The Vintage RPG Podcast
Join Stu Horvath and John McGuire as they delve into their favorite tabletop roleplaying games from the past, present and future!
Episodes
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.
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Experience Points has been nominated for an Ennie Award! Vote for it her...
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 pack...
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 resu...
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.
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Stu’...
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 lat...
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!
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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!
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Check out Nerdy ...
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-univer...
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.”
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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.
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Stu’s bo...
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...
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 sh...
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 pro...
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!
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Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! ...
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 ma...
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...
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 ever...
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 nei...
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!
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Mystic Punks is Kickstarting soo...
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!
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