Tabletop Roleplaying Resources
This page is intended to collect useful free resources (be they books, scenarios, apps, or assets) for tabletop roleplaying games and others, in the manner of similar awesome and delightful lists. Free in that regard should be free of charge, but ideally also to use on your own.
I think the situation about AI-generated resources is quite murky in terms of copyright, and I also plain don't like generative AI, so I will try to keep this list human-made only.
Universal
Safety Tools
TTRPG Safety Toolkit - free resource making TTRPG safety/support tools easy to approach and use
The Same Page Tool (Deeper in the Game) - putting all players on the same page, blog entry
Scenarios
One Page Dungeon Contest - Annual Contest asking people to write dungeons, scenarios, et al. stripped down to a single page. Contest Entries are released under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license
1shot Adventures - collection of worked out one-shot adventures for various systems
Dyson's Dodehecadron Adventures - worked out adventures (OSR-style) by the mapping master Dyson himself
- Challenge of the Frog Idol - hex-crawl, award-winning
- The Tomb of Durahn Oakenshield - one-page dungeon
- Dyson's Delve - a mini-mega-dungeon
Tomb of the Serpent Kings - OSR teaching dungeon by skerples
Background
Blackmarsh - sandbox setting inspired by the original fantasy campaign (Blackmoor), released as Creative Commons
Game Systems
Dungeons and Dragons
DnD 3.5 Hypertext SRD - released under OGL
Dungeons and Dragons 5e SRD - Released under OGL Dungeons and Dragons 5e 2024 revision - Released under Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License
PCGen (link) - character generator mostly for D&D-like games
B/X Dungeons and Dragons
B/X Procedural Flow Charts by d4 Caltrops (unclear license)
Basic Fantasy
Basic Fantasy RPG - Retro-system that's not quite OSR, but definitely goes for the vibe. Large amount of community-generated supplements that can be used in other systems, 4th edition released under CC BY-SA, previous under SRD
Iron Falcon
Iron Falcon - aims to reproduce the rules of White Box + Supplement I Greyhawk
Fantastic Medieval Campaigns
Fantastic Medieval Campaigns - new version of the original 1974 rules
Ars Magica
Ars Magica Open License - the text of all Ars Magica books has been released under a CC BY-SA 4.0 license
Talislanta
Talislanta - the classic Talislanta game has nearly all it's books available free online. Books are nonfree, but setting information is released under a CC license
Eclipse Phase
Eclipse Phase 1e - all books of the first edition of the post-cyberpunk RPG Eclipse Phase have been released under a CC license
Cairn
Cairn Players' Guide 2nd Edition - the Player's Handbook equivalent for Cairn Cairn Wardens' Guide 2nd Edition - The GM's Handbook equivalent
Cairn Website (also github) - contains all rules texts, released under a CC-BY-SA 4.0 license
Illustrated Bestiary - great illustrations, and stats for various monsters in Cairn, released under CC-BY-SA 4.0
Mausritter
Mausritter - you play adventurous mice in a world of giants (humans), based on Into the Odd
- Mausritter SRD - released under CC-BY-4.0
Thirsty Sword Lesbians
Thirsty Sword Lesbians SRD - system reference document for the award-winning roleplaying game for telling queer stories with your friends
Mapping
Mipui (website) - free and open-source collaborative web application for creating, editing and viewing grid-based maps for tabletop or role-playing games. gridmapper (source) - low-resource collaborative mapping application
watabou's Procgen Arcana (github) - random map generators for cities, dungeons, dwellings, etc.
Maps
Greyhawk - Anna B. Meyer's impressive work cartographing the Flanaess (the original DnD setting) Atlas of Mystara - long-running website detailing the Mystara setting in exhaustive detail Avesmaps - detailed route planner/map app for the main setting of Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) Travellermap - exhaustive starmaps of the 3rd Imperium/Known Space setting for Traveller The Galactic Atlas - Map for the Star Wars universe Seattle 2072 - for Shadowrun
Heraldry
Armoria (link) - Heraldry Generator and Editor Heraldicon (link) - Heraldry and Flag Generator Drawshield (link) - Heraldry generator, can create from a blazon (standardized description)
Tokens
TokenTool (link) - simple tool to create tokens for roleplaying games or others
Starships
Starship Geomorphs 2.0 - Starship geomorphs for your (Traveller) starship mapping pleasure, released under a CC-Attr-NC license
- Geomorph Shipyard (gitlab)- online program for using the Starship Geomorphs to create ship plans
Whiteboard
Excalidraw (link) - free and open source whiteboard tool
Virtual Table Top
MapTool (link) - Virtual Tabletop for playing roleplaying games with remote players or face to face, Java-application
- 5e Framework - Framework to play 5e DnD with Maptool
- DSA5 Maptool - Framework for Das Schwarze Auge (The Dark Eye) 5th edition, German
- OSRIC 1E Framework - for OSRIC 1st edition
- GURPS Framework - for playing GURPS in MapTool
- ADnD 2E Framework - for Advanced Dungeons and Dragons 2nd edtion
- Call of Cthulhu Framework - For Call of Cthulhu
Ambiance
Tabletop Audio - huge library of soundscapes intended for various genres and styles, licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 4.0
Tokens
Forgotten Adventures Free Token Library - the free package has a rather large amount of top-down tokens to work with in your VTT. Licensed only for private use, no redistribution.
Battlemaps
200 Battlemaps - freely available battlemaps created by Ataraxian Bear
Wikis
Campaignwiki.org - Wiki for roleplaying game campaigns and other RPG-related projects
- Links To Wisdom - collects cool OSR Houserules
- Uplinked Intelligence Wiki - collects rules for science fiction RPGs
- Adventures Wiki - collects OSR adventures
Social Networks
dice.camp - "social network not owned by a billionaire", tabletop rpg focused federated social network (Mastodon)
tabletop.social - inclusive Mastodon community for everything tabletop & more (Mastodon)
pnpde.social - intended as an inclusive community for roleplaying games, largely German-language (Mastodon).
Character Portraits
108 Terrible Character Portraits - collection of character portraits by Jeff Preston, released under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported License
Props
1900s
Propnomicon Telegraph blanks [1] [2] [3]
Miniatures
Terrain
Papercraft Medieval Stone Bridge (papermau) Papercraft Fantasy House (papermau)
Assets
Game Icons - icons for games