The Vintage RPG Podcast

And we're back! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Hambone's got the reins and talking about two books from Goodman Games: the Dungeon Crawl Classics Reference Booklet and How to Write Adventure Modules that Don't Suck. Spoiler: he loves them both! * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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!

Hello friends! We're running remastered repeats for the holidays. I can't tell you why I thought Black Angel worked for the holidays beyond being similar to that vague, dreamy vibe of The Green Knight (itself a Christmas movie of a sort). Maybe it's just because I got my first Pendragon books for Christmas circa 1991, who knows? Anyway, happy New Year! Original notes: This week, we check out the famous lost (and found) 1980 short film by Roger Christian, Black Angel. This gorgeous little jam occupies a neat place in Star Wars history and also happens to be a mighty fine bit of early '80s sword and sorcery cinema in its own right. And after you listen to our take on it, you can check it out for yourself on YouTube for free (with a brief intro by Christian). * * * This episode was supposed to be an interview with our pal Levi Combs, whose latest kickstarter, the John Carpenter-inspired Assault on Witchgate 13 for DCC, is live now. GET IT.  * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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!

Hello friends! We're running remastered repeats for the holidays. I thought the Coloring Album would, in some way, speak to warm memories of childhood Christmas gifts. Whether or not that's apt, we hope your holidays are rad! Original notes: This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we flip through the Advanced Dungeons & Dragons Coloring Album (1979), written by Gary Gygax and illustrated by underground comic artist Greg Irons. Not only is this a gorgeous coloring book (with some content of questionable suitability for kids) but it also comes with a rules lite dungeon crawl game baked in, penned by Gygax himself [Note: Stu has since learned that Gygax wrote the storybook portion of the album, but Lawrence "White Plume Mountain" Schick designed the game]. We hadn’t ever heard of this until a few months ago, but it instantly became one of our favorite Dungeons & Dragons books of all time. Bonus Fact: The map for the game portion is a modified version of the Tower of Zenopus dungeon from John Eric Holmes D&D Basic Set (1979). * * * This episode was supposed to be an interview with our pal Levi Combs, whose latest kickstarter, the John Carpenter-inspired Assault on Witchgate 13 for DCC, is live now. GET IT.  * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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!

Hello friends! We weren't planning to go to reruns this soon, but events conspired to prevent the recording of a new episode for this week. We're sorry about that, but also we're sure you'll enjoy revisiting this classic episode. We've got remastered reruns coming on December 25 and January 1 as well, because, well, holidays. We'll be back with a new show on January 8. Until then, stay safe, stay warm, enjoy your holidays and cram in as many games as you can with your downtime! Original notes: In the latest episode of the Vintage RPG Podcast this week, we look at Robert Lynn Asprin and Lynn Abbey’s gritty, shared-world fantasy anthology series, the Tim Sale graphic novel adaptations and the magical moment in roleplaying history when Chaosium convinced the designers behind all the major RPGs (including Traveller!?) to collaborate on their Thieves’ World box set. It was a glorious moment, and all too brief. * * * This episode was supposed to be an interview with our pal Levi Combs, whose latest kickstarter, the John Carpenter-inspired Assault on Witchgate 13 for DCC, is live now. GET IT.  * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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 look at (and listen to) First Quest: The Music, a double LP record of electronic music and narration for an officially licensed (and totally ridiculous) Dungeons & Dragons adventure printed on the sleeves. Is it a precursor to dungeonsynth? Sort of? Is it a precursor to the 1994 First Quest box set for D&D, which included an audio CD full of mortifying sound cues for the included introductory adventures? Probably? Is it way a better listen than it has any business being? Absolutely, yes. * * * You can listen to the whole album on YouTube.  The main source of information on First Quest: The Music is on Blogonomicon. If you scroll down into the comments, you'll find a lengthy one by David Miller, one of the key folks responsible for the creation of the album. 2 Warps to Neptune has some additional information as well. * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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, Momatoes is back to chat with us about her new RPG, The Marvelous Children of Inang-Uri. It’s a worldmaking game that spans generations, has a splash of hidden traitor mechanics for flavor and involves a culture living in symbiosis with a gigantic creature/entity that they also call home — that’s the world that the players make and that the characters must safeguard (unless they’re a traitor, in which case they want Inang-Uri dead). As with ARC, a game that plays with both the idea of looming doom and also the embrace of hope in the face of it. It’s gorgeously illustrated and laid out, too! And best of all, its available NOW! * * * Until December 12, 100% of all sales of The Marvelous Children of Inang-Uri will go to Doctors Without Borders. You can follow Momatoes on Twitter or keep up with her projects on her official site. * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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!

A couple weeks back, Stu talked about some books that came out in 2023 that he thought were notable. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, Hambone’s got his own picks for books that are well worth your time.  On tap we have the Fairhaven RPG universe from Get Haunted Industries; Neon Lords of the Toxic Wasteland, by Brian Shutter; Minacious Midway from Dandyline Games; Attack of the New B Movies, edited by Justin Wigard; Vorpal Almanac by Levi Combs and Sally Cantirino; and Three Curses for Sister Saren by Levi Combs and Mike Pike. * * * When this drops on Monday, you'll still have all day to take advantage of Exalted Funeral's Black Friday sale! If you're picking up Attack of the New B Movies, be sure to use code HOLIDAY23 for 40% off through November 27, after which it drops to 25% off. Get it! You can snag The Legend of Sleepy Hollow for free in a variety of formats on Project Gutenberg. Washington Irving doesn't need your money, he's dead. * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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!

We lost a real legend in Russ Nicholson this year. I can honestly say that Russ and his work sneak into my mind in short order whenever I talk about fantasy art at length, no matter the period. When we recorded this interview back in 2019, it was apparently his first appearance on a podcast, which seems bizarre considering how large his work looms over the hobby, then and now. I’ll never not be bummed about a lack of Russ Nicholson in the world. Anyway, we couldn’t record last week, so we thought it would be cool to bring this one out from the vault, a little in memoriam for his passing earlier this year. Original Show Notes:  This week, we talk to the incomparable artist Russ Nicholson. Russ has created countless iconic illustrations for tabletop RPGs - you probably best know his work from the original Dungeons & Dragons Fiend Folio or from countless fantasy gamebooks, like the Fighting Fantasy series. We chat about his work, his career, Ouija boards, Scottish accents and more in what, as far as Russ can recall, is his first podcast interview ever! A few notes directly from Russ after the fact: "Sorry about my memory and going off at side tangents so often but I enjoyed that...funny I have never talked in regards to the source of my artwork about the 'happenings' at our old house when I was growing up before. At least as I age, these awarenesses are rare and our present bungalow is so new there is nothing directly 'there.' Now artists - there are a few I especially rate (although I made a point of never copying) - Albrecht Durer, the Brueghals, Rembrandt, El Greco, Hals, Velazquez, the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood, Mucha, Klimt, Toulouse Lautrec, Doré, Beardsley and Rackham, to name a few. Also pulps - Sax Rohmer, Howard, The Shadow, Weird Tales, Black Mask stories, Poe, Edgar Wallace, Edgar Rice Burroughs, Merrit, Hamilton, Jules Verne, Rider Haggard and the old pulp serials I saw at Saturday morning children's cinema - loved it all. From age ten on, when I left the countryside life for life in the city, I read a lot (up until then my mother thought I didn't read anything except comics). And that silent film I was trying to talk about - it had something similar, where a man is sitting by a rock pool (?) and these squidgy tentacled things (similar to the Grell toy Stu sent me) come out of the water and drag him to his doom. Scared me as a lad but I was in my teens so no screaming attacks (laf) and am still not fond." * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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 looking at some cool books that came out in 2023. Perhaps in a novel twist on frequency bias, Stu noticed a bunch of books hitting shelves that, like steak and red wine, seem to pair well with his own Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground in a variety of ways. So here we are, chatting about Adam Rowe’s Worlds Beyond Time, Astral Eyes’ Spell Bound, Aaron A. Reed’s 50 Years of Text Games, the two-volume Talking Miniatures from Shaggy Dog Publishing and the truly astounding Arik Roper retrospective, Vision of the Hawk. Call it a holiday gift guide - if you like our work, we bet you’ll like theirs! * * * Worlds Beyond Time is available via Barnes & Noble (and Amazon, but ugh). Your best bet for getting Spell Bound is to follow Bibliomancers on Instagram - they regularly post stock and shop links in their stories. The offset printed edition of 50 Years of Text Games is sold out, but you can still get print-on-demand editions. The best bet for Talking Miniatures, in the US at least, is probably Amazon (sign). In the US, you can get Vision of the Hawk through MIT Press. In the UK, buy direct from Strange Attractor. * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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!

In January, the Vintage RPG Podcast is going to the Philadelphia Area Gaming Expo (PAGE) to sell some books and play some games, so we thought we’d talk to the expo organizer, Ron Meischker, to see what to expect. Stu’s never been to a game expo! New things are fun and exciting! * * * PAGE runs January 5-7. When buying your pass, be sure to use coupon code VintageRPG to take $15 off the price! * * * Stu’s book, Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground is for sale now! Buy it! 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!