FLAIL: an old-school fantasy brawler RPG (Deposit) (Crowdfunded)

FLAIL is a new old-school oriented roleplaying game created by me, Andre Novoa, founder of Games Omnivorous. I have worked as a co-creator/publisher on many games you might know, like Mausritter, Vaults of Vaarn, Frontier Scum, Putrescence Regnant and others. As lead designer, I have also created games and settings such as The Job, Undying Sands, Bottled Sea and Hexcrawl Toolbox. My work has earned multiple ENNIE Awards, including Best Family Game 2021 (Mausritter), Best Layout/Design 2023 (Frontier Scum), Best Aid 2024 (Hexcrawl Toolbox), and Best RPG Related Product 2025 (Prismatic Wisdom).

FLAIL is a Games Omnivorous production and it's my take on the OSR genre. It blends the chaos, randomness, and vibes of Dungeon Crawl Classics with the simplicity and board-gameyness of Mausritter. The rules curate and distill ideas from many standout OSR games, with two key highlights: a tactile item-and-gear system built around physical tokens (item cards) that actually make inventory management interesting, and a combat system driven by “poker” rolls. The game is designed for short, punchy dungeon crawls and hexcrawl exploration. It grows directly out of years of building settings like Undying Sands, Bottled Sea, and Boreal Frostlands: a ruleset shaped by those worlds and made to run them.