Two T&T Dungeons

Spoiler alert! These aren't original dungeons, they're mapped-out versions of two Tunnels & Trolls solo dungeons, Buffalo Castle and Sword for Hire. If you've ever played a T&T solo you know they don't come with maps. That would be a dead giveaway. You have to map it yourself as you go along. So I cleaned up the maps I made playing through the adventures with the idea that I could later run them as GM'd dungeons with a group of players. I think it's kind of funny that even though I was doing this for my own private use among a small group of people I still took the trouble to add copyright credits to the maps.

Outlaw Press

 UPDATE: I really put my foot into it this time! It looks like the leopard hasn't changed its spots, and OP is still up to its sleazy old ways. I apologize for giving them any word of mouth. Thanks to everybody for setting me straight on this one. If anyone reading this wants T&T stuff please go to sites like Flying Buffalo and Tunnels & Trolls and not the crappy outfit I posted about below.

MSPE adventure points

In my review of MSPE I mentioned that the part I liked least about the game was that you have to keep track of adventure points for each skill separately. That may not bother most gamers, but it's the one thing about the game that I'd change. So if I were to run a MSPE game I'd introduce this house rule.

Adventure Points are gained in the usual fashion for good role-playing, achieving scenario objectives, making saving throws, etc. However, players no longer need to track APs for skills. Instead, when a character goes up a level they receive the new level number in points which may be divided between attributes and skills, with the restriction that a) no more than two points may be allotted to attributes and b) no skill may be raised by more than one point at a time.

For example, a character going from first to second level would get two points. He or she could put both points toward increasing attributes, put both points toward raising two different skills by one point, or use one point to raise an attribute and one to raise a skill. Another example would be a character going from fourth to fifth level. The player could allot at most two points to attributes with three points left over to distribute amongst three different skills.

The reason for restricting attitude increase to two points is to remain consistent with the original rules. However, if I were playing a Doc Savage style pulp game, or a high voltage Hong Kong action movie game, I could easily imagine relaxing that rule and using something more like the original T&T experience rules. The reason for limiting skill increase to one point per skill per level increase is to prevent players from becoming experts in some field overnight. I would also consider limiting the increase to skills that were used during the course of the game.

This system isn't as realistic as the original rule, but it is simpler. I haven't play tested it yet, but I don't see any obvious flaws in it. This is especially true given the unwritten rule that in T&T/MSPE even eighth level characters are rare and powerful. For example, in MSPE Sherlock Holmes is only a 7th level character. So since I don't run a Monty Haul game with 12th level titans running around I think this rule would work fine.

Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes

Michael A. Stackpole is probably best recognized today as an sf author of such books as I, Jedi (1998) and his Star Wars: X-Wing (1996) trilogy. But he got his start in the RPG hobby, specifically with the T&T based game, Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes. As you might guess from the title, the game focuses on contemporary crime and thriller adventures. As Stackpole says in his introduction, "MSPE is a game of two-fisted adventure: part pulp, part mystery, part John Wayne movie and 100% fun."

Cool box cover!

Character creation begins with players choosing their characters background, nationality, ethnicity, etc. before you start rolling the dice. You roll 3d6 for the standard T&T attributes, Strength, Luck, Intelligence, Dexterity, Constitution, Charisma, and Speed. If all the dice come up the same number you roll a further 2d6 and add it on, giving an attribute range of 5-30. Combat adds, the bonuses you get for having certain attributes over 12, are split into Hand-to-hand adds and Missile weapon adds.

The biggest change to the system is the addition of a skill system. In general skills work by adding the skill level to an Attribute when making a saving throw. They are broken up into groups based on a minimum IQ requirement, ranging from IQ 4 skills like Brawling up to IQ 16 skills like Cryptology. There are also Open Skills with no IQ min., covering Special Interests and Occupation skills. All characters start with a number of skill points equal to their Intelligence and each skill costs one or more skill points to acquire. During initial character generation you can also expend skill points to get a hereditary title or psi powers, either of which are then randomly determined.

Combat will be familiar to any T&T player, although Stackpole recommends splitting up the mêlée into one-on-one fights. The combat round is also restructured to take account of Martial Arts and firearms. Martial Arts are handled in an abstract but very clever fashion that allows a skilled martial artist to take on numerous foes and even disarm gunmen.

Character advancement is handled in familiar T&T fashion using the standard adventure point chart. The main difference is that MSPE characters only gain 2 attribute points after increasing a level. No Marvel superheroes here. In addition, individual skills acquire their own adventure points. That means you have to keep a running total of adventure points for each and every skill you have. That's a lot of book keeping.

There is some GM advice for running mercenary, espionage and detective games. In addition to stats for typical animals and thugs, this section features a detailed section on The Art of Detection which provides a wealth of information for setting up and running mystery scenarios. This is really the heart of the rules and gives the GM invaluable advice about establishing motives, laying out clues, etc., and generally how to run a compelling mystery game.

Other highlights are an extensive equipment list, an excellent recommended reading list, and rules to cover Car Crashes and even Law Enforcement Agencies, which are given attributes like Records, Forensics, Judicial, etc. There's a section called Nightstalkers which gives advice on using the rules to run a pulp-fiction Lost World or horror/science fiction game, which includes stats for dinosaurs and supernatural monsters. Finally there is a selection of sample characters from different time periods, with a few notables like Philip Marlowe and Sherlock Holmes.

These rules are a clever variation on the basic T&T system. The skill system is a welcome addition with lots of options. The stand-out section is The Art of Detection, which is something anyone running a mystery oriented game, whether straight detective or Call of Cthulhu, should read if they get a chance. The combat rules are also changed for the better. Combat skills like Brawling, Pugilism, Self Defense, and Martial Arts each have a different game effect. Martial Arts is the most ingenious, and captures the feel of Kung Fu fighting without getting bogged down in details.

Unfortunately this game does get bogged down by adventure point tracking. I don't like experience points to begin with and having to tally them up for each of maybe a dozen skills your character has is a real headache. The other shortcoming of the rules is that the GM sections on running mercenary and espionage scenarios are very anemic. They are sketchy at best and can't compare to the detailed guidelines for running mystery games.

The rulebook cover is kind of plain.

MSPE are must-have rules for T&T players looking to broaden their scope of play. They do and excellent job of expanding the rules and adapting them to a more realistic, contemporary setting. For anyone who runs games that feature mysteries I can't recommend the essay The Art of Detection highly enough. And even if you just want to find out what happens if your leprechaun rogue gets his hands on an Uzi you'll like this game. MSPE is one of those game that deserved a wider audience than it got. If it sounds like your cup of tea I highly recommend it.

Mercenaries, Spies & Private Eyes (Flying Buffalo Inc.) $9.95

Lone Delver on T&T

The Lone Delver is doing a series of posts on the Evolution of T&T where he compares and contrasts the various editions. This is very insightful especially for someone like me who never picked up a copy of the 4th edition reprint issued by the apply named Outlaw Press before they got busted for stealing people's art. (I do have a copy of M&M though).

"Time out! I dropped a contact!"

So far he's done Kindered and now Arms, Armor, and Equipment. It's interesting to see the changes and revisions that have been introduced between editions. So far it has tended to reinforce my impression that the 5th edition really ironed out a lot of the wrinkles in the earlier versions, though not all by any means (e.g., using ST to fuel spells).  So if you're at all interested in T&T and how it has changed you'll want to check these posts out.

The earliest T& T map

I'm a little behind the curve on this, but the Troll God has been posting some of his early fantasy maps on his blog.

The earliest Tunnels and Trolls map

Before I ever had an inkling that my life would be bound up with imaginary characters delving imaginary dungeons in imaginary lands, I was trying to write fantasy is a mode that mixed the styles of Robert E. Howard and Lord Dunsany. Fantasy places shoud have great evocative names. If you study this map you will find the city of Khosht, a place of ruins called Khazan-Tharothat, and other names that might sound familiar to T & T players. Wherever you see the little hammer/pickaxe symbols was a stronghold of the Dwarves. The Elves, of course lived in the forests. And Men lived in the cities. I wasn’t gaming yet, but my inner dream cartography was beginning to take shape.

I drew this map after writing my first Howard-esque swords and sorcery story called “Some Legends Should Remain Forgotten".

This is not only an interesting glimpse into Ken's raw imagination but these maps could easily be used as adventure locales in a game. Besides, what gamer worth their salt hasn't scribbled out some fantasy lands of their own? I just wish mine were as interesting as these.

Torchships & Trolls

I was thinking about games like X-plorers yesterday and got to imagining what it would be like to run a game like that using Tunnels & Trolls. Obviously the first thing you'd need would be the T&T rules.T&T is a classic, especially the 5th ed., so any gamer worth their salt should have a copy. If you don't you can download the abridged free edition from sites like RPGNow or DriveThruRPG.

Then you'll want Garen Ewing's Trolls in Space weapons list. This is what got me thinking about this in the first place. It covers almost all the sf weapons you could want, like Blaster Rifle, Photon Guns and Light Sabres. It also gives you some reference for prices so you can add other equipment, like space suits and whatnot. But sf games are about more than gear. What about the other aspects of the game?

T&T 5th ed. has four basic Character Types, Warrior, Wizard, Rogue and the rare Warrior Wizard. The Warrior can just be renamed to something like "Trooper" and work just fine in a space opera game. Whether he's a Space Marine or a Space Barbarian is detail for the player and GM to work out. The next two types are a little trickier, and my idea is to split them each into two.

The Wizard would become either an "Esper" or a "Scientist". Espers act just like the regular Wizard type, only they've been trained by the Esper's Guild and the spells are renamed as psi powers. For example, "Knock Knock" would be a minor Telekinesis, "Omnipotent Eye" would be Psychometry, etc. Some spells, like Vorpal Blade, the Wall spells, etc. might not be appropriate for Espers and could be omitted. Instead of magic staffs Espers would have psi crystals. Scientists are a little different. They have the ability to use and build build devices that have the same effect as the spells. For example, a Scientist could jury rig a weapon to do double attack dice for one turn, i.e. he "casts Vorpal Blade on it". He could blast an alien with his ice cannon, or "cast Freeze Please". And so on. For Scientists the STR cost of the spell is how many hours it takes them to fabricate the item.

Rogues are handled in a similar manner. They are "Techies" or "Latent Espers". The Latent Espers are just like the standard Rogues in that they can learn psi powers from an Esper. Techies can use supers science items and can learn to build them from Scientists.

Wizard Warriors are "Esper Knights", and are act just as described in the rules. These are the Lensmen and Jedi.

Aliens are pretty easy to handle. To play an alien character just come up with a customized Peters-McAllister chart. For alien beasties just give then a monster rating, or Alien Rating.

But what about space ships? The easiest way would be to treat them similar to monster and give them a Spaceship Rating. For example, a small scout ship might might have a Spaceship Rating of 200 and a blaster turret that does 21D plus adds, while a Space Pirate cruiser might be SR 1000 and have beam batteries that do 101D plus adds. Ships could even have ablative Deflector Screens that are equal to their starting SR and which don't count toward their adds. I'd probably also give each ship a Speed rating to help figure out if you could outrun that Imperial Patrol.

So there you are. Some quick rules to take let your T&T game blast off.

Forbidden Books

Form "The Lovecraft Variant" by G. Arthur Rahman and Philip J. Rahman in Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine (Summer, 1980).

Forbidden Books
Bygone occult investigators and mystics have recorded some of the Old One's secrets. Sometimes reading a forbidden book will prepare a character to see the Greater Significance of a discovery. To establish the identity of a book randomly, roll 2d6 on this table.

2 - Prehuman Religions. Uncanny, rich, and dreadful (English)

3 - Unaussprechlichen Kulten. Stunning and terrible (German)

4 - Pnakotic Manuscript. Recorded secrets of a pre-Homo sapiens race (English translations available)

5 - Revelations of Glaaki. Psychic dreams of a mystic (English)

6 - Book of Dzyan. Suggestions of true horror expressed in vague oriental style (ancient Sanskrit)

7 - G'harne Fragments. More pre-human writings, widely considered to be a modern hoax (English)

8 - King in Yellow. A play that presents eldritch horror in the guise of an allegory (French and English translations available)

9 - Les Cultes des Goules. Dread knowledge confused by the vacuous interpretation of a mad nobleman (French)

10 - Vermis Mysteriis. An important revelation of horror (Latin)

11 - Liber Ivonis. Manuscript of a prehistoric wizard, rich and powerful (medieval French)

12 - Necronomicon. Masterwork of arcane knowledge (Latin), a book so frightful an ES-SR [Emotional Stability Saving Roll] is required to read it.

The Lovecraft Varient

The other day James M. blogged about The Prehistory of Call of Cthulhu and how CoC originally began as a generic Gothic horror RPG. And Ed commented,

More fun facts:

Issue 7 of Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine (Summer 1980) contained an article called "The Lovecraft Variant," which was a Tunnels & Trolls rules hack for playing 1920s Cthulhu Mythos adventures. It was pretty damn cool.

It later evolved into Mercenaries, Spies, and Private Eyes.

So I decided to revisit this little gem and dug out my stack of back issues of Sorcerer's Apprentice magazine that I bought from Flying Buffalo a few years ago.

Written by G. Arthur Rahman and Philip J. Rahman it appeared under the full title "The Lovecraft Variant, or the Lurking Shadow Over Pickman's Unnameable Hound on the Doorstep of the Shunned Witch House of the Terrible Erich Zann." (If you can recognize all the Lovecraft stories alluded to in that humorously verbose title, award yourself five geek points.) The article begins with fulsome praise for Lovecraft, crediting him with the creation of "a new sub-genre in fantasy." And while they acknowledge that Lovecrafty elements can be added to the standard dungeon crawl, they set out to provide rules to play in the Jazz Age milieu in which the stories were originally set.

This article shall endeavor to adapt T&T to the special requirements of Lovecraftian adventure.

An active interest in the Cthulhu Mythos will greatly aid the playing of the Lovecraft Variant. Players who opt to be characters in a horror story must recognize that the Gm is only doing his duty if he gives them a rough time. In this genre, death and madness fall with horrifying frequency.

Unlike most role-playing games, the characters in the Lovecraft Variant  are little-motivated by hope of money, fame or self-improvement. They are explorers of the nature of Evil, questers after the frightful secrets behind the world's mysteries. Their reward is knowledge for its own sake; even the most persistent and successful delver may end his career old before his time, with a burden of secrets too dreadful to bear.

They them proceed to the specific game mechanics needed to run the LV. These included a new attribute, Emotional Stability, which "quantifies the character's ability to withstand terror without mental trauma." This prefigures CoC's Sanity attribute, and is one of the things which set these games apart from the sword-and-sorcery genre. In your average FRPG the adventures can confront all manner of demons and beasties and only have to worry about becoming monster chow. In a Lovecrafty game they also have to worry about wigging out.

Other paragraphs cover Equipment (e.g., Cheap revolver 5D6+15), Magic ("A scan of Lovecraftian literature will derive very little magic that is equivalent to the spells of T&T."), and rules for Character Types (Investigators, Scholars, and Dilettantes). Then comes some random charts for Personal Secrets, Fear Reaction, and Forbidden Books (yes, the Necronomicon is there). Then comes a short list of Ancient Gods and Monster Ratings and descriptions for a variety of Minions (Shoggoth, MR 500). The article wraps up with eight Scenario Suggestions.

I never played the LV because by the time I saw it I already had CoC for that kind of game. But thinking about it now, this short article gives you everything you need to do Lovecraft. You don't really need whole new books of rules and supplements (fine as those were). You just need to spend a few hours tweaking your favorite rules (you could do the same thing with D&D, RQ, Traveller, or whatever) to play a horror game. In a way I wish I'd used the LV to run my Mythos games, and maybe at some point I will.

Real gamer's character sheet

There was a great post the other day over at The Sandbox of Doom singing the praises of the 3"x5" character sheet. Even though I wouldn't necessarily label myself an Old School Gamer I can dig this. When it comes to character sheets I've always thought smaller is better. Maybe it's because of playing wargames where models seldom have a sheet bigger than a playing card. But I thinks it's really because of my fondness for good ol' Tunnels & Trolls 5th Ed. where men were men, Amazons were Amazons, and Trolls smelled really bad.

T&T was old-school...

...before old-school was cool.

The old school movement among RPGers echoes the retrogaming trend in video games. It's trying to get back to a simpler, less complicated time in the hobby. As TSR's D&D evolved it took on evermore bizarre forms. Basic D&D, Expert D&D, and AD&D were rival and incompatible rules sets that competed with each other. Then came variations like Dragonlance, which some say recast the game into a novelistic form far removed from it's improvisational beginnings.

Meanwhile, there was Tunnels & Trolls.

Appearing in 1979, T&T 5th edition seems to anticipate and accommodate the discontent of the old-school gamers. While D&D was transmogrifying into the dense edifice of AD&D, T&T reveled in its simplicity. You didn't even need a set of polyhedral dice to play it. If D&D was treating PCs as protagonists in an epic narrative struggle between the forces of White Hattery vs. the Le Chapeaux Noir , T&T was celebrating the dungeon crawl. Characters are rolled up half a dozen at a time, with the assumption that the GM is going to do his best to kill off the pesky dungeon defilers. Character "sheets" are nothing more than 3-by-5 index cards. Hell, the game even bills itself as a dungeon crawl, the back cover proclaiming, "The fundamental framework for adventuring in Tunnels & Trolls is the concept of an underground tunnel complex wherein dangerous traps and deadly monsters guard undreamed-of treasures..."

But mostly T&T encouraged players to rewrite the rules to suit themselves. Whereas the D&D rules scowled at players with confining proclamations, T&T insisted that the rules were no more than suggestions and recommended that players change any rules they didn't like. GMs were free to let their imaginations run wild, and rules lawyers were nipped in the bud.

For decades T&T maintained the simplicity and emphasis on players creativity that seemed to be getting lost in the commercial juggernaut that D&D had become. But T&T languished in obscurity. Overshadowed by the numerous boxed sets and horse-choking hardbound rules of its predecessor, shunned by system snobs at conventions, it found a place for itself mainly in the byways of colorful but isolated solo dungeons. In 1999 it received some belated appreciation when Pyramid magazine named it as one of The Millennium's Most Underrated Games.

So to all you old school gamers out there, I'd like to remind you that the solution to all your complaints was there all the time. Even as you weave complicated magics to resurrect your favorite games, the magic potion that is T&T sits dusty on the shelf waiting to be quaffed. I hope you don't fail the saving throw.