Honey Heist vs Odd Hours
Compare Honey Heist and Odd Hours side by side. See differences in complexity, dice, genre, and more.
| Honey Heist | Odd Hours | |
|---|---|---|
| Genre | Modern | Horror, Modern |
| Tags | Rules-Light, One-Shot Friendly, Comedy, Heist, Random Character Creation, Random Tables, Low-Prep, Gonzo, Fast-Paced, Theater of the Mind | Fear & Stress Mechanics, Comedy, Gonzo, Weird, Rules-Light, Random Tables, One-Shot Friendly |
| Core Mechanic | When a bear acts and the outcome is in doubt, the player rolls 1d6 against the relevant stat, Bear or Criminal: a roll equal to or under the stat succeeds, and a roll over it fails. Using the bear type's skill or doing something covered by the character's role rolls 2d6 and keeps the lowest. When the lowest die rolled is a 6, the GM introduces a twist or unseen complication. | Roll 2d6 plus one of three attributes (Wit, Grit, Strangeness) plus a relevant skill and try to meet or beat a Target Number. Combat is an opposed roll. Beat the defender by 5 or more for a critical hit and double damage. Two resources then shadow every shift: Sanity drops when the supernatural presses on your mind, and Absurdity climbs as you lean into it. You spend Absurdity to reroll a failure, shrug off a point of Sanity loss, or take the higher of two rolls. |
| Dice | d6 | 2d6 |
| Complexity | Very Low | Low |
| Availability | Free core rules | Free core rules |
| Runnability | Book tools not listed | 4 of 5 book tools |
| License | RR&D Community Licence v1.14 | Proprietary |
| Third-Party Publishing | Commercial publishing allowed — RR&D Community Licence (Grant Howitt's One Page RPGs) | Not yet researched |
| Summary only, not legal advice. Check current terms before publishing. | ||
| Publisher | Rowan, Rook and Decard (Grant Howitt) | Route 9 Games |
| Year | 2017 | 2026 |
| Languages | English | English |
| Best For | Groups who want a silly, low-prep one-shot as a crew of bears pulling a heist at a honey convention. | Groups who want low-barrier horror with a comedic streak for one-shots or short campaigns at a single weird location. It suits players who improvise from atmospheric prompts and lean into absurd moments instead of optimizing their characters. |
| Highlights | Greed moves a point from Bear to Criminal when the plan goes off without a hitch, and Frustration moves one back when the plan fails and the bear runs into difficulty. A player can shift a point toward Criminal by playing a flashback scene of the bears planning the heist, or toward Bear by eating a load of honey. The GM sets up each heist from random tables, including two security features and a complication kept secret from the players. | Sanity and Absurdity move in opposite directions, so the dark humor that raises Absurdity becomes a resource you spend to reroll failures or cancel Sanity loss. The Overnight Manager plays the gas station itself as the lead character, voicing its moods and the cryptic calls from its unseen Owners as a presence the table improvises around. Reaching 5 Absurdity unlocks Strange Abilities bought with advancement, once-per-session quirks the station leaves on you rather than powers you earn. |
| Considerations | There are no experience, advancement or campaign rules. Bear covers shrugging off damage, but the rules track no damage or injury. The sheet gives no rule for what a player does after their bear betrays the party or flips out at 6. | The Overnight Manager sets every Target Number outside a few fixed tables and decides each Absurdity award, so difficulty and pacing rest on table judgment. Combat is deliberately thin: flat weapon damage, one primary and one minor action per turn, and only basic move-and-cover positioning rather than a tactical grid. Rituals, Strange Abilities, and backgrounds come as a handful of examples the book openly tells you to expand on yourself. |