Some thoughts on the latest T&T edition

So finally did the big book arrive! The Kickstarter campaign was not really the most pleasurable experience you could imagine, but it no shit-storm either. It was overdue, long overdue, and sometimes you wondered why. But, here it is at last. Let's read.

I own multiple editions of T&T, from the reprinted 1st ed, the 2nd ed, the British 1st, 5th ed, 7th ed, 7th ed revised and now the 8th AKA dT&T. I have some seen some trends and changes from 1975 to today, and I was actually worried about some of those carry on into the latest edition. The worst fears were not realized, luckily. But, some things have clearly been changing for better or worse.

My biggest complaint, which seems to mirror most of the play reports I've seen from peoples who have come to the system cold, is that there's too much arithmetic and too many dice. While it's not hard to add 1 and 4, or 6 and 6, it becomes more cumbersome to add 1 and 4 and 6 and 6 and 4 and 3 and 2 and 2 and 4 and 6 and 6 and ...

Have you tried any wargames lately? I have found that what makes a hex and chit game workable for me today with family and commitments outside gaming is mostly the amount of counters. I figure it's the same thing for a miniatures game. The more you have to handle during your turn, the longer it takes.

So, doing simple things multiple times is time consuming? Great insight, Sherlock!

Well. I have some data I want to talk about, and a suggestion to make those problems mentioned less acute. Stay tuned.

A solution to echoing empty rooms in a dungeon

Some people might remember that I have written before about the empty dungeon. For some people that is not a problem. They like the exploration of the dungeon environment to be a resource management challenge. Personally I like the idea of the challenge, but I have been thinking of "compressing" the experience a bit. If nothing else, it's variation. Right?

Ken St. Andre posted this on his blog a while ago. I had opened it in a tab on my browser and did not get around to reading it for real until now. That is a neat idea on how to do the "compressing" of your dungeon.

For those who want the executive summary, the idea is to make each room a index card, shuffle and deal a matrix of cards and those are the levels of your dungeon. Nice idea.

Old D&D editions and clones - Tunnels & Trolls 1st ed.

Now, some of you might object to that title. Surely T&T is not a clone of D&D, and it surely isn't an old D&D edition!? No, it is not, but it is the first published game inspired by D&D and it fits right in here in the series about how much the old games inspire and engage today.

Those of you who have read or played later editions of T&T should really take a peek at this edition if you get the opportunity! I own the 2013 reprint, which might be available yet. I do not know. Anyway. What's interesting about this game are two things, how it differs from later T&T editions and how it differs from D&D.

I found it interesting that on the first page you get a short summary of how to run a game as a GM, how to play it as a player and even the point of sitting around the table talking get across well. I like it a lot. This little section is actually a fairly good primer of what it's all about. Fun details is that the caller is mentioned, as the "Voicer".

There are many fun small idiosyncrasies in this game, but most of it is in the presentation that is extremely colloquial. Ken even jokes about the illustrations right beside the current paragraph. The rules are fairly easy and smooth and there are not multiple odd subsystems.

I like some of the advice for how to run the game, like the emphasize on house ruling, "this is not my game". It is a hack of another game that grew into its own and it is paying its dues. Then there's the suggestion to put in lot of stuff in the dungeons, since "Nobody likes to mess around in a dull dungeon". Here I think Ken is onto something. The big empty dungeon is something I feel have been overvalued in the OSR conversations. I'm not so sure it was a regular feature of the Old Ways even.  Ken goes on with some other good advice suggesting that all the threats in the dungeon should be avoidable or be possible to nullify by smart players.

Much of the rules is as you'd expect, with the suggestion you start with a horisontal cut away fo your multi level dungeon, and there are rules for reaction rolls and capturing monsters. I also love the fact that there are names to the character levels. A Veteran is someone who has reached 3rd level, by the way. Not first.

Comparing this to modern versions of T&T and there are some differences. Armour is ablative, Saving Rolls are mainly done on Luck and you get XP for gold and deepest dungeon level penetrated.

I would actually gladly pick up those for all editions, liking them a lot. In general, I like this edition a lot. Expanding Saving Rolls into the "meta mechanic" it got later on and I feel you've almost hit the sweet spot for T&T rules. There's a rawness to the rules, but it's brimming with enthusiasm and small snippets of the life in the Phoenix campaign, like how they all have 3-15 characters per player! For me the rules feels like a big smiling invitation to just roll some dice and dive in the deep end. This is another winner. I really want to play this game!

Saturday Night thoughts on the sparsely populated dungeon

It's Saturday night, and I feel a Saturday Night Special feeling coming over me.

Some of you might have read my last post on dense Gygaxian dungeons. Given it is Saturday I got to thinking about those places that make the subterranean underworld its flair, and those moments of "sensawunda". Let me quote you from the 5th ed. Tunnels & Trolls rule book.

"Let your imagination go wild - you can do anything you want because this is your creation. Put in a lot of stuff - nobody likes a dull dungeon. "

So, populating your dungeon. I know some people likes the idea of a big underground labyrinth where there are one third empty rooms or something like that. Each to his own. I don't say I don't like to play that way. But, I've come to realize that I'm no longer fond of creating dungeons like that.

I love to invent those crystal waterfalls, devious traps, combat encounters with multiple co-operating foes or locales of majestic proportions and awe inspiring weirdness. Putting down corridors of nothing on graph paper is no longer fun.

Sure, I could use a computer to generating it for me, but I would not find it fun to run either. What I would like to have is a way to make those slow moving bits be outsourced to  a second GM and then I could step in a run the Saturday Night Specials. Maybe. Is there a way to get it all?

I'm beginning to feel I understand what Ken St. Andre wrote above and how well it applies to me. I don't like a "dull" dungeon. It would be cool, though, if you could just rattle off some twists, turns and empty rooms without bother to have the first part make sense or be ever repeatable (like for backtracking out of the dungeon or repeat visits), and then dive into it. Too bad I like the idea of repeat visits to the dungeon. I would never be able to improvise the same map twice.

If that could be done, I'd be very happy.

Different Old Schools - dense or sparse maps

I was listening to a podcast talking about that famous picture of EGG running a game at a con, sitting with a dense map in front of him and a very terse key. I think almost every aspect about that map and its implications have been talked about, but some of that just now filtered down to me.

If you have a dungeon where there are rooms everywhere, and the map is that dense, there wont be much space for some things. If you look at many published maps in the blogging community of the old ways, they most often don't look like that. We often do maps with variation in room sizes, some oddly shaped ones and some hallways connecting sections of the level. You know the drill. Gary's map is just crammed full of fairly small rooms.

Imagine if you will a section of the level taken over by gnolls. They might have made one room a lair, another treasury and maybe a larder where you can free some captives, useful for stocking up on PC alternatives if death does occur. Did you see what I did there?

If you have rooms that looks like an abandoned throne room, you will have a gnoll lord sitting there. But, if your dungeon is just crammed with small rooms, you probably never get that 'naturalistic' feel. If your dungeon is more labyrinth than anything else, the kind of play we call player skill is something different that I have been thinking about all this time. Sure, it's skill when you take note of resources, map carefully to note when there's a gap in there indicating a hidden room. But, if the layout makes no sense, then exploring and mapping to make sense of what's "down there" wont make sense. At least not they way I thought about it. 'Naturalism' is not about dungeon layout, in Gary's example.

Some years ago I heard about Ken St. Andre's dungeon Gristlegrim, and though it peculiar. Ken had done a bunch of dungeon rooms on index cards, when they players walked around the dungeon he grabbed another room from the pile. I thought it made the idea of a dungeon moot, since you could not map it and you could not "make sense" of it. Now I realize that maybe that was not so different from Gary's densely packed paper of small rooms in a labyrinth. Labyrinths was never fun, in my book. After you wandered around in the coal mine in Zork, and realized you had to drop stuff to make the similar looking room distinguishable I think the labyrinth had served its purpose.

I think I prefer some kind of naturalism to my dungeons, even though I now think Gristlegrim makes more sense. It's probably more like Castle Greyhawk and the Jakallan Underworld than my dungeons are.

New Loot - pictorial evidence!

Here it is! My holy grail for a time have been to get hold of a copy of the 1974 edition of D&D for a decent price. In addition to that, a 1st or 2nd ed. of T&T and The First Fantasy Campaign have been at the top of the list.

You see that stuff up there? Not only is that a copy of FFC, in pristine condition, from the personal collection of Ken St. Andre. Ken even had a few extra maps, from a few other Judges Guild products it seems like.

But wait, there's more!

You see that little black book? It's the British 1st edition of Tunnels & Troll, which looks identical to the 2nd American edition I have browsed. That means puny damage from most weapons, ablative armour and some other goodies from the earlier editions. You get Adventure Points for gold! The cover looks very funky, but the innards is pure gold. Eh... adventure, I mean.

This was all from an auction Ken ran, with a percentage of the proceeds going to a fund to help artist Jeff Freels with some quite serious medical expenses. Take a look at the stuff Jeff is selling. He's an amazing artist.

I'm dancing the happy dance today, both for me and for Jeff.

Loot!

I am finally the proud owner of a copy of The First Fantasy Campaign! From the personal collection of Ken St Andre it came, in marvellous condition! Tomorrow I will try to take some pictures to show it off. Quite the grail, and it was not the only grail I got...

Some thoughts on character empowerment house rules

Today I read this blog post, about Gary Gygax's house rules for D&D. Reading that I was thinking back to how the rules for T&T have changed over the years.

For those of you who have read 5th ed. T&T and then compared it to the latest edition, the reaction might have been negative. It's not like the later editions of D&D, but even though the rules have stayed mostly the same there have been a shift in tone. Just looking at the list of 1st level spells known to a newly rolled up delver makes that clear.

Just like the rules Gary used, linked to above, the latest T&T edition is empowering characters, especially at lower levels. I think this is a sign that the old style long term campaign play have fallen out of favour. I know that Ken no longer have a regular group. Do anyone of you know if Gary had one during the later years? When you mostly play at conventions, you don't slog through from level 1 to name level, it just makes sense e.g. to start at level three with max hit points.

Now, would anyone claim that this is not old school enough? I know that some people have argued for long campaigns to get a proper feel for "the old ways". While I can appreciate that, I want to emphasize that two founders of the hobby apparently play differently.

Yeah, I know. It's silly, isn't it? I don't know if this is just me trying to somehow make myself feel better about the fact that I don't seem to be able to get a group to commit to long term play. At least I'm in good company.

A few words from Ken

In case you had missed it, or thought he had come clean. Here's the latest words from Ken St Andre about James Shipman:

[ some parts removed ]


I've been in contact with Ken again, and the situation have changed a bit, so for now I have elected to take that notice down. The advice to do no business with James Shipman is still valid, but that's me talking, not Ken.

A report from outside the dungeon. There's a dungeon here!

I'm in Amsterdam, The Netherlands, on a business trip right now. As can be expected, nothing much related to gaming happens on a business trip. But, traveling to my hotel last night I saw something odd. There's a dungeon here, and it's even advertised for on the streets!

I have always held the opinion that one of the masterstrokes of Tunnels & Trolls is Ken St Andre's marvelous idea of dungeons as playgrounds created by insane wizards and "gods". You get a reason for dungeons to exist, and you have a place for them in the greater economy and you can get a laugh out of that funny character downtown handing out flyers trying to attract delvers to a newly digged dungeon.

In Amsterdam (and apparently London, Edinburgh, York and Hamburg) it's even for real! In this case it's lacking the insane wizard. I hope.

A Year with The Eye

Roughly one year ago, I had been reading Grognardia and been thinking of blogging. Tunnels & Trolls had become one of my favourite games and reading it made my heard sprout ideas like crazy. Pandora's Box was open, wide open. Then Dave Arneson died.

Knowing that James had started his blog when Gary died I realized that all my plans would amount to nothing unless I overcame inertia, and this was the moment. I wanted to celebrate the memory of those who created our hobby, and maybe give something back.

Now I look back upon a year of over 200 posts. Some of them are less inspired, but some I still feel proud of. Some have generated quite a lot of traffic and even some nice discussions. The fact that so many have been reading my ramblings and cared to comment is very ego boosting. Also, I feel like home in this community of bloggers. Thanks to all you people out there.

Not everything I hoped for this blog have come to pass. I had hoped to produce more original material, and more thematically tight posts. But, I think I've found my niche, and after reaching the point of burn-out I even took some time off to get back in the seat with new energy. Maybe some of the hopes will come true my second year.

Thanks to Ken St. Andre and Dave Arneson and all the other gaming ancestors for showing the way through the dungeons and wilderlands of high adventure!

Old School. More than a feeling?

Some of you might have read Grognardia a short while ago, where a quote from Ken St. Andre was commented upon. I liked it myself and nodded in agreement until I thought some more.

If this snippet of wisdom from Ken St. Andre should work in play, you would have to train your players!

I have tried to use dopplegangers as a monster in play. It failed miserably, since the players didn't trust nobody. Guess what happened when they found someone chained in a dungeon asked to be freed? Guess how likely they would have been to act like Ken suggests?

In order to have your players try to talk themselves out of troubles instead of just charging into a TPK, they need to be trained to do it. Old School play is not just a feeling, and this proves it. Any kind of dungeon dressing, or any kind of "first edition" monster collection can be brought to the table without any old school play happening.

Few xp for monsters but much xp for gold is an excellent way to achieve the training I'm talking about. I'm beginning to wonder this was removed from T&T? Yes, it was in there back in the beginning. Ken once mentioned it was taken out, so unless I misunderstood him it should have been in there.

Trollgod's Party

Last night Ken St Andre hosted a party at his site Trollhalla. It was interesting to sit by your computer, sipping a beer and chatting with your friends and listening to music. Even though none of us where in the same room as anyone else, we had a very good party. It was fun and games and gifts were exchanged. Not only that, but new and unique T&T material was posted for free!

I strongly urge anyone who like to hang out with Ken and other creative and talented individuals to join. You just tell Trollgod you want in, and there you go! While trolls like darkness I must confess that for me the Longest Night Party was as much celebrating that it will now get lighter again. I don't mind the snow, or the cold, but the darkness really gets to me. Longest Night is over, cheers!

Reading T&T 7.5 - Adventure Points p.29-30

Welcome back to T&T Friday! Today I'll talk mostly about Adventure Points, and also a bit about the small interspersed pieces of game mastering advice the author have sprinkled his text with.

Our read through today start at page 29. Here we finish up the character generation by mentioning some things apart from abilities and kin which would have to go unto the character sheet.

Adventure Points is the first. What is interesting with those, apart from how fun it is to see your character get better, is how they are presented here in which is really the player's part of the rules. Ken writes:

They are the most mysterious aspect of life on Trollworld -- it is as though the gods themselves were keeping track of the players' actions and scoring them, handing out rewards and occationally punishments for all actions undertaken during the course of one's adventures.

This is a very fun attitude, I think. There's no pretense here about any simulation of a secondary world. Adventure points are given by the gods, and they are an interesting mix up of the reality of the game and the reality of the players. A quote like this succinctly encapsulates the feel of the rules text.Note that it also gives you a hint of how to play the game! Just like the gods award their followers, sometimes giving and taking, you as a GM and player can anticipate the AP to come and go. Play loose and reward actions, good and bad. I like the implication here that your actions have consequences, in a lighthearted way. You play a game and try to score points. Simple enough.

Then there are mentions of Weapons, Armor, Languages, Magic and Equipment. All of this is self explanatory stuff, really. What is interesting, though, is that under Armor there is a hint of something from a former edition. Back in the days, armor was ablative. It meant that when you took damage the armor absorbed it for you, but got hurt in the process. While the idea of damaged armor is mentioned here in an off-hand remark, I think an opportunity is missed by not mentioning that armor effect as a boxed note, or something, for the GM to use an an interesting optional rule. I'm beginning to think that the game would have benefitted from a section for players and another for Game Masters. The fact that e.g. AP is explained and expanded upon on p.102 almost gives this impression, but in a more confused manner. I'd have liked to see it done more purposefully.

Lastly before the big section on Talents, we have a short but interesting section on encumbrance and how it affects the life on Trollworld. The idea of tracking weight is "for the purists in the audience", and I must confess I ditched that rule myself in my campaign. What is interesting here is first that Ken mention the old Weight Units (1/10 of a pound) which have been in the game for many editions, but we get no real reason not to just use kilos or pounds. Secondly, we have a paragraph about how this affects people in Trollworld:

the delvers of Trollworld have developed wonderful packs for stowing stuff, and their clothing is full of all sorts of pockets, pouches, belts with hooks, and so forth. It's funny to visualize, but the heavily laden dungeon delver probably looks more like a boy scout leader buried under packs and gear than he does a medieval warrior.

I can't emphasize enough how that picture evokes the wonder of delving for me! No "dungeon punk" attitude with spikes and impossible poses. For a game that is so unashamedly a game, with its wacky logic, this for me gives a stamp of "realism" to it. Don't sweat the details, but imagine how fun this looks, eh? I like that.


Next up: Talents!

Some thoughts about how to organise rpg rules

I was just reading the Swords & Wizardry forums and found a thread about how neat it is to be able to take the .doc format file of White Box edition and edit it to the rule hack you want. The reason it is so handy, according to one poster, is that you can make a booklet with just the rules for the players. Even though it's not always explicitly said, that do imply that there are rules just meant for the game master.

When I was younger, and was first introduced to this wonderful hobby of ours, everyone read all the rules. One boxed set with one or two booklets was the norm. But, in contrast with, say, D&D it wasn't clearly labelled for the Player and for the GM. I haven't asked anybody else about it, but I think most people did like we did, and bought the box if you played the game. That usually meant that in each group you had maybe half as many copies of the rules as there were players. It also meant that almost everyone had read everything in there, including the rules for casting and learning spells, the chance to catch gangrene or what modifier you'd get for trying to use your Listen skill in thick fog. I never saw a problem with that.

When I first actually opened a rule book for D&D, it was the 2nd ed era. Not only were there two books, they also had the weirdest layout with the same section in the two books saying slightly different and (in theory) complementary things. I was thoroughly confused. For some reason there were things which you got the impression you should hide from the players! With my background that seemed preposterous. What was there to hide?!

Now today I realized that this way of splitting up information have shaped me more than I've imagined. The idea of having a standard list of magic items which sooner or later everyone knew about, or a list of standard monsters, is just an alien concept where I'm coming from. Now, many years later I have kind of adapted and know that the way things are, can be different in different places. But, to put this in perspective I think a game were everyone knows how to play the game, but where magic and monsters are all unique creations by your GM/DM is really a more interesting way to play the game. The mystery and wonder of fantasy sure is easier to maintain that way, and for those interesting in the history of the hobby it is the way to experience how it was when Ken and the Phoenix circle, Dave and the Twin Cities players, and Gary with his Lake Geneva group played. Nothing was yet codified, and every piece of magic was new, and wonderful. Imagine that.

Reading T&T 7.5 - Character Generation II p.p20-28

Now we have come to the part of the rulebook which talks about attributes. I find it odd that these are described after the Types, since they are more basic. Also, you early on is told to roll up your attributes, but the descriptions of them come much later, even though that might be useful information for deciding what type to play! Ken has said that this is not bad editing, since it's just that he thought about things in that way. Personally I think a game editor should be doing that kind of reshuffling of the text to make it flow more easily and make more sense. You can find a long debate about the state of editing in the business elsewhere.

After this comes something interesting. T&T have since the early days been a game where you can play a "monster". Any kind of race, or kindred, is defined by attribute multipliers. You basically have a table with a multiplier for STR, DEX etc. for all races. This is fun, and an easier way than calculating effective level, level limits or any such scheme. A dwarf with x2 STR just is stronger than a human. Learn to live with it. In my games we had a crazy assortment of kindreds and it was fun. Basically I see no reason to hestiate to bring in a new funky race, since many players will bring in new interesting problems or adventure seeds that way.

There is one thing I find annoying with this table though. Some creatures obviously have special abilities, and some are even hinted at in other parts of the book. But, none of them are described anyway. Of course, some of this data comes from the older Ken St Andre game, Monsters! Monsters!, but since it's not in print it is hard to refer to it. It do make some beings kind of oddly "amputated" though. What is just terrible unprofessionalism, though, is the fact that FDP managed to print 7th ed with a note saying that all Leprechauns have the spell Wink-Wing as an inherent ability, but they forgot to put it in the book! Even if the oversight was Ken's fault, it's just terrible to let such a thing slip by. Did they even read the book they published? In 7.5 ed. they did include it, but in a additional spell book, and not in the list of standard spells in the main rule book. Palm, meet forehead.

In this part of the book we have some real goodies, but the most interesting part of characters like AP, Level and Talents, I'll cover in my next post.

Reading T&T 7.5 - Character Generation p.6-20

Who said it was slow on Fridays in the blogosphere!? Here I am again, reading T&T from cover to cover. This week I'll look at Character Generation.

After the introduction we get a nice little summary of how to play a rpg, including the very nice suggestion for game masters to not prosaically deliver the adventure, but actually get in character and why not goof off? Ken starts off the section on generating a character by telling us how to roll dice and generate stats. For some reason the stats are listed, but no detailed description is available on these pages, even though one is promised to show up later. After that, and the import rule of "TARO" (Tripples Add and Roll Over), the listing of classes and their ability fill the rest of the pages until p.20. I'll stop at TARO for a second

While our rule designer tells us we can roll in order or distribute the stats according to taste (he rolls in order), he also tells us something of the thinking behind the TARO rule. "Trollworld is full of heroes, freaks, and monsters -- not a bunch of averages." I find this interesting, as it gives us a glimpse of the mind of the designer not missing a fact, but actually designing around that fact. More than once I have read rules and wondered if the designer didn't see that it was broken. One effect this rule has, which the "balance police" will complain about, is that it will probably cause one PC in every second party to be seriously powerful. So, what if one PC has a STR of 65? He will strengthen the party and help you survive longer and get up to that STR yourself! Also, it will take ages for such a PC to get higher STR. No big risk of him building upon that and leave you in the dust. The experience ruled will handle that. Calm down!

Then we have the list of classes. In T&T the classes are called Types, and we have Citizens, Rogues, Warriors, Wizards, Specialists and Paragons. Warriors fight, Wizards cast spells, Rogues do a little of both badly and the Paragon do a little of both well. As you can see they all have their niche in a fantasy adventure. Specialists are basically doing one kind of fighting or spell casting and then some. Even though Ken St. Andre tells us we need the Citizen for NPCs like farmers and fishermen, I can't see the point of this Type. Sure, in a class based system like T&T, you will ask the question "what class is the owner of the inn". But, I think it is a question wrongly asked, and answered wrong as well. The owner of the inn is either a source for for resources, or an opportunity for the GM to act out funny voices and chat with his players in character. Who cares what Type he is! He needs to use a spell or an ability? GM fiat is the right answer, not a new Type.

The rest of the Types are all interesting, with the Warrior being able to get double value of armor, the Wizard being able to know all first level spells. The Specialist deserve a special mention. They all use the same concept, of having one specific talent triggered by a Saving Roll and the prerequisite being rolling triples of one specific stat when those where generated. From the ones mentioned (Leader, Ranger, etc), it's very easy to see how to expand this system to build other Specialists based on this mechanic. The rules show very clearly how they can be used in a toolbox manner. Very neat and modular.

Now, after this and a descriptions of the concept of race or Kindred, the stats are finally explained! Why not before the mentioning of Kindred, and the long descriptions of Types? This is where the editing of this rulebook show neglect. I don't mind the designer writing it that way, but why was it left that way when edited? You think I harp upon something trivial? After the stats we revisit the subjects of kindred again, and the first mention is not enough to choose a kindred for your PC or tell you what it means. It needs reshuffling.

Next up: Generating characters II

Reading T&T 7.5 - Troll Talk p.3

Let's start this walk through slowly. In the introduction, Troll Talk, Ken St. Andre tells how this edition came to happen, and also tells us how to use it. It's interesting to see that Fiery Dragon Publishing apparently wanted to do something on their own, and as a side effect of that Ken's latest ideas happened to be included as well. For those who have the tin box edition, AKA The 30th Anniversary Edition, it's clear that the so called "Revised" T&T booklet from that set is what's referred to here. Personally I felt it was a very weak and useless attempt to make T&T more like D&D3. After thumbing through it once or twice I never opened it again. Interesting is also, at least for me personally, that Ken mentions that he got a few suggestions from FDP how to add to this latest release by including a treasure generator. I actually contacted Ken about that, since I had been playing the tin box edition with old solos that often asked you to generate the treasure with the random treasure tables from 5th ed. Ken replied "We'll see what we can do." So I guess it was a good idea.

Then Ken mentions something interesting, and the most important thing is this post. He writes:

If you only remember one thing about Tunnels & Trolls, remember the line from Pirates of the Carribean - they aren't rules, more like guidelines really. ... Do what works for you and your gamers. If you haven't messed with the printed rules and made at least a couple of changes, you aren't really playing Tunnels & Trolls.

I find that last piece interesting. Many games have told you that you have the power to adapt the rules, but I haven't ever seen a designer who explicitly tells you that you're not playing the game in question if you play just the way it's written. That's old school to me.

Next up: Generating characters

Reading T&T 7.5 - Introduction

As every blogger knows, Fridays are a bit slow. I'm going to make the Fridays kind of special from now on. Inspired by some kind of threads on rpg.net where new and old rulebooks get dissected, I'm going to read through the Tunnels & Trolls 7.5 rulebook and comment on things as I move along. As always it will be my kind of perspective, old and new and something in between. Feel free to comment, and if we manage to find something really weird I'll make sure the Trollgod himself knows it. Welcome to follow along!

Who in gaming is worth knowing about?

After my exasperated outburst about people not knowing about Ron Edwards I started thinking. Jeff Rients, always with his eye on the pulse of gamerdom, asked a very relevant question. Maybe the contributions by the "Forgeites" are not really impacting the hobby very far? Maybe rpg theory is largely ignored by most gamers? Even if that it true (and I hope it's not), it still leaves me with the question of who you should know about?

Earlier this year, a friend was giving me a ride home after a gaming session. I was kind of tired, and as I usually do in that state I was blathering on about whatever my mind had gotten stuck on. Amazed (and bored?) my friend asked me "How do you know all these biographical details about all these game designers!?" after I had talked about when someone started this or that game company. I am interested in the history of our hobby, and some things sticks in my mind. The ups and downs of the business end of the hobby seem to be one such thing. So, is this something everyone should know about? Quick! When did Greg Stafford start The Chaosium? Who else was involved? What? You don't care?

So who do you think everyone should know about in gaming? I guess the most famous people probably are Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson. Being there from the start counts a lot. How about Rick Loomis, who in 1970 started the oldest game company still around doing the same kind of business? How about Mark Rein*Hagen who helped create the phenomenon that is White Wolf? How about Matthew Sprange who runs one of the most successful game companies today? How about Ed Simbalist? Frankly, I'm not sure I know who everyone should know about. I have many times found that the one-game-gamers who only know of Gygax and D&D to me seem like they have deprived themselves of some of the sublime heights possible in the hobby which so succinctly combines game elements, storytelling and performance art. And some really cool game mechanics and worlds, to boot! Just look at two very distinctly different games like Dogs in the Vineyard by Vincent Baker, and Tunnels & Trolls by Ken St Andre. Both opened vistas in my head I didn't even suspected existed!

So, hell know who is important enough in the big scheme of things. I just hope everyone out there treats the whole field of the hobby is one big dungeon, filled with treasure. Who don't want to explore some more, and get just a little bit more loot home? Happy delving!