While there are a number of other sites out there that sell PDFs, rpgnow.com and its affiliate sites are the largest and most used sites for rpg PDFs. So, when they have a sale, it’s kind of a big thing. This week they are sponsoring GM’s Day, an annual sale on a multitude of PDFs on their site with 25% off participating publishers. This sale lasts until 3/12 so you have about a week to find something really cool on the cheap.
However, there are over 12,000 titles spread over 800 pages as part of this sale. It can get a bit daunting to wade through this as you look for that gem of an rpg. Heck, if you just start looking, the first 30 pages are all almost nothing but Resource Lists, i.e. 100 Celtic Names, 10 Rare Flowers, etc. Since it’s the purpose of this column to search through new PDFs and highlight the best PDFs have to offer each week, we’ll be taking a look at which interesting PDFs are on the sale list. We’ll also give some advice on how to navigate the site. And since we figure most of you will be spending your money on the sale items while you can, we’ll put off the new releases until next week.
First off, when doing some searching yourself, there are a few things you can do to speed up the process and narrow down the field. First up, get to the GM Day’s page here. From there you can narrow the fields by making some selections on the left side of the page by Genre, Rule System, Publisher, etc. Each choice will appear at the top of the page and by scrolling down the page you will see an alphabetical listing of publications under your chosen parameters. Also, once you've found a company or rpg you like you can look for more of what they offer for that title.
For those people for which this is still too daunting to wade through, we’ve got a listing of PDFs that caught our eye. Note that unlike our regular listings of PDFs these are not new ones. Also, due to the sheer volume of PDFs the descriptions of each PDF will be sparse and written to give the bare essential info; you can then choose to follow the link if it interests you for more information on the product. Also, there are multitudes of adventures, artwork and other material that is beyond the scope of this column. However, by doing a little digging you're sure to find something of use to you.
2300AD – Traveller setting based as much as possible in reality. A bunch of supplements are also part of the sale.
50 Fathoms – Savage Worlds setting of pirates as written by Shane Lacy Hensley.
7th Sea Player’s Guide – The awesome 7th Sea game from AEG. A bunch of their 7th Sea PDFs are on sale.
Admiral o’ the High Seas – Pathfinder/4E supplement on naval combat.
After the Bomb – A series of post-apocalyptic rpgs put out by Palladium. I played a lot of this back in the day.
Aftermath! – A post-apocalyptic rpg put out by FGU. A lot of the supplements are also on sale.
Amethyst: Foundations – A 4E setting that introduces technology and guns.
Armageddon 2089 – d20 Mechs.
Ashen Stars - GUMSHOE science fiction.
Blood and Time – A timeline of human history and d20 material on time travel.
Book of Eldritch Might – one of the premier d20 books and it looks like most of the Malhavoc Press books are on sale as well.
Brave New World – A superhero game put out by AEG.
Bunnies And Burrows - A trend setting FGU game of intelligent animals.
Bushido - Perhaps the first oriental themed rpg. It won a lot of praise at the time.
Call of Cthulhu - The 6th edition by Chaosium.
Castle Falkenstein - The innovative steampunk fantasy system.
Castles & Crusades - An old-school fantasy rpg. Most, if not all, of their product is on sale.
Complete KOBOLD Guide to Game Design - A work for all aspiring designers to take a look at.
Cyberpunk - The early and defining cyberpunk rpg.
Darwin's World - d20 post-apocalyptic game.
Deadlands - All the books for the original rule system, and the d20 system, and the Savage Worlds version.
Doctor Who - The new Cubicle 7 version is on sale!
Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game - The new old-school rpg that has everyone talking.
Fading Suns - A rich sci-fi setting and game. Both the 2nd Edition and d20 version and their supplements are on for sale.
Fantasia - A fantasy rpg that I have never heard of, but they sure do have a lot of material for it.
Farscape - The AEG game based on the TV series.
Fiasco - The game that is creating its own niche.
Flashing Blades - A swashbuckling game set firmly in the genre of the Three Musketeers; this gem from FGU is one of my personal favorites.
HR1 Vikings Campaign Sourcebook - The Historic series from TSR/WotC is also on sale. It looks like this is the only WotC/TSR items on the sale list.
Ironclaw - Anthropomorphic animals.
Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game - The Mongoose d20 rpg based off the license.
King Arthur Pendragon 5th Edition - The venerable and different take on medieval fantasy.
Kobold Quarterly - Did you miss some of the magazine's issues? They are now on sale all the way back to issue #1.
Legacy - An rpg based on the Highlander TV series, but without the official license.
Legend of the Five Rings - All of the various editions are on sale from 1st to 4th, along with virtually all the supplements.
Leverage - The Cortex rpg based on the TV series about "good-guy" con artists.
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying - The Margaret Weiss Productions rpg of superhereoes set in the Marvel universe.
Michael Moorcock's Elric - The Mongoose produced series of Moorcock book settings adapted into rpg form.
Midgard Campaign Setting - Along with the setting book there are numerous other books for the setting by Kobold's Open Design.
Mutant City Blues - GUMSHOE superhero cops.
Mutants and Masterminds - The pre-eminent superhero rpg that grew out of the d20 system.
Paranoia XP - The classic game of insane antics in a computer dominated future is updated by Mongoose Publishing.
Pirates: Ye Olde Core Rules - New Dimension Games has put out an expansive series of books exploring the various pirate locations and adventures.
Race Creation Cookbook - A point based race generation system.
Rifts - A multi-genre setting and rule set from Palladium.
Savage Worlds Deluxe: Explorer's Edition - The hugely popular rule system.
Shadowrun 4th Edition - Shadowrun is well represented with sale items including products from earlier editions.
Space 1889 - Colonization of Mars and Venus in the Victorian Age. Both the original game and the new Savage Worlds version are on sale.
Spycraft - The modern d20 rule set.
The Vault of Larin Karr - In my opinion this adventure/sandbox setting by Necromancer Games was the best of their d20 material. However, their other products were also solid and are on sale as well.
Timemaster - Timetravel game with all the supplements on sale.
Traveller Main Rulebook - Mongoose Publishing began publishing the venerable Traveller rules for a whole new generation.
Ultimate Toolbox - 400 pages of tables.
I'm sure I've missed someone's favorite product. Feel free to make mention of it in the comments. And remember, the sale only lasts until next week.
However, there are over 12,000 titles spread over 800 pages as part of this sale. It can get a bit daunting to wade through this as you look for that gem of an rpg. Heck, if you just start looking, the first 30 pages are all almost nothing but Resource Lists, i.e. 100 Celtic Names, 10 Rare Flowers, etc. Since it’s the purpose of this column to search through new PDFs and highlight the best PDFs have to offer each week, we’ll be taking a look at which interesting PDFs are on the sale list. We’ll also give some advice on how to navigate the site. And since we figure most of you will be spending your money on the sale items while you can, we’ll put off the new releases until next week.
First off, when doing some searching yourself, there are a few things you can do to speed up the process and narrow down the field. First up, get to the GM Day’s page here. From there you can narrow the fields by making some selections on the left side of the page by Genre, Rule System, Publisher, etc. Each choice will appear at the top of the page and by scrolling down the page you will see an alphabetical listing of publications under your chosen parameters. Also, once you've found a company or rpg you like you can look for more of what they offer for that title.
For those people for which this is still too daunting to wade through, we’ve got a listing of PDFs that caught our eye. Note that unlike our regular listings of PDFs these are not new ones. Also, due to the sheer volume of PDFs the descriptions of each PDF will be sparse and written to give the bare essential info; you can then choose to follow the link if it interests you for more information on the product. Also, there are multitudes of adventures, artwork and other material that is beyond the scope of this column. However, by doing a little digging you're sure to find something of use to you.
2300AD – Traveller setting based as much as possible in reality. A bunch of supplements are also part of the sale.
50 Fathoms – Savage Worlds setting of pirates as written by Shane Lacy Hensley.
7th Sea Player’s Guide – The awesome 7th Sea game from AEG. A bunch of their 7th Sea PDFs are on sale.
Admiral o’ the High Seas – Pathfinder/4E supplement on naval combat.
After the Bomb – A series of post-apocalyptic rpgs put out by Palladium. I played a lot of this back in the day.
Aftermath! – A post-apocalyptic rpg put out by FGU. A lot of the supplements are also on sale.
Amethyst: Foundations – A 4E setting that introduces technology and guns.
Armageddon 2089 – d20 Mechs.
Ashen Stars - GUMSHOE science fiction.
Blood and Time – A timeline of human history and d20 material on time travel.
Book of Eldritch Might – one of the premier d20 books and it looks like most of the Malhavoc Press books are on sale as well.
Brave New World – A superhero game put out by AEG.
Bunnies And Burrows - A trend setting FGU game of intelligent animals.
Bushido - Perhaps the first oriental themed rpg. It won a lot of praise at the time.
Call of Cthulhu - The 6th edition by Chaosium.
Castle Falkenstein - The innovative steampunk fantasy system.
Castles & Crusades - An old-school fantasy rpg. Most, if not all, of their product is on sale.
Complete KOBOLD Guide to Game Design - A work for all aspiring designers to take a look at.
Cyberpunk - The early and defining cyberpunk rpg.
Darwin's World - d20 post-apocalyptic game.
Deadlands - All the books for the original rule system, and the d20 system, and the Savage Worlds version.
Doctor Who - The new Cubicle 7 version is on sale!
Dungeon Crawl Classics Role Playing Game - The new old-school rpg that has everyone talking.
Fading Suns - A rich sci-fi setting and game. Both the 2nd Edition and d20 version and their supplements are on for sale.
Fantasia - A fantasy rpg that I have never heard of, but they sure do have a lot of material for it.
Farscape - The AEG game based on the TV series.
Fiasco - The game that is creating its own niche.
Flashing Blades - A swashbuckling game set firmly in the genre of the Three Musketeers; this gem from FGU is one of my personal favorites.
HR1 Vikings Campaign Sourcebook - The Historic series from TSR/WotC is also on sale. It looks like this is the only WotC/TSR items on the sale list.
Ironclaw - Anthropomorphic animals.
Judge Dredd Roleplaying Game - The Mongoose d20 rpg based off the license.
King Arthur Pendragon 5th Edition - The venerable and different take on medieval fantasy.
Kobold Quarterly - Did you miss some of the magazine's issues? They are now on sale all the way back to issue #1.
Legacy - An rpg based on the Highlander TV series, but without the official license.
Legend of the Five Rings - All of the various editions are on sale from 1st to 4th, along with virtually all the supplements.
Leverage - The Cortex rpg based on the TV series about "good-guy" con artists.
Marvel Heroic Roleplaying - The Margaret Weiss Productions rpg of superhereoes set in the Marvel universe.
Michael Moorcock's Elric - The Mongoose produced series of Moorcock book settings adapted into rpg form.
Midgard Campaign Setting - Along with the setting book there are numerous other books for the setting by Kobold's Open Design.
Mutant City Blues - GUMSHOE superhero cops.
Mutants and Masterminds - The pre-eminent superhero rpg that grew out of the d20 system.
Paranoia XP - The classic game of insane antics in a computer dominated future is updated by Mongoose Publishing.
Pirates: Ye Olde Core Rules - New Dimension Games has put out an expansive series of books exploring the various pirate locations and adventures.
Race Creation Cookbook - A point based race generation system.
Rifts - A multi-genre setting and rule set from Palladium.
Savage Worlds Deluxe: Explorer's Edition - The hugely popular rule system.
Shadowrun 4th Edition - Shadowrun is well represented with sale items including products from earlier editions.
Space 1889 - Colonization of Mars and Venus in the Victorian Age. Both the original game and the new Savage Worlds version are on sale.
Spycraft - The modern d20 rule set.
The Vault of Larin Karr - In my opinion this adventure/sandbox setting by Necromancer Games was the best of their d20 material. However, their other products were also solid and are on sale as well.
Timemaster - Timetravel game with all the supplements on sale.
Traveller Main Rulebook - Mongoose Publishing began publishing the venerable Traveller rules for a whole new generation.
Ultimate Toolbox - 400 pages of tables.
I'm sure I've missed someone's favorite product. Feel free to make mention of it in the comments. And remember, the sale only lasts until next week.
