The Vintage RPG Podcast

Still playing with toys after all these years. As promised, this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast we chat about the latest Dungeons & Dragons toys from Super7. That giant Tiamat comes up again, as well as wave 1 of their 6-inch figures based on the '80s cartoon series (which means we also talk again about those crap Hasbro figures). Also on tap, the excellent additions to the ReAction line: Formidable Fighter and Sacred Statue! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

What's the point of painting all these miniatures if they're never going to see the battlefield? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu breaks down and admits he really wants to play a miniature wargame: Mike Hutchinson's Hobgoblin! It's a lightweight, minis agnostic, quick-playing set of rule to get your miniatures on the table and killing each other as fast as possible. Now I just gotta finish painting this orc army... * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Oh, the Libyan Gorgon. [Tries to look like he knows what he's talking about] This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we crack open an ur-Monster Manual, Ernst and Johanna Lehner's 1969 A Fantastic Bestiary. Essentially a Dover clip art book (and reissued by Dover under a different title) with some light historical context, there are textual clues that seem to indicate it was an important reference work for Gygax and company. And I think it might have partly inspired the idea of a highly illustrated hardcover book of monsters! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Who needs the sky, anyway? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Yamil about When the Sky Comes Looking for You, a zine for both Weird Frontiers and Dungeon Crawl Classics. Hired by a luchador loan-shark to collect a debt, the characters need to stop an airship before it gets to the otherworldly Near to make good on the contract. Sorcery, monsters, worms -- all in a day's work, right? * * * Back When the Sky Comes Looking for You on Kickstarter now! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Have you done all you can to prevent a würm infestation? I doubt it. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Brian Colin about Sqwürmish, a delightfully gross, over-the-top miniature skirmish game for his Vast Grim RPG setting. Derived from Forbidden Psalm, in Sqwürmish you build a crew, pop 'em on the table and do your damnedest to survive, preferably without getting infested with würms (ew). Like Forbidden Psalm, you can play with any old miniatures you have laying around, but this Kickstarter includes some very sweet miniatures, for use with Sqwürmish or Vast Grim! Get 'em, and some neon paints and maybe some of that drippy gloss varnish and get that war gang good and yicky! * * * Back Sqwürmish on Kickstarter now! And check out the rest of the Vast Grim universe! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

I think the horrible little spider guy might be up to no good. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Christopher Drellow joins us to discuss Glumdark, a collection of system neutral random tables that will inject plenty of darkness, terror, vileness, random teeth and silliness into your campaign. Yup, silliness too! Inspired by grim and perilous RPGs of the past and present, but also by early bookmaking practices, and brought to squalid life by the artist Vil with illustrations both horrible and hilarious (and hilariously horrible, even), there is something here for every player to enjoy or be grossed out by. Just watch out for Frank. * * * Back Glumdark on Kickstarter now! Get a taste of the original tables on Glumdark.com! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

So an assassin, a dwarf and a goodie-two-shoes walk into a bar... This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're catching up on NECA's Dungeons & Dragons toys that have come out since the last time we talked about NECA's Dungeons & Dragons toys: Zarak, Strongheart and Elkhorn Ultimates. We'll cover the Super 7 D&D toys soon, promise! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Gotta build some muscles to swing a sword (and some cardio to run from monsters)! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk to designer Tyler Welch and illustrator Graham Barey about their new exercise-oriented zine The Adventurer's Guide to Exercise. Tyler's a personal trainer and has created a work-out regimen tailored to your inner Fighter, Thief or Ranger in the hopes of inspiring folks in our very sit-around hobby to get more active and mighty. A worthy goal! * * * Tyler's LinkTree has all the relevant links you crave. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Podcasters take a break, forget how to podcast. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu and John come back from the longest break they've taken from recording since the start of the podcast and find it difficult to knock the rust off and get back tothe normal format. Instead, they chat about games they're playing, places their going and play a silly game involving obscure D&D monsters. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu and John discuss their recent trip to Philadelphia for PAX Unplugged! The tabletop convention keeps the vibes chill and because of that, it was our favorite of the year. Cool games, good pals, a great way to close out the year. * * * Stu wrote about his PAX Unplugged trip as well. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Adventure gamebook? How about an adventure gameworld? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at Fabled Lands, a seven-volume series of adventure gamebooks by Dave Morris, Jamie Thompson and Paul Gresty, featuring art by the legendary Russ Nicholson. Unlike most gamebooks, which tell one story, each volume of Fabled Lands is dedicated to a single region of a larger world, allowing for sandbox-style exploration and many, many possible quests. You can get lost in the threads! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Hone that tradecraft, or you'll find out what they do to spies around here... This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Hambone takes the lead, talking about running Top Secret: New World Order. He also played in a session of Renegade's G.I. Joe RPG, so we talk about that, too! Also: Ron Meischker chats with Hambone about PAGE 2, coming in January. Use code VintageRPG for a ticket discount! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Whimsical, but also dangerous. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk to Jean deMers about Ballads of Oræd, forthcoming from Exalted Funeral. A setting book for Old-School Essentials, it's a 232-page gazetteer of a mysterious world full of music, talking animals and, of course, horrible monsters and dangerous locales. It's also a massive portfolio of deMers' evocative, Tarot-like art, which will surely fill your head with new ideas all on their own. It's a dream, full of strange songs. * * * Want more? Read Orrin Grey's feature on Ballads of Oræd! Then follow Jean on Instagram and check out his official site. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

Talkin' 'bout collecting! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk to the Rick Meints, president of Chaosium! He doesn't just run the company, he's its biggest fan, with a collection of Chaosium games, art, documents and ephemera that likely dwarfs all others. We talk about collecting, RuneQuest (Rick's primary RPG passion, as he penned the wonderful Meints Index to Glorantha), the company's history and its plans for the future for some of its key lines going into their 50th anniversary in 2025. You can bet your butts we'll be having Rick back next year during the celebration! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk to the Benjamin Marra, artist extraordinaire! We're supposed to talk about INTERMEDIARY MUND, his new RPG zine from Exalted Funeral, and we do, and it makes good on the promise of a lot of those pesky Satanic Panic fears from the '80s! But the real meat of the chat winds up musing on the central appeal of old school fantasy art, and how it has informed Ben's own work over the years. That, and much more, on this week's episode! * * * Unwinnable profiled Ben and INTERMEDIARY MUND in August. You can check out more of Ben's work on his Instagram and his official site. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy, the most straight-down-to-it art book I've ever encountered. Absolutely jam packed with amazing art from across all four decades of the gamebook series. Do you dig black-and-white fantasy art, particularly from the UK in the '80s? Then buy this book, you won't be disappointed. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk to our very own editor, R. Alex Murray about a little off-Broadway show he's in called Dungeons & Dragons The Twenty-Sided Tavern. Part actual play, part interactive theater, all rowdy-as-heck adventure, Alex and his colleagues are trailblazing a whole new (boozy) way to play with 499 friends. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Tune in next week for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

What RPG allows you to travel to the future to team up with the ghost of John Brown to violently overthrow corporate taskmasters? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at Lords of Creation, my pick for the weirdest RPG ever made. Maybe. Designed by Tom "B/X" Moldvay, it's one of the first multi-genre RPGs and it marked Avalon Hill's (failed) first foray into RPGs. And, best of all, it is full of decisions that are just absolutely perplexing. A real testament to how easy it is from RPGs to get to the outer reaches of the bizarre. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at Eat the Reich, a beautiful game about reveling in the messiest annihilation of nazis imaginable. Become an anti-fascist vampire. Get air-dropped into Paris. Drink all the nazi blood. A one-shot(ish) of fun for adults of all ages, tuned to variable levels of experience, gorgeously illustrated. A glorious, utterly uncontroversial piece of gaming. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Flip the switch to the UHF dial! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with the one, the only, Joey Royale about Weird Heroes of Public Access, coming soon in hardcover to BackerKit. Unearth strange mysteries, save your community and get it done in time to tape the next episode of your show. This is your chance to get into one of the best, coolest, most heartfelt RPGs of the decade! * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we drag out West End Games' weird universal system, MasterBook, and its bizarre licenses. Why would you refurbish the shuttered RPG Torg into your universal game when the D6 system was right there? Why would you think the movie Species was ripe for RPG adaptation? Or Tales from the Crypt? Mysteries abound. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

You're in love with this city. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Jacob Mooney, co-creator of Machine: Impossible, a game about cyborg superspies protecting their home and making it a better place for everyone to live. One of the many cool things about the game is how players collaborate to make the game world, so while it may default to a cyberpunk near-future, it can really be as strange as you like. Eco-punks hacking the mycorrhizal network of their forest city? Why not? * * * Get Machine: Impossible on itch.io now. For more from Smiling Mythos, peep their site and their Twitter. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

The only place to go is down! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Josh McCrowell, the evil mastermind behind His Majesty the Worm. Grab your tarot deck and prepare yourself and your kit bag for the endless dungeon underneath the city. Venture deep enough and survive the darkness long enough and you might come across the Worm himself! * * * Physical copies of His Majesty the Worm will be back in stock soon at Exalted Funeral. In the meantime, grab the PDF! For more from Josh, check out his blog, his itch page, or follow him on Twitter and Bluesky. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Enter: the Neon Lord himself! This week on the Vintage RPG podcast, we talk with Brian Shutter, the radioactive brain behind Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland. He's got a pair of massive goodies coming to a BackerKit: Deities & Demi-Bros, a guide to the gods of the squared circle, and Deadly Dudez/Toxic Creeps, a massive monster manual! Plus some more surprises. Listen up, or Lord Randy will drop an elbow on you that your descendants will never forget! * * * Hey, come here, we got a secret to tell you: you can go back Deities and Demi-Bros right now! Even though the campaign hasn't started yet. Don't tell anybody we told you. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG podcast, we check out Brindlewood Bay. It's a little bit Murder, She Wrote, a little bit Golden Girls and a little bit "The Call of Cthulhu," wrapped up in a Powered by the Apocalypse package. Can you meddle your way to the solutions of these TV-style mysteries? * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Two weeks later and Stu is still tired. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu regales us of his adventures at GenCon 2024. The crowds. The vast convention space. The games! The revelation that the hobby at large is so very clearly a union of many smaller, constituent hobbies. It was a lot. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG podcast, we check out The Court of Ardor in Southern Middle-earth (1983), a sourcebook for MERP that predates MERP and significantly expands Tolkien's world. It mainly introduces a cabal of elves in the service of Morgoth who, well, they act a lot more like the royal family of Roger Zelazny's Amber Chronicles than anything in Tolkien. But it is still pretty cool! * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG podcast, we're looking at Casket of Souls (1987), a puzzlebook by Ian Livingstone that spins out of the success of the Fighting Fantasy series. You, too, can pore over Iain McCaig's lush art work, looking for clues to solve the riddle and win the titular, gold-plated casket! Well, you could in 1987, anyway. The contest is long over, but half the fun is the journey right? Well, maybe not…this is one of the hardest puzzlebooks I've ever encountered… * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG podcast, we're looking at Barony (1990), a game that sought to redefine RPGs with concepts that were decades before their time. Open-ended character progression, keyword-based health, a free-form magic system that anticipates Mage — how the heck does this exist? And why don't more people know about it? And who the heck is Conrad?! * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out The Sorcerers' Enclave, a cool narrative art book by Aaron Howdle that mixes the intricate maximalism of finding books and cut-aways with the aesthetics of early Warhammer and other dark fantasy staples. Is it an RPG book? It isn't not an RPG book! More like this, please. * * * Experience Points has been nominated for an Ennie Award! Vote for it here! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk to Isaac VanDuyn about his ambitious RPG that seeks to fulfill the promise of all those evangelicals from the '80s who were so worried about tame old D&D corrupting the souls of their children. The result (illustrated by Kim Diaz Holm and featuring the cartography of Lex Rocket) is a lush and grim game of occult secrets and blood-soaked horrors wrapped in an extremely play-friendly package. And folks who missed out on the sold out Ennie-nominated Kickstarter edition, rejoice: Exalted Funeral is about to release a trade edition to satisfy your dark desires! * * * Learn more at the official Outcast Silver Raiders site! * * * Experience Points has been nominated for an Ennie Award! Vote for it here! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Welcome to Dove's Bay, the most horrible island in Maine (take that, Stephen King)! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out Grimrock Isle (1992), the second Call of Cthulhu product from Triad Entertainments. It's both a solo and a group scenario, spread across several booklets contained in a snazzy folder. Just about every mythos threat imaginable lurks in Dove's Bay, which is sort of the way with CoC solos, but the result is still charming and pretty effective. A big helping hand comes from the inkwork from Rodell D. Sandford Jr., which really ties the whole thing together. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're looking at CM4: Earthshaker (1985), the BECMI module that pits players against a 1,280-foot-tall robot run by an entire clan of gnomes. Well, not exactly, the gnomes run the robot as a tourist attraction, the players have to deal with the evil NPCs who try to hijack the robot. And they better win, because, well, the tarrasque is just 50 feet tall. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look back at Paul M. Sammon's coverage of the making of Conan the Barbarian in the April 1982 issue of Cinefantastique. The double issue has three features by Sammon — a lengthy piece of reportage on the filming and interviews with designer Ron Cobb and director John Milius — and lots of behind-the-scenes photos. It's a charming bit of work that contrasts in surprising ways with Sammon's later coverage of Conan the Destroyer, which we also discuss. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Tyler Vance, the fine artist behind Void: The Frontier. Tyler's been exploring Void for a while now, having published three rules-agnostic setting zines that pair his enigmatic narratives with his equally mysterious paintings. Now he's concocted a gorgeous card game, now on Kickstarter. We talk about the game, his process and his often unsettling art, and more! * * * Check out Tyler's zines and things! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Megan Dawson Jaffe about the new Nerdy City RPG Holomatixx: A New Wave Order. Spinning out of their other Omni System games like the kid adventure Rememorex and the game of transforming robots, Commandroids, Holomatixx takes on pop star superheroes in the vein of Jem and Holograms and Barbie and the Rockers. On Kickstarter now! * * * Check out Nerdy City's other rad games! Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Stu was tied up with lots of crap this week, so have a re-run! Original show notes: Make ours Marvel! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at TSR's massive, 8-volume compendium of Marvel comics lore, The Gamer's Handbook of the Marvel Universe (1988-1992). They're like a monster manual of superheroes and villains, some awesome, some doofy, some downright perplexing. They also amount to being an interesting in-universe history for one of the most important transitional times in the comics industry * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Stu's ongoing West Marches-style Old-School Essentials campaign is a year old, so this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we thought we'd see how things are going (and how many characters have died). And since you can't really trust the Dungeon Master, we invited two of the players — Justin Wigard and Clay Fleischer — on to share their impressions of the 34-session "mystery crawl." * * * Wanna play? We've got ten spots open. Sign up at the D10 tier on the Vintage RPG Patreon! * * * Check out Justin's interview with the 321-Action lads and his review of Stephen Graham Jones' latest, The Angel of Indian Lake. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at Shadowgate (1987, 1989), the point-and-click fantasy adventure videogame. Explore a mysterious castle while trying to find a way to stop the Warlock Lord from destroying the world! Tremble in fear as your torch burns low! Get eaten by every monster! Have a soundtrack-induced panic attack! All this and more awaits you in Castle Shadowgate. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Gavriel Quiroga about his new game, Black Rainbow Society. A sequel of sorts to Hell Night, this game doesn't feature players in the roles of fiends from hell, but rather normal humans grappling with the knowledge that there is more to existence than the mundane world (a staple theme of '90s RPGs, many of which are clear inspirations here). Gavriel brings his signature intensity to the project, with heaps of random tables, gnarly zine art and buckets of blood. Now on Kickstarter! * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

At the very end of last year, Bryan Ansell, a man who played a pivotal role in the world of tabletop games, passed away. To understand just how important Ansell was, this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Timothy Linward, Wargamer staff writer and author of the forthcoming Grimdark: A Very British Hell. Tim walks us through the early days of Citadel Miniatures, his rise to prominence at Games Workshop and his role in shaping the various flavors of Warhammer that emerged during his tenure from 1985 to 1991, culminating with Realm of Chaos. We also nearly spin off into a tangential discussion of the Horus Heresy, but luckily we pulled back from tumbling into that abyss. Another time! * * * * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Where does the game end and real life begin? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at Gameplayers, Stephen Bowkett's 1986 novel. At first blush, it seems to belong in that silly microgenre of panicky novels dedicated to wondering about how kids can cope with fantasy as powerful as tabletop RPGs (see Mazes & Monsters and Hobgoblin, both 1981). What we get, though, is a coming of age story in which a D&D-like game plays a prominent role in helping the grade-school protagonist deal with the increasing complexities of real life. And not in a corny After School Special way, believe it or not! The kids talk like kids, the game feels like a plausible game and the forays into fantasy are peppered with clever monsters and interesting encounters. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Set phasers to stun! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out FASA's 1982 Star Trek RPG. It's an interesting game in it's own right — a hack of Traveller, when it comes down to it — but is also super interesting in regards to fandom, IP canon and licensed RPGs. Climb on board as we explore these strange old worlds! * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk to John Patrick Cooper about Get in the Van, his live music-themed Troika hack. Form a band (hardcore, hair or thrash) in the year 198X, hit the road, do battle with the audience, rock their faces off and get to the next gig. A tight, fun little ode to the road dog life. Also, surprise, Cooper designed Dead Mall, our favorite Tunnel Goons hack about exploring monster-filled abandoned malls, so we talked about that some too! * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

There may be a million ways to die, but you're probably only going to see the first two or three. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're remembering the classic coin-eating arcade game, Dragon's Lair (1983). That's the one that features the cell-shaded, professionally animated (by Don frickin' Bluth!) adventure of Dirk the Daring that was hidden behind an endless series of near-impossible reflex tests. An exercise in beautiful frustration that nevertheless contributed much to the visual language of fantasy in the '80s and beyond! * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

If the Colour is out of Space it should maybe consider weeding some of its shelves, amirite? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're going back to witch-haunted Arkham, Massachusetts by way of Chaosium's latest edition of the Arkham sourcebook (previously known as Arkham Unveiled, H.P. Lovecraft's Arkham and The Compact Arkham Unveiled). This is a ground-up renovation of Keith Herber's original text by Mike Mason and it is everything you'd want from such a project. The old stuff feels new, the new stuff blends in, the whole package feels fresh and exciting. A new street map! A genuine newspaper! A social reputation system! Ghouls! What more could you want? A better lead-in joke? Hambone doesn't have a monopoly on bad jokes, sorry. * * * Stu's pretty sure that at one point in the show, he says The Lurker at the Threshold when he meant "The Thing on the Doorstep." His confusion is understandable. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're checking out Caverns of Thracia (1979)! Considered by some to be the late Jennell Jaquays' finest work, we talk about some of the ways it differs from her previous Judges Guild module, Dark Tower, the cool way it handles random encounters and its place in the high trinity of '70s adventure design. Fun Fact: while folks, particularly in the OSR, think Caverns is top, Jennell considered neither that nor Dark Tower as the best examples of her work — and there are plenty of other gems in that bibliography. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're continuing our talk with Anthony Meloro about Mystic Punks! This is Part the Second, so be sure to check out last week's jam to get the full experience. On tap: the imminent Kickstarter for the multiplayer Mystic Punks RPG, the majestic art of Benjamin Marra, trash culture, the healing power of reefer and so much more! * * * Mystic Punks is Kickstarting soon! * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're talking to Anthony Meloro about Mystic Punks! This is Part One, because we got to gabbing so long that we got two episodes worth of chat. Within, we talk about the original Mystic Punks solo game, the imminent Kickstarter for the multiplayer Mystic Punks RPG, the majestic art of Benjamin Marra, trash culture, the healing power of reefer and so much more! * * * Mystic Punks is Kickstarting soon! * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're talking about Roger Zelazny's 1971 novel Jack of Shadows. Gygax included the novel — a high-concept blend of fantasy and science fiction — in Appendix N, but it isn't one that gets talked about all that often. Perhaps because it is such an unrelentingly ugly book, featuring a protagonist who embraces his dark side and never lets go, to the sorrow of everyone around him, and even unto the end of the world as he knows it. This one is DARK. And yet, because it is Zelazny, still incredibly readable and entertaining. That dude could write. * * * Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!