Mini-Review: Into the Odd

Into the Odd

Lost Pages' roleplaying game, Into the Odd, is an old-school game not built to mimic any particular old school RPG. With rules inspired by the original edition of Dungeons and Dragons, Into the Odd goes its own way on many levels. Author Chris McDowall fits his game into a beautifully brief 48 pages, something few RPG designers seem able to do these days.

Characters are adventurers in an early industrial fantasy world, exploring a strange underworld that houses ancient arcane items. The rules are simple, even simplistic, with characters defined by three abilities (rolled on 3d6), equipment, and sometimes by arcane special abilities. Rules are reduced to simple saving throw mechanics (roll d20 equal or under the appropriate ability score), combat assumes automatic hits, meaning you only roll for damage, and damage beyond your hit points lowers your Strength score and makes you roll a Strength save to prevent critical damage.

While this makes character creation fast and simple, it relies on some basic assumptions that may be offputting to many contemporary gamers. Characters aren't defined on their character sheets; growth as a character is largely a result of things you find and acquire because advancement is limited to adding a handful of hit points and possibly increasing your ability scores. Combat is brutal and to be avoided, and the kinds of supernatural abilities you may gain are much less clearly helpful than traditional spellcasting. On top of game rules, sketchy notes on the setting, an outdoor adventure, a dungeon crawl, and some settlements are provided, as well as random tables to help develop content and situations in-game. Sustainable long-term play is more supported by the rules for building up organizations rather than character advancement.

The setting itself seems to imply a sort of version of the underworld that evokes the Strugatzky brothers Roadside Picnic more than a standard Gygaxian funhouse, set in a world that seems more like it's out of China Mieville's Bas-Lag or Joe Abercrombie's World of the First Law.

Overall, this is a bare-bones system for a gritty weird fiction game for someone used to old-school D&D style games who wants to create a game world that builds on both the aesthetic of weird dungeon crawling and has the opportunity for characters to develop stories that grow out of that and into the implied industrial-era world.

I think it's worth raiding for short-term campaigns, one shots, and stealing ideas from.