# Godot RPG templates: three projects, three completely different games

The word RPG covers at least three unrelated games, and every starter project has already picked one. Choose by the combat you want, because combat is the thing the rest of the project is built around. Flockbay ships a Turn-Based RPG template of its own, free under New from template. Flockbay is free, AI included: free hosted AI every day, or your own Claude, ChatGPT, agent or API key. It runs on Windows, macOS and Linux, on the official Godot engine.

Source: https://flockbay.com/templates/godot-rpg-template/ · Updated 2026-10-01

## The Turn-Based RPG template in Flockbay

A classic top-down RPG with turn-based combat, dialogue, an inventory and screen transitions. It is a 2D Godot 4 project in GDScript, open source, and free like the rest of Flockbay.

A grid-based overworld with a town, a house and a forest, map transitions, and click-to-move or keyboard movement.

Turn-based combat where you choose actions and targets for your party each round.

Battle actions written as code you extend: attack, heal, projectile and stat changes, against four kinds of monster.

Dialogue and cutscenes, an inventory, and music for the field and for combat.

The code is MIT; the art is GDQuest's, under CC BY 4.0, and the project carries both notices.

## Start a game from Turn-Based RPG

In the Flockbay app, press New from template on Home, pick Turn-Based RPG and press Create. On a first run, answer 2D and then Template, and Continue makes the game. Flockbay downloads the template into a new game folder and opens it in the Godot editor as an ordinary Godot 4 project you own. Tell Flockbay what to change first: it writes a short brief from the template, asks before it builds, and plays each change before you do.

What people usually ask for first: a fire spell that hits every enemy; a cave map with a new boss; a shopkeeper who sells potions.

## RPG names at least three different games

Someone searching for a Godot RPG template is usually picturing one specific thing and will find something else. The genre splits into games where you fight in real time by swinging at what is in front of you, games where you move units around a grid and take turns, and games where combat is a separate screen with a queue and a menu. They share a word and almost nothing else.

This matters because a starter has already chosen. Combat is not a module you can lift out; it is the assumption everything else is written against, from how a character is defined to what a level has to be shaped like to how the interface works. Adopting the wrong one is not a setback you tune your way out of.

So the useful first question is not which project is best. It is which of these three games you are actually making.

## What the three projects actually are

The Top-down Action RPG Template by noidexe is the real-time one. 2D, viewed from above, MIT licensed with some third-party audio credited. Its description covers a hero with movement, a melee attack and a dodge roll, enemies, NPCs you can talk to, a dialogue box, an inventory, quests, health bars and status text, music, and connected scenes with exits between them. That last item matters more than it looks: moving between areas without losing state is a thing people underestimate.

Godot Tactical RPG by ramaureirac is the grid one, and it is 3D. MIT licensed, viewed from above, with pawns you select and move across tiles, move, attack and wait actions, a turn flow, tile highlighting, [a tactical camera](/blog/the-challenge-of-cameras/) that pans, rotates and zooms, and a simple opponent to take turns against. If you are picturing units on squares, this is the shape.

The 2D RPG among Godot's own demo projects is the third. MIT licensed, grid-based exploration over a tilemap, dialogue, and [turn-based combat with a turn queue](/blog/the-birth-of-the-japanese-rpg/), health and battle sprites. It is a demo rather than a foundation, so it is smaller than the other two, and it is also the clearest of the three to read for exactly that reason.

## Content volume is the actual cost

Every one of those projects gives you systems, and a role playing game is not made of systems. It is made of content. A quest system with two quests in it is a quest system. A world with three rooms is a proof that rooms connect. The gap between what a starter contains and what a player would call an RPG is measured in maps drawn, characters written, items with reasons to exist, and conversations that were typed one line at a time.

This is the genre where the work is least compressible. Nobody has invented a shortcut for [deciding what the innkeeper says](/blog/ai-dialogue-generator-for-games/), and the parts that can be generated still have to be judged, kept or thrown away by somebody with an opinion about the game. That is the actual job, and a template does not shorten it by an hour.

The practical consequence is scope. The people who finish RPGs are the ones who cut the map down early. A starter makes it very easy to imagine a large game, because the systems for a large game are already sitting there running.

## Extending someone else's RPG

RPG systems interlock more tightly than in most genres, which makes them unusually awkward to modify. Adding a single stat touches character definitions, combat maths, the interface that displays it, the items that modify it, and the save data if there is any. Adding a status effect that lasts three turns means the turn system has to gain a concept it did not have. None of this is hard exactly. It is spread out, and you cannot find all of it by searching for one word.

Dialogue and quests are the opinionated part. Every project has its own idea of what a conversation is, whether it can branch, and how [a quest knows it has been completed](/blog/ai-quest-generator/). If your game needs something that idea did not anticipate, you are not extending their system, you are replacing it, and half the project is talking to it.

This is the trade, stated plainly: a starter saves you the first month and charges you for it in reading. If you read GDScript, it is usually worth it. If you do not, you have a demo you can play and a game you cannot write.

## The other route

Flockbay starts from the other end. It is a desktop app for Windows, macOS and Linux with Godot bundled inside. Its first question is the one this page opened on, which of the three games you are making, and it asks one round at a time, with a recommendation each. Then it writes a brief: the combat model, the first area, and what is not in this version, which in an RPG is the list that saves the project. Approve it and Flockbay builds the world, the terrain, the towns and where things sit in relation to each other, writes the GDScript for the combat, the dialogue, the inventory and the quests in your project, and plays its own build before you do. The combat model is the one your game needs rather than the one a starter arrived with, and you judge it by playing rather than by reading. When where the inn sits is pure taste, Place is a button around Godot's own 3D and 2D view, so you can move it yourself, and Godot's undo takes the move back.

Flockbay also ships the Turn-Based RPG, the template at the top of this page, under New from template on Home, and a Godot project you have downloaded opens in it with Open Godot project. The three projects above are public Godot projects you clone yourself, and they are a legitimate way to make an RPG. This is simply a different one.

Building needs an internet connection, because the chat, asset generation and world data come over the network. Playing what you made does not; it runs locally on the copy of Godot inside the app. [Flockbay is free, AI included](/answers/what-does-flockbay-cost/): free hosted AI every day, or your Claude or ChatGPT plan, your own agent, or an API key. Flockbay builds from a library of ready-made objects, or with Godot's own shapes.

## Questions

### Does Godot have an official RPG template?

There is a 2D role playing game among the demo projects the Godot project maintains, covering grid movement, dialogue and turn-based combat. It is a demo rather than a foundation, so treat it as something to read and learn from rather than something to build a long game on top of.

### Which Godot RPG starter should I pick?

Pick by combat. The Top-down Action RPG Template is real-time with melee and a dodge roll. Godot Tactical RPG is units on a grid taking turns in 3D. Godot's own 2D RPG demo is turn-based combat on a separate screen. Everything else in a project follows from that choice.

### What do these starters not include?

Your content. Maps, characters, dialogue, quests, items and the balance between them. The systems for holding content are what a starter is; filling them is the genre.

### Why is adding one stat such a large change?

Because it touches the character definition, the combat maths, the interface, any item that modifies it and the saved data. RPG systems interlock, so changes spread out rather than staying in one file.

### Are these RPG templates available inside Flockbay?

Not those. Flockbay ships one of its own, the Turn-Based RPG template, under New from template on Home. The others are open-source Godot projects you download yourself, and a downloaded Godot project opens in Flockbay with Open Godot project. Flockbay works the other way: from a brief you approve, it builds the world and writes the systems for it.

Download Flockbay free: Flockbay is a free download for Windows, macOS and Linux. Approve a brief, let Flockbay build the world and write the combat and dialogue, and judge it by playing. https://flockbay.com/

Related: [Godot roguelike templates](/templates/godot-roguelike-template/), [Godot 2D game templates](/templates/godot-2d-game-template/), [Godot visual novel templates](/templates/godot-visual-novel-template/), [Godot metroidvania templates](/templates/godot-metroidvania-template/)