Level 1 Anthology 2026

Stand Up

In interesting times, often the hardest thing to do is just to stand up. Different designers took on the theme this year — some going straight forward making games about comedy, comedians, and the gig economy. While, others went deeper with games about using art to resist tyranny, fighting oppression, and standing up to difficult and complicated situations. 

Level 1

The indie RPG scene is a diverse, fascinating, and vibrant part of the TTRPG community. With Level 1: The Indie RPG Anthology, 9th Level Games brings together choice games from the world of indie RPGs in an annual collection published in time for Free RPG Day.

Every year 9th Level Games releases this series of officially endorsed featuring new role-playing games, RPG standalone adventures, 200 word RPGs, and more!

FREE RPG DAY 

Free RPG Day occurs annually in June and with over 500 stores participating worldwide. They provide consumers with free exclusive printed content for a wide variety of tabletop roleplaying games. New RPG adventures, quick-start guides, accessories and more are to be had at your local participating retailer, with publishing partners changing yearly.

Stand Up includes 15 games from diverse, unique voices: 

• Clown Town P.D. by Tracy Emrich
  
• Deadline: Get the News Before it Gets You by Daylina "Day" Miller
  
• Dice Up! by Melissa Roe-Torres
  
• Conquering Tyrant by Joel Salda
• Divided We ...Fall? by Victor Diaz
  
• Dying is Easy  — Comedy is Hard by Benjamin L. Eastman
  
• Fight the Empire! by Helena Real
• NYC’s Boldest, LIVE from the Comedy Fungeon! by J.D. Harlock
  
• Pip, Pip, Cheerio: A Game of Last Words and Last Stands by Glenn Dallas
  
• Rising from the Ashes by Brian Burruss
  
• Roll to Stand Up! by Josh Young
  
• Standing is Hard by Jude Pultz
  
• Stand Up For Freedom by Tim "Strato" Bailey
  
• STAND UP or don't. by Juno Arndt
• Trash Wizards and the Trench Coat Caper by Ty Oden

  
  

LevelUp Fund

Our goal for Level 1 is always to feature unique and underrepresented voices. We look for games that shine a new light on an old idea or bring something new to the table. This has lead us to creating the LevelUp Fund.

Proceeds from polymorph™ system licensing fees, donations for previous volumes of Level 1 on our website, DriveThru RPG, and itch.io, as well as any sponsor dollars remaining after the production of Level 1 will all go into the LevelUp Fund.

The LevelUP fund helps us produce Level 1 Indie RPG Anthology every year. It lets us offer designers free use of the polymorph™ system and offer grants of $100 to support them.