Character Creation: Into the Odd

This kind of game fascinates me.

The Game: Into the Odd
The Publisher: Free League Publishing
Degree of Familiarity: None
Books Required: Just the one

Into the Odd is a game in which the players take on the roles of explorers setting out from Bastion, "the only city that matters," into the wilds to find treasure and "Arcana" (magic items). Like Troika!, there is a setting, but it's never explicitly described or spelled out except in the example wilds. Which, admittedly, take up most of the book, so you could call that setting detail, but it consists of a lot of random tables. The setting info is not presented as a setting so much as the playable part of the game, which if you think about is very intuitive. Other games - Troika!, Death in Space, Liminal Horror (kinda), I know there are more I'm forgetting - do something similar. I guess it's an OSR vibe; I'm still not 100% sure I could pick OSR out of a lineup if it were a person.

So why do these games always feel incomplete to me? The production values of Into the Odd are fantastic, the system looks fine (it does what it needs to do and not a milligram more), and the game would be perfectly playable. Is it because the game never delves into the at-the-table assumptions of what actually happens during a game? Like, there's an example of play (and a good one!), but never a hand-holdy bit that tells you what an RPG is? And if that's the issue, then fucking why? Anyone who would pick up Into the Odd knows what an RPG is, and while I usually find value in those discussions because I think it's interesting to see where the designer's head is, they aren't necessary. 

It's interesting too because I collect RPGs, and I'm still getting plenty that are more traditional in structure. But I wonder the same thing about Into the Odd that I wonder about a lot of games - does anyone play it? (I put it on my recent one-shot menu for my friends, but they picked Heckin' Good Doggos and I can't really blame them.)

Anyway, let's make a character. This is hella quick. 

I roll 3d6 for each of my three stats, so that gives me: Strength 12, Dexterity 7, Will 6. Oof. I am kind of strong (10 is average) but not fast and not smart. Hit points gets a d6...6! At least I got that going for me. 

So now I check a table for my Starter Package. This matches my highest Ability with my HP, and gives me: A maul, a chain, and a dagger. That kinda works, actually. I'm a brute sort of guy, but I can take punishment. I want to avoid a Conan-like backstory, though, so let's say my guy is a hauler. He worked on a ship doing salvage. Folks would dive down and attach chains to treasure and my guy - let's call him Rontill - would help haul it up. He had the maul around to bonk any uppity creatures that came up with it.

Rontill is a big, muscular, burly dude. He wears leather boots and cotton pants, and usually eschews a shirt but if we're going underground or something he begrudgingly wears a tunic. He has a dagger in his boot and a chain wrapped around his torso. He's got a heavy brow that makes him look like he's thinking really hard. He's not. 

And that's it!