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 You can further interface with James on Twitter, on Mastodon, through his outdated website or on Drive-Thru.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