What I mean by the title is that there are two ways to look at free to own RPGs (mostly pdf's). Either you view them as cheap and wouldn't have made any real money if they had been released to the market or you see them as very good games that could have made money but for one reason or another have been released free to own.
My opinion is that they are certainly worth a look. Yes some undoubtedly will be cheap and cheerless and really not much cop at all but others may very well be worth your look.
There are many games available as free to own pdf's that fall into the category of retro games such as "Basic Fantasy", "Labyrinth Lord" and "Mazes & Minotaurs". Whilst a lot of these games harken back to AD&D 1st edition for their inspiration and can be quite clunky they are also, in my humble opinion, ideal for beginner players. Why? Because the games are usually well thought out, easy to read and understand, simple enough so that new players can grasp the concepts without bombarding them with too much information early on and given the price tag, exceptional value for money. Now yes the person getting them will need to buy paper and ink for the printer and so on but even factoring those costs in you still end up coming out ahead. Get a few sets of dice and you and your players are raring to go. I also found official products released by West End Games for their D6 system, which are free to own on pdf from retailers like DriveThruRPG.com which included a fantasy system which would be very generic for sure but also very easy to use and run for beginners.
Why my interest in beginners? because unless our hobby gets new people interested it will literally die with us. And if free to own retro games get people interested in the hobby that they might want to check out some of the current crop of games that are out there for sale, then I say all the better.
So in closing shop around and look for some of these free games and check them out. You may find an RPG there that will suit your needs perfectly.
Here are some links for some of the free RPG's I mentioned:
Basic fantasy: http://www.basicfantasy.org/
Labyrinth Lord: http://www.goblinoidgames.com/labyrinthlord.html
Mazes & Minotaurs: http://mazesandminotaurs.free.fr/revised.html
D6 Fantasy (also D6 Space and D6 Adventure): http://www.sycarion.com/open-d6-pdfs/
Legendary Quest: http://legendaryquest.netfirms.com/
Dungeon Slayer: http://www.dungeonslayers.com/
Other games are available free from DriveThruRPG.com Just put in an advanced search for items costing $0.00 and a list of supplements free trial gamesa and full RPG rules systems comes up. its a great way to see a lot of stuff for no cash at all.
Should give you guys things to think about :)
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