Free RPG roundup : Volume 1

This is a new irregularly appearing, themed post in which I'll be listing some free rpg's for your entertainment and inspiration.

On the heels of my last post about the Open Game Licensed, D&D 1st generation clone OSRIC comes Swords & Wizardy and Labyrinth Lord, which are also both OGL and "rules lite" 1st generation fantasy role playing games. Very similar is Basic Fantasy RPG which describes itself as a mix of 1st gen. rules and 3.5 rules. Yet another old school fantasy game is Dungeon Slayers. Still another is Swords & Magick, a fantasy rpg with "a skill-based character creation that allows for extremely versatile (and sometimes very strange) characters".

Gore is a "Generic Old School Role Playing Game" that (obviously) lends itself to different genres, including for exampe The Night of the Living Dead setting.

Zozer presents "Warlords of Alexandar" (pdf) - a free rpg set in the 4th century BC (uses the BRP game mechanics from Chaosium or Runequest).

Midgard: Viking Legends (pdf) - from the author, "Midgard is a roleplaying game, where you take on the role of a legendary Viking hero and complete your own epic quests. I am specifying this as a mythic-historic setting—that is one in which you try to stick closely to the history or the period, but assume that all the gods, myths and monsters that the Viking people believed are actually true.

Update: Swords & Wizardry is now available in hard cover book format via Lulu.com. I really think that as of this date, it really seems to me to be the best introductory fantasy RPG, definitely being as good for this as the old D&D (red box) Basic boxed set. Very nice art, very straightforward rules, as it says: Take the basic framework and “Imagine the hell out of it!”