Free RPG Day 2026 offerings: d20-based games

Roleplayers, are you ready for Free RPG Day 2026? On Saturday, June 27, participating friendly local gaming stores have a gaming table’s worth of tabletop roleplaying game quickstarts, adventures, and more for TTRPG fans. For the 2026 version of this annual event, there are 40 free items on offer, broadly grouped as: 8 D&D-related titles/items, 2 Pathfinder/Starfinder titles, 4 Mörk Borg and Old-School Essentials variants, 8 titles based on popular properties, 7 Powered by the Apocalypse variants as well as a Forged in the Dark variant, 5 brand new TTRPG games and quickstarts, and 5 TTRPG accessories. That’s a lot of games, each promising a good time as they introduce you to a new system. In the first of two articles, let’s explore some of the offerings to see what’s worth your time, hit points, and d20s!

WHAT IS FREE RPG DAY?

From my 2023 summary of this gamer holiday:

“The event is what the name implies: Free tabletop roleplaying quickstarts, adventures, maps, and dice given to fans at participating friendly local game stores (FLGS). On Saturday, June 27, you’ll be able to get an RPG, a die, or some other bit of gaming, and likely join in on a gaming session designed for new players. These items are either free to attendees, free to fans that play select games at the store on that date, or free with purchase; the specifics are up to the participating location.”

Free RPG Day is a tabletop roleplaying game holiday made possible by Gaming Days LLC and paid for by your local gaming store. If you’re curious about prior year offerings, I covered them in 2019, 2020 (and an interview), 2021, 2022, 2023, 2024, and 2025.

WHAT’S AVAILABLE AND D20-CENTRIC IN 2026?

Dungeons & Dragons offerings. There are 40 fantastic free games and adventures for your gaming table (listed here). Let’s look at some of those projects and why they standout. Let’s start with a sampling of booklets based on Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition, 5.5e, and variant adventures.

The Crooked House Quickstart from Avantris Entertainment (link)

• TYPE: Quickstart
• SYSTEM: Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• Avantris Entertainment has conducted two multi-million dollar TTRPG crowdfundings: Neon Odyssey: Space Opera in D&D and The Crooked Moon: Folk Horror in 5E. This freebie is a quickstart for The Crooked Moon folk horror TTRPG. This is likely to be the hottest option for 5e fans considering the massive number of backers for the Kickstarter (over 21,000 backers). Inspired by “folklore, legendary horror films, and Halloween aesthetics,” this game promises a dreadful tales of the witching hour and a dark wood for 5e gamers. This quickstart should get those familiar with 5e into a midnight adventure.

Dungeon Beneath the Brightspire from Loke Battle Mats (link)

• TYPE: Adventure
• SYSTEM: Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and 5.5e
• Every year, Loke Battle Mats provides a standout package introducing new players to Dungeons & Dragons. Their adventure booklets come with a full adventure and four pre-generated characters, but the pièce de résistance are the two battle maps and cut-out tokens that is Loke Battle Mats stock and trade. This booklet has everything you need to play with Loke Battle Mats’ outstanding maps, you’ll have a great encounter. You can sample some of those maps for free at DriveThruRPG.

Runes of the World Tree Quickstart from Kobold Press (link)

• TYPE: Adventure
• SYSTEM: Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and Tales of the Valiant
• Kobold Press, creators of Tales of the Valiant RPG, offers an adventure that lets you play with 5e or ToV rules. In Runes of the World Tree, you’ll encounter pre-gen characters, an adventure map, mercenaries, and cursed axes. If you want to test drive ToV, this is an excellent opportunity. From Kobold Press' Marc Radle (in the comments below): "Runes of the World Tree is a really fun adventure! GMs or players can download the pregens for the adventure here."

Pretenders to the Rat King's Throne from Goodman Games (link)

• TYPE: Adventure
• SYSTEM: Dungeon Crawl Classics and Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition
• Goodman Games brings you another free adventure for Dungeon Crawl Classics or Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition (your choice). This quest is a sequel to one of the beloved Goodman Games adventures of yester-year, specifically d20 Dungeon Crawl Classics: Saga of the Rat King, which is a compilation of Idylls of the Rat King and Revenge of the Rat King. Return to Silverton and discover if the Rat King is back in this adventure for DCC or 5e characters at 1st or 2nd level.

Pathfinder offerings. While there are more Dungeons & Dragons freebies, let’s look at a stalwart supporter of Free RPG Day, Paizo and their ‘Finder offerings.

Pathfinder Free RPG Day Adventure: Things Go to Hell from Paizo (link)

• TYPE: Adventure
• SYSTEM: Pathfinder Second Edition
• Every year, Paizo supports Free RPG Day and their organized play societies (Pathfinder Society and Starfinder Society, which are going through an evolution) with beautiful glossy and engaging adventures. This year, they’re offering a 7th-level adventure with a dark hook: Your boss (whose title is likely less humane than “boss”) made a deal with the devil and, when he dies, you ended up in Hell. With four pregenerated characters, you have to find your boss’ soul in order to escape Hell. This promises a morally complicated adventure with a simple goal: Escape Hell. If you’ve wanted to try out Pathfinder Second Edition, look for a friendly local game store that is offering this one-shot or try out Pathfinder’s organized play and seek out a Paizo retailer at a friendly local gaming store near you.

Starfinder Free RPG Day Adventure: Rescue on Raxil from Paizo (link)

• TYPE: Adventure
• SYSTEM: Starfinder Second Edition
• Want to go on a sci-fantasy adventure where you stop a planet’s destruction? As third level Xenowardens, you must save endangered species and stop a biotech corporation from wiping out their ecosystem. This is a feel good, punch-the-obviously-horrible-bad-guys adventure with five pregenerated characters for Starfinder Second Edition. As with Pathfinder, you can visit Paizo’s website to seek out a Paizo retailer near you to learn more about Starfinder Second Edition.

OSR offerings. Moving on to the d20-centric OSRs (games inspired by the earliest editions and adventuring styles of Dungeons & Dragons), there are several projects for fans of old school roleplaying.

Dolmenwood Quick-Start from Exalted Funeral (link)

• TYPE: Quickstart
• SYSTEM: Dolmenwood RPG
• Dolmenwood RPG is a highly-regarded fairy-tale fantasy setting from Gavin Norman, creator of Old-School Essentials. Using a variation of the Old-School Essentials/Dungeons & Dragons Basic/Expert (1981) edition of the game, this Dolmenwood booklet offers a quick-start with basic rules, six pregenerated characters, and a one-shot adventure, “The Weaver & the Redcaps.” For OSR gamers, this is likely the crown jewel of Free RPG Day 2026. If you want to experience a roleplaying style from the beginning of the hobby, look for a friendly local game store offering to run this adventure or get a copy to run at your gaming table.

Pirate Borg: Terror in Tortuga from Limithron and Free League Publishing (link)

• TYPE: Adventure
• SYSTEM: Pirate Borg (Mörk Borg variant)
• Keeping with the OSR theme, but turning to modern variants, let’s talk about the most popular Mörk Borg variant, Pirate Borg. The Borg TTRPGs are down and deadly games where the world is dying and you’re fighting to survive until the bitter end. Pirate Borg sets the game in the mystical and murderous Dark Caribbean as you seek treasure, fight pirates, monsters, and ghosts. Fueled by ASH, you have powers and a ship to get you from one port to the next. This booklet, Terror in Tortuga, provides a short rules reference, an adventure, and previews of the upcoming Dark Caribbean Campaign Setting Book. (You can read a little more about a recent Pirate Borg release from Charles Dunwoody’s recent RPG Print News column.) If pirates float your boat, seek out this booklet.

Creature Curation Presents #1 from Creature Curation (link)

• TYPE: Adventures
• SYSTEM: Vast Grimm, Raptor Ruckus, and Neon Bastardz (Mörk Borg variants)
• There are many Mörk Borg variants out there, and Creature Curation wants to share some of the best with you. This adventure anthology provides three Borg variants. Vast Grimm is a disgusting sci-fi horror universe in which a plague of parasitic würms are burrowing into the brain of every sentient being. Avoid the würms while keeping your ship fueled and finding something to feed your crew. Raptor Ruckus takes you to 1993 as dinosaurs escape onto an island. This love letter to Jurassic Park is large and dangerous; can you outwit an island full of coldblooded predators and escape? Neon Bastardz just wrapped their Kickstarter and are preparing to unleash skumdog mutant mayhem onto your gaming table. Wastelands, mega-cities, and you fighting through all of it in a gloriously khaotic bit of weirdness. Grab this zine to try out these Borg settings and use the links in the book to generate characters so you can get your Borg on! This anthology is perfect for Mörk Borg fans.
• MEET THE CREATOR ON FREE RPG DAY: Vast Grimm’s Brian Colin is running "The Gallant Obelisk" from noon to 2:00 PM ET at Level Up Games in Buford, Georgia. Play the Vast Grimm adventure with him and get a rare variant cover version of this module and/or participate in Level Up’s quest card game and get other Free RPG Day treasures and play other adventures. Head over to Eventbrite to secure tickets to the games for Saturday, June 27th.
  NOTE: Level Up Games is a brick and mortar tabletop gaming retail chain in metro Atlanta. Level Up: Advanced 5th Edition is a TTRPG published by EN Publishing. Despite the similarity of the names and their shared designation as tabletop gaming, these Level Ups are unrelated entities.

Other d20 offerings. This list is a sampling of the options on offer, which means your participating friendly local gaming store will have more to offer on Free RPG Day 2026. On Saturday, June 27, you can find these other d20-related offerings:

• Obojima: A Great Cat-Astrophe from 1985 Games (link) for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and 5.5e
• Creed Shadow Stalker from Knight Vision Creative (link) for Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition and 5.5e
• Everyday Heroes: All Bets Are Off! from Evil Genius Games (link) for Everyday Heroes (Dungeons & Dragons Fifth Edition variant)
• From Here to There from Third Kingdom Games (link) for Old-School Essentials

As well as a great D&D miniature:

• D&D Exclusive Miniatures from WizKids (link)

WHAT’S FREE, BUT NOT D20-CENTRIC?

On Saturday, June 27, Free RPG Day 2026 offers 40 freebies, this article is only a sampling of those d20-centric booklets. But what about the other games, what non-d20 adventures can you pick up? In the concluding article, we’ll look at a selection of non-d20 books available at your participating friendly local gaming stores.

Egg Embry does not use AI in any of his writing. He participates in the OneBookShelf Affiliate Program, Noble Knight Games’ Affiliate Program, Kobold Press Affiliate Program, and is an Amazon Associate. These programs provide advertising fees by linking to DriveThruRPG, Noble Knight Games, Kobold Press, and Amazon. If you like the articles at EN World please consider supporting the Patreon.

 

[DarkCrisis]

I MISSED IT!!!

 

[Byrd]

I made my Will save vs. the pencils and Post-it notes. It was close though!