Online RPG/Storygame Resources

101 player character background hooks that can be used in many different types of settings. These hooks vary from small hooks (potentially one adventure worth of material) to long hooks (campaign long ideas). See both pages.

101 player character quirks that can be used in many different types of settings. These quirks vary from small quirks (small effect on game play) to big quirks (potentially large effect on game play).

A versatile game engine using 2D6 and a 19-Hex Flower (it’s like a random table, but with a memory). This approach is useful for all sorts of semi-random things, from wilderness navigation to weather, from random encounters to NPC reactions, and many more.

Abulafia is a collection of user-contributed random generators housed within a special kind of wiki. That means you can use the pages here to get interesting random names, treasure, plots, and anything else you need. If you think the results could use a little more imagination, click the 'edit' tab at the top of the page and add a few more choices to the mix.

Acronyphobia is the irrational fear of acronyms. In tabletop RPGs we throw around a ton of acronyms and there is a bit of a learning curb for newbies. This site is a glossary of common tabletop acronyms, abbreviations & terms.

A brainstorming tool for the role-playing game Apocalypse World; intended for the use of MCs, it generates brief concepts and apocalypse-barf names for NPC gangs and other communities, as well as names and simple hooks for NPCs.

Maintained by Patrick Henry Downs, this page lists ALL of the AW Playbooks known to humankind. If you want to share a new playbook, identify a dead link, or find out anything about this page, put "AW page" in the subject heading and send it to nerdwerds AT gmail dot com

Quickly generate 95 AW NPCs, with or without Complications. Code by As If Productions. Based on a script by Louis with additions by Philomorph. Names taken from the Apocalypse World character playbooks.

Download the ZIP file for John Harper's original AW playbook templates in letter format.

Hey You! Want to create your own original character classes for the apocalypse? Download the attached legal-sized "WORD" template for trifold Apocalypse World playbooks.

Random Generators for Apocalypse World, Dungeon World, Call of Cthulhu, and Random Dungeon/Cavern Adventures

An appealing and responsive set of trad fantasy randomizers for Characters, Items, Merchants, Plothooks, Regions, Settlements, and Weather.

Azgaar's Fantasy Map Generator is a free open source tool which procedurally generates fantasy maps for entire planets. You may use auto-generated maps as they are, edit them or even create a new map from scratch. Check out the quick start tutorial and project wiki for guidance.

A generator site aimed at people who write, game, or live in fantasy worlds of their own creation. Grappling with writer's block? Need a character on the fly? Party just walked into a tavern and you want it to be a little more exciting than normal? Want to flesh out a setting with some detailed religions? Chaotic Shiny is the site for you.

Describe and the app will render an image of your character.

Create, manage, find random tables and generators. Includes SWN, etc.

This tool generates the world known by the PCs and the history they have heard of. You can always introduce small bits of information that may make the players see things under a different light or even reveal a shocking hidden truth about it all.

Do you play DayTrippers online? Click here to grab a copy of this PC Sheet in fillable PDF format - now with autocalculation! (This PDF was created by Jef Wilkins, and we thank him very much for it!)

An impressive collection of RPG Tools and Random Generators. Categories include General, Fantasy, AD&D, d20/Fantasy, Microlite20, Pathfinder, D&D 4e, D&D 5e, Weird Fiction, and Science Fiction.

A spherical Planet Generator with many terrain settings, including Detail Level, Tectonic Plate Count, Oceanic Rate, Heat Level, and Moisture Level.

Sometimes you need to brainstorm a number of factions for a quick setting, like a new town or region. This random faction generator creates 1-10 groups complete with motives, tactics, secrets and weaknesses. It can be used for either Science Fiction or Fantasy worlds. Take it for a spin!

Fantasy Name Generator can generate an endless number of random names (of people, places, or anything) that would be suitable for use in a fantasy setting. It can generate names on its own, or you can tell it what kind of name you're looking for.

The Definitive Collection of Playsets for the Fiasco RPG. Over 400 playsets in 8 languages.

Designed to help DMs and Players find each other, as well as use message boards for community and blog post responses. Includes a guide on setting up calendars for DM booking.

A ragtag of everything imaginable for your strangest random generator needs.

A whooping big list of linked articles and books about RPG dating back ... way back.

HexTML is a free browser-based hexmap maker and campaign manager for D&D or any other tabletop RPG. Maps can be created solo or collaboratively, and may be shared in almost-realtime with anyone.

Essays, games, supplements and original larps by Quinn Murphy, Rich Rogers, Arlene Medder, Brendan Conway, Meguey Baker, Mark Diaz Truman, John Wick, Shoshana Kessock and Jenn Martin.

This post is a mine on IF.

Here you'll find a number of random generators that you can use as inspiration for your campaign or fiction. Categories include Names, Treasures, Encounters, NPCs, and more.

Instant Game is a tool for creating and playing new RPG settings and plots on the spot.

Deadlands Survivor Settlement Generator, good for many post-apocalyptic scenarios

The Kotodama forums focus specifically on Japanese RPGs (both translated into English, and Japanese language RPGs) and the intersection of Asian cultures and tabletop.

This awesome well-groomed listing is in French, and English. It contains around 300 games.

A set of expansion rules for any game, GM'd or solo, designed to produce a solvable mystery.

Original D&D Discussions

This free PDF allows you to keep track of all character abilities, skills, relationships and other important data for your Other Borders campaign.

Drugs, cults, magical girls, etc.: you name it, they've got it. Always a little crazy, a little dark.

For planet-mappers: Here's a layered icosahedron hexmap in PXD format (useable by pixlr.com). Two hex layers are included: small hexes and large hexes. Just delete the layer you don't need.

This one works, the other gives an error 404. What it says on the tin and a list of generators you can pick at - cough - random.

Huge list of Random Generators & Random Tables for your Random Pleasure.

For use with any traditional fantasy role-playing game.

RANDOM.ORG offers true random numbers to anyone on the Internet. Numbers, strings, lists, maps, music, and more!

Are you a Remember Tomorrow player? You might want to grab a copy of the interactive character and faction sheets here.

RPG Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for gamemasters and players of tabletop, paper-and-pencil role-playing games. We cater to hundreds of tabletop RPGs including D&D, Fate, GURPS, World of Darkness, and more.

An inclusive community of all things related to tabletop roleplaying games.

A friendly and open place to discuss gaming and related topics.

"The Big Purple" - home of RPG discussions, news and reviews.

Names, treasure, encounters, NPCs... Here you'll find a number of random generators that you can use as inspiration for your campaign or fiction!

This aid by Paulo Rivas López is meant to help the players and the Narrator to build the setting of the game together as well as getting to the same page in respect to some of each others expectations. It includes a new trick too: to handle Fronts (that stands for all kind of plot-relevant organizations such as a guild of thieves, a kingdom, a company, a ship, etc), you just roll 6d6 and list those numbers as the Front stats, or place the dice over the hexagons in any order you want.

Random Generators of ideas, from story concepts to science fiction weapons to silly spells. Wide variety of genres.

Online dice roller with cool icons instead of numbers. Well it does numbers, cards, etc. but the feature you want is the icons. A sort of "common game themes" Tarot.

Designed for use with "Stars Without Number" by Sine Nomine Publishing, this generator creates a sector and populates it with worlds, NPCs, corps, politics, religions and aliens.

TABLOO is a free interactive table design and formatting tool for RPG Designers and GameMasters. It assists in layout and handles the math, outputting a finished table in text or HTML format.

A deceptively simple and pleasant-looking method for determining randomly-generated terrain.

A fun and easy way to structure conversations among new players, breaking the ice and getting the ball rolling, this minigame prompts players to reveal new information about their characters' personalities, thoughts, or pasts.

The Gauntlet Forums are a place to discuss Story Games, Indie and OSR tabletop RPGs, and LARPs.

Every game on this list has some form of open license which allows you to use its rules in your own products without obtaining permission first or paying some kind of license fee. Please consult the licence documentation with the game itself before releasing a product based on it, and do not take anything we say here as professional legal advice.

Home of the RPG Pundit, a forum dedicated to discussing mostly traditional RPGs.

One of the most difficult aspects to being a game master is planning campaigns where players are constantly invested and engaged in the story and world. The Rumor System was created to solve that problem, as it allows the players to determine the outline of the main plot so that the game master doesn’t have to shoulder the entire burden. It also serves to inform the game master about the players’ motivations so that they can continue to facilitate a mutually rewarding game.

Compiled by the members of story-games.com, this classic resource breaks names down into over a hundred categories and genres, with lists ranging from fantastical and historical names to contemporary and humorous ones.

A directory of RPG/LARP exercises and workshops, this blog is a tool for organizers and others interested in practical methods for character development and group building.

A cleaned-up PDF version of the Threat Map for use with AW2e, by James Steinberg.

The Togetherness Table is a shared dynamic mat allowing a group of players to roll dice, draw cards, set clocks, draw onscreen, etc. For the fiction!

Vulgar is a constructed language (conlang) generator for fantasy fiction writers and role players that creates unique and usable languages for your race of peoples in the click of a button.

RAndomly generated : land city village mansion dungeon