The Grim Odd

This is a grim world. Any life lived in this world shall be nasty, brutish and short. 
This is an odd world. From the foul cracks and fissures of the world creeps a strange and omnipotent current – the Odd. Some say the Odd suffocated the gods. Others insist the Odd is the gods. In either case, the Odd animates the living world and it presents opportunities for the daringly ambitious.

The Grim Odd is a fantasy roleplaying game that takes place in a perilous world of unjust dealings and unworldly strangeness. Roll up a character quickly, search for magical artifacts known as Oddities, and delve - as a group or alone - into a roleplay experience where rules are mere tools to facilitate the application of the internal laws of the world itself (wow!).

The Grim Odd includes:

• A brief welcome.
• Laws of the world that both the Judge (GM) and the players play by.
• Simple rules, but also a larger toolbox to pick from.
• Quick character generation, but also a more developed version.
• D66 table of strange and dangerous Oddities.
• Adventure-generating tables.
• An "auto-Judge" for solo or co-op play.

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Inspirations, design philosophy and art

The Grim Odd itself began as a desire to combine the medieval fantasy world of Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay (Games Workshop) with Chris McDowall’s Into the Odd and its emphasis on magical artifacts. Also, the odd trinkets of Mörk Borg found its way into the text.

In terms of game design, The Grim Odd identifies itself as Free Kriegsspiel Revolution game where rules are tools, where player-to-Referee trust is imperative, and where what really matters is playing the game world by its laws and not by the game's rules. The notion of playing by the world's laws rather than game rules is inspired by a splendid blog post by Sam Doebler of the Dreaming Dragonslayer.

The ever evocative art is used with permission from Perplexing Ruins.

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Why a Remaster?

First: I felt like returning to it, having had a lot of fun with it since its original publication. The original is still available if you like its vibe - and particularly its character classes pyramid which I do miss a bit in the remaster ... whatever.

Second: This Remastered edition keeps the original core and vibe, but has cleaned-up the text, added extra tables, an approach for solo and co-op-players, and generally a bunch of additional optional tools to deepen dice mechanics and flesh out characters, combat and corruption from the Odd. Also, a few more evocative pieces of Perplexing Ruins have been added.