OSR White Box

Original Edition Roleplaying
The Old School Renaissance (OSR) movement has used the Open Gaming License (OGL) to create several games that are very close to the older roleplaying games in feel and play style. I am not a lawyer and the legal stuff is beyond my understanding, but what this means to me is that there are new games being printed that are close enough to my beloved White Box that any supplemental material created for the new games can easily be used with my older White Box. Now I know (from experience) it's possible to convert just about anything from one system to another with a little work, but it's also nice to have new products written specifically for my out-of-print favorite.
Delving Deeper is one such new game written to provide play that is very close to White Box. There are not a lot of new products that I have found specifically written for Delving Deeper, but that may come. Swords & Wizardry (S&W) is another popular game and has a white box version that I have found several new products written for. Labyrinth Lord is yet another popular OSR game that has a good following with several modules and other publications written specifically for it, but generally usable with any of the "old school" games. Labyrinth Lord more closely resembles the B/X version of the game, but there is an Original Edition Characters supplement that supports play very similar to white box.
I suppose no discussion of the OSR games would be complete without mentioning the Old School Reference and Index Compilation (OSRIC). OSRIC was one of the first, maybe the very first, of the older style roleplaying games written under the OGL and my understanding is that OSRIC pretty much pioneered this area of the hobby. There are a lot of publications for the OSRIC system and although OSRIC is closer to the Advanced game in style, all the older games have a lot in common and product for one is easily converted for use with another.  Back in the day we did this all the time, mostly on-the-fly. (Some of us still do.)
This post is not meant to bring the reader up-to-speed on the OSR, there are way better blogs out there for that than this one. I just want to point to a couple OSR games that seem most like white box and express my appreciation to all those authors producing support materials for the white box game, whatever title they fall under. I am sure it is all a labor of love as publishing for the hobby is not the way to riches (or so I've heard). Add my voice to the chorus of appreciative roleplaying gamers who are thankful that there are those out there producing so that we can enjoy their creations and continue to have fun with the game we all seem to love. If that makes me a fanboy, I can live with that.

Melee

A Metagaming Combat Alternative
One of the subsystems that usually gets tinkered with and house ruled in the White Box is the combat system. The original LBBs give us two combat systems, one heavily based on Chainmail and pretty much requires ownership of those rules to use and the so-called alternative system using the twenty sided die. I know a lot of gamers, myself have mentioned how hard it was to find those back in 1977, '78. The ones that sometimes came with the basic Holmes rules were crumbly and hard to read and the twenty sided dice of the day were numbered 0-9 twice. One had to either color code the teens with a separate color or throw a control die, such as a d6 along with the d20. If the d6 came up 1-3 you read the d20 as 1-10 and if the d6 showed 4-6 you read the d20 11-20. Doable, but not as simple as gaming dice have become.
The alternative system became THE system for most people and for later editions. And for some very good reasons. It's quick, can handle large groups of PCs and monsters and higher level play almost as quickly as small groups and low levels. A group can do a lot of exploring in an evening of White Box play. One of the reasons for this quickness was the rules were abstract. Abstraction allows White Box to reduce a lot of combat action to a simple mechanic that only requires the referee to check one table to see if damage is dealt. For some this level of abstraction was fine, others seem to desire a more intuitive approach to combat. For a time in the late 70's the group I played with used a combat system titled Melee.
White Box lends itself well to modification and it was easy enough to lift out the combat mechanics and substitute an alternative. Melee was a Metagaming MicroGame that consisted of a 17 page rules pamphlet, a hex battle map and a sheet of cut-out game markers. Melee, written by Steve Jackson (the American), used similar attributes to the White Box (strength and dexterity) and only six sided dice. For some it seemed more intuitive as Dex controlled one's ability to hit and armor reduced damage rather than making your character harder to hit. There was a companion MicroGame titled Wizard that covered magic using a points system. We toyed with it, but preferred the Vancian magic system of the White Box. Melee and Wizard together were called The Fantasy Trip and were supported by several solo dungeons and eventually a second edition called Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard. By the time those products were released the group I played with were back to using the d20 combat system from the LBBs. Leveling one's character resulted in periodic increases in one's chance to hit under the LBBs, but Melee based one's ability to hit on the Dex score which didn't regularly improve with attaining higher level. We probably tried creating some tables to make it work, but eventually just settled on modification of the alternate system from White Box.
To this day, I still prefer the simple elegance of the White Box alternative combat system to any other system I have tried. Like many in our hobby, we experimented with more complex rules using "crunchy" combat mechanics and played some of those systems (looking at you Runequest) for many years. White Box's ability to handle many combatants quickly, even at the highest levels allows the game to progress at a good pace and there is nothing more important than effectively pacing the action to keep players and referee engaged.

Tough Referee Decisions

Are you ready for the hard questions?
OK, you think you are ready to run your first dungeon. You bought the White Box, deciphered the rules, chose a combat system, decided how to handle combat initiative (if any), assembled your dice and invited your players. Your map is drawn and you have included traps to trip-up the unwary, puzzles to puzzle the brightest, monster encounters both dangerous and entertaining. You have wandering monster tables, hidden treasures and you are ready for adventure. Basically that's true and many an evening's fun was had that started just this way. Tough decisions? Don't be discouraged, oh referee. After all, you are god within your own dungeon!
Have you thought about character death? How cheap is PC life in your dungeon? Suspense depends on a certain amount of player concern for the life of their paper avatar, but discouragement awaits the player who seems to always be the first to die. Is death permanent, or is resurrection readily available? Losing a higher level (what that is depends on the campaign) PC that has been adventuring for some months can be disruptive not only to the player of said PC, but to the campaign as a 1st level character now takes the dead PCs place. How does the referee balance things for a 1st level PC a midst a group of higher levels?
What happens when the lights go out? To players who all know what it's like to not be able to see, that is a scary thought, unless you can see in the dark. If you can, just blink a couple times to help your eyes adjust and yeah, things become clear again. Except for the players without the ability who are still just "in the dark". In the LBBs there is something about all monsters (any being not a PC) found in the dungeon can see in the dark unless being controlled by the players, or something similar (nrh). So an ogre can see in the dark right up to the moment you hit him with a charm spell and failing his save comes under the control of a player. Then the ogre is unable to see in the dark. I think the point of this is being in the dark is scary to players and that's a good thing for the game.
All players seek treasure and desire magic items, but how much to award them, that is the referee's dilemma. In White Box experience is tied to treasure and therefore players are motivated to acquire coin in order to level-up and be successful adventurers. Magic items are a fast-track to becoming more powerful and are therefore valued above their monetary value. Are there magic items for sale or do they have to be found while adventuring? Magic items can vary considerably in the power they grant to the PC and may unbalance planned encounters, but also make that PC much more effective than other PCs of similar level. Accidents happen and sometimes that too-powerful magic item gets into play. One of the tough challenges for the referee is how to handle that situation.
Balance is not directly talked about in the LBBs (iirc) and the idea of balancing challenges and encounters is a later edition concept. That said, referees do try to present players with a mix of challenges, some fairly easy, some hard, but achievable, and others which need to wait until PC abilities/levels increase. The LBB concept of the dungeon level and listing the monsters likely to appear on each level is an effort to let the players have some idea what level of challenge they are likely to be encountering. The idea obviously is that deeper levels have more powerful challenges/monsters and correspondingly more valuable treasures. Applying this mechanic to the wilderness adventure is a bit more challenging for the referee.
"What does my character do when he is not adventuring?" The time in between adventures or "down time" can be as important or not as you, the referee chooses.  In the LBBs there is referee advice to keep good track of time in the campaign. This makes sense if down time is important. Some referees require training in order for a PC to advance in level. In between adventures (maybe over winter if your campaign includes seasons) is a good occasion for this training to occur, if a mentor or trainer is available and if the appropriate amount of game time passes before the next adventure. One way to influence how much wealth the PCs have accumulated is life style costs and training. Spells may need to be researched and this takes time and money. Down time activities such as finding an appropriate mentor or teacher can become it's own adventure, if that is the way the referee wants to run things. How much "realism" do you and your players desire?
How to handle offspring and inheritance when the question arises, which is likely to happen especially in an immersive campaign with a fairly high realism factor. Players will want to bank some of their excess wealth and may even attain a status allowing them to own property and acquire titles. How much does my new PC, son/daughter of my old PC inherit is a question the referee may face. Allowing for multi-generational play, if incorporated into the campaign well, could presumably add yet another layer of realism and fun to the campaign.
Or you could go back to the beginning of this post and just run that one-off dungeon. My first campaign was a series of one off dungeons.  The only thing that could be considered campaign-like about it was many of the adventures started in the same tavern and they involved the same PCs who leveled up occasionally in between adventures. It is truly impossible to anticipate and plan for all the tough situations the referee will have to handle, so you may ask "why bother?" I will be the first to say, there's nothing wrong with just "flying by the seat of your referee pants!" After all it's just a game, have fun!

Factions

Setting the Stage
In the samurai movie Yojimbo (A Fistful of Dollars, or Last Man Standing, they're all the same story) the main character comes into a town and finds two factions at war with each other. That's all that's needed for the set-up and action adventure is the result. Any adventure can be added to through the use of factions. Conflict inside the game setting can be exciting. And there is no real risk of injury or loss because "it's just a game". Any loss that may occur is inside the game world and only affects an imaginary "character" of course. Conflict can produce "winners" and "losers" inside a hobby that is generally non-competitive. Conflict causes the player to think, strategize, expend resources and roll dice. Factions lead to conflict.
In my campaign there is an ongoing (30+ years) war between elves and men. In addition to making it interesting when someone decides to play an elf PC, the war gives me two powerful factions between which to create constant conflict. The existence of factions in the milieu allows for many possible plot lines to play out. It is not hard when reading a book or comic, or watching TV or a movie to see how the conflict there-in could be adapted to the White Box campaign. I hesitate to use the word plot because I generally like to avoid plotting out story for the PCs. I find it much more rewarding to present a situation (usually more than one) and see where the PCs go with it. Any story that comes out of this style of game play is as much theirs as mine and entertains us all.
Ideally I think factions should exist at every level of society from small rivalries between neighboring shopkeepers to wars between player races and at every level in between. The competing factions give the players opportunity to roleplay and the PCs can react any way they choose. They can ignore the whole thing, as PCs often ignore adventure hooks, opportunities and even rumors of treasure. Or they may choose to get involved.  They may help one faction or the other or alternate back-and-forth between both (as in the movies). They may even decide to join a faction or two. Such membership comes with ready-made friends and ready-made enemies. Lots of fertile ground for adventure!
Law, Chaos and Neutral alignment can be seen as three factions in conflict with each other or at least two in conflict and one that is, well, "neutral". Each alignment faction has it's membership races as outlined in the LBBs and the conflict between those factions is presumably why orcs and other members of Chaos are generally hostile to men of Law. Not everything in the campaign need revolve around alignment, however, and you may find that the inclusion of additional factions makes the action at your gaming table that much more fun for everyone. In the meantime, if you haven't seen any of the three movies listed above, you might want to check one out.

Milieu

Setting, context, background...
The authors of the White Box talk about milieu, which is not a word I run across frequently outside of reading things written by Mr. Gygax. In game terms milieu seems to refer to what surrounds the game action. Atmosphere or mood is part of it and certainly the facts about the in-game society, geography, flora and fauna (and NPCs) and technology are all contributors to the milieu. For most of us, the authors included, White Box milieu seems eclectic, borrowing from one source and another and mixing with our own inventions. The classic tabletop fantasy role-playing game draws heavily from stories that seem to date back to our earliest times. The heroic myths of ancient Greece talk about entering a labyrinth to defeat a monster, save a princess and win glory (experience) and honors (treasure). Sounds like a dungeon crawl to me.
What goes into the milieu and making it all "workable" or believable is the job of the referee. Even the one-off dungeon crawl adventure has a milieu that is set by the type of encounters the players are likely to have. One approach is to look at dungeon ecology, what are the inhabitants doing down there, what do they eat, how do they get on with the neighbors? Another is to look to backstory for the reason the dungeon exists and therefore what the explorer is likely to find there. Is this a talking, negotiating dungeon or a fighting dungeon? Are things internally consistent within the dungeon setting or zany, unpredictable and bizarre? Sometimes a gonzo, anything goes type approach works, but that adventure has a different feel to it than one developed along more logical themes.
The White Box urges the referee to connect the gaming sessions and adventures under the umbrella of a campaign. Certain game mechanics such as PC leveling, don't make much sense unless used in campaign play. The fantasy campaign involves the referee developing a milieu that remains constant across many gaming sessions and connects them through common characters, ongoing endeavors and any story-lines that develop from play. I think the word "milieu" suggests a process where-by the referee actively creates the context/milieu/setting based on personal choices. Obviously this is the way it was done by the White Box authors and the earliest players who had no canned setting to take off the shelf, open and insert players into. The best referees I know still build their own milieu even when using a published world or setting by modifying, adding to, etc.
Fantasy authors seem to create a milieu for each novel or series. One exercise I believe is helpful to understand the role of milieu in our adventure game is to think about a particular novel or fantasy series in terms of milieu. What are the components that make up the milieu in that story? How does milieu shape the characters? How does it affect action? Is there anything there you would like to use the next time you referee?

Art as Inspiration

Imagine Me This...
The piece above is from the new Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls and I think it's a nice piece, but I chose it rather randomly in order to make a point with this post. Inspiration for our hobby can come from stories we hear, books, comics, movies, even real life and the evening news. Art, good art always tells a story and the piece above seems rich with stories. I like to see illustrations in my books, especially game books because they suggest so many stories and characters to me. Just looking at this seated fellow and asking myself "who, what, where, how and why?" gets the creative mind working. So what can we gather from this Liz Danforth piece without asking her what it's all about. Well, the obvious it's a person seated holding a bow. By the looks of the face, I'd say definitely a human male, not young, not old. The rugged but not ragged clothing suggests someone used to the outdoors and probably able to reasonably take care of himself. The terrain in the background is somewhat rugged, hilly and wooded.  There is a statue of a humanoid near what appears to be an unpaved road or path. There are a few birds in the sky. There appears to be a frown on the man's face.
So letting the imagination go where it will, a referee could conceivably create an evening's adventure and entertainment from what we see in this picture. Give the fellow a name, tell us where he is and why we find him there. What is the significance of the frown, of the statue, where do the paths lead, why is he seated? With a cooperative group of players and a willingness to improvise, this could all be handled on-the-fly. With time to think and study and plan, a picture such as this can supply the inspiration to develop a fleshed out adventure. I could offer you my interpretation, in fact I'm resisting the urge to do so. Why, because you can do that on your own and doing it on your own, letting your imagination run freely is a big part of the fun of our hobby. Enjoy where YOUR imagination takes you.

T&T Solo Adventures

No Referee, No Problem
It's way less of a problem today than it was back in 1976 to find someone to run an adventure. Thanks to the internet, finding a game, or a group, has become an easy task. It's hard to imagine, but there was a time before internet, before computer gaming, before personal computers of any kind. Buffalo Castle, as far as I know, is the very first solo dungeon and it allowed a single person to play Tunnels & Trolls by themselves. The solo adventure trend would catch on and several T&T solo books followed the publication of Buffalo Castle. Then others started designing solo adventure books, often with their own simple rules in the same book, under titles such as Fighting Fantasy, Lone Wolf, etc. Eventually several major role-playing systems did their own solo adventures and together with the solo adventure paperbacks which appeared in many bookstores, the entire solo gaming experience became quite popular for a time.
With my purchase of Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls at Gencon recently, I have been reading through that tome and unboxed some of my old T&T solo adventures, including Buffalo Castle. Written by Rick Loomis, owner of Flying Buffalo Inc., publisher of T&T, Buffalo Castle is a 38 page, 8.5" x 11" paperback booklet nicely illustrated with art by Liz Danforth. One of the nice things about T&T over the years is the "fellowship" that has been the creative genius behind T&T, (Mr. St. Andre and friends including Rick Loomis and Liz Danforth) have remained consistently involved. In other words, I see the same names on the new dT&T rules that have been on T&T products from way back.
The organization of Buffalo Castle is each numbered page has several lettered paragraphs so that there is a 28 B and a 15 A, etc.  The way the solo works is simple and efficient. The player gets up a character using the T&T rules and reads the intro paragraph(s) which gives the background and any special rules for the solo. Buffalo Castle is obviously a castle, the player goes inside and moves around by making choices that sends the PC to various numbered and lettered entries where puzzles and encounters with various traps and monsters may occur. Basically it is a dungeon crawl without a referee, Mr. Loomis having set the whole "dungeon" up through the design. Having played through Buffalo Castle again yesterday evening I can say it may not be the only gaming option for those evenings at home alone, but it's still a fun option.

The Majestic Wilderlands

A Personalized Adventure Playground
Taking the LBBs (S&W version) and Judges Guild City State products and modifying them to create a personal playground is what Rob Conley has skillfully done in his Supplement VI The Majestic Wilderlands. Calling his digest sized tome Supplement VI probably reflects how he uses the material it contains, basically as an additional supplement for the original system. Mr. Conley borrows the organization of the LBBs and official supplements with sections titled Men & Magic, Monsters & Treasure and Underworld & Wilderness Adventures.
When setting out to personalize the game to one's own world or setting I think in terms of a formula: new character classes, PC races, describe how magic works, the role of the gods, how combat works, inclusion (or not) of how to handle non-combat skill/ability tests, a bestiary, magic items, an atlas (either original or borrowed maps), descriptions of cultures, religion, history, climate and perhaps a calendar. In The Majestic Wilderlands Mr. Conley has taken some existing maps from the Wilderlands series (Judges Guild) and the original game rules (Swords & Wizardry White Box) as the basis and following his own preferences, applied his imagination and creates something new and exciting for the hobby.
The three basic character classes of the original game are the starting point to which Mr. Conley adds two new classes and several sub classes to each main class. The basic PC races (think Tolkien) are present as well as nine additional ones, some borrowed, some of his own unique design. An explanation of the author's non-combat ability test mechanics and his combat options, an explanation of the basis of magic in his world and rules for rituals are all described in some detail in the section titled Men & Magic.
A few new monsters and magic items specific to this world are described in the brief section Monsters & Treasure.  A detailed description of the world of The Majestic Wilderlands takes up the remainder of the book. The author describes the main campaign area where he and his players have adventured for decades, the surrounding regions, climate, cultures, history and religion. The reader is not overburdened by detail, but there is enough here to explain the author's vision. Mr. Conley points to various regions of his setting which are designed to support various types of adventure, desert, jungle, arctic, pirate, Arabian nights, political intrigue, chivalry are all covered. He seems to have included an area to cover most of the classic adventure settings and he invites you, the reader and future referee to follow his footsteps adding to and borrowing from his work to create your own personal version of The Majestic Wilderlands. At our best, that is exactly what we referees do.
Using the maps and presumably the random tables (probably modified) Mr. Conley sites many of the cities and dungeon products produced by Judges Guild on those maps (either in the original JG locations or ones of Mr. Conley's choosing). The author of The Majestic Wilderlands has populated these maps with peoples and cultures of his own design, who worship his gods, learn his history and adventure as members of his PC classes. The resulting Majestic Wilderlands hits the sweet spot with just enough material to add enormous variety and depth to the original Judges Guild playing aids and White Box rules without becoming a chore for the prospective referee to read and master. The Majestic Wilderlands stands out as a fine example of taking the tools and materials of the hobby, applying imagination and making a personal, creative and unique game experience. 

Implied Setting

The White Box World
The LBBs don't map out a setting or world. In fact they refer the player to an Avalon Hill board game for the wilderness map. There are no lists of countries, peoples or gods. The game does imply a setting, however and here's how I think that works. There are three character classes, fighting men, magic users and clerics. That tells the player a lot about how society is structured and what the roads to power are like. Fighting men are warriors, so it's a society that values might. Magic works, both divine and mundane. There is no description of where magic comes from or why it works, but magic users can cast spells that work and some higher level spells are very powerful. Clerics can use divine magic and turn undead creatures. Although there is nothing specific about religion or what divine source powers the cleric's spells, they work and also can be quite powerful, even raising the dead.
Obviously undead exist along with a lot of other creatures not seen on earth today. Player characters can be human (like us except with access to real magic), elves, dwarves or hobbits (races straight out of Tolkien?). Dwarves and hobbits are fighting men (sort of). Elves are magical and alternate between magic user and fighting men (by one interpretation). This tells us that humans, dwarves, elves and hobbits interact and cooperate with each other as a party of adventurers can include members of each "race" (more like species really). I therefore assume the player character races are "friendly". The dungeon denizens are many and I assume they are all somewhat hostile to the player character races. Afterall it there stuff the PCs are expected to take in order to earn experience. The term "monster" is used to describe all the dungeon inhabitants, even humans found in that environment as they are most likely hostile (and up to no good). The LBBs list a chart showing creatures by alignment, those aligned with Law being mostly friendly to the established powers, those aligned with chaos being opposed and those neutrally aligned and of unknown friendliness. PCs don't have to be lawful in alignment, but I get the impression they are encouraged to be lawful. The list of monsters include many from mythology and fantasy literature and the number and variety implies a wild and dangerous setting.
Technology is set somewhat similar to our middle ages with horses and people doing most of the work and weapons and armor resembling what was available during medieval times on earth.  There is no gunpowder, little science or medicine. Most healing either occurs naturally or is magical. There is no mention of birth rank or social class and fighting men regardless of birth can become Lords, build a castle, command followers and hold lands so I presume there is freedom to go as far as your talents take you similar to our own American culture. Of course being the expandable, changeable game that White Box is, the referee is free to make any changes to the implied setting when creating their own unique setting for their game. One's imagination is the only real limit!

Something Old, Something New

Reflections on Past, Present and Future
So, I have been reading my way through Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls this week and it feels much like spending time with an old friend.  In the 35+ years I have been playing at this hobby many things have changed, many things remain the same and a few have been there and back. Deluxe T&T is both old and new and yet something more. I will try to explain what I mean by that statement a little later on.
Back in 1974 Mr. Gygax and Mr. Arneson brought forth the LBBs and introduced a new way to play tabletop games and a new hobby was born as the dungeon game spread and variant rules were created then new games appeared based on the dungeon/adventure game concept (we didn't call it role-playing until later). The odd dice required for the LBBs' alternative combat method (which quickly became THE d20 combat mechanic) were rather hard to come by at first and possession of said "funny dice" was the mark of a hobby initiate. The White Box and other early games such as T&T encouraged a do-it-yourself, innovative and imaginative approach to the game. The action was described by the referee and imagined in the player's mind.
With the coming of AD&D the hobbyist was encouraged to play by-the-book and Mr. Gygax attempted to add detail and "crunch" to the rules making the game more complex and perhaps more "realistic" (if such a term is ever appropriate in fantasy gaming). The trend caught on and many of us, desiring even more detail and realism, sought newer and better rules. My group settled on Runequest, but there were other games, such as Rolemaster, GURPS, etc. that offered crunch and realism. This was also the time of the "backlash" when the role-playing hobby was unjustly blamed for turning kids to Satan (and other nonsense). The hobby grew despite the bad publicity and the idea of role-playing was ported over to the then new personal computer technology (although I am not sure "role-playing" is the best way to describe that type of game). Using the newest gaming options, the action frequently moved from "theater of the mind" group imagining to miniature figures on a grid or graphics on a computer screen.
Wizards of the Coast acquired AD&D when they bought out TSR which had continued to add more and more rules and publish lots of setting world and other play aids. WotC dropped the AD&D/Basic D&D distinction in favor of D&D 3rd Ed. and the game became more like some of it's chief competitors IMO. Skills and feats allowed a great deal of customization and the number of additional books released added official new character classes, feats, spells and monsters in great number. The internet allowed hobbyists who enjoy the electronic side of role-playing to engage in multi-player games with their friends and even to play a tabletop game online using Skype or Google+ Hangouts, etc. The widespread popularity of the MMORPGs has made the once niche hobby practically mainstream. Recently the hobby has seen the publication of several books about role-playing, one a multi-volume study of the history of the hobby. So I guess it's a real thing.
Deluxe T&T addresses all this as it traces it's own 40 year history. The dT&T authors, Ken St. Andre and friends, have been involved from the hobby beginning, both from the tabletop, pen and paper side and the electronic side having once done a T&T computer game. Packed into dT&T's 386 pages is the Core or Basic game, which is pretty much as it has been since the 1970's, as well as the Elaborations which are newer rules the player can add or not, or be inspired by to create their own Elaborations. The Trollworld Atlas gives us information on the setting/playground Ken St. Andre and friends have adventured in from the early days. Deluxe T&T tells its own story, how it has evolved over the years. A game like dT&T (or the White Box) remains a living changing thing as long as people use the rules to inspire their imaginations, adding to and innovating upon the game, taking the game beyond what is written and making it something new and unique. Reading through dT&T this week I am reminded of past T&T games played and have thought of several possible adventures yet to come, games I want to play in the future.
At Gencon this past weekend I sat at the table with kids as young as ten together with older folks. The kids seemed to get into the face-to-face tabletop experience as much as any of us older gamers and I think the future of the hobby is promising. The so-called edition wars and Old School Renaissance (OSR) has demonstrated that there is an interest in playing the older games and continuing to produce new material for said older games. The popularity of specialty cons directed at the OSR hobbyist continues to grow. At the same time creativity in the hobby remains strong with new and innovative games being released almost every year. Electronic support for the hobby also increases as new products and apps continue to be released. I see no reason for pessimism and am predicting we can look forward to being pleasantly entertained for many years to come! 

Deluxe T&T

Tunnels & Trolls gets Deluxe treatment
Back into the swing after Gencon and excited about the new Deluxe edition of T&T. Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo was there manning his booth at Gencon and sold me a .pdf with hard-copy to follow (after the kickstarter folks get their hard-copies). The .pdf is 386 pages of trollish goodness for this long-time fan of T&T. The Deluxe edition has some new rules, but T&T has remained true to itself all these decades and this edition is easily recognizable as more of the same. The rules haven't changed too much from the earliest editions although there are some evolutions that have occurred over time.  The cover is a Liz Danforth piece and I think one of her best. A section of elaborations or optional rules follows the basic or core game rules encouraging each referee to make the game as individualized and unique as they like. T&T has always been easy to modify and like the White Box, T&T encourages it. For me the most exciting part of the Deluxe edition is the extensive amount of information we now have on Trollworld, the long-time personal setting of author Ken St. Andre and friends.  There are four major cities mapped and described as well as a timeline, history, maps and  descriptions of the nations and continents. As far as I know this is the first time much of this material has been available beyond the inner circle of friends who are privileged to game with Mr. St. Andre. The book concludes with two adventures, one a solo, the kind that has given me personally so much fun with T&T over the years and the other a group adventure. The .pdf I have is attractive and illustrated throughout with nice art.  Most of which is black and white, however there is a 16 page color section as well which kinda adds to the deluxe feel of the tome (can I call a .pdf a "tome"?). Some of the illustrations are familiar from older T&T products, many are new to me all of them are attractive and evocative of the fantasy setting. T&T has always had a strong swords & sorcery feel to it and much of this is due to the art. Overall, there is much here that will be familiar to the fan of T&T and there is much that is new to delight us. The last few years have seen a revival of interest in some of the older role-playing/adventure  games and it seems the hobby is recognizing that the best of the older games are still good fun and worth playing. It is nice to see one of the oldest get the deluxe treatment it deserves. If you are new to T&T this edition has it all, you won't be missing anything from the early days and yet it's all been added to and nicely packaged in this quality new edition.