A Powerful One-Shot Engine comes to Zine Quest 2026
Maps & Mishaps lets you build a world, or choose your favorite, create characters, and take them on a GM-less misadventure - all in a single session!
Maps & Mishaps, a one-shot TTRPG engine that lets you have GM-less misadventures in any world is live on Kickstarter for Zine Quest 2026!
Maps & Mishaps is trying to raise $2,500 to fund the production of softcover physical rulebooks for the game! The physical rulebook is available for just $25, while the digital edition is $15.
About the Game
Maps & Mishaps is a one-shot misadventure engine about overcoming adversity with the help of your friends at the table. The GM-less system is designed to help you tell a satisfying and complete one-shot adventure in a single session.
In that time you and your table develop a world (or choose one you already love), create characters called “Travelers” who fit that world, and then go on a journey filled with challenges shaped by your imagination as well as the guidance of randomly-drawn prompt cards.
Maps & Mishaps is inspired by games like The Quiet Year and Fiasco and follows in their footsteps with a GM-less design that emphasizes collaborative storytelling.
To play Maps & Mishaps you'll need:
- 2-5 people
- Roughly 3-4 hours for a single session
- Enough tokens of some kind for every player (at least 6 per player).
- A standard set of playing cards to draw prompts
- A few index cards and some writing utensils
- The Maps & Mishaps book or PDF
The book and PDF both come with a set of print-and-play resources including character sheets, a world sheet, and easy rules reference sheets.
The System
Maps & Mishaps balances simple mechanics with a deep narrative focus to help you tell stories about journeys – in any world you can imagine. Below are some of the game's core systems designed to support that flexibility:
- A standard deck of playing cards serves as the World Deck, a flexible set of prompts that can be adapted to any world or setting and help introduce complications and opportunities to your adventure.
- A flexible character creation system of Traits, Drives, and Chains that ground every character in story-focused mechanics that define their skills, personal motivation, and troubles!
- A simple d6 resolution system ("the Challenge system") that keeps the action moving and always makes the likelihood of success & failure easy to understand!
- A "Map-Making" index card system you use to literally build a map and track your party’s journey from one location to the next!
Credits
Maps & Mishaps is created and designed by Jeremy Melloul, self-publishing as Bardlight Studios. Jeremy is a science-fiction & fantasy writer and TTRPG designer who has made stories and games for Star Citizen, Cartoon Network, Dungeons & Dragons, a 500+ person LARP, major comic book publishers, and even production companies working in film and TV. (If this sounds suspiciously like bragging it’s only because he's trying to convince you to back this project!)
Of course, he didn’t bring this project to life alone. Maps & Mishaps is made possible by the incredible contributions of an amazing team:
- Editing by Chris Montgomery
- Layout & Design by Nathan Paoletta
- Reference Sheet Design by Lizzy Lehuta
- Cover Art by Thomas Ketchen & Joshua Ketchen
- Additional Color Work by Bob Q.
- Logo by Rubri's Design & Typography
