The Trollish Taproom - It's Fiendishly Simple

When I first came across Tunnels and Trolls back in the early 80s (probably 83 or 84) it felt incomplete to me. Where where the monsters? Was there another book for the monsters, like AD&D? What are my players supposed to fight?

I cut my teeth on AD&D, and the simplicity of T&T didn't gel well with me in my teenage years. That's a damn shame. I just couldn't understand that monsters could be defined with a single number, representing both attack strength (dice plus adds) and hit points. One number to work with, multiple purposes.

As an aside, this is the same teenager that spent a summer DMing for his friends in the Poconos, with just the Player's Handbook and the Dungeon Master's Guide - no Monster Manual. I didn't understand that an Ogre's HD of 4+1 was actually 4d8+1... I thought 4+1=5 HP. Yeah, my players were tearing thru stuff that summer.

So, it T&T, it's very easy to create a monster. All you need to do is give it an MR and a description. The addition of "spite damage" and special "procing damage" allows one to truly make unique adversaries for their party.

This is something that Raggi seems to be striving for with his LotFP Weird Fantasy rules. Where monsters are unique and scary, something that D&D and it's clones have a hard time accomplishing with their books of monsters.

Still, that is one of the many things T&T 7.5e did right - it gives us a monster book or two. In my mind, they are more for use as examples then anything else, to show what one can quickly build with the T&T rules. Then again, Claudio's Poza's art helps anyone's imagination ;)

It a Lethargic Monday

The Jets win over the Patriots sapped me last nite... in a good way. Still, I am exhausted this morning. It doesn't help that i had to drop my car off at the mechanic yesterday... it didn't want to start. After many attempts and frequent prayers we got it going, but I suspect the starter is the problem. I guess i'll know later today.

My review slush pile is getting a bit too large, so I need to plow thru it a bit in the next week or two. Thank God its 100% virtual, or I'd be buried under it all ;)

I actually saw a commercial for the new DC Comics MMORPG during the Jets / Pats game. It looked cool, I just hate super hero based MMORPGs. I can only run around the same block so many times before I'm bored outa my skull.

The Trollish Taproom - Free GM Adventures for Tunnels & Trolls

Tunnels & Trolls is the only game system I can think of that you have to be specific about the TYPE of adventures you are referring to.  There is a real dearth of available adventure for a GM to run a party thru, which is probably why many (including myself for the longest time) think of Tunnels & Trolls as a SOLO play system - either in total or nearly so.

There are party driven adventures out there for T&T, you just need to look for them a bit harder then you might for a D&D clone.

Where might you find those elusive GM Adventures for Tunnels & Trolls?  At the Hobgoblin's Tavern, AR Holmes Proprietor (no relationship to Tenkar's Tavern - just sayin').  There are about 20 free to download GM adventures on the site (and a number of not free but very well done solos).  So you have a campaign or two worth of adventures on just this one site (I am actively searching for more).

Enjoy :)

Mini Review - The Malady of Kings for Castles & Crusades

Some of you may remember The Malady of Kings from the D20/OGL era of the RPG timeline.  Originally it was written for D&D 3e and has just recently been converted to Troll Lord's Castles & Crusades ruleset.  If you don't know about Castles & Crusades, think of a highly house-ruled AD&D 1e - at least, that's how I think about it.

Anyhow, back to The Malady of Kings.  I've been noticing a slight uptick in higher level adventures in the OSR corner and this is no exception - it's rated for levels 10-12. (as a side note, at the rate my current C&C group is leveling, we might be ready for this when I am retired ;)

Regretfully, it's about 15 years since I've run or played in an adventure higher then the mid levels (say about 8th level) in any of the D&D variants.  My instincts tell me some of the magic item rewards may be a bit overpowering, but as some of that comes from having to kill an adult dragon, it might be balanced by risk / reward ratio.

I love the artwork, but I'm a huge Peter Bradley fan, so that's to be expected.

Overall, I think it's a fairly strong adventure.  It fills a needed niche for C&C, it that it's a nice challenge for higher level characters.

From the blurb:

But she lingered still, in the world of the living, a haunt barred from the Stone Fields, where the noble dead lie, for a desire so deep death cannot claim her; now, upon the edge of the Wretched Plains her ghost is fearful and restless.

Gods are moved by greater things than mortal man. Lonely upon his gilded chair St. Luther, god of Aihrde, Lord of Dreams, King Palatine of Kayomar, father, and husband sits in restless slumber. He dreams of times long forgotten and people long passed from the world. He knows not that he slumbers, nor that he dreams. He sits, dreaming forgotten dreams, stalking the corridors of his memory, reliving the moments of his life. For ever is it the Malady of Kings that they forget. 

After his long wars, Saint Luther, Lord of Dreams, retired to the Sea of Dreams where he took up residence in the great Castle Pendegrantz. Here he ruled over the Dreams of mortals, forgetting those thoughts of his own. His one true love, Queen Vivienne had died, this he knew; but unbeknownst to him her spirit did not pass to the Stone Fields where the good rest forever. Instead it lingered in the world, awaiting his return. She haunts her crypt, looking for him and the ring she gave him, and that he promised to return. Her haunting has left the Lord of Dreams troubled, though he does not know why. His mind is ever wandering, attempting to grasp that troubled thought that lies just beyond his vision. 

The crypt, the Friden Anhohe is haunted by her ghost; it is up to the characters to find it, discover who or what she is and to free her from her haunted curse. But they are not alone, for an ancient and vile wizard, who wishes to gain access to the Sea of Dreams and to Saint Luther has learned of her fate and wishes to keep her in her role for it troubles the Lord of Dreams and makes him vulnerable to the wizard’s attack. 

The characters, if they dare take up the mantle of adventure, must take the perilous road that crosses the wilds of the Eldwood, flings them upon the face of the turbulent Sea of Dreams and must at last bring them to the shores of the Isle of Blight where evil has taken root. Here they must solve the riddles of the wizard’s sorcery, encounter monsters of epic proportion before ever they come into the presence of Saint Luther, Lord of Dreams. Even then danger awaits them for the Lord’s slumber is a perilous thing to disturb. 

A Note from the Author: "The original d20 version of this adventure was a fun adventure, but it tended to place the emphasis of the story on the demi-gods that peopled the adventure and shift it away from the characters and their actions. This approach does not work in Castles & Crusades and I have modified the adventure accordingly. A new introductory encounter has been added to the advent as well as a drastic alteration in the way the plot unfolds. In all about 15-20000 words have been added, that about 15-20 pages. Malady of Kings was one of our best selling d20 adventures, I hope you enjoy this revisiting as much!" 

BTW, its also available in a bundle with Dragonshire: Windmill & Cottage from Fat Dragon Games.

Ashley Underfoot

My little girl plans to keep me from my keyboard today. More football watching it seems ;)



- Posted from my iPhone

The Trollish Taproom - Deathtrap Equalizer 1st Printing on its Way

For those that don't know, Ken St Andre, aka The Trollgod, run's weekly auctions for the members of Trollhalla.  Ken gets to clear out space and make some extra cash, and the rest of us get to pick up some priceless additions to our gaming collection.

This is how I picked up Tunnels & Trolls 2e.  It's also how I just picked up a first printing of the second Tunnels & Trolls solo.  I'm having a blast collecting T&T stuff.

In the last auction, the cool stuff I didn't win, was an original Liz Danforth piece of art and the Japanese printing of the Tunnels & Trolls 7.5 boxed set.

In any case, I am eagerly awaiting my First Printing of Deathtrap Equalizer to arrive ;)

Game Prep

No, not game prep for a rousing session of dice rolling. I'm talking about prepping for tomorrow afternoon's Jets game.

Already have the beer. Getting the Pizza Hut Pizza today to heat up in my tabletop pizza oven tomorrow.

Sorry to hear Christian is cutting out his Nerd Sunday cooking. I feel like it's the end of an era.


- Posted from my iPhone

The Trollish Taproom - The Tangled Web of Tunnels & Trolls 7.5e

I love my Tunnels & Trolls 7.5e Boxed set.  The thing is so jam packed, the lid doesn't even close properly.  The same thing I love about it is probably the main issue with it.

The extras compared to the 7e Tin Set are the addition of the Monstrum Codex, Codex Incantum, Strange Destinies and Hot Pursuit.  These add an excellent value to the set.  They are also Outlaw Press products.

The Delver's Pack for 7.5e is all Outlaw Press stuff: Monstrum Codex II, Codex Incantum II, Trollgod's Exciting Random Rooms of Ruination and Hunting Party are also Outlaw Press products, repackaged by Fiery Dragon for the Delver's Pack.

I guess I never realized how linked T&T 7.5e is to OP, at least I didn't until I sat down and did a survey of what I own.  I never realized how much of 7.5e was just some repackaging by Fiery Dragon.

No big statement, just an observation.

My biggest problems with 7.5e (from a player / GM perspective) is the leveling / stat increase system.  To me, it feels broken compared to 5/5.5e.  Oh, and the included solo is totally the wrong choice to include in the initial boxed set.  You want a solo a newbie can play, not die in the first encounter.

The Games I Own, But Have Never Played - West End Games Star Wars

To be fully honest, I own the core rules to each version of the Star Wars RPGs, and have yet to play any of them. That being said, WEG's D6 Star Wars is the one that I really wanted to play.

The system was easy enough to understand, the books were really evocative of the first three Star Wars movies (not to be confused with Chapters I-III of the Star Wars Saga). I could read the rules and have a pretty good idea of how it would play out in my head.

It's just that no one else wanted to play Star Wars. Heck, they would choose Star Ace before Star Wars, and I did run a decent 3 player campaign using the Space Master rules. Sci-Fi wasn't the issue, I think it was a fear of the Star Wars canon. Sometimes its easier to be the hero where the setting wasn't already decided on the major plot line.

Maybe one day I can use the now Open D6 rules for a decent Sci-Fi campaign, without the light sabers and the Jedi Mind Tricks ;)

The Trollish Taproom - Tunnels & Trolls Starter Kit (via the Trollish Delver)

The Trollish Delver put together a pretty nice and complete Tunnels & Trolls Starter Kit back in November of last year that had a zero cost buy in. Yep, all the downloads were free. That's the link above. Go there. Get some stuff. For free. I'll wait.
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Back? Cool, because I'm gonna send you to places to get more Tunnels & Trolls stuff for free. Legit and all that. Ready?

FreeDungeons.com - some free T&T solos that you can play right on your computer screen. How cool is that? Know what is even cooler? There is a variant ruleset based on the Tunnels & Trolls 4e rules available for free download, as well as links to the free Tunnels & Trolls Trollzine.

Trollmancer - a whole lotta solos - more then 3 or 4 (sorry, Bugs Bunny on my brain). Truly, a goldmine of T&T gaming, between The Trollish Delver's links and the two above, you can game for weeks... even months.

Remember, always use safe gaming methods when playing by yourself ;)

Oh, and solos also work pretty well as a GM and one player adventures if you are so inclined.

The Games I Own, But Have Never Played - FATE

I really dig FATE. I liked it in SotC, I was excited with what I saw with Starblazer's Adventures, Strands of FATE kicked my imagination into high gear - and I'll probably never play it.

Believe it or not, I'm okay with that. I'm actually afraid that FATE might not play as well as it reads, because it reads very well. Okay, maybe that doesn't make the most sense. The thing is, SotC reads better then any game I could run, and I'm not sure my old gaming group would be able to sink their teeth into the FATE system, as they are big on crunch, which FATE seems to grind under its capital letters.

I won't pack SotC away, as it is a good read unto itself. The rest of my FATE is in PDF, so I have access to it wherever my iPad is. I may not get a chance to play with FATE, but I'll read it. That can't be too bad.

I've Got a Ticket to Ride

Saturdays are the day that my girl, my mother and myself often sit down for board games. Last year we did a lot of Carcasone. When we added in the Big Box, it became one hell of a production.

Recently we started playing a lot of Uno, more for the ease of set-up and play then anything else. I didn't have the energy to be the point man keeping all the various rules from then big box in line, and neither my mother nor my fiancée were so inclined to me the rule master.

Last Saturday I broke out Ticket to Ride for the first time. It was a blast. Nice change of pace from Uno and Carcosone. If my folks weren't going away for the weekend, its a safe bet it would be returning to the table. It may need to wait a week or two, but it shall return.

Hmmm... I don't think I could get them to play Decent...

Serenity RPG License Coming to an End

Margaret Weis Productions' license to produce and distribute Serenity (aka Firefly) is coming to an end on January 31st.  You can pick up a full set of the RPG books in deadtree for $100 bucks at their site,  or you can pick it up piecemeal in PDF over at RPGNow.

I'm sure it will remain on shelves of game stores for a bit, but the PDFs at RPGNow will be coming to an end on January 31st.

I loved the TV series and enjoyed the movie.  I haven't really checked out the game.  I'm pretty sure I'd never have a chance to play it, but if the rpg books make for good reading I'm all in.  The prices seem fairly reasonable on RPGNow for the line.

Anyone have Serenity already and can offer some advice?  Is it worth picking up just to flesh out what I've already watched on my TV screen?

Another Near Miss

Mother Nature struck a glancing blow to NYC last nite, as the snow was no where near as bad as had been predicted. Five minutes of shoveling and my car was commute ready. Not saying all the roads were, but by the time I head home I expect clear driving.

Whenever I see snow forecasts of 8-14", of 12-18" I wonder if snowfall amounts are as variable as D&D combat damage - "Roll 2d4 plus 6 for your snow accumulation - make sure you mark it off on your weather sheet."

I want to see Weatherman written up as a D&D class one day ;)

The Games I Own, But Have Never Played - Savage Worlds

There are a crapload of games I own but have never played.  Strangely enough, back in my high school and college years, pretty much every game I bought was played at least once, even if I didn't really understand the system completely.

The Pacesetter line was played, the Fantasy Games Unlimited line was played, Runequest, Traveller, MERP, Rolemaster, Spacemaster, GURPS, Rifts... on and on the list goes.

I think we even ran a session or two of Deadlands (1st Edition), which went over about as well as Boot Hill - everyone had the Star Trek episode with the Tombstone shootout in their heads I think.  Not a good scenario for a western.

All this leads me to Savage Worlds.  Apparently a system loved by many, with a decent number of assorted genre sourcebooks and adventure paths, I just have never been able to wrap my head around it and it's "dice size" for stats concept.  I want to.  The SW Explorer Rules Digest has been in the backseat of my car for years, handy when you have time to kill and need something to read.  Still, I'm left scratching my head.

I can never seem to figure out just how the powers / spells system works, probably because this game isnt well suited for fantasy and that is where I am fairly rooted.  More likely, I'll need to actually play in a session or two before it really "clicks".

Then again, there is just so much other stuff out there that is also good, why should I keep at trying to grock a system that I'll probably never play anyway.  Good thing everything I own for Savage Worlds, with the exception of the core rules, is in PDF.  Not much to pack away ;)

The Trollish Taproom - The Elusive Third Edition

Well, what info I've found indicates the Third Edition of Tunnels & Trolls was an British publication. I haven't seem any pics of it, so I think it is safe to assume it is pretty scarce.

In the meantime, some early printings of T&T solos have been popping up on Ebay recently. Not sure if I'll be throwing my coins into that bidding.

Snow is on its way. We've already been told "no excusals" at work, which really isn't a big deal, as i managed to get in to work with the storm that shut NYC down.

Bean! - Another Cool Free Adventure

You just have to luv Bean! The D2 RPG - The game itself costs just 2 bucks, and free stuff is continually being released for it.  Gone to the Dogs is the latest, a free GM adventure by Mike Holcomb.  16 more pages of Bean!ie goodness.

From the blurb:

Mike Holcomb's latest BEAN GM adventure is a fun mystery full of monsters and puzzles geared at younger gamers. Gone To The Dogs can be played as the follow up to Princely Ransom, or as a stand alone adventure.

Doing Less With More

Looking at my list of D&D games in one of my recent posts has led to the following decision:

It's time to pack up any and all that won't be seeing use from me anytime soon. Box them up and put them in the basement - above the flood line ;)

Those that will escape the purge:

Castles & Crusades - I do play it monthly - I'll pack up all but the Player's and the Monsters &Treasures books

Swords & Wizardry Complete - I like the rules presentation - Besides, its a recent purchase

Labyrinth Lord and the AEC - This is my current go to D&D variation

Everything else RPG related (aside from my Tunnels & Trolls and other solo gaming products) are going into storage. Besides, much of my gaming material is in PDF format these days anyway.

Maybe pruning the tree of RPG-ness will allow me to focus on - gaming. Go figure ;)

The More Things Change, The More They Get Screwed Up

The wonderful City of New York put down so much salt for the storm that wasn't last week, that driving the city highways kicked up salt like a wagon train on a dusty plain.

Lets see how well we do with tomorrow nite's storm, which is predicted to dump 6-12". Has to be better then the way they handled the Christmas Weekend Storm.

Maybe I should bang out Wednesday and do some solo gaming... and shoveling.

The Trollish Taproom - Wherefore Art Tho 3rd Edition?

Lets see, I have a reprint of the Tunnels & Trolls 1st Edition rules.

I won an auction for the Trollgod's  personal copy of the T&T 2nd Edition of the rules.

I found a copy of the 4th edition of the Tunnels & Trolls rules on Ebay.

I've had a copy of the 5th edition of the T&T rules for ages.  Went and got myself a copy of the Black Box 5.0 rules too, just to be a completist.  (and not at the extortionist price that one vendor is asking for on Ebay)

Recently picked up a boxed set of the 5.5 T&T rules.

Have a copy of the Unofficial T&T 6e rules.

Have the 7.0 Collector's Tin, the 7.5 Boxed set and even the 7.5 T&T Delver's pack.

I haven't found / seen / identified a copy of the 3rd edition of the Tunnels & Trolls rules anywhere?  Is this the British Boxed set I've seen on Ebay once or twice, cause the ones I've seen looked like 5.0 based on the pics.

Can't find much / anything on the 3rd edition of the rules.  Help!  heh