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). * * * 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!

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 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! * * * 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!   * * * 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! * * * 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. * * * 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!