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.