I started reading the Necroscope books around 1993 or so and remember seeing the RPG in a local bookstore for about 4 months before it disappeared. I flipped through it once and was surprised because the series is basically built around psychic spies fighting super-powered vampiric beings (the Wamphyri) but the RPG straight up says "uh don't use these guys - the main antagonists in the books - in your game, they'll wreck you." Without them it's basically a spy novel with psychic people, which is kind of disappointing.

WEG made a DC comics game in the late 90's using the d6 system. It was really cool and so much easier to play than the two previous DC games.

The Prisoner's Stone and the Lightning Stone would make wonderful magic items. Especially if the party doesn't know how the lightning stone works when they first find it. Actually, the fourth book is "Ardneh's Sword", not "Ardneh's World"

Another FF-inspired game that’s more rules-lite, fun and fast… Spellzard! I’m sure you guys may enjoy. Cheers, guys!

Torchbearer?

He doesn't just suddenly start believing in god it happens throughout the book as he learns about the world. He also wasn't a physicists he was a mechanical engineer. He was physically active he could have starred on his college team if it wasn't for his studies.

Pulling this classic out for the Virtual Harvest Gaming the end of October.

Just ran this for 1e. Went really well. They found the corpses of the characters from the D&D Cartoon as previous entrants. Took us four sessions over about 17 hours. 5 deaths and two characters hit with level drain. There is also a definite 'best order' for the artefacts. It's a great example adventure where you can swap in and out traps/monsters/artefacts.

I can’t take anyone seriously that likes pro wrestling and especially men beating up women in wrestling.

Our gaming group is actually starting BRINDLEWOOD BAY this week at the urging of one of our members, so the timing on this podcast couldn’t be better for me!

Surge pricing was out of control at night. From 9pm-12am the ride that was $10 at 8am from hotel to gencon, was $70

Loved this episode!

I remember no anger towards Gene. Gene refused the first 4 FASA submissions for being too militaristc. Towards the end, FASA was heading to the militarism again AND they were reading their license as "Star Trek' while PAramount was reading it as 'Star Trek, the TV Series.' Paraount only agreed tot he original series. FASA went ahead and took the movie stuff and Paramount let them. When TNG hit, paramount said no and FASA went ahead and published the 2 TNG books without permission. License yanked. This is from Guy McLimore Jr over several podcasts over the years.

I would correct one notion, Fantasimulations was hired on the spot at Gencon 1982 August 22, to write a spec game. That was immediately approved and first edition was on the store shelves January 1983. The first public announcement of the game is in a small ad blurb in Challenge magazine November 1982. It was said that FASA's Trek was second best selling only behind AD&D for a couple years.

Do F.A.T.A.L

I have pretty much ALL of ICE's MERP except... Lorien. =;[.];=

I think one of the copyright holders is selling these on DriveThru, but the "what to buy" is just as confusing now as the nomenclature and intent seemed to be then. Thanks for profiling it!

Do an episode of F.A.T.A.L

Streets of Rage was my favorite beat-em-up, including the soundtracks 😎

Okay, I'm sold. Picked up the players guide pdf. Gonna take a look at it.

Another favorite of mine was DM for Dummies. Great basic info for everyone. But some people I knew were "offended" by the use of Idiot or Dummies to refer to the Reverend DM. Me? I take truth where I find it. Usually a few years too late.

Fan of old school D&D, fell in love with T&T and ran a four to five year campaign. Found that it was easier/faster the more I went backwards in editions/lower dice. Earlier T&T is best T&T, I found, is what I mean. Also, what I learned and enjoyed enabled me to put forth some of that knowledge towards OD&D or B/X D&D games as well….so it’s well worth exploring even if one doesn’t stay with it. Cheers, everyone!

You had me at hot coffee.

Not sure if you read these but congratulations on your 5 years! I love CtB but had no idea of the depth and, without a bit of irony, I am also surprised by the depth of PTaA... I only recently learned about some of the footage floating around, that it's getting into a published version is really great to hear. Whenever you see one of those etched in stone classics in a new light it is endlessly fascinating

The Green Knight has some of the best "intro to GMing" of traditional play I've ever seen.

I'm very late to discovering your podcast, but I'm loving the reviews! TMNT was the first game I got into outside of D&D and Marvel Super Heroes. I remember, at the time, the things that stood out was that you did have different martial arts you could take, stats could improve with training, and that it was possible to block or parry, things which D&D didn't mechanically do. That said, fights took a super long time because once you moved outside of "baseline human" most of the mutant animals were pretty thick in SDC and HP. These days I would just grab Mutants in the Now / Mutants in the Next since it's effectively the spiritual love letter game with modern mechanics (albeit, the nod to the love of charts from Palladium systems).

Warlock was apparently played around CalTech to at-least the early 2000's. One Mike Riley published a revision in-use online from 1998 to 2000, generally referred to as Warlock 2000. It was also specifically mentioned in Cavalier (the proto-Chivalry & Sorcery) as an inspiration alongside Empire of the Petal Throne. And perhaps more notably, before making Basic, J. Eric Holmes started playing D&D with Warlock (since he didn't understand the combat tables in the white box). Even in the published Basic the order of combat is apparently based on the one from Warlock, and Holmes initially tried to get Gygax to allow him to use a spell-point spoint system in Basic, like in Warlock, (although it obviously didn't work). A version of Warlock was published in 1975, in issues of the Spartan Simulation Gaming Journal, that's why the first published book is called "The Complete Warlock". Also there was a fourth book, Instant Bad Guys!, but it is just a long list of statblocks for generic human NPCs/enemies for the DM to quickly pull from.

Thanks for doing a video on this module it is one I find very interesting. I do have to say I much prefer the BX/OSE unpredictability as opposed to preplanned, I feel it makes the game/world feel more alive. Also am I really the first comment? I feel so special.

I recently picked up 2 boxes from a charity shop containing issues 1-52 of this in their binders in near mint condition. They cost me a total of £20. :)

I'm grateful for this conversation. I only learned about UVG in 2024 so this interview was a welcome influx of cool shit I didn't know about before… mostly because my music intake was severely curtailed as a kid. ಠ_ಠ Thanks for expanding my RPG universe.

How do I join a west marches campaign like yours I wanna play dnd but I don’t have the time or money to play with a group consistently

The Broken Sword is one of the best thing I've ever read.

Nice. I wanna ask the GM of the west march - how has the open table format been for you? I've found running my own open tables that I'm SO GLAD i get to play so frequently, but I hate the necessary evil that is sessions are self-contained, return to town, stuff. The constaints of time often poison some really cool moments and choices, but those are choices I never woulda gotten had it been the same folks the whole time. Ever had times when the format of the sessions sucked?

A lot of people on KZbin have respiratory problems at the moment. E.g. Ali Abunimah (of Electronic Intifada), Lee Camp, and now you, Stu…. Cold, flu or COVID19? Please be more careful to be #COVIDsafe, with N95 masks, HEPA filters, adequate ventilation, physical distancing, distance communication instead of face-to-face, etc..

Disrespectful

Dying alone in a bed covered in books in a shabby apartment is the fate of many devoted rpg players/GMs! Lol😂

One of my all-time favorite NES games.

kzbin.info/www/bejne/i4nUf5iLeNmhiM0 -remake is ok, even today. :)

The minute I heard the knee bend, I closed out of the video

The end of this didn't age wel.😅 Great episode.

Gygax always insisted, even said it in the DMG, that D&D was not trying to be realistic or a simulation. And that was always one of the biggest complaints. As popular and playable as it is, it's not the system for everyone. If you don't like it, chances are you either want a lot more or a lot less. I didn't play Harn, but I played RoleMaster, which was a similarly uber-crunchy game, and while it had a lot to offer, it was just too much for me. But I had a copy of Harn, and many other games, and they were great inspiration and good reading in general.

Had no idea of its Traveller lineage. I played more of that than actual Traveller, apparently. I don't remember too much of it, though. I thought the carousing skill was weird, but I guess it fits TOS. There was also some meta rule about no obstacle should be undefeatable by the Federation which may just be a way to curb bad GMs but it stuck with me

Was expecting the Last Unicorn game. Forgot about the FASA one

I grew up in North Arlington. I still have a shrink wrapped copy of Price of Freedom I got in 1986 from Schillers Books at the Garden State Plaza. All this time I never knew the map had 1&9 on it. Hilarious.

Just read 4e Tunnels and Trolls, and the only thing I didn't understand is mass combat.

I read a guide for it and it was the driest read-- look for flashes I guess. Came at a good moment though, historically I remember the cartoon! You made decisions before each commercial break and saw how things turned out I guess a movie would have to amp up the satire and silliness. Those Giddy Goons are just a blip in the whole thing. Those repeated sequences are wearying, I pity anybody getting that far and having to repeat obstacles like that as their eyes begin to water

Yes the are the Washington Generals of DND.

I hate that modern roleplaying has eliminated all the funky dice. It was fun to roll a 1d4 or a 1d8 etc etc... now D&D is roll d20 and thats it. No fun.

Extremely bad podcast

I love this episode. Got me into T&T.