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A one page RPG is a complete tabletop roleplaying game whose rules fit on a single sheet of paper. You get a premise, a way to make a character in a minute or two, one dice mechanic, and usually a table or two that spins up an adventure. Most are free or pay what you want. Print the page, grab a few six-sided dice, and a group of friends can be playing inside fifteen minutes.
The quick answer: start with Lasers & Feelings by John Harper or Honey Heist by Grant Howitt. Both are one page, both use only six-sided dice, and both fit a full session into an evening. For something stranger, try Everyone Is John. When your group wants a little more, step up to a two-page 24XX game or a short rules-light book like Knave.
What is a one page RPG?
A one page RPG is a whole game, not a summary of a bigger one. The single sheet holds everything the table needs. Some designers use both sides, and a few spill onto a second page, but the spirit is the same: a game you can read in five minutes and teach in ten.
Most one-pagers share a handful of parts:
- A premise in a sentence or two. “You are bears robbing a honey convention” does more work than ten pages of setting lore.
- One or two stats. Often a single number, or two scores that pull against each other.
- One core roll. Every risky action uses the same dice, so nobody has to look anything up.
- Random tables. A few rows of “roll a d6 for the villain, the place, the problem” give the game master an adventure with no prep.
- A built-in ending. Many are designed as one-shots, so the story wraps up in one evening.
If you have never played a tabletop RPG at all, our plain-English explainer covers how the hobby works. One-pagers are the gentlest way in.
Why do one page RPGs work so well?
Because the hardest part of any roleplaying game is getting it to the table, and one-pagers remove almost all of that friction.
There is no homework. The host reads one page instead of a few hundred. Players read nothing at all; the host explains the roll and everyone starts.
Character creation takes minutes. Pick a style, pick a role, set one number, name your character. In a big game that same step can take an evening.
They are a cheap test. One evening tells you whether your group enjoys making things up together. If yes, you have a reason to try something bigger. If no, you spent two hours and no money.
They are funny on purpose. Many one-pagers lean into a silly premise, which takes pressure off new players. Nobody worries about “doing it wrong” when they are a raccoon trying to steer a car.
How does this compare with other simple systems? Our guide to easy tabletop RPGs for beginners covers eight light systems, including longer games like Blades in the Dark and Call of Cthulhu. This page stays smaller: games that fit on a sheet, and how to run, find, and write them.
The best one page RPGs to start with
Every game below is a complete, playable RPG with very short rules, free or pay what you want from its designer. Player counts assume one game master (GM) plus players unless noted.
| Game | Designer | Premise | Dice | Length |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Lasers & Feelings | John Harper | Space crew on a scout ship | d6 | 1 page |
| Honey Heist | Grant Howitt | Bears rob a honey convention | d6 | 1 page |
| Crash Pandas | Grant Howitt | Raccoons share one car | d6 | 1 page |
| The Witch Is Dead | Grant Howitt | Woodland familiars avenge their witch | d6 | 1 page |
| Everyone Is John | Michael Sullivan | Players are voices in one man’s head | d6 | About 2 to 3 pages |
| Tunnel Goons | Nate Treme | Dungeon crawl in any genre | 2d6 | 1 page |
| 2400 series | Jason Tocci | Lo-fi sci-fi, one setting per sheet | d4 to d12 | 2 sides of a sheet |
Lasers & Feelings
The one-pager that started a thousand hacks. You are the crew of a scout ship, and each character has a single number from 2 to 5. A high number means you are good at Lasers (science, logic, calm action). A low number means you are good at Feelings (intuition, passion, wild action). Roll one d6, plus an extra die if you are prepared and another if you are an expert. For Lasers you want dice under your number; for Feelings, over it. Count the successes. Roll your number exactly and you get a flash of insight, which lets you ask the GM a question and get an honest answer.
That tension between two kinds of action is the whole game, and it is brilliant. John Harper released it under a Creative Commons license, which is why you can find versions for wizards, pirates, detectives, and nearly anything else on itch.io.
You can try it before you print it. Our Lasers & Feelings demo, “Mayday at the Glass Moon,” is a free solo adventure in your browser. The page plays the GM, you make the choices, and every roll follows the real rules. Act One takes about 20 minutes.
Honey Heist
Grant Howitt wrote Honey Heist in 2017, adapting the Lasers & Feelings engine. You are bears in disguise, robbing a honey convention. Each bear has two scores, Bear and Criminal, starting at 3. Success shifts a point toward Criminal; failure shifts it toward Bear. If either hits 6, the heist falls apart: a bear at 6 Bear goes berserk, and a bear at 6 Criminal betrays the gang.
It became famous after the cast of Critical Role played it on stream. It remains the best “let’s just try one right now” game we know.
Crash Pandas
Also by Grant Howitt. The players are raccoons in the street-racing scene, and all of them are trying to drive the same souped-up car at the same time. The chaos of a shared steering wheel is the game. It is pay what you want from the publisher Howitt co-founded, Rowan, Rook and Decard.
The Witch Is Dead
You are a woodland creature, your witch has been killed by a witch-hunter, and you want revenge. One page holds the rules, a short spell list, and tables for plots and enemies. It is a perfect Halloween one-shot. Fair warning: the publisher notes very strong language and some gore, so it is not one for kids.
Howitt has written about one hundred one-page RPGs. If your group loves these three, his catalog alone could fill a year of game nights.
Everyone Is John
Michael Sullivan wrote this in 2002, and it is still one of the strangest and funniest RPGs ever made. John is an unstable man. Each player is a voice in his head with a secret obsession, a couple of skills, and a pool of Willpower. Voices bid Willpower to take control of John, and the GM (who plays “everyone else”) reacts as John’s day goes off the rails. When every voice runs out of Willpower, John falls asleep and the game ends. The voice that fulfilled its obsession most, weighted by how hard it was, wins.
The rules are free on Sullivan’s website under a Creative Commons license. They run about two to three printed pages, but you will hold the whole game in your head after one read.
Tunnel Goons
Nate Treme’s Tunnel Goons is a tiny dungeon crawler built on a light 2d6 roll. The whole game fits on one side of a letter-size sheet, and its Creative Commons license has spawned dozens of hacks. It is a good fit for a group that wants classic fantasy without a big book.
The 2400 series and other 24XX games
Jason Tocci’s 2400 series packs a complete game, usually science fiction, onto the two sides of one letter-size sheet. Each game is its own setting: space truckers, cyberpunk freelancers, a casino heist in the clouds of Venus. They all share one system, called 24XX, built around a single skill die. Two of them, the Emergency Rules and Inner System Blues, are free demo downloads. Our full guide to what 24XX is and how it works covers the system and the hundreds of games built on it, and our 24XX browser demo lets you play a short rescue mission under the ice.
How do you run a one page RPG tonight?
Here is a plan that takes a group from “never played” to “laughing at the table” in one evening.
1. Pick a game with a premise your friends will get
Bears stealing honey needs no explanation. Pick the premise that makes your group grin, not the one with the cleverest mechanic.
2. Read it twice, then make a cheat sheet
Read the page once for the idea and once for the roll. Write the core roll on a sticky note for the middle of the table. That is your entire rules reference.
3. Gather what you need
| You need | Why |
|---|---|
| The printed page | One per player helps, but one for the table works |
| A few six-sided dice | Most one-pagers use 1 to 3 d6 per player |
| Index cards and pencils | Characters fit on a card |
| A snack that won’t stain the page | Dry and one-handed keeps the sheets clean |
4. Spend ten minutes on characters, out loud
Have everyone make characters at the same time and say their choices aloud. Hearing “I’m a Grizzly Muscle, and my hat is a top hat” gets people into the story before the first roll.
5. Start in the middle of the action
Skip the tavern. Open with “The airlock is open and something is coming through” or “You are in line at the convention badge desk, in disguise.” A strong first scene does more teaching than any rules speech.
6. Roll only when it matters
Call for dice when failure would be interesting. Everything else just happens. This keeps the pace up and teaches players that the dice mean something.
7. End on time
Aim for about two hours. When energy dips, push toward the climax. A short game that ends on a high note gets a “let’s do that again.” A long one that fizzles does not.
If you are hosting in public, such as a library room or a store, our guide to running a drop-in RPG night covers seating new people and keeping the night friendly.
Where can you find more one page RPGs?
There are thousands. A few places do most of the curating for you.
- itch.io. The main home of indie RPGs. Search the tags “one page rpg” and “one-page,” then sort by rating. Most games are free or pay what you want.
- The One-Page RPG Jam. An annual, unranked design jam where every entry must fit on a single sheet of paper. The 2025 jam drew nearly 700 entries, and the 2026 edition, its seventh year, ran from July 13 to August 16. More than 3,000 games have come out of the jams so far. Browse past entries on itch.io.
- Designer catalogs. Grant Howitt’s one-pagers are collected on itch.io and through Rowan, Rook and Decard, which also sells printed collections. John Harper’s itch.io page has Lasers & Feelings and his other short games.
- Hacks of a favorite. Search “Lasers & Feelings hack” or “24XX” on itch.io. If your group loved one system, its hacks give you new settings with nothing new to learn.
What comes after a one-page RPG?
When your group wants characters that grow over several sessions, step up gently rather than jumping to a 300-page book.
| If you liked… | Try next | Why |
|---|---|---|
| Lasers & Feelings | A 2400 game | Two pages, still one roll, but gear and skill growth |
| Honey Heist | Blades in the Dark | A deeper heist game with a clever flashback rule |
| Tunnel Goons | Knave | Old-school dungeon fantasy in a short rulebook |
| Everyone Is John | Fiasco | No GM, big drama, everything goes wrong |
| Playing alone in a demo | A solo RPG | Oracles and journaling replace the GM |
Knave by Ben Milton is a classless fantasy toolkit of about seven pages, and our Knave browser demo lets you try a session first. For playing by yourself, our guide to solo RPGs is the next stop.
How do you write your own one page RPG?
Writing a one-pager is the best small design project in the hobby. The page limit forces every rule to earn its place. Here is a path that works.
1. Start with a verb and a premise
“Raccoons drive a car.” “Ghosts haunt their own funeral.” The best one-pagers are built around one action the players will do over and over. Write that sentence first.
2. Borrow a core roll
You do not need to invent a dice system. Lasers & Feelings, 24XX, and Tunnel Goons are all released under Creative Commons licenses that allow hacks, as long as you credit the original. Reskinning a proven engine lets you spend your page on the premise.
3. Give characters one interesting choice
Two stats that pull against each other (Bear and Criminal, Lasers and Feelings) create drama with almost no rules. One number with two meanings is even better.
4. Fill the leftover space with tables
A d6 table of villains, places, and complications turns your page into an adventure generator. Tables are the densest way to put content on paper.
5. Playtest with people who have not read it
Hand the page to friends and watch them play without your help. Every question they ask is a line your page needs. Our guide to playtesting is written for board games, but the same rules apply.
6. Publish it
Upload a PDF to itch.io as pay what you want, or enter it in the next One-Page RPG Jam. A jam gives you a deadline and an audience on day one.
FAQ
What is the best one page RPG for beginners?
Lasers & Feelings. It teaches the core idea of every RPG (describe what you do, roll when it is risky, let the story react) with one number and a handful of six-sided dice. Honey Heist is a close second and even sillier.
Are one page RPGs free?
Most are free or pay what you want on itch.io, including Lasers & Feelings, Honey Heist, The Witch Is Dead, and Tunnel Goons. Everyone Is John is free on its designer’s website. Some designers also sell printed collections.
What is a rules light RPG?
A rules light RPG keeps the mechanics short so the table spends its time on story. Usually that means one core roll, a few stats, and fast characters. One page RPGs are the most extreme version, but rules-light games can also run 10 to 60 pages.
Can you play a one page RPG solo?
Some are built for it, and many one-pagers in the One-Page RPG Jam are solo or journaling games. For group games like Lasers & Feelings, our RPG Demo Library offers free solo adventures where the page acts as your GM.
How long does a one page RPG take to play?
Most run one session of two to three hours, including about ten minutes to make characters. Many are designed as one-shots, so the story ends the same night.
Print one tonight
A one page RPG is the shortest path from “I’ve always wanted to try that” to a table full of people telling a story together. Print Lasers & Feelings, find some dice, and invite three friends. If you want a lighter-than-light start, the RPG Demo Library lets you play a scene in your browser first. Ludarium Letters, below, sends more guides like this one.
The game is the reason. The people are the point.
Sources
- Lasers & Feelings (John Harper, itch.io)
- Honey Heist (Wikipedia)
- Honey Heist (Grant Howitt, itch.io)
- The Witch Is Dead (Grant Howitt, itch.io)
- Crash Pandas (Rowan, Rook and Decard)
- The Witch Is Dead (Rowan, Rook and Decard)
- One hundred one-page RPGs later, Grant Howitt isn’t ready to quit (Rascal News, 2025)
- Everyone Is John (Michael Sullivan)
- Tunnel Goons (Nate Treme, itch.io)
- 2400 (Jason Tocci, itch.io)
- Knave (Questing Beast, itch.io)
- One-Page RPG Jam 2025 (itch.io)
- The Biggest Tabletop RPG Game Jam Returns for 2026 (Rascal News, 2026)
- Make your own one-page RPG, Part 2: Exploring one-page RPGs (Skeleton Code Machine, 2024)
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