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But the seed had been planted. I started obsessing over how refined the combat and magic system, or so I remembered. I glanced at the tomes that make up 3.5 and decided I needed something simpler to play, a game which was based more upon the gameplay and not so much on the rules.
Well, in that time more than a few weeks had passed and when I returned the game store Tunnels & Trolls had been bought by someone else and not restocked. No! A quick search on the Internet led my to the Flying Buffalo website and within moments I had ordered the boxed set.
The day dawned bright and clear when the mailman dropped the package by the front door. I opened it with glee, much quicker than either of my boy's opening their Christmas morning loot. Amid the rolled up newspaper in the small box I found the Tunnels & Trolls Boxed Set. I tore off the shrinkwrap in a frenzy, shaking the lid off the box.
Inside I found: the revised 5.5 Tunnels & Trolls Rules book; "Castle Ward," a GM scenario; "The City of Terror," a solo adventure; a character pack of about 12 pre-generated characters; and three six-sided dice. All-in-all, the box is about two inches thick, and there's still room to spare inside.
The rules are indeed stripped down when compared to their modern-day counterparts. Combat is a much simpler affair, as is magic, character generation...everything about Tunnels & Trolls is a very watered down version of another game which was very popular when Tunnels & Trolls was originally written in the mid-to-late 1970s. The designer, Ken St. Andre, acknowledges such and has never said otherwise. The rules allow such freedom that it seems that the player's characters could do just about anything, hampered only by their imaginations. The writing style employed by St. Andre is clear, concise, but almost too friendly. It is almost like the designer is sitting there beside you, holding your hand and leading you along. And at some point I guess someone told him he had a very funny sense of humor. Most of his jokes and puns (and the rules are rife with them) fall flat nowadays, though I find it hard to imagine them being any different all of those decades ago.
The rules can be read in an afternoon; I did such and had a character rolled-up by that evening. I led "Cutter" through "Buffalo Castle" the solo adventure in the rule book. And was promptly killed by an octopus in the fourth room I entered. That soured me to the game, and so I tried again. And again I died. I scratched my head and wondered if I were handling combat the right way. I double-checked the rules; I was playing right. Maybe I just needed another character to travel alongside Cutter?
Upon flipping through "The City of Terror" solo adventure, I was first taken by the mildewy smell and the yellowing of its pages. This is no reprint but an original copy! Interestingly enough, there is an even more watered down version of most of the Tunnels & Trolls rules included at the beginning of the adventure. It is suggested by the author that any adventurer into "The City of Terror" should have a few levels under their belt. Cutter would be no match for anything he might stumble across, so I put aside the adventure for another day.
The GM scenario titled "Castle Ward" is a bare-bones adventure for a GM to run with a group of players. There is enough information to play the scenario out, but a resourceful GM will need to clarify certain aspects of the adventure while doing a decent ad-lib for most of the game. Sure, GMs do this in every game, but most adventures give you more than four pages of information. "Castle Ward" does not do this and as the GM you really must prepare the adventure for play.
Finally, the pre-generated characters are copied (and badly, too) on Canary yellow cardstock. There is a decent mix between wizards, warrior, and rogues, I suppose, but their presentation left a bit to be desired.
Since acquiring the game my wife and brother have each rolled up a character and are looking forward to playing. I really talked this game up in the ensuing time between seeing it and actually having my copy in hand. Unfortunately, as I write this review, I find my interest in the game waning. Badly.
There just doesn't seem to be enough meat to Tunnels & Trolls to sink my teeth into as a GM. And while I suppose the price of the game is comparable to what was included in the box, I just feel underwhelmed by the presentation. I still plan on playing through an adventure or two, before deciding whether to continue on into a full-blown campaign.
That jog down memory lane has turned into a limp, and I find myself hoping that it wasn't nostalgia that talked me into getting the Tunnels & Trolls Boxed Set. Only time will tell, I suppose. In the end, it's almost worth the price of admission, but I'm not sure I'm going to enjoy my time spent in the world of Tunnels & Trolls.
