The Vintage RPG Podcast

Hi gang! This week, we're getting ready for the holidays and wanted to help give you a leg up on your gifts for your friends and family around the gaming table (and maybe yourself too, let's be real). Below you'll find link to everything we talk about on the show, plus info on the coupon codes. Han Cholo  (ha, that name) for all your nerd jewelry and apparel needs. Dellamorte & Co.  (whoops, said...

We are back with the second part of our epic interview with Jim Zub! This time, Jim chats about his work on Dungeons & Dragons comic books, as well as the  Dungeons & Dragons vs. Rick and Morty  box set, and we learn he does a pretty good Rick Sanchez impersonation. For more from Jim, you can head to his  official site  or follow him on  Twitter  and  Instagram . Learn all about Jim's Young Advent...

Hey, we're weekly! We talk about what that means for the podcast going forward (forget that we say its December in the episode. It isn't. Schedules change, OK?). It would be rad if you joined us on our  Patreon , because that definitely helps keep us going. We also talk about the classic D&D monster, the rust monster. It was born from a cheap Hong Kong "dinosaur" in the 70s and has since become th...

Well hello there, intrepid adventurer. We have quite the podcast for you today! We had the great pleasure of chatting with Jim Zub about the new Young Adventurer's Guides for Dungeons & Dragons. We explore all the nooks and crannies, learning how the series came about, what's inside, and what to expect from the forthcoming volumes. Weapons & Warriors  and  Monsters & Creatures  are both out now. ...

This one was a long time coming. This week, we take a long and hopefully definitive look at the moral hysteria of the late 70s through the mid-90s, generally referred to as the Satanic Panic (CW: suicide, sexual abuse). We focus on the controversies around Dungeons & Dragons, but also talk about the larger phenomenon and how it spilled over into heavy metal, children's toys and cartoons and even a...

Gather round, Chill Masters! This week, we're discussing the horror roleplaying game  Chill  (1984), by Pacesetter Games. Is it scary? Is it campy? We don't know, because  Chill  never really figured that out for itself. We also welcome game designer  Nathan D. Paoletta  of  Worldwide Wrestling  fame. We chat about wrasslin' briefly before turning to his latest, the psychological monster hunting g...

This week, its all about artist, writer and game designer Luka Rejec. We discuss  Witchburner , Luka's system agnostic witch hunt scenario. Then we dig into the forthcoming  Ultraviolet Grasslands , a psychedelic heavy metal road trip RPG powered by Luka's ultra-light, ultra flexible SEACAT system. Finally, we talk to the man himself (for not nearly long enough).

This week, we're talking TSR's Endless Quest gamebooks. They're like Choose Your Own Adventure, but with D&D and, well, boring. Sort of! Maybe we're being too hard on them. We dig in to the first few, the history of the series, the unusual places it goes and there is, perhaps, a surprising turn-around of opinion. We learn a lot about ourselves on this podcast, folks. We're already getting excited...

We dive right into it, talking the history of Dragonlance – the modules, the novels, the…animated movie? It is the first major metaplot in tabletop RPGs and catapulted Tracy Hickman and Margaret Weiss onto the bestseller list, but never quite coalesced into the major D&D campaign setting it should have. We talk about the reasons why. After that, Hambone sits down with Craig Bergman, assistant mana...

We start off with a videogame! We both logged a lot of hours in  Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night . Lots of videogame food was made. The main course is the LJN Dungeons & Dragons toy line. We run through an overview of the entire line, talk about some of the toys that were never produced and even discuss the amazing concept art by comic artists Timothy Truman, Steve Bisette and John Totleben. And...

Welcome back to the Vintage RPG podcast! We kick things off with the super-appropriate-for-July, Target-exclusive board game adaptation of  Jaws . Its fun! The main course is  Forgotten Realms , Ed Greenwood's classic campaign setting. We walk through the creation of the world, its absorption into Dungeons & Dragons and just barely scratch the surface of all the stuff that has happened with the Re...

We made it one year! To celebrate our anniversary, we talk about some of our favorite things, and ramble through a number of seemingly random topics, like our love for sniveling cowards, whether Lord Soth listens to Sisters of Mercy, the glorious badness of the D&D cartoon, murder hobo average intelligence and jeeze, that's just the first 15 minutes. We also have a chat with Levi Combs of Planet X...

We have a very special guest this episode. Tony DiTerlizzi graced us with a full length interview. We chat about his influences, Dragon Mountain , the Monstrous Manual , Planescape , Magic the Gathering, the Spiderwick Chronicles , Hong Kong dinosaurs (you can read Tony's post on these and their influence on Dungeons & Dragons here ) and so much more - and barely scratch the surface, honestly. Ton...

We start off with Hambone's experience playing the classic fantasy themed board game Talisman  for the first time. He played the recent fourth edition from Fantasy Flight. Did you know there was an unofficial 1.5 edition of Dungeons & Dragons? There was! Beginning with Unearthed Arcana and following through Oriental Adventures , Dungeoneer's Survival Guide and the Wilderness Survival Guide , it wa...

A double meat episode! First off, Stu gives an overview of Keith Herber's series of Lovecraft Country sourcebooks for Call of Cthulhu: Arkham Unveiled , Return to Dunwich , Kingport: City in the Mists and Escape from Innsmouth . They are an important piece in the puzzle of how to present large regions in a way that is helpful and engaging for roleplaying games. Second, Hambone is a-glow for the ne...

First up, we talk about Miskatonic University: The Restricted Collection , the latest Chaosium board game. It's a great companion to 2016's Khan of Khans . The main course this episode is the first edition Dungeons & Dragons Dungeon Masters Guide . We discuss how the book is a peak into Gary Gygax's brain and how that echoed through tabletop roleplaying games for a long time and marks a kind of fr...

We start off this week with Monarch , a set collecting game about sisters vying for the throne. It has very lovely art. We also announce our partnership with Noble Knight Games . You can use the coupon code NOBLEVINTAGE online or in-store to get $5 off any purchase of $25 or more. Offer expires May 12, so get on that! The main event is Skyrealms of Jorune , a very strange RPG from the 80s, created...

We start by blowing the dust off an older board game, Cyclades , a deceptively straightforward, combat light strategy game with lots of cool miniatures that riffs on ancient Greek mythology. For the main event, we discuss GURPS - Generic Universal Role Playing System - from Steve Jackson Games, the RPG that can be any kind of game you want, so long as you have the sourcebooks. And dear god, there...

First up, we talk about Mixtape Massacre , a fun little independently produced horror board game that riffs on classic slasher movies and 80s pop culture. Our main course this week is the iconic Dungeons & Dragons Basic Set red box. We talk about its place in popular culture, where it sits in the larger history of D&D, touch on the other BECMI boxes, talk cartography, the importance of indexes and...

Long episode for you this time around! We kick things off with a couple of unusual Beginning Readers books from Chaosium, R. J. Ivankovic Dr. Seuss-esque adaptations of H.P. Lovecraft's  The Call of Cthulhu  and  Dagon . We also discuss the new Call of Cthulhu Starter Set, a box set packed with short scenarios and an introductory version of the rule meant to be a gateway for beginning RPG players....

We start off discussing the tile placement/currency exchange game Alhambra , which is themed around the 14th century construction of the Alhambra palace in Granada. The main course this week is  Spelljammer , the space fantasy setting for D&D released in 1989, in which players sail ships into space. It is exactly as  weird and silly and bizarre and absolutely awesome as you imagine. We wrap up ans...

We start off talking about Steve Jackson Games' Munchkin, specifically the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle variant. It features art by Kevin Eastman and some rules variants that may surprise you if you're a long time Munchkin players. In the main segment, we talk about Masks of Nyarlathotep. What's that you say? We've already covered Masks on a previous podcast? Well, yea, that is true, but Chaosium r...

This week, we're playing Heimlich & Co. , a modern issue of a clever espionage-themed game originally from 1984 (you may know it as Top Secret Spies , Under Cover or Detective & Co. ). Over on our Patreon, folks who back us at the $25 level get to call the shots for an episode. This week, Sara Clemens asked us to cover Mouse Guard , Burning Wheel's RPG adaptation of David Petersen's beautiful comi...

This show is entirely dedicated to the works of the late, great Greg Stafford, who we dearly miss. Stu takes the helm and starts us down Stafford's tabletop RPG history with the wargame White Bear & Red Moon (also known as Dragon Pass). From there, he touches on RuneQuest, the Ghostbusters RPG, the entire world of Glorantha, HeroQuest and Pendragon, all the while trying to convey how widely Staffo...

Happy new year! For starters this episode, we check out the seance-themed board game Mysterium . It is sort of like  Clue meets Dixit , but spooky. The main event is TSR's Marvel Super Heroes RPG. We revel in some 80s-era nostalgia, discuss the weirdness of the game and somehow wind up on the 1987 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade Marvel float . Seriously, go watch that video. We also talk about Blad...