John and Craig welcome author Stu Horvath to look at the rich history of tabletop role playing games. From Stu’s collection of over 2300 RPGs, they look at the evolution of collaborative storytelling, interactive narrative design, and the communities of players they inspire.
We also discuss the complicated influences of J.R.R. Tolkien and H.P. Lovecraft on the world of D&D, and how the need to escape their derivative influences pushed RPGs to new heights of world-building and storytelling.
In our bonus segment for premium members, Stu leads us down down down to discuss a surprisingly recent narrative staple: dungeons.
Links:
- Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground by Stu Horvath
- VintageRPG.com by Stu Horvath
- D&D 5th Edition
- Amateur press association (APA)
- Little Wars by H.G. Wells
- Peter Cushing painting his minifigs
- Chainmail by Gary Gygax & Jeff Perren
- Chaosium
- Tunnels & Trolls
- Dread RPG
- Fiasco
- Scriptnotes episode 142: The Angeles Crest Fiasco
- Critical Role
- Alien: The Roleplaying Game
- Star Wars: The Roleplaying Game
- Traveller
- 2024 D&D Player’s Handbook
- Blackoath Entertainment
- Thousand Year Old Vampire
- Tales From the Loop RPG
- Honey Heist
- WWDC live translation
- She Used to Be Mine performance and vocal coach reaction
- Kolchak: The Night Stalker
- Get a Scriptnotes T-shirt!
- Check out the Inneresting Newsletter
- Become a Scriptnotes Premium member, or gift a subscription
- Subscribe to Scriptnotes on YouTube
- Craig Mazin on Instagram
- John August on Bluesky and Instagram
- Outro by Nick Moore (send us yours!)
- Scriptnotes is produced by Drew Marquardt and edited by Matthew Chilelli.
Email us at ask@johnaugust.com
You can download the episode here.
UPDATE 7-7-25: The transcript for this episode can be found here.