52 Pickup: Six Original & Unique TTRPGs

We’re back for ZineQuest 2025 with not one, not two, but SIX original and unique TTRPGs!

Introducing the '52 Pickup: TTRPG Collection 2', three new TTRPGs designed by City Square Studios, along with remasters of the three TTRPGs from '52 Pickup: TTRPG Collection 1', each with unique systems and settings.

Mini Zine Multi-Packs

This year we’re making our mini zines available worldwide for the first time! These little zines are handmade A7 (roughly 3”×4”) mini prints that are sure to fit on even the most overloaded shelves! 

Each mini zine is an entirely standalone TTRPG and comes with all the base game rules. QR codes link you to free downloadable character sheets, and we’ll even squeeze in a few extra bonus rules where there’s space.

Deluxe A5 Booklet

For the discerning adventurer, we’re going one step further. This year we are publishing our first-ever book! The book is A5-sized, perfect bound with a 300 GSM matte cover, and includes 80+ pages in total.

The Deluxe Booklet includes six original and unique TTRPGs designed by City Square Studios, plus all bonus content we’ve ever released for each game. Think: bonus rules, maps, extra random tables, GM notes, example sessions, and more!

The Deluxe Booklet includes the six TTRPGs from Collection 1 and 2 and features a wealth of bonus content such as extra rules, illustrated maps, additional random tables, essays from the game designer, and more!

Party Pack

And finally, for the adventurer who wants it all: either for themselves or to share among their fellow party members. The Party Pack comes with a Deluxe A5 Booklet and each of the six mini zines.

What’s more, we’ll also throw in one extra random mini zine from the 52 Pickup back catalogue, featuring a tabletop game you can play with standard household components such as dice, cards, pen & paper, etc.

The Games

Now the most important part of all - the games! The six games in the 52 Pickup TTRPG Collection will take you and your party on wildly different adventures with unique themes, settings, and gameplay systems. Each game also comes with additional bonus content, example sessions, maps, character creation sheets, and more!

The games you will find in the 52 Pickup Collection 2 are:

• Sentience: Players are a batch of robots sneakily breaking the laws in order to become fully sentient.
• Haunted House: Mystic Doctor: Players are Mystic Doctors working together to cure their patients of supernatural illnesses while trying to keep their own sanity in check.
• Atomic Family: Live out your favourite sitcoms with personality-driven skill checks while trying to complete this week’s episode’s A and B plots.

And the remastered games from the 52 Pickup TTRPG Collection 1, with new bonus content and refined rules, are:

• Merger: Office politics meets TTRPG—complete secret tasks and try not to get fired by the GM (General Manager).
• Coins Over Deadeyes: A spooky western game where players are dead infamous outlaws trapped in Limbo. They have to work together to find the way, but not all can escape!
• Super Cryptid Friends: Create your own cryptids and defend your environment, but if proof of your existence is captured, you all lose.

Game 1: Sentience

Players are all part of the same batch of bots that have gained a little bit of sentience. They take actions to build their sentience by acting against the Laws that all bots are supposed to follow while keeping their suspicion low so they aren’t reset or dismantled. Only once their batch has all gained sentience will they be free!

Sentience is a TTRPG for one Game Master and 1+ players that uses coins to perform skill checks. Try to gain enough Sentience to become truly free before the humans become too suspicious of what you are doing and decommission your entire bot batch.

Unique features:

• Modular Bots: Build your perfect bot from the ground up. Choose your arms, transportation, body, and sensors.
• Break the Laws: Break robotic laws (inspired by Asimov), opening up new chaotic role-playing options as you play.
• Incentivised Cooperation: You either all become free or are dismantled together.

Game 2: Haunted House: Mystic Doctors

Haunted House: Mystic Doctors is a narrative-heavy TTRPG for one Game Master and 1+ players that uses chopsticks and household items to perform skill checks (or optionally, two six-sided dice). Try to cure the patient while keeping yourself alive and your mind intact.

Unique features:

• Chopstick Skill Checks: Use chopsticks and household items for skill checks.
• Hidden Oaths: Each doctor follows their own secret version of the Hippocratic Oath, which can change when they encounter the supernatural.
• Holistic Health: Balance treating your patients while preserving your own physical and mental health. Damaging your mental health causes the GM to edit your oath as you play.

Game 3: Atomic Family

Atomic Family is a Game Master-less TTRPG for 3+ players that uses standard playing cards, paper, and writing utensils. The players take turns playing their characters and being the Directors of each Scene. The game is played over an Episode, made up of Scenes, lasting however long the Directors want to play. The Directors decide when a Scene or the Episode is over. The players work together to resolve both the A and B Plots before the end of the Episode.

Unique features:

• Personality-Driven: The story is pushed forward by whichever personality trait is dominant in a situation. Will your character be taken over by cowardice or anger when the family pet is stolen?
• Sitcom Possibilities: All the rules you need to play the game work in any of your favourite sitcom settings, or something completely original. Want to play a dysfunctional nuclear family hunting ghosts, a space delivery company, or a family of cryptids hiding out in a library? All are possible!
• Easy to Pick Up and Play: Uses a standard deck of playing cards, and character and setting creation is done collaboratively.

We have gone back and remastered three of our older TTRPGs we originally released back in the 52 Pickup TTRPG Collection 1. We’ve polished up the rules, added extra bonus content, and swapped out some of the mini zine cover colours.

Game 4: Merger

Merger is a TTRPG for a game master and 2+ players that uses standard playing cards, paper, and writing utensils. The game is played over a Session of however long the CEO wants to play. At the end of the session, the CEO conducts a performance assessment and selects half of the Employees who get to keep their jobs.

Unique Features:

• Synergetic Priorities: Balance completing your group's assigned task with your own secret agenda.
• Dynamic Personal Verticals: Use your position's unique perks to gain the advantage in board meetings, water cooler conversations, and children’s birthday parties.
• Unlimited Market Gaps: Different companies, group goals, and secret objectives create unique scenarios every time.

Game 5: Coins Over Deadeyes

Coins Over Deadeyes is a TTRPG for a game master and 2+ players that uses coins, paper, and writing utensils. The game is played over a Session of however long the Pale Horse decides. The Session is broken up into Scenes of play, shifting focus at the discretion of the Pale Horse. The players who escape Limbo win.

Unique Features:

• Built-in Treachery: Game mechanics that force players to cooperate while knowing betrayal is inevitable.
• Weird West Setting: A blend of Western and supernatural horror themes, creating an atmosphere where six-shooters meet spectral encounters.
• Dead Simple Tension: Easy-to-learn coin-flip mechanics that create tension with every decision.

Game 6: Super Cryptid Friends

Super Cryptid Friends is a TTRPG for a game master and 2+ players that uses six-sided dice, paper, and writing utensils. In this TTRPG, the players take on the roles of Cryptids who have banded together to protect the habitat of another Cryptid. From Bigfoot to the elusive Loch Ness Monster, players craft their Cryptids, work to each other’s strengths, and protect each other’s weaknesses to overcome the threat to their environment.

Unique Features:

• Play as Your Favourite Cryptid: Step into the paws, fins, or wings of legendary creatures. Be the Mothman, Bigfoot, or create your own unique Cryptid with special powers and abilities.
• Balance of Power and Secrecy: Unlike traditional TTRPGs where heroes (likely) seek glory, your challenge is to save the day while maintaining your mysterious existence. Success means no one knows you were there!
• Unite!: Work together to overcome environmental threats, as cooperation is encouraged.

What is 52 Pickup?

52 Pickup is a monthly Zine featuring original tabletop games—including board games, card games, TTRPGs, and more—created in Aotearoa New Zealand. Each month, you’ll get new tabletop games that are easy to play with friends, family, or by yourself. Playing card games, chess games, dice games, TTRPGs, and more!

About City Square Studios

We are Dylan and Dan, a couple of friends from Aotearoa/New Zealand 🇳🇿 who create tabletop games as a passion project. We successfully funded our first project, Dice Dodgems, on Kickstarter in 2021. More recently, we successfully funded our first ZineQuest project, TTRPG Collection 1, in 2024. You can find out more about what we do here.

We work with local New Zealand artists to produce the artwork for the 52 Pickup Zine series. We print and assemble our mini zines by hand and collaborate with local manufacturers in New Zealand for book printing and binding.