgard 5e dark fantasy setting bundled for Fantasy Grounds. This bundle features ten products including rulebooks and adventures for Midgard and Southlands all ready to use on Fantasy Grounds.
- Price: 30% off
With all the hubbub about animations on video tabletops, the Animation Sensations bundle on Roll20 might of interest. This collection of collections features animated effects for traps, portals, weather, lighting effects, and magical area effects ready to import into your Roll20 campaign.
- Price: $36.74 (20% off)
Over on DriveThruRPG, the We Love Games Sale focuses on the romantic, both in the contemporary and the classic sense. Grab discounts on everything from Thirsty Sword Lesbians to King Arthur Pendragon, from 7th Sea to Blue Rose, and over eight hundred more titles.
- Price: Up to 40% off
Modiphius is kicking off their initiative for third-party publishers in the 2d20 System with a bundle for Acthung! Cthulhu featuring the Player’s Guide, Gamemaster’s Guide, and the Operation Vanguard adventure along with the 2d20 System Reference Document, an Achtung! Cthulhu art pack for publishers, and a collection of logos and templates.
- Price: $33.00 (21$ off)
Speaking of Cthulhu, Chaosium is back with another set of RPG Writer Workshop collections. To make the segue work, we’ll start with Call of Cthulhu featuring over 25 scenarios both for modern day and the classic 1920s era.
- Price: $72.99 (37% off)
Of course, Chaosium does more than just Call of Cthulhu so they have Writer Workshop bundles for their other games as well.
- RuneQuest – 4 adventures ($5.99, 39% off)
- 5e OGL – 2 adventures ($1.97, 22% off)
- Dungeonmasters Guild – 12 adventures ($24.99, 43% off)
- Misc. Collection – 4 adventures and setting books ($8.99, 44% off)
Charity Bundles and Sales
On Itch.io, Peach Garden Games along with over 100 other creators have put together the Solo but Not Alone 3 bundle with 149 single-player TTRPG titles ranging from introspective journaling exercises to intense hexcrawls supporting suicide prevention.
- Price: $10.00 (over 99% off)
- End Date: March 31, 2023
- Charity: Jasper’s Game Day (all proceeds)
Over on Bundle of Holding, there are a trio of bundles for the classic superhero RPG HERO System and Champions. The first is for the HERO System 6th Edition featuring the core rulebooks including an entire book to contain one of the most detailed and refined character creation systems in the industry, the rules system for playing the game, and a streamlined HERO System Basic Rulebook. The add-on for this bundle adds on nine additional sourcebooks with new character options from different genres outside supers and a bestiary.
- Price: $9.95 (92% off) with variable-cost Level Up option
- End Date: February 20, 2023
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
And if you want something more focused directly on superheroes, Champions uses a more streamlined version of the HERO System and this bundle has the Champions Complete core rulebook along with three additional character options books. The add-on includes the Champions campaign setting (so fans of the Champions Online MMORPG can dig into the setting it’s based on) along with five other sourcebooks for the system.
- Price: $12.95 (80% off) with variable-cost Level Up option
- End Date: February 20, 2023
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
And if you want some adventures to play using the system, the Hero Plus bundle collects several short, no-frills adventures for the HERO System. Each adventure is designed to be run in a single session and spans genres from fantasy to pulp adventure to science fiction to, of course, superheroes.
- Price: $5.95 (72% off) with variable-cost Level Up option
- End Date: February 20, 2023
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
Handiwork Games collected together their 5e books based on the epic Beowulf. This RPG attempts to recreate the lone hero nature of the ancient epics with a duet play system for one player and one GM that allows control of various companions to fill roles or you can just adapt elements for your traditional 5e games with the core rules, four adventures, and an artbook.
- Price: $9.95 (77% off)
- End Date: February 6, 2023
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
Paizo and Humble Bundle have put together the well-timed (both due to recent events and the out-of-print status of some physical books) So You Wanna Try Out Pathfinder Bundle. The base level of this bundle includes the Pathfinder 2nd Edition Core Rulebook, Bestiary, Beginner Box, and Lost Omens World Guide along with a character sheet and character pawn pack. The mid level bundle adds on several flip maps, character options, Lost Omens setting books, adventures, and the Bestiary 2 book bringing the total up to 18 products. And the top tier? Well, it adds on another nine Pathfinder 2e products including the Gamemastery Guide and full Abomination Vaults adventure path. But not only that, you can get the Abomination Vaults ready to use on the Foundry VTT.
- Price: $5/$15/$25 (94% off at top tier)
- End Date: February 23, 2023
- Charity: Code for America (user-defined, default 5%)
Humble Bundle and Kobold Press apparently set out the RPG Signal to put together the RPG Worlds Bundle featuring 52 titles from a wide variety of publishers. The base level features the core rules for Castles & Crusades along with an adventure, the 5e adventure City of Cats, the fantasy wild west RPG Tall Tales, and more with the second and third tiers adding even more OSR games and adventures, 5e supplements and campaigns, and original RPG systems ranging from fantasy to sci-fi to horror to the old west to 1920s gangsters.
- Price: $5/$15/$25 (97% off at top tier)
- End Date: February 11, 2023
- Charity: Comic Book Legal Defense Fund (user-defined, default 5%)
That’s all for this week! If you know of any bundles or sales starting soon, please contact me on the EN World Discord, tag me on Mastodon, or send me a message here on EN World. Discount percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number and are based on the standard retail price provided by the site. Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, Fantasy Grounds, and/or DriveThruRPG may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
