ZineQuest 3 - Catpocalypse Meow had Low Stakes but Maximum HP was full of Scoundrels

Ah, sweet, sweet ZineQuest 3. Not even a week in and I think I've already blown by the $250 budget I had set aside for it. Eh, I'm sure I can sell my soul for some coin ;)

In addition to this series of blogposts covering the various projects, I'm also sitting down with a large number of project creators over the next few days and weeks via YouTube LiveStreams. Subscribe at YouTube.com/ErikTenkar so you don't miss a chat, like the one I had this morning with the creator of Low Stakes.

Dirty Bowbe's Roadhouse Presents: Catpocalypse Meow - We are creating Dirty Bowbe's Roadhouse Presents: Catpocalypse Meow, a cat themed role playing games supplement for OSR Games. Mischievous, often maligned, mysterious, and oozing with cuddly cuteness and primeval murder is the noble cat. Here at the Roadhouse we have three and couldn’t be happier with all of their puffy tailed, razor clawed, nap taking, sometimes infuriating, snack demanding cattitude. We took the time out of the rolling quarantines and lengthy social distancing to bring all of their yowling hissing fun to our first ever Old School Rules zine! Dirty Bowbe’s Roadhouse Presents: Catpocalypse Now. Let the fur fly!

So why the Zine and why Now?

A lot of the stuff we come up with doesn’t necessarily fit “in” with the creative direction of other publishers that the old Bowbe usually works with. That is definitely the case with this particular Zine. Catpocalypse Meow is chuck full of purrfect new items, creatures, and adventure hooks for your OSR campaign! This product tips the hat to punsters and funsters of a seemingly bye gone era, with gentle nods to Mark E. Rodgers, Robert Asprin, and heaping helpings of Gary Gygax, and Bowbe’s old mentor Jim Ward for good measure.

A year of quarantine and social distance together saw a lot of D&D and Swords & Wizardry played on Discord with friends and gamers around the globe. During that time we started applying our combined lifetime of gaming and cat friendship into what has evolved into Catpocalypse Meow. The zine is a furious feline themed combination of old school style RPG comics and game ready materials like those once featured in the most popular pen and paper RPG magazine of all time! Original comic tales lead to ready to play mini-adventures. Adventures lead to new treasures, strange creatures, arcane artifacts, obligatory cat butts, insane artworks, crazy cat ladies, forbidden feline temples, canopic kitties, and cat-astrophic spells carefully curated to enrich your OSR gaming table!

Full disclosure: Casey is a friend of mine as well as sharing an association via Frog God Games. Casey will be making an appearance on the Talking Crit Livestream this Wednesday at 9 PM Eastern over at YouTube.com/ErikTenkar

Low Stakes - A Game to Play in the Shadows...inspired by What We Do in the Shadows. Low Stakes is a tabletop roleplaying game inspired by What We Do in the Shadows, both the movie and the TV show. 

In the game, you portray a vampire, werewolf, ghost, mystic, or maybe even a regular ol' human sharing a house together in the modern day. And you’re not very good at it. You'll create situation comedy style stories of gothic monsters trying to get by in a world that has moved on from their day. Conflict, character, humor...it's all there for the taking. 

As stated at the top of this page, I sat down for a Livestreamed Fireside Chat with Craig Campbell this morning.

Maximum HP #5 Kobolds! - The old school zine, for the new school world. Joining Zinequest 2021 with 1E extras. Issue #005 is the Kobold issue of Maximum HP, The old school ’zine for a new school world. In this issue we explore the world of the kobolds, their tricks, traps, and treats. Discover the various breeds, skills, magic, lives, and of course, the dastardly kobold traps.

In this project we are returning to our 1E roots, and releasing this Zine Quest project in the FIRST EDITION of the world's favorite roleplaying game.

We're a 'zine for gamers by gamers. Taking submissions from gamers all over and sharing the best with our readers. We intend to enrich the gaming experience of our readers and help them offer new and unique challenges to their table.

Another full disclosure: I've known Lloyd for years, thanks to NTRPG Con and I own some of his original art. Damn Good stuff!

Tomorrow afternoon at 2 PM Eastern I will be sitting down with Jeff Jones, creator of the Scoundrels Zine for a Fireside Chat. A set of three zines with NPCs, locations, tables and rules to inject a strong crime-theme into your sci-fi (or modern) game. At the most basic level, Zine 1 and Zine 2 of Scoundrels provides 200 unique NPCs to drop quickly into your game. Some are tied to locations, some to gangs, and others are tied to a theme. You can randomly determine NPCs or easily flip through pages. The names are taken from 5 different real-world cultures, making this a great resource for determining names and motivations on the fly for any game.

Scoundrels also taking it to the next level, fleshing out your world with factions, locations and institutions and the NPCs that populate them. The NPCs and factions have motivations, and their writeups evoke way for them to interact with the characters and each other.

There are tables for random encounters with NPCs and tables for adding friends and rivals for the characters. But I didn’t stop there, Ther are additional tables that allow the GM to create crime-related jobs and adventures for the players.  There is even a step-by-step example of me creating a job.

But wait, there is more! Zine 3 provides optional rules for the player characters to have their own crew and be one of the criminal factions in the city. Rules taken from the Blades in the Dark SRD but changed to use with any game system. This provides a framework to create games and campaigns for characters increase the reach and influence in the city.

This is a system-neutral reference that works for any sci-fi game, but easily works with any modern game as well.  I truly believe that this will become one of the most-used GM resource in your arsenal.

I'll be back with more ZineQuest picks on Monday - as well as two ZineQuest Livestreams on Monday and two more on Tuesday. Seriously, subscribe to YouTube.com/ErikTenkar so you don't miss any of them :)

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