Tunnels & Trolls is a different sort of fantasy role-playing game. I collect and read a variety of older fantasy RPGs, OSR and small press books, and digital downloads and in my experience there is nothing quite like Tunnels & Trolls. T&T is the creation of Ken St. Andre and the game and its solo and group adventure supplements incorporate Mr. St. Andre's whimsical wit and sense of humor. T&T is fun, but it is a serious fantasy role-playing game offering many unique experiences. It is self contained in a single volume coming in at just under 100 pages. It is easy to teach and encourages players to work together. The system is modular and lends itself easily to adaptation and modification, something I personally look for in a RPG.
Periodically I cycle through my RPG collection and spend time with an old friend - lately that has been Tunnels & Trolls. Flying Buffalo, Inc. published the first "solo" adventure that I am aware of - Buffalo Castle for T&T written by FBI founder, the late Rick Loomis. For decades now, I have enjoyed playing the many T&T solo adventures, but T&T is also a great game for group play. The mechanics are intuitive, adaptable and fast-playing and they easily disappear into the game background allowing for the character action and the developing story to take center stage in our mind. But T&T is not just another roll the twenty-sided die system. In many ways T&T (often referred to as the 2nd ever published RPG) differs greatly from the world's first fantasy role-playing game.
Ken St. Andre and friends started playing Tunnels & Trolls in 1975 in the Phoenix, Arizona area. Flying Buffalo, Inc. would publish the first edition later that same year. T&T borrows the idea of playing heroic adventurers that battle monsters for treasure and glory from the original FRPG published by TSR, but mechanically T&T is original. In fact, I believe that T&T introduces the hobby to a number of (then) new concepts including spell points, testing against attributes including Luck, and imposing strength and dexterity requirements for weapon use.
T&T does not provide a bestiary or stat block for monsters and encourages the game master to create their own unique monsters - a task made fairly easy by the Monster Rating mechanic under which each monster is assigned a Monster Rating (MR) which can be any number from 1 on. The Monster Rating determines how many dice and adds are used for combat and serves as the monster's hit points. For example a MR of 20 means the game master rolls 3 six sided dice (T&T uses only d6s) and adds 10 (1/2 MR) for their attack and has 20 hit points. The MR makes it very easy to create a new monster and also allows for more suspense as a type of monster can be scaled up or down in power by increasing or decreasing the MR, perhaps coinciding with how far below the surface the underground monster is found.
T&T supports one-on-one single combat and general melee involving multiple creatures on both sides. The general melee mechanic involves all the characters adding their attack total together and splitting up any hits taken among all the participants. Evenly matched combats can sometimes result in a virtual stale-mate requiring the players to think of some alternative to straight-up fighting. (a creative alternative to violence... I like that!)
T&T provides mechanics for generating characters from the traditional fantasy "kindreds" including elf, dwarf, hobbit, human and also covers the possibility of playing a non-standard being such as balrog, centaur, troll, etc. (For those interested, the T&T spin-off game Monsters, Monsters takes the mechanics for playing monsters even further.) T&T uses a class system for characters who may be Warriors, Wizards, Rogues or Warrior-Wizards. The latter two classes combine elements of both combat and casting. Magic spells are structured according to levels and have IQ and Dexterity requirements in order to use. Although an adequate spell list is provided, players are encouraged to research and create new magics.
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