Fanzines sprung up globally in response to the desires
of individuals, clubs or publishers to put out the good word
of fantasy role playing. Like NonTSR items, these
publications were not produced or necessarily approved by
TSR. Also like NonTSR, one can witness the creative
energy of early role playing in its prime. These 'zines contain
a treasures trove of information ranging from convention
reports, published game reviews, new game mechanic
alternatives and even reviews of other 'zines. This list
contains a mixture of very new to very old.
Items are from many different sources so much clarification
and connection to D&D is required. As such we are
inclined to keep the non D&D 'zines on this list and
request a disclaimer for anyone using this page. We feel
if it is on the list it can serve to dispel confusion for collectors
looking for rare 'zines if they see that it is probably not
suitable for D&D gaming while researching it here.

There are an enormous amount of zines in the UK. There
seems to be one for each gamer and definitely one for
each game designer grooming himself for a position in the
role playing business world. UK conventions featured
an entire area in the vendor section dedicated to Fanzines.
They even hosted well-profiled Zine polls for the best
fanzine as selected by everyone who cared to vote.
We noticed an aptly put assessment of UK fanzines on an ebay auction...'The editors were invarably egotistical madmen bent on world domination, whose mumblings, ideas, roleplaying techniques, scenarios, banter, and insults were traded across a plethora of amateur magazines.' What is really amusing is that these guys would send each other their zines for review to which end they were almost always trashed in the review by the editor of the other zine. A painfully masochistic circle of humiliation can be witnessed within each of these zines.

We probably will not concern ourselves with posting images of every single issue of each zine. We will seek to post at least one image of each zine and possibly a few more to demonstrate the various appearances.

APA (amateur press association) is a term used to designate any magazine where the contributor's work is published without any editorial cuts. These zines tend to be full of lots of vaguely unorganized and often boring dissertations. This format resembles the spirit of discussion groups in the age of the Internet before there was Internet! Most of the 'zines featured here are not APA but some definitely are. Alarums and Excursions is the most famous of all the APAs in this fantasy 'zine list. The Wild Hunt is another.

Selections at this point are rather limited to English written zines but if any of the visitors are interested in compiling information on zines in other languages following the basic format presented here we will be happy to give them a page off of this index.

Please contactThe Scribe for additional 'zines not on the list and additional information, errata, or images for featured items.