Yo TTRPG fools. I got zines!
I did a limited run of my first game, Major Magicka, in full color. This is the first time I've made a zine but I think they turned out pretty neat. Also I'm currently a broke bitch so please buy em! They come with a cute shiny Entity sticker!
I'm biased because I wrote the game but I've run it a ton of times and it's really fun and absurd and generates extremely wild stories. I love it and I'd love if more people gave it a shot!
It was fun to do the Pale Dot explainer Chost so I figured I'd do one for Major Magicka too.
Major Magicka is a tabletop roleplaying game about going to wizard school in a bizarre collaborative magickal setting. It's played with or without a GM and its vibes tend towards the absurd and surreal.
Despite being about wizard school, there isn't a speck of influence from that one terrible nasty idiot. I was inspired to write this game while reading through all of Pratchett's Discworld and I think it shows! It's also heavily inspired by the inscrutable and hubristic magic of LeGuin's Earthsea series. I've always thought that if magic was real we'd either be smart enough to barely use it or go off the rails with cosmological consequences. This game tends to be about the latter.
Also a big shout out to the Friends at the Table podcast and all of it hubristic mages (and for being a constant source of inspiration).
Since I can't help but cross promote all my various creative endeavors I also made a theme song for it!
Mechanically, Major Magicka is kinda like a super stripped down, heavily altered, and somewhat iterated on Blades in the Dark. It was also inspired by games like Lasers and Feelings where characters are created quickly through a series of prompts and the missions (in this case Group Projects) are generated randomly with tables.
The game is designed to be really quick to pick up and play. Everybody starts by making a Wizard by determining their look, vibe, goal, spell style, and action/Wizistance scores. Afterwards they collaborate on what classes and teachers they share before they head out into the field for their Group Project and inevitably cause cosmic mayhem.
When the Wizards wiz about and try to accomplish magickal (and mundane) tasks they roll dice pools related to their scores in their 4 different actions. They can also increase their chance of success by getting support from fellow Wizards, utilizing their Spell sSyle, or making pacts with chaotic and enigmatic beings called Entities. This almost never creates problems!!
Success only occurs on a 6 on a six-sided die but players can force success by leaning into wizardly hubris. Through the power of magickal force of will a Wizard may always avoid failure but accumulating too much hubris results in narrative and mechanical consequences called Instabilities. Great power always comes with a cost.
If the Wizards are feeling saucy they can also participate in duels, which have their own unique mechanics. Wizard Duels are a respected art and even evil rogue Wizards are bound to the accept code of conduct for Duels. There is additionally a "battle royale" mode where Wizards enter a labyrinth (which is also an Entity) and compete for notoriety.
The game features a bunch of art drawn by me! This was my first attempt at book art and PDF design but I'm quite proud of how it turned out.
If you're curious to hear how it plays I ran it on a charity stream 2 years ago. The pitch of this adventure was: what if the Breakfast Club had to ponder the Orb? It's a bonkers session and the PCs are absolute freaks.
(The game used to be called Spelljammerz)
I only have 15 copies available at the moment but if people are diggin it I'm happy to make more. You can pick up the digital version on my Itch.
Also I'd appreciate if you gave me a follow there. My new game, Pale Dot, will be dropping later this month!