SoloRPG

OSR Retroclone Monstrous Action Cards

Added 2022-08-19 09:24:17 +0000 UTC

Heya everyone,

I often use little cards with random tables on them in solo play, as you might have already guessed from the Deck of Point Crawl locations and other card collections!

Having played through a lot of OSR Retroclone adventures with my son during the holiday break, I made a small system of monster cards to spice things up for us during combat, or when we just needed an answer to ‘what happens next’ in battle.

Instead of flowcharting realistic actions, which I find a bit boring, these cards lean more into the aspect of OSR Retroclone gaming that I find the most interesting while solo gaming: the old scool tradition of the DM making quick and dirty rulings on the fly.

Basically, these cards offer an easy-to-use solo addon to emulate these fun/wacky DM discretionary rulings and improvisation during combat in OSR Retroclone games.

This first part includes the rules, and cards for zombies, hill giants, wererats, snakes, goblins, and gelatinous cubes. Feel free to let me know what type of monsters you would like to see added next for future updates!

Here are some fun links to OSR Retroclone rulesets available for free:

Basic Fantasy (personal favorite)
Labyrinth Lord
Osric
Dark Dungeons

All the best,

John