ONE SHEET RULES
up 2 inventory slots.
One player, the Referee (Ref), runs the game. The rest of the
players control adventurers in a world where magic works
and monsters exist. These are Player Characters or PCs.
Characters controlled by the Ref are called Non Player
Characters (NPCs).
Character Creation
Assign 3 points to your stats in any way you see fit.
Strength (STR): Used for melee attacks and saves requiring
physical power and toughness.
Dexterity (DEX): Used for ranged attacks, dodging,
climbing, sneaking, balancing, etc.
Intelligence (INT): Used for magical attacks and resisting
magical effects, tracking, navigating, searching for secret
doors, and recalling lore.
Hit Points (HP): Roll 3d3 to find out how many HP you
have.
Choose a Talent, something your character is so good at they
get Advantage. Greatsword Expert would give you
advantage when rolling to hit with a two handed sword.
Burglar would give you advantage when climbing or moving
stealthily. Talents should not be too broad, applying to one
or two things at most. The Ref has final say on whether a
Talent is acceptable.
You get inventory slots equal to your 10 + STR. For each
item you exceed this limit, 1 is added to the difficulty of all
STR and DEX tests.
Choose 3 items of Gear from this list: A Weapon, A Level of
Armor, Rations, Torches, 50 ft Rope, 10 ft Pole, Flint & Steel,
A Spellbook, Thieves Tools. Unless otherwise stated each
item takes up 1 inventory slot as does 100 coins.
Weapons come in three classes, light (e.g., daggers,
shortbows), medium (e.g., broadswords, longbows) and
heavy (e.g., greatswords, crossbows). These take up 1, 2 and 3
inventory slots respectively.
Each level of armor grants +2 to Armor Defense and takes
Thieves tools are needed to pick locks or disarm traps.
A spellbook contains an individual spell which you can cast
once a day. To do so, you must hold it in both hands and be
able to read it aloud. Your INT must be at least equal to the
level of the spell. Unless otherwise stated all spells have a
range of Near. If the spell affects a monster you must make
an INT roll against 10 + the monsters HD for it to take
effect. Here are some spells to get you started (level in
brackets):
Sleep (1). Puts up to 4 HD of monsters to sleep for INT
rounds.
Heal (1). Range touch. Heals d8 HP of damage.
Light (1). Object shines like a torch for 1 hour per INT
point.
Invisibility (2) Become invisible for 1 min per INT point or
until you attack.
Fireball (3) 1d6 damage per INT point to d4 near targets.
Anna gives her new PC Cornelius STR 3 Dex 0 and INT 0. He is
a close combat scrapper so she gives him a two-handed sword and
two levels of armor for +4 Armor Defense and chooses
Greatsword expert for his Talent.
Doing Stuff
At the start of combat, roll a d20. If the result is 11+ the
players go first, otherwise the monsters do.
There are 4 abstract ranges; Close : 0 - 5ft, Near : 5 - 60ft,
Far : 60 - 120ft, Distant : 120+ft.
On their Turn a character can move somewhere Near and
perform an action at any stage of the move. If they take no
action, they can move somewhere Far instead. Anything
beyond Far is Distant and takes 3+ moves to get to.
When the outcome of an action is uncertain roll a d20 and
add the relevant stat. If the total equals or exceeds the
Difficulty, you succeed. Difficulty is normally equal to 10 +
the HD of the monsters. If there is no opponent with HD to
contend with then base difficulty is 12.
If the Ref decides circumstances are in your favor, you have
Advantage. If the situation is against you, you have
Disadvantage. Advantage lets you roll an additional dice and
pick the best result. Disadvantage makes you roll an
additional dice and pick the worst result. Advantage and
Disadvantage on the same roll cancel each other out.
Players make all the die rolls. When a player attacks they use
the appropriate stat. When they defend in combat, they use
their Armor Defense or DEX whichever is higher against
physical attacks. They use their INT against magical attacks.
In combat a successful attack with a light weapon does d6
damage, a medium weapon does d8 damage. Heavy weapons
do d10. Improvised weapons do d4. Monsters do 1 + HD
damage. When your hit points reach zero, you die.
You heal d8 points of damage per night of rest or per ration
eaten.
Hit Dice (HD) are a measure of a monster’s strength. Each
HD grants 4 Hit Points or a d8 if the Ref prefers to roll them.
Cornelius fights a 1 HD orc and a 2 HD ghoul. Anna rolls 14 for
initiative and goes first. Cornelius strikes at the orc, adding his
STR to the d20 roll. His greatsword Talent lets Anna roll two d20
and pick the best. The total is 17. The orc is a 1 HD creature so
Cornelius only needed 11 to hit. Anna rolls 5 for damage and the
orc dies. The Ghoul now attacks. Anna rolls a d20 to defend,
adding Cornelius’s armor of +4 for a total of 9. Our hero needed
12 and thus takes three points of damage. The ghoul has
paralysing venom. Cornelius needs to make a 12+ STR roll or be
paralysed as well as taking 3 damage.
Advancement
After a successful adventure, roll a d20 for a stat of your
choice. If you roll higher than 10 + the current stat then the
stat increases by 1. If your stat increases your HP also go up
by 1d3. Two successful advances are equivalent to roughly
one level in other old school games.
CREDITS & NOTES
One Sheet Rules is intended to be a simple introduction to
Old School RPGs and can easily be played with nine year
olds and younger. (I know because I playtested it with my
youngest son.) You can use it with most all OSR adventures
and sourcebooks.
One Sheet Rules started life as a mashup of two of my
favourite Old School games, Ben Milton’s Knave and David
Black’s The Black Hack. When I heard about the One Page
RPG Gamejam 2021, I wondered whether I could squeeze a
complete set of OSR rules down to one page. I think I
managed it but a few things had to go–six stats were cut to
three, bestiaries and spell lists went right out the window
and I had to drop the Usage Dice mechanic from the Black
Hack which I really like.
Levels had already gone. I run a lot of open table games and
I hate book-keeping. I loved the Black Hack’s stat gain roll
mechanism. It reminded me of first edition Runequest from
my early days of gaming back in the 70s. Using this meant a
simple die roll at the end of the session, maybe a
modification to the character sheet and advancement was
done.
What constitutes a successful adventure? Up to you. In my
campaigns, it just means surviving the dungeon trip and
coming back with treasure. If you have different ideas, go
for it.
If you want to put levels back in, it’s easy enough. Just start
the players with d8 HP and have them gain a level and a d8
HP every two successful advances. Or substitute XP for gold
or milestones or any other system you like. If you hate
random stat gain let players gain +1 to two stats when they
gain a level, Or, if you are not using levels, let them gain +1
to a stat at the end of a succesful adventure, though this
obviously speeds up advancement considerably.
It’s easy to adapt spells from published OSR works. Just
scale the spells from INT instead of level and you’re good.
Adapting monsters from other OSR sources is easy too. You
can use them as they are written if you wish. The hardest
part is adjusting descending armor class and that’s not too
action. He made multiple saving throws against paralysis
and slaughtered the undead, saving his companion’s sorry
asses in the process while being reduced to near zero Hit
difficult. Just subtract the AC from 19 (or 20) if that’s your Points.
THACO and that’s the target number you need to hit.
Under such circumstances, awarding the achievement
ghoulslayer and giving advantage on all future saving throws
EXTRAS and to hit rolls against ghouls seems fair.
Damn, I still have column and a half to fill on this side of the
page and my obsessive/compulsive nature is offended by all
the white space so I am going to reinstate the Usage Dice
LICENSE
rule and add the rules for Achievements. One Sheet Rules was written by William King and is
released under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0
Usage Dice International License: You are free to share and adapt this
material for any purpose, including commercially, as long as
Usage Dice. Consumable resources such as arrows and you give attribution.
torches have a usage dice. These work in a chain that runs
from d12 at the highest to d4 at the lowest. Whenever you
roll a 1 or a 2 on the usage dice it drops down an increment
to the next lowest dice size-- a d10 becomes a d8, a d8 FREE STUFF
becomes a d6 and so on. If the roll comes up on a d4 the
Get One Sheet Magic and Monsters which does contain a
resource is totally consumed. A usage die is written in the
bestiary and spell lists by subscribing to One Sheet Review,
format uX where X is the dice size--u6 means d6 and so on.
my free monthly mailing list dedicated to One Sheet Rules
Quivers (u10)--if you are using a missile weapon such as a
bow or a crossbow, you have a d10 usage dice. Roll after each
combat in which the weapon is used.
Torches (u6)--make a usage roll every hour the torch is lit.
BIO
I am a recovering game developer who worked on
Achievements Warhammer Fantasy Battles and Warhammer 40K back in
the early 90s . I am the creator of Gotrek & Felix, the author
There will be times when a character does something so
of Space Wolf and the World of Warcraft novel Illidan. I also
awesome that their deeds cry out to be recognized. When a
write Appendix N style fantasy novels such as the Kormak
PC pulls off some particularly spectacular feat, the GM
Saga and the Dragon Bond cycle available at most online
should award them an achievement. It will normally take the
ebook retailers. I would be very happy if you bought one!
form of advantage on a specific type of roll connected to
Thanks for reading this far. All the best,
what they did. It’s hard to quantify what qualifies for an
achievement, but you will know it when you see it. Bill King, Prague, Czech Republic, July 2021..
For example, during a playtest, Peter’s character single-
handedly fought off a small army of ghouls while the rest of
the players ran away, hid, were paralyzed or otherwise out of