A downloadable game

Buy Now$1.00 USD or more

A 4-Stat, Point-Buy, OSR-Inspired Game of Deadly Adventure.

Designed to be easy to pick up for new players. Journeys into the Unknown is quick, thematic, and deadly.

Inspired by games made by: Ben Milton, Brandish Gilhelm, Chris McDowall, and Gavin Norman.

But unconstrained by the original B/X game!

Features:

  • Four easy to understand stats for new players. No derived stats!
  • Point buy for character creation. Players sometimes want a little more control over their characters.
  • A morality tracker that's more intuitive than standard alignment.
  • Low character health. Max health is 40 for player characters!
  • Death at 0 health! No saves!
  • 10 lineages (races) to choose from!
  • No classes! Create the character you want by advancing and gaining up to 9 of the 32 different traits in the game.
  • Diegetic advancement. XP is granted when characters perform certain actions within the game.
  • Gear that uses item slots for meaningful, but easy encumbrance tracking.
  • No rolling to hit! Just roll your damage!
  • Player skill and description is paramount.
  • 64 spells to be found while adventuring!
  • Two booklets! One for players and one for the referee.
  • Use of all the dice in a standard set of polyhedrals. We bought these dice, let us use them!

This work is licensed under Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International Don't be mean. Give credit. Be awesome.

Purchase

Buy Now$1.00 USD or more

In order to download this game you must purchase it at or above the minimum price of $1 USD. You will get access to the following files:

Journeys Into the Unknown Revamp Player's Guide v1.1.pdf 1 MB
Journeys Into the Unknown Revamp Referee's Guide v1.1.pdf 1 MB

Development log

Comments

Log in with itch.io to leave a comment.

Just a bit of feedback: I really like the monster creation guidelines, but are there any plans to include more abilities in a future update? Just imagine! d20 or even d66 Interesting Abilities. You’d be unstoppable!

(+1)

I was thinking of making an expanded form for zinequest in Feb (not the current one). 

We shall see!

You are level 1. Choose a name and answer: Why have you chosen to adventure? Why are you working with the others in your group?

This is just a beautiful step. I’ve added this as a house rule in the past, and it’s great to see it built into a system.

Actually, reading through this document is like reading through a “things I like to see in RPGs” highlight reel. Very well done!

(+1)

Thank you! That's kind of how the document started. It's almost like my personal "greatest hits" from all the RPGs I love.

Nice!! Love the GM advice. Also the way armor works is unique and elegant. Basically, it’s damage threshold. A bit easier than having to do math. 

Yes! I definitely tried to eliminate "extra steps" in everything. This included math when possible, especially subtraction. This is probably a side-effect of having run for kids as well as adults.