The Vintage RPG Podcast

Remember the twist ending of the Arthurian romances when Bruce Lee appears at Camlann to kick Mordred's ass? Me neither. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out The Future King , a stand-alone adventure/system by Tom Moldvay. It spins somewhat out of his earlier bat-shit RPG Lords of Creation and sees the players trying to wake King Arthur from his slumber, because the hour of need is a...

Brian Colin becomes an ink-stained wretch.  This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Vast Grimm creator Brian Colin is back. He's got a new crowdfunding campaign for Vast Grimm in zine form , but he's got something even more exciting that we wanted to talk to him about: a printing press! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter ! That's where all the cool kids are now! Stu's book, M...

The end was nigh!  This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we welcome the apocalypse(s) with The Stars are Right! (1992), an anthology of scenarios for Cthulhu Now (AKA Call of Cthulhu Modern). As these things go, its a solid set of cases, but the book has a surprising legacy of censorship and controversy over one of Blair Reynolds' fantastic illustrations. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintag...

Blurring the line between mythology and roleplaying games. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at the first six (!) of ten (!!) volumes of Chaosium's Cults of RuneQuest series of sourcebooks. Taken together, they form an important foundation for bringing mythology to life in RuneQuest campaigns. Important stuff, since RQ is essentially a game about living mythology! * * * Instagra...

That is not dead which can eternal lie...wait, no, that's the wrong franchise. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu learns that there are more than four modules in D&D's S-series. After a brief recap of the originals, we chat about  The Dancing Hut of Baba Yaga and Labyrinth of Madness , which revived the line for one brief and brutal moment in 1995. * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintag...

A videogame ? On the Vintage RPG Podcast?  Yes! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk Space Marine II , an excellent, pleasingly violent shooter and how it manages to be an entertaining experience despite being propaganda for the shriveled, impotent husk of the so-called Emperor of Mankind and the follies that the Adeptus Astartes commit in his name. Hail Tzeentch! * * * Instagram? Old new...

There's no time machine quite like an old catalog. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk about Wargames West, a games mail order catalog from the late '80s and early '90s. Extremely hard to find, but a precious snapshot of the past. We also talk about collecting, and not collecting, and more! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter ! That's where all the cool kids are no...

More plastic for the sculpture gallery.  This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu's playing with toys again! First, an amazing rarity, the Tara Toys Roll-A-Mat Dark Adventure play set (1983). Next we talk about MUSCLES and Monsters in My Pocket. Finally, there's Arrizak, a recent toy from Four Horsemen's Mythic Legion line who looks surprisingly like someone on this very show . (It's a coincidenc...

You bring a suitcase with your clothes, and an empty suitcase for all the crap you're gonna buy.  This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu sifts through the gigantic pile of stuff he bought at GenCon, including The Sutra of Pale Leaves for Call of Cthulhu, Age of Vikings , Bunny Borg , Kala Mandala and one zine that arrived while he was away, Tiger's Figure Folio . * * * Instagram? Old news. Join...

Once again, Stu journeys to the biggest tabletop gaming convention in the US.  This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu reports back from GenCon 2025. How was the train? Did he survive his panel? Did he play any games? Did he make it back without having to take the bus? Listen to learn the answers to all these questions, and much more! * * * Listen to the Games People Play broadcast that was LIVE...

Are you ready to turn into a extraterrestrial angel? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu is feeling nostalgic about Dark Suns past, so we take a look at  Dragon Kings , the best-worst book in the line! Also, a fair amount of discussion about our late Prince of Darkness, Ozzy Osbourne (Correction: Sabotage came after Sabbath Bloody Sabbath ). * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Ne...

In which the horse, the rider, or both can be dangerously inebriated! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out two cool things from the mailbox! First up, Nick Boreli's amazing minature kitbashing art book Mold Mold Mold which is hideously beautiful. Second is Tabletop Cowboy's very funny Drunk Jousting , an unusual skirmish game featuring rad miniatures by Jaycee Fairclough. Plus, liste...

An RPG inspired by the TV show Millennium ? SIGN ME UP! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out the primer for  Midnight of the Century , from By Odin's Beard! It's a lightweight game in the mode of Cairn, but tailored around investigating supernaturally tinged murders in the mode of Millennium , Seven , Twin Peaks and so on. The rain is always falling, people are always dying and the e...

What lies beneath the Mucklands? The Underlands, naturally! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we welcome the creators of Land of Eem , Ben Costa and James Parks! Eem is a bit of a multimedia project, currently consisting of a series of graphic novels, young readers novels and a shockingly massive RPG. It mixes light and dark in perfect proportions for kids and adults alike. And recently nomina...

The local library has fantasy books and air conditioning, what else do you need for a great summer? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Hambone's cracked into Ursula K. Le Guin's Earthsea novels and asked for more fantasy fiction recommendations. On tap: Fritz Leiber, Lloyd Alexander, Margaret St. Claire, Roger Zelazny and Manly Wade Wellman. Tolkien who? * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vint...

Longer than Odysseus' journey home. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Max Moon joins us to chat about the latest expansion for 12 Years , the nautical 12 Years at Sea, coming to Kickstarter this week! We talk about art, fantasy touchstones, solo play, Max's new studio and more! * * * Go get 12 Years at Sea on Kickstarter ! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter ! That's whe...

Tune in to the static and await news from the Station Manager. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we got our rewards from the  Weird Heroes of Public Access RPG crowdfunding campaign and just had to talk about them. What a delightful pile of odd, creepy, spooky, quirky and lightly nostalgic stuff! Listen to us, then go on over to Exalted Funeral and get your own copy. * * * Instagram? Old news....

Don't play gray! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out some old catalogs from Grenadier Models. Funny thing, back when these catalogs first came out, they'd stop working after a while. But now, with the internet and the infinite store that is eBay, old catalogs work again. I can just flip through, find a rad minotaur I want and to the search engine I go, wallet in hand... * * * Instag...

Bringing occult detective work to the common man! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we hang out with reporter Carl Kolchak, TV's most important monster hunter. Truly, you don't get stuff like The X-Files , Supernatural , Buffy and even maybe The Sopranos without Kolchak, not to mention a couple of Dungeons & Dragons monsters! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter ! That's...

Don't get too attached to those characters... This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're joined by Justin Wigard and Clay Fleischer, two of Stu's victims...er...players in the Patron-only West Marches game that has been running for two years now. They share anecdotes about the adventures they've had, and a bit of the trauma. You should  sign up ! It's fun! * * * Instagram? Old news. Join the Vint...

Sometimes you just gotta shoot the breeze, ya know? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, it's a little bit of this and a little bit of that. There's Stu's new radio show, Games People Play (co-hosting with Unwinnable's own Sara Clemens)! There's Hambone's reaction to Sinners ! There's the Rifts calendar! There's the Warriors of the Galaxy play set with sound effects box! * * * Check out the debut...

Embark on a quest for the most perfect green paper! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Clint Marsh, the man behind the Fiddler's Green Peculiar Parish Magazine and many, many other zines that intersect with esoteric pursuits, genre fiction and tabletop roleplaying games. We talk about his history with RPGs, the Shrieker newsletter , the Satanic Panic, the occult, zine-making and mu...

Let's get rich! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Games Omnivorous mastermind Andre Novoa about  The Job: Boxset Edition ! Now on Backerkit , this is the deluxe expanded edition of Andre's excellent 2023 heist game, inspired by flicks like The Italian Job and Ocean's Eleven . Unlike most Games Omnivorous game products, which hew towards the OSR, The Job veers into more narrative t...

A treasure trove of counter-culture!  This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Phil Hine and Rodney Orpheus about Delinquent Elementals , a massive book collecting the best material from Pagan News, the zine they ran from 1988-1992. As Pagan News' existence paralleled and lampooned the UK Satanic Panic, we talk quite a lot about that. Also on tap: a general look at the British occult sce...

Plan? We don't need a plan! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we make it up as we go along. We had a scheduling issue with an interview and couldn't come up with a topic on short notice, so we riffed for a bit. Stu talks about the monster book, Joseph Payne Brennan's short story "Slime" and the classic monster movie The Blob . Hambone runs down what's cooking with 321RPG, Zombie Braineaters an...