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. * * * 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!

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! * * * 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. * * * 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). * * * 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! * * * 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.

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!

War hedgehogs! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we check out Dragonroar, the first major fantasy RPG out of the UK, and boy is it British. Beware, for man-eating penguins lie in wait. And war hedgehogs!

Fighting Fantasy? That's for babies. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at Advanced Fighting Fantasy, the full-fledged RPG rules derived from the (not really for babies) Fighting Fantasy gamebook series. There are three delightful volumes - Dungeoneer starts things off with dungeons rules, Blacksand! takes players to the city streets and Allansia explores the great outdoors. Lots of fantastic art by John Sibbick and Russ Nicholson, plus a lightweight and versatile system with a surprising modern legacy!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at the amazing fantasy RPG-inspired art book, Down in the Dungeon (1981), by Don Greer. This amazing collection of art retells the adventures the author experienced while exploring Zarakan’s dungeon after discovering it on a camping trip somewhere in the American Southwest. We talk about the enduring appeal of this sort of art and speculate a bit about what a book like this said about the broader RPG scene at the time of its publication. * * * A large number of the paintings from Down in the Dungeon can be viewed at the Monster Brains blog. And hey, you know what is awesome? The ownership of Noble Knight has agreed to recognize the union! We’re firm believers in the non-controversial idea that all workers should be fairly compensated by their employers. Unionization and collective bargaining are an excellent way for workers to ensure they get that fair share, and we’re psyched the NKG owners came around.

Horror stories on vinyl! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we digress a little bit to talk about Cadabra Records and their “nightmares on vinyl.” These are spoken word readings or full cast audio plays of classic horror stories, set to atmospheric soundscapes and wrapped in evocative sleeve art. They’re part of a larger tradition of (often horror-centric) storytelling recordings but, primarily, they’re just plain cool as heck! Pick one up, dial the lights down low and have a spooky evening! * * * Our friends at Noble Knight are organizing a union and we support their efforts whole-heartedly! We're firm believers in the non-controversial idea that all workers should be fairly compensated by their employers. Unionization and collective bargaining are an excellent way for workers to ensure they get that fair share. For updates on the process, follow the union Twitter and put "We Roll Together" in the notes field of your online orders to show your support! (And just to be clear, we're speaking from the heart on this - no one is paying us for our solidarity)

Back to back heresy, just like we like it. Last week, we did Heirs to Heresy, this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we’re talking about John’s new adventure Heresy of Rot, co-authored by Levi Combs and published by Necromancer Games. We talk a bit about horror in RPGs and we also briefly discuss Lodestar to Karamouska, a system agnostic RPG setting zine by Matheus Graef that Stu published through Unwinnable. Go buy the things! * * * Buy Heresy of Rot! You can also get it at DriveThru. Buy Lodestar to Karamouska!

They seem to be at the center of every occult conspiracy mystery ever written, so of course they have an RPG! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at Heirs to Heresy, Allan Bahr’s RPG centered on the Knights Templars (and their persecution in 1312). We also talk a bit about Osprey Publishing’s whole RPG line and some of the many surprises contained therein! * * * Our friends at Noble Knight are organizing a union and we support their efforts whole-heartedly! We're firm believers in the non-controversial idea that all workers should be fairly compensated by their employers. Unionization and collective bargaining are an excellent way for workers to ensure they get that fair share. For updates on the process, follow the union Twitter and put "We Roll Together" in the notes field of your online orders to show your support! (And just to be clear, we're speaking from the heart on this - no one is paying us for our solidarity)