Zine Month 2024 Recommendations

Jonah White 🎲🎮🧩
Feb 07, 2024
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The Colony - Magical Apocalypse HexCrawl

Type: Adventure | Genre: Science-fantasy | System: Agnostic

Back the project here!

With so many projects being released over the next month, I want to do my part and highlight some particularly interesting projects.

To start, there is a new release from Gabriel Kerr [GaboKerr #RPGLATAM] over on Crowdfundr. The Colony is a post-apocalyptic hexcrawl in which you play the survivors of a world-ending calamity exploring the devastated surface for the first time in a hundred years. Like any good hexcrawl, the map of the world is divided into individual hexes, with each hex containing some kind of adventure hook or bizarre location to explore.

The Colony is a system-neutral old-school adventure, meaning that it can be played with any ruleset or game you choose to plug it into. Given the post-apocalyptic vibes and emphasis on mutations, I imagine the Mutant Crawl Classics RPG would be a great fit for this.

Here’s an overview of the contents according to the Crowdfundr page:

The Colony will be a 64 page A5 PDF zine. It will contain:

  • a map of the surface world

  • 100 keyed hexes

  • 8 factions

  • mutation rules

  • hexploration guidance

Gabriel Kerr is a Brazillian TTRPG creator and publishes the newsletter GaboKerr’s RPG Insights. He is prolific, full of game design insights, and very transparent about the life of an independent creative. If interested, you can subscribe to his newsletter below.

GaboKerr’s RPG Insights

Longer form musings about tabletop gaming, indie and D&D
By GaboKerr #RPGLATAM

The Sorcerer’s Fate by Nerdronomicon

Type: Adventure | Genre: Fantasy | System: Dungeon Crawl Classics

Darkness and mayhem await the village losers sent to learn the sorcerer's fate in this 0-level funnel for Dungeon Crawl Classics.

Many of you will know that Dungeon Crawl Classics (DCC) is one of my favorite Fantasy RPGs, and that one of the reasons for that is the 0-level funnel. The idea is to take a handful of untrained (level 0) peasants, throw them into a deadly dungeon environment, and only those who come out the other side are ready to become level 1 player characters.

There are no shortage of DCC zines in this year’s Zine Month, but I want to highlight The Sorcerer’s Fate because, much like my own project, it is author Nerdronomicon’s first commercial project on Kickstarter.

The adventure promises to be expansive, with at least three locations to explore as you and your fellow villagers investigate a catastrophe on the other side of the hills that is spreading a blight into your land. In addition, the Kickstarter boasts the following features:

  • Eight new demonically corrupted creatures.

  • Seven new confounding magic items.

  • A pretty cool puzzle.

  • Handouts of creatures, essential objects, and locations.

  • Mayhem.

Terror Vision by Lex Mandrake

Type: Adventure | Genre: Science-fiction | System: Open D6

Don the jumpsuits of Spectral Exterminators in this point-crawl ttrpg adventure across a fictional 1986 NYC

While not explicitly stated on the Kickstarter page for legal reasons, Terror Vision is a new adventure designed for the Ghostbusters RPG released by West End Games in 1986. I was so impressed by author Lex Mandrake’s bravery in publishing an adventure for an RPG that went out of print over thirty years ago that I couldn’t help but back it on the spot.

While the Ghostbusters RPG is out of print, the system that West End Games used to create it is freely available under the Open D6 license. Lex has recreated a simplified version of the Ghostbusters rules using the Open D6 license for anyone who backs the Kickstarter, meaning you do not even need a copy of the original game to play.

Grotten - 1 Bit Deeper by Tommy Sunzenauer

Type: TTRPG | Genre: Fantasy | System: MÖRK BORG-compatiblie

Minimalistic oldschool tile-based dungeon crawl TTRPG. Solo, co-op, with or without a GM. 1-bit dark fantasy setting.

A funny thing about tabletop roleplaying games is that in many cases aesthetic trumps gameplay, and Grotten’s 1-bit video game visuals are my ideal aesthetic.

Emulating the old-school rogue-like RPG video games of yore, Grotten sees you randomly generating a dungeon to explore and obstacles to overcome. Using the included set of tiles, you build the dungeon, encountering monsters, treasure, and other characters along the way.

The game can be played alone or with a friend, or used as a tool for quickly creating and populating a dungeon for other games. The core rules are based on the MÖRK BORG system, making it instantly compatible with other MÖRK BORG products, but are also simple enough to be easily translated into other systems.

The Hauntings of Hyde Park by Nico MacDougall

Type: Adventure | Genre: Gothic Horror | System: The Between

Hyde Park is a greenspace of leisure for the burgeoning middle and upper classes of London alike, but beneath its rolling lawns and carefully tended horse paths lie phenomena beyond human comprehension. An individual flung far from home takes up with the mysterious Hargrave House. Hags stalk the sewers, unseen forces steal voices from the agitated masses, and floating lights abduct hapless citizens from surrounding streets. And behind it all a shadowy entity lurks, spreading foulness from his fetid palace deep beneath the Thames…

The Hauntings of Hyde Park is a supplement for The Between by Jason Cordova. The Between is a gothic-horror investigation game set in Victorian London (everyone's favorite London), in which you play investigators hunting down eldritch monsters and unraveling haunting mysteries. Hauntings expands the game with new character options, enemies, events, and mysteries surrounding the eponymous Hyde Park, known for its open lawns and soap-box preachers (both religious and secular).

Having not played The Between myself, I think that there are a lot of good ideas in this adventure that could be applicable to any gothic horror setting, including a vengeful river god, a supernatural silence that consumes Speaker’s Corner, and a herd of mysterious deer.

Precious Things by Lucas Zellers 

Type: TTRPG | Genre: Fantasy | System: Original

Your ancestors were colossal dragons with mountains of gold and earth-shaking magic. You are their proud descendants, building a hoard of your own full of magical power. It’s not easy, since you’re under two feet long.

Precious Things is a pocket-sized zine with an adorable premise: you are a tiny dragon looking to create a tiny hoard for yourself. Using the simple rules, you create a dragon, pick an object to hoard, and generate an obstacle keeping you from that object. From there you go on an adventure to add that object to your tiny hoard in an adventure that should take no more than an hour and a half.

The zine is already available for purchase, but is raising money to fund a print run of sticker sheets based on the game’s adorable little dragons (illustrated by Emily Entner).

HIC: Tapestry - Toilet Roll Paper Game by Tanuki Games

Type: TRPG | Genre: None | System: Original

HIC: Tapestry - Toilet Roll Paper Game - is a low-prep, storytelling and drawing TRPG for 1-4 players. It is inspired by the art and history of the Bayeux Tapestry which depicts the Battle of Hastings in 1066 and the Norman conquest of England.

Some games eschew the classic dice and paper in favor of more creative gameplay tools. Hic: Tapestry, may just be the first ever drawing/storytelling game that uses a roll of toilet paper as its main tool. Using a deck of cards and a list of prompts, players are tasked with illustrating the story of an important moment in history, real or imagined. Some prompts will instruct you to damage or rewrite parts of the “tapestry” creating a complex story about history and how it is recorded.

Community Radio, Second Edition by Thoughtcrime Games

Type: Storygame | Genre: Comedy/Horror | System: Original

Your town has deep secrets, terrifying monsters, unspeakable evils, a clandestine city council making strange decrees...and a public radio station!

In Community Radio, a group of 3 - 10 people gather to improvise scenes that show what life is like in this town, with accompanying public radio broadcasts. It's a game of dark humor and improvisational play that can last for 1-2 hours.

Community Radio is an improvisational storytelling game explicitly inspired by the popular fiction podcast, Welcome to Nightvale. You and a group of friends generate a weird town full of mysterious beings and inexplicable events that are treated as everyday and mundane by the locals. While I have not played the first edition, the rules seem exceptionally light and are more of a guide for creating your own personal episode of Nightvale. As a longtime fan of the podcast in question, I like this concept quite a bit.

From Midgard to Eternity by Armanda Haller

Type: Solo RPG | Genre: Fantasy | System: Original

Seasons change and time passes. Iron rusts, trees bend under their own weight and even the frigid oceans may seem to grow older. As you gaze upon the rolling waves and feel the chilly wind of the North Sea on your weary, creaking bones, ask yourself - what has been the measure of your life? What great deeds of yours do the skalds embellish and the children seek to emulate? And at the end of all things, when you take your very last breath on this realm, your heart pierced by foe’s axe or by age’s frailty, will you enter the halls of the slain, the field of the warring host, or face Hel herself?

From Midgard to Eternity (FME) belongs to the genre of journaling games, a form of single-player RPG that has you chronicling your story in the form of a journal, guided by prompts provided by the game. FME sees you take on the role of a Viking warrior near the end of your life, reflecting on the accomplishments you have made as you look forward to entering the halls of Valhalla after dying in glorious combat.

Armanda Haller is an Argentinian RPG designer who made an impression on me with her last Zine Month submission, Grandmothership, an RPG about old ladies solving mysteries in space. Her output drips creativity, and FME looks no different.

The Details of Our Escape by Tyler Crumrine

Type: TTRPG | Genre: None | System: Original
Project image for The Details of Our Escape: A New TTRPG

The Details of Our Escape is a new tabletop roleplaying game from ENnie Award-winning game designer Tyler Crumrine, two-time Eisner-nominated comics artist Linnea Sterte, and Windham-Campbell Prize winner in fiction Renee Gladman. Played with a standard 28-tile set of dominos instead of dice, players control a caravan of over 2000 people in search of a new home. What they're leaving and what kinds of strange & wonderful sights they encounter along their journey is up to you. Which party members continue all the way to the caravan's final destination, however, is up to fate.

The Details of Our Escape drew my attention with its combination of unique mechanics and poignant subject matter. Using dominoes instead of dice, this zine sees you charting the adventures and misfortunes of a community of individuals searching for a new home. There is no Game Master directing the action, instead players take turns drawing dominoes, reading prompts, and choosing how their group responds. It’s an incredibly creative setup, and one that is ripe for inspiration.