Maps may be amongs the best tools for a GM. They’re an interface of communication between the players and adventure, preventing confusion while fueling creativity. I think there’s room left in TTRPG design to strive for similar communication tools. Today, instead of improving dungeon exploration through maps, I hope to improve shopping sessions through A7 booklets.

One of the better shopping sessions I’ve experienced was the one where our GM gave us several cards with magic items. Physical handouts. The fact that we were able to “hold” them and pass them around engaged us with the content and each other. Now it’s my mission to bring that experience to every table.

Challenges of Shopping Session

Most people I discuss shopping sessions with, agree that they have a tendency to drag on. I couldn’t find a conclusive reason why that is, but in my own experience it’s caused by a number of issues:

• Multiple players requiring attention at the same time
• GMs reading aloud from an item list
• Players having an overwhelming amount of options
• Un-curated list that don’t apply to the current setting

During games I run myself, I’m always looking for good lists of goods. Having one to hand out solves a lot of the problems listed above. Physical objects engage my players far more than my words do. So I set out to create lists of useful and gameable objects that players would generally be able to get at civilized locations.

Why A7 Shop Handouts

They’re cool! Micro zines have the precise size for my goals: setting the bar to print and make the zines is as low as possible. Hopefully, low enough to easily get a number of zines to hand out.

Each spread has 20 items available, with as wide a variety between them as possible. The spreads are divided into 3 categories: common, uncommon and rare items. Rarity is linked to the level of society, where common items could be found in any village, while rare ones are only available in metropolises. At the time of writing, 2 vendor lists are completed:

• Outfitter (adventuring gear): This shop contains tools useful in the widest scope of circumstances I could imagine. Common tools are farmer tools. Uncommon ones are everything you’d expect at any decent general store. Rare tools lean a little magical and aim to fill the holes left open by the mundane items. I avoided weapons, as they’re for another shop.
• Tavern (food & drinks): The lists in this shop are far more specific. I tried to give the widest variety of ingredients and kinds of meals that could exist in a fantasy realm. Common food is in any hamlet. The rare items are very fantasy-coded, but could also serve as inspiration for your own menu.

The Might of the Paperclip

Paperclips are the peak of product design. So much so, that even in a stupid TTRPG project like this they pop up their head once again:

Paperclips can lock away sections of content.

The micro zines have 3 spreads each, for a total of 60 items. That’s a lot. Paperclips, however, have the power to reduce that number by clipping together spreads. GMs can easily control what’s available to players this way. I’ve always got two of them clipped to my zines.

What I Hope You’ll Take Away

Creating the shop zines was a really rewarding experience, but has been a lonely journey. I hope some of you join the hype! In the coming months I’ve planned to create more zines like these two, if the general response is that they’d be useful.

Would these micro zines be welcome at your table? If so, how’d they be used? If not, what are they missing?

I’d love to know!

Cheers,
Willem-Jan

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