RPG Zine Club

The RPG community may have stretched the definition of the word zine to near breaking point but there’s no denying the enduring, and indeed increasing, popularity of the format. Whilst Kickstarter’s ZineQuest, and the indie community’s own alternative Zine Month, provide great opportunities to rapidly expand your collections, those looking for a more sustainable option should check out the newly launched RPG Zine Club.

Created by the team behind the popular YouTube channel Plus One EXP, RPG Zine Club is a new, monthly subscription service launching this autumn. Every month will see them publish two brand new RPG zines from both well known and new faces, one powered by story game systems like PBTA, Carved from Brindlewood & Belonging Outside Belonging with the other featuring adventures designed for games such as D&D B/X, Cairn, Down We Go, Mörk Borg or Mothership.

Getting things going the first month sees the release of Spin The Bottle/Guys In Chairs, a 2-in-1 zine by Superdillin and Navaar Jackson’s apocalyptic survival game The Corrupted. Looking forward future months will see the likes of Die, Grave Robber Die by Michael Van Vleet, Primadonna by Kyle Tam and Kayla Dice’s Fear the Taste of Blood heading out to subscribers. To find out more we checked in with Plus One EXP’s Tony Vasinda...

Hi Tony, why do you think the zine is such a popular, and important, format for RPGs and especially for new game designers?

Tony Vasinda: I could spill a lot of ink here but portability, accessibility, and style are the main three for me. 

For portability, yes they are easy to carry around, but portability of concept is really the focus here. Zines are lean by nature. This makes the concepts and mechanics focused and easy to mix. Grab a few zines you like off the shelf and start thinking about how they work together and interact with each other. It's typically pretty easy.

Accessibility is really about cost & scope. It's an affordable format to print in. Hardbacks are 2-5x as much and it keeps the page count down. The lower page count means clearer focus and an easy starting point for new designers. 

Lastly, style is an amazing feature of the zine format. They are pieces of art, compact forms of expression, & a format that was built with the goal of saying something important. Zines are steeped in RPG culture and RPG culture is steeped in zines.

Are you just distributing these zines or actually publishing them?

TV: We are the publishers or co-publishers of everything coming out of Zine Club. The creators still maintain ownership of their zines and the rights to digitally distribute on other platforms. 

We do work with our creators to build a window of exclusivity on the release, but as a big champion of creator's rights we want this to be a platform and community that builds equity directly for the creators.

So what’s the deal, how much does a subscription cost?

TV: It depends on how often you set your subscription for, but it's $18 for a 1 zine subscription and $34.50-ish for the 2 zine for the physical + pdf level, but we also have a more affordable digital option for $9 and about $16 respectively. 

And is the club only open to people in the US or do you ship internationally?

TV: Zine Club is ABSOLUTELY FOR EVERYONE!

Currently, however, we only ship from the US. We have good international rates and have it set up so you can pay any duties in advance or on delivery based on live rate shopping. This is also one of the reasons we wanted to ensure that there was a digital option so shipping costs wouldn't impede folks from signing up. 

We are also trying to establish a handful of international shipping partners in 2024 who have a similar passion and vision as our team does to make shipping more affordable for international Club members. 

Will non-subscribers be able to buy the zines at all?

TV: Yes! But club members get them at the lowest possible cost and get them shipped out a week ahead of general orders. The goal here isn't restricting the titles or manufacturing exclusivity. It's building a space where we can all invest in emerging creative voices.  

What else does a subscription get, apart from the zines each month?

TV: Besides the satisfaction of impacting the lives of dozens of creators a year, we are in the process of building out some great extras. 

At launch, you get access to a special community discord for club members, access to exclusive Q&As with the designers, and other digital resources. You will also get access to discounted add-ons like our Zine Club Passport, existing titles, and our bespoke balms in your subscription portal. 

Coming next year we will be adding in a site wide discount for club members and are working on a loyalty program for Club exclusive merch. We are super excited to be working with the club to find out what the community wants to see and give them a voice in future publications. 

RPG ZINE CLUB is accepting new members now subscribe at plusoneexp.com

This feature originally appeared in Wyrd Science Vol.1, Issue 5 (Dec '23)