A reader pointed out that I had used 2023 as the date for last week's roundup, so I made sure to write 2024 for this week's. Zine Month is right around the corner, and I'll be posting a series of interviews with participants as it gets into full swing. If you're interested in participating, or are looking to try and get your books into stores (whether online or brick and mortar) I wrote a post last year that offers some advice on how to crowdfund/price your products with the expectation of selling through third parties. Hopefully it will be of some use to people.
Last week's Roundup was somewhat sparse, so let's see what this week has in store for us, shall we?
Visceral is a rules-lite, action-oriented two-page rpg that draws inspiration from, and is designed to emulate, darker genres such as grindhouse, noir, mythos, and more.
I've been a big fan of Tanya Floaker's work since Lo, Thy Dread Emperor, and she's just recently released the Connection Machine, a dream-like rpg that explores themes of trauma and attachment. You can check out an interview I conducted with Tanya here.
Dungeon Dash is an intriguing, tongue-in-cheek dungeon delving game that's currently crowdfunding on itch. They're raising money for commissioned art and to provide additional content (random generation, which is right up my alley!).
Happy Cthonian has released the wordy All Dice II Haunted House Character Generator, a random character generator that uses all of the standard D&D dice to create a PC. This publication focuses on creating characters suited for haunted house adventures, and especially the adventure the Waking of Willoughby Hall.
Speaking of Visceral, Prey No More is a game using the Visceral engine in which you play escaped potential victims of a powerful secret society's horrible rituals, out for revenge on your captors.
Seedling is one of the indie publishers I've been keeping my eye on (they wrote A Gathering Storm and Procedures to Develop the Paths Ahead, amongst others), and they've just released Liars, Friends and Troublemakers, a collection of (largely) system-agnostic NPCs (Cairn is used when stats are needed).
Scout Vol. 2 is out. A supplement for OSE and Dolmenwood, this issue has a ton of material crammed into it s 46 pages: four new classes, new spells, new rules for spell-casting, and more.
There's a new game out that's an ode to the scribbled illustrations that you drew in the margins of your notebooks in study hall. Attack From Space: the RPG is inspired by these scribblings, and used Spencer Campbell's LUMEN system. It's more art project than rpg, but the author has thoughtfully included a cleaned up version for ease of reading and playing.
After a short break, the folks from Red Ruin Publishing are back with Casket of Fays #12, another issue in their free Dragon Warriors fanzines.
They Dug Too Deep is a one-page dungeon -- it placed in the top ten during last year's one-page dungeon contest -- that is now available on Drivethru. The cartography is excellent, and it also comes with VTT-support, which is a plus these days.
Philip Reed is one of the most prolific creators in the OSR space, and is currently running a Kickstarter to fund the printing for a 54 card deck of treasures for the Dragonbane game.
Another indie creator I like is Marco Serrano of Spicy Tuna RPGs. He's currently crowdfunding Greenhorns: A Weird Space RPG. It's based on the Together We Go Engine written by Markus Linderum and Tony Vasinda.
In addition to supporting indie publishers I like to do what I can to support and promote local (to me, at least) authors, which is one reason we've added the newest book by Sandy Pug Games to the Sabre inventory. The Exquisite Corpse: In Maggot's Keep is a game designed for immersive storytelling, where the plot is generated by being passed from participant to participant, with each player adding their own unique take on the story.