Quick-Start Saturday: Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age

Quick-starts are a means of trying out a roleplaying game before you buy. Each should provide a Game Master with sufficient background to introduce and explain the setting to her players, the rules to run the scenario included, and a set of ready-to-play, pre-generated characters that the players can pick up and understand almost as soon as they have sat down to play. The scenario itself should provide an introduction to the setting for the players as well as to the type of adventures that their characters will have and just an idea of some of the things their characters will be doing on said adventures. All of which should be packaged up in an easy-to-understand booklet whose contents, with a minimum of preparation upon the part of the Game Master, can be brought to the table and run for her gaming group in a single evening’s session—or perhaps two. And at the end of it, Game Master and players alike should ideally know whether they want to play the game again, perhaps purchasing another adventure or even the full rules for the roleplaying game.

Alternatively, if the Game Master already has the full rules for the roleplaying game the quick-start is for, then what it provides is a sample scenario that she still run as an introduction or even as part of her campaign for the roleplaying game. The ideal quick-start should entice and intrigue a playing group, but above all effectively introduce and teach the roleplaying game, as well as showcase both rules and setting.

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What is it?
Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is the quick-start for Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age, the latest version of the venerable fantasy roleplaying game first published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo, Inc. It is being published by Rebellion Unplugged, best known as the games arm of Rebellion, the publisher of long running British Science Fiction comic, 2000 AD, but in game terms for republishing the Games Workshop classics, Judge Dredd: The Game of Crime-Fighting in Mega-City One and Block Mania.

It is a thirty-two page, 730 MB full colour PDF.

However, it it does need an edit and the authors need to beg for forgiveness for the use of the word ‘stunting’ as a verb instead of the correct English language phrasing, ‘performing a stunt’.

The use of the word, ‘Knackered’, as a Tag though, is delightfully British, but in no way makes up for the erroneous error of ‘stunting’.

How long will it take to play?
Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is designed to be played through in a single session, two at the very most. This includes Player Character creation.

What else do you need to play?
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide needs a handful of six-sided dice per player plus some tokens to represent Threat.

Who do you play?
The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide does not come with any pre-generated Player Characters. Instead, rules are provided for the players to create their own.

How is a Player Character defined?

An Adventurer the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide has six attributes—Strength, Dexterity, Constitution, Willpower, Intelligence, and Charisma, as well as three stats—Luck, Mana, and Stamina. These range in value between two and four. He also has a Kindred, of which six are suggested. These are Humankin, Halfkin, Dwarfkin, Elfkin, Orckin, and Goblinkin. The Kindred is a Player Character’s background, whilst his Motto sums up his approach to life and his traits provide a once-per-session ability. A Player Character’s Kindred provides both a trait and a motto, whilst a second trait will come from his choice of Path. Six paths are given. These are Path of Might, Path of Shadow, Path of Endurance, Path of Spirit, Path of Craft, and Path of Wizardry.

The rules also cover the creation of the Player Character party, which explains why they are all together.

How do the mechanics work?

Mechanically, Tunnels & Trolls has always employed a dice pool system, whether that is rolled against the monsters’ dice pool (derived from their combined Monster Rating) or as a Saving Throw against one of a Player Character’s attributes. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide also uses dice pools, but they are radically scaled down and both the players and the Game Master will be rolling more often rather than rolling more dice.

To have his character undertake an action, a player rolls a number of six-sided dice equal to an attribute. A roll of four or more is counted as a hit, whilst three or less is a miss. The aim is to roll as many hits as possible. Target Numbers range between one and five, with two being the standard Target Number. A Blessed roll means that hits are rolled on three and over, misses on two or less, whilst a Cursed roll means that hits are rolled on five and over, misses on four or less. Rolls of multiple values result in the dice pool exploding and a player being able to add more dice to the roll. A double adds two more dice to roll, a triple adds three more dice, and so on. An exceptional success occurs if three sixes are rolled, whilst a dramatic setback happens if three ones are rolled.

Luck can be spent to reroll dice on a one-for-one basis.

How does combat work?
Combat in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide starts with initiative, with Player Characters who succeed on the roll going before the monsters, and those who fail, after. A Player Character can perform one action per round, either a ‘Strike’, ‘Shoot’, ‘Spell’, or ‘Stunt’ action. A Stunt can be physical or verbal, and could be swinging on a chandelier to get across a room, taunting a villain, or diving into a pool of water to avoid a blast of magical fire. A Stunt can modify another action or an action in its own right. Most monsters will perform the ‘Strike’ action, whilst enemies or monsters with the ‘Elite’ tag are likely to have more options. The round ends when everyone has acted. If the Player Characters decide to keep going, they can each either gain a point of Stamina or a point of Luck. If they decide on the latter, they also gain a point of Threat, up to a maximum of three. If the monsters decide to keep going, they can trigger their escalation abilities, which might be special abilities, call for reinforcements, and so on.

To perform an attack, the player rolls a number of equal to the appropriate attribute, whilst the Game Master will roll the enemies’ Monster Rating. An enemy’s Monster Rating ranges between two and the average mook all the way up to six and thoroughly dangerous. The roll itself is an opposed roll, the aim being to roll more hits than the opponent. Tags, whether from the weapons and gear used, from the situation, or the monsters’ abilities, will affect the number of dice rolled, the amount of damage inflicted, and more.

Both sides will also add extra dice equal to their opponents’ Threat to the dice they roll. In addition, enemies will tend to target opponents who have higher Threat.

If the attacker rolls more hits than the defender, he wins, and the difference in the number of hits rolled is the amount of damage inflicted. If the defender rolls more hits than the attacker, no damage is inflicted. Armour reduces the damage suffered. Damage reduces Stamina. If reduced to zero for a monster, it is defeated, but for a Player Character, it means that he is wounded. His Stamina is then reset, but whilst he is wounded, if it is reduced to zero again, he is dead. For the enemies, Monster Rating does not reduce.

How does magic work?
Magic in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is primarily gained from the Path of Wizardry selected during Player Character creation. A Player Character on the Path of Wizardry begins play with the ‘Wellspring’ Talent that enables him to regain or increase mana by spending Luck. His bonus talent will either be ‘Hexology’ or ‘Weaving’. The latter provides the Mending spell, whilst the latter gives Blasting Hex. Mending is actually a healing spell, restoring Stamina equal to the number of hits rolled. Blasting Hex is a damage spell, requiring an Intelligence roll versus an enemy’s Monster Rating. Damage inflicted ignores armour and the spell requires the caster to yell out something like, “Take That You Fiend!” in a nod to classic Tunnels & Trolls spell of the same name. All spells cost Mana to cast, with each point cast also increasing the number of dice a player rolls. 

What do you play?

The scenario in the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is ‘Trouble Brewing’. The world of Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age is one of trolls. In ages past, during the Eclipse, the Trolls smashed the great kingdoms and empires of the time, burying their secrets, technologies, and magic deep in the earth, where they remain today. When the sun returned, the Trolls fled and the world was rebuilt. Both Trolls and the past remain underground where would be heroes might find them. In ‘Trouble Brewing’, the Player Characters have come to Rust Bucket, the very run-down and only tavern in Market Tharnley where they have heard there is a tunnel entrance to be found. It is a detailed, two-act affair, initially focusing upon interaction and investigation along with some roleplay, as the Player Characters attempt to find out more from the Owlfolk barkeep, the adventuring patrons, and the locals. In the second act, the barkeep hires/cajoles/blackmails the Player Characters into investigating the cellar, having a fight with some surprisingly tough rats, and discovering a troll tunnel.

‘Trouble Brewing’ is more of a means to showcase the new Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age rules in play rather than provide a complete story from beginning to end.

Is there anything missing?
No. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide has everything the Game Master and her players will need to play. However, the scenario is very much an introduction at only two scenes long and thus provides only a limited play experience.

Is it easy to prepare?
Unfortunately, the Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is not as easy to prepare as it could have been as it is quite detailed and there is a lot to go through, including character generation, before play can begin. There is a greater number of factors—Luck, Mana, Tags, and so on—for the Game Master and her players to keep track off during play as well. Players of previous versions of Tunnels & Trolls will find a much changed game, although there elements present from those previous editions. The roleplaying game is also not as fast playing as those previous editions, but does offer more options in terms of what the Player Characters can do.

Is it worth it?
Yes—for the most part. The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide presents a solid introduction to the rules, including combat, character generation, and interaction. It is also supported by examples of both play and combat and there is advice for the Game Master. However, the included adventure, ‘Trouble Brewing’, is short and will only provide a limited play experience. 

The Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age – Quickstart Guide is published by Rebellion Unplugged and is available to download here.

1975: Tunnels & Trolls

1974 is an important year for the gaming hobby. It is the year that Dungeons & Dragons was introduced, the original RPG from which all other RPGs would ultimately be derived and the original RPG from which so many computer games would draw for their inspiration. It is fitting that the current owner of the game, Wizards of the Coast, released the new version, Dungeons & Dragons, Fifth Edition, in the year of the game’s fortieth anniversary, and the new edition of that, Dungeons & Dragons, 2024, in the year of the game’s fiftieth anniversary. To celebrate this, Reviews from R’lyeh will be running a series of reviews from the hobby’s anniversary years, thus there will be reviews from 1974, from 1984, from 1994, and from 2004—the thirtieth, twentieth, and tenth anniversaries of the titles. These will be retrospectives, in each case an opportunity to re-appraise interesting titles and true classics decades on from the year of their original release.

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Tunnels & Trolls was famously written and published in response to Dungeons & Dragons. The designer, Ken St. Andre, wanted something that played like Dungeons & Dragons, but was both faster and easier to play. The result was a short booklet, running to just forty-two pages, that he would write and publish in 1975 and find popularity, first in Phoenix, Arizona, followed by the USA and the rest of the world, being published in the United Kingdom and Japan and going through over eight editions. The Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition Reprint was published as part of the Kickstarter campaign for Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls and it gave fans of the roleplaying game a chance to look at the original version of the game, previously all but impossible, since only a hundred copies were published.

The Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition Reprint begins with an introduction by Ken St. Andre, which explains how both it and Tunnels & Trolls came to be, making it accessible after his last remaining copy was made available to, and selected by, one backer as part of the Kickstarter. He makes clear that his aim was not to reinvent fantasy roleplaying, but to simplify it and what he created was a style that was not derived from miniatures gaming as was Dungeons & Dragons, but more from literature and comics. In the process, as he says, he showed that there was another way to roleplay. Given that this version of Tunnels & Trolls was written and published in 1975, there are two issues with it in terms of content. One the author addressed in 2020, the other he has not. St. Andre states in a footnote that the spell Obey Me was originally called ‘Yassa Massa’ and that although his original intention was simply to amuse with what he calls his “thoughtless word play”, he changed it to avoid giving further offence as well as giving an apology. Whereas, in the section on ‘Human Auxiliaries’, a hero can hire two types of auxiliary character to accompany him on his delves. One is the hired henchman, the other is the slave, who is said to have no luck and no charisma ratings, and usually be of low I.Q. Female slaves cost extra. This could and should have been addressed at the time of publication, in 2013, or even 2020, but even now, it could be addressed, just as the ‘Yassa Massa’ spell name was.

Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition begins by explaining the basics of the game, which though very familiar today, would have been strange in 1975. The game is set in, “…[A]n alternate world where fantasy is alive and magic works (a world somewhat but not exactly similar to Tolkien’s Middle Earth) there exist numerous enchanted tunnel complexes with many types of treasure, and abundantly guarded by every imaginable form of monster, magic, and trap.” and that, “Brave men and women arm themselves and venture within the tunnels at the risk of body and soul to seek treasure and experience.” This requires that someone create or ‘dig’ and stock a dungeon with magic, monsters, and treasure, and that as the ‘Dungeon Master’, this person would act as the god within the dungeon, but till be fair to the other players, who will create and equip the character who will venture into this dungeon. Once set up, “The game is played something like Battleship.” Not the sense that there are two boards of which each player can only see their own, but rather that there is only one, which is, of course, known to the Dungeon Master, who will then reveal to the players as their characters explore its depths.

It is clear from the introduction that St. Andre is explaining what would have been a very new concept to the reader. After all, Dungeons & Dragons had only introduced it the previous year, which the author acknowledges in thanking both E. Gary Gygax and David Arneson for creating the original roleplaying game. The author also makes clear that the game is not his beyond making it available to others and encourages the reader to improve the rules as their imagination dictates.

After some advice on creating and stocking dungeons, Tunnels & Trolls explains how to create characters, noting here for the first time that their details can be recorded on three-by-five-inch cards. A character has six Prime Attributes. These are Strength, Intelligence, Luck, Constitution, Dexterity, and Charisma. In addition, the character has a note of the Gold Pieces possessed, and the weight he can carry and is carrying. He will also have Armour and Weapons, and will speak Common, but may know some other Languages. In terms of what he can be, the three types are Warrior, Magic-User, and Rogue, inspired by Conan, Gandalf, and Cugel, respectively. The Warrior cannot cast spells; the Magic-User can cast spells, but is extremely limited in what weapons he can wield; and the Rogue can both use weapons and cast spells, but does not start with spells, must find someone to teach him any spells, and cannot rise beyond Seventh Level without choosing to continue as either a Warrior or a Magic-User. Creating a character involves rolling three six-sided dice for each Prime Attribute and then again for the amount of gold he has to spend on equipment. Note that six-sided dice are used throughout Tunnels & Trolls rather than the polyhedral dice of Dungeons & Dragons, the aim being to make the game more accessible since it did not require special dice.

Name: Trigeor

Type: Magic-User

Strength 11 Intelligence 18 Luck 14

Constitution 09 Dexterity 14 Charisma 12 Gold 5

Weight Possible: 1100 Weight Carried: 136 Experience Points: 0

Weapons: Dagger (1 die)

Armour: None

Equipment: Calf-High Boots, Warm Dry Clothing & Pack, Day’s Provisions, Ten Torches, Magnetic Compass, Makeshift Magic Staff

Languages: Common, Elvish, Dwarfish, Draconic, Orcish, Trollish, Undead

Tunnels & Trolls quickly moves onto monsters and combat. Monsters have a single stat, called a Monster Rating. It indicates how tough a monster is and how many dice are rolled for it in combat, and it starts at zero and goes up and up. A minimum Monster Rating of ten gives one die, but for every five points after that, it increases the number of dice by one, and beyond one hundred, it increases the number of dice by one for every ten points. On the first round of a combat, half of a monster’s Monster Rating is added to the roll, but only a quarter is added on subsequent rounds. This addition is known as the monster’s ‘Add’. What Tunnels & Trolls does not do is give a list of monsters or a bestiary. The Dungeon Master is expected to set the Monster Ratings for his dungeon denizens according to the level of the dungeon, with the nearest advice given by Tunnels & Trolls is that a good fighter should have an equivalent Monster Rating of between twenty-six and forty and be roughly equal to a troll. However, this is probably the weakest aspect of Tunnels & Trolls since it is not clear what Monster Ratings the Dungeon Master should be assigning to his dungeon dwellers.

Interestingly, the rules do not give a set way in which to handle monsters encountered on the lower levels of the dungeon, but instead give options, because opinions vary in how it should be done. The monster could have more dice and a bigger Add, its dice roll could be multiplied by the level, a monster could even be stated up like a character, or simply a bigger Add. This calls back to St. Andre’s statement in the introduction about the game not being his.

Combat is either missile combat, melee combat, or shock combat for that initial engagement. There is advice on the differences between these types, plus monster reactions, wandering monsters, and even capturing monsters, but once engaged, combat is a simple matter of comparing hit point totals. Not the amount of damage that a character or monster can suffer before dying, but the totals of the dice rolled plus any Adds. This can be individually, one-on-one, or it can be collectively. The latter means that the Dungeon Master can add up all of the Monster Ratings for his monsters and roll their dice and add their Adds, all in one go, rather than individually. The lower result is subtracted from the higher result and that is the number of hit points the losing side suffers. For the monsters, this reduces their Monster Rating, but for characters, it is deducted from their Constitutions. Both armour and shields will protect against incoming hit points, but armour will be damaged in the process.

Magic-Users are not expected to fight, and indeed, are restricted to single die weapons and shields, but can use their spells to protect themselves if they have the right ones. Also, when determining who suffers from hit points taken, the Magic-User does so last. Warriors and Rogue do get Adds, whereas the Magic-User does not. For each point of Strength and Luck above twelve, a Warrior or Rogue gains one Add to dice rolls in combat, but subtracts one for each point of Strength and Luck below nine. This is the same for Dexterity, except for missile fire where the Adds are increased to two per point above. Although a character will always have a single die to roll in combat, the main means of increasing the dice rolled and the Adds is by purchasing weapons. Later on, a character’s Primary Attributes can be increased, which will raise the Adds and the character will find magical items that will increase both dice rolled and Adds.

Name: Glorimnaeck Orchelm

Species: Dwarf

Type: Warrior

Strength 26 Intelligence 08 Luck 13

Constitution 26 Dexterity 11 Charisma 10 Gold 1

Weight Possible: 1300 Weight Carried: 136 Experience Points: 0

Weapons: Warhammer (4+1), Poniard (1)

Armour: Gambeson, Chain Hauberk, Chain Gauntlets (4 total), Target Shield (2)

Equipment: Calf-High Boots, Warm Dry Clothing & Pack

Languages: Common, Elvish, Dwarfish, Draconic, Orcish, Trollish, Undead

Base Adds: +28

For example, Trigeor and his Dwarven friend, Glorimnaeck Orchelm, have ventured into a dungeon, known as the Orc ’Ole. Despite carrying a compass, the pair get lost and find themselves being attacked by a band of Orcs. There are three of them, each with a Monster Rating of twelve. Individually, the Dungeon Master would be rolling one die and adding an ADD of six on the first found, but only two on later rounds. Collectively, they have a Monster Rating of thirty-six, meaning that the Referee will roll five dice and add eighteen on the first round, but only nine on later rounds. Glorimnaeck Orchelm’s player will roll four dice and add one for his Warhammer, and then another twenty-six for his Adds. 

The Referee rolls two, three, three, three, five, and six for a total of twenty-two, which together with the Orcs’ Adds, gives a total Hit Points of forty. Glorimnaeck Orchelm’s player rolls better with four, four, five, six, and six and adds one to give a total of twenty-six, which with the Dwarf’s Adds, means he has a grand total Hit Points of fifty-two! The Orcs’ Hit Points are subtracted from Glorimnaeck Orchelm’s and the resulting twelve Hit Points reduce the Orcs’ Monster Rating by twelve to twenty-four. The twelve is also enough to reduce one of the Orc’s Monster Rating to zero, so the Dungeon Master rules that Glorimnaeck Orchelm has smashed his head in and he goes flying back into the cave. Next round, the Orcs will have a Monster Rating of twenty-four, meaning that the Referee will roll three dice and only apply an Add of four!

The other main mechanic in Tunnels & Trolls is the Saving Throw. It is rolled to avoid a trap, to dodge a missile weapon attack, to withstand a poisonous brew, and so on, and it is always rolled using a character’s Luck. It also varies according to dungeon level. Thus, in the first level of a dungeon, a character’s Luck is subtracted from twenty to give the target number, but on the second level of the dungeon, it is subtracted from twenty-five, and so on. The resulting number gives a target that the player must roll equal to or higher, on two six-sided dice, but the target can never be lower than five. (For example, Trigeor’s Saving Throw will always be six on the first level of the dungeon, rising to eleven on the second level, and sixteen on the third level, until Luck is raised.) Rolls of doubles enable a player to add and roll again, so an impossible Saving Throw can be made if the character is lucky.

Experience points in the game are earned for combat, treasure found, for the deepest level of the dungeon a character visited, using and finding magic, and for successful Saving Throws. The progression table is all the same for all three character types, goes up to Seventeenth Level, and awards a character with a new title at each Level. The main reward for going up a Level is for a player to increase his character’s Primary Attributes, though typically only one can be increased per Level.

Tunnels & Trolls provides a basic list of equipment, in the second half of the roleplaying game, ‘Elaborations’ it includes a lengthy list of arms and armour and further equipment. There is an Advanced Weapons Chart in turn for swords, pole weapons, hafted weapons, daggers, spears, bows, and other missile weapons. Then for shields and defensive weapons, weird weapons, poisons, and armour. There are rules too for weapon breakage, depending on their composition. From flamberge, talibong, and shotel to riding mail, scale armour, and arming doublet, here then is the basis of all the weird and wonderful weapons that have been listed in all of the subsequent editions of Tunnels & Trolls.

Also in the ‘Elaborations’ section is ‘The Peters-McAllister Chart for Creating Manlike Characters and Monsters’, which like the advice and opinions on adjusting Monster Rating per dungeon Level, highlights the collaborative nature of the design of Tunnels & Trolls. This chart lists adjustments for creating Dwarves, Elves, Leprechauns, Fairies, and Hobbits, which can be both used to create monsters and characters. That said, playing characters in general of these species grants greater improvements to Primary Attributes with no downsides. There is guidance too, to adjust for Giants, Trolls, Ogres, Half-Ogres, Goblins, and Gremlins.

The largest section in the ‘Elaborations’, taking up nearly half its length and a quarter of Tunnels & Trolls as a whole, is on magic. Magic-Users are encouraged to use a staff, even a make-shift one through which to cast their magic, as they reduce the cost of casting magic, although a makeshift one will burn out very quickly. A proper magic-staff costs a lot of gold. The section notes that, “There are recognized laws of magic that we have mostly ignored in dreaming up the spells--the Law of Contagion, the Law of Similarity, the principles of necromancy and control of spirits, preferring instead to base most of these spells on inherent abilities of the magic-user a la Andre Norton.” What this means is that casting spells in Tunnels & Trolls is meant to be quick and easy. Spells have a cost in the caster’s actual Strength Primary Ability, which then has to regenerate. (This also means that Strength as a Primary Attribute is still important to a Magic-User and a Primary Attribute that he will want to increase to give spell-casting capacity.). All Magic-Users know First Level spells, whilst spells of higher Level have a minimum I.Q. to learn and cost in gold to purchase. One of the notable spells at First Level is Teacher, which lets a Magic-User teach a spell to a Rogue. Of course, here also, are the first appearances of the humorous, some would say silly, spell names for which Tunnels & Trolls is infamous. For example, Take That, You Fiend as a damage spell, Poor Baby, Poor Baby for the healing spell, and so on. If they are in the main, tongue in cheek in tone, they are not always clear in their intent. The Dungeon Master would have had to adjudicate on things like the Will-o-Wisp spell, whose effect is, “provides light & drains strength”. Yet, the magic system for Tunnels & Trolls is simple and straightforward, even elegant, effectively a points-based system—the first—that empowers the Magic-User and constantly makes him useful in play.

As Glorimnaeck Orchelm gamely holds back the band of Orcs, Trigeor holds a torch so that it is not dark and prepares himself just in case he has to cast a spell. Just behind the melee, the Magic-User spots another Orc, bigger than the others. This is their boss and he has a Monster Rating of eighteen, meaning that the Dungeon Master will roll two dice for him and include an Add of nine in the first round and an Add of three in later rounds. Quickly, Trigeor cries out, “Take that you fiend!” and casts the spell of the same name at the newly arrived Orc. It costs him five Strength rather than the usual six, since he is casting it through his staff, which being only a makeshift one, fizzes and burns as the magic passes through it. The spell means that Trigeor will be using his I.Q. to attack the Orc, and in addition will gain a single die as normal. Since Trigeor has an I.Q. of eighteen, it is going to kill the Orc. The Orcs attacking the Dwarf look behind them as they hear a popping sound to discover their boss collapsing to the floor, steam rising from his eyes and ears!

Physically, the Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition Reprint—and thus Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition—is a scrappy , scruffy, inconsistent affair. It looks and reads very much like a fanzine of the period. Yet it is readable and it is illustrated in very spritely, engaging fashion.

—oOo—

It not be until the second edition of Tunnels & Trolls was reviewed in ‘Tunnels and Trolls: A Review of Sorts’ by Brant Bates in The Space Gamer Issue Number 3 (1975). He highlighted the differences between Tunnels & Trolls and Dungeons & Dragons, beginning with, “There is no sexist bias In T&T, Female characters come out exactly as created by the dice--not reduced in size and strength by an arbitrary fraction just because they are female.” before going on to look at other differences in terms of character creation and combat. He was overall positive about the art, saying, “It is mostly by a Phoenix fan artist named Rob Carver, and it ranges from the gorgeous to the ridiculous--mostly the latter. The cartoon to illustrate the magical spells are very droll, and the portrait of St. Andre captures his very soul.” He concluded with, “T&T has been sold from coast to coast, but is still most popular in Phoenix, where it has become the official game of the organized SF club there. It is very playable, and a lot of fun--great for stretching the old imagination. I recommend it for fantasy fans who are not purists, and who do not necessarily believe a game’s quality depends on its cost.” 

Lewis Pulsipher reviewed the British version published by Strategy Games Ltd. in ‘Open Box’ in White Dwarf Issue No. 2 (August/September 1977). He said, “The excuse for publication here and now, presumably, is that there is a need for a cheap and understandable role playing game for those who can’t afford or make sense of D&D.” but was otherwise not positive, criticising the lack of clarity in the rules, the amount of creative effort that a Referee had to put into the game, and the humour in the game, especially in the names of the spells. His conclusion was that, “Anyone who likes T&T will sooner or later ‘graduate’ to the much more satisfying (and much more widely played) D&D. In considerable wargaming travels in the USA I never encountered anyone who played T&T, though D&D players are everywhere, and I’ve not even heard of anyone in this country who plays it. When it first appeared in America I said there was no point in it, and nothing has occurred to change my opinion.”

—oOo—

Tunnels & Trolls is rough and just about ready. It is playable and by modern standards, just about has the bare minimum need to play. This should be no surprise. It was written fifty years ago when no one knew quite what a roleplaying game was—literally, as the term had then yet to be defined—and no-one knew how to write one. So, if the writing is not right and the explanations are not as clear as they could have been, and the contents are not in the order that we might expect them to be, then that is perfectly understandable. Yet, as scrappy as the resulting rulebook is, Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition is a likeable game, one that is not taking itself too seriously and reads as if it is actually fun to play and faster to play. What is amazing is that within four years, Flying Buffalo would take the very basics of what is here and develop it into the fifth edition of Tunnels & Trolls that would remain its mainstay for over twenty-five years! The Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition Reprint is an important piece of roleplaying history, the opportunity to look at the first roleplaying response to Dungeons & Dragons outside of TSR, Inc., to look at the origins of the world’s second longest fantasy roleplaying game, and to look at the beginnings of the roleplaying hobby as the concept spread beyond Dungeons & Dragons.