The Old School Revival rolls on and on. Free, cheap, full price – there’s a price point and flavor for everyone. I started with the BX versions back in the mid-80s. A dozen or so systems later and my geek group has three campaigns going using Basic Fantasy, DCC, and Shadowdark. Three different price points and flavors.
The best thing about OSR is the wealth of resources. This is my collection-mostly free, with a $ identifying an item for sale. Enjoy.
- Last updated February 3, 2026
What is Old School Revival?
- The Rules Were Never the Point: What “Old School” Actually means
- A Quick Primer of Old School Gaming
- Principia Apocrypha: Elementary Axioms & Aphorisms on Running & Playing Tabletop RPGs in the Old School Style
Core Systems & Rules
Basic Fantasy RPG (free)
- Downloads: homepage, core rules, equipment, field guides, modules, classes
- 4th Edition core rules-searchable version
- Monster index
- Free Online Game Tools: NPCs, dungeons, characters, height/weight, die, monster hit points
- Works in progress supplements
- Basic Fantasy RPG Adventure Catalog
- Character generators: BFRPG Character Generator, Codex.Quest
- Character sheets: Basic Fantasy versions and translations, Trails and Tails
Osric (free)
- Osric: First Edition clone with links to a range of additional resources, including original D&D content on DriveThruRPG.
Dungeon Crawl Classics ($)
- Goodman Games DCC pages: US, UK/EU
- Free quickstart rules
- A Review of Write-Ups for DCC Deities
- Purple Sorcerer’s Grimoire DCC Spellbook Utility – Generate your magic-user’s spell list *****
- Charts: Purple Sorcerer’s Useful Chart for the 0-level DCCRPG Enthusiast
- DCC RPG character sheets
Shadowdark ($)
- The Arcane Library’s Shadowdark page
- Quickstart set
- Shadowdark Tools: collection of powerful, easy-to-use tools designed for Game Masters
- Solo play: Solodark (official), Shadowstones
- Delver Dark character sheets
- Extra classes: warlock/paladin/dancer, ranger, $brawler, houndmaster, magus (battlemage), inquisitor, The Grappler
- Shadowdark feats: fighters, thieves, priests, wizards
- At the Edge of the Light: How Thieves Really Scout in the Shadowdark
Old School Essentials ($)
- Necrotic Gnome Old-School Essentials Core Books
- Old-School Essentials free resources
- Old School Essentials monsters
- Old School Essentials generators: treasures, encounter, spells memorized, magic items, NPCs
The One Ring (Not OSR, but awesome – $)
I’m a huge Tolkien junkie (books, not films), and have collected nearly all of the V1 and V2 resources. Including here because I hope they keep publishing for decades.
- Free League’s The One Ring page
- 1st Edition resources
- The One Ring 2e Homebrew Materials
- Useful Item Ideas for The One Ring RPG
- Campaign Guide to Harad
- A Kidnapping in Umbar
- Dragon’s Ring adventure
- Fan Supplement for TOR Revised Edition
- List of Aids for The One Ring
- Magic in Middle-earth Version 5
- Robin Smallburrow’s House Rules
- Magical Treasure Index for Campaign
- Handout for New players
- Compendium of Character Backgrounds 1
- The One Ring 2E Homebrew Material
- Landmarks: $Fortress of Flowers
- The Fellowship of the Green Book (A Campaign for Starting Adventures in North-western Eriador)
- Fornost Erain
Other Systems to Consider
- Megalist of Free RPGs
- Talislanta
- $Across the RPGSea: Explore South Asian Tabletop RPGs
- In Wild Places: a card-driven roleplaying game where 2 to 6 players collaborate to tell a story of a small group’s travel through dangerous wilderness.
- World Without Numbers (free edition)
- Lamentations of the Flame Princess (free edition)
- Sword & Wizardry (more info here)
- PWYW – MÖRK BORG Bare Bones Edition
- Into the Dungeon: Revived
- Those Under the Mountain
Original DnD Book Reprints (and more)
First Edition AD&D reprints (and PDFs) are available via DriveThruRPG
Solo Roleplaying
General OSR-Compatible Resources
- Blogs: Questing Beast’s list, OSR Planet’s list, The Alexandrian – Dungeons & Dragons resources, Role-playing miscellaneous,
- Lists and link collections: OSR News Roundup(weekly updates, OSR Vault, Smoldering Wizard, Grey Elf
DriveThruRPG resources
- Free OCR compatible resources
- OSR-compatible resources (not all free)
- System agnostic, free fantasy resources
- System agnostic, pay-what-you-want fantasy resources
- System agnostic fantasy resources (not all free)
Adventures & Sessions
If you’re interested in developing your own worlds or maps, I have more information on the Maps & Worlds page (coming soon).
Lists and collections
- A List of Old School DnD Sandbox Adventures
- Ultimate OSR Campaign Map
- RedMageGM pulls together a map with locations of a long list of OSR-related modules to create a complete campaign.
- YouTube introduction
- Documents via Dropbox
- 30 Greatest Adventures of All Time
- List of New Old School Adventures
- Dragonsfoot: Free Adventure Modules, 1st Edition DnD Modules, 2nd Edition DnD Modules
- Wikipedia’s List of Dungeons and Dragons Modules
- WikiProject List of Dungeon and Dragons Modules
- Dysons adventures
- No Artpunk: Vol. 1, Vol. 2, Vol. 3
- Trilemma Adventures
Modules
- The Goblin Mine: The Secret of Forsaken Peak Part 1
- Forbidden Lands:$Crypt of the Mellified Mage
- Multi-level modules: Barrowmaze
- $ Gods of the Forbidden North: Volume 1, Volume 2, Pre-gen characters
- The Stygian City
- Dungeons of Signs
- The Wavestone Monolith (Shadowdark, 3rd level)
- The Chronicles of the Lost Lands (Shadowdark, PWYW)
- Trial of the Slime Lord (0-level)
- Lair of the Lamb (0-level)
- The Melford Murder (level 1)
- Tomb of the Serpent Kings (level 1)
- The Blackapple Brugh (levels 1-3)
- PWYW – The Fall of Whitecliff (levels 1-5)
- The Hyqueous Vaults (level 3)
- Gone Fishin (level 3-5)
- $ Wheel of Evil (level 3-5)
- Red Tam’s Bones (level 3-5)
- Challenge of the Frog Idol (levels 3-6)
- Sepulchre of Seven (levels 5-7)
- Beneath the Windowless Tower (levels 5-8)
- The Monastery of the Order of the Crimson Monks (levels 5-9)
- The Quintessential Dungeon
- The Sky-Blind Spire
- Temple of the Moon Priest
- The Crypt of Luan Phein (aka Rotating Madness)
- Into the Swamp
- The Sanctuary of Urushan the Summoner
- (PWYW) Ill Met in the City
- Under the City
- The Bastion of the Boglings; or, The Forgotten Sanctuary of Solis
- They Dug Too Deep
Campaigns
- The Languages of D&D Imply a Specific Setting
- Ultimate OSR Campaign World: Collection of free RPG modules into a world
- Designing Dungeons course
- How to Help Your Players Investigate Rumors in an OSR Campaign
- The Problem with Epic Level Play: Why D&D Breaks Down when Characters Become Gods
- Why mushrooms are an underutilized but brilliant worldbuilding tool for RPG campaigns
- $ Worldbuilding: Creating Grasslands
- Demesnes & Domination – High Level Campaign Concepts: free, paid
- The Collected Pelinore
- Blackmarsh
- The Old School Referee: Build Worlds, Craft Adventure Scenarios, and Have Fun Running the Game
- Create a Settlement
- Goblin Market
- PWYW – Guidebook to the City of Dolmvay
- 20 Quick Questions for your Campaign Setting
- twenty quick questions for your campaign setting
- How to Create a Campaign in a Few Hours
- How to Easily Make a Diverse Fantasy Setting
Challenges
- 1d124 OSR-Style Challenges
- The 14 challenges in TTRPGs
- Designing OSR-Style Puzzles
- A Big List of Challenges for your Adventure
- PCs Solve 20 Black Doors
- A Comprehensive Guide to Secret Doors
- Secret Door Techniques
- Trapplications
- D20 Traps
- Traps!
- Spellbook Traps
- Tricks and Traps
Adventure Design
- So You Want to Build a Dungeon?
- Dungeon Checklist
- Dungeon Design and Stocking
- False Machine Guide to Adventure Design: Part 1, Part 2
- Dungeon Layout, Map Flow and Old-School game Design
- How I Run a Citycrawl Campaign
- Interesting and Useful Dungeon Descriptions
- Generators Guide to Dungeons
Battlemaps
- Sites: Dyson’s Dodecahedron, Partime Design, Kassoon, Czepeku’s First 50 Maps, Diana Muñoz, Cropox Battlemap Collection, Canvas Quest
- Individual: Vault of the Ancestors, Canvas Quest free maps, ARJade Map Packs: Dungeons, Phandelin Tower in winter, WOW dungeon BFD
- PosteRazor: This is an awesome site for printing large dungeon maps across pages, which can be taped together.
- Upgraded module maps: Keep on the Borderlands – Dyson Logos, Canvas Quest
Travel
Gamemastering & Mechanics
- Dissociated Mechanics: A Brief Primer
- Diagetic vs Non-Diagetic
- Core Dice Mechanics: What’s in a Core Dice Mechanic, Five Variables of Core Dice Mechanics
- Dungeon Master Screen quick reference (5e focused, but many useful tables)
- Updated Difficulty Classes
- Alexandrian: Gamemastery 101
- 5 Tips for Balancing Story and Mechanics in RPGs
- $Leicester’s Rambles: A Baker’s Dozen of D66 Lists
- How to Set Up and Use Faction Turns
- Do you need balance in your roleplaying game?
- Secrets are spells that transform your horror campaign
- Level Up Everyone and Everything
- When to Use Search Rolls
- How to Handle Parley as an OSR DM
- Errors When Negotiating with Monsters
- How to Handle Parley as an OSR DM
- EVERY initiative level
- Encounter Reaction/Morale Table
- Unarmed Combat
- $ Liber Umbrae (horror rules)
Playing the game
House rules
- Dreadlord Campaign House Rules
- Shields Shall be Splintered!
- Alternative initiative systems: ‘Split-side’ and ‘guerrilla’ initiative
- Morgan Brackish Meadows’ Anti-Hammerspace Item Tracker
- Alternate Lockpicking
- Grappling
- Grappling rules, compared
- The One Death & Dismemberment Table to Rule Them All
- My favorite B/X house rules / changes / bits from other editions
- Justin’s House Rules for OD&D
- Homebrewer’s Pantry
- Snowball – winter game rules
Tables
Game management
- Playing Cards for Dynamic Initiative
- D&D actions quick reference
- Making a Journey
- Don’t Roll, Think
- On the Oracular Power of Dice
- Hazard System – What can happen during any turn
- Reaction Rolls – How NPCs or monsters react to PCs
Injuries and healing
- Death and Dismemberment Table + Early Retirement Tables
- Horrible Wounds in OSR Games
- Improved Death and Dismemberment Table
- Death and Dismemberment (GDocs version)
- Classic D&D Injury Table
- BFRPG Permanent Wounds supplement
Fumbles
Session tracking
- Dungeon Time Tracker
- Hexcrawl Running Sheet
- Session notes with loot
- Exploration Time Tracker
- BFRPG Adventure Log by Scott Abraham
Worldbuilding
Characters & Creatures
Characters and NPCs
- Rethinking classic classes
- Custom classes: The Blademaster, The Seeker, Grave robber, Lingering Soul (class/post-death), The Awoken (humanoid sentient weapons), $The Kobold, (PWYW) Basic Alchemist, $ The Alchemist, $ The OSR Chymist, BFRPG Armorer, BFRPG Barbarian, BFRPG Bardic Characters, A New Take on the Bard, Witch, Amazon Huntress, Wizards (schools), Shamans, Fleshcrafters. Apothecary, Shadowdancer, Ninja, Mountebanks, Feral Dwarf, Elven Warder, Halfling Warslinger, Ratpeople, Bariaur, Children of the Sea, Minotaur, Duckfolk, Bear warriors, Pathfinder Illusionist, The Cook, Alternate Wizard, Barbarian: Path of the Ill-Omened
- Character/NPC generators: DM Heroes (no stats), AD&D 1e NPC Generator,
- Pregenerated characters: BFRPG 3rd level pregenerated characters, Characters (Dyson)
- The Bastard Chromas (includes a business and house)
- Howling Tower: How I make a unique character out of their culture – Part One, Two, Three
- Groups: BX Army Generator
- d20 NPC Wiki
- NPC Adventuring Parties: Friends for CR 2 to 20 and everyone inbetween
- Chrysogon’s Coterie (BFRPG NPCs)
- People Are Problems: NPCs as Challenge Elements
- Journeyman, Expert, Master: Free edition, Race-as-class
- Effigies of Inveracity: collection of replacement, drop-in classes for B/X games
- Images: Tomasz Ryger
- D100 Oddities for New Characters
- Background professions
- Exceptional Traits
- Bardic Songcasting
- Greek Cleric Powers
- Water Cult Cleric spells
- Blood Druid/Blood Witch
- Some Words on Dwarven Culture, A Few More Words on Dwarven Culture
- Dwarves of Death
- All new, all-weird elf
- Elven Culture and Magic
- Halfling advancement
- Hirelings, Personnel and Pack Animals
- Building Castles
- Construction Rules
Creatures and Monsters
- Monstro.cc: A comprehensive OSR monster bestiary tracking creatures across multiple sourcebooks and systems.
- Scribbling or Something’s 100+ monsters
- Old School Essentials monsters
- Creatures: Goblin Shadowmancer and Shadowblade, Hobs – Household and Familial Spirits for Cairn, Vespoids, Expanded Golems, juiblex, ochre jellies, mimics, gray oozes, gelatinous cube, blob of annihilation, black puddings, mind flayers, oblexes, alkilith, star spawn, silthilar, sibriex, blood oozes, carrion crawlers, elder brains, grimlocks
- Undead: Death Denied (192 pages of undead), crawling hands, cadaver collector
- Monsters: Jangsanbeom, The Sackfather, Time Eater
- Collections: Flee, Mortals! The MCDM Monster Book
- Animals: axe beaks,
- Groups: Cults of the Formless One
- Random Monster Generation
- $Strange Monster Generator
- Bearded Devil’s Monstrous Monday feed
- Monsters of Myth
- D50 Puzzle Monster Death Requirements
- Towards a Taxonomy of ‘Trick’ Monsters
- Monster diseases
- Something Nasty in the Water (imaginitive diseases)
- Book of Beings
- Eating the D&D Monster Manual
Sidekicks
- Familiars
- BFRPG Familiars
- F is for Familiars
- 100 Chaotic Familiars
- You’re Doing Familiars all Wrong
- Bottle Imps
Crafting, Equipment & Magic
Equipment
- D&D Shop Catalog
- Common items
- The Met: Arms and Armor – Misconceptions and Frequently Asked Questions
- Rations: What do those Rations Cost Anyway?, What the #&*$ do adventurers eat?
- $Ships and Buildings
- Tabletop Trinkets by JJ – Literally thousands of trinkets, objects, vials, books, rings, amulets, weapons, armor, equipment, minor magic items and just plain junk for all of your roleplaying needs.
- Conflux Curios
- BFRPG Equipment Emporium
- Historical weapon and armor lists: Introduction & Prehistory, Antiquity, Dark Ages, High Medieval, Late Medieval & Renaissance
- War Masks of the Wolf Khans
- Equipment from the Mythic Pacific Northwest
- Body armor (tons of pics)
- AD&D Poison Notes
- Psychoactive substances for adventurers
- More shields
Spells
- What is a Spell?
- Sneaky Sorcery, Felidigitation, Magic Compendium Companion (460 adapted spells)
- Spell Research and Magical Industry: Part 1, Part 2
- 4e Spells as Treasure
- Wizard Spell Research Variant
- Cantrips
- Sumerian Spell Names
- Spells of Thread and Rope
- Old School Spells Reference
- Elven Warder Magics
- Speleo (cave) Magic
- Fighter spells
- Rune magic
- Curses!, 48 Random Curses
- Blood druid spells
- BFRPG New Spells
Treasure
- Hyperborean goods, loot, and treasure
- 10 uncommon coins
- Ornamental gems
- Gemstones: Semiprecious (base 50 gp value), Fancy (base 100 gp value), Precious (base 500 gp value), Gems (base 1,000 gp value)
- A Hoards for Every Treasure Type: A, B, C
- Books (as treasure)
- Treasure Tells a Story
- A Hamsterish Hoard (magic items)
Magic Items
- Conflux Curiosities
- Better Magic Item Prices
- Magic Items That Are Better Than Nothing
- SA Hunt – D100 Strange But Useful Magic Items
- Many Sided Dice articles about magic items
- Weak Magic Items for 5e generator
- Making +1 Swords Feel Magical
- Potions
- Weird Swords and Not-Swords
- Different Magic Swords: A Proposal
- Evocative +1 Sword Replacements
- On Magical +1 Swords
- Black swords
- Cursed swords
- On Magical +1 Weapons
- (Magical) Arrows of Zao
- 6 Magic Potions, 6 More Magic Potions
- Basic wands, Attack wands
- One-Page Rings, 1d10 Magic Rings
- Cursed items: Cursed Scrolls, Coin of Confusion
- Magical Ropes
- Magical Candles
- Magic Hats
- Mystical minerals
- Mitral spheres
- A Few Bits of Hedge Magic
- Gauntlets of Grasping
- 100 Minor Magic Items
- Curses and Stuff
- Artifact Generation
- Eíre Artifacts
- The Throne of Bone
- Frost magic items
- Growing magic items
Crafting magic items
- Magic items are born not made
- Magic item creation (Bat in the Attic)
- Magic Item Recipes
- Recipes for every magic item in the Dungeon Master’s Guide
- Crafting Magic Items
- Putting the Magic in Magic Items
- Magic Item Creation (Primal Magic Wiki)
- Making Manufacturing Magical Items More Magical
- Supernatural Masterpieces
- An alternate way to generate magic weapons
- One-Page Wands of Detection
Crafting sentient items
- Forging a Sentient Magic Weapon
- OSE’s Sentient Swords
- The Steel Born – Martial Sentient Weapon Class/Race
- Sentient Weapon
- BFRPG Soul Forged Armor
Making potions
- Gathering and Crafting Guide
- Potions Recipe and Component Guide
- Potion Brewing and Ingredient Gathering for DnD 5e
- Component Collecting and Potion Crafting Guide
- $ Grom’s Guide to Potion Brewing
- Brewing a potion (near the end)
- 100 monster parts for reagents
- Perfect Potion List
- A Potion is Actually…
Making scrolls
- A Player’s Guide to Scrolls for the Aspiring Spell Scribe
- Dump Stat’s Scrollscriber’s Supplies
- Scrollscriber’s Supplies
- DnD 5E Complete Guide to Spell Scrolls
Crafting
Alchemy & herbalism
- The Illustrated Guide to Herbs for RPGs
- Materia Medica (Herbalism and foraging)
- The Guide to Herbs
- Alchemical Reagents and Rare Herbs
- Adventuring gear + alchemy items
- Alchemy + Oozes
- Alchemy: The Junkie’s Science
- Alchemical Apparatus
Food & drink
- Barrooms and Brewmasters: Homebrew Rules for Pathfinder RPG – drinks, spell brews
- $ Fantasy Street Food Adventuring
- Monster Menu-All, Monster Menu-All 2: Veins of the Earth
- Edible Monsters – Part One, Part Two, Part Three, Part Four, Part Five, Part Six
- 100 Magical Foods to Serve in Fantasy Taverns
- Dungeons & Dragons – The Great List of Food & Drinks
- Foraging Results Supplement
- Foraging and Farming Rules for Classic D&D
- Tremendous Taverns & Intriguing Inns
Other Topics
- Why Elon Musk Needs Dungeons & Dragons to be Racist
- Between Gygax and Kafka: The Dungeon as Existential Space in OSR Games
Page images
Weapons by ddraw on Freepik