VFDB

a village - a forest - a dungeon - a beast

You find yourself in a small village perched at the edge of a mysterious forest. These peasants are threatened by monsters emerging from an ancient dungeon: the lair of a fell beast.

A VILLAGE, A FOREST, A DUNGEON, A BEAST (VFDB) provides a rules-lite, minimalist framework for tabletop fantasy roleplay. It presumes you know the basics of the genre, fundamentals of tabletop roleplaying, and are comfortable ad-libbing. It’s meant to be simple, fast, and fun and broadly compatible with most old school modules. VFDB does not do the work for you: It helps you get started doing it yourself.

I have enjoyed reading and playing many great independent OSR products, including but not limited to the following. Thank you for the fun and inspiration! I have stolen lots of ideas from:

• Knave by Ben Milton

• The Black Hack by David Black

• Index Card RPG by Runehammer Games

• Old School Essentials by Gavin Norman

• A Thousand Thousand Islands by Zedeck Siew & Mun Kao

• THE BEAST by Grant Howitt and Christ Taylor

. . . in addition to countless other blogs, indie zines, and Reddit posts on r/osr.

The OSR community is a wonderfully kind (in my experience) and creative space and I'm very grateful for it always.