Free OSR - OSRIC Pocket SRD

OSRIC has a weird history in the OSR. Originally conceived as a tool to help 3rd party publishers release material for AD&D 1e, it soon became apparent that folks were actually using the new presentation of the classic ruleset at the table. I've done that, and it is easier to reference than the rules that inspired it.

OSRIC also opened the door for the clones and simularcums that followed it. If Castles & Crusades was "proto-OSR", OSRIC was the first complete ruleset to be OSR.

When I returned to DMing some dozen years or so ago, I chose AD&D1e, with the option to use OSRIC in lieu of AD&D 1E core books, and the sessions ran fine. I was hooked, 100%.

This book represents a compilation of rules for old school-style fantasy roleplay gaming, and is intended to reproduce the underlying rules used in the late 1970s to early 1980s. A complete game manual in itself, this source reference document (SRD) includes everything the game master and player alike require for beginning to advanced level play. This compact A5 trim of the OSRIC SRD is available exclusively through James D. Kramer contains the OSRIC rules, complete with indexes. Includes all Knights-n-Knaves.com errata through January 2013, and updated magic item tables.

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Free RPG Resources - Universal NPC Emulator (Systemless)

The Universal NPC Emulator was suggested by one of The Tavern's YouTube viewers, and all I can say is, where has this been for my entire career as a DM? It's short, clocking in at 18 pages, of which 8 contain the tables you'll refer to.

When I discuss free and PWYW resources that should be part of every GM's toolkit, the Universal NPC Emulator goes to the top of that pile. Don't hesitate. Grab it before you run your next game session, no matter the system you use.

UNE is the Universal NPC Emulator. With just a handful of dice rolls, UNE can help create a surprising non-player character (NPC) with its own motivations. A few more dice rolls, and UNE can provide more direction to place the newly-created NPC smack dab in the center of the story. It can even help determine the NPC’s general mood towards the player characters.

Best of all UNE is system and setting agnostic. It will work in Techno-Roman science fiction just as well as 1930′s Cthulhu hour or apocalypse fantasy.

Examples and more tutorials for UNE can be found on the Conjecture Games Facebook page!

Pay-What-You-Want Conjecture - this product is free. Download with a clear conscience! If you want to "pay" without money, please review, rate, or leave feedback for this product. However, if you really like this product consider throwing a couple bucks to help pay for DriveThru's hosting costs, art in future products, and beer to make future products.

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Free OSR - Black Pudding #5 (Zine)

I love the entire run of the Black Pudding zine—the art, the layout, and the unconventional thinking. The whole line is classic J.V. West.

New monsters, new magics, a new class, an adventure, NPCs, and even a setting await you within the 28 pages of Black Pudding #5. Snag it for free, but trust me, you'll return for more (the whole Black Pudding line is PWYW) and likely leave a tip.

Dripping and dolloping into view comes the latest issue of this old school RPG zine chock full of nasty goodies for your classic fantasy games!

In this issue you'll see ipzees and orbii, you'll learn aromatic charms, you'll find weapons of magic, many strange people will offer their services for your adventuring party, and you will absolutely encounter some cackling ice witches.

Monsters, treasure, adventures, spells, hirelings, character sheet... everything but dice is included in this tasty concoction of gelatinized madness.

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Free OSR - Delver Magazine Issue #1 (OSE)

Delver Magazine is an OSE zine filled with random tables, charts, and an adventure. Priced at PWYW, it's another piece of every good DM's toolkit.

Delver Magazine is a bi-monthly (6 issues per year) resource for GMs of Old School RPG fantasy games such as Old-School Essentials, Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, and other OSR games. Each issue will include a ready-to-play adventure, printable props, random charts & tables, articles, and maps for the included adventure.

Table of Contents for Issue #1

----- Random Charts & Tables -----

• That Ogre is Waving
• Listen! You Smell Something?
• Strange Map
• Gurch's Anvil
• Strange Place for a Crate
• Keeping Watch
• That Skeleton Looks Familiar!
• A Shady Character
• Ixra's Wondrous Tomes
• Nemesis: Fighter
• Strange Statue
• Wanted
• The Ally: Cleric
• The Auction House
• The Figure in the Corner
• Merchant: Binga
• Town Militia
• Agnaddob's Artifact Emporium
• Library of Niloshis Whisperwalk

----- Article(s) -----

The Referee Roundtable - Bring the Fantastic to your Settings

----- Adventure -----

Secret of the Shattered Fist Monastery - 18 page adventure

Priced at PWYW, Delver Magaine #1 should be in every DM's toolkit. It's in mine!

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Deal of the Day - The Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition (S&S via Cepheus Engine)

Many gamers understand that the Cepheus Engine is an open ruleset based on Mongoose Travellers' open ruleset. As such, the Cepheus 2d6 system can get turned and twisted into interesting directions. The Sword of Cepheus 2e is one of those interesting directions, as it turns a ruleset designed for space opera into one more suited for Swords & Sorcery, Sword & Planet, or even Swords & Sandals.

The Sword of Cepheus 2nd Edition is today's Deal of the Day at DTRPG. Usually priced at $20 in PDF, it is on sale for $10 until tomorrow morning.

The Sword of Cepheus is a roleplaying game in the triple “Sword” genres: Sword and Sorcery, Sword and Planet, and Sword and Sandal. In Sword and Sorcery, often-amoral protagonists face vile sorcery and horrid beasts as they complete awesome adventures for gold and glory. In Sword and Planet, humans finding themselves on barbaric or decadent alien planets use their superior brawn and valiant hearts to win fame, fortune, and the heart of an alien princeling. In Sword and Sandal, often set in a quasi-Biblical or faux-Roman world, men and women with sharp wits and strong sword-arms fight mythological creatures and overthrow tyrants. The common threads of all three genres are the blade-wielding protagonists who use their brawn, as well as brains, to fight foes both supernatural and mundane and undertake hair-raising, violent adventures.

The Sword of Cepheus rules include everything you need to play thrilling sword & sorcery adventures:

• Streamlined skill-based 2d6 task resolution!
• Customizable character generation with 12 archetypal careers for your character to undergo!
• 12 non-human species with their own careers!
• 40 unique character Traits to further personalize your character!
• A wide selection of adventuring equipment and weaponry!
• Simple yet intriguing rules for adventuring and exploring exciting worlds!
• Fast-paced, action-packed combat - whether on foot, from horseback, or on the high seas!
• A skill-based, perilous sorcery system, with 28 powerful Arcane spells and 18 reality-shattering Eldritch spells!
• Risk disastrous magical mishaps and mutate as vast eldritch power flows through your sorcerous body!
• 95 terrible monsters for daring heroes to face!
• A selection of treasures, including a selection of powerful magical artifacts!
• Detailed Encounter Rules to keep adventuring exciting and fresh, for both players and Referees!

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Free OSR - Black Pudding #4 (Zine)

It's challenging to quantify Black Pudding #4. Is it a zine? Is it a rules supplement? Is it a rules substitute? It could be all of the above. All that, and it is priced at PWYW!

Random tables? Check!

New classes? Check!

Old classes with new skins? Check!

New Races? Check!

Potential hirelings? Yep!

A James West character sheet? You bet ya!

The die hits the table... a 1! A sound emanates from 2d6 x 10 feet down the dungeon corridor. What wandering, shlorping oozoid is this? It's a new Black Pudding. Get your torches ready.

In this issue you get new classes, a double helping of Meatshields, and a 15 page OSR play book, complete with the basic classes, rules, and Black Pudding flavor to enhance or replace your current play book. For use with dice of funny sides. Inspired by games such as Labyrinth Lord, The Black Hack, and Swords & Wizardry White Box.

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Free OSR - Against the Darkmaster - Quickstart (RoleMaster/MERPS)

In the late '80s, one of the game systems I played (ran) was Rolemaster, although it was often merged with MERPS. Of course, we always used the critical tables from Rolemaster. Rolling a "66" was always magical. :)

Against the Darkmaster—Quickstart is priced at PWYW and is a love poem to the classic RoleMaster system. You know you want it :)

Return to the Classic Game of Fantasy Adventure!

Against the Darkmaster is an Epic Fantasy role-playing game of high adventures, eldritch magic, and heavy metal combat.

Inspired by the classic fantasy sagas and 80s fantasy movies, Against the Darkmaster is built for heroic action and intense, character driven campaigns.

The Against the Darkmaster Deluxe Quickstart Rules include everything you need to start playing. In fact, it could well be a full RPG! This beautifully illustrated 122-page PDF includes:

Character creation rules and options;

Detailed rules for travels, combat, and adventuring;

A complete magic system, with over 100 spells;

Attack tables and Critical Strikes;

Dozens of creatures for your heroes to face.

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Deal of the Day - Sly Flourish's Fantastic Locations (System Neutral)

I have to say that the entire Sly Flourish catalogue is full of gems for the improv DM. Sly Flourish's Fantastic Locations is a gem that is a bargain today! Normally 9.99 in PDF, Fantastic Locations is on sale for $3 until 11AM ET tomorrow (April 11th).

For those who don't know, I am an improv DM by nature, and material like this is my bread and butter when running a session or campaign.

We RPG game masters have a lot of tools to help us run our roleplaying games. Our monster books and bestiaries give us piles of foes to throw at our adventurers. The various guides for game masters often give us non-player characters, treasures, and story-building tips.

One of the hardest parts of game mastering, however, is coming up with interesting adventure locations for our characters to explore. These locations need to be fantastic, detailed places that capture the minds of our players every session we run. Good locations are hard to improvise and often hard to strip out of a fully-fleshed-out adventure.

Sly Flourish’s Fantastic Locations is a book, available in PDF and print-on-demand, that gives you twenty system-agnostic locations to drop into your favorite fantasy roleplaying game. Each location builds on a fantastic theme, such as a mysterious ancient structure under the ice, a cursed castle of a mad king, a fallen celestial fortress, and a dwarven mine that cracked into the tomb of a dead god. Each location includes artwork by Brian Patterson of D20Monkey. Sometimes this artwork takes the form of maps. Sometimes it's an overlook of a specific location.

These sites and structures aren’t full adventures. Instead, you and your players build your own stories in these fantastic locations, then you populate them with the monsters that fit your story.

Thanks to the support of 779 backers on Kickstarter this book was expanded to include a total of twenty locations each with full color artwork.

This book is system agnostic. You can use it in just about any fantasy roleplaying game.

Please note that this book does not contain maps for these locations. This was done on purpose to give you greater flexibility choosing the chambers you wanted to use for shorter or longer games.

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Free OSR - Castles & Crusades Players Handbook (7th Printing)

Castles & Crusades is one of the granddaddies of the OSR. I often refer to it as proto-OSR, as it still firmly clung to its 3rd edition roots while striving to emulate classic play. In any case, C&C is an excellent choice of system if one is looking to play something that feels much like AD&D 1e. You can use most AD&D books (DMG, MM, FF, etc.) with few or no conversions.

The Castles & Crusades Players Handbook 7th Printing is available in PDF at PWYW pricing. You can grab it for free, and you can always tip later if you feel so inclined.

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Free OSR - Basic Fantasy RPG (Complete Line)

Everything, and I do mean EVERYTHING, released for the Basic Fantasy RPG is free in PDF, and essentially at cost in print. The latest edition of Basic Fantasy is free of the OGL and released under the Creative Commons license.

Whether you play BFRPG or not, the complete line of supplements and adventures are free in PDF and highly compatible with the "classic" rules of your youth and most OSR rulesets.

Print copies can be obtained at cost from both DTRPG and Amazon, with Amazon offering the bonus of free Prime shipping for Prime Members.

Last spring, at our annual gathering, I gave collections of BFRPG core rules and adventures to members of my old gaming group. 

This is the revised 4th Edition of the Basic Fantasy Role-Playing Game, a rules-light game system written with inspiration from early RPG game systems. It is suitable for those who are fans of "old-school" game mechanics, and it's simple enough for children in perhaps second or third grade to play, yet still having enough depth for adults as well. With this edition, the game is now released under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike (CC BY-SA) license.

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Humble Bundle - Map Making Mega Bundle (Campaign Cartographer plus Many More)

As tabletop gamers, we are generally obsessed with maps to some extent. I love to draw maps for my fantasy campaigns, but I truly suck at it. With a bit of practice - and the Map Making Mega Bundle over at Humble Bundle by ProFantasy, your maps won't suck ;)

30 bucks is all in, but 15 does give you the core software and some fun widgets to use with it.

Campaign Cartographer 3+ is 44.95 at the ProFantasy webstore - just by itself!

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Free OSR - The Lakofka Archive

The Lakofka Archives are the repository of previously unpublished works of Len Lekofka, AKA "Leomund."

Len was best known for AD&D Modules L1-3 and his series of articles in Dragon Magazine, Leomund's Tiny Hut.

Free OSR - The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children (LotFP)

The Doom-Cave of the Crystal-Headed Children was the Free RPG Day offering from LotFP in 2014, written by James Raggi. To call the adventure "quirky" would be an understatement - and a disservice. 

It claims to be for "any level" of characters, but I'd guess from browsing the adventure that levels 2-3 would work fine. It is pure Raggi, but it is solvable. Oh, and disturbing. Very disturbing.

Lamentations' stuff is not for everyone, but if you enjoy the various LotFP releases and this isn't in your collection, the pricing should be very tempting ;)

LotFP’s 2013 Free RPG Day adventure, Better Than Any Man, was banned by many game stores around the world. The adventure was even accused by one participating store as being about “killing children.”

It wasn’t; but people see what they want to see, and because LotFP wants to work with retailers and be a publisher that produces what retailers want to see, we have decided that per that store's wishes, this year's Free RPG Day adventure should be about the killing of children.

Not to worry though—they are freaky crystal-headed children. Inhuman RPG cannon-fodder. ‘Monsters.’ So it’s okay. They deserve it. So you can have fun carving them up. Right?

A LotFP Weird Fantasy Role-Playing adventure for characters of any level. As the title indicates, it is a dungeon crawl.

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Free OSR - Megadungeon #3 (Hack & Slash)

At some point, Courtney priced Megadungeon #3 as PWYW. If you haven't sampled any of Hack & Slash's Megadungeons, you should, as the amount of immediately usable game material is ridiculously high.

You can pay what you want for Megadungeon #3—grab it for free or leave Courtney a tip; it's up to you. As a way to try before you buy other releases from Hack & Slash, it's another one of those no-brainers!

Dungeon adventures, NPC's, and resources suitable for any campaign! Dual-statted for Basic Dungeons & Dragons and 5e. Come explore the upper and lower crypts of Hierax. Visit the sadlark mine, get lost in non-euclidean space. Meet interesting people and kill them!

Articles on actual play in the gaming renaissance, as well as disscussing dungeon restocking, and the Cannitie faction in Numenhalla.

Heavily illustrated by the talented OSR artists, Todd McGowan, Kent Miller, Sean McCoy, Evlyn Monroe, with a cover by Luka Rejec!

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Bundle of Holding - Wyrd and Wild (OSR Sourcebooks)

I was surprised to see an OSR Bundle at Bundle of Holding where I didn't recognize the titles. Such is the case with the Wyrd and Wild bundle. But then I looked at the titles on DTRPG:

Into the Wyrd and Wild Revised Edition - 19.95 - Mithral Best Seller - 4.9 out of 5 for 79 ratings

Into the Cess and Citadel - 19.95 - Gold Best Seller - 5 out of 5 for 24 ratings

Ave Nox - 20.00 - Silver Best Seller - 4.7 out of 5 for 7 ratings

The Vast in the Dark: Expanded - 20.00 - Electrum Best Seller - 5 out of 5 for 10 ratings

Take my money. I'm all in. :)

Adventurer! This all-new Wyrd and Wild Bundle presents Into the Wyrd and Wild and other tabletop weird-fantasy roleplaying sourcebooks from designer-artist Charles Ferguson-Avery at Feral Indie Studio and Wet Ink Games. Easily adaptable to any Old-School Revival system such as Old-School Essentials, Shadowdark, or The Black Hack – or, with a little work, to Dungeon Crawl Classics, Pathfinder, and D&D 5E and compatible systems – these vivid and atmospheric system-neutral supplements give gamemasters the tools to create forbidding forests, exotic cities, Witcher-style monster hunts, and more. And the 200-room Ave Nox dungeon and the brutalist alien megastructures in The Vast in the Dark keep any group busy exploring for months. Send your players into these dark and dangerous landscapes and let them get their Wyrd on.

For just US$19.95 you get all six complete Old-School supplements in our Feral Collection (retail value $87) as DRM-free ebooks, including the acclaimed Into the Wyrd and Wild (Revised Edition) (often described as "Veins of the Earth for forests") and its urban counterpart, Into the Cess and Citadel; the 208-page megadungeon Ave Nox; the alien exploration setting The Vast in the Dark - Expanded; and two zine-size mini-sourcebooks, As the Gods Demand and They Cried Monster.

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Free OSR - CC1 Creature Compendium (New Big Dragon Games)

Somehow, I missed Rich LeBlanc's (New Big Dragon Games) Creature Compendium being priced at PWYW. At this price, it should be in every GM's toolkit for old-school / OSR gaming. Written for B/X AND 1e, it's a perfect fit for OSE, DragonSlayer, OSRIC, Swords & Wizardry, the original rules, and beyond.

Sample creature with stat block:

Remember those flashes of inspiration that electrified your brain when you first picked up that hardback volume of monsters all those years ago?

The countless nights you sat up thinking of how to use those monsters, where to put them, and when your players would meet them? Those unceasing waves of joy that swam over you and your players as you unleashed those creatures, critters, beasts, and behemoths upon their characters?

Collected herein are over 200 monsters from Abysmal to Zathoa, instilled with that same spirit, presented in a “dual-stat” format, and designed to be used with most early editions of the world’s original role-playing game and comparable retro-clones.

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Backerkit - WHPA-13 The Demon Curd of St Uguzo

When I was first exposed to WHPA-13 at TotalCon in 2024, I wondered what this quirky little zine of an RPG was. After reading the rules and flashing back to my youth of black and white TVs, rabbit ears, and public access, I wanted to know where WHPA-13 had been for much of my earlier life. (Note: WHPA-13 is 5 bucks in PDF at DTRPG - you owe it to your younger self to buy a copy)

It's a very special RPG, and Silver Bulette is publishing The Demon Curd of St Uguzo. Rocky and Ian are dear friends of mine, and I expect their entry will be a huge success. Oh, and funny as hell!

This 'zine came together as an adventure and some bonus material you can use at your WHPA table. The adventure contains numerous player handouts and aps to make the investigation of this mystery a breeze. Can your Hosts figure out what is plaguing the town of Fairhaven before Demonic Manifestations overrun the entire place. 

This project is a 20 page zine that will be printed on 80 pound paper with a 100 pound cover. The zine is production ready and files have been uploaded to the printer and are awaiting the go ahead. 

The current estimated printing and shipping time was 4-6 weeks and mailing would happen immediately upon arrival.

"This melts my mozzarella heart, Ian. I love this so much and the experience section is really interesting. Thanks for putting so much personality into this. This has my top-tier blessing. You really get this whole project. WELL DONE" - Rev. Joey Royale

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Deal of the Day - FlexTale Hexcrawl Toolkit (multisystem: Pathfinder, P2E, 5E, OSR, DCC)

Hexcrawls. Nothing but hexcrawls :)

I've only heard good things about the FlexTale series of releases, and I've picked up the odd one here or there. I believe I have their Solo FlexTale supplement, and it was full of useful tables.

Today's Deal of the Day is the FlexTale Hexcrawl Toolkit. Normally, it is 19.99 in PDF format, but until tomorrow morning, the FlexTale Hexcrawl Toolkit is on sale for 4 bucks.

This book was designed to be the most complete, most comprehensive, most innovative authority on hexcrawl roleplaying game adventuring ever produced.

After more than 35 years of gaming, both old-school through to today's most popular systems, the Hexcrawl Toolkit takes one of the hobby's oldest and most enduring concepts, and provides a passionate and well-organized guide for running hexcrawls, either as part of your campaign, or as the focus of them.  Designed to be used by new players, veteran G/DMs, those entirely new to hexcrawls, and solo players alike, this book will be immediately useful to any gaming group, in any context, using any rules system, for campaigns of any length--even those already in progress!

The goal of the book is to guide readers through the concepts at the reader's own pace and preference.  

If you've ever seen a module or other book with a hex map, and thought to yourself, how do I make one of those?  How do I make the one that's there better?  This book is for you.

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Deal of the Day - The Hole in the Oak (OSE Adventure)

Today's Deal of the Day is A Hole in the Oak for OSE. Usually priced at 7.50 in PDF, this 40-page adventure A Hole in the Oak is marked down to 3.75 until tomorrow morning.

A hole in an old oak tree leads characters down to a maze of twisting, root-riddled passageways, the chambers of an ancient wizard-complex, and the banks of an underground river where once a reptile cult built their temples.

A classic expedition into the Mythic Underworld for characters of 1st to 2nd level.

60 keyed areas, rumour table, loot summary, dungeon background info, suggestions for expanding the dungeon.

Keyed in a quick-reference, bullet point format.

Statted for Old-School Essentials (B/X), usable with any vintage adventure game.

Unlabelled map included for VTT use.

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Kickstarter - Ryecroft: A Dangerous Cemetery Crawl for OSE and B/X TTRPGs (Midderlands)

I've said this before, and I'll say it again - Gylnn Seal (AKA Monkeyblood) is one of the most skilled RPG professional creators in the business. Writing, artwork, mapping, layout, you name it - he's one of the best.

Ryecroft: A Dangerous Cemetery Crawl is Glynn's latest Kickstarter. While not explicitly set in the Midderlands, it will fit right in (or likely fit most any old-school setting.)

Print plus PDF is about $52 US plus shipping.

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