“The horrors persist, and so must you.” That’s an unusually heavy first statement to see on a Kickstarter page called ‘Axolotl With A Gun’. The pastel color scheme and chibi art might fool you into thinking this is a skin-deep, silly tabletop RPG, the kind that brews unexpected word combinations to maximize marketability. That’s not what’s happening here. Axolotl With A Gun has plenty to say – as well as plenty of cartoon rocket launchers.
This is a simple tabletop RPG where you have just two stats: ‘Axolotl’ and ‘Gun’. Use these to create a deep pool of d6s, and then roll these dice to fight evil robots. Designer Jonathon Boyle says this is an arcade-style system, heavily inspired by videogames, so you’ll spray bullets all the way up to a climactic boss fight. Survive that, and you get to go home and relax after a hard day’s work gunning down AI.
Rest and recreation are just as crucial to gameplay as the guns you wield. Mechanically, hobby supplies can be marked off to increase your dice pool, and once you’re out of supplies, you’ll need to spend time regenerating them. Narratively, this represents taking time to care for yourself – a quiet, unassuming action that is necessary for any kind of revolution. No one can be fighting evil at all times. It takes a mental and physical toll, and the Axolotls with Guns of the world need time to recuperate if they want to enact change that lasts more than a few days.
This is actually the second edition of Axolotl With A Gun. The Kickstarter page points out that this version comes with “updated guns, powerups and ultimate moves, new character creation options, new hobbies, and a bunch of small, quality-of-life updates to the rules”. There’s also new rules for spending coins on your hobbies and regeneration, and achievements – “just like chasing high scores in your favorite arcade games”.
Digital copies of the rulebook are available for $10 (£8), and an ‘Armed and Dangerous’ supplement is up for grabs for the same price. A physical edition of the core rules costs $20, and there’s a $125 pledge that throw in some D6s and 3D-printed coins, too. All pledges are expected to arrive in May 2026.
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