This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we go to The Far Side, Gary Larsen's legendary comic strip and a staple of '80s absurdity. Plus: brown corduroy!

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Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now!

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray.

Send questions, comments or corrections to info@vintagerpg.com.

Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients.

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!

It belongs in a museum! Oh, wait, that doesn't work here... This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out Thousand Year Old Campfire, also known as Old Morris Cave: A Continuous Use Campsite in Mammoth Cave National Park. A descendant of Thousand Year Old Vampire, this game examines presence, absence and time through the excavation of an archaeological site. It's less emotionally charged than TYOV, but no less thought provoking.

* * *

Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now!

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray.

Send questions, comments or corrections to info@vintagerpg.com.

Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients.

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!

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 coincidence, but a very funny one.)

* * *

Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now!

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray.

Send questions, comments or corrections to info@vintagerpg.com.

Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients.

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 look at Beyond the Supernatural (1987), Palladium's horror RPG that anticipates a bunch of mechanics and lore that would be important for Rifts and the Megaversal system. Richard Corben on the cover, Steve Bissette doing tons of interiors, this books is worth it for the art alone.

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Rest easy, Shane.

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk about dungeon tiles, specifically Halls of Horror (1986), the set of haunted mansion tiles produced by Games Workshop. We also talk briefly about the board game Mystery Mansion and the fact that Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is pretty much IN STORES NOW.

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

It's just a game, right? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Hambone talks to Charlie Menzies about the found footage solo RPG Don't Play This Game. I was busy with book stuff so I couldn't be on this show, and weirdly, I haven't seen nor heard from Hambone since. It's weird. I'm sure he's fine. Anyway, coming to Kickstarter soon. What's the worst that could happen?

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Buy it now!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review 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 Cthulhu rules brings the game to modern audiences for the first time. It's notable for being one of the very first RPG scenarios to cast players as kids (though it is emphatically not for children) and it will surely be a welcome addition to your Halloween one-shot arsenal.

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Buy it direct from Penguin Random House with code READMIT15 for 15% off!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

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 vibrant (if often gross) art by a who's who of killer Games Workshop illustrators. A high watermark for Warhammer!

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Buy it direct from Penguin Random House with code READMIT15 for 15% off!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

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 centuries since the original adventurer's cleared out the Caves of Chaos, a festival celebrating that achievement — the RAVES of Chaos — came to dominate the town every year. Now the king is sick, a cure is needed and to find it, players must brave the raves and visit the many different pubs of the keep. It's delightful!

Buy it!

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Buy it direct from Penguin Random House with code READMIT15 for 15% off!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

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 guards, pay off the syndicate, try not to lose everything, or you might wind up in the fighting pits yourself!

Back it on Kickstarter September 5!

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Buy it direct from Penguin Random House with code READMIT15 for 15% off!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

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 or solo using a special PDF. Other items promise to be of use with Chaosium's forthcoming guidebook to Arkham for Call of Cthulhu. One of the most fun RPG products I've ever laid eyes on, full stop. Get it.

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

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 sort of unusually weird for the period, it is also a great example of how a certain amount of "gonzo" is baked right in to the standards of the hobby. We also chat a little bit about Role Aids generally, something that will be helpful for folks reading the Instagram feed next year (spoiler: I'm doing posts on ALL the Role Aids books in 2024; get read for lots of Boris).

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

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 second moment in the spotlight.  

Original show notes from June 24, 2019:

We have a very special guest this episode: illustrator 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 we barely scratch the surface, honestly.

* * *

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

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 the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now!

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray.

Send questions, comments or corrections to info@vintagerpg.com.

Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients.

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'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!

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

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 Revolution!

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

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 Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

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!

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 AD&D. It also has a number of mechanical innovations that anticipate systems seen later in RuneQuest and Rolemaster and many other games. It's an interesting time capsule!

* * *

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

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!

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 from the Dungeon Masters Guide, the Sorceress from the Erol Otus Basic Set and the Githyanki from the Fiend Folio. We also chat a bit about The Worst line and their recent Pre-Code horror comic figures. Its a good time to love weird ass toys!

* * *

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

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!

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!  

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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, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

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!

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 Boardman's glorious Illustrated History of Ghosts and Illustrated History of UFOs. Hopefully these recent and gorgeous books mark the start of an Unknown revival!

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Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is up for pre-order now! Get in Regular or Deluxe, but maybe consider getting it via Bookshop, yea?

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!

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 really like it in the world anymore. Stu also takes a minute to explain just what a house organ really is.

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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!

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!

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We only scratched the surface here. Of particular further interest, Stu neglected to mention William Blake's diabolical character Orc, who likely also influenced Tolkien in the creation of creatures that wholly embody conceptual evil. Also missing is the demon Orcus, who has interesting folkloric connection here, though we did cover that in a previous podcast episode.

And while we discussed some of the ways orcs can be seen as perpetuating racial stereotypes, we totally neglected to talk about how some folks, particularly in queer communities, have reclaimed the orc. Grant Howitt's Big Gay Orcs is a good example of, well, gay orcs. It's right there in the title.  

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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!

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, never fear). The result is something that seems pretty groundbreaking and exciting!

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Reach of the Roach God will be available for purchase in the US at Spearwitch, once Kickstarter fulfillment is finished!

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!

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!

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Listen to the Games People Play broadcast that was LIVE from GenCon (er, well, live from Stu's hotel near the Speedway, 15 minutes drive from GenCon).

* * *

Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now!

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray.

Send questions, comments or corrections to info@vintagerpg.com.

Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients.

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 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 film adaptation of Cycle, Silver Bullet.

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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!

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 of tabletop games. It's gorgeous and unsettling and deeply intriguing and, hands down, one of my favorite things I've added to the shelf in a long time.

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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!

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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, so as outside the norm as Barrier Peaks may seem, it also shows how early silliness had come to be core to the D&D experience. We dig into that, scratch at the complex legacy of Gary Gygax and even talk a little bit about the spooky stuff that happened down by the railroad tracks when we were kids. Check it out!

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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!

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 Missing Out. Stu's starting up a West Marches game for Patrons, so it's been on his mind!

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There are tons of resources for and musings about West Marches games, but the place to start, if you're interesting, is Robbins' own blogs on the subject.

Note: while Stu has personally decided that the "Marches" part of the name refers to military walking, and refers to it as such in the episode, a march in this context is actually a kind of borderland. In medieval Europe, these were used as neutral zones between regions, often for military purposes. A whole lot of names and words derive from the concept (including marquis and Denmark), to the extent that once you're aware of it, you see a lot of Europe differently.

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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!

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!

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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!

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!

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Our friends at Cadabra Records are excited about their imminent Nightlands Festival. Come to New Jersey and join in a celebration of some of the greatest weird fiction through words, music and art. Tickets are on sale now!

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!

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!

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Portents is on Kickstarter right now! You can keep up to date with Matt on Instagram or on the Raven Portents site.

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New year, new Noble Knight discount code! Use VRPG23 for 10% off all your purchases online or in the store!

Our friends at Cadabra Records are excited about their imminent Nightlands Festival. Come to New Jersey and join in a celebration of some of the greatest weird fiction through words, music and art. Tickets are on sale now!

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!

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 Jersey and join in a celebration of some of the greatest weird fiction through words, music and art. Tickets are on sale now!

New year, new Noble Knight discount code! Use VRPG23 for 10% off all your purchases online or in the store!

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!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Michael Monaco about his new book excavating the history of Fantasy Wargaming called The Highest Level of All. The game is a very idiosyncratic RPG created in the late '70s in the UK. I've talked about this game before, both in a previous episode of the podcast and in a post a million years ago — this is one of the RPGs from the early days that's interested in "realistic" simulation. It has a reputation for being unplayable (which Mike dispels) and for having silly things like stat blocks for the Virgin Mary. But it is also a deeply intriguing game, partly because it was one of the first to hit shelves in mainstream bookstores, partly because it's primary creator Bruce Galloway died not long after its publication. We try to get to the bottom of Fantasy Wargaming's unusual, but enduring appeal!

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Buy the The Highest Level of All, or grab a free PDF from the publisher. You can also check out Mike's blog, Swords & Dorkery for more on Fantasy Wargaming and other RPGs!

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Our friends at Cadabra Records are excited about their imminent Nightlands Festival. Come to New Jersey and join in a celebration of some of the greatest weird fiction through words, music and art. Tickets are on sale now!

New year, new Noble Knight discount code! Use VRPG23 for 10% off all your purchases online or in the store!

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!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out Merlin Publishing's BattleCards, a neat, if doomed, combat card game that came out in 1993. Design credit goes to Steve Jackson (UK) and has players picking cards to square off, then scratching off hit locations to see if they score wounds. The winner claimed the defeated card (they have a gold value) and could send it in to "purchase" special treasure cards. There are puzzles and quests as well, but the real star is the artist pool, which includes heavy hitters like Iain McCaig and Led Edwards. Even then, it didn't stand a chance against Magic: The Gathering.

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This week we shout out Dean Browell: check out his in-development space exploration RPG, Response!

New year, new Noble Knight discount code! Use VRPG23 for 10% off all your purchases online or in the store!

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!

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).

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Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now!

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray.

Send questions, comments or corrections to info@vintagerpg.com.

Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients.

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 check out A Time to Harvest, a recently released campaign for Call of Cthulhu where players take the role of Miskatonic University students on an ill-advised field trip to Vermont. We talk in vague terms about why it is a cool campaign, the after a clear "beyond this point is spoilers" warning we get into some of the nitty gritty. A future classic of the system, I think!

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New year, new Noble Knight discount code! Use VRPG23 for 10% off all your purchases online or in the store!

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!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we descend into The Maze of Peril (1986), a fantasy novel by Dr. John Eric Holmes. Holmes is best known for creating the first D&D Basic Rules box set (1977), but he also wrote fantasy fiction (in addition to his day job as a neurologist). At a glance, Maze of Peril doesn't inspire much confidence as to its quality, but it winds up being a fun adventure that captures something of the spirit of the early days of Dungeons & Dragons — something countless other hard-trying fantasy novels have failed to do.

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New year, new Noble Knight discount code! Use VRPG23 for 10% off all your purchases online or in the store!

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!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're talking to James Wallis about his forthcoming book Everybody Wins. It's a fantastic book that charts the recent history of board games through the lens of the forty-three winners of the German Spiel des Jahres (Game of the Year) award, from 1979 to 2022. We also talk a little bit about RPGs as well — how could we not, as James was behind Hogshead Publishing and their New Style series of RPGs (we're going to have him back to talk at length about The Extraordinary Adventures of Baron Munchausen, promise).

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Everybody Wins is in stores on March 14 — pre-order it now on Amazon (and pretty much everywhere else, too). You can also check out the Everybody Wins Podcast.

James has a couple other audio/visual projects of interest. Ludonarrative Dissidents, with Greg Stolze and Ross Payton, is a podcast that looks at a different RPG every episode, while Inside the Rookery, is a weekly stream on RPG and storytelling in geek spaces. 

You can further interface with James on Twitter, on Mastodon, through his outdated website or on Drive-Thru.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're looking at The Unspeakable Oath, the Call of Cthulhu fanzine from Pagan Publishing (and later, Arc Dream). Debuting in 1990, the zine feel emblematic of its time, while also illustrating a continuity of DIY tradition from the early days of the Amateur Press Associations into the current RPG zine scene. All that plus tentacles!

Stu took a sick day so this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Hambone called in Tony Vasinda of Plus One Exp, Adam Vass of World Champ Game Co. and Levi Combs of Planet X Games to chat about what's going on and what's cool this Zine Month. Hot damn!

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New year, new Noble Knight discount code! Use VRPG23 for 10% off all your purchases online or in the store!

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 info@vintagerpg.com.

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!

Old friends, new looks! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're looking at NECA's Ultimates versions of the LJN Dungeons & Dragons action figures Warduke and Grimsword. We also check out Hasbro's Dungeons & Dragons cartoon series figures — Venger, Dungeon Master, Hank, Diana, Bobby and Uni. All these toys are honkin' BIG, but are they all GOOD? How much nostalgia is too much? Find out wherever pods are cast!

Dying malls and office buildings corrupted by extradimensional entities? Sounds like this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're talking about Liminial Horror. A hack of Cairn from Goblin Archives, Liminal Horror takes the barely-there D&D framework of that earlier game and applies to the tropes of investigative horror. It works shockingly well! We also touch on The Mall and The Bureau, two scenario zines. The Mall has intriguing mechanics for introducing stress-related agendas in play that are particularly exciting.

Here we are in the brambles. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're looking at Cairn, Yochai Gal's ultra-lite hack/remix of Into the Odd and Knave. How few mechanics can you have and still have a D&D-esque RPG? It's both more and less than you expect, probably. Cairn actually highlights Into the Odd's differences from D&D by pulling the Odd mechanics in a more old-school direction (Into the Odd lacks a recognizable spellcasting system, for instance). We run it all down. Next up: Liminal Horror!

We're embarking on a tour of ultra-lite RPGs for the next few weeks on the Vintage RPG Podcast. Up first: Into the Odd Remastered, Chris McDowall's extremely streamlined D&D-esque ruleset that is so distilled it becomes a sort of commentary on the tropes of roleplaying games broadly. Next up: Cairn!

Back the third party publishing of the 80s — this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at GameScience's Fantasy Gamer's Compendium (1983), a collection of six smaller books originally created by the short-lived Little Soldier Games (in the mid-70s). Which is also the short-lived Phoenix Games (in like, 1980). It's a little confusing, and we iron that out. The books themselves, though, are an inspiring collection of monsters, demons, skills, magic systems and new character classes, kinda sorta for D&D, but also for other fantasy RPGs of the time. It's a great example of the DIY nature of the hobby that's been with us from the start, and will continue on well into the future.

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, listener questions answered!

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You can buy Mold Mold Mold and Drunk Jousting, but only if you're cool enough. Oh, and the jousting knights miniatures!

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Instagram? Old news. Join the Vintage RPG Newsletter! That's where all the cool kids are now!

Stu's book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it!

Patreon? Discord? Cool RPG things to buy? All the Vintage RPG links you need are right here in one place!

Like, Rate, Subscribe and Review the Vintage RPG Podcast!

Edited by the one and only R. Alex Murray.

Send questions, comments or corrections to info@vintagerpg.com.

Available on iTunes, Google Podcasts, iHeartRadio, Spotify, YouTube and your favorite podcast clients.

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!

And we're back! Hope y'all had an excellent holiday season. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we sort of tackle the third edition of D&D. Not so much the system (though we hit the broad strokes), but the idea of it, where it came from, where it went, what it inspired. It's sort of a ruminating ramble that seems even more relevant now with the recent kerfuffle over the OGL (though we recorded before that bomb dropped, believe it or not).

We decided to take a couple weeks off for the holidays, so we remastered a couple older episodes for your enjoyment. We'll be back with a new episode on January 9.

Original show notes:

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 the bane of adventurers everywhere.

We decided to take a couple weeks off for the holidays, so we remastered a couple older episodes for your enjoyment. We'll be back with a new episode on January 9.

Original show notes:

Happy holidays, folks!

We're breaking from format this episode to dig deep into the nostalgia and look at the Sears Wish Book, an important part of our childhood Christmas experiences. Specifically, we're looking at the catalogs from 1982, 1983 and 1984, which contained, you guessed it, Dungeons & Dragons stuff. They are so much more than that, though, as you'll discover when you listen!

And, while we have you, let us offer our tremendous thanks for following Vintage RPG on Instagram, listening to the podcast and making this whole project fun and rewarding on a daily basis. All the best this holiday season!