The Microlite20 RPG Collection is a PDF compilation of Microlite20 based games. This collection is made available for free and is not to be sold. Each individual game is copyrighted separately, is based on the Open Game License (because the original, Microlite20, is OGL), and is available for free. Each game is a separate entity with its own copyright and license. The author of each individual game is solely responsible for his or his work. No editing of individual games has been done.

In addition to the standard Microlite20 rules (and a large number of optional systems and expanded rules, The Microlite20 RPG Collection (Spring 2010 Revised Edition) includes the following Microlite20-based role-playing games: Ultramicrolite20 Revised, Microlite20 Modern, M20 Hard Core Rules, Swords against Sorcery, M20 Heroic, Iron Heartbreakers, Microlite11, WildWalker's M20 4e, Microlite20 4e, MULRAH, Lite20, Mini20, Realms of Renown, Legendary20, Microlite74, Microlite74: Ancient Auguries, Argo, M20 Hyborian Age, Microlite Conan, TileHack, Microlite Dark Sun, Omerian Tales – Core Rules, Microlite20 Resident Evil, Microlite20 Cthulthu, Microlite20 Vampires, Microlite20 2012, SpyLite, SuperLite, Tumbleweed, Gunsmoke & Goblins, Owl Hoot Trail, ZombiePocalypse, Relics & Ruins, OmegaLite20, RABID, Microlite20 Vermin, Where No Man Has Gone Before, FrontierLite, Microlite20 Star Wars, Scions of a Primordial Planet, Micro MechWarrior, Stargate 1895, Blaster D20 Microlite, Pendragon D20 Microlite, Diabolical D20 Microlite, and PathfinderLite20.

Perhaps the best way to explain The Microlite20 RPG Collection is to include the Introduction to this volume:

What is Microlite20?

Do you remember when the gaming table was full of pizza and soda, not rulebooks, miniatures and dungeon tiles? Do you yearn for a role-playing game that doesn't require weight training to carry all the books? Do you want to be able to hold all the rules in your head - or in your back pocket? And do you still want to use all those lovely monsters, adventures and game worlds too? So do we!! -- Greywulf

Microlite20 is a minimalist role-playing game designed to be usable with the majority of the OGL/d20 supplements, rules and adventures with little or no advance preparation. The basic rules for character generation, combat, magic and level advancement take up a single sheet of paper, meaning it is perfect for introducing role-playing to new players, gaming oneshot adventures or tailoring into your own game system.

History of Microlite20

Microlite20 was designed by Robin V. Stacey (aka Greywulf) in 2006. The purpose of the rules were to strip the OGL/D20 system down to its bare minimum so that the world's most popular fantasy system could be played quickly and without thousands of pages of rules, but still be usable with all the adventures, campaign settings, and supplements that had been published for the 3.x edition of the world's most popular fantasy RPG. Amazing, one page of basic rules (coupled with the Fantasy SRD for spells and monsters) really did allow for fast-playing games with just about every adventure and supplement published for the 3.x edition.

Microlite20 was an immediate hit with players who liked the 3.x edition of the world's most popular fantasy RPG but did not like the complex and time-consuming (both to GM for and to play out combats) beast it had become. Microlite20 was a rules-light way to play that brought fun back to many game tables.

The Microlite20 rules were entirely open game content. Only the names “Microlite20” and “Robin V. Stacey” were listed as product identity. Having the entire system open game content sparked a flurry of gamer creativity. Simple variant rules and basic expansions came first – for example, lists of limited spells and monsters so Microlite20 could be played without lugging the huge SRD around. However, customized rule sets and complete games based on Microlite20 soon followed. Many of these are collected in this book. That's how a one page game grew to a 450 page book. In the spring of 2010, Robin sold the rights to Microlite20 to Seth Drebitko. Seth has big plans for the game but even without big plans, the Microlite20 community is still going strong, still producing new material and complete new games based on Microlite20.

What is in this book?

This book is a simple collection of Microlite20 PDFs combined into a single PDF file for easy downloading and printing. Most Microlite20 materials are published as individual PDF files. For the most part, this book is all these PDFs (and a few extras like this introductory material) combined into a single PDF with an open source program called PDFSAM. Some material that was never published in PDF forum has been converted from text and word files to PDF and included.

As one might expect, there isn't a lot of organization. As 90% of the material was in fixed format PDF files, that's unfortunate, but only expected. Your compiler has attempted to put the various PDFs into useful order in four sections, however.

The first section has only one set of rules: Microlite20 Purest Essence. This is Paul Lessack's beautifully laid out version of Microlite20. It includes the basic rules and some of the expansions (e.g. equipment, spells and the full expert rules and the GM guide) included in the second section. Many people consider this best version of “core” Microlite20.

The second section includes the original Microlite20 rules, and many variant rules and expansions building upon the original rules.

The third – and largest – section includes many complete games based on Microlite20. Some of these games aren't that different from the original, while others break quite a bit of new ground. Not all of these games are fantasy, you'll find Microlite20 based science fiction games, espionage games, after the holocaust games, superhero games, and western games. Some games are quite short, others are fairly long and detailed. There's even a game, Tilehack, that uses Scrabble tiles instead of dice.

The fourth and final section has Microlite20 character sheets.

The Future of Microlite20

What does the future hold for Microlite20 gaming? I don't know for sure, but I suspect there will be many more additional rules options and complete Microlite20-based games. Microlite20 is so easy to work with that just about any GM can rework the system to make it "just perfect" for his or her favorite setting or homebrew campaign. With luck, there will be future (and even larger) edition of The Microlite20 RPG Collection – perhaps one with a Microlite20-based game you designed. Until then, there are a lot of fun games to try in this volume. Happy gaming!

You can download the current edition of The Microlite20 RPG Collection here. The current edition is approximately 20 megs, about 650 pages, and is made available for download through Mediafire.