Player's Handbook · Chapter 1

Welcome

You are pioneers in 1849, crossing a dangerous frontier in search of a new life. Your goal is simple: travel west and reach the coast without dying.

Your Stats Are Dice

Every character has six stats:

Strength — force, lifting, and physical effort
Dexterity — shooting, balance, speed, and precision
Constitution — endurance and resisting illness
Intelligence — knowledge, planning, and problem-solving
Wisdom — instincts, hunting, weather, and survival
Charisma — persuasion, leadership, and morale

Each stat has its own die: d4, d6, d8, d10, d12, or d20. No two stats use the same die. A high die means you are better at that kind of challenge.

When you attempt something risky, roll the die assigned to the relevant stat. If the result meets or beats the difficulty, you succeed. If it falls short, the attempt fails and the trail may make you pay for it.

Dice Can Blow Up

If you roll the highest number on your die, it blows up. Roll the next larger die and add that result to your total.

The order is:

d4 → d6 → d8 → d10 → d12 → d20

A maximum roll on the new die makes it blow up again. Even a character with a small die can sometimes accomplish something extraordinary.

Your Party and Your Gear

Your Wagon Party is your shared traveling group. It includes the people, animals, wagon, and supplies traveling together.

Each player also controls an individual character. Your character has a personal inventory: their own clothing, food, weapons, and ammunition. The Wagon Party has a separate party inventory for shared food, weapons, ammunition, spare parts, clothing, animals, and other supplies.

Keep track of what belongs to you and what belongs to the party. A personal rifle cannot feed the whole wagon, and a party’s last spare axle is not something one person can quietly spend without consequences.

The Stakes

The trail consumes everything. Food runs out. Ammunition is spent. Oxen become sick or die. Wagons break. Illness and exhaustion spread when the party travels too hard or eats too little.

Choose your pace, protect your supplies, and decide when to take risks. A failed roll can cost time, health, equipment, or a life. If the wagon is permanently immobilized, the journey is over. If a character dies, they do not simply return at the next camp.

The coast is the reward—but reaching it means keeping enough people, animals, supplies, and determination alive to finish the journey.

Manual updated Aug 1, 2026.

The Oregon Trail

Oregon Trail 1985 Video Game Set in the 1849 Gold Rush

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CreatedMay 22, 2026

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The 1849 Gold Rush

oregon trail 1985 ttrpg adaptation - set in the gold rush of 1849

It has been nearly five decades since Jefferson sent Lewis and Clark into the unknown, and thirteen years of remembering the Alamo. On paper, the treaties are signed and the ink is dry. Texas is annexed, the Oregon territory is secured, and the Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo has officially ceded California to the United States.

Do not let the maps fool you. The West is not won. It is wild, ungoverned, and waiting to be carved apart by those bold or foolish enough to claim it. Out there, there is no law regarding property rights, and the ancestral homelands of Native tribes are about to be overrun by an unprecedented tide of travelers.

The days of the quiet, solitary pioneer are over. A new sickness has taken hold of the nation—a fever for wealth. Tens of thousands of desperate souls—the 'forty-niners'—are throwing their entire lives into covered wagons, braving cholera, starvation, and the unforgiving trail. The frontier isn't claimed. It's about to burst.

Welcome to the Gold Rush.

Glimpses