Solo RPG's: The Second One

"Imagine if you will, a world without Zelda or Azeroth,

No polyhedral dice or dry-erase maps.

When a "character sheet"  went on your mattress 

and was filled with the Charlie Brown kids.

A world we call...the No-RPG Zone."

For some, it's hard to imagine a time before D&D was cool, but grey-beards like Falstaffe can remember back to before it existed at all--when wargames and miniatures were the closest you could get to RPG-like flights of fancy (and for me, that was Avalon Hill's Starship Troopers and Lou Zocchi's Star Fleet Battle Manual.) 

Still, try and place yourself in that era. Imagine hearing of a new kind of game--it wasn't even called a "Role-Playing Game" yet--described by players bursting with excitement and enthusiasm as something new and revolutionary--only to get smacked in the face with the glorious chaos that is the original 3-book ruleset.

Imagine all that and you'll get a glimmer of what faced Ken St. Andre back in 1975. He loved the idea of high-fantasy adventuring, but hated the confusing mess of the D&D system itself. And so he decided to make up his own game, using only easily-available six-sided dice that had simple, concise rules. This is the birth of the second published RPG called "Tunnels & Trolls." 

 First five T&T editions

The game owes a lot of its flavor to the personality of the creator and his crew, including artist Liz Danforth, James "Bear" Peters, Rick Loomis, Rob Carver, Steve Crompton, Michael Stackpole, and others. Where D&D was pretentious and verbose, T&T was humorous and rules-light, with spells like "Alaka-Scram," "Take That You Fiend!" or "Shake & Break."

It used D&D's core six Attributes, but added others including Speed, Wizardry, and Luck. Any these could be used in "Saving Throws" and to accomplish various tasks--one of the earliest stabs at a universal skills and task system.

Combat was handled in a very different way than D&D. Instead of throwing a single d20, each combatant rolled a number of d6's based on the weapon used, plus "Adds" from Strength, Luck, Dexterity and Speed (using Attribute Bonus rules that were, again, much more consistently applied than D&D.) The total from each side was compared, with the larger number winning. The amount over WAS the damage dealt out to the loser--one roll did it all. Unlike D&D's weirdly unintuitive Armor class, armor in T&T simply absorbed points of damage (as did Runequest, another early RPG.) 

One advantage to T&T combat was the way it sped up group combat: all the efforts of a party of adventurers could be combined into a single "party total." This could then be compared to the total from all the monsters. The group with the higher total won. And, in a unique twist, the losing side got to decide how to divide up the damage taken, making parties of mixed levels and abilities a viable option.

Early on, T&T's creators realized that there was more hunger for RPG's than there were players and GM's, so they created a series of solo adventures. 

Just like the core rules, they reflected the impish humor of the creators. You never knew what might happen next in a T&T adventure. For example, in one solo, the jolly green giant literally appears. In a dungeon. Turning yourself green and trying to pass yourself off as another jolly green giant is a viable choice for the player. 

But T&T solos also kept players on their toes, as they were notoriously difficult and deadly. T&T characters could be quickly and easily created, which was a good thing because they usually didn't last long.

Pressed for a favorite, I'd recommend the Blue Frog Tavern and it's sequels, if only for the bar's owner, a grumpy blue rock demon named Quartz. (Yes, much like Star Trek Deep Space Nine's Quark.)

While interest in T&T has waxed and waned over the years, in 2015 a successful Kickstarter campaign resulted in a new edition: Deluxe Tunnels and Trolls, featuring revised mechanics, the Trollworld campaign setting, and gorgeous new art from Liz Danforth and other T&T stalwarts. 

With the successful launch of the revised edition, T&T's solo adventures were also revised and re-released, and you can find them here, along with many other fine GM resources like the "Grimtooth's Traps" and "Citybook" book series. 

  

Another way to try Tunnels & Trolls is the free smartphone app. It features adaptations of many of the original modules and automates combat and saving rolls (the "Borgoth vs Guard Leader" screenshot is from the online game.) It even allows for custom character creation. Do expect a few glitches, but it's a good intro to the T&T system. Best of all, it gives a generous helping of free play before you hit the pay wall.

For those of you looking for a simple, rules-lite solo game with a little bit of humor, T&T is a great choice. There's a large library of adventures, many of them available in three different formats: print, PDF, or via the app. 

As one of my first RPG games, it still holds a place in my heart and was definitely an inspiration for the FAST RPG. We both share a rules-lite architecture, quick game-play, and unified mechanics (albeit in very different ways.) Initially, we tried doing a similar "one roll does all" combat roll, but couldn't quite make it work satisfactorily for us, although a ghost of it survives in FAST's "Light Mode." And finally, I hope that T&T's good humor and dedication to  creating a fun role-playing experience for players also lives on in our game. 

Thanks, T&T!

Next up: You Never Forget Your First Love