Best free RPG's?

[D20ragon]

Just curious.
What, in your opinion, are the best free RPG's?
Best as in:Good Flavor, Useable Mechanics, Passable Format.

[Grinner]

Eclipse Phase: I don't want to say it's free, because the authors are trying to earn money from it. But yeah, you can get it for free. The fluff tends to be quite thorough*, but I'm not a huge fan of the mechanics. The formatting is very professional.

JAGS Wonderland: Again, I don't want to say it's free, because, again, the authors do actually sell it. It can be obtained freely, however.

The vast majority of this is a discussion of the metaphysics of synchronizing the actions of multiple characters across wildly different worlds. For people of a certain mindset, it's a fantastic read, but I'm not sure how much you'd actually want to play it.

*I'd like to see a religion sourcebook, but I'm not holding my breath.

[neonchameleon]

If we're counting SRDs, Fate Core and 13th Age.

[Grod_The_Giant]

If we're counting SRDs, Fate Core and 13th Age.

And Mutants and Masterminds 3e.

[roko10]

Don't forget about http://www.ruleofcool.com/] Legend.

[Rhynn]

D&D retroclones are generally awesome:

Basic Fantasy (free)
Dark Dungeons (free)
Labyrinth Lord (free)
Lamentations of the Flame Princess (free)
Mazes & Minotaurs (free)
Myth & Magic (free)
OSRIC (free)
Swords & Wizardry (free)

Myth & Magic and Dark Dungeons probably have the best "production values," but OSRIC is a great, concise, simple, thorough rules document.

Cthulhu Dark is probably the lightest system I know of, but it's actually perfectly sufficient for its purpose. (There's a free download link in the text.)

Legends of Middle Earth is a neat little thing.

Witchcraft is a free Unisystem game (see All Flesh Must Be Eaten, Buffy, Angel, Army of Darkness, etc.), and pretty thoroughly awesome; it's in the modern urban fantasy genre, but has a cooler spin than most (feels a bit World of Darkness-y, but not in a bad way).

Edit: Oh, and my favorite RPG, Adventurer Conqueror King, isn't free yet, but the SRD is being cleaned up (by a volunteer) and will include everything from the core book, just with all setting-related references removed. So keep an eye out!

[Yuki Akuma]

Risus.

Always Risus.

[Actana]

If we're counting SRDs, Fate Core.

Gonna second Fate Core, though it also has a non-SRD version, since it's released with a Pay-What-You-Want scheme, which is quite nice. The system is versatile, easily modified and with a narrative focus. Its main problem is that the core concepts can be a bit difficult to get into from a more traditional RPG viewpoint.

[Mono Vertigo]

About JAGS Wonderland, the fluff is great, but the crunch is very clunky. I've yet to find someone who'll advise me to use it over any other system that's freely available. It might work more smoothly under the FATE system. (I find it would work well as a GMC-updated Changeling: the Lost game too, but that is not a free game, alas.)

[Forrestfire]

I'm a big fan of Fate Core and Legend, personally.

[galan]

i like power game. even though it's *really* easy to break it (to the point you need to actively try not to do that), it's fun. and easy to change for other themes (i converted it to Roger Zelazny's lord of light), which is awesome

[The Dark Fiddler]

I'm going to throw my support in for Fate Core (and Accelerated Edition) as well. As much as I like it, though, I feel like it's most useful as a sort of Philosophy of Tabletop Gaming primer. I've seen it happening more recently, but few games like to stress that character traits can be both good and bad, that failure isn't always a terrible thing, and the importance of figuring out what you want to do BEFORE figuring out what mechanics to use for it. I feel like reading the game, though I've barely gotten to run more than a session in it, has made me a better DM and player.

[Ninja Bear]

Good timing - there are surprisingly many of them that are free today. (I know DriveThruRPG has a free bundle for Tabletop Day; there may be others. Link's here if you want it.)

[LibraryOgre]

Hackmaster has a free intro (in my sig).

And I'd be remiss if I didn't mention ODE, since you can probably find the things to play it at your grandmother's.

[JeenLeen]

It might be hard to follow if you don't know the basics already, but Pathfinder has a lot of its material online, more than enough to pay the game in my opinion. It's found at http://paizo.com/pathfinderRPG/prd/.

D&D also has a good deal of stuff online.

They're not PDFs you can just download, print, and play from, but my group runs Pathfinder using that website as our primary source.

EDIT: not saying they're the best. They're D&D 3.5, so take it as you like it. For best one, I think Mutants & Masterminds is my favorite, but I haven't played many. JAGS Wonderland was pretty awesome to read, though it sounds like it'd be hard to play.

[endoperez]

Just curious.
What, in your opinion, are the best free RPG's?
Best as in:Good Flavor, Useable Mechanics, Passable Format.

With those specific qualifications, Ars Magica 4th Edition might work.
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...-core-rulebook
Fantastic flavour, great magic mechanic, otherwise the rules are somewhat mediocre.

The theme is early Middle Ages (crusades, chain mail, lots of Latin) with wizards mixed in. Wizards whose actions in their magical towers are calculated in seasons. Since the mages are hesitant to leave their laboratories, the adventures tend to follow the Gandalf-Aragorn-Hobbits formula, with a single wizard leading a hero or two (and a group of NPCs/servants/meatshields). Every player is encouraged to have at least two characters who are rotated in and out as the story demands. Works best for sagas, myths and political intrigue, rather than the traditional pulp-inspired fantasy.

[CarpeGuitarrem]

Risus.

Always Risus.

Risus is underrated in its brilliance, actually. I realized this when I discovered that the rules actually treat difficulties as relative to the cliché used. I think it was something like "Swinging across a chasm via whip might be Difficulty 5 for an Intrepid Archaeologist, but it'd be something more like Difficulty 30 for a Wheelchair-Bound Occultist."

The entire engine is concise, layered, and really simple. You can do a lot with it.

I also have to give a shoutout to Mythender and Old School Hack, two incredibly polished RPGs that are 100% for free.

[Hytheter]

Risus.

Always Risus.

Oh! I've been looking for this.
I stumbled across it ages ago, thought it was cool and then promptly forgot about it. By the time I remembered it again I had no idea what it was called or where to find it.

...how do you pronounce "Risus" though?

[Grod_The_Giant]

With those specific qualifications, Ars Magica 4th Edition might work.
http://www.warehouse23.com/products/...-core-rulebook
Fantastic flavour, great magic mechanic, otherwise the rules are somewhat mediocre.

Oh man, Ars Magica has been on my wishlist for a long time now. That's exciting.

[Beleriphon]

Oh! I've been looking for this.
I stumbled across it ages ago, thought it was cool and then promptly forgot about it. By the time I remembered it again I had no idea what it was called or where to find it.

...how do you pronounce "Risus" though?

Ree-sus

Like the monkey.

[Hytheter]

Ree-sus

Like the monkey.

That's kinda what I thought but

but then it's like the monkey

[CarpeGuitarrem]

*adds a Risus, Like the Monkey 3 Cliché to his sheet*