Free RPG Day is an annual promotional event by the Tabletop role-playing game industry. [1] The event rules are fairly simple: participating publishers provide special free copies of games to participating game stores; the game store agrees to provide one free game to any person who requests a free game on Free RPG Day. [2]
Shannon Appelcline discussed Kenzer & Company's comics "Crisis in Raimiton (2004), an "Adventure Guide to D&D" that Wizards gave away on Free Comic Book Day '04. It told the story of gamers playing D&D, and then the story of the characters they created. Wizards' interest in the free giveaway foreshadowed the industry's interest in a free giveaway day of their own: Free RPG Day."[3]: 91 Appelcline noted that Impressions Advertising & Marketing's "most successful advertising program is one that continues today: Free RPG Day. Beginning in 2007, Impressions has every year coordinated the give-away of original RPG products in game stores across the country, resulting in considerable buzz and interest in those products — which is exactly what Impressions, an advertising and marketing company, was looking for.[4]: 65
Inspired by Free Comic Book Day, Free RPG Day was started in 2007. [5] The free RPG event was coordinated worldwide by Impressions, a game distributor, from 2007 to 2013.[6]
Appelcline noted that "Goodman Games' last stand against the dying d20 market was Free RPG Day 2007. Where most companies were offering up a single product of variable quality, Goodman contributed three different books to Free RPG Day, each one of them a top-quality production."[4]: 90 Paizo Publishing previewed the new GameMastery Modules series with D0: Hollow's Last Hope (2007), which showed up on June 23, 2007, at the first Free RPG Day.[4]: 218 Flying Buffalo put together quick-start editions (2007, 2008, 2011) of Tunnels & Trolls for three of the Free RPG Days.[3]: 132 Margaret Weis Productions put out the Castlemourn Cortex System Quickstart (2008) for the second Free RPG Day before closing down the line.[7]: 349 Green Ronin's first new RPG, A Song of Ice and Fire Roleplaying (2009), had been previewed the previous year at Free RPG Day 2008.[4]: 36 From 2007-2011, Troll Lord Games issued a Castles & Crusades "quick start" at each Free RPG Day, to bring new players; science fiction game StarSIEGE: Event Horizon (2008) was also previewed at Free RPG Day 2008.[4]: 50 Pinnacle Entertainment Group offered The Wild Hunt (2011) as a "Savage Worlds Test Drive" for Free RPG Day 2011.[7]: 292
Shannon Appelcline outlined that Columbia Games "produced adventures for two of the Free RPG Days: Field of Daisies (2008) and Dead Weight (2010). However, the latter product was more a teaser than anything. Stores only received one copy of the adventure when they purchased a box of Free RPG Day products; Columbia has since started selling the rest of the print run — and even admonished websites that reviewed Dead Weight as a "free" release. More recently they produced a map of Hârn (2012) for Free RPG Day 2012."[8]: 240–241
Germany's first event was February 2, 2013; it included 9 games. The German version of Free RPG Day is called Gratisrollenspieltag, also known as Gratis Rollenspieltag.[9]
The industry participants include the publishers of the participating games, the event organizer which coordinates delivery of the free product to the stores, and the brick-and-mortar store owners who agree to provide the free games to end users/gamers. Some publishers produce quick start adventures geared toward players unfamiliar with the game system or new to tabletop role-playing games in general. The games are distributed worldwide through participating stores.
The first annual event in 2007 featured quick start adventures from 16 different publishers:[10]
This event took place on June 21, 2008.[11] The second annual event featured:
Games included in the third Free RPG Day event were:
This event took place on June 19, 2010.[15]
Games included in the sixth Free RPG Day event were:[16]
This event took place on June 15, 2013.[17]
This event took place on June 21, 2014.[18] Games included in the 8th annual event were:[19]
This event took place on June 20, 2015.[20] Products included in the 9th annual event were:[20][21]
This event took place on June 18, 2016.[22] Products included in the 10th annual event were: