Welcome to the Bundles, Freebies, and Sales News, the weekly column at EN World that helps make sure you don’t miss out on big tabletop RPG bundles, charity fundraisers, and sales from around the internet.
Freebies and Pay What You Want
Note: While “Pay What You Want” downloads are available for free, please support the creators if you are able!
If you’re attending Gen Con and able to give blood, the convention is partnering with The Heinlein Society and the Versiti Blood Center of Indiana to host a blood drive. All confirmed donors will receive an exclusive Loot Crate including three months access to dScryb, three months of audio by Michael Ghelfi Studios with a dScryb Composer subscription, a copy of Roll20’s Burn Bryte Core Rulebook, plus dice and other swag at the sign-up booth. You’ll also be registered to win a daily prize package including an annual Compusre subscription to TTRPG audio by Michael Ghelfi Studios, an annual Hero subscription to dScryb, an annual Pro subscription to Roll20, your choice of the Pathfinder Beginner Box or Starfinder Beginner Box, and a quill and ink writing set. One grand prize willer will also receive everything in the daily prize package plus a 10 year Pro Subscription to Roll20. Sign up for the giveaways on the Dscryb sign-up page.
If you’re planning to run Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game at a convention this season, you might want to grab the Convention Play Pack featuring profiles for Wolverine (Laura Kinney), Nightcrawler, Winter Soldier, Cloak, Dagger, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Hydra Agent, and Armored Hydra Agent all designed to be streamlined for demo play so there’s nothing unlikely to be used in a quick convention session to clutter the sheet and confuse new players.
Monte Cook Games released a free preview from Adventures in the Cypher System featuring a peek at the seven different Cypher System adventures included in the final book coming out next month highlighting the versatility of the system with old west to fairy tale fantasy to far future sci-fi to time travel and more.
For more Cypher System options, Qedhup Games released Applied Democracy: New Soldier Orientation Manual and Death Waiver for a satirical supplement about sci-fi fighting forces here to bring you democracy at the barrel of a gun.
OSR fans have not one, not two, but three adventure collections for Old School Revival this week from The Basic Fantasy Project: Adventure Anthology 1, Adventure Anthology 2, and Adventure Anthology 3.
If you’d rather try a new OSR rules system, The Basic Expert has Wight-Box: Original Medieval Adventure Campaigns. This retroclone is an attempt to recreate the original Chainmail rules system and its appendices for the original historic fantasy roleplaying experience from 50 years ago.
And for more OSR fun, Stillfleet Studio and Christopher Pickett put out Danse Macabre: Prima Mors, a historical fantasy RPG of 14th century pilgrims seeking the Holy Land through a dangerous mutant-infested wilderness.
Christian Klinge released The Boar Hunt, an adventure for Dragonbane. Gain honor and glory by participating in the hunt for a great wild boar, but don’t underestimate the danger of this particular prey.
And Christian Klinge has another Dragonbane adventure, The Thunderblade where the party seeks out the grave of the legendary hero Tristan Thunderblade to claim the magical sword that shared his name.
Over on Dungeonmasters Guild, The Deep Dice want to add some depth to your game’s world with The Sports Tournament Guidebook featuring rules options for running multiple sporting events from the classic medieval tournaments to the track-and-field events of both ancient and modern competitions and anything in between.
While previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons often had overly-fiddly rules that are best left in the past unless you want the nostalgic experience, one thing I do often miss is the realistic treatment of armor and weapons were some types of armor are more or less effective against certain types of weapons. Chain armor is great for preventing slashes and stabbings, but does very little to blunt the impact from a mace. Well Terry Aurand seems to agree with me and has released Weapon Type vs Armor for D&D, a set of optional rules to modify armor to more realistically reflect the protection provided from different weapons, including teeth and claws.
Baldur’s Gate 3 reinvigorated interest in the adventure Descent into Avernus and many groups are picking up the quest. Well Zrave, Apacolyps wants to help you expand this adventure with Herald of Tiamat: A Descent into Avernus Adventure for level 5-6 characters that can be integrated seamlessly into the adventure, added to any other Tiamat-based campaign, or used as a stand-along adventure.
The first Lightning Round this week features gamemaster/DM resources like monsters, maps, random generators, one-page adventures, drop-in encounters, and more. All products are Free or pay what you want with the suggested price in parentheses.
The second Lightning Round features player resources like classes, subclasses, backgrounds, feats, races/species, and more. All products are Free or pay what you want with the suggested price in parentheses.
Bundles and Sales
Note: I have included end dates when listed for the following sales, but please be warned that those without published end dates may end suddenly so be sure to plan purchases accordingly.
The Christmas in July Sale on DriveThruRPG is going on right now with massive discounts on thousands of titles. Grab titles like Cyberpunk RED, Fabula Ultima, Knave 2nd Edition, Vaesen, The Lazy Dungeonmaster series, the Without Number games, Dragonbane, RuneQuest, The One Ring, Delta Green, and a hell of a lot more. Oh, and if you’re looking for VTT products, the Christmas in July Sale is also going strong on Roll20.
If you don’t follow many RPG creators on social media, you may have missed the relationship between artist and designer Stan! and the legendary Owen K.C. Stephens where Owen will make a comment and Stan! will respond with some variation of “Damn it, Owen!” and be forced to draw a comic with whatever weird idea Owen has come up with this time because it’s an idea that refuses to not exist. Well, Stan! has created a collection of these comics up on Kickstarter with half the proceeds from the crowdfunding campaign going to assist with Owen’s cancer treatment bills.
Arcadia’s Creations has a great map bundle with Modern Investigations Essentials Bundle featuring four different map collections perfect for modern-day or near-future sci-fi/cyberpunk games including the Modern Police Department, Modern Workplaces, Modernish Detective, and Small Park map packs each with several quality VTT-ready maps.
Charity Bundles and Sales
Over on Bundle of Holding, the Stars Without Numbers Bundle from Sine Nomine Publishing is back once again. You can pick up the Starter Collection with Stars Without Number Revised Deluxe, the scene backdrop book Sixteen Stars, and the SWN Revised GM Screen. The Bonus Collection adds on the sourcebooks Starvation Cheap, Suns of Gold, Skyward Steel, and Dead Names plus the cyberpunk adventure Polychrome.
Monkeyfun Studios has a bundle from the age of muscle cars, afros, disco, daredevils, and badass detectives who don’t play by the rules with the Powered by the Apocalypse game Spirit of ’77. The Funky Collection includes the core Spirit of ’77 rulebook, the setting book Wide World of ’77, and the adventure anthologies Spirit of ’77 Greatest Hits 1-2. The Even Funkier Collection adds on three Very Special Episode and two Pilot adventures.
There are two bundles for the sci-fi system Fading Suns from Ulisses Spiele. The Fading Suns 4e Bundle includes all three core rulebooks – Universe Book, Character Book, and Gamemaster Book – plus the Fading Suns 4 Play Kit with characters, charts, maps, tokens, and play aids. The Bonus Collection adds on Intrigues & Escapades, Faction Book, and 3 Fading Suns Imperial Dossiers.
The second bundle is the Fading Sunds Lost Worlds Bundle featuring Fading Suns: Lost Worlds, St. Paulus’ Field Guide to Spacecraft, Voldrok Space, Hard Times on Hargard, and two more Imperial Dossiers.
Over on Humble Bundle, owners of 3D printers or those who have access through a local library, university, or maker space will have their project schedules filled by the Dungeons & Monsters 3 Bundle of STL files for 3D printed miniatures. The base level includes a centaur mage, two bear riders, and a collection of terrain fences, mimic variants, and more plus a dice display log. The second tier ups the number of STL file collections to ninety-three (yes, 93) with monsters, PCs/NPCs, terrain, decorations, walls, buildings, fences, tents, furniture, and a whole lot more. And that’s not even the final level, which adds on even more STL collections for a total of 117 – note, that’s not 117 STL files but 117 collections of files under a theme so the “Fantasy Market Stall” pack itself includes six different STL files, enough to keep you busy making worlds and displays for ages.
MIT Press released the All About Gaming Book Bundle featuring a small library of books about the nuts-and-bolts of game design and the history of gaming. While much of the bundle focuses on video games, many of the lessons work just as well for tabletop such as the base level books Virtual Economies Design and Analysis, Rules of Play Game Design Fundamentals, and the more tabletop focused Zones of Control: Perspectives on Wargaming. The second tier adds on four more titles while the top tier jumps the collection all the way up to 26 items total including the tabletop roleplaying history books Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons and The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity by RPG historian Jon Peterson.
Kobold Press, Frog God Games, and Humble Bundle have the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatible Bundle with a collection of third party products for Pathfinder 1st Edition. When I say this bundle is huge, I mean HUGE. The base level starts out with 28 items while the second level expands that to 56, the penultimate tier to 74, and the top tier includes all the rest but also the 69 titles from the previous Classic Pathfinder Megabundle from last year for a total of ONE HUNDRED FORTY-THREE titles including adventures, campaign settings, alternate rules, classes, races, magic items, and everything else you’d expect from the most prolific of third-party Pathfinder publishers collecting over a decade of products.
Chaosium has the RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha Bundle with everything you need to get started with RuneQuest. The base level will give you a taste with the RuneQuest Starter Set and the quickstart “Broken Tower Scenario” plus The Glorantha Sourcebook and The RuneQuest Coloring Book. If you want to jump into the game properly, the second tier adds on RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha Core Rules, Glorantha Bestiary, Weapons & Equipment, The Red Book of Magic, and Argar Argar Atlas. The top tier gives you a full library of 18 books adding on nine more including the Cults of RuneQuest series, the gamemaster screen, and more setting and rules books.
That’s all for this week! If you know of any bundles or sales starting soon, please contact me on the EN World Discord, tag me on Mastodon, or send me a message here on EN World. Discount percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number and are based on the standard retail price provided by the site. Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, Fantasy Grounds, and/or DriveThruRPG may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
Freebies and Pay What You Want
Note: While “Pay What You Want” downloads are available for free, please support the creators if you are able!
If you’re attending Gen Con and able to give blood, the convention is partnering with The Heinlein Society and the Versiti Blood Center of Indiana to host a blood drive. All confirmed donors will receive an exclusive Loot Crate including three months access to dScryb, three months of audio by Michael Ghelfi Studios with a dScryb Composer subscription, a copy of Roll20’s Burn Bryte Core Rulebook, plus dice and other swag at the sign-up booth. You’ll also be registered to win a daily prize package including an annual Compusre subscription to TTRPG audio by Michael Ghelfi Studios, an annual Hero subscription to dScryb, an annual Pro subscription to Roll20, your choice of the Pathfinder Beginner Box or Starfinder Beginner Box, and a quill and ink writing set. One grand prize willer will also receive everything in the daily prize package plus a 10 year Pro Subscription to Roll20. Sign up for the giveaways on the Dscryb sign-up page.
- Price: A pint of your blood
If you’re planning to run Marvel Multiverse Role-Playing Game at a convention this season, you might want to grab the Convention Play Pack featuring profiles for Wolverine (Laura Kinney), Nightcrawler, Winter Soldier, Cloak, Dagger, Iron Fist, Luke Cage, Hydra Agent, and Armored Hydra Agent all designed to be streamlined for demo play so there’s nothing unlikely to be used in a quick convention session to clutter the sheet and confuse new players.
- Price: Free
Monte Cook Games released a free preview from Adventures in the Cypher System featuring a peek at the seven different Cypher System adventures included in the final book coming out next month highlighting the versatility of the system with old west to fairy tale fantasy to far future sci-fi to time travel and more.
- Price: Free
For more Cypher System options, Qedhup Games released Applied Democracy: New Soldier Orientation Manual and Death Waiver for a satirical supplement about sci-fi fighting forces here to bring you democracy at the barrel of a gun.
- Price: Free
OSR fans have not one, not two, but three adventure collections for Old School Revival this week from The Basic Fantasy Project: Adventure Anthology 1, Adventure Anthology 2, and Adventure Anthology 3.
- Price: Free
- Note: Print on Demand softcover versions are available for $4.55 to $6.55 each
If you’d rather try a new OSR rules system, The Basic Expert has Wight-Box: Original Medieval Adventure Campaigns. This retroclone is an attempt to recreate the original Chainmail rules system and its appendices for the original historic fantasy roleplaying experience from 50 years ago.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $3.00)
And for more OSR fun, Stillfleet Studio and Christopher Pickett put out Danse Macabre: Prima Mors, a historical fantasy RPG of 14th century pilgrims seeking the Holy Land through a dangerous mutant-infested wilderness.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $6.00)
Christian Klinge released The Boar Hunt, an adventure for Dragonbane. Gain honor and glory by participating in the hunt for a great wild boar, but don’t underestimate the danger of this particular prey.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $1.09)
And Christian Klinge has another Dragonbane adventure, The Thunderblade where the party seeks out the grave of the legendary hero Tristan Thunderblade to claim the magical sword that shared his name.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $1.09)
Over on Dungeonmasters Guild, The Deep Dice want to add some depth to your game’s world with The Sports Tournament Guidebook featuring rules options for running multiple sporting events from the classic medieval tournaments to the track-and-field events of both ancient and modern competitions and anything in between.
- Price: Free
While previous editions of Dungeons & Dragons often had overly-fiddly rules that are best left in the past unless you want the nostalgic experience, one thing I do often miss is the realistic treatment of armor and weapons were some types of armor are more or less effective against certain types of weapons. Chain armor is great for preventing slashes and stabbings, but does very little to blunt the impact from a mace. Well Terry Aurand seems to agree with me and has released Weapon Type vs Armor for D&D, a set of optional rules to modify armor to more realistically reflect the protection provided from different weapons, including teeth and claws.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $0.75)
Baldur’s Gate 3 reinvigorated interest in the adventure Descent into Avernus and many groups are picking up the quest. Well Zrave, Apacolyps wants to help you expand this adventure with Herald of Tiamat: A Descent into Avernus Adventure for level 5-6 characters that can be integrated seamlessly into the adventure, added to any other Tiamat-based campaign, or used as a stand-along adventure.
- Price: Pay What You Want (Suggested: $4.99)
The first Lightning Round this week features gamemaster/DM resources like monsters, maps, random generators, one-page adventures, drop-in encounters, and more. All products are Free or pay what you want with the suggested price in parentheses.
- Noble House Creator (System-neutral random table) from Shieldice Studio (Free)
- Soldier Statues (Battlemap) from PlanarInk Editions (Free)
- Container Apartment (Battlemap) from RoleCraft ($1.00)
- Rebels Hideout (Hand-drawn map) from Le Paysagiste de l’Imaginaire ($1.00)
- Shapening Continent (Stock art map) from byMarcolino ($3.00)
- Hex-Crawler Helper (Notes organizer) from Broken Brain Games LLC ($2.00)
- Exorcist (5e CR5 NPC) from Gryphon Games (Free)
- Medieval Black Powder Weapons (5e guns) from Terry Aurand ($2.00)
- Goblin Cubeminis (2d printable foldable mini) from Drawanything ($1.00)
- Kobold Cubeminis (2d printable foldable mini) from Drawanything ($1.00)
- Eye of the Storm (5e wondrous magic item) from Mythic Is Loading ($0.50)
- Vampiric Orchid (5e monster plant) from TheTrickster314 ($0.95)
The second Lightning Round features player resources like classes, subclasses, backgrounds, feats, races/species, and more. All products are Free or pay what you want with the suggested price in parentheses.
- Samurai (Shadowdark class) from VagabondXP ($1.00)
- School of Magic Attunement (5e Wizard subclass) from Mythos Creations ($1.00)
- Inventor Retooled (Pathfinder class) from lexchxn ($1.00)
- Inventor Retooled (Pathbuilder version) (Pathfinder class) from lexchxn ($1.00)
- Path of the Mutant (5e Barbarian subclass) from JonnyDM ($0.99)
- Order of the Blood Needle (5e Blood Hunter subclass) from Snepi Eurodyne ($1.00)
- The Gunman & The Marksman (5e full classes) from Chris Ricketts ($2.58)
Bundles and Sales
Note: I have included end dates when listed for the following sales, but please be warned that those without published end dates may end suddenly so be sure to plan purchases accordingly.
The Christmas in July Sale on DriveThruRPG is going on right now with massive discounts on thousands of titles. Grab titles like Cyberpunk RED, Fabula Ultima, Knave 2nd Edition, Vaesen, The Lazy Dungeonmaster series, the Without Number games, Dragonbane, RuneQuest, The One Ring, Delta Green, and a hell of a lot more. Oh, and if you’re looking for VTT products, the Christmas in July Sale is also going strong on Roll20.
- Price: Up to 80% off
- End Date: August 2, 2024
If you don’t follow many RPG creators on social media, you may have missed the relationship between artist and designer Stan! and the legendary Owen K.C. Stephens where Owen will make a comment and Stan! will respond with some variation of “Damn it, Owen!” and be forced to draw a comic with whatever weird idea Owen has come up with this time because it’s an idea that refuses to not exist. Well, Stan! has created a collection of these comics up on Kickstarter with half the proceeds from the crowdfunding campaign going to assist with Owen’s cancer treatment bills.
- Price: $20 and up for additional rewards
- Charity: Owen K.C. Stephens cancer treatment (50%)
- End Date: August 4, 2024
Arcadia’s Creations has a great map bundle with Modern Investigations Essentials Bundle featuring four different map collections perfect for modern-day or near-future sci-fi/cyberpunk games including the Modern Police Department, Modern Workplaces, Modernish Detective, and Small Park map packs each with several quality VTT-ready maps.
- Price: $10.99 (25% off)
Charity Bundles and Sales
Over on Bundle of Holding, the Stars Without Numbers Bundle from Sine Nomine Publishing is back once again. You can pick up the Starter Collection with Stars Without Number Revised Deluxe, the scene backdrop book Sixteen Stars, and the SWN Revised GM Screen. The Bonus Collection adds on the sourcebooks Starvation Cheap, Suns of Gold, Skyward Steel, and Dead Names plus the cyberpunk adventure Polychrome.
- Price: $7.95 (75% off) with variable cost level-up option
- Charity: Benzie Food Partners (10%)
- End Date: August 6, 2024
Monkeyfun Studios has a bundle from the age of muscle cars, afros, disco, daredevils, and badass detectives who don’t play by the rules with the Powered by the Apocalypse game Spirit of ’77. The Funky Collection includes the core Spirit of ’77 rulebook, the setting book Wide World of ’77, and the adventure anthologies Spirit of ’77 Greatest Hits 1-2. The Even Funkier Collection adds on three Very Special Episode and two Pilot adventures.
- Price: $9.95 (83% Off) with variable cost level-up option
- Charity: Diana Jones Emerging Designer Program (10%)
- End Date: July 30, 2024
There are two bundles for the sci-fi system Fading Suns from Ulisses Spiele. The Fading Suns 4e Bundle includes all three core rulebooks – Universe Book, Character Book, and Gamemaster Book – plus the Fading Suns 4 Play Kit with characters, charts, maps, tokens, and play aids. The Bonus Collection adds on Intrigues & Escapades, Faction Book, and 3 Fading Suns Imperial Dossiers.
- Price: $17.95 (76% off) with variable-cost Level Up option
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
- End Date: July 23, 2024
The second bundle is the Fading Sunds Lost Worlds Bundle featuring Fading Suns: Lost Worlds, St. Paulus’ Field Guide to Spacecraft, Voldrok Space, Hard Times on Hargard, and two more Imperial Dossiers.
- Price: $24.95 (78% off)
- Charity: Direct Relief (10%)
- End Date: July 23, 2024
Over on Humble Bundle, owners of 3D printers or those who have access through a local library, university, or maker space will have their project schedules filled by the Dungeons & Monsters 3 Bundle of STL files for 3D printed miniatures. The base level includes a centaur mage, two bear riders, and a collection of terrain fences, mimic variants, and more plus a dice display log. The second tier ups the number of STL file collections to ninety-three (yes, 93) with monsters, PCs/NPCs, terrain, decorations, walls, buildings, fences, tents, furniture, and a whole lot more. And that’s not even the final level, which adds on even more STL collections for a total of 117 – note, that’s not 117 STL files but 117 collections of files under a theme so the “Fantasy Market Stall” pack itself includes six different STL files, enough to keep you busy making worlds and displays for ages.
- Price: $1/$20/Variable ($21.26 at time of writing, 97% off)
- Charity: Make-a-Wish (user-defined, default 5%)
- End Date: August 5, 2024
MIT Press released the All About Gaming Book Bundle featuring a small library of books about the nuts-and-bolts of game design and the history of gaming. While much of the bundle focuses on video games, many of the lessons work just as well for tabletop such as the base level books Virtual Economies Design and Analysis, Rules of Play Game Design Fundamentals, and the more tabletop focused Zones of Control: Perspectives on Wargaming. The second tier adds on four more titles while the top tier jumps the collection all the way up to 26 items total including the tabletop roleplaying history books Game Wizards: The Epic Battle for Dungeons & Dragons and The Elusive Shift: How Role-Playing Games Forged Their Identity by RPG historian Jon Peterson.
- Price: $1/$10/$18 (97% off at top tier)
- Charity: Girls Who Code (user-defined, default 5%)
- End Date: August 9, 2024
Kobold Press, Frog God Games, and Humble Bundle have the Pathfinder Roleplaying Game Compatible Bundle with a collection of third party products for Pathfinder 1st Edition. When I say this bundle is huge, I mean HUGE. The base level starts out with 28 items while the second level expands that to 56, the penultimate tier to 74, and the top tier includes all the rest but also the 69 titles from the previous Classic Pathfinder Megabundle from last year for a total of ONE HUNDRED FORTY-THREE titles including adventures, campaign settings, alternate rules, classes, races, magic items, and everything else you’d expect from the most prolific of third-party Pathfinder publishers collecting over a decade of products.
- Price: $5/$15/$25/$50
- Charity: Make-a-Wish Foundation
- End Date: August 1, 2024
Chaosium has the RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha Bundle with everything you need to get started with RuneQuest. The base level will give you a taste with the RuneQuest Starter Set and the quickstart “Broken Tower Scenario” plus The Glorantha Sourcebook and The RuneQuest Coloring Book. If you want to jump into the game properly, the second tier adds on RuneQuest: Roleplaying in Glorantha Core Rules, Glorantha Bestiary, Weapons & Equipment, The Red Book of Magic, and Argar Argar Atlas. The top tier gives you a full library of 18 books adding on nine more including the Cults of RuneQuest series, the gamemaster screen, and more setting and rules books.
- Price: $1/$10/$18 (94% off at top tier)
- Charity: Code.org (user-defined, default 5%)
- End Date: July 27, 2024
That’s all for this week! If you know of any bundles or sales starting soon, please contact me on the EN World Discord, tag me on Mastodon, or send me a message here on EN World. Discount percentages have been rounded to the nearest whole number and are based on the standard retail price provided by the site. Note: Links to Amazon, Humble Store, Humble Bundle, Fantasy Grounds, and/or DriveThruRPG may contain affiliate links with the proceeds going to the author of this column.
