Just One Torch

This is a 30-page toolkit compiled and edited together from several sources to help a solo player experience Old School Revival (OSR) games like Basic Fantasy or Old School Essentials or other 0D&D inspired games.

This toolkit includes:

1. Updated character creation rules
2. A short list of moves to provide opportunities for "soft" GM intervention or manipulation to make the game more tense or exciting, but are not necessary for play.
   
3. Sources of inspiration like Shawn Tomkin's excellent Action+Theme Oracles from Ironsworn (used with permission under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0), Necropraxis' Hazard Die, Twist mechanics from FORGE by Oliver Fradgley, and travel moves inspired by The Angry GM.
4. New combat mechanics that take a different approach than the classic "1 hit can auto-kill multiple 1 HD enemies" where the damage you receive is modified, but the damage you deal is not. This makes it harder to kill you, but also harder for you to kill your enemies, helping to retain the OSR feel
5. Survival Mechanics inspired by Kevin Crawford that includes Exposure, Illness, and Exhaustion. As well as Gear Degradation and Repair that forces you to decide just how much punishment you're willing to put up with before retreating from the dungeon.
6. Encounter tables that will help you design encounters on the fly that are appropriate for your level, but not necessarily survivable if you decide to slug it out
7. A d66 Dungeon Design set of rules that helps you explore a dungeon as you go, along with a huge list of random tables gathered from reddit to help fill in the dungeon

And more!

This is a free toolkit published under CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 to help people enjoy this hobby as much as I do. I feel some adjustments I made to other toolkits I have seen make the game run smoother, and provide more opportunities for roleplay. I wanted a system that helped capture the quintessential OSR feel: a normal person against abnormal odds.