Kickstarter - Quest for Zines: a Zine Quest Zine About Zines

"A zine about zines." It's almost Seinfeld-esque in nature. Of course, you are going to see me backing or buying pretty much anything that Phil Reed puts his name to - it's simply a no-brainer for me.

Quest for Zines is a Kickstarter to support a month's worth of interviews for Phil Reed, and Lex Morgan are doing the interview. At the end of the month, they will put the interviews in zine format, in PDF and print. You can back Quest for Zines: a Zine Quest Zine About Zines for the PDF for 3 bucks, and POD (at cost plus shipping) plus PDF for 5 bucks.

This zine is a celebration of indie RPGs, indie RPG supplements, and their creators. Within this work, 28 engaging interviews will be featured with creators of all experience levels. We'll connect with designers, artists, and publishers. We also include conversations with those involved in crowdfunding, promotion, and beyond.

Join us each day in February! We'll be posting an interview every single day, each as individual updates! At the end of the month, we'll take all the updates, give them a polish, add some nifty art, and make them into a zine. And that zine can be shipped directly to your door.

Not a fan of physical zines? You can just get the PDF, too. 

The Tavern is supported by readers like you. The easiest way to support The Tavern is to shop via our affiliate links. The Tavern DOES NOT do "Paid For" Articles and discloses personal connections to products and creators written about when applicable.

DTRPG, Amazon, and Humble Bundle are affiliate programs that support The Tavern.  You can catch the daily Tavern Chat cast on Rumble or YouTube - Tenkar

Kickstarter - Face Folio (100 Fantasy Portraits for Tabletop Role-playing Games)

When it comes to RPG material that really catches my attention, inspirational releases grab my attention more often than anything else. I prefer stuff that enhances my campaign - so something like the Face Folio Kickstarter is perfect for my needs.

So, what do you get with Face Folio?

Face Folio is a simple project with a simple goal: to provide 100 fantasy portraits for use in your tabletop role-playing games. Referees are always on the lookout for NPC faces to show their players and players are always looking for portraits for their character sheets. This project aims to meet that need. 

The portraits will be organized into the following sets: 

• Human NPCs/PCs
• Dragon-blood
• Dwarf
• Elf 
• Gnome
• Halfling 
• Orc-blood
• Demon-blood 
• Human nobles
• Human peasants and towns folk 

Each set will contain ten portraits, half male and half female. With the exception of the human nobles and peasants, the portraits will be a spread of adventuring classes. 

The Zine will have a simple elegant layout with 10 portraits per two-page spread, and organized in the above groups. There will be no blocks of text and no fluff to get in the way. That way this book can be used right at the table, as and when needed, for example when the referee suddenly needs an NPC to drop into the game.  

We are using a single artist to do all the artwork. This is because MARCINs is a wonderfully talented artist and because we want there to be a coherent and unified style to the whole project.

It's about 7 bucks in PDF, Print plus PDF is about 12 bucks shipped. I'm in for a print copy.

Kickstarter - Swords & Wizardry Dark: A Grim Set of Optional Rules

optional rules for Swords & Wizardry and other OSR RPGS

I'm sure I'm missing tons of stuff at the moment. This upper respiratory infection makes me feel like I'm always catching up, as I'm always out of breath. That being said, I almost overlooked the Swords & Wizardry Dark: A Grim Set of Optional Rules Kickstarter. I'm usually on top of this stuff. How could I nearly miss a Swords & Wizardry related Kickstarter?

So, what do you get in this zine?

A black and white zine with optional rules to add to your S&W game. Some rules are inspired by DCC, AD&D, The Black Hack, Sharp Swords & Sinister Spells and more. THIS IS NOT A COMPLETE GAME, YOU MUST HAVE A COPY OF SWORDS & WIZARDRY by Frog God Games or other OSR GAME TO USE THIS ZINE. 

VOL 1 KS edition will be 5.5"x 8" printed in a high quality 130lb Cover and 100lb paper. - What this means is that it will hold up for a long time and fit nicely with your new S&W Box Set! See the Frog God Kickstarter HERE 

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/froggodgames/swords-and-wizardry-limited-and-collectors-edition-box-sets 

New magic rules- say goodbye to vancian magic

New Regional Backgrounds-no Demi Humans in Dark

Rules for The Dark - dealing with stress and peril while adventuring

New Equipment Rules - less bookkeeping = faster play

Faster Monster Rules - keep the action fast
and More!!! 

PLUS: A short adventure in a minimalist layout, because you all know how to run games, you don't need a bunch of words on a page to do it. (My experience is that OSR GM's are generally pretty well experienced) 

The zine will be in a modern "Dash Board" like layout, making the rules easy to find and read while at the table.

Kickstarter - Valor Knights: The Electrocube War (ZineQuest 2)

A complete roleplaying-game-in-a-zine that is more than meets the eye by Eric Bloat and Phil Stone.

Ah, Transformers. I was a bit too old for it when it released in 1984, just starting my senior year of High School, but that didn't stop me from watching it upon getting home from school. I never was interested in the toy line, but I did enjoy the caroons.

As an RPG? Shjit, I might just need Valor Knights: The Electrocube War. 5 bucks for the PDF, 15 for the Print plus PDF.

Valor Knights is a complete RPG in a zine format.  VK uses a hybrid combination of The Black Hack by David Black and The Blackest of Deaths Game System by Eric Bloat.  Its fast, loose and a ton of fun to play; A perfect game to emulate the over the top 80s cartoon tropes and adventures that we remember and love.

Rules included:

• Core Mechanic
• Hindrance & Benefit
• Advantage & Disadvantage
• Attributes (Strength, Intelligence, Wisdom, Dexterity, Constitution and Charisma) 
• Determining Attributes, Luck
• Hit Points, Hit Dice, Healing and Death
• Evade & Armor Points, Damage Points
• Leveling Up
• Everything in Turn, Initiative, Time & Turns
• Movement & Distances (Close, Near, Far, Distant)
• Shifting
• Character Creation
• Character Classes (Leader, Warrior, Support, Mini-Bot)
• Weapons & Equipment
• Valor Knights vs Chaos Lords

Kickstarter - Beak, Feather, & Bone: A Map-Labeling RPG (ZineQuest2)

A competitive map-labeling RPG and worldbuilding tool.

It's rare that I look at a Kickstarter and say: "Wow, this is really unique and interesting." Beak, Feather, & Bone is one of those rare Kickstarters. 5 bucks for the PDF, 10 bucks for print plus PDF.

Here, I'll let the KS page explain:

Beak, Feather, & Bone is a collaborative worldbuilding tool as well as a competitive map-labeling RPG. Starting with an unlabeled city map, players are assigned community roles before taking turns claiming and describing locations. Players draw from a standard 52-card deck to determine a building's purpose and then describe its beak (reputation), feather (appearance), and bone (interior). As buildings are claimed, a narrative for the town and its inhabitants emerges, including major NPCs and shifting power-dynamics.  

Inspired by map-making games like Avery Adler's A Quiet Year and archetype-focused RPG systems like Meguey & Vincent Baker's Powered by the Apocalypse, Beak, Feather, & Bone is a zine-length game including rules of play, 11 community roles illustrated by Austin Breed, a map by Jonathan Yee, and optional lore & GM tips for running games in a city populated entirely by ravenfolk (or kenku, tengu, etc).  

While default play is lightly competitive, rules variants for solo, cooperative, and character-focused play are included as well. Similarly, while the illustrations and GM notes provided will help inspire a ravenfolk city, the beak/feather/bone labeling system can be used with any map, game genre, or populace.

Kickstarter - The Bone Age - Weird School RPG [Zine Quest]

Tabletop RPG of stone age people fighting off Invaders from outer space, Turtle-Apes and Ape-Turtles.

Back to our regularly scheduled posting :)

I would back The Bone Age - Weird School RPG Kickstarter for the art alone. The fact that the setting looks to be a blast is simply icing on the cake.

8 bucks in PDF, 18 bucks Print plus PDF shipped in the US.

The Bone Age is an old-school RPG of neolithic-era tribes struggling against the sudden arrival of bug-eyed aliens. You play a Tuzanian, a tribe of jungle-dwelling, vine-swinging, pterodactyl-riding, bone-wielding savages. Radiation leaked from the Invaders' crashed flying saucers spreads on winds of purple, blue, and white, mutating the land and its inhabitants. Meanwhile, a race of turtle-apes and ape-turtles sleeping in stasis beneath the surface awoke...1,000,000 years later than planned. And they were not impressed by the native population – or the alien Invaders. 

The Bone Age will be a 48+ page saddled stitched book with illustrations by the incomparable Jack Woiak.

The Bone Age isn't based on a specific OSR system, but comparisons can be drawn to Swords & Wizardry, Labyrinth Lord, Lamentations of the Flame Princess, and Dungeon Crawl Classics. The base mechanic uses a d20 where higher rolls are better than low rolls, and works in a similar fashion to the way saving throws and attacks work in Labyrinth Lord. Thus, an ability might be expressed as 12+, meaning you want to roll a 12 or higher on a d20. Placing the target number in the hands of the players means they get the thrill of shouting "My attack hits!" or the agony of lamenting "I failed my mutation roll," as opposed to the Game Master setting a secret Difficulty Class.

Kickstarter - Delayed Blast Gamemaster #3 (ZineQuest 2)

Phil Reed was nice enough to give me preview copy of Delayed Blast Gamemaster #1 in November of 2018. I thought it was awesome. The final release copy was simply moreso. Now Phil is Kickstarting Delayed Blast Gamemaster #3 for Kickstarter’s ZineQuest 2. Woot!

(Note - I’m on my iPad, so copy/paste is somewhat borked)

Print plus PDF for issue 3 is 10 bucks. All three issues in PDF is also 10 bucks. All three issues in Print plus PDF is 30 buckls.

In 2019, many of you supported the creation of Delayed Blast Gamemaster #1 (Kickstarter page) and Delayed Blast Gamemaster #2 (Kickstarter page). Both issues were far more successful than I could have hoped. So far, over 1,000 copies of the first issue have been sent out to project supporters (of the first Kickstarter campaign and some of my other projects), making the zine one of my top works of 2019.

Now, with your support, I will publish the third issue of the series in both PDF and print. I have prepared 48 pages for this latest issue, and with luck, we will unlock all of the project stretch goals and make this latest issue

Kickstarter - Gamma Zine, Issue #2 (ZineQuest)

Gamma World was my second RPG and the first I bought with my own money. I remember being confused that the number of Hit Dice was determined by the character's Constitution score. Took me a while to wrap my head around that one ;)

Gamma Zine, Issue #2 is a zine for the fans of old school Gamma World. It's by Thom Wilson / Throwi Games. Thom is a workhorse that simply produces great old school gaming material. I expect no less from this Kickstarter.

Do you still play Gamma World or another post-apocalyptic, science  fiction RPG? Do you wish there was more material for the games you play?  Well, your wish has been granted: a 36-page fanzine for your  post-apocalyptic game campaign or reading pleasure! In the second issue  of Gamma Zine, you'll find three short adventures, new mutated monsters, lost and forgotten tech, and more.

The zine will be black & white, saddle-stitched and digest-sized. Unlike the first project in 2019, the size of this second issue is fixed because it's already written!

Although the fanzine will focus primarily on the first edition of  Gamma World by TSR, we'll try to keep much of the fanzine flexible to  allow the reader to adapt its contents to other systems. However, when  statistics are displayed for foes and challenges, we'll use the earliest edition of Gamma World for the rules and stats.

Kickstarter - The Phylactery - An Old School Heroic Fantasy Adventure Zine (ZineQuest 2)

A RPG zine full of OSR flavored adventure hooks and resources for use in your heroic fantasy games.

Yes, it is officially time for ZineQuest 2, the now annual Kickstarter even (at least I assume it is annual ;) I expect I'll be covering a number of zines this month.

This time we are looking at The Phylactery, An Old School Heroic Fantasy Adventure Zine Kickstarter.

We go in assuming you already have the core books to play your favorite games and instead jump right into OSR-inspired material that is unavailable anywhere else, giving you an entire cover-to-cover zine devoted strictly to cool new adventures, quirky NPCs, wondrous magical items, marauding  monsters, fell locations, relics from beyond the mists of time and all sorts of heroic fantasy resources for your tabletop games. 

As this project launches, The Phylactery is a cover-to-cover 24-page, saddle-stitched, 5.5-inch by 8.5-inch B&W printed zine with a bad ass color cover by Planet X favorite Ed Bickford. This booklet is jam packed with page after page of heroic fantasy adventure influenced heavily by early third party RPG badassery like Dave Hargrave’s infamous  Arduin Grimoire series and the early Dragontree Press stuff. The Phylactery is meant to be a quick and easy resource that you can pull ideas and plot hooks from for use directly at your gaming table. There’s no fluff in here and nothing padding out the page count - just pure old school goodness created exclusively for the fantasy gaming community. We have absolutely JAM-PACKED a ton of RPG goodness in here for you. 

5 bucks for the PDF, 10 bucks for print plus PDF (free shipping in the US). I'm in for print :)

 

Kickstarter - Wizard Burial Ground: A Dungeon-Punk RPG Book (Zine Quest)

"5e compatible Prog Rock inspired Dungeon-Punk resource book full of plot hooks, monsters, NPCs, and magic items (Zine Quest)"

It might not be OSR, but it sure feels OSR ;)

So, what's in the Wizard Burial Ground: A Dungeon-Punk RPG Book?

It's a resource book full of cool stuff to add some Dungeon-Punk spice to your tabletop games. What kind of cool stuff? Glad you asked! We have a whole bunch of weird crap to add some grimy and gritty nonsense to your world. 

NPC's for your players to interact with: 

• A Hedge Witch with a "thing" for Lycanthropes
• The  butcher's son who is... not a werewolf. Why? Who told you that, what do you know?!
• Hillbilly Hobgoblins who've been cooking up some Crystal Magic-amphetamine
• A one-eyed gnomish Alchemist who's been brewing potions in his bathtub
• A mysterious drifter who just rolled into town

Plot Hooks to awaken your players' sense of adventure: 

• What happens when a rival gang tries to muscle in on the Hobgoblins and unseat them from their place as kingpins of the local Crystal Mage trade?
• Is the bartender at the local tavern undead or just suuuuper goth?
• They say the dreams of a Beholder can shape reality. What happens when a Beholder gets sick and starts having fever dreams? What if the Beholder starts to dissociate?!
• If you think the Hedge Witch and the butcher's son don't have something going on, you must be high on Crystal Mage
• Kinda burying the lede with this one, but a cult of evil necromancers have defiled a local temple (the titular Wizard Burial Ground) and your party needs to cleanse the place.

Monsters & Mooks (complete with art & stat blocks) 

• Necromancers and Liches and Undead, oh my!
• Can you make a zombie out of a mechanical construct? Well when a mommy Necromancer and a daddy Artificer love each other very much...
• A swarm of giant vampire bats that also teleport. 
• Inside-Out Kobolds. Oh no, why? Why are they like that?!
• Is that a Bearsharktopus? Are you kidding me?
• You know what a "rat king" is? Okay. So that, but made of Dire Rats. A Dire Rat King.  Is that freaky enough for ya?
• Just wait til you meet the Rag and Bone Man.

Maps (with at least one dank ass dungeon)
How dank? I mean, it's subterranean. It's super dank.  

Magic Items (all homebrew, probably weird) For example: 

• Hot Peppers of Fire Breathing
• Psychotropic Potions 
• Magic Wand that is also a Spork
• Boom-sticks (it's probably what you think it is)
• Cursed Weapons. All the cursed weapons.

I'm in for 10 bucks - Print plus PDF (including shipping in the US)

Neither The Tavern nor myself receive compensation for Kickstarter coverage or Kickstarter posts. Some Kickstarters are brought to the attention of The Tavern by their creators. Such communication does not guarantee coverage here at The Tavern. I do not back every Kickstarter I highlight as my wallet's contents are not limitless but I do find all highlighted Kickstarters interesting for one or more reasons - Erik Tenkar

Kickstarter - Draugr & Draculas: An old-school RPG zine about undead vikings and vampires

Sometimes you just have to look at something that might seem crazy and realize it's so crazy it might just work. Draugr & Draculas is that for me. This is so crazy it might just work ;)

So, what is Draugr & Draculas?

Draugr & Draculas is a one-off zine for old-stye/OSR roleplaying adventure games. Dr&Dr focuses on vampires, undead, and spooky horror magic for use in your own fantasy RPG campaigns. The zine will be entirely written and illustrated by me, Josh Burnett. In accordance with the Zine Quest guidelines, Draugr & Draculas will be a 5.5” x 8.5” zine, staple-bound and printed in black-and-white. I estimate it should clock in at around 24-32 pages.  

What's in the zine? 

• Count Dracula himself, as well as his origins and current motivations
• Details on Dracula's lesser servants
• Dracula's deadly rival, Elizabeth Bathory
• Draugr—northern undead of varying degrees of power
• The Draugr class
• Rules for magic users striking a deal with the Devil
• New magical items of perilous power
• Pagan's Well, a small dungeon full of traps and treasure
• And whatever else I can fit in this thing.   

5 bucks for the PDF, 10 bucks (plus a buck shipping in the US) for the print plus PDF. I'm in at 11 ;)

Neither The Tavern nor myself receive compensation for Kickstarter coverage or Kickstarter posts. Some Kickstarters are brought to the attention of The Tavern by their creators. Such communication does not guarantee coverage here at The Tavern. I do not back every Kickstarter I highlight as my wallet's contents are not limitless but I do find all highlighted Kickstarters interesting for one or more reasons - Erik Tenkar

Kickstarter - Xboat: a Traveller RPG 'zine

I played a lot of Traveller back in high school and college. Character generation was a game unto itself. Although my desire to play Traveller these days has waned I truly enjoy reading the various support material.

I find Xboat: a Traveller RPG 'zine to be a tempting pick up, but I may wait for it to release on DriveThru - my wallet is rapidly emptying with the various Kickstarters I've been looking at.

This is a true FanZine, with most of the material produced by Fans who are participating in the Traveller5 initiative. It's about discussion, example, and bold ideas rather than finished product. So, these issues are "non-canon", although content *could* be re-used in later publications.  

Each issue is at least 16 printed half-pages (5.5 x 8.5) in a saddle-stitched booklet format. I'll mail the issues out in flat envelopes.

While the Fifth Edition is directly supported, these resources typically work with any version of Traveller, or science fiction role-playing games in general.  

Neither The Tavern nor myself receive compensation for Kickstarter coverage or Kickstarter posts. Some Kickstarters are brought to the attention of The Tavern by their creators. Such communication does not guarantee coverage here at The Tavern. I do not back every Kickstarter I highlight as my wallet's contents are not limitless but I do find all highlighted Kickstarters interesting for one or more reasons - Erik Tenkar

Kickstarter - Terror of the Stratosfiend : A DCC RPG Zine

I'm trying to get to the "short date" Kickstarters first. In this case, we are down to 16 hours as I type this for Terror of the Stratosfiend : A DCC RPG Zine Kickstarter. Short story? I'm a backer :)

What is Terror of the Stratosfiend?

Portals and warp gates have been opening all over the earth and giant aliens have been pouring out. Players will quickly find out that some of their own have been aliens the whole time, and that humans from distant stars have also shown up to help quell the madness. The setting is meant to be both an add-on to any DCC (Dungeon Crawl Classics) session the Judge and players would be running; adding a splash of tentacles. It's also being built to be a standalone setting where tentacles and sorcery would be the focus. 

As a player you'll be wielding future weaponry like laser chainsaws, and living breathing shotguns that incubate sleeping horrors. You would also find out what it's like to be 20 foot tall living battering ram... (scroll up to be reminded of what that means) 

As a Judge you'll be introducing players to maniacal Orbital Intelligences that seek to guide, destroy, and illuminate the lives of their charges. You will be throwing strange alien beasts at them, and guiding through portals leading to the stars beyond our stars.
What path will you take? Will you abandon your fellow humans and take to the stars? Or will you embrace the chaos and obliterate all that stand in your path with your tentacled fury?

I'm gonna steal the shit out of this Zine for a Swords & Wizardry campaign. Oh, maybe with the forthcoming Far Away Land hack. Oh my ;)

Actually, this would also be a good fit for Mutant Crawl Classics or Mutant Future...

5 bucks for the PDF. 12 bucks for the Print plus PDF (shipped free to the US.

Time is ticking...

Neither The Tavern nor myself receive compensation for Kickstarter coverage or Kickstarter posts. Some Kickstarters are brought to the attention of The Tavern by their creators. Such communication does not guarantee coverage here at The Tavern. I do not back every Kickstarter I highlight as my wallet's contents are not limitless but I do find all highlighted Kickstarters interesting for one or more reasons - Erik Tenkar

Kickstarter - Ghostlike Crime: An RPG Zine of Modern Weirdness (Zine Quest)

Another zine for Zine Quest - Ghostlike Crime: An RPG Zine of Modern Weirdness.

An RPG zine series bringing magical realism, the paranormal, and cryptid terrors to a modern day setting. Compatible with DCC RPG.

Catchy elevator pitch, but what's the actual skinny?

Ghostlike Crime is a tabletop role-playing game zine bringing magical realism, the paranormal, and cryptid terrors to a modern day dystopia using Dungeon Crawl Classics rules. It expands and hacks the original rule set to place it in a familiar yet darkly skewed setting. The intention is not to unnecessarily complicate the rules or bore you with voluminous background fluff, but to hand the players some quirky character options and throw them into conflict with things that go bump in the night. Imagine the Alpha-team facing off against a family of yeti or Ghosthunters trying to figure out how to keep the local for-profit coroner from continuing to resurrect a mass murdering slasher. 

The adventurers are monster hunters and defenders of humanity from paranormal threats. They are not a part of any government program, but an autonomous and clandestine group that also works to keep power out of the hands of oppressors. They are the nail that sticks up. This parallel reality is a dystopia where magic exists, but open practitioners are unheard of. Wealth hoards power and these usurpers who cannot wield it enslave those who do. Ghostlike Crime is set up to be as grim or gonzo as you like.

As for contents:

• Modified Classes for The Warrior, The Thief, and The Halfling
• New Class: The Scrapper - Like the whiskey hiding in the corner of a bottle in the recycle bin, forgotten enchantments linger on objects left out on a curb. The Scrapper can see the aura of these enchantments, more importantly they can wield them as a weapon.
• New Class: The Paratechnologist - An artificer of weird science devices. They jury-rig everything from tethers for the incorporeal to anti-matter silver bullets.
• Equipment: Weapons, paratechnological items, and trash artifacts
• Adventuring party archetypes for the modern hero
• A collection of adversaries from the Cabals of the Corporatocracy to the Unstoppable Killing Machine
• Two full adventures ready to put your players through the paces of weird sci-fi horror gaming.

Kickstarter - RPG Zine Challenge: The Compleat Beastman (OSR / 5e))

So, RPG Zine Challenge: The Compleat Beastman is part of Zine Quest Month on Kickstarter. Let's see what we get with this one.

Every issue has at least one full character class, compatible with the various OSR rules systems, Multiple generic NPCs, one or more named NPCs with adventure hooks, history, culture, and societal notes to make these species come to life in your games. 

Each issue is a small, black and white zine that also contains pin up art pieces of different varieties of the highlighted species. Here's something awesome that you don't get with other zines- every backer gets FREE ART with a commercial license to use in your own products! 

Additionally, I'm releasing them with 100% open content. Use this stuff in your own books. ALL OF IT! 

The material is setting- and even genre- neutral. Each of the beastmen societies gets presented as a a living culture, with notes not only on traditional fantasy themes, but also notes on how they colonize and fight in space. Yes, fantasy and sci-fi gonzo goodness.

Size? Small

Page count? Unknown

How about pledge levels?

The basic $10 pledge includes a PDF of every issue that we produce from this campaign, as well as stock art. The @25 level gets you the discount print code for each issue, as well as discounted minis.

If it only produces a single issue of unknown page count, that becomes fairly expensive for a small PDF. "Print code" I am guessing means POD through DTRPG at cost. That's a significant chunk of change for potentially a single issue in print (plus POD cost and shipping). Yes, you get access to the art as future stock art, but that is only an incentive if you plan to do some self-publishing yourself.

I'm giving this a soft pass. Further details on page count and printed size of the zine might change that. Hitting stretch goals will also make this more attractive, but it has to hit critical mass before that starts to open up.