Kickstarter is like placing a bet that a product (like a game) is going to be good. While you can hedge your bets, you never know until your reward arrives whether it’s as good as you wanted or not. Sales are the exact opposite. You know what you’re getting, and you know it’s for less than list price! While I’ve been covering new RPGs coming through Kickstarter, the sources of sales for tabletop RPGs are getting better and deserve some love. I’m taking a look at Bundle of Holding as well as DriveThruRPG to give a sample of some high quality, low price games out there right now.

Bundle of Holding

First Bundle of Holding sale to highlight is Mutant Epoch. Mutant Epoch is a gonzo post-apocalyptic game, combining futuristic “dungeon crawls” with mutants, androids, and other creatures of all stripes. Originally published in 2011 The Mutant Epoch is an interesting parallel to Gamma World, and now you can start with three books for just eight dollars.

Next up are two bundles for Fantasy Hero. The Hero System has been for years the primary competitor for GURPS, and Fantasy Hero is the line which allows you to use the Hero system for all of your magic-slinging, dungeon crawling shenanigans. The first bundle is the Essentials,which presents the core mechanics as well as items, magic, and monsters. The second bundle is comprised of Settings, and gives you the opportunity to purchase half a dozen different setting books to up your game. The starter collections of both of these bundles are, like The Mutant Epoch, eight dollars.

The final bundle is the one ending soonest (Monday, June 10th), but it’s also one I’m particularly interested in. Corporation is a game of futuristic corporate war. Not quite cyberpunk but cyberpunk-adjacent, Corporation has you siding with one of five massive corporations in a brutal fight over the world’s remaining resources. To a degree, Corporation is to cyberpunk as Exalted is to fantasy, and if you like going superpowered with your augmentations and the idea of playing out absolutely ridiculous martial arts and gun fights, this is likely the game for you. Starter Pack in this case is $10.

DriveThruRPG

DriveThruRPG runs sales all the time, including many that only last a day. Click the main link above to see the range of what’s available now. One big ongoing sale this month is on Ken Wickham’s Flash RPG, a solo game intended for creating flash fiction. Ken also has a bunch of generators and other neat utilities for RPGs that are worth checking out. Also on sale is the relatively new fantasy game Knights and Legends, which was cheap to begin with but is now easily in impulse-buy territory. The game flew under the radar for me when it came out last year, but if it’s as critically acclaimed as the sale text says it is, $4 may be worth it for a read. The last highlight here is a sale from Expeditious Retreat Press, who have their 1 On 1 Adventures for sale for the rest of the month.

Hopefully these links have piqued your interest in some cheap games. If there are sales you think are pretty neat, or if you’re a designer looking to move some product, reach out! The RPG Bargain Bin is always ready to overflow.