The Vintage RPG Podcast

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're getting into the spooky season a little early with The Dare (2020), a scenario for Call of Cthulhu that pits some costumed kids against a haunted house and the thoroughly horrific witch that lives there. Originally written by Kevin A. Ross as a somewhat legendary tournament module in the late '80s, this modern renovation featuring kid-sized Call of Cthul...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we explore the Realm of Chaos , the two-volume opus from Games Workshop dedicated to all things chaotic. Slaves to Darkness (1988) and The Lost and the Damned (1990) detail the four lords of chaos, their armies, the mutations they inspire and so much more, in terms suitable for all the Warhammer games of that period. Even more exciting is the collection of vib...

Pull up a stool and name your poison! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with W. F. Smith, the mastermind behind Barkeep on the Borderlands ! This Ennie Award-winning zine is the product of over thirty collaborators, including 11 guest writers and 17 artists, who worked together to reimagine the classic D&D cavern crawl B2: Keep on the Borderlands as a BAR crawl. You see, in the centuri...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Dillon Morton, the creator of Bloodsport Gambler , a game betting on horrifically brutal arena combat. And, because of all that debt, you can't afford to lose those bets, so it is also a game about lying, cheating, rigging, sabotaging, sneaking and otherwise finagling any advantage you can scrape together so as to make your wagers count. Avoid the...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're opening up the Arkham Investigator's Wallet, from the prop maestros at the H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society. It's a real leather wallet, stuffed with '20s-style IDs, paperwork, newspaper clippings, a trolley coin, a mysterious key and much more. The props tie directly with the scenario book The Dog Walker , which is included and can be run for a group o...

Climb into the Titan's ear! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're talking about Swordthrust (1984), a particularly wild scenario from Mayfair's Role Aids line of D&D supplements. Despite the generic sounding title, this adventure sees players exploring the brain of a hibernating Titan and navigating his dreams made flesh in order to find an artifact of incredible power (sort of). While it is...

Contrary to Mick's claim, time was not on our side this past week, so we had to dig into our archive for another remastered rerun. When we redid the fairly recent Erol Otus interview last time, I made a mental note to stretch further back and pluck our interview with Tony DiTerlizzi out of the mists of time. It remains one of my favorite RPG chats, public or private, and certainly deserves a secon...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're talking about Champions , from Hero Games, a major evolutionary step in point-buy RPG systems, one of the best regarded superhero RPGs of all time AND the cornerstone of the broader, semi-universal Hero System. It's a whole lot of four-color fun! * * * Stu's book,  Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground  is up for pre-order now! Get in  Regular  or  D...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at The Monster Overhaul , by Skerples, a book that looks to reimagine not just the monsters but the book that contains them and the way we use them in play. It's hugely ambitious, largely successful and full of amazing art by a heap of talented artists; basically a must have for your shelves, folks. (Sorry, wallets). Grab in on Indie Press Revol...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Stu finds a book he didn't know he owned: The Armory's 30-Sided Dice Gaming Tables . It's weird and mostly useless, but has some nice (though odd) illustrations (by Greg Barrett, who did the cover of The Dragon #1), and, bizarrely, anchors a small line of increasingly useful sourcebooks. Who'd a thunk? * * * Stu's book,  Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Grou...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at The Complete Warlock , one of the earliest hacks of the original D&D — the rules were compiled from a homebrew California-area game in 1975 and finally saw print in 1978, only to be buried by the then-fresh Advanced Dungeons & Dragons. It's still an interesting system, especially considering it corrects OD&D in a lot of similar ways Gygax did with A...

Toys, toys, toys. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at the new Dungeons & Dragons toys released as part of Super7's ReAction Figures line . As with other ReAction toys, these are old style figures with five points of articulation, in the mode of Kenner's original Star Wars toys. Deliciously, these figures are based on some iconic characters from the covers of D&D books — the Efreeti fr...

Stu's got a full plate, so that means a rerun! This week, please enjoy a remastered version of our 2021 interview with legendary RPG artist Erol Otus!   * * * Keep up to date on Erol's RPG work by following him on Facebook . Definitely keep an eye out for restocks of his currently sold out line of tees and prints at Bay Merch ! Big thanks to Skinner for putting us in touch! * * * Stu's book,  Mons...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at the strange world of the unknown. We chat about a bunch of books (like Time/Life's Mysteries of the Unknown) and television shows (somehow In Search Of didn't come up?), and how the "Unknown" as a topic seemed to have wafted away or transmogrified into "New Age" at the turn of the millennium. And then we get to the main course, Adam Allsuch B...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at The Dragon #1 (1976), the first issue of one of the most important RPG-focused magazines (also known as Dragon and Dragon Magazine, on and off through its run). We talk a little bit about the magazine's run, but focus mainly on the issue itself, how simultaneously amateurish and professional it is, and how sad it is that there is nothing real...

Waaagh! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at orcs. Particularly pig-faced orcs, but also monstrous humanoid orcs and mushroom people orcs. We also talk about Pig-Head from the Yla Eason's Sun-Man toy line, the swine-things from  House on the Borderland  and door-shaped shields. It's another odd-ball episode! * * * We only scratched the surface here. Of particular further interest, Stu...

Turn on all the lights! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we delve into Reach of the Roach God , the new, massive hardcover installment of the Thousand Thousand Islands series. It's pretty gross (in the best ways?) and, unlike the previous ATTI publications, Reach is structured like an RPG books, which clearly defined adventures and source material (it's all still system agnostic, though, neve...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out Stephen King and Bernie Wrightson's Cycle of the Werewolf (1983). Born as a concept for a novelty calendar, it blossomed into an illustrated novella that is one of the finest modern werewolf stories and contains some of Wrightson's best illustrations. We also talk more broadly about King's career and unearth a surprising fact or two about the 1985...

Which flesh is your flesh? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, well, we don't find out the answer to that question, but we  DO check out the mysterious RPG-inspired art book Vermis I , by Plastiboo. This gorgeous artifact takes the form of a strategy guide for a videogame that doesn't exist and draws clear inspiration from the Souls games, early videogame RPGs like Shadowgate and a whole wealth...

The best of the first wave of TSR-produced D&D modules? Certainly the quirkiest! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out  S3: Expedition to the Barrier Peaks . It's the one with the crashed spaceship full of aliens that, wouldn't you know it, look and act like classic D&D monsters! Even though this was published in 1980, it actually saw play as early as the summer of 1976 at conventions...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we discuss the concept of the West Marches, a style of play for large groups of players and on-demand GMs (mostly intended for D&D and its derivatives). West Marches was developed by Ben Robbins ( Microscope , Kingdom ) and offers a pretty unique framework for RPGs that puts a lot of the onus of play on players rather than GMs, and weaponizes the dread Fear of...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out Fred Saberhagen's classic science fantasy trilogy. The last volume, Changeling Earth , got name-checked in Appendix N, but all three provided plenty of clear inspiration for Dungeons & Dragons. And they're pretty great reads on their own! * * * Hang out with us on the Vintage RPG Discord ! If you dig what we do, join us on the Vintage RPG Patreon...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk about Amazing Tales , a simple RPG designed to introduce children into the hobby. And that's just what Stu did with his son a couple of weeks ago. How did Amazing Tales hold up in their first play through? Listen and find out! * * * Our friends at Cadabra Records are excited about their imminent Nightlands Festival. Come to New Jersey and join in a cel...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Matt Johnson about Portents of the Degloved Hand , a kinda gross and very risky card-based omen supplement for everyone's favorite doom-ridden RPG, MÖRK BORG ! We talk about how it works, how it looks, why you'd want to add more death and disaster to MÖRK BORG and more! * * * Portents is on Kickstarter right now ! You can keep up to date with Matt...

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Hambone and Alex (our long-suffering editor), go to see Dungeons & Dragons: Honor Among Thieves so Stu doesn't have to! They weave a compelling tale of being entertained by a movie that, against all odds, seems to not suck. Maybe Stu will see it after all. * * * Our friends at  Cadabra Records are excited about their imminent Nightlands Festival. Come to New J...