In a similar manner to my articles in which I breakdown the articles from Arcadia that I used to write for Tribality, I now present you a series of breakdowns for the Unbound collection. Leon Barillaro has been kind enough to provide me with a copy of the issue for me to check out and review.
In many ways, Unbound is very similar to Arcadia and the Uncaged collections. Leon even mentions it in a Letter from the Editor at the very beginning! However, this collection has another purpose. With the disaster caused by the D&D OGL, many people started to check out other games, and the people in charge of Unbound wanted to make other games known. As Leon says “This zine is […] a collection of articles supporting the systems and genres we enjoy, many of which have nothing to do with heroic medieval fantasy”
The PDF itself is not indexed, nor provides alt text for the images. Additionally, the text cannot be selected, as if every page was a whole image. However, the layout is gorgeous to look at, the images selected are amazing, colorful, and thematic. Additionally, each individual article not only includes the author, but also who did the illustrations, the editors, and even playtesters for the adventures. I really liked seeing all the people involved being well displayed in each article, and having a whole Contributors section for each of them (except for the Playtesters). The contributors, I must also stand out, for being extremely diverse, both as BIMPOC, and part of the LGBTQ+ community.
Practically Magic
~ Article ~
Author: Margaret Mae
Artists: Kata Kemi
Editors: Dana Floberg and Steffie Devaan
Whiskers & Wings
~ Honey Heist Hack~
Author: Dana Floberg
Artists: Angela O’Hara
Editors: Ashton Duncan and Steffie Devaan
Did you ever consider the idea of your cat actually being a dragon polymorphing to have a comfortable life in your house? In this Honey Heist hack, players play as cats in a human house. You have 2 stats: Cat and Dragon. Break vases, or steal the treasures from the house to create your horde… Roll a bunch of dice to create “Embertongue
Knightsbane, the Emerald Scourge, Lord of the Wastes and Seventh of My Name, also called Muffins.” or similar named characters, and wreak havoc! Having played Honey Heist before I am pretty sure cat lovers are going to absolutely love this hack!
Dracula’s Diner
~ Oops, All Draculas’ Adventure ~
Author: Jessica Marcrum
Artists: Nala J. Wu
Editors: Kai Linder and Leon Barillaro
From the mind of Oops, All Draculas creator comes this hilarious one-shot adventure that is more of a sandbox to play in. Players play as Draculas owning a diner. Select within the Draculas options available, and do your best to keep this diner running as smoothly as possible. A series of introductory questions for the players set the scene, and a list of a mixture of hilarious, loveable, incredibly annoying, and more NPCs coming to eat make sure to keep the game on a good rhythm. The adventure also comes with its own list of minor and major complications that can occur, as well as seeds on how to start the game. I’ve never got to play Oops, All Draculas, nor even have the game… but after reading this, I’m all in for getting a copy and start a Dracula’s diner with my friends!
Minder
~ Blades in the Dark’s Playbook ~
Author: Kai Linder
Artists: Herman Lau
Editors: Brock Burgum and Leon Barillaro
The shields in the dark, these scoundrels focus more on their companions than on the cutthroat world they live in. This playbook includes all the things necessary to get this new character into your BitD game. The minder’s abilities focus more on helping others out, such as helping other scoundrels release stress or heal their trauma, or assisting a teammate without gaining stress yourself. However, where the minder focuses the most is on emotions. They can read people’s emotional states with a glance. To help the GM out, this comes with a table you can roll on to determine an NPC’s emotional state, taking inspiration from Robert Plutchik’s emotion wheel. Lastly, the Playbook comes with a section on how to play the Minder that I really enjoy: This being a character that is always helping others out, it advises the player on not taking the spotlight and leaving others the time to shine as well, not always appearing in all scenes.
Final thoughts
Even though Oops! All Draculas and Blades in the Dark are two games I haven’t had the chance of playing yet, I did not feel outed while reading their respective articles, as it was particularly easy to understand what these did and how they played… In fact, now I’m more looking forward to both trying the game out and these contents in it. The introductory article opened my mind to want to do more worldbuilding, and start new campaigns…. And then there’s the dragons being a cat game, which as a fan of dragons, and owner of a cat (even though he thinks he is my owner) I am really looking forward to someday trying!
All in all, while some articles may feel more interesting to me than others, the fact that they are so polished and offer such great content makes this issue very worth it. All this stuff for $8, or even less when on sale is a no-brainer!
GET UNBOUND ISSUE 2 FROM DRIVETHRURPG
Be sure to leave them a rating if you get the product to help it grow and allow them to release more issues!
