Free to Download: d12 RPG Basic Edition

d12 Studios has released a free to download d12 RPG Basic Edition.

It’s a generous offer, some 121 pages and a fully playable game. However, it’s without any art and lacks all the lore and options in the full release.

Here’s how the game introduces itself.

The d12 Role Playing Game is an adventure game for two to six players, ages 12 and up. Basically, it is about experiencing unique adventures in the world of Taelurien. To play the game, you need a game master (GM) who hosts the game session and one to five players who want to go adventuring. To explain the game mechanism, let’s compare the d12 Role Playing Game to an interactive novel or fantasy movie. There’s always a writer of a novel, and a director of a movie. The role of writer and director is fulfilled by the game master. The players are the protagonists, the heroes, the actors of the dramatic events. There is no actual acting, however – the story unfolds before the mind’s eye only, just as in a novel. To run a d12 Role Playing Game session, the game master must have prepared some kind of adventure or plot. The most basic of plots may be that the characters have arrived in a small town. The local populace appears scared and doesn’t talk much. Soon after they arrive, the characters are approached by the town elders who tell them that orcs have been raiding caravans near the town for some weeks now. The roads are not safe any more, and the characters can earn a little fame by rooting out the orcs. The game master has prepared the village’s layout to show the players, some people the players will / may meet, and the orcs’ hideout in the nearby woods. The aim of the game is to “write” a good story between the game master (who directs the actions and everything in his game world and plot except the players’ characters) and the players, who act and react to the GM’s descriptions according to their ideas.

However, d12 Studios warns that this version has not been fine-tuned to a full release. What does that mean? It means the rules might reference skills or classes that aren’t actually in the free basic language.

Furthermore, spells max out at level 5.

The goal of the free edition is to help demonstrate the system and enough of it to create a character. You’ll be able to play through some adventures and test the combat and other mechanics.

Combat in d12 is a bit different. The studio notes;

The combat system is a departure from the regular “roll to hit”. Defense rolls exist (although they can be substituted by a defense class) and defense itself is split into both defense and armor, necessitating different approaches in combat for enemies that are hard to hit or hard to damage.