Meme-Free Zone

A bundle of worldbooks for "old school revival" RPG play from Feral Indie Studio:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/WyrdAndWild



This isn't something I know much about - although the description emphasizes compatibility with various systems, it appears to have its own rules-set, and to be honest I really don't have time to delve into yet another set of fantasy rules for a genre I don't much enjoy. Presentation is reasonably good, and you appear to get a reasonable amount for your money. I just don't really feel a great need it. But if you like this style of play it may be worth a look.

This is a bundle of material for Wildsea, an RPG set on a very odd post-human / transhuman version of Earth which three centuries earlier was taken over by a vast and extremely dangerous forest, causing the collapse of much of civilization. In the period of the game the forest is typically navigated by huge ships which "sail" the treetops using vast chainsaw mechanisms to gather fuel and other materials. To make life more complicated there are several intelligent races, there's magic, and the forest is not a friendly environment, the air and soil are poisoned with toxic material that is either the cause of its explosive growth or a byproduct.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Wildsea



This is a very strange setting, that seems to be inspired by a lot of sources including magical realism, Firefly, the writing of China Mieville, and I suspect countless others. I found myself reminded of the The Edge Chronicles by Paul Stewart and Chris Riddell, and Hothouse by Brian W. Aldiss, although the world depicted still has some technology. Presentation is good, though the pages are in landscape format which is undoubtedly intended mainly for use on screens and tablets, not so good if you like printed books. Art is good and avoids most of the usual genre tropes - people generally wear sensibly protective clothing, which seems appropriate to the setting, without going the spiky armour route.

This is a good looking game which has been recommended fairly widely, and the bundle is pretty cheap. I think it's well worth a look, but as I occasionally have to remind myself, I get to play with this stuff free - if you're paying for it your mileage may vary.

Something different - an upbeat-ish superhero game with minimalist rules and a sense of fun. Tiny Supers from Gallant Knight Games based on their earlier Tiny Dungeon.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/TinySupers



This is pretty cheap, has clear typography and layout, and looks like it is easy to learn and run, which isn't something you can say about all superhero games. Bits of it have been in previous bundles, if you already have them you might want to check how much of this you want to add - it might make more sense to buy things individually. If you don't want to commit to the complexities of Champions, GURPS Supers, etc. it's well worth a look.

This is an all-new offer of material for the Mörk Borg RPG system, the "rules-light doom-metal RPG" from Free League Publishing:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/MorkCore



It's a popular system, but my eyes and brain have a lot of trouble coping with the typography and layout this company prefers, to the point of getting a headache if I look at some pages too long, and I don't think it's for me. Those of you with less tired eyes ought to find a reasonably comprehensive system with a fair amount of potential. This bundle has everything you need for the basic game, a couple of cult outlines, and the standalone games Pirate Borg and CY_borg. The price seems reasonable, but as always check what you actually want - if you already have some of this material it may be cheaper to get anything else you want as you need it, rather than buying the whole bundle.

There are vague rumblings of another bundle on the horizon. Resistance is probably futile...

This one is the Potbellied Kobold Bundle, featuring low-level D&D 5E supplements and adventures from Jeff Stevens Games.

https://bundleofholding.com/index/comingsoon/bundle/1761



I'm really not into D&D and other dungeon-bashing games, and haven't been since the 1980s, but it looks a reasonably good bundle if you still play in this genre. Presentation is reasonable, art is OK, and things seem to be reasonably well-explained in the adventures etc. If you like this sort of thing and still run low-level games it's probably worth a look.

This is a repeat of a 2021 offer of Mutant Crawl Classics from Goodman Games, a post-apocalypse adventure game drawing on the same sources as Metamorphis Alpha, Gamma World, etc.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/MCC2025

In 2021 I said:  This isn't an RPG genre I've played much, it's basically dungeon-bashing with science and mutants rather than magic and monsters, and I don't really do dungeon-bashing any more. Since I haven't been able to give this offering much of a look I'm not sure if it's a particularly playable system, but it's fairly cheap and $14.95 and up (now $17.95) will get you a lot of stuff, so it may be worth taking a chance.

Since then I've checked it out to an extent, and mostly confirmed my previous opinion. It's table-heavy, for those who like random events in their games, and looks a lot like previous systems of this type. I'm not saying it's a bad game or setting, it's just one that doesn't seem to interest me at all. Your opinion may vary, if so it's probably worth a look.

Another bundle, this time Leagues of Adventure from Triple Ace Games, a steampunk game and setting based on the Ubiquity rules:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/AdvLeagues



Given my RPG background this is just up my street - I've played in a couple of games using the Ubiquity rules and they work pretty well, and there are plenty of ideas here to borrow if you use another system such as (dare I say it?) Forgotten Futures or the possibly more mainstream GURPS Steampunk. It looks to be good value for money and I think it's worth a look if you're interested in the genre.

A bundle of games from various publishers on the theme of resistance, fighting authoritarian and corrupt regimes, which will in part benefit the Center for Constitutional Rights, a legal and educational organization for social change:

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/Resistance



It's an interesting bundle given current political events, and has some very interesting ideas - I especially like the really weird one, Eat The Reich, in which a group of vampire commandos are dropped into 1943 Berlin to take out Hitler - irresistibly reminded of a certain River Song scene...

https://youtu.be/NWXV8DLQgV8?si=gYrHB55hXLCft58G

This is a bundle of material for Faster Than Light: Nomad, an "old school" adventure SFRPG from Stellagama Publishing.This is now the company's main SF system, replacing the previous Traveller-derived Cepheus system because of problems with the Open Games License. It draws a lot of its look and feel from old SF magazines, and many of the illustrations originated in SF magazines that are now out of copyright in the USA. I know I've seen some of them before, unfortunately there isn't a list of sources and artists.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/FTLNomad



This is cheap and looks playable, but feels a little too generic in some ways - there isn't much in the way of a description of the background, even in the adventures, and I think that it may be written with the assumption that the adventurers will be busy having adventures, not worrying about issues much more complicated than "where are the space pirates based?" or "will the cargo eat us?" That doesn't make it a bad game, but I already have plenty of SF games and have written a couple of settings of my own, I'm not entirely convinced I need another.

This is a repeat of a bundle that has been offered a couple of times before, consisting of books on the history of games (especially role-playing games) and their designers.

https://bundleofholding.com/presents/2025Designers

 

These are interesting studies of the history of the genre, designers and their philosophies, etc., and I'm hoping that there will eventually be more volumes covering later years. If you've already bought this there's nothing new, if you haven't it's pretty good value and worth a look if you want reasonably unbiased opinions of a lot of pretty good games, or are thinking of designing your own.