Tunnels & Trolls is one of my areas of ignorance as far as RPGs go.  I've never played a game of it, nor have I ever read any incarnation of the rules.

Tell me what I'm missing.  Is there a particular edition that I'd want to check out?  Is there anything hinky in the rules that I'd need to watch out for and house-rule?  What sort of play does the game provide?

T&T was written as a reaction to the original D&D rules -- author Ken St Andre saw the D&D booklets, figured out WHAT you were supposed to do but wasn't down with HOW, and wrote his OWN rules.  They are, indeed, quite simple.

The game has never, ever taken itself seriously.  It encourages a devil-may-care approach to FRPG shenanigans, and fully supports it.  It demands more than it elicits creativity from GM and players alike.

I'd love to say more but I'm on break at work. Seeing as how I already wrote what I'd like to say, why not clickie the linkie?  It's in English...!

Hey R,

I've never played T&T before either, but I just downloaded a free rules sampler the other day.  You can still get it here:

http://rpg.drivethrustuff.com/product_info.php?products_id=54407&filters=0_0_0&free=1

I haven't read through it all yet, but hopefully it will give me a better idea of the game once I do.  Maybe it can help you too.

I was hooked the second I saw that a spell was called "Take That You Fiend". That was many moons ago. We only played it a few times, but they were hysterical. We had so much fun wrecking dungeons for the sake of loot and experience, morals be damned.

Its a fun "beer and pretzel" type game. About as complicated as Basic D&D, albeit much less serious (does that make it 'Basic Hackmaster'? .

-=Grim=-

T&T is well suited towards solo play (+ lots of solo adventures), mass combats are fast, and it uses only regular dice. Fun sense of humor too.

However I've found it not as fast as I was expecting. Certainly it's faster than early D&D but it still has a bit more calculation, adding up & such. Perhaps I was just expecting Risus and got d6 Dungeoncrawl instead. :raise:

I think a hybrid between 5.5 & 7 might be best, adding in the new class(es) & the magic stat from 7 into the better worded 5.5. Not a fan of wizards relying upon Strength for casting spells.

RPG.net has a review of 1st & 4th edition currently (recently?) & from the sounds of it 5.5 is just a tidying up w/ some extra bits like an adventure. Certainly check out the freebie which has basic chargen, combat & spells + a solo and a regular adventure! PDF could use a revision but it's free!

The Brits et al seem to like the pocket book edition of the rules they had (Corgi?). Haven't seen it but it could be very nice.

I've been a huge fan of T&T, its a simple dungeon crawl focused RPG. Two "main" classes--Wizards and Warriors, with the Rogue being a hybrid of the two (though the 5th edition rules had full version Wizard-Warriors they had strenous attribute requirements)

In simple terms your weapon has so much damage potential, you roll that--and add up everyones damage (via weapons and attribute based "adds"), the total is compared to the Monster Rating of monsters--if its higher you win and inflict damage on them. If not, they inflict damage on you.

Ranged combat is a saving throw based on range, and in fact resolving everything but combat in the game is a saving throw against one attribute or another--with varying levels of how hard a save was.

Magic is spell point based but you used your strength for that, so Wizards got buff too. (Just didn't have training with anything but 2 dice basic weapons--daggers and staves, and a stave MATTERED as one with the right spell on it made your spell point costs go down.)


Simple, many of the solo adventures were silly as were many of the spell names, at the same time it was quite enjoyable in many ways.

Quote from: Casey777The Brits et al seem to like the pocket book edition of the rules they had (Corgi?). Haven't seen it but it could be very nice.

It's the edition I use and the ruleset is 5.0 IIRC. Corgi also released a whole series of solo adventures with the same format & style of artwork so it makes for good bookshelf pr0n

Quote from: SilverlionMagic is spell point based but you used your strength for that, so Wizards got buff too.

My biggest complaint about the system, which I houseruled around but I beleive was fixed in version 5.5 with a separate stat for it.
 
My second biggest is the way the combat/damage system works doesnt tie in perfectly with exclusive use of D6's, especially in missile combat. You will need a lot of D6's.
 
If you want something a little more advanced that T&T, try to find a copy of Merceneries, Spies and Private Eyes which is roughly T&T v5 with skills, modern firearms and some of the T&T cheeseyness removed.

It's kind of a weird system in that you just calculate your combat potential, then add up everyone's and roll - you don't have differences between fast fighters, strong fighters, and such.  Not much room for tactics in rules themselves.  But simple enough that there's time for fudging.

Honestly, I never really cared for T&T.  I prefer a less whimsical approach to gaming (and my brand of humor tends more towards the HoL/Buttery Wholesomeness style anyways) and more-defined rules.

I did like the fact you could have a faerie character, though (just for something different); and the solo-play option was nice.

Ok, I read through the free sample rules and have a question.

How does combat work when you have more than 2 combatants?

Do you add up all the roles for each side like FtA or do individuals resolve their own attacks?

It's like FtA! (I believe the Pundit has always been upfront that T&T inspired FtA!'s combat system.)

Tactics in T&T are less about precisely who whacks who and more about when spellcasters use their spells, how the party can use circumstances to their benefit, and especially how the party can think of ways to split up the monsters. It can better to have 3 weak monsters whacking at the warrior who's wearing decent enough armour that they're deeply unlikely to hurt him while the rest of the party concentrates its fire on the 1 strong monster leading them, for example, than to have the party just try to take all the monsters on at once.

Quote from: wulfgarHow does combat work when you have more than 2 combatants?

Do you add up all the roles for each side like FtA or do individuals resolve their own attacks?

As a general rule, all hits on a given side are added up, then compared against the total of all hits dealt by the other side, subtracting the lesser from the greater.  The resulting hits are applied to the losing (lesser) side, and are divided evenly among the combatants.

If the GM wishes, he can always resolve combats individually, but it's always going to have to be resolved as Side 1 vs Side 2, applying the difference against the loser.  You could feasibly resolve Combatant 1 vs Combatant 2, and then Combatant 1 vs Combatant 3, and so forth, but the functional result will eventually be the same as Combatant 1 vs Combatant 2+3+4... and so on.

As I understand it, the similarity between combat resolution in T&T and that in FtA! is not accidental.

!i!

You know, I have NO IDEA what edition mine is. I bought it used over 15 years ago (pushing... 18 years?).

I wasn't aware that the various editions changed all that much so I never looked into the newer ones. To me they mostly looked like reprints with new numbers slapped on the cover.

I will say mine has the Warrior-Wizard in it, so its at least fifth or pre-fifth based on this thread. Someone listed the odds of rolling one up (1 in several thousand as I recall...) naturally, which tells you the odds.

I still think the character on a 3X5 card was inspired brilliance.

And I have a buddy who is only a casual gamer and didn't even know the name of the game who loved to say 'take that you feind', had for years...

Now I feel like rounding up some... no, rounding up a GM and playing!

TTYF!

I betcha it's the fifth edition, Spike-o.

Quote from: Dr Rotwang!I betcha it's the fifth edition, Spike-o.

It is, oh dreaded Tie Master, printed in 1982!  

And still in nearly the exact same condition I bought it in!

Thassa good book.