The premise behind Homicidal Transients is a boiled-down parody/satire distilation of just about every (pseudo-) fantasy RPG ever made. You play a homicidal homeless person, bent on killing things and stealing their stuff. This game reduces that to it's most fundamental level.
Gangworld is a series of short supplements for D&D 3x (OGL d20), each describing a criminal organization. They are both low on crunchy mechanics, high on usable story items. The supplements are short, but well worth the $0.99 each for the PDFs.
Apocalypse Prevention, Inc. (API) API calls itself “An action horror RPG… with a twist of humor.” Reading it reminds me of movies like Men in Black, where the action and weirdness are so over the top that you can’t really take it seriously; where the dark evil things in the universe are fought with magic, big guns, snark, and sarcasm. The PCs work for API, a business whose mission is to keep humanity safe from the things that threaten the planet – plagues, demons, aliens, etc.
Today I am thankful for paper-based Role Playing Games. I first played an RPG back in 7th grade. It was AD&D (back before there was a 2nd edition). My first real PC was Martin Ravenwood, a Paladin from the Unearthed Arcana. I ran that character for several years before he retired to a palace on the elemental plane of air. After that came Star Frontiers, AD&D 2e, D&D 3 and 3.5 (haven't gotten to play 4, sigh), TSR's Marvel Super Heroes, GURPS, Deadlands, Call of Cthulhu, ShadowRun....
The premise behind 