Base Rules

DnD-adjacent rules inspired by Arnold K’s Goblin Laws of Gaming (GLoG) and the general GLOG community on discord, particularly Locheil.

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 20-faced die and add a number from your character sheet to the roll to see if you succeed in your action. If the situation is easy, the result must be above 10 to succeed, if it’s normal, you have 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: Fortitude, Dexterity, and Willpower. Roll 1D6+2 for each to determine their value.

You also have as many Hit Points as your Fortitude score.

You can have as many things in your Inventory as twice your Fortitude score.
You can have as many things in your Psyche as twice your Willpower score.

Choose a Character Class. Add the class’s starting equipment to your Inventory, its skills and spells to your Psyche and the class’ Template A abilities somewhere else on your character sheet.

If you want, you can add beliefs in your characters Psyche to fleshen it. The referee will reward you for following them.

Voilà!


Stats & Skills

Your stats and skills cannot be higher than 10. If a stat becomes 0, you become paralyzed.

Fortitude represents your physical prowess. You roll it for strength and endurance-related feats.

Dexterity represents your grace and reflexes. You roll it for mobility feats like climbing, jumping and running away, and also to dodge attacks and hit things.

Willpower represents your mind and personality. You roll it for social interactions, but also to resist spells and overwhelming emotions such as fear.

Example: Using a Stat

Beau is running away from a troll. He rolls a D20 and adds his Dexterity for a total of 17. This is higher than 15 and means that Beau is out of reach in another location of his choice. However, Gretchen, Beau’s ally, rolled 12. That means she hasn’t escaped the troll, and both of them will have to keep fighting in the next room in the dungeon.

A Skill can be anything (flower arrangement, swordplay, etc.). When asked to roll for an action, if it would thematically make sense, for 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). Your skills are stored in your Psyche.

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.

Hit Points (or HP) is the amount of damage you can take before getting Wounded.

Armor is the amount of damage you ignore when an attack hits you. You have 0 armor by default.


Inventory, Psyche & Beliefs

Inventory. You have as many slots as twice your Fortitude. Inventory slots can be filled with objects, but also get filled with the Scars and mutations you gain along the way. You gain Scars when you get Wounded and they can only be removed by magic.

Small items like potions and daggers can be stacked in your inventory in packs of 3 of the same type. It takes your turn to retrieve an item during combat unless it is in your first 3 slots.

Psyche. You have as many slots as twice your Willpower. Psyche slots can be filled with Skills, Spells, Followers and Beliefs, but also with emotional scars you gain along the way. You gain scars when you get Wounded.

You cannot go above your psyche slot limit, but you can always forget a Skill, a Spell, or a Belief, or send a follower back home. You can’t, however, get rid of a scar like that.

You can have as many Beliefs as you want, and they can be anything. You can change them and add more each time you level up. At the end of an adventure, if you have taken a deadly risk for one of your beliefs, you can either remove one of your emotional scars, gain a new skill related to your risky action or obtain a new Follower.

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, a bard starts following him to chronicle his heroic adventures.


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 miss an attack with your main hand, you can make a free 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 worn piece of armor reduces damage by 1.
You can’t swim, sneak or jump while wearing 3 or more pieces of armor.


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, Wounds, Scars & Healing

Dying: When you reach 0 Hit Points, you start dying. While you are dying, you gain a Wound at the end of each of your turns. If you reach 10 Wounds, you die. Each point of damage you take while dying also gives you an extra Wound.

While dying, you can spend your whole turn to attempt to stabilize. Make a hard Fortitude roll. On a success, you stop dying and have 1 HP. An ally that can reach you with an appropriate Skill or tool can spend their turn making a hard Willpower roll for the same effect. You also stop dying if you recover HP any other way.

Stabilizing does not heal your accumulated Wounds. Instead, you gain a Scar. You choose whether the scar will take an Inventory slot or a Psyche slot. As long as you have it, all your rolls against the danger that puts you in that situation are easy rolls.

Healing: A 8 hours rest heals all HP losses and consumes 1 ration for the team.

Medical care heals all Wounds. Medical care happens when you end an adventure in a safe location with healers.

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 Fortitude roll. Failure! She gains one Wound.

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 Fortitude roll again. She now has 2 wounds. Beau attempts to save her using bandages. He succeeds his hard Willpower roll! Gretchen stops dying, but still has 2 wounds until the end of the adventure.

Gretchen has a new Scar. She decides it is going to take an Inventory slot. From now on, she won’t be caught off-guard by a troll. All her rolls against them become easy.


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 4h of the day (Dawn, Midday, Afternoon, Dusk, Evening, or Night). The referee rolls for encounters each time you enter a new location, explore a location or rest.


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 valuable, and 4 valuables are worth 1 treasure. More details for the referee here!


Carousing!

When you are back to town after an adventure, it is time to spend your loot. Here are a few options:

Celebrate

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.

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.

Some options open up when you have access to specific things:

Study a Spellbook

You need a Spellbook and a Treasure worth of 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.

Craft with Materials

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.

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.


Leveling Up

You level up when you spend the equivalent of a Treasure in any of the carousing activities mentioned above. 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 template of your class in alphabetical order or take the template A of another class (up to 4 templates total).

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 you have Spell Dice.

Written on November 9, 2020