Base Rules
DnD-adjacent rules inspired by Arnold K’s Goblin Laws of Gaming (GLoG) and the general GLOG community on discord, particularly Locheil.
Last updated May 2025. Download the printable 1-pager pdf here.
How to Play
The referee describes a situation and you tell what your character would do in that context. The referee might ask you to roll a d20-faced die and add a number from your character sheet to see if your character succeeds in its action. If the situation is easy, the result must beat 10 to succeed, if it’s normal, it has to beat 15, and if it’s hard, 20. Either way, the referee describes the new situation, and so on.
Sometimes, the referee might tell you that the situation gives you advantage or disadvantage. Rolling with advantage means you roll twice and choose the best result. Disadvantage is the opposite.
That’s it!
Creating a Character
You have three main stats: Strength, Dexterity, and Willpower. Roll 1D6 + 2 for each to determine their value. Strength will determine your endurance and how much you can carry, dexterity will determine your prowess in combat, and willpower will determine you resistance to advercity and how many powers you can have.
You also have as many Hit Points (HP) as your Strength score.
You have an Inventory as big as twice your Strength score and a Psyche as big as twice your Willpower score.
Choose a Character Class. Add the class’s starting equipment to your Inventory, and its skills and spells to your Psyche. Each class level takes a Psyche slot. Note its abilities.
Give your character 1 or 2 Beliefs, which you add to their Psyche. Beliefs are anything worth dying for.
Voilà!
Skills & Beliefs
A Skill can be any knowledge, and is stored is your Psyche. When asked to roll for an action, if it would thematically make sense to benefit from one of your skills, the roll becomes easier (a hard roll becomes a normal roll, a normal roll becomes an easy roll, and an easy roll becomes a success).
Example: Using a Skill
Beau has a skill named “Swamp Dweller”. When trying to parley with a troll, the referee asks him to make a hard Willpower roll, but Beau argues that his Swamp Dweller skill would make him more relatable for the monster. The referee agrees and Beau only needs to beat 15 on his roll instead of 20.
A Belief can be anything worth dying for, and is stored in your Psyche. If you take a deadly risk for your belief during your adventures, you are be reward when Carousing.
Example: Using a Belief
Gretchen is fighting a dangerous troll. Her teammate Beau decides to leave his hiding spot to come to her rescue because he believes in selflessness. At the end of the adventure, Beau can remove a trauma from his psyche, or gain a new follower impressed by his beliefs.
Inventory & Psyche
Inventory. You have as many slots as twice your Strength. Inventory slots can be filled with objects. Small items like potions, daggers, and ammunition can be stacked in your inventory in packs of 10 of the same type. If you go beyond your capacity, you become Prone.
Psyche.You have as many slots as twice your Willpower. Psyche slots can be filled with Skills, Class Levels, Spells, Followers and Beliefs. If you go beyond your capacity, you become Dazed. You can only remove things from your Psyche when Carousing.
Combat
Turn Order: You act before the monsters unless they have surprised you.
Your Turn: You can move nearby, speak and do one other action, like casting a spell or attacking.
Attacking: The referee will tell you if the target is easy, normal or hard to hit. Roll Dexterity. If you hit, roll your weapon’s damage die and the referee subtracts it from the target’s HP. Reducing a monster’s HP to 0 kills it. A die roll of 20 on an attack means double damage.
On the monsters’ turn, they might attack you. In this case, you’ll have to dodge.
Dodging: The referee will tell you if the monster’s attack is easy, normal or hard to dodge. Roll Dexterity to avoid it. A die roll of 1 on a dodge means double damage.
Example: Combat
Gretchen is fighting a dangerous troll. She acts first. On her turn, she yells at her teammate Beau to stop being a coward, swings her sword at the troll, and moves to the edge of a pit, hoping to lure the monster into a precarious position. The referee tells her to make a normal attack roll, so she rolls a D20 and adds her Dexterity hoping to get above 15. The result is 18, it’s a hit! Her sword inflicts 1D8 points of damage to the troll, who is infuriated.
It’s the troll’s turn! The referee announces that the monster chases her to the edge of the pit and swings its club at her. She must dodge! She rolls a D20 and adds her Dexterity. 15! It is not enough to avoid the troll’s powerful blow. The referee rolls the monster’s damage: 8. Gretchen loses that many Hit Points, bring her to 0. She starts dying.
Dying, Scars, Trauma & Healing
Dying: When you reach 0 Hit Points, you fall prone and you start dying. If you take damage while dying, you die. If you recover any hit point while dying you stop dying.
On each of your next 3 turns, you can attempt to Stabilize instead of doing anything else. Make a hard Strength roll. On a success, recover 1 HP. An ally can spend their turn making a hard Willpower roll for the same effect if they can reach you with appropriate tools or skills. After 3 turns, if you are still dying, you die.
If you recover from dying, you gain a Scar. If you die, all your companions gain a Trauma.
Scars: Scars take inventory slots and cannot be removed. Note what caused the scar. As long as you have it, you have advantage against that thing.
Traumas: Traumas take psyche slots and can only be removed through risking your own life for one of your beliefs. Note what caused the trauma. As long as you have it, you have disadvantage against that thing.
Healing: A 8 hours rest heals all HP losses and consumes 1 ration for the team. Resting requires shelter and heat.
Example: Dying
Gretchen is dying from a troll attack. On her turn, she calls her ally Beau for help and tries to recover. She rolls 19 on her Strength roll. Failure! She is two turns away from death.
Beau arrives at the scene. He has bandages and could try to stop the bleeding, but the troll is still there and one hit from it could kill Gretchen. He decides to try to push the troll down the nearby pit instead. Success! On her next turn, Gretchen fails her hard Strength roll again. She is now one turn away from death! Beau attempts to save her using bandages. He succeeds his hard Willpower roll! Gretchen stops dying, and gains a scar which takes an invetory slot. From now on, she won’t be caught off-guard by a troll. All her rolls against them have advantage.
Exploring
Time is tracked differently when you travel outdoors or in a dungeon. Dungeons are divided in rooms. Inside a dungeon, any worthwhile action like investigating a room or battling takes 10 minutes. You roll to see if your torches deplete every 10 minutes and the referee rolls for random encounters every 30 minutes. You can cross 10 safe rooms you have explored per 10 minutes, or 3 if you want to be discreet.
The world outside of a dungeon is divided in hexagons. Any worthwhile action like crossing or exploring a hex lasts 6h of the day (Morning, Day, Evening, or Night). The referee rolls for encounters each time you enter a new location, explore a location or rest.
Melee Weapons
Improvised (wine bottle, chair) 1D4 damage, can be thrown
Light (dagger, javelin) 1D6 damage, can be thrown, can be in off-hand
Medium (sword, axe) 1D8 damage, 1D10 with two hands
Heavy (greatsword, greataxe) 1D12 damage, needs two hands
Pole (spear, halberd)
1D8 damage, needs two hands,
You have advantage when dodging melee attacks from creatures you’ve hit this turn
Two-Weapon Fighting When you roll above 20 with your main weapon, you can also make attack with your off-hand.
Ranged Weapons
Light (darts) 1 damage, can attack twice
Medium (sling) 1D4 damage
Heavy (bow) 1D6 damage, needs two hands
Mechanical (crossbow, musket)
1D12 damage, needs two hands,
must take one action to recharge
Armor
Each Armor Point reduces physical damage by 1. Chest protection gives you 1 point. Chest and head protection give you 2 points. Full protection gives you 3 points. A shield gives you 1 extra point. You can’t swim, sneak or jump if you are fully protected.
Treasures
Each object you find has a certain value assigned by the referee:
- mundane (bag of copper coins)
- useful (bag of silver coins)
- valuable (bag of gold coins)
- treasure (bag of gems)
A bag of coins takes an Inventory slot. When in town, you can trade items from one category for another in the same category (at the referee’s discretion, just say what you are looking for). Alternatively, 4 mundane objects are worth 1 useful object, 4 useful objects are worth 1 valuable, and 4 valuables are worth 1 treasure. More details for the referee here!
Leveling Up
You level up when you spend the equivalent of a Treasure Carousing. When you level up:
- Increase your HP by 2 (up to 20 total).
- Increase one of your stats by 1 (up to 10).
- Gain the next level of your class in alphabetical order or take the first level (A) of another class (up to 4 templates total).
Carousing!
When you are back to town, it is time to spend your loot! Choose one of these activities :
Celebrate and Gain Followers
Get drunk and get known! For each Valuable spent in such way, you gain a hangover and a new random friend in town. This friend will do favours for you but stay in this town. If you end up spending the equivalent of a Treasure, one of your friends becomes a Follower and goes with you in your adventures, acting as a class-less character (until it levels up!). Followers take Psyche slots.
Craft
You need raw materials (like the skin of a monster you’ve slain) to craft and spend as much loot as you want on tools. The object you craft can be anything made mainly with the provided materials. If you used mundane tools, the result will be mundane; if you spend valuable tools, the object will be special; and if you spend the equivalent of a treasure for the tools, it will be magical. Discuss what you want with the referee.
Build a Home
Spending a Valuable this way will give you 1 piece of mundane furniture. If you end up spending the equivalent of a Treasure, you also become the owner of a 30’ x 30’ structure of the shape you want.
Study a Spellbook
You need a Spellbook and a Treasure worth of arcane materials to study magic. When you study, you choose which book you are studying, gain the knowledge contained in it and roll for one of its spells. If you already know the spell, roll again.
Tame a Captured Beast
You need to have captured a feral Beast. You must spend 1 valuable for each of its Hit Dice to make it one of your followers. Each extra valuable spent training the beast teaches it a one-word order. Otherwise, it only acts to eat or in self-defence.
Contact a Horror from Beyond
You need to have an eldritch book or a way to contact an Horror. For each Valuable spent in this ritual, roll on the mutation table, choose one of the results and add it to your Inventory. The specific horrors listed on this website have their own mutation tables with extra potential benefits.
Make a Pact with a Celestial Being
You need to have a holy book or a way to contact a Divine Creature. For each Valuable spent in this ritual, roll on the Celestial Pact table in the divine creature’s description, then choose among the quests and rewards your rolled. You become bound to both and lose your soul if you fail the quest.
Build a Construct
You must have an instruction manual. Each Construct has specific instructions in their description, but it always requires magic and a lot of Treasures. On a success, you gain a very powerful follower. It is expected the party pools their resources together to craft a construct.
Bind an Elemental to You
You need to have the core of an Elemental Spirit and spend a Treasure in arcane materials. Roll on the binding table in the elemental’s description. You also gain a Spell Dice.
Followers
You gain followers by Carousing. Roll 1D6 for each of their stats. Followers can carry 3 objects and have 2 Hit Points. They can gain a class the same way a character levels up. In which case they gain +2 to all stats, and normal HP and inventory.
Spellcasting
Some classes can cast spells. They have Spell Dice (SD).
Casting a Spell
Whenever you cast a spell, you choose how many SD to invest into it. The result of the spell depends on the number of [dice] and their [sum].
If a SD rolls a 1, 2 or 3, you don’t lose it. Otherwise, you lose it until you get a night of sleep. You can’t cast without SD.
Every time you roll doubles you get closer to Catastrophe.
Catastrophe
Every time you roll doubles you gain 1 Doom Point. Roll a D20. If you roll equal to or below your doom score, you trigger a catastrophe. Triples give 3 Points, and Quadruples, 6 points. They will end your wizardly career if you don’t quest to avoid your doom.
Sigil
Some spells mention a Sigil. It’s your unique symbol. A spell cast with a Sigil takes 10 minutes to cast, but lasts forever. You can have as many Sigils up as your level.
Conditions
Blinded
All Dexterity rolls are hard.
(Not) Breathing
You can hold your breath for as many rounds as your Strength score. If you take damage while doing so, make a Strength save. On failure, you start dying.
Charmed
You fail all rolls against your charmer. If you attack, hurt, or say anything bad about them, you take 1D4 psychic damage.
Confused
You can act OR move on your turn.
Dazed
See Confused.
Exhausted
See Confused.
Frightened
You cannot interact with the source of your fear until you have spent a full turn without seeing it. Roll a D6: 1) drop whatever you are holding; 2) scream; 3) fall prone; 4) grapple the closest ally or object; 5) you are stunned for one turn; 6) run away.
Grappled
You cannot move. Roll a D6: 1) your head/mouth/throat is stuck, you can’t breathe; 2) left leg; 3) right leg; 4) left arm; 5) right arm; 6) an item you wear or hold is stuck.
Invisible
Attacking and dodging is easy. You are not seen.
Poisoned
You are disadvantaged in all your actions. Specific poisons can have unique additional effects too.
Prone
Melee combat is hard. Dodging ranged attacks is easy. Standing up takes all your turn’s movement.
Stunned
You skip your turn. All rolls are hard.