Stu Horvath is the founder of Unwinnable, a digital magazine that covers our culture from a different point of view. He is the presence behind the Vintage RPG Instagram. He is the author of the roleplaying history book Monsters, Aliens, and Holes in the Ground: A Guide to Tabletop Roleplaying Games from D&D to Mothership. And he is one of the hosts of the amazing Vintage RPG Podcast, which is where we connected, through the amazing community he has helped foster.
I am excited to get to ask him a few questions for the 2nd anniversary issue of the Saga, even though that means he has to take time away from all his amazing projects.
Mike:
Stu thanks for joining me! So, you run the Vintage RPG Instagram and put out an episode a week of the Vintage RPG Podcast. You wrote a 456 page book on the history of the hobby. Many of us are interested in the history, but what drives you to delve so deeply?
Stu:
Honestly, and this might be disappointing, but it really is mostly just an excuse to justify buying and reading and playing more RPGs. I’ve said before that when I started collected, I was spurred on by seeing Chaosium box sets I had never previously seen before, and for the most part “seeing new old things” is my prime motivator.
Mike:
Actually, that is pretty rad. And probably a statement about GenX? I feel like we were predisposed to becoming collectors, hearing so many stories about lost issues of Superman #1 or a thrown-out Micky Mantle baseball card. But to take that love of discovering hidden old treasures and to document that to the extent that you do it is truly quite a task. It can’t all be the fun part of acquiring these things; there is obviously a lot of love and work that goes into this.
My old philosophy professor wrote a book on the real origins of the modern vampire. He spent time living out of his car while visiting universities across America, searching tomes about obscure tales of the vampire. He also expressed an exasperated sadness at how hard it was to find real research online as he kept finding such well-written vampire tales… that was part of someone roleplaying story or character. Which, while I understand his frustration, I absolutely love. It is like these stories we are creating are making the next myths for our culture.
So with that long-winded build-up, what do you feel is the hardest part of the research into our RPG roots?
Stu:
Haaaa, I love the idea of RPGs poisoning the well of research like this. I recently found out that I have mistakenly called it “In Media Res” instead of “In Medias Res” because of a mistake in a Star Wars RPG rulebook, so I am pleased to hear of other people suffering similar problem. Misery loves company, etc, etc.
The trickiest part of this project has probably been preconceptions. Nostalgia and homebrewing rules and not reading rules carefully to begin with have conspired to make it really easy to believe things about a given game or product that aren’t accurate. For me, and for my audience! It’s sort of the way lots of people play Monopoly the wrong way and then profess to hate Monopoly.
When you apply that sort of misunderstanding to a beloved game that someone has played for countless hours, that can be a real substantial barrier to a deeper understanding of that game, and to its place in the larger ecosystem of the hobby.
Mike:
With my bad memory, I always assume I don’t remember something correctly anyway. Which is a blessing and a curse. It keeps my mind open, but I can also forget what was just told to me. A real bonus to my horrible memory is getting to read books and stories I wrote years ago; I am always like, “Wow, I wrote that? Did I used to be smarter?” And then I try not to answer that question.
So with your book out on shelves now, what project are you working on next?
Stu:
I’m finishing up a neat, odd little editorial project that is currently called Down, Down, Down. It’s an analect, which is apparently what you call a collection of meaningful, thematic quotations, and it acts as a sort of deconstruction of the many stories and games that have contributed to our contemporary conception of the fantasy dungeon. It should hit shelves in 2025, through Strange Attractor.
Mike:
So still dealing with holes in the ground, huh? Speaking of those dungeons, have you been doing any dungeon delving on either side of the screen these days?
Stu:
I’m not playing in anything at the moment (and rarely do, to be honest) but I am still running my weekly Call of Cthulhu game, which started in the pandemic as a series of one shots, turned into Horror on the Orient Express and is now about halfway through Masks of Nyarlathotep. I’ve also been running Old-School Essentials in the West Marches style and that’s been super fun. It might wind up as a book, even! If feels like a good sized campaign book. When you rolling up your character?
Mike:
Oh man, I rolled up a character. I am just missing that one major thing, extra time. I have been on a roll putting out Sagaborn stuff, which means lots of testing, which means I am playing so much of my own game. On top of putting out books, I am running 3 story-heavy campaigns with SagaBorn. I squeeze in time to try out games, but they are almost all one-shots. Speaking of games,m what are you looking forward to getting in 2024?
Stu:
I’m…not really looking forward to any games in 2024. This may be a betrayal of my brand, but it is my hope to buy as few RPGs as possible in 2024, just, because, my god, I really have too much of this stuff. Folks send me photos of shelves at their local Half-Priced Books and I am like “Thanks, but I own all of that already.” I do want to get my hands on The Electric State RPG though, but even then, I feel like that is most likely going to kickstart my desire to get a Tales from the Loop game going again. All the games I want to play are already out!
Mike:
Man, I understand. I got some new shelves that support like 180lbs a shelf, and they are so full it’s bending the metal bars. I keep buying books, even without the time to play. Maybe I need to make a Little Library outside my house that I just put out all the books I have read and supported? This is how we all end up as old wizened guys in a haunted mansion with a giant library, right?
Stu:
I am gonna get a little library in the spring!
Mike:
Maybe that should be a plan for everyone, we start sponsoring little RPG libraries!
Stu, thanks for taking the time to talk shop (or in our hobby should we say talk table?). Thanks for all you do for the hobby, it has definitely broadened my horizons and brought joy to my life. So keep on making my friend.
Stu:
Always a pleasure sir!
Stu can be found at Unwinnable and at:
