Zigmenthotep
is a Youtuber who specializes in reviewing tabletop RPGs and occasionally other fun and wacky stuff. Most reviews boil down to a brief summary of the main premise and setting followed by a quick bit of character creation and a few rounds of combat or other encounters as Zig explains the mechanics. While mainly focusing on the more strange and obscure games out there Zigmenthotep has also done several videos on more mainstream classics such as D&D or The World of Darkness so there's always a little bit of something for everyone no matter what their preferences and playstyles are.
One particularly noteworthy aspect about the channel is how it typically subverts the Caustic Critic trope found in many other online review series for a much more chill and laidback atmosphere. Generally there will be a few positive things to be said about even the worst games featured and Zig is often able to point to something he likes in almost any review even if the game in question was overall unappealing to him. Of course, he's also not afraid to make it clear what he considers to be poor game design, writing or mechanics, which typically makes for some fairly balanced and insightful content regardless of what RPG is featured.
- After the Bomb
- Albedo: The Role-Playing Game
- All Flesh Must Be Eaten
- Bar the Windows, Bolt the Doors
- Boot Hill
- Broomstix
- Call of Cthulhu
- Changeling: The Dreaming
- Cyberpunk RED
- Dungeon Crawl Classics
- Dungeons & Dragons (1st through 6th Edition)
- F.A.T.A.L.
- Fluffy bunny
- GURPS
- Hunter: The Reckoning
- Ironclaw
- Khaotic
- The Knights of the Road
- Kosmosaurs
- Lamentations of the Flame Princess (Currently delisted on the main channel.)
- Let's Rob RJ McElhenny and Steal Her Golden Quill
- Let These Mermaids Touch Your Dick Maybe
- Lichcraft
- Mage: The Ascension
- Mermaids After The End
- Mermaid Adventures
- Metamorphosis Alpha
- Mew-Tants
- Mummy: The Resurrection
- Pathfinder
- Penis 2.0.77
- Pretty Fairy Princesses
- Princess With a Cursed Dick
- Revenant World
- Slasher Flick
- Starfinder
- Supernatural Role Playing Game
- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles & Other Strangeness
- Toon
- Troika!
- Vampire: The Masquerade
- Violence™: The Roleplaying Game of Egregious and Repulsive Bloodshed
- Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay
- Werewolf: The Apocalypse
- Wet Grandpa
Zigmenthotep provides examples of:
- Author Appeal: Zigmenthotep has several recurring themes and ideas that appear throughout his reviews:
- Cyberpunk. He seems to be a pretty big fan of the genre.
- Mermaids. He has made several merfolk characters and even featured Let These Mermaids Touch Your Dick Maybe as his
100th game review on the channel. - Cyberpunk Mermaids. He also reviewed a post-apocalyptic RPG that combined cyberpunk elements with sexy merfolk designs called Mermaids After the End on his channel as well.
- LGBT themes. He's featured several LGBT games in his reviews, including one that solely exists as a Take That! against a certain problematic author and her controversial views on transgender folks.
- Aliens and monsters. He'll often go out of his way to find RPGs and games that feature inhuman or otherwise monstrous characters as playable protagonists. Even in games that allow humans as characters he'll often go for one of the more exotic races if the game has any to offer.
- Author Avatar: While Zig has done plenty of reviews in person he'll occasionally opt for a video featuring a tentacled alien or floating die stand-in of himself when he can't be bothered to show up in the flesh for whatever reason.
- Nightmare Fetishist: Zigmenthotep is definitely a fan of the more freaky, weird and abnormal side of RPGs judging by some of the content he uploads. (See Author Appeal above for some specific examples.) What else can you say about a guy who made a beautiful hagfish mermaid character for his Changeling: the Dreaming review?
- Serious Business: He's given several silly and nonsensical "joke" games with completely absurd premises and mechanics a full (mostly) serious review like he would any other title on his show. One day he'll be reviewing a fairly typical game about monsters or wizards and the next he'll be discussing a game about fuzzy bunnies or cyberpunk genital modification.
- Take That!: His video on Let's Rob RJ McElhenny and Steal Her Golden Quill is a pretty blatant one towards a certain wizarding world author whose name escapes him at the moment. Definitely no one important or famous. Of course, given the name and themes of the RPG in question this was clearly the entire point.
- His Penis 2.0.77 video is also clearly meant to be a knock against Cyberpunk 2077 and its highly advertised "customizable genitals" feature.
