[RPG]: Tunnels & Trolls 5.5 Edition, reviewed by Robert Lionheart (2/5)

http://www.rpg.net/reviews/archive/11/11474.phtml

Robert Lionheart's Summary:

Great purchase for anyone seeking an exciting fantasy game with malleable rules that honors your imagination. Awesome for introducing new players to RPGs!

Go to the full review for more information.

Good review, hits all the high spots. If I absolutely must complain, I think that a style rating of "2" is, perhaps, a bit low. Sure, T&T is very far from WotC or WW slick, but it is easily readable, and has some very nice art. I would have given it a "3", but I am a big fan...

I would like to add to this that our little group of jaded D20-gamers really, really dig ol' T&T. After playing through combats that takes hours in That Other Game, it's really refreshing to breeze through 10-15 brutal fights in a single evening. It's also very neat that you can generate a character in a few minutes. And it is ultra-neat that the GM can stat up monsters on the fly, if needed.

[Dan Davenport]

You managed to make this a nicely informative review in spite of your admitted bias, Robert. Nicely done.

I am wondering, though, how stunts relate to the game mechanics. I'm assuming they're based around attribute "Saves," correct?

Also, how large is the bestiary, and does it include full stats for all creatures (as opposed to just the Monster Rating), or only for a select few?

Originally Posted by Dan Davenport

You managed to make this a nicely informative review in spite of your admitted bias, Robert. Nicely done.

I am wondering, though, how stunts relate to the game mechanics. I'm assuming they're based around attribute "Saves," correct?

Also, how large is the bestiary, and does it include full stats for all creatures (as opposed to just the Monster Rating), or only for a select few?

Ron says it much better than I ever could:

Originally Posted by Ron Edwards

T&T wants nothing to do with verisimilitude - it's all about strategy. You've got attributes, weapons, armor, and spells. Fighting's all about what weapon and armor you've got (attribute dependent), magic is all about your Strength resources. Effectiveness is all about your Strength, Dexterity, and Luck.

Levels just add to your attributes. Money pays for more spells, more armor, and more weapons. (That's right, never mind "learning" spells. Buy them. Get over it.) Your characters will die, probably. Make up a few and make sure that the dead characters' maps make it topside so your new ones can use them.

What makes all of this more interesting than a mere statistical grind is what the rules call, in their 1979 blessed innocence, "Saving Rolls." They are not frigging Saving Rolls - they are attribute checks. You have seven attributes and the Saving Roll rules apply all the time, in the most open-ended, mind-bogglingly flexible task resolution system ever.

Let me illustrate - my li'l 2nd level fighter stares in horror at the balrog. If we use the Weapon + Adds vs. Monster Rating method (the standard system), my character gets roasted and eaten post-haste. But I can come up with any strategic action, base it reasonably off any attribute that makes sense, and the GM will assign me a "Saving Roll" at some difficulty level. If I make it, we just ignore the combat system and carry on with whatever I wanted to do. Maybe my character jumps onto the balrog's head and then hops off behind him (DEX). Maybe he suddenly sells him a used sword (IQ). Maybe it's a chick balrog and ... (CHR).

Way before "raises" in L5R. Way before skill checks and skill lists. Way before so-called free-form role-playing or any silliness about roll/role. It's all right there.

Yesterday, the hobbit character made a DEX "saving roll" during a fight scene, in hopes of slicing a hand off a foe, at the player's request. She succeeded. During the next round, the player stated that the character *chases the other bandits around with the hand* during combat.

I awarded her another Saving Roll, this one on Charisma, to see if the character was so obnoxious such that the other player-characters got free shots at the bandits. She succeeded.

Dude, this game is ... unspeakably simple (and even bloody-minded), and yet as you play, this incredible secondary system kicks in and you suddenly realize that Amber and Over the Edge had merely re-invented or simply drawn attention to elements of an already-existing wheel ...

And no, there's no bestiary per se; it's more or less assumed that you'll decide for yourself what monsters to use and just wing it from there. Alternatively, there's a table of personalized monsters in section 2.41. which details 37 playable monsters (including shoggoth!) -- but I'd say that a bestiary is not really essential to GM'ing T&T. YMMOCV.

[Dan Davenport]

Thanks for the info!

Since I haven't had any luck with responses to my post in Open on the subject, do any of you have the scoop regarding T&T 7.0? I saw it mentioned on the Flying Buffalo site, and I'm wondering if it's worth picking up 5.5 or if I should just wait for 7.0.

Originally Posted by Dan Davenport

Thanks for the info!

Since I haven't had any luck with responses to my post in Open on the subject, do any of you have the scoop regarding T&T 7.0? I saw it mentioned on the Flying Buffalo site, and I'm wondering if it's worth picking up 5.5 or if I should just wait for 7.0.

Sure. From: http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?t=192571

Originally Posted by Jason Kempton

Hello folks, here is some more info for you on the 30th Anniversary Edition of T&T. I will do my best to visit back here and answer more questions that surface about the product. Let me go over the physical characteristics first...[which need to go on our product page - but hey, you heard it here first!].

NOTE this is subject to change as the product is not actually finished for a few more months yet and we will tweak things.

The components fit into our tin boxes that we have been using for a little over a year now - we have used the for various d20/OGL works as well as our Counter Strike line of small format wargames. These tins are approximately 7.25" x 5.25" so are smaller than a typical RPG book. The beauty of T&T is that it is rules-light - it doesn't require a 280 page manual to learn how to play - which was Ken's whole point to brint it into being. The huge benefit from using a tin box is we can combine different components. The rulebooks themselves will be spiral bound - so that they will sit flat at the gaming table and be easier to read. I anticipate, even at the small size of the page, that the rulebooks will be 96 pages or less. The monster book will most likely be saddlestitched and come in at 28-32 pages. It means we can also include a CD with the character generator and some free SOLO adventures as well as the counters and dice!

Regarding the two rulebooks. The issue with making one big change is that it tends to ripple into dozens of smaller changes. James, Scott and I had a really good planning session a weekend a few months ago on what we thought would be cool to include in a new version of T&T - including changing the character generation process and adding a bit more detail to combat. These of course are fundamental changes - especially to the original designer. I had assured Rick Loomis that we would not many any changes at all without discussing it with him [which means Ken as well]. The flow-through from this is that it made sense to have Ken's official rules set in the box without our input and to include the ideas that Fiery Dragon had formulated as a separate item. We felt this was win-win as all the long-time fans and nostalgia buffs would get a new T&T as directed by Ken that would stay very close to the original. If you wanted to try out some new design ideas but still keep a fast paced game then read through the second book. Basically you get two games in one that also share some common components such as the monster book. They both use d6, and they both use MR amongst other things - this is not a d20 or OGL game.


Ken sends me regular emails and he is working really hard at getting all his ideas of the last 30 years onto paper [er pixels but you know what I mean]. I can tell you it certainly isn't a scanned version of the v5.0 rules from 1975. He is adding and tweaking a # of system level things that he really wants to see happen - he's very passionate about his game!


Visual gameplay/counters. T&T can be done without counters - most RPGs can but since we provide the market with most of their d20/ogl counters we thought it would be appropriate to put some in the box! We did some revamping to the combat system in one of the rulebooks - so that it can matter where people are in combat - the counters are a visual aid to help accomplish this. If you play the game SOLO only or never make use of such things then so be it - but we hope to sell some copies to brand new gamers, and the counters will certainly help us out with the crowd that grew up on clicks and minis.


E.T. Smith had asked about the mass distribution version perhaps being different than this edition. From Fiery Dragon's standpoint our license allows us to make a 30th anniversary edition of T&T. Once we release this tin product we do not have any explicit rights to do anything else - including ripping out one book and selling it on its own. That said, Rick is easy to work with so it could happen. This is definitely not a "Gencon" only release - this is our intended mass distribution copy. I do not anticipate wanting to spend more money on printing a standalone book - which is included in the tin anyway!


SOLO adventures - this was a big part of classic T&T. The CD included in the box will have two of these solos in PDF format so you can start playing right out of the box, we'll make some modifications depending on what the final rules are from Ken so that it all makes sense. We'd like to release more SOLOS after that, but this will depend on Rick at Flying Buffalo and on how many we manage to sell of the actual RPG. I think Rick still has stock of alot of the original books so you can still buy the bonafide 70's copies if you want them.

Ok, I think that covers most of what you asked, but if you want to know more - just ask!

Is it worth waiting for 7.0? I don't know. I got my copy of 5.5 as soon as I heard of the reprint -- but I intend to pick up 7.0 too. Time will tell, I guess.

[Lars Dangly]

I always thought that the best way to play T&T was using the personalized monster stats rather than monster ratings. The latter always felt really limiting to me. Monsters had no real access to the flexible attribute system, they were just bags of rating points to be ablated away. I also always had mixed feelings about the mass combat system: It is a cool way of handling two on one or three on one fights, but terrible for running a party of adventurers vs. a horde of critters. Much better to use miniatures or common sense to sort out who is paird up with whom and run it as a series of small clashes, like in other games.

Nevertheless, this is a thoroughly enjoyable classic and I'm delighted it hasn't drifted away like all my other favorite old, old games (TFT, where art thou?).

So, bottom line, is there any substantive difference between 5.5 and the old editions? Will an old hand at this game prefer the new edition?

[Miskatonic]

Originally Posted by Lars Dangly

So, bottom line, is there any substantive difference between 5.5 and the old editions? Will an old hand at this game prefer the new edition?

As far as I'm able to tell, 5.5 is the old version, with some new material in the appendices. My box even came with an old UK Corgi edition of City of Terror. If your old version 5.0 is still usable, you might want to hold out for the anniversary edition.

EDIT: From the Flying Buffalo website:

This version has 32 new pages including the complete Buffalo Castle solo adventure, plus Ken St Andre's "Chronology of Trollworld" plus new optional rules from Ken such as "Character Creation", "Half Breeds and Unusual Character Types", "Combat", "Spite Damage", "The Many-dice Problem", "Style of Play", and "The Money of Trollworld" AND "Skills in T&T" and "Pulling your Punches" by Michael Stackpole. It also includes the complete version 5.0 of the rules.

[MattyHelms]

Robert - great review! Your enthusiasm is not only infectious, it's backed with a solid review.

Man, I haven't played T&T in about five years. My copy of 5.5 is on its way.

-Matt

[Hogscape]

Thanks for the review. It brought back tears of nostalgia!

I still have my 5th edition rulebook but none of the various supplements that I'd collected over the years.

I'm keen to know what kind of skill suggetions are included. The lack of a defined skill system tends to put off a lot of 'modern' players.

Cheers

Mike