Vagabond // Pulp Fantasy RPG
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Tabletop Roleplaying Games
Vagabond // Pulp Fantasy RPG
Vagabond // Pulp Fantasy RPG is a d20-based OSR fantasy game designed by Taron "Indestructoboy" Pounds - an ENnie Award-winning designer previously known for third-party D&D 5e class content - and published through his own studio, Land of the Blind. It funded its development on Kickstarter in 2023, with a print run funded via Gamefound in 2024, and fans have taken to calling it "the Pathfinder of the OSR": an attempt to bring modern character-build depth to old-school-inspired dungeon crawling without losing the rulings-over-rules, low-prep philosophy that defines games like Knave, Cairn, and Into the Odd, several of which are explicitly credited as influences.
Description
Playing Vagabond means playing pulp-flavored fantasy adventurers - the kind of setting where a Goblin Gunslinger might delve a mummy's tomb alongside a Dwarf Witch hunting Excalibur - built specifically to keep GM prep and mental overhead low while still giving players a genuinely deep character-building toolkit.
It's explicitly compatible with B/X-derived monsters, classic TSR modules, and Old School Essentials adventures, so existing OSR content drops in with little to no conversion. All rolls are player-facing, meaning players roll rather than the GM rolling against them, and creature stat blocks include a built-in "Action Gambit" describing exactly what a monster does in combat, aiming to strip improvised tactical decisions away from the GM entirely.