Yet More RPG Zines
Jim Vassilakos (jimv@uia.net)
As some of you may recall, back in A&E 303 & 309 I
submitted two articles covering various RPG Zines,
both the dead tree as well as the electronic variety. Well,
it seems that the RPG world never sleeps. There are a
whole slew of new zines out there, some of which have
already been mentioned by other A&Ers. In an effort to
make sense of it all, what follows is a nifty, little list to
help you decide which ones you might want to check
out.
Paper Zines:
Black Seal
www.theblackseal.org
Touting itself as the magazine of modern horror
gaming, The Black Seal came roaring out of Great
Britain in 2002 as a classy magazine with high
production value. The focus so far seems to be on Delta
Green & Cthulhu Now.
Campaign Magazine
www.gamesunplugged.com
Published by Fast Forward Entertainment of Lake
Geneva, Wisconsin, this is the sister-zine of Games
Unplugged (mentioned in A&E 303), however, whereas
Games Unplugged covers the gamut of non-electronic
gaming, Campaign Magazine focuses exclusively on the
d20 system.
Excellent Prismatic Spray
www.dyingearth.com
Published by Pelgrane Press of Great Britain since
December 2000, XPS is the in-house magazine for the
Dying Earth RPG. The first issue is available as a free
PDF download.
Gaming Frontiers
www.unitedplaytest.com/gamingfrontiers
I don't even know where to begin, except to say that this
is one monster of a magazine. Like Campaign
Magazine, it also focuses on the d20 system, however,
it's nearly twice the size and around four times the cost
(Issue #4 is 144 pages with an MSRP of $19.95), easily
making it the highest-priced magazine on the RPG
market. Fortunately, Robert Williams believes in giving
his customers something extra, so every subscription
includes a generous selection of d20 products. Overall, I
have to respect the ambition (nay, the balls) it took to
produce and market a magazine of this girth, however,
high production value comes at a steep price, and this
magazine is living proof.
Gaming Herald
www.gamingherald.com
Published by EpicSaga of Fullerton, California since
2002, this is an RPG zine in the form of a newspaper.
They seem to concentrate mostly on reviews, designer's
notes, and industry announcements, however, there's
also some genuine source material present. Despite the
fact that newsprint tends to deteriorate quickly, I'd say
this is a pretty good value for your money and well
worth checking out.
Iron Rations
www.ironrations.com
Christian Walker, who is also the editor of Scrollworks
(see my article in A&E 309) and who has recently
joined A&E (as of issue 332), started putting out Iron
Rations in January 2003 with the idea that it would be
like Scrollworks, but scaled back to the point of being
more managable and less of a money pit. Published
under the OGL, it's a nice, little zine in an era when
small paper zines have all but vanished. Christian,
however, is back to doing Scrollworks, so I'm looking
forward to perhaps getting two zines from him instead
of just one. Sometimes I tend to err on the hopeful side.
Lejends
lorecollege@aol.com
Published by Total Reality Studios since May 2001, this
magazine was devoted to the Lejendary Adventure RPG
and its campaign world of Lejendary Earth. At least 12
issues were published, some old greybeard by the name
of Gary Gygax contributing many of the articles. I'm not
sure if the magazine is still in production or if the key
players have moved on to more lucrative pastures.
Webzines:
Dungeon Crawler
www.dungeon-crawler.com
Published since September 2000 by Brian Spicer and
friends, this webzine covers the entire breadth of
gaming.
The LARPer
www.thelarper.org
Published since May 2001, this is the new webzine of
LARPA (The Live Action Roleplayers Association).
The old zine, back when they were known as the
Interactive Literature Foundation (ILF) was a paper zine
known as Metagame.
PDF Zines:
As I stated back in A&E 303 & 309, my personal
preference when it comes to zines is PDF. There are
numerous reasons I feel this way.
Environmentally Friendly: Unlike paper-zines, PDF
zines don't kill trees.
Easy on Shelf Space: Nor do they weigh down my
bookshelves or deteriorate in boxes.
Easy to Share with Friends: You can burn hundreds to
a cdrom, all for the cost of mere pennies.
Frozen Format Provides Permanence: Unlike
webzines which can change after their date of
publication, PDF zines provide an uneditable
window into what people were thinking and saying
on a given date.
No Falling off the Web: Unlike webzines which are
difficult to download unless the editor was kind
enough to distribute them as a zipfile, PDF zines
don't end up falling off the web never to be seen
again. Once copies are out there, you can usually
find them even if the editor pulls a missing persons
act & drops off the face of the Earth.
The only serious problem with PDF (which Spike
mentioned in A&E 305) is that you can't copy/paste text
from a PDF file into an editing program, although I
believe there are some utilities which will now convert
from PDF to an editable format. In any case, PDF zines
seems to be becoming increasingly commonplace, so
I'm clearly not the only person who likes this format.
Here's a list of some I hadn't mentioned in either of my
two previous articles.
Action Check
www.alternity.net, actioncheck@hotmail.com
Published by Jeff Ibach, Jim Sharkey and friends since
June 2000, Action Check is dedicated to the Alternity
RPG, including the Star*Drive, Dark*Matter, and
Gamma World campaign settings.
Asgard
www.d20reviews.com
Published by Russell Morrissey and friends since July
2001, Asgard focuses on the d20 system. If you have
trouble getting the website, see my offer at the end of
this article.
Bite Mark
www.romancingcathy.com
Published by Chuan Lin since May 2002, Bite Mark
focuses on the Jadeclaw RPG.
Commando Quarterly
www.commandohq.com
Published by Jason Weiser and friends, CQ is a
Battletech fanzine.
d20Zine
www.d20zines.com
Published by the team at d20 Magazine Rack since June
2002, d20Zine focuses on (surprisingly enough) the d20
system.
Deep Magic
www.deep-magic.net
Published by the Amberlin Group since June 2002,
Deep Magic isn't an RPG Zine, per se, but it does focus
on fantasy fiction as well as doing science fiction, book
reviews, and interviews.
EdgeRunner
Published by Lauri Gardner and friends, EdgeRunner
was a Cyberpunk fanzine. I only have two issues, so
either I'm missing a great deal or it was fairly short-
lived.
Ethos Magazine
www.ethos.curvedspaces.com
Published by James Henley and friends since February
2003, Ethos seems to be the latest of the d20 zines
which have sprung up on the Internet.
Fictional Reality
m.theurer@att.net
Published by Mark Theurer and friends since June 2000,
Fictional Reality advertises itself as "a forum for sci-
fi/fantasy miniature game enthusiasts." They also cover
the d20 system and M:tG to some extent, however, the
meat of this zine seems to be the battle reports.
Future Orbits
www.futureorbits.com
Published since Oct/Nov 2001 by Paul Vander Neut,
Future Orbits is a science fiction zine, much like Quanta
which was published by Daniel Appelquist some years
ago (www.etext.org/Zines/Quanta). Tragically, only the
first issue is freely downloadable, but for those who are
SF nuts, this might just be your fix.
Interactive Fiction Now
www.if-now.demon.co.uk
I've got only two issues of this zine (dated 12/1997 &
01/1998) which was put out by Matt Newsome in
celebration of Interactive Fiction computer games such
as Zork as well as its more sophisticated descendants.
Legions Realm
www.legionsrealm.com
Published since September 2002 by James Luft and
friends, Legions Realm covers a wide swath of territory,
from RPGs and CCGs to miniatures and board games.
Oerth Journal
oerthjournal.hypermart.net
Produced by the Council of Greyhawk since May 1995,
The Oerth Journal started out an an AD&D zine but has
since morphed into a D&D3e zine. To the best of my
knowledge, at least fourteen issues have been produced
so far.
Revisiting the Three Kingdoms
www.romancingcathy.com
Published by Chuan Lin since November 2001,
Revisiting the Three Kingdoms is a sister-zine to Bite
Mark and also focuses on the Jadeclaw RPG.
RPG Now
www.rpgnow.com
Published since November 2002, RPG Now is the in-
house zine of the RPG Now website, which has been
doing retail sales of a variety of RPG products for the
past several years.
Shadowrun Supplemental
tss.dumpshock.com
Published by Adam Jury and friends since 1997, The
Shadowrun Supplemental obviously focuses on
Shadowrun.
Stygian
www.realmsofevil.net
Published since 2002 by your good friends at Realms of
Evil (don't worry; they're only slightly evil), The
Stygian is yet another d20 zine, although it's
thick and it's dense (a lot like me,
come to think of it). Defintely
worth a protracted
gander.
TempesT's Lore
www.d20zines.com
Reincarnated as a PDF zine in June 2002 by Morgan
Grover and friends, TempesT's Lore started out as a
AD&D zine during the late 90s but migrated to the d20
system for its first issue as a PDF file.
Total Power
www.players-society.com
Put out by the Warhammer Players Society of Great
Britain, Total Power covers everything Warhammer.
WildTalents
www.crucibledesign.com
Put out by Crucible Design a few years ago for the 23rd
Letter RPG, to the best of my knowledge, WildTalents
only ran for three issues (rather oddly numbered 1, 3 &
5).
As always, I've tried to go fairly light on review
commentary, as opinions are like that posterior orifice
of the alimentary canal (sans some rather brutal surgery,
everybody's got one). Hence, I'm leaving it to you to
figure out what you like and what you don't like. In case
any of these web-addresses don't work, let me know via
email (jimv@uia.net or jimvassila@aol.com), and I'll be
happy to postal you a cdrom or two with all of these
fanzines as well as a veritable plethora of free RPGs and
other wickedness. And just in case anyone is wondering,
I'm still working (albeit rather slowly) on that RPG Zine
Index Program and will post an update of my want-list
to my proggies page at www.elektrasystems.net/~jimv in
the semi-nearish future. Good gaming, everyone.
Check out a PDF Zine you
fowl fiend. They aren't for
the birds, y'know.