Jeffro Johnson said if you like fantasy roleplaying you shouldn’t miss Fight On! Magazine. After his great book on Appendix N I decided to give him the benefit of a doubt and ordered the first 4 issues. Lulu.com carries issues of the magazine both in PDF and print form. What I found was an impressively good fan-produced magazine for fantasy roleplaying. The creators of the magazine tend to focus on B/X Dungeons & Dragons for the articles that require game stats but that’s just fine with me. I’m halfway through the 2nd issue now and I’m ordering more.
Each issue offers a wealth of material for every aspect of fantasy roleplaying. Character options, monsters, magic items, maps, stocked dungeons, stocked sandbox wilderness maps, alternate rules… Lots of stuff. And the signal to noise ratio here is incredibly good. Gabor Lux’ dungeon The Tomb-Complex of Ymmu M’Kursa looks like a lot of fun. I’ve got to try it with some players. Monster Machine by Vincent Baker is a system for making monsters and/or traps that is innovative, simple and full of great ideas. The Darkness Beneath is a megadungeon with a new level in each issue. I’ve only read the first level so far but that’s enough to make me consider using this in a game.
Most of the RPG fanzines I’ve seen have only one or two people working on them. If the writers are good they make the magazine worthwhile but the speed at which new material is released is slow. Fight On! had a large group of contributors with its first issue and by the second it’s larger. Plus writers like Steve Marsh and James Edward Raggi IV join in. The first issue is 30 pages but issue 2 is 88 pages. For what I’m paying it’s totally worth it.
The articles offer material for your games that is fun, imaginative, versatile and appropriate for a wide group of players. I really struck gold with this one. I highly recommend you check it out for your own fantasy roleplaying games.
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