The Vintage RPG Podcast

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at Tunnels & Trolls, the earliest Dungeons & Dragons competitor. Designed by Ken St. Andre (Stormbringer), T&T was developed as a simpler, less expensive alternative to D&D, with a focus on solo play (solo T&T modules were the first adventure gamebooks, paving the way for series like Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf). Back in the day, folks said T&T was too simple to have much staying power, but the game is still with us and is an important first step towards modern attempts at streamlined rules systems.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at HeartQuest. Back in 1982, TSR launched a series of Dungeons & Dragons-based interactive novels called Endless Quest. Aimed at children, they were an immediate success. In 1983, they followed up with HeartQuest, which introduced romance into the formula and courted women readers. It was a dismal failure. Why? Well, for the answer to that, you'll have to listen to the podcast…

Stu and Hambone did something stupid. They watched the 1982 made-for-TV movie Mazes and Monsters, based on the Rona Jaffe novel of the same name, which is based loosely and idiotically on the totally not related to Dungeons & Dragons disappearance of James Dallas Egbert III in 1979. It is notable for being Tom Hanks' first major role, a shockingly poor understanding of RPGs, some atrocious one-liners and a decent lizard man suit. Some movies are so bad they're a blast to watch. Mazes and Monsters isn't one of them. Buckle up and get ready to feel our pain.

Not all gods are mighty. This week we look at Petty Gods, a collection minor divinities, genii locorum and otherwise trivial powers created by the OSR community from 2010 to 2015 and collected in a massive tome in the style of the original Deities & Demigods. At turns silly and serious, there is a little bit of everything in here to spice up any flavor of dungeon crawling game. Even better, you can grab it for free in PDF or get it printed for cost through Lulu.

Something a little different this week: we speak to Chris Leder, lead designer of Ravensburger's forthcoming game Back to the Future: Dice Through Time. Chris shares his overwhelming enthusiasm for the franchise and walks us through the novel way the game handles time travel mechanics, among other things. Pre-sale started yesterday, in stores June 21, exclusively at Target.

Polish up your chrome, chummer: this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk about Shadowrun, FASA beloved cyberpunk fantasy RPG. Within, you'll find much love for the world building and art, awe for how the game predicts a lot of modern internet stuff, lukewarm reactions to the system and inevitable comparisons to Vampire: The Masquerade, Rifts, Torg and Cyberpunk 2020. A pivotal game in the history of RPGs!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we visit Greyhawk, one of the earliest RPG campaign settings. Despite being Gary Gygax's own homebrew world, Greyhawk struggled to capture the public's imagination. We talk through the various attempts by TSR to tweak the setting, some dull, some interesting, all weirdly in the shadow of other D&D campaign settings.

If we had a crazy budget, we'd probably have licensed Iron Maiden's song "Killers" to open this episode of the Vintage RPG podcast. We don't, so we didn't, so go ahead and just listen to it on Spotify before you hit play on this. Get in the mood, you know? Anyway, this week, we're talking about Killer, the Steve Jackson Games codification of the live action college campus RPG Assassin, in which you stalk around a public space "murdering" your friends with water pistols. Sounds like a totally fun game that wouldn't scare innocent bystanders or get you arrested at all, right?

Remember the Lord of the Rings Adventure Game from Iron Crown Enterprises? I bet you don't! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we take a look at the short lived gateway game for Iron Crown's Middle Earth Role Playing. Published from 1991 to 1993, it is an odd little game that perhaps has more in common with pick-your-path gamebooks than it does a tabletop RPG of the period. At the very least, it has some sick cover art by Angus McBride.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, in celebration of a weird made-up holiday, we take a look at a fun little one-on-one Star Wars game from West End Games: the Lightsaber Dueling Pack. Relive the duel between Luke and Vader on Cloud City or in the throne room of the Death Star (depending on who wins) over and over again, from the comfort of you own home, without breaking a sweat! No lightsaber toy necessary!