Interlude 1: Tunnels & Trolls

Seeing as it's credited as the second fantasy role-playing game in existence, I thought it might be fun to take a break in my timeline at the end of 1975 for a look at Tunnels & Trolls. It was created by Ken St. Andre who, upon looking at a friend's copy of Dungeons & Dragons, promptly decided that the game was confusing and wrote his own rules based around the same concept. Tunnels & Trolls was published in April 1975, and for a time was D&D's biggest competitor.

For this post I took a look at the game's first edition, and had a couple of attempts at a solo adventure using the Buffalo Castle module.

The first thing I was struck by upon reading the rules is the scope of Tunnels & Trolls: it's completely focused on dungeon adventuring, lacking D&D's digressions into wilderness adventures, aerial combat, naval battles, etc. It's only a third of the size, so I guess it never was going to be as expansive.

Character creation is similar, with six stats all rolled in 3d6. These stats are the same as those used in D&D, except for Wisdom which has been replaced by Luck. Instead of Fighters, Magic-Users and Clerics, the classes in T&T are Warriors, Wizards and Rogues. It's possible that St. Andre saw the Greyhawk supplement before writing his game (or perhaps the earlier version of the Thief class published in a 'zine), but it's also possible that he came up with the idea on his own. To be honest, though, the two classes aren't at all similar; the Rogue in T&T is more of a fighter/magic-user hybrid, with none of the thief's stealth and trap-finding skills.

Combat is even more abstracted than in D&D. Each side rolls a bunch of dice (always 6-siders) and adds a certain number to the total. For PCs, the dice rolled depends upon the weapon wielded, and the numbers added or subtracted are based on Strength, Luck and Dexterity. Monsters use a different system: each monster has a rating, which determines their hit points as well as the number of dice they roll.  A monster rolls dice, and on the first combat turn adds half their Monster Rating. On the second turn, they only add a quarter. The higher number wins, and the difference is subtracted from the loser's Constitution.  With larger groups, everyone on every side totals their dice and adds, and the side that loses has to spread the damage out among their number.

The magic system is point-based rather than using spell slots and memorisation like D&D, requiring the caster to expend Strength points for every spell.  The spell names are whimsical, and fit the humourous tone that T&T is going for, with names like "Take That You Fiend" and "Curse You". I've never played T&T or read a manual before today, but the one thing I knew about it was that it had weird spell names. Are T&T fans fond of them? I'd probably change them if I ever ran the game in an ongoing fashion. Maybe I just hate fun or something.

Disappointingly for me (because I love reading RPG monster entries), there are no monster stats in T&T. This isn't such a big deal, because all you need to come up with is a single number for the Monster Rating, and maybe some rules for its special abilities. The MR covers its hit points, how much damage it does, and how much XP its worth. It's a simple system (perhaps too simple), but it would be great for running games on the fly with no preparation.

With a basic grasp of the rules, I rolled up a character to take on an adventure into Buffalo Castle. Here he is below:

NAME: Ferdinand the Slinker
TYPE: Rogue

STR: 8; INT:  11; LUCK: 12; CON: 7; DEX: 8; CHA: 11

GOLD: 100

I bought Ferdinand some clothes, a pack, sandals, a sword, a dagger, and a steel cap. The sword would be my primary weapon, being worth 2 dice. The cap gave me a +1 bonus to Constitution.

In my first foray into the castle, I encountered a troll sitting on a chest. I tried to talk to him, which required me to add 3d6 plus my Charisma and Luck together. I got a total of 32, which wasn't quite high enough to stop the troll from attacking me.

Failing that I tried to run, which required a Saving Roll. Every character has a Saving Roll number, which is equal to 20 - Luck. (This number gets higher on lower dungeon levels.) Ferdinand had a Saving Roll of 8. I needed to get higher than that on two dice (although rolling doubles allows you to roll again and add to the total). I rolled a 6, so I wasn't able to escape, and the Troll hit me for 2 damage.

I had to fight the Troll, who had a Monster Rating of 40 and rolled 5 dice in combat. On the first round, it was his 5d6+20 vs. my paltry 2d6-2. I rolled for myself, scoring a 5. I didn't even bother rolling for the Troll, as I was dead no matter what. Mathematically there was no chance for me to win or even damage the Troll. He would have been down to 5d6+10 on the second round, but even then the battle was impossible. Maybe rolling doubles in combat lets you keep adding numbers as well? That would make things a little better.

And now, for my second character:

NAME: Mangfred the Manful
TYPE: Warrior

STR: 11; INT: 5; LUCK: 8; CON: 8; DEX: 9; CHA: 8

GOLD: 140

I bought Mangfred a mace (worth 3 dice), some leather armor (+2 Con) and a steel cap (+1 Con).

Immediately I fell into a pit (failing my Saving Roll of 12), losing 2 CON. I found a secret door in the bottom of the pit, which led to a treasure room with seemingly unlimited gold pieces. In reality, I could keep shoveling gold into his pack indefinitely, but for every 10gp I had to check for Wandering Monsters. I rolled badly on the first round, and was attacked by an Orc.

The Orc was much more manageable than the Troll, with a Monster Rating of 16 and 3 dice. I rolled by 3d6-1, scoring a meagre 6. He rolled his 3d6+8, and scored a 16. Again, I had been killed in the first round of combat.

I'm not sure if I just had bad luck with the dice, or if Tunnels & Trolls is absurdly deadly. Certainly, its combat system is far more reliant on equipment and ability scores than D&D's, which makes your class the primary factor in combat effectiveness (especially original D&D< which had every weapon dealing 1d6 damage). I definitely rolled poor stats for both of my guys: going with straight 3d6 down the line results in some crushingly mediocre characters, and in this game it's punishing.

Reading the manual, I found Tunnels & Trolls charming. It has an impish, whimsical sense of humour, and strikes me as more fairy-tale in tone than D&D's pulp sword & sorcery roots. It's simple and fast-paced, and would be perfect for impromptu pick-up games. Actually trying to play it was another experience. I gather the system was greatly improved in later editions, but having tried to play it solo I'm not convinced that it works. Again, it could just have been my cruel dice, but everything just seemed far too stacked in the favour of the monsters. With the best weapon and perfect stats, I would have been rolling 4d6+18 against the Troll, which might just have scraped me through. But let's face it, those perfect stats aren't going to happen, so I have no idea how a 1st level character would beat it. Then again, a 1st level character isn't beating a Troll in D&D either, and it might just be that it's Buffalo Castle that's unbalanced rather than Tunnels & Trolls as a whole. Maybe I misunderstood the rules? After all, it's been in print for over 40 years, it must be doing something right.

As a final note, I was surprised to see the term Dungeon Master being thrown about quite freely in this game.  As far as I know, the term doesn't see print in a D&D product until Supplement II: Blackmoor, which T&T predates by a good six months. Did T&T create the term, or was it a phrase that was in wide circulation with gamers already?  Regardless, it's possible that this might be the first time that the game referee is called a Dungeon Master in print.