In a world full of great zines, the Black Pudding series is hands down my favorite. Issue 8 felt like it took forever to show up but now that it's here, it certainly doesn't disappoint. Zasto Fillistian on page 16 is 100% in my next campaign. If you like gonzo in your OSR, and haven't already, go back and start with issue 1 and work your way through. You won't regret it. They are PWYW but you'll find yourself eagerly handing over a few dollars in hopes of getting more.

I’m a sucker for rules lite systems and sci-fi, so I was pleasantly surprised to see a future focused RPG from the same guy that did Pocket Fantasy (which is free so there is no reason not to go check it out too).

My first thought was this seems to be an easy accessible rule set for Traveler style, hard sci-fi stories, prefect for using the decades worth of material written for that genre. However, I don’t think it would feel out of place to use it for most sci-fi settings from golden age pulp to Firefly.

Like a good rules lite game the basics are approachable for new players, but I wouldn’t say new GMs. Several of the pages are dedicated to providing GMs with tools to help create an original universe (the dice drop mechanic for creating a solar system on the fly is really cool) but you won’t find paragraphs explaining the role of the GM and how to plays RPGs. What you get is a dense 10 pages, though really it’s triple columns so if you reformatted to a traditional zine format you’d be looking at closer to 35-40 pages. There is no fluff, it just dives right into the all the rules you need, which as a fan of rules lite systems is just what I want.

What to like: Quick and accessible. Simple mechanics that seem easy to teach and easy to recall at the table. Uses d6 so everyone is already setup with what they need. Rules cover a lot more than you would expect for 10 pages, including space ships, space combat, rules for generating aliens, universe and solar system creation, and several pages of adventuring ideas. It’s only a dollar. It’s a lot of game for a dollar.

Caveats: Horror sci-fi is incredibly popular at the moment. Pocket Space doesn’t have mechanics for sanity or stress which seem integral to such games. Easy enough to add but if you’re going to use these rules with the stacks of adventures coming out for that genre you’ll need to hack some in. EDIT Covered in a new expansion

No space wizards or magic. Which may or may not be important to you.

Droid and robots are to be included in an upcoming expansion so don't exist quite yet. Edit**OUT NOW!**

Everything you love about DCC but Weird West. There are a LOT of great games focusing on the west but I promise you’ll find this one to be special.
Now in full disclosure, I live in the same general location as the author and have been lucky enough to sit in a a fair number of adventures. So while I am a biased source at least I’ve had some time with the game.

So my take: The character classes all feel unique and set the tone for the rest of the game. Even the classes you think will be straight forward, like the gunslinger or monk, all have a uniqueness that helps give this version of the fantasy west a different twist.

What is a western with out guns and WF has a meticulously researched list of period firearms. They don’t feel like they were an afterthought. You got to get firearms right in a western and this game does.

All new spells, written with the setting in mind. Not just a rehash of same old spells.

A bestiary that’s over 100 pages. Again, they all feel appropriate to the setting.

Includes two full adventures and already has additional published adventures.

The art. Every other page has a t-shirt worthy image and with a tome that clocks in at 900 pages, that’s a whole lot of art. Gunslinging Nun on page 104 is my favorite.

Nine hundred pages can be overwhelming. No getting around that. It should be several books with the adventures printed separately but the author has been pretty forthcoming on why it ended up this way. It is well organized and anyway, thats why they make bookmarks. Yes it’s 900 pages but there were simply no corners cut. It’s all in there.