MicroGame 3

The Fantasy Trip: Melee...and beyond
Since I first discovered Steve Jackson's simple and elegant combat system in the spring of 1978, I have been drawn again and again to return to this favorite pamphlet sized MicroGame from Metagaming. Melee is a boardgame in the sense that it comes with a paper hex-map and cut-out counters representing heroes, monsters and weapons. Positioning and range is significant and together with character build and choice of equipment, allows the players to develop tactics and fighting styles that reward careful play. If hack and slash is your desire, Melee delivers.
Melee is both a complete game for arena combat and the combat module for The Fantasy Trip adventure game series. The Fantasy Trip consists of two MicroGames, Melee and Wizard, and three full sized booklets, In The Labyrinth, Advanced Melee and Advanced Wizard as well as a number of supporting products. Wizard adds magic to The Fantasy Trip system and is also a complete MicroGame of magical arena combat. In The Labyrinth includes rules for campaigns, wilderness and underground adventures and character talents, everything needed to bring The Fantasy Trip up to the standards of a full adventure/role-playing game.

What makes The Fantasy Trip: Melee so appealing is the combination of elegant simplicity and tactical challenge and reward. The pamphlet is a mere 20 pages of rules, yet with the counters and hex-map tactical display constitutes a wargame of some complexity. Each fighter is custom built by the player who chooses Strength and Dexterity scores. These attributes determine the choice of weapons the fighter may employ. Armor affects Dexterity which is the attribute used to successfully attack an opponent. The Fantasy Trip uses a 3d6 roll under mechanic with pluses and minuses based on situational factors, equipment, and if using In The Labyrinth, talents. Designing your fighter to use certain equipment and positioning their counter (or figure) on the tactical display in certain ways may grant the player advantages in combat which make the difference between success and failure. Combat in Melee is way more than just rolling the dice and hoping for a good result. Game skill plays a significant roll in The Fantasy Trip. The rules are clearly written and the game is easily understood, but challenging to master. Among  group of fighters (and magic users if Wizard is added in) team-play and coordination pays off.
A good idea usually sticks around for a while and the basic The Fantasy Trip system has seen use in several game products over the years. Metagaming produced Dragons of Underearth, a simplified, cut-down version of The Fantasy Trip offered as an introduction to a new complete system that never materialized. After leaving Metagaming, Steve Jackson started his own company, Steve Jackson Games, and published Man-To-Man and GURPs using a greatly expanded system, but the Melee roots are evident. Indie game publisher C. R. Brandon's combat miniatures rules, Swords & Spells, and Heroes & Other Worlds adventure game draw on the Melee system and Dark City Games continues to publish solo adventures for the Melee/Wizard system as well as their own pared down version of the rules called Legends of the Ancient World which they offer as a free download (perhaps for those who don't have access to The Fantasy Trip).
Being a group of intrepid delvers, there were not many adventures, published or home brewed, that my friends weren't able to conquer during our college years. One such, which stands out to this day, is Tollenkar's Lair, a traditional refereed dungeon crawl written by Steve Jackson for The Fantasy Trip. Despite multiple assaults on the "Lair", no party ever finished it, killed Tollenkar or survived to emerge with his treasure. I recall running the module multiple times and even though parties were armed with fore knowledge and custom built to overcome the known challenges, failure and ultimate demise lay at the end of a twisting tunnel every time.