Odd Delvings Basic is a fantasy roleplaying adventure game playable with pencil, paper, and dice. Players take on the role of meddlers delving into mysterious places, learning about strange magics, and getting into trouble, all of which is facilitated by an impartial referee. The ruleset is meant to be light and the play style encourages creative problem-solving over rolling dice.
This rule set is released under CC-BY-SA 4.0. Refer to License for more info. Refer to the Bibliography for sources and inspiration.
SRD version 1.0.
Franco A. Alvarado / Root Devil
Bibliography
Odd Delvings Basic is cobbled together in the folk tradition of homebrew gaming tables with various ideas, mechanics, inspirations, and philosophies borrowed (looted) from treacherous delves into blogs, forums, chat groups, adventures, and systems. A complete catalogue of those would be impossible due to the ephemeral nature of memory and the litigious natures of certain organizations who don’t even like to be mentioned.
The game is explicitly a remixing of Cairn with additional direct inspiration from Mythic Bastionland, Errant, and Block, Dodge, Parry.
Specific Citations
- Skills based on “Time, Gear & Skill” by Lars Huijbregts
- Player Roles from Errant by Ava Islam
- Social Interactions inspired by “How to Handle Parley as an OSR DM” by Arnold Kemp
- Magic is from the GLOG Magic Hack for Cairn by Yochai Gal
- Blaze of Glory is inspired by Famous Last Words by Patrick Buechner
- Returning from Death is inspired by “We Live Again” by WF Smith
- Gambits are from Mythic Bastionland playtest documents by Chris McDowall
- Duels are based on “Duels in OSR” by Emmy Allen
- Site Clock is based on “The Underclock” by Arnold Kemp
- Cooking is from “If you smell what the party is cooking” by Lars Huijbregts
- Downtime Actions takes rules from Errant, by Ava Islam and On Downtime and Demesnes by Courtney Campbell
- Hoarding is from Lilliputian by Matthew Morris
- Boasts is based on Wolves Upon the Coast by Luke Gearing
- Wants table under Motivation from Cairn Adventurer’s Guide by Adam Hensley
- Lockpicking Minigame is taken from “Procedural Lockpicking Revisited” by Telecanter via Errant by Ava Islam
General Inspirations
- Into the Dungeon Revived
- Cyber
- Brighter Worlds
- Spellburn and Battlescars
- Block, Dodge, Parry
- Into the Odd
- Wolves Upon the Coast, Book I: Rules
- Chaos Reigns
- Meteor
- Monolith
- Liminal Horror
- Octave
- Knave
- Grave
- Prismatic Wasteland
- Emmy Allen
- Arcane Ugly
- Mausritter
- Five Torches Deep
- Stars Without Number
- Maze Rats
- Apocalypse World
- Monster of the Week
- DURF
- Ironsworn
- Old School Essentials
- Morkborg
- Ryuutama
- The Monsters Know What They’re Doing
- Principia Apocrypha
- Errant
- Blades in the Dark
- The Alexandrian
- Necropraxis
- Traverse Fantasy
- DIY & Dragons
- Dreaming Dragonslayer
- Gus L.
- Telecanter
- Dungeonfruit
- Skerples
- ICRPG
- Lumen
- Funnel for Cairn
- Victory Basic
- Wastoid
- Plerion
- Mindstorm Press
- Goblin Laws of Gaming
- Cairn Adventurer’s Guide
- Kala Mandala
License
Only the text of the SRD and Principles is released under a CC BY SA 4.0 license. You are free to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format, and you are free to remix, transform, and build upon the material for any purpose, even commercially, as long as you
- Give credit to the author Franco A. Alvarado, but not in any way that suggests that he endorses you or your use
- Share alike, meaning that if you remix, transform, or build upon this SRD, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original
Any artists contributing artwork maintain copyright of their work.