The Vintage RPG Podcast

This week, join us in welcoming the amazing David Hoskins to the show. You've seen his pen work in Acid Death Fantasy, The Isle of the Plangent Mage and, soon, in Through Ultan's Door. We talk about how he got into RPG illustration, matters of style, some pretty fantastic black knights that have been creeping onto his Instagram and more! * * * You can see more of David's work on his website, his Instagram and his Twitter!

Back in November, in our holiday gift guide episode, we talked briefly with Jess Carrier from Noble Knight Games about the weird stuff people trade in. Over the next couple months, we kept thinking about it: they must get strange stuff constantly! So we invited Jess and Noble Knight's RPG tsar Andrew Branstad to come on and tell us all about the bazaar of the bizarre that is their warehouse.

This week, we check out the famous lost (and found) short film by Roger Christian, Black Angel. This gorgeous little jam occupies a neat place in Star Wars history and also happens to be a mighty fine bit of early '80s sword and sorcery cinema in its own right. And after you listen to our takes on it, you can check it out for yourself on YouTube for free (with a brief intro by Christian).

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, minds are blown! Somehow, we haven't done a Fiend Folio episode yet and this week is it. We talk about how the book's difficult birth, the mixed reception on release and the quiet disavowal it got from TSR. We get cartoon hearts in our eyes talking about Russ Nicholson's art, as usual. We make fun of flumphs and adherers. And that's just scratching the surface!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're in outer space, paying off our starship mortgage and exploring the Third Imperium. That's right, we're finally cracking open the little black Traveller box. We talk a bit about what makes Game Designer's Workshop's classic science fiction RPG, well, a classic. It must be something special, because it forged a heck of a legacy despite there being all of two illustrations in the whole box set!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we journey to Jennell Jaquays' Dark Tower, one of the best books Judges Guild's produced and often considered one of the very best D&D adventures of all time. We chat a bit about why that is, touch on Caverns of Thracia (which will be getting its own episode shortly) and generally discuss the state of dungeon design in the late 70s. There's also DUCKS! This episode also includes our second Indie RPG Elevator Pitch, brought to you by Exalted Funeral, in which we chat with Amanda Lee Franck (Vampire Cruise, You Got a Job on the Garbage Barge). What's she got cooking in the coming months? Does it involve a boat? Listen and find out! * * * Follow Amanda on Twitter and Instagram. You can check out PDFs of her games on her Itch page or buy hard copies through Exalted Funeral (US) or Four Rogues Trading Company (Canada).

We are joined this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast by the fine fellows from Narrative Dynamics, Michael Dunn-O'Connor and Eric Swanson. They are the folks behind the Goblinville RPG zines and Rebel Crown – two very different but equally awesome games. We discuss them both, what it is like switching tones, the difference between designing your own game and using an existing engine (Rebel Crown is a Forged in the Dark game), the appeal of box sets and much more! * * * You can snag Goblinville and Rebel Crown on the Narrative Dynamics site, or through their Itch.io page. Follow Michael on Twitter and Eric on Instagram.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we are joined by Peter Bebergal (Season of the Witch, Strange Frequencies), editor of Appendix N, a brand new anthology from Strange Attractor Press that explores the fantasy fiction that influenced the creation of Dungeons & Dragons. We have a far ranging, philosophical discussion about the stories Gygax overlooked, the ways literature does (and doesn't) influence RPGs, other recommended reading lists and more! * * * Grab Appendix N direct from Strange Attractor!

It was bound to happen eventually: this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we discuss the disaster that was Dallas: The Television Role-Playing Game. How did SPI screw up a game based on a license of a TV show at the height of its powers? A game that launched during an unprecedented eight month media frenzy about the show? The world just wasn't ready. Which is a shame, because the character and narrative based system was actually unlike just about anything else available at the time.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out what is possibly the first ever silent roleplaying game. A silent RPG? Seems impossible, but that's what Alice is Missing aims to be, with all the investigation, narrative and social interaction playing out over text messages. The game is also timed, has a custom soundtrack and designed to be played only once by a given group, adding to the intrigue and the feeling that this is an event as much as it is a game. This episode, we also launch our new monthly segment, the Indie RPG Elevator Pitch, brought to you buy our friends over at Exalted Funeral. The first designer in our spotlight is Lucian Kahn (Dead Friend, Visigoths vs. Mall Goths), talking about their new project for ZineQuest 3, Hibernation Games: 5 Journaling RPGs for Solo Play. We also chat about John's RPG zine, Rocket to Russia, also on Kickstarter for ZineQuest 3.

This week, we chat with our pal Matt Kelley, the fellow behind Exalted Funeral, indie RPG publisher and distributor extraordinaire. We talk about how he got into the biz, where its going and some of the fantastic creators he's met along the way. We also announce a new monthly segment that will showcase rad indie RPG creators who will be working with Exalted Funeral in the future. All good things to come!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we get chromed up and check out the two earliest iterations of R. Talsorian's premier RPG, Cyberpunk 2013 and Cyberpunk 2020. We talk a bit about cyberpunk as a genre, look at the particular (and surprising) inspirations for the RPG and dig into the fast and deadly system. There's the obvious comparisons to make between Cyberpunk and Shadowrun, so you bet we make them, too!

As promised, this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we visit James M. Ward's Gamma World, a mutant-filled romp through the post-apocalypse! We talk about how Gamma World builds off Ward's earlier game, Metamorphosis Alpha, the clever way it handles characters unearthing tech the players probably know about, the approach to world creation and the cryptic alliances that make me like there is a strong connection between GW and West End Games' Paranoia a few years later. The secret ingredient is humor!

Mutants in space! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we dig into James M. Ward's Metamorphosis Alpha, the first sci-fi RPG people care about! Halfway through the massive colony ship's journey, it passed through a cloud of radiation, leading to waves of mutation and a breakdown of society. Now, centuries later, the human population of the ship have lost the knowledge of how to use the ship's technology, heck, they don't even know they're on a ship in space! Explore the world, crawl through the engineering ducts and try to avoid the man-eating plants! * * * Noble Knight is back with a new discount code for our lovely listeners. Use code LOVERPGS in store or online from now through Valentine's Day to take $5 off any order of $25 or more! Hang out with us on the Vintage RPG Discord! If you dig what we do, join us on the Vintage RPG Patreon for more roleplaying fun and surprises! Patrons keep us going! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Follow Vintage RPG on Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook. Learn more at the Vintage RPG FAQ. Follow Stu Horvath, John McGuire, VintageRPG and Unwinnable on Twitter. Intro music by George Collazo. 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 Joe DeSimone of The Academy of Games! We talk about RPGs as a learning tool, Townes Van Zandt, sobriety mechanics and much more!

The world is dying. Will you rage hopelessly against the end or cower in robbed graves in your final days? That's the central question of Mörk Borg, the heaviest metal RPG we have encountered thus far (which says something, considering the connection between Bolt Thrower and Warhammer). This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk about the outlandish design of the Mörk Borg book, the grimmest of grim dark trappings and the surprising sense of humor at the center of it all.

This week we take a look at a thoroughly modern zine: A Visitor's Guide to the Rainy City, by Rich Forest, illustrated by Bill Spytma and published by Superhero Necromancer. A product of ZineQuest 2, it is an entirely system agnostic setting book that details the strange and wondrous city where the rain never stops (and also a floating pirate stronghold island thing and some more rural areas surrounding the city). It is all caps GREAT, brimming with personality, overflowing with whimsy and drowning in ideas. Bill Spytma's art, which merges aesthetics of medieval art with those of the Victorian era, is delightful and goes a long way to making everything feel cohesive. A huge, vibrant and exciting accomplishment. Zines are the future, folks.

Building off our recent episode on Chivalry & Sorcery, this week we look at another realistic medieval RPG world, N. Robin Crossby's Hârn. Unlike C&S, though, Hârn was originally created as a system agnostic setting. That'd change later, with the HârnMaster system, but with or without the rules, the Hârn remains one of the the most ambitious and stunningly detailed ever created. Let's take a look around, eh?

Most folks would say Steading of the Hill Giant Chief was the first published adventure for Dungeons & Dragons. And they'd be wrong! While Steading was the first D&D adventure published by TSR, it was Palace of the Vampire Queen from Wee Warriors that was actually the first adventure module. A bit thin by modern standards and definitely more gonzo, we take a look at this often overlooked piece of history on the new episode of the Vintage RPG Podcast. * * * You can find the reprint of Palace of the Vampire Queen and all the other old Wee Warriors publications, at Precis Intermedia!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at Chivalry & Sorcery. One of the earliest RPGs, it is another example of D&D players feeling like D&D failed in some way and making their own game to correct it. In C&S's case, Ed Simbalist and Wilf Backhaus felt D&D wasn't realistic enough, so they set about making a game that reaaaaally leans into simulation and is pretty tedious, even for its time. However! They also created not one, but three extremely detailed campaign settings, which no one was really doing at the time. We take a look at those, too. One has dinosaurs! Very realistic!

This year, instead of digging up gift suggestions ourselves, we've turned to the professionals. First up, we talk to Matt Kelley about the strange sights you can see at Exalted Funeral (as ever, they're gonna have a big Black Friday sale). Jess Carrier fills us in on a small slice of the stuff you can find at Noble Knight Games (they've got it all, for real, and their sale is going on right now). Finally, Josh Look from the It Came From the Tabletop Podcast suggests some notable board games to consider putting under the holiday centerpiece of your choice (or right on the shelf, if the holidays aren't your thing).

Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay! Grab your axe, smear some mud on your clothes, strap on some desperation and delve with us into the grim and perilous Old World. Stu laments having avoided WFRP all these years (don't hold your breath for 40k though). Then he delights in the game's systems and world building and art. In addition to the main rules, we also chat, broadly, about The Enemy Within campaign. This is some grade-A roleplayin' right here. * * * Gonna drop some truth here: Tzeentch is the best and most interesting Chaos God. The end.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with our pal Mark Sable about his imminent comic series Miskatonic, which takes on Lovecraft, cosmic horror, racism, the Red Scare and more. We chat with Mark about all that, plus the Call of Cthulhu RPG, the symbiotic relationship between playing RPGs and being a writer and plenty more! Miskatonic #1 is on sale digitally and in comic stores on Wednesday, November 11. * * * For more on Mark's work, check out his author pages on Comixology and Amazon.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Kathryn Hymes of Thorny Games about Xenolanguage. Thorny Games makes games about language (see the rather sublime Dialect for example) and their latest effort, currently on Kickstarter, draws inspiration from Arrival, Contact and "The Story of Your Life" to create an experience that is about first contact with an alien species, but also about learning to see the world differently. And the game mechanic centers on a talking board!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we travel the dark and twisting paths of the Ravenloft campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons. Prepare yourself for horrors beyond imagining, diabolical villains and a lot of near-hysterical praise for the art of Stephen Fabian!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we slip into the shadows of Vampire: The Masquerade, a topic far too sprawling for just one episode. We try to cut to the heart of the game's early era, the wild lore, the Storyteller system, the LARPing, the Tim Bradstreet art, Milwaukee. We probably just scratch the surface. But we manage to find time to also discuss Near Dark and the vampire courts of the late 90s/early 2000s goth club scene! Weird!

In the latest episode of the Vintage RPG Podcast this week, we look at Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey's gritty, shared-world fantasy anthology series, the Tim Sale graphic novel adaptations and the magical moment in roleplaying history when Chaosium convinced the designers behind all the major RPGs (including Traveller!?) to collaborate on their Thieves' World box set. It was a glorious moment, and all to brief.

Join us in the latest episode of the Vintage RPG Podcast as we investigate the extremely earnest World Action and Adventure RPG, a universal RPG system from 1985 that codifies the real world into a semi-playable game. There is poetry. There is clip art. There are so many charts. Most importantly, the creation of World Action and Adventure scored author Gregory L. Kinney (right) credit for five college courses! Easily one of the oddest RPGs we've ever encountered.

Friend of the show Jim Zub is back on the Vintage RPG Podcast this week, with a bag full of fun new projects. First off is the Skullkickers Kickstarter: Caster Bastards and the Great Grotesque, a comic and RPG supplement that celebrates the 10th anniversary of his love letter to pulp and D&D. We also talk about the forthcoming Beasts & Behemoths, the latest installment of the Young Adventurer's Guides, and the Stranger Things: Dungeons & Dragons comic book.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we walk the shadowy streets of Lankhmar: City of Adventure, one of the greatest RPG city sourcebooks. Based on the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories by Fritz Leiber, Lankhmar is both a city and a larger campaign setting for Dungeons & Dragons (using a modified character creation system) that captures the atmosphere of the original stories. The real genius of the book is the approach to the city, which uses modular geomorphs for the tangled and ever-changing back alleys. We also talk a bit about Leiber, his Lankhmar co-creator Otto Fischer and the stories themselves, which form one of the biggest influences on early Dungeons & Dragons.

Steal your strength and guard your soul: this week, the Vintage RPG Podcast looks at Chaosium's Stormbringer RPG. Designed by Ken St. Andre, Stormbringer is a high power and high risk RPG set in the world of Michael Moorcock's Elric stories (for our money, perhaps the greatest fantasy series ever written). One of the more straightforward of the games using Chaosium's Basic Role Playing system, it has piles of fatalistic atmosphere and dark themes, perhaps most notably the magic system that relies on mind altering substances and is entirely arranged around summoning and binding demons and other supernatural entities. Most Stormbringer games end in death or corruption – the fun is in figuring out which is the better fate.

This week, the Vintage RPG Podcast travels back in time to the 80s that never were with Tales From the Loop, an RPG where extraordinary science fiction mysteries crash into the dreariness of everyday life. Based on the mesmerizing artwork of Simon Stålenhag, this Year Zero engine game from Fria Ligan is one of our favorites – easy to pick up and play (especially for beginners), gorgeous to look at and full of enigmas. Check it out if you were ever a kid.

This week, the Vintage RPG Podcast cracks open The Green Knight: A Quest for Honor. Don't let the fake scuff marks fool you: this is a brand new box set from @A24, a marketing tie-in for their forthcoming film The Green Knight. We talk a bit about the original 14th century poem (and how perplexing its intricate commentary on the dueling systems of knightly and chivalric honor might be to modern audiences). Then we dig into the surprisingly novel game system presented in the box, which is arranged around a sliding honor/dishonor scale that focuses on the motives and morals behind player action rather than combat. An easy knock-off of Dungeons & Dragons this is not!

Welcome to the Megaverse, folks. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at Palladium's Rifts. Introduced in 1990, Rifts is like all of 90s nerd culture smooshed into one gonzo RPG. Mixing genres with wild abandon it is perhaps the ultimate form of the age old comic shop game "Who Would Win in a Fight?" Sorcerers and aliens and superheroes and biomechanical aliens and interdimensional beings and mutants and knights and the four horsemen of the apocalypse and mechs and more all rub shoulders with each other here, pushing each new sourcebook further over the top, so don your Glitterboy armor, pray to your gods and dive in. I hope you like explosions. * * * Through September 7, use the code ROLLDICE to get $6 off any purchase $25 or more at Noble Knight! Hang out with us on the Vintage RPG Discord! If you dig what we do, join us on the Vintage RPG Patreon for more roleplaying fun and surprises! Patrons keep us going! Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast! Available on iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, iHeartRadio, SoundCloud, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients. Send questions, comments or corrections to [email protected]. Follow Vintage RPG on Instagram, Tumblr and Facebook. Learn more at the Vintage RPG FAQ. Follow Stu Horvath, John McGuire, VintageRPG and Unwinnable on Twitter. Intro music by George Collazo. 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 return to Appendix N and check out Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. Even though it starts off in World War II and features lots of scientific theories to explain magical effects, this 1961 novel is a formative text for Dungeons & Dragons. It establishes many of the feels of a D&D adventure, with its travel and towns and non player characters and random encounters. Perhaps most importantly, it introduces a terrifying take on the troll that Gygax would essentially Xerox for the game. Interesting stuff!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we crack open David Hargrave's Arduin Grimoire! The eight book series, started in 1977, is a treasure trove of house rules and hacks for the original Dungeons & Dragons. There's insect people and laser guns and the dragon from Neverending Story in here – if Hargrave had a design ethos, it was probably "IDGAF," for better or worse. One of the earliest gonzo RPGs and an important block in the foundation of the OSR.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look back that the Arnold Schwarzenegger Conan films, Conan the Barbarian (1982) and Conan the Destroyer (1984). They're great fantasy films (OK, one of them is great) that certainly influenced RPGs, but there are some indications that Dungeons & Dragons might have had a little bit of influence on Destroyer. We discuss the high points of both films, nearly forget to talk about the amazing Basil Poledouris soundtracks and totally forget to talk about that King Conan teaser that's been tormenting folks for nearly forty years. Oops!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out the infamous White Plume Mountain, by Lawrence Schick, one of the greatest fun house dungeons of all time, featuring a strangely seafood-centric assortment of foes, now that I am thinking about it. Anyway! We chat about how the module came to be, revel in its glorious ridiculousness and drop an interesting factoid about what Schick has been up to lately.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, instead of focusing on a particular game or book, we're looking at a specific villain, the demon prince Orcus, lord of the undead. The big guy has some interesting real world history and folklore to delve into regarding monsters in general. Then we check out how his story unfolded across the first three editions of Dungeons & Dragons, primarily in the Bloodstone modules and Monte Cook's two massive Planescape campaign books, The Great Modron March and Dead Gods. * * * Before we get to all the delicious links, we mentioned a couple things in the episode that warrant the sharing of images. First, of course, is the Todd Lockwood illustration of Orcus from Dragon Magazine 42 (October, 1980). Second, Stu couldn't quite fish the name of this engraving out of his brain in the episode, but "Satan Presiding at the Infernal Council," by John Martin (circa 1823) is the piece whose vibe reminds him of Lockwood's Orcus. Finally, here is the "Orcus Mouth" in the Gardens of Bomarzo, or the Park of Monsters. * * *

This week, we talk to game designer Banana Chan about their latest tabletop RPG, Jiangshi: Blood in the Banquet Hall (co-written by Sen-Foong Lim and developed in collaboration between Wet Ink Games and A Game and a Curry). Players take the roles of members of a Chinese immigrant family in the 1920s. By day, you collaborate to run the family restaurant. By night, you fend off attacks by hopping vampires. Boasting an enormous number of collaborators, Jiangshi hits Kickstarter tomorrow, July 14. Get on that!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at Tunnels & Trolls, the earliest Dungeons & Dragons competitor. Designed by Ken St. Andre (Stormbringer), T&T was developed as a simpler, less expensive alternative to D&D, with a focus on solo play (solo T&T modules were the first adventure gamebooks, paving the way for series like Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf). Back in the day, folks said T&T was too simple to have much staying power, but the game is still with us and is an important first step towards modern attempts at streamlined rules systems.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at HeartQuest. Back in 1982, TSR launched a series of Dungeons & Dragons-based interactive novels called Endless Quest. Aimed at children, they were an immediate success. In 1983, they followed up with HeartQuest, which introduced romance into the formula and courted women readers. It was a dismal failure. Why? Well, for the answer to that, you'll have to listen to the podcast…

Stu and Hambone did something stupid. They watched the 1982 made-for-TV movie Mazes and Monsters, based on the Rona Jaffe novel of the same name, which is based loosely and idiotically on the totally not related to Dungeons & Dragons disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III in 1979. It is notable for being Tom Hanks' first major role, a shockingly poor understanding of RPGs, some atrocious one-liners and a decent lizard man suit. Some movies are so bad they're a blast to watch. Mazes and Monsters isn't one of them. Buckle up and get ready to feel our pain.

Not all gods are mighty. This week we look at Petty Gods, a collection minor divinities, genii locorum and otherwise trivial powers created by the OSR community from 2010 to 2015 and collected in a massive tome in the style of the original Deities & Demigods. At turns silly and serious, there is a little bit of everything in here to spice up any flavor of dungeon crawling game. Even better, you can grab it for free in PDF or get it printed for cost through Lulu.

Something a little different this week: we speak to Chris Leder, lead designer of Ravensburger's forthcoming game Back to the Future: Dice Through Time. Chris shares his overwhelming enthusiasm for the franchise and walks us through the novel way the game handles time travel mechanics, among other things. Pre-sale started yesterday, in stores June 21, exclusively at Target.

Polish up your chrome, chummer: this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk about Shadowrun, FASA beloved cyberpunk fantasy RPG. Within, you'll find much love for the world building and art, awe for how the game predicts a lot of modern internet stuff, lukewarm reactions to the system and inevitable comparisons to Vampire: The Masquerade, Rifts, Torg and Cyberpunk 2020. A pivotal game in the history of RPGs!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we visit Greyhawk, one of the earliest RPG campaign settings. Despite being Gary Gygax's own homebrew world, Greyhawk struggled to capture the public's imagination. We talk through the various attempts by TSR to tweak the setting, some dull, some interesting, all weirdly in the shadow of other D&D campaign settings.

If we had a crazy budget, we'd probably have licensed Iron Maiden's song "Killers" to open this episode of the Vintage RPG podcast. We don't, so we didn't, so go ahead and just listen to it on Spotify before you hit play on this. Get in the mood, you know? Anyway, this week, we're talking about Killer, the Steve Jackson Games codification of the live action college campus RPG Assassin, in which you stalk around a public space "murdering" your friends with water pistols. Sounds like a totally fun game that wouldn't scare innocent bystanders or get you arrested at all, right?

Remember the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game from Iron Crown Enterprises? I bet you don't! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at the short lived gateway game for Iron Crown's Middle Earth Role Playing. Published from 1991 to 1993, it is an odd little game that perhaps has more in common with pick-your-path gamebooks than it does a tabletop RPG of the period. At the very least, it has some sick cover art by Angus McBride.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, in celebration of a weird made-up holiday, we take a look at a fun little one-on-one Star Wars game from West End Games: the Lightsaber Dueling Pack. Relive the duel between Luke and Vader on Cloud City or in the throne room of the Death Star (depending on who wins) over and over again, from the comfort of you own home, without breaking a sweat! No lightsaber toy necessary!