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Throughout February, both Kickstarter and Crowdfundr are hosting tabletop-related spotlight events in support of Zine Month – also called ZiMo – which celebrates indie creators and the amazing work they do to keep the tabletop space alive and kicking. Helping springboard such zines, including plenty of zines from queer creators, Kickstarter is currently running Zine Quest, while Tabletop Nonstop is Crowdfundr's efforts on the matter.
While TRPGs published this way rarely get picked up by large publishing companies, and would have a heck of a time getting onto the best tabletop RPG list, events like this give creators an opportunity to show off their hard graft and wonderfully ingenious systems to a larger crowd than they would usually be beholden to. So now might well be the time to launch your own Zine, if you've been sitting on an idea for a while.
The call for zine-style tabletop RPGs is a nod to a long legacy of indie journalism and literature, with zine roots in anti-authoritarian and anti-capitalist media going back as far as the 1930 and beyond. Though zines themselves have historically been a platform for positive social change, tabletop zines' roots are also sadly steeped in negative themes such as sexism. As Aaron Trammell notes in a post on the Analog Game Studies blog, one of the first tabletop zine creators Len Lakofka was also the author of an essay entitled 'Notes on Women & Magic', which denotes how the "female body should be understood and regulated within Dungeons & Dragons". Perhaps progressive for the '70s, it's a dark window into just how far TRPG zines have come over the past half-century, and how different the space is today.
All the more reason for us progressive tabletop designers to finally get our LGBTQ+ infused ideas out into the wild, if you haven't already. Because my little queer heart yearns for more goodies to overshadow the shitshow that once was.
So far there are some fantastic queercoded TRPG zines crowdfunding this month, so you can go off and support queer creators like Jaclyn Lewis, one of the brilliant minds behind Imagine Queer Worlds - A Thoughtful Guide to Inclusive Worldbuilding. This is one such zine that's already fully funded having been hosted on Kickstarter's Zine Quest Created by a host of queer designers, it's a guide encouraging TRPG designers and worldbuilders to explore gender and sexuality in their creations, by presenting them with terminology, concepts, and worldbuilding prompts to pull them out of their limited human perspective. It's a clever little zine aimed at those wanting to explore such concepts in a mindful and inclusive way, while also getting pretty far-out with their ideas.
Other queer creators featured this year are Allison Kyran Cole, whose zine is a collection of Gay Games to play in the car. I love this concept because now long drives won't be a drag, but will instead help me be a queen (sorry). Drink My Sweat is another delightful looking zine from queer creator Dora Dee Rogers is a "storytelling game about messy attraction and queer, feminine transgression, expressed through the ritualized violence of a fight club." Yes, and I can't stress this enough, please.
There aren't many on Crowdfundr as of yet, but previous year's entries to Tabletop Nonstop included a folio of sexy Fantasy Men from queer creators Steve Kenson and Micah Weltsch, who want you to let your male-presenting NPCs' sensual side show.
If you've been waiting to launch a crowdfunding campaign, now is definitely the time to do it. Especially for us in the queer space in light of… current events. All you have to do is launch a simple Kickstarter and fill in the form for consideration, or for Crowdfundr you just need to register your interest and raise a minimum of $100 to be featured.
For more recommendations, why not check out some funky solo RPGs or one about taking down the establishment as an anamatronic teddy.
