New Release! Guard Cards for Pinching Tarts TTRPG Now Available


"Guard Cards gold text on a green vintage book cover two crossed swords and a shield

Guard Cards is a pay-what-you-want game aid compatible with Pinching Tarts, a Wonderland-themed PocketQuest 2024 game designed by Monica Valentinelli. The cards can either be printed out and used as half-sheets or folded in half to create cards.

Guard Cardsis a digital download available from DriveThruRPG.com. The game accessory is not playable on its own without a copy of Pinching Tarts. What it does include, are rules for all the foes you’ll encounter in the Red Queen’s Castle. It includes:

* guidance to introduce the Red Queen’s Guard
* alternate rules for Teatime! affecting guards
* cards for all foes expanding and clarifying core rules
* ranks for The Watch

The half-page guard cards include customized tracks for each guard’s hearts.

This printer-friendly title is a game accessory for Pinching Tarts, a caucus game of tart-stealing nonsense inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865).

Download Guard Cards from DriveThruRPG.com!



April 16, 2024
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New Releases! Pinching Tarts RPG and Creature Sheets Accessory

Pinching Tarts Cover Art | Alice in Wonderland white rabbit | PocketQuest Monica Valentinelli

Pinching Tarts is a caucus game of tart-stealing nonsense inspired by Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland (1865) that offers players multiple options to win. You and your friends play Wonderland creatures who infiltrate the Red Queen’s castle to steal Her Majesty’s tarts while protecting what you hold most dear-your heart.

Pinching Tarts is a GM-less game that uses 10 six-sided dice in two colors (five of each). It includes:

  • standard rules, tips, and rule summaries
  • character rules, characters, and character creation
  • rules for Teatime, “Eat Me” cakes, and “Drink Me” potions
  • optional rules to stash and eat tarts
  • sample rooms in the Red Queen’s castle
  • rules for antagonists including the Knave of Hearts, the Cook, and the Red King and Queen
  • a recipe for fruit-a-licious mini-tarts
  • …and more!

Your mission? Pinch tarts. Drink tea. Escape… With your heads tarts!

Suitable for two or more players, childlike adults and children, this tartacular game from veteran game designer Monica Valentinelli is her PocketQuest debut. Whether you play a duck, a dodo, or a dormouse it matters not, for each creature has their own talents, specialty, and heart. Gathered together, you form “les pièces de résistance,” a ragtag band of thieves who have targeted none other than the head-chopping Red Queen.

“I had a lot of fun designing ‘Pinching Tarts’ for my first PocketQuest, so much so I devised a fun origin story for the game’s development and layout,” writes Monica. “I pretended I ‘found’ this vintage game in a secondhand book store, but several pages were torn, missing, and scribbled on in crayon. So, I reconstructed the original game and now present it you as a found artifact full of sticky notes, parchment, scrap paper, etc.”

This title includes a full color and printer-friendly greyscale version. The printer-friendly version of Pinching Tarts has a full color cover, but the interior has been modified to be less art-intensive.

For more about Monica’s process designing Pinching Tarts, you can read:

Pinching Tarts is available exclusively on DriveThruRPG.com.

Also Available on DriveThruRPG


Creature Sheets is a pay-what-you-want game aid compatible with Pinching Tarts, a Wonderland-themed PocketQuest game designed by Monica Valentinelli. The creature sheet is not form-fillable by design for two reasons: some of the fields are subject to change during gameplay, and there’s a rule in the game that gives players the ability to swap character sheets. For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you use pencil to fill out the sheets.

Creature Sheets is a digital download that includes:

  • creature sheet instructions
  • guidance for descriptive Wonderland-appropriate traits
  • sample creature sheet for a puppy
  • blank, printer-friendly creature sheets

The two-page creature sheets include tracks for hearts as well as optional tracks for tarts stolen, eaten, and foes defeated.



April 1, 2024
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My Year-End Summary and 2023 Publications

Last year, I wrote in my 2022 year-end review that: “Reflecting on 2021, this year was a time to start shedding everything that wasn’t working for me.” If 2022 was a year of shedding, 2023 was a time of restoration in many, many ways.

This year has been a time to heal, laugh, dance, and revel in my peace while reconnecting with old friends and peers. I am extraordinarily grateful for a wonderful year filled with the kinds of memories that last a lifetime.

Career-wise, my future is still a question mark and yet that beautiful whiteboard of art I want to make regardless is still full. So, I grab my scythe and cut a new path while producing evergreen content and revisiting my hobbies. (I’ve been experimenting more with watercolors, knitting, gardening, and vegetarian cooking. And, I definitely want to return to beadweaving in 2024 pending a restructure/reorganization of supplies.)

2023 didn’t incorporate a ton of publications—and that’s okay! I’m happy to share that I’ve already received word of new publications next year for both fiction and games. Onwards. Woooo!

In this spirit, I’d like to share my releases with you. They are affiliate-linked to pages where you can purchase or find out more information about them. Yep, affiliate links. Because I am an artist and I enjoy food. Hah!

Published Books in 2023

I’ve had a ton of wonderful experiences with my debut poetry collection. Thanks to the indomitable Lao poet, Bryan Thao Worra, I had a great experience reading from this collection at a poetry reading. And, the collection has been discussed by a few poetry groups as well. Was the time and effort to create this collection worth it? Yes, absolutely.

into shadow: a poetic exploration of personal fears, 2023, BookOfM

Published Games in 2023

The 2022 Level 1 Volume Three Anthology from 9th Level Games I contributed to last year was nominated for the Best Free Game/Product in the 2023 ENnie Awards. Huzzah! And, I returned to GameHole Con 2023 to celebrate the 10th year anniversary as a special guest. I had a fabulous time.

LEGIONS OF CARCOSA, The Yellow King, 2023, Pelgrane Press

NOBLES: THE GOLDEN MANDATE, Brandon Sanderson’s Mistborn, 2023, Crafty Games



December 14, 2023
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Celebrating a 2023 ENnie Award Nomination

Level 1 Anthology | Volume 3 2022 | Free RPG Day

The 2023 nominees for the ENnie Awards have just been announced, and I’m proud to mention I’m a finalist for the 2022 Level 1 Anthology from 9th Level Games along with a slate of fantastic folks!

The full contributor list for the ENnie Award-nominated 2022 Level 1 Anthology is: Gabrielle Rabinowitz, Evlyn Moreau, Dustin Winter, Quinn B. Rodriguez, Sea Carnelian, Loretta Brady, Skylar Bottcher, Gianna Cormier, Glenn Givens, Samantha Sinacori, Steffie de Vaan, Graham Gentz, Monica Valentinelli, Kyle Ott, Desks and Dorks, Patrick Watson, Dare Hickman, V.R. Collins, Zane Graves, Scott Slater, Alexi Sargeant, and Jim Dagg.

After you download a copy from DriveThruRPG.com, be sure to pick up One Night in the Catacombs. I designed this game as an expanded edition of “One Night at Bain House” featured in the anthology. Huzzah!

Congratulations to my fellow 2023 ENnie Award nominees! Woooooooo! Good luck and cheers all around. Voting will be open to the general public in mid-July, so be sure to watch for updates. Huzzah!



July 8, 2023
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Joining the Pacific Rim RPG Team for a Cinematic Adventure

Heya, I wanted to give you an update that I’m writing a cinematic adventure set in the world of Pacific Rim for Evil Genius Games! The Pacific Rim franchise is something I am having fun re-watching for inspiration. One of the reasons why I love Pacific Rim is because, at its core, it sends a strong message that in order to defeat a mysterious and world-ending threat, we need to overcome our differences and stand together.

From the Legendary Series Kong and Pacific Rim Kickstarter:

The Evil Genius Games team is back with a Double Feature tabletop rpg you won’t want to miss! For our second project, we are releasing two brand new officially licensed cinematic tabletop adventures, utilizing our signature modernized d20 roleplaying system, set in two of our favorite universes — Kong and Pacific Rim. Our Cinematic Adventures were just the beginning. Now, we’re introducing Cinematic Adventure Paths (CAPs) — long-form adventure campaigns using the Everyday Heroes™ system that take your characters from Level 1 to Level 10 across dozens of hours of exhilarating gameplay. CAPs are more than just a guided role-playing experience. In both of these scenarios, you’ll dive into the lore of each world and see places you didn’t see in the films as we introduce new canon into these beloved franchises! Insert yourself into the stories you’re familiar with. With our CAPs, it’s like you’re living the movies.

In Pacific Rim, it’s clear to me “standing together” isn’t just about immense, co-piloted Jaegers tackling Kaiju. It’s also about the Jaeger co-pilots meshing seamlessly, the politicians trying to decide where to allocate funds for the Jaeger program, the diplomats figuring out how to best ally with other countries, the engineers and construction workers building the Jaegers, the scientists and mathematicians studying Kaiju—the list goes on and on. I’m excited to write in this narratively-rich, near-world setting flush with fantastic and memorable characters and heart-thumping fight scenes. Can’t wait to see how my piece of the adventure comes to life!

Updates regarding the adventure path will be provided by Evil Genius Games. If you missed the Kickstarter, you’ll want to read this update about what happens next.

July 3, 2023
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Looking for Monica’s books and games that are still in print? Visit Monica Valentinelli on Amazon’s Author Central or a bookstore near you.

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