The Vintage RPG Podcast

Discover the heart of Vampire: The Masquerade, its lore, Storyteller system, LARPing, and Tim Bradstreet art. Explore the vampire courts of the goth club scene and the connection between Vampire and Werewolf. Reflect on the cultural factors that contributed to its success in the 90s. Don't miss their discussion on social media and Patreon.

The Vintage RPG Podcast explores the gritty fantasy world of Thieves' World, a collaboration that brought together designers from major RPGs. They discuss the role of random encounters in tabletop games and the controversy surrounding the collaboration with Chaosium. The hosts also recommend the Tim Sale graphic novels and express their appreciation for the listeners.

Explore the odd and nostalgic world of the 'World Action and Adventure' RPG, with its semi-playable game based on the real world. Delve into the game's extensive list of careers and combat system. Discover a 20 verse poem that captures the 80s styling and reminisce about songs like the Fat Boys. Discuss the unconventional decision to create a unique RPG system instead of using Dungeons and Dragons. Reflect on the importance of supportive figures and admire a game. Don't forget to rate and review the podcast and check out their Patreon page!

Jim Zub, creator of Skullkickers Kickstarter: Caster Bastards and the Great Grotesque, Beasts & Behemoths, and the Stranger Things: Dungeons & Dragons comic book, discusses his new projects including the Skull Kickers RPG and Anniversary Kickstarter, the influence of role-playing games on writing careers, playing tabletop RPGs online, and upcoming releases.

Explore the city of Lankhmar and its influence on Dungeons & Dragons. Learn about the creators Fritz Leiber and Otto Fischer, and how the Fafhrd and Gray Mouser stories shaped the Thieves Guild concept. Discover the charm of screwball adventurers and retired heroes, and the modular geomorphs that make Lankhmar a unique city setting for RPGs.

Steal your strength and guard your soul: this week, the Vintage RPG Podcast looks at Chaosium's Stormbringer RPG. Designed by Ken St. Andre, Stormbringer is a high power and high risk RPG set in the world of Michael Moorcock's Elric stories (for our money, perhaps the greatest fantasy series ever written). One of the more straightforward of the games using Chaosium's Basic Role Playing system, it has piles of fatalistic atmosphere and dark themes, perhaps most notably the magic system that relies on mind altering substances and is entirely arranged around summoning and binding demons and other supernatural entities. Most Stormbringer games end in death or corruption – the fun is in figuring out which is the better fate.

This week, the Vintage RPG Podcast travels back in time to the 80s that never were with Tales From the Loop, an RPG where extraordinary science fiction mysteries crash into the dreariness of everyday life. Based on the mesmerizing artwork of Simon Stålenhag, this Year Zero engine game from Fria Ligan is one of our favorites – easy to pick up and play (especially for beginners), gorgeous to look at and full of enigmas. Check it out if you were ever a kid.

This week, the Vintage RPG Podcast cracks open The Green Knight: A Quest for Honor. Don't let the fake scuff marks fool you: this is a brand new box set from @A24, a marketing tie-in for their forthcoming film The Green Knight. We talk a bit about the original 14th century poem (and how perplexing its intricate commentary on the dueling systems of knightly and chivalric honor might be to modern audiences). Then we dig into the surprisingly novel game system presented in the box, which is arranged around a sliding honor/dishonor scale that focuses on the motives and morals behind player action rather than combat. An easy knock-off of Dungeons & Dragons this is not!

Welcome to the Megaverse, folks. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at Palladium's Rifts. Introduced in 1990, Rifts is like all of 90s nerd culture smooshed into one gonzo RPG. Mixing genres with wild abandon it is perhaps the ultimate form of the age old comic shop game "Who Would Win in a Fight?" Sorcerers and aliens and superheroes and biomechanical aliens and interdimensional beings and mutants and knights and the four horsemen of the apocalypse and mechs and more all rub shoulders with each other here, pushing each new sourcebook further over the top, so don your Glitterboy armor, pray to your gods and dive in. I hope you like explosions. * * * Through September 7, use the code ROLLDICE to get $6 off any purchase $25 or more at Noble Knight! 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!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we return to Appendix N and check out Poul Anderson's Three Hearts and Three Lions. Even though it starts off in World War II and features lots of scientific theories to explain magical effects, this 1961 novel is a formative text for Dungeons & Dragons. It establishes many of the feels of a D&D adventure, with its travel and towns and non player characters and random encounters. Perhaps most importantly, it introduces a terrifying take on the troll that Gygax would essentially Xerox for the game. Interesting stuff!