Adventure Master SRD

What is a System Reference Document?

A system reference document (or SRD) is a categorized set of documentation that outlines the rules of a game. In this case, this SRD is for the Adventure Master tabletop roleplaying game. Use the Table of Contents on the left side of the page to navigate the SRD.

What is Adventure Master?

  • A classic fantasy adventure role-playing game where players control brave warriors, cunning thieves, and powerful spellcasters who explore perilous wilderness and dangerous dungeons, facing foul monsters and avoiding treacherous traps, in hopes of recovering treasure, power, and glory.
  • A focus on simple and minimalist rules, inspired by and easily compatible with old-school fantasy dungeon-crawling games of the 70’s and 80’s.
  • A principled approach to building a robust campaign milieu and assembling a toolbox of prepared content to create a strong framework for consistent verisimilitude and emergent play.
  • Well suited for long-term campaigns, with character levels going to 10+.
  • Systems and procedures for creating and running a classic fantasy sandbox, converting adventure modules from other games, and running yourself through premade content with “solo play.”

What is Classic Adventure Gaming?

A Classic Adventure Game is a specific type of role-playing game (RPG) experience, typical of the 1970s and early 80s. In this style of play, you and your friends step into the roles of adventurers navigating a perilous, imaginary world. One person, the Referee, describes the environment and its dangers—often a vast wilderness, sprawling labyrinths, or even towns that are treated as sites of their own unique challenges.

The core of a Classic Adventure Game is challenge-based play. The goal isn’t to follow a predetermined narrative or craft a specific story; instead, the story emerges organically as a byproduct of gameplay.

You’ll use dice to resolve uncertain actions, and every decision impacts your chances of success. The events that unfold are determined by your choices, wits, and a bit of luck. Gameplay revolves around overcoming obstacles through cleverness and strategy, focusing on survival and exploration rather than planned story arcs, improvised character acting, or cinematic combat scenes. Your character’s journey becomes the story.

This type of game emphasizes longer campaigns with a slow but steady progression in PC power. Characters start simple and are somewhat expendable, often facing overwhelming odds that demand cleverness over brute force. As they overcome dangers and discover treasure, PCs gain levels, grow in strength, and eventually might even become powerful enough to command domains. This expanded scope introduces new challenges, like leading armies in wargame-style clashes against mass hordes or managing diplomatic relations with neighboring rulers. The true point of playing is the experience of coping with these escalating challenges and threats as your characters rise through the ranks of power.

New to Role-Playing Games?

If you’ve never played a role-playing game (RPG) before, the best way to get started is simple:

  • Jump into a game: Find a local group, a game store, or friends playing and ask if you can join. Most players are happy to teach newcomers the ropes. You’ll learn by doing, and it’s the most direct way to experience an RPG.
  • Watch others play: Head online to platforms like YouTube or Twitch and search for “actual play RPGs.” Watching a session or two will give you a great sense of how the game flows, how players interact, and what a typical session looks like.

Just dive in! RPGs are about shared imagination and fun, and you’ll pick up the rules and flow quickly once you start.

New to Old-School Adventure Games?

If you’re specifically interested in the Classic Adventure Game style, here’s how to dive into this unique experience:

  • Find a Group Running an OSR Game: Seek out a Referee (Game Master) who explicitly runs “Old-School Renaissance” (OSR) games or “Classic Adventure Games.” Local game shops, online forums (like Reddit’s r/osr or specific Discord servers), or conventions are great places to find such groups. These Referees are usually happy to onboard new players and will guide you through the simpler rules.
  • Embrace the Journey: Unlike modern RPGs, the “story” in a Classic Adventure Game often emerges from the play itself—your decisions, the dangers you face, and the treasures you uncover. Don’t worry about elaborate backstories or complex character arcs initially. Focus on what your character does in the moment to survive and explore.
  • Watch Actual Play Sessions: Many content creators on platforms like YouTube and Twitch showcase “actual play” sessions of OSR games. Watching a few episodes will give you a clear understanding of the gameplay loop: the Referee describing the environment, players stating their actions, dice rolls resolving outcomes, and the story unfolding organically. Search for terms like “OSR actual play” or “B/X D&D actual play.”

The heart of Classic Adventure Gaming is discovering the world as you go. You’ll quickly grasp the straightforward rules and enjoy the challenge of exploration.

Core Principles of Adventure Gaming

Rhese principles are fundamental to the old-school style of play:

  • Referee Judgement is Key: In an old-school adventure game, the rules are not designed to cover every conceivable situation. The Referee’s judgment is crucial for resolving unexpected scenarios that arise, ensuring smooth and consistent gameplay. Respect the referee’s judgements.
  • Referee Impartiality: The Referee is there to be an impartial arbiter of the rules and the world, not to favor or hinder the players. Their job is to present challenges fairly and apply the consequences of player actions consistently, without tipping the scales.
  • Secret Information: The Referee keeps certain information about the world, its inhabitants, and its dangers secret. Players are meant to discover these mysteries through their investigations, risky actions, and clever deductions, with information revealed strategically as their characters explore and interact with the game world.
  • Embrace the Unknown: The world is often mysterious, dangerous, and full of secrets. Don’t expect detailed maps, extensive lore dumps, or pre-determined plots. Exploration is about genuinely discovering what lies ahead, often through trial and error.
  • Player Skill, Not Character Skill: Success in an old-school game relies more on a player’s cleverness, problem-solving, and tactical thinking than on a character’s specific abilities or stats. Using your wits to outsmart a monster, avoid a trap, or navigate a dungeon is more important than rolling high on a skill check.
  • Resource Management Matters: Torches burn out, rations run low, and hit points don’t regenerate easily. Careful tracking and strategic use of your limited resources are vital for survival. Every arrow, every spell, and every hit point counts.
  • Danger is Real: The world is perilous, and monsters are a serious threat. Combat is often deadly and best avoided through cleverness, negotiation, or evasion. Characters can die, and that possibility adds weight and excitement to every decision.
  • The World Isn’t Fair: Random encounters, harsh environments, and unfair traps are part of the challenge. The game isn’t balanced for a guaranteed win; it’s about coping with adversity and finding ways to overcome or bypass obstacles that aren’t designed to be “fair.”
  • Emergent Storytelling: The story isn’t pre-written. It’s created collaboratively at the table through the characters’ actions, their triumphs and failures, and the consequences of their choices. The most memorable narratives arise spontaneously from the gameplay itself.

Adventuring: Wilderness and Dungeons

In a Classic Adventure Game, players take on the role of adventurers, bold individuals drawn to confront danger in search of wealth, ancient secrets, and wonder. These characters are the core of the game.

The greatest danger and reward of adventure are most commonly found in two types of locations:

  • Wilderness: This refers to any perilous outdoor space, from ancient, forbidden forests and haunted swamps to wild mountain ranges and the uncharted high seas. If danger and adventure can be met under the open sky, it’s the wilderness.
  • Dungeons: These are any dangerous indoor or subterranean spaces. Think forsaken ruins hiding forgotten treasures, primal caverns where strange beasts dwell, or even subterranean cities of alien splendor and unimaginable wealth. If peril and adventure are found beneath a roof or underground, it’s a dungeon.

Elements of Classic Fantasy Games

Classic Adventure Games plunge players into a world filled with extraordinary elements:

  • A Weird Medieval Setting: The game is set in a grounded medieval fantasy world, but one where supernatural, otherworldly, weird, and wonderful elements are waiting to be discovered through exploration.
  • Treasure: The primary motivation for adventurers. This includes not only hoards of forgotten gold, but also fabled magical artifacts and items of divine power. The promise of such riches, for their material value or potent abilities, draws adventurers into peril.
  • Monsters: Formidable, inhuman creatures that lurk in both wilderness and dungeons. These can be ancient horrors, mythical beasts, strange chimeras, or beings from other dimensions, often guarding wondrous treasures.
  • Magic: A potent force, both a tool for player characters and a threat wielded by their enemies. It encompasses dark sorcery, divine rituals, summoned entities, sites of eldritch power, and occult-bound objects.
  • Fantasy Peoples: Beyond humans, the world is populated by diverse intelligent humanoids, including benevolent and malevolent fairies, subterranean dwarves, bestial humanoids, and magic-twisted mutants. Those intelligent species available for players to choose as characters are known as demihumans.