Third Chair Games and designer Jayme Antrim are offering the 46-page RPG Artifacts & Adventure: Modern-Day Treasure Hunters for free. Zero money. Nuffing.
Why and how? This release is in beta, and your feedback is invited; however, Third Chair Games have said Artifacts & Adventures will remain free.
The RPG is the company’s first offering, and so perhaps it’s a labour of love and a way to get on people’s radar at the same time. It certainly put the publisher on mine.
Artifacts & Adventures is a rules-light roleplaying game inspired by Relic Hunter, Tomb Raider and Uncharted. Characters are modern-day treasure seekers, those who try to get at lost or stolen relics to return them to their rightful owners. I’m not sure if that means raiding the British Museum and repatriating the loot there is in-theme or not.
Some treasure hunters work for profit, others for a sense of discovery, or simply because they believe recovering relics is the right thing to do. Treasure hunting is a life of danger, excitement, and globe-trotting adventure.
The setting is contemporary, but Jayme avows that it is in-theme for adventures to head towards the fantastic when some of the legends and folklore which whispers of strange powers of artifacts turn out to be true.
The tabletop game is a single column of easy to use text, has some but not many illustrations (care of Dean Spencer and Fat Goblin Games), and is perhaps just shy of an “RPG layout” approach. Alternatively, it’s perfect for smartphone screen reading.
Also inside are random tables that use a d66 system and could be used to create NPCs, locations and artifacts for loads of different games.
Zadmar Games and Richard Woolcock’s Tricube Tales system powers the game. That’s often found in free games, is available entirely as a free preview or you can just pay $1 for a Phone PDF download without taking the preview route.
As an aside, Tricube is available with a Creative Commons BY 3.0 license, so you too can create and sell your own RPG with it.
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