Vintage RPG

Is that the streetlight buzzing, or an insectoid monster wanting to lay eggs in my eye? This week on the Vintage RPG Podcast, we welcome the Goblin Archives on to chat about the Liminal Horror! A minimalist game spinning out of Cairn, LH has been wowing folks for a while with its sharp mechanics, spooky visuals and horrifying modules. And a Deluxe edition of the game is coming to BackerKit soon. We get all the details for you! Follow the Liminal Horror BackerKit page now!

I like to try to find positive things to say about the things I post, or at least, I try not to turn posts into weird hate screeds about decades-old products. I don’t really have the energy to screed. But on the other hand, I don’t have a lot of positive things to say about WG9: Gargoyle (1989). I like Dave Dorman’s cover, though. There! A silver lining. Dorman and Karl Story collab pretty good on the interiors too. That’s it, though. Everything else here is bad.

How bad? It’s a “funny” adventure, in the mode of Castle Greyhawk. The villains are two half-orcs named Tom and Jerry. There is an ice cream shop in town. The townsfolk live peaceably with the local gargoyle population, who are very polite and hang their wings up when they go to church. Which is how Tom and Jerry got the opportunity to steal them. The adventure is about getting the stolen gargoyle wings back. I hate this so much.

Why do they have detachable wings? Buckle up, this is exhausting. Some nerds noted that the illustrations for the Gargoyle and the Margoyle, in the Monster Manual and Monster Manual II respectively, lacked wings, and yet, could fly. I would say the gargoyle illustration does have wings, they are just solid black for clarity, but they are there. The margoyle clearly lacks wings in the illustration, though. Anyway, no less a personage than Gary Gygax dignified this kvetch with an essay in Polyhedron, ultimately saying it was a goof and that the monsters do in fact have wings. In a follow-up essay, though, Dave Collins, who would go on to write this adventure, posited that gargoyles can fly and do have wings, but to not denigrate the artists, that the wings are detachable and mainly aid in maneuvering. Basically, for Collins, gargoyles can fly, with or without wings, like Superman, just, worse. And, I have to say, there is some merit to his argument as both the gargoyle entry illustration, and the cool full-pager in the back depict wings in such a way that they do look detachable.

Oh, how I do not like this. But there you have it.

There aren’t many things from my childhood that still haunt me. I either don’t care about them (my long-gone G.I. Joes, say) or I have obtained them (Time/Life’s Enchanted World series). But there are a few. One particularly vexing one was an action figure case. My aunt gave it to me for Christmas or my birthday and it wound up staying at my grandparents’ house before vanishing into history. It was a generic product, maybe from Sears, made of cardboard and covered in that slightly sticky clear vinyl. It was science fiction themed, had some cardboard accessories inside and, the most vivid part of the memory: it folded up into a sort of hexagonal cone. I don’t want to own this thing, I just wanted to see it again, to sort of reify my dim memory. But how do you search for something like that?

Best course of action? You let someone else do the searching for you. I had a break in the case when I discovered Philip Reed, former CEO of Steve Jackson Games, had published a number of guides to toys, toy ads and…toy cases! Voila: Action Figure Carrying Cases (2016) (many thanks to Hodag for putting me in touch!).

What a lovely book. As with Sears Wish Book catalogs, it provides a portal into another time where a painful level of nostalgia that I did not realize I had awaits. I don’t want to collect action figure cases. I don’t even like most of the toy lines they are intended for. But I do wish I lived in a world where action figure cases like this were still around. They’re cool and weird and seem to embody a different sort of play.

And of course, Philip’s book had the object of my quest: the Star Fortress Outer Space Play Set, sold through the Sears catalog from 1979 to 1981. I got it when I was a little older (I was three in 1981) so maybe they showed up in Sears stores for a while after that. Who knows, maybe my aunt found it in a rummage sale or something.

And, OK, I don’t want to own another Star Fortress, but I did buy one case, the Fantasy Figure Collector’s Case (1983), for my random fantasy-themed toys to live in. Love that knock-off Skeletor!

Meanwhile, over at Super7, wave 2 of the D&D ReAction figures dropped (along with a bunch of other stuff and t-shirts that I find myself entirely immune to).

The first is Formidable Fighter with Longsword and Shield (2023). He’s the Elmore-painted fellow on the cover of the 1983 Basic Set; earlier in the year, at San Diego ComicCon, he was issued in special version of the Basic Set box. I’m a little conflicted! In Elmore’s painting, of course, the fighter’s back is turned. Now, I get it, an action figure’s gotta have a face, but I dunno, this face looks like Dante from Clerks. I thought for a moment that he was meant to be a young Larry Elmore, which would have been fun, but Larry’s always had a Kenny Rogers kind of look going on. Honestly, I think the thing that bugs me the most is that he’s in the package facing out when he should really be facing in. That’s how I have him on the shelf, facing the books. A perfect figure from that angle!

I have no complaints about Sacred Statue with Brazier and Jeweled Eye (2023), based on Trampier’s cover for the original Players Handbook. This one was a no-brainer and he came out more than perfect. Like the Githyanki, he feels like a toy a child-Stu from another dimension had and loved and somehow that Other Stu’s memories vibrate through the ether to me. Absolutely perfect. Just be careful with the removable eye — it’s small!

Again, I was slow to buy NECA’s Ultimate version of old Elkhorn (2023) the dwarf here. I’m just not excited about good guys. Then I got him and, he might actually be my favorite in the line so far.

Just in a measure of bits and pieces, he’s outclassing his predecessors: two heads (one annoyed, one stoic), seven hands, a longsword and sheath (Elkhorn was originally issued as a sword guy), a hand axe, his trademark round shield, dagger (for his belt sheath), backpack, crystal, the Heartstone, three additional two-handed weapons (battle axe and two hammers), a flaming torch and a clay jug of something good. I should note that all this stuff was intended as a sort of accessory pack for the whole line, but you can attach the sword in its sheath to the backpack, stick the heart and the crystal in the pack (it has a neat little design to close the flap), and hang the hand axe from the pack’s straps, affix the shield to the sword handle and have him carry the torch and the jug and he looks…perfect. The one hand is even sculpted to let him properly dangle the jug with a couple fingers. What an adventurer!

Curious to see where (and if) the line goes on from here. NECA issued Warduke, Strongheart, Zarak and Elkhorn in classic colorways and at a lower price (and fewer accessories) to celebrate the 50th anniversary of D&D. I did buy the Warduke, but held the line on the others. Only four more of the original designs seem interesting enough to Ultimate-ize — Kelek, Mercion, Ringlerun and the Ogre Lord. And maybe Metaflamme. I dunno! I’ll probably buy all of them, but maybe skip the wizards and just give me Mercion and the Hook Horror, if we’re really pickin’.

Strongheart is a dweeb. Always thought so. He is one of two or three of the original LJN D&D toys I owned as a kid and dang, why couldn’t I have Warduke (my parents were a little sus of the toy line, but a friend of the family gave me Sir Uptight and either the Young Male Titan or Northlord as a Christmas gift; I promptly lost Strongheart’s sword under the radiator in the TV room).

Anyway, NECA’s D&D Ultimates was three deep on Evil Action Figures, so I guess we needed a good guy and I guess you aren’t going to really come across a more gooder guyer. Undeniably a nice sculpt. The original LJN design is still recognizable but has been improved in every way. For instance, he’s no longer wearing his underwear over his armor. His visor moves, so if you don’t want to look at his face or want to pretend he’s a robot or something, you can do that. But! Something cool about this incarnation of the do-gooder: he looks a little bit like Thomas Magnum.

Now, I can hear you say “But Stu, you have a weird micro-obsession with Magnum, P.I., could this just be your own biases coloring your perception?” And friend, I thought the same exact thing. But trust me, I have it on good authority that the initial inspiration for Strongheart (2022) here was Thomas Magnum. He isn’t Thomas Magnum, but is meant to invoke him in the mind. And it worked for me! And it’s appropriate, too, because Magnum is a big nerd. In the season five episode “Little Games” (1984) we see Thomas playing a (fictional) computer game called The Dungeon Master. Now, there is no evidence that Thomas, T. C., Rick and Higgins ever threw dice in a session of Dungeons & Dragons, but playing a videogame like that, I’m sure Thomas wouldn’t have turned his nose up at the possibility. And, you know, just to sell you on the Strongheart/Magnum connection a little more: in season three, episode thirteen, “Of Sound Mind,” there is a costume ball in which Magnum clanks around in a a particularly silly suit of plate mail.

Long story short: I’ve come around on the old knight in shining armor. In addition to a good mustache, he comes with a longsword, a short sword, a warhammer, a shield, six total hands and a wire-rigged cape that I don’t think is detachable, but is cool enough to merit mentioning.

Still playing with toys after all these years. As promised, this week on the Vintage RPG Podcast we chat about the latest Dungeons & Dragons toys from Super7. That giant Tiamat comes up again, as well as wave 1 of their 6-inch figures based on the ‘80s cartoon series (which means we also talk again about those crap Hasbro figures). Also on tap, the excellent additions to the ReAction line: Formidable Fighter and Sacred Statue!

Gotta catch up on some toy releases this week. First up, NECA’s Ultimate version of Zarak (2023), the half-orc assassin who was originally part of LJN’s first wave of D&D toys way back in 1983. He joins Warduke and Grimsword in villainy.

Lotta love in this sculpt. Like, a lot, a lot: Thomas Gwyn, the guy responsible, has a massive collection of the original Zarak toy, like multiple copies of the same little guy. Just a little obsessed, and that obsession carries through into the design, keeping it recognizably in line with the old design while being undeniably modern in quality. Two heads, one with the hood, one without, both amazing - what a rotten-hearted gobbo. Seven hands, two throwing knives (which fit in his belted sheaths), a short sword and a delightful potion in a round-bottom bottle. Healing potion? Poison? Both, probably. He even has the slight hunch of the original!

Oh, and the grappling hook! One set of hand sculpts is arrange perfectly to allow him to be posed in mid-rappel. It was the first thing I did with the figure, in fact. 

You thought it couldn’t get more preposterous, but you were wrong. This is The World of Species (1995). When I learned this existed I was like, “Oh, yea, I this is exactly what the feed needs in 2025, it’ll be a hoot.” Ladies and gentlemen, it was not a hoot. The book is 144 pages and I cannot imagine engaging with the film Species to the extent that I would be able to write it. Frankly, I can’t imagine engaging with the RPG to the extent that I can write this post, but I will give it a shot.

So, this takes place after the events of the film. Whatever the agency is that made Natasha Henstridge knows that she survived. Another government is also close to making their own Natasha Henstridge. So in order to effectively hunt down her and her presumed offspring, the agency has used Natasha Henstridge DNA to genetically alter its agents. Presumably they are more effective at keeping their clothes on. I still get the feeling that this was not just a bad idea, but a deeply stupid one. I refuse to read the lore about the aliens who sent the Henstridge DNA to earth and what their scheme involving unlimited fuel and genetic super-predators is, but I bet making more genetic super-predators is playing into their hands! Wild thing? As stupid as all this sounds, it’s actually better than the actual plot of Species II, which is set in space. Even Leprechaun waited until the fourth movie to go to space. Fuck.

This is exactly the sort of book Leading Edge would have been making if they were still in business in 1994. It kind of astounds me that West End Games scrambled to pick up that torch. Especially considering the fact that the company was still doing genuinely interesting, high-quality work with the Star Wars line. Just, wild.

In another exercise in grabbing every possible license in hopes it will yield a hit RPG, this is The World of Tank Girl (1995). It hit shelves in February. The film came out at the end of March and, er, tanked. The books stayed on shelves. They are probably still there.

I saw the movie in 1995 and it was pretty bad. Wikipedia tells me that it eventually became a cult sensation. Wikipedia also told me, “A ‘naked Ripper suit’ incorporating a prosthetic penis was created for Booga and used in a filmed postcoital scene which was removed from the final version of the film at the studio’s insistence.” I don’t think I wanted to know that fact, but it illustrates the fact you could tell back in ’95 that the studio hacked the hell out of movie because they didn’t understand it. You can also tell that it probably influenced a lot of stuff that’s come since. It surprises me zero percent that Margot Robbie optioned the rights for a reboot.

Anyway, cult hit or not, I don’t think anyone wanted this game. There are forty pages of rules here, including a detailed chapter on vehicle combat. If ever a game has screamed for a cinematic, hand-wavy system, it is the bombastic, often surreal and ultraviolent Tank Girl. The character is Chaos on two legs, and this game has the gall to think it can be made of rules? No. None of this works. Tank Girl is cool. Jamie Hewlitt’s art is cool. This game can stay on the shelf. And it did! Sometimes the market is right.