Free RPG Day is June 21st this year. Last year, I learned about the day a week or two before the event, so we gathered up a few friends who make RPGs and ran a bundle. This year, I want to open that up to EVERYONE!

Like Free Comic Day, Free RPG Day is all about discovery. Stores give away free RPG games from kits made up of products from major RPG creators so people can learn about new games and systems. But we smaller, indie creators deserve a day too, dang it!

With that said, if you happen to be "big" RPG creator or publisher, feel free to join! It would massively help us reach a wider audience! 

Rules and Info

We'll run our own Free RPG Day bundle the weekend of June 20th-22nd! I like to do this the entire weekend so my marketing efforts pay off better and because weekends work best for reaching out to people. Plus it means if someone works all day on the 21st, they don't miss out.

Like Free RPG Day, there are only a few simple rules for including your work in this bundle:

1. This bundle will be FREE. People can choose to pay, and often do, as it allows them to claim the creations on their Itch accounts (and people are super sweet and pay to support creators). Any money earned will be split as evenly as possible between creators (I just hit the "split evenly" and Itch works its magic). You must be okay with your game(s) being in a bundle that people can get for free to join this jam.
2. This bundle is for RPGs. We're very loose with what an RPG is, but it should be a game that puts players into the shoes of someone they aren't in their lives, into situations they don't typically face, or both. If you have any questions, please ask in the community section or join our Discord server.
3. This bundle is for games. While we're rather loose with what's a game, at the very least, your entry should be an activity that people interact with beyond merely reading words. But a game can be a solo journaling experience, it can guide people to walk or do art, it can even be something you use in real life like enchanting IRL stuff, playing as a hot chocolatier and making a delicious cup of cocoa, or whatever else. Again, if you have any questions, please ask in the community section or join our Discord server.
4. This bundle is for analog creations. Video games are awesome, but RPG Day is all about tabletop RPGs (TTRPGs). Therefore, video games don't apply.

And there are a few additional rules we're applying here too:

1. Your RPG must be printable. Almost all RPGs should fit this anyway, but RPG Day involves giving out books and sheets of paper, so we think yours should be printable a book or sheet of paper too :D
2. You may only include 1 or 2 RPGs per person. This is to recognize that Free RPG Day is all about capturing new fans. To do this, include your favorite one or two RPGs, things most likely to get someone to check out your work. This way, people who have one or two things in here won't be drowned out by people who have twenty. And it helps ensure that people who check out the bundle will only find terrific stuff! But do not let this stop you from including work because "you don't think it's good enough," either; we're sure your game is terrific! You can always send it to us at bethandangelmakegames@gmail.com if you're unsure. Also, we said "per person" rather than "per account" for a reason: we're Beth and Angel Make Games, we're two people, and we're often confined by jams that only allow one or two things per account for that reason. So if you share an account with someone else or a team, go ahead and include one or two PER person! But make sure those things are made BY those extra people. For example, I wouldn't include four things by me and then say that two of those were "from Angel."
3. No NSFW content. We're family-friendly creators, and we don't want to limit anyone from enjoying this bundle. 
4. No hateful content. We will not stand for misogynistic, racist, sexist, ageist, ableist, hateful content. Things that show the pain of being on the receiving end of those things are welcome and encouraged.

You are welcome to create something new for this jam, but you can also submit anything you've previously created. If you were in the 2024 Free RPG Day, please do not submit any of the same creations.

Questions?

If you have any questions, please ask in the community section or join our Discord server. Our server is a safe space for queer and trans people, as well as people with disabilities and/or who are neurodivergent. But none of those are requirements for our space! Cis or trans, gay or straight, neurodivergent or neurotypical, you belong and you're amazing! 🧡

In addition to chatting with other creators and sharing ideas/thoughts/inspirations/etc, we also have weekly releases of games and zines, do a monthly book club, put out journaling prompts and game idea challenges, and more. There are quite a few people who share the development of games, artwork, and crafts they're making, including us!

We'd love to see you there! 🙋‍♀️ But it is in no way required for the bundle! 

Free Zine Week

In addition to Free RPG Day, we ran Free Zine Week last year when I learned that no such event existed. This happens in August, following Mini Zine July, and we will launch the jam to gather zines in June or July. It'll run until the end of July and then follow a similar approval structure to this bundle.

If you would like to be notified when this launches, email us at bethandangelmakegames@gmail.com and we'll notify you when this and other future jams launch :D We also share all major news like this on our Discord server. Or join our blog as a free member and you'll get emails about the news!

Also, we ask that you do NOT submit the same thing to both of these jams, as we would love for these two things to be entirely distinct. However, if you have multiple RPG zines, feel free to include different choices in each! But if you only have one or two RPG zines, and have other RPGs, save the zines for then. :D

And if you're a zine creator who doesn't make RPGs, we look forward to seeing you in our Free Zine Week jam and bundle! 🧡 

Specifics About the Bundle

The day this jam ends (May 26th), I'll put the bundle together and contact everyone via the email they give me when they join. It is VERY important that everyone approve the bundle: this means they look over it and verify the creation(s) of theirs in the bundle, the % of their income from each sale, and the other stuff on the page. Then, they click the "approve" button at the bottom.

THE SOONER THIS BUNDLE IS APPROVED, THE MORE I CAN MARKET IT! I cannot reach out to websites, streamers, etc. to cover this bundle if it doesn't exist yet lol, so please help me and everyone else by approving ASAP.

If anyone doesn't approve, the bundle cannot launch. So, to combat this inevitable struggle, here's how I'll go about getting the bundle approved in time:

• Everyone will have one week (until June 2nd) to approve, and I'll send a follow-up message to anyone who didn't approve at the beginning of that weekend.
• If the bundle isn't fully approved on June 2nd, I will remake the bundle, removing anyone who didn't approve the first. I will then reach out again to all remaining people with a new approval link, and everyone will need to approve this new bundle before the end of the week (June 9th).
• This cycle will repeat until the bundle is approved.

It's also worth mentioning that Itch doesn't split percentages when splitting "evenly." For example, if 9 people are in the bundle, 8 people would get 11% and 1 would get 12%. If 27 people join the bundle, some will get 3% and some will get 4%. Since we're organizing and promoting the bundle, we will ensure we get the +1%, but everyone else's percentages will be chosen by Itch. This split is by CREATOR, not game, so people who enter one game get the same amount as people who enter two.

I am incredibly sorry to anyone who doesn't approve for whatever reasons and thus misses out on the bundle. I always feel awful doing that, but also if we can't get this approved in time, the bundle cannot happen...

PS: When I send out the approval emails the first time, I will go into detail about how to approve, what approval means, etc. If you're familiar with approving bundles, then great, you can ignore all that :D But if you're new, I hope it helps. And you're always welcome to ask questions, of course 🧡