Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness

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It begins with a pizza joke, naturally (00:30).

The guys talk about the Choose Your Own Adventure: House of Danger board game (01:15) and Stu breaks down the basics (01:46). They discuss the stupidity of group decision making (03:00).

The main event: Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and Other Strangeness (05:39). Stu admits to not being a TMNT fan (05:54) and Hambone sketches out the history of the franchise (06:20). Stu talks about the original TMNT comic book series (07:09), which Palladium Books licensed for an RPG (07:53). Palladium’s license of Robotech led to the development of the TMNT cartoon and, ironically, the downfall of the TMNT RPG line (08:43).

Stu talks a bit about the (complicated) TMNT RPG system, which is a component of Palladium’s Megaversal house system (10:55). He falls into the trap of trying to explain the Megaversal system and eventually gets to TMNT’s juicy center: the mutation rules and the After the Bomb campaign setting. (14:40).

The guys talk about the rarity of the book (15:53), in particular the very first edition of TMNT and Other Strangeness that contained controversial mental illness rules (16:13). Cowabunga.

Hambone gets excited about Pocket Dungeon Quest (17:20) and he walks through its charms (cloth map!)(17:45)

See ya next time! (21:22)

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Clarification: We tend to use “Choose Your Own Adventure” as a catch-all term for pick-your-path game books but, like iPods and Kleenex, that’s actually a brand name for the series published by Bantam Books in the 80s and 90s. The Marvel and Dungeons & Dragons gamebooks Hambone mentions were published by TSR (the latter known as the Endless Quest series).

Correction: Stu is totally wrong, TMNT did not start off as a Daredevil pitch, it was a conscious parody of Daredevil (and also Ronin, Cerebus and New Mutants, apparently) from the get-go.

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Intro music by George Collazo.

The Vintage RPG illustration is by Shafer Brown. Follow him on Twitter.

Tune in two weeks from now for the next episode. Until then, may the dice always roll in your favor!

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