The Vintage RPG Podcast

Echoing the success of Chaosium's recent Call of Cthulhu Classic collection Kickstarter, this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast we take a look at the first Call of Cthulhu campaign: Shadows of Yog-Sothoth. Which has very little to do with good ol' Yoggy and much more to do with waking up Cthulhu well before the alarm. As the first, it's now really what you'd expect from a CoC campaign, but it still has charm to spare. Let's plumb the depths of madness, yea?

What happened to Cthulhu? Was it a curse? Did TSR finally go to far? Did Chaosium steal the fire of the gods? Was it banned? Was it burned? On this week's Vintage RPG Podcast, we reveal the shocking true story behind Deities & Demigods and the removal of the Cthulhu and Melnibonean mythologies. Actually, we don't, because it was never a big secret and most of the details have been floating around the internet for decades, but there are lots of misconceptions about this book and its history and it seemed like we should do our part in helping to clear them up. The truth isn't scandalous at all but, ultimately, it's probably more interesting!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we look at the first book of monsters for D&D. The Monster Manual? Oh, no, not that — the first D&D monster book was All the Worlds' Monsters (1977), from Chaosium! We talk about how salty that made TSR. More interesting, All the Worlds' Monsters is sort of the first step in a long legacy of collaboration in the RPG industry on Chaosium's part, so we talk about that a bit too. Also on tap: Alarums & Excursions and the Perrin Conventions.

A few weeks back, we talked about the Pagan Publishing Delta Green sourcebooks for Call of Cthulhu. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we're chatting about the standalone Delta Green RPG from Arc Dream (2016). Based on Call of Cthulhu sixth edition, the game makes some key modification to the sanity system. It also finds ways to reinvent the mythos while keeping the focus of the horror human — in a lot of ways, Delta Green is about alienation and trauma. Mulder and Scully this is not. Clarification: In the episode, Stu mentions that Delta Green is based on Call of Cthulhu 6th Edition. That's not accurate! While the underlying mechanics are inspired by that game, Delta Green's system stands alone and features several unique additions, including Bonds (mentioned in the episode) and Lethality. Arc Dream and Delta Green are completely independent from Chaosium and Call of Cthulhu.

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk about the Encyclopedia Magica, a four volume collection of every magic item created for Dungeons & Dragons, from 1974 to 1993. It is a massive and intricate undertaking, pulling from every TSR publication — including the magazines! In the days before the internet and searchable digital databases, the fact that this exists (and missed just one magic item) is astonishing. Easily one of the best things TSR ever produced, an epic imagination stoker and one of the few products that unified first and second edition D&D.

On this episode of the Vintage RPG Podcast, we talk about the book. In its current, unedited form, it is 165 chapters long, each chapter focusing on a specific book or product, and spans five decades of RPGs. The focus is on how RPGs have developed and changed over the years, so while D&D is in there a lot, the hope is to introduce folks to the wild and crazy world that waits beyond the world's oldest RPG. Plenty of books out there on D&D already, right? Oh, and Stu's not entirely sold on the working title, so be sure to send any and all ridiculous suggestions you may have his way.

Get to level 100, fight 10,000 zombies, beat up Orcus, steal his stuff and murder Tiamat in H4 — The Throne of Bloodstone, one of the most ridiculous D&D adventures ever published. Is it good? Is it bad? YES! Join us as we check it out. Plus, something a little different and a lot charming: in our Indie Elevator Pitch this week, we chat with Jonathan Sacha about his Goblins & Gardens tarot card set. He (gasp) cuts up and collages art from old D&D books and old gardening reference books to create surprisingly whimsical scenes of monsters on their days off. Now on Kickstarter!

This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Andrew Walter, one of the key artists defining the look of RPGs for the contemporary era. You've seen his art on the covers Old School Essentials and Troika. He wrote and illustrated Fronds of Benevolence, co-designed Slipgate Chokepoint. He's all over the place! We talk about all those things, melty art, the glory of Russ Nicholson, death metal and more! You can see more of Andrew's work on Instagram and buy prints on his Big Cartel store.

These are the end times, my friends. This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chat with Momatoes about her forthcoming RPG ARC, a game played at the edge of the apocalypse. We chat a bit about the synthesis of OSR and storygame philosophies present in ARC, countdown timers and why so many games lately seem to be about the end of the world. And more! ARC is on Kickstarter right now (it funded in less than 23 minutes, so its all about those stretch goals)! You can read more about the game on the official site or check out the quickstart rules to get a feel for how it all works. And follow Momatoes on Twitter!

Rise up, dead RPGs, rise! This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we chart the origins of the Old School Revival, specifically the Old School Reference and Index Compilation, or OSRIC, the retroclone of the first edition AD&D rules that kicked it all off (sort of). We also talk a bit about Castles & Crusades, the D20 System, the Open Gaming License and more! Clarification: Gary Gygax, didn't create Castles & Crusades, Mac Golden and Davis Chenault did. However, they smartly showed it to Gygax early on, he gave advice and publicly endorsed it, after which they positioned the game as what 2E D&D should have been had he not left TSR.