Showing posts with label Tunnels & Trolls. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Tunnels & Trolls. Show all posts

Friday, 5 June 2020

Tunnels and Trolls Adventures - iOS/Android App

Once again the Fans of Dead Games Society came up trumps.  A member pointed me in the direction of the Tunnels and Trolls Adventures app (available for both iOS and Android).

During this COVID-19 Lockdown I need some solo adventuring whilst I wait for eBay to deliver my physical T&T Solo Adventures.

Tunnels and Trolls Adventures

The app is free and comes with 27 adventures:

  • The Ascendant (Free)
  • Buffalo Castle (40)
  • Blue Frog Tavern (40)
  • Sword for Hire (40)
  • A Sworded Adventure (40)
  • Gamesmen of Kasar (40)
  • Misty Wood (40)
  • Caravan to Tiern (40)
  • Road to Gull (40)
  • Golden Dust, Red Death (40)
  • Hot Pursuit (40)
  • Sewers of Oblivion (40)
  • Deathtrap Equalizer (40)
  • Stop Thief! (40)
  • City of Terrors (50)
  • Ultimatum (40)
  • Overkill (50)
  • Naked Doom (Free)
The Characters

You start with 4 basic characters which can be selected using the horned hemet icon, these are:
  • Borgoth  - Dwarven Warrior with
  • Lelana - Elf Warrior
  • Morgan (Human Warrior)
  • Rufus (Hobb Warrior)
Like all solo adventures your class is limited to warrior types for simplicity's sake, no spell casters here.

However, there is the option to roll your own character with a fairly simple pick and place interface which I like.  You get to choose from the four basic races Dwarf, Elf, Hobb and Human and Lore panels give a little bit of flavour text to explain the race, how "Adds" work and what your modified scores will be if you select the race. 

Updating Your Character

The app handles all the recording of experience and items you acquire as you complete the various adventures. 

However, it does not level you up or equip your character with new weapons you acquire on your adventures.  Make sure that you check back regularly to update your character and their inventory.


This an introductory game designed to teach you the basic mechanics of T&T and the interface but the storyline is well written, rich in descriptive text.  It is a bit binary in terms of the decision tree, you either choose to do something or not, but this is understandable given that it is essentially targetting a newbie audience.

Your character goes from a humble villager to a starting adventurer which reminded me of the Dungeon Crawl Classics 0-level character concept.  I am a fan of this method of starting a new character as it is a refreshing alternative to the cliched "You meet in a Tavern".


Tunnels & Trolls - Naked Doom
Buy it on eBay
As author Ken St. Andre says "I'm trying to kill your character" and there's no mistaking that.  You will have to acquire a decent weapon and some bonuses if you want to successfully beat some of these challenges.

It's been a long time since I played Naked Doom IRL, but this brought the memories rushing back.  I felt a real sense of relief when I finally escaped and a nagging sense that I'd left much yet to be discovered.

The beauty of this app is that you can pick another character and be dungeon delving again within minutes.  You may have to try several different characters to find the optimal combination of Attributes and Adds to successfully complete every path.  Good Times.


This is a well written but short taster adventure which sets the scene and gets you through the wilderness and up to the gates of the Necropolis.  To continue you must purchase part 2 or as I did play using one of my hearts. 

It is very short but still it has some excellent characters and some items can be acquired which have some significance both in this part and the next.  I enjoyed our brief time together and was sufficiently intrigued to give Part 2 a go which proved much more in depth and deadly. 


A night on the town sounds like fun, you've got a coin full of gold and the Black Heart Gambling Den awaits. 

Essentially this adventure is a series of games of chance which are played using attribute checks.  The twist is that if you win you gain adventure points, if you lose you pay with your life force (CON).  An interesting concept which is definitely finding its way inside one of my cities.

Micro Transactions

The majority of the adventures must be purchased using the in game currency of Gems at the (bracketed prices) listed above.  You acquire Gems in game as loot and also buy puchasing them at the store.  You can buy 50 Gems for the $4.99.

However, the game is supported by ads.  If you watch an ad you earn 1 heart and can play any adventure once without owning it by spending a heart.   

Good Cheap Fun

This was some good cheap and incredibly fast fun whilst I waited for my solo adventures to arrive and to be honest why not take advantage of technology if it is available.  I really appreciated the fact that every adventure could be played for free.  If everything had been locked off with micro transactions I would have not given this app the time of day.

I blazed through the five adventures in no time and would have played more but the postman delivered my new solo adventure book in super quick time. 

Wish me luck as I enter the Arena of Khazan!

Tunnels and Trolls - Amulet of the Saltki / Arena of Khazan

Sunday, 24 May 2020

A to Z of UK RPG in the 80s - T is for Tunnels and Trolls


T is for Tunnels and Trolls and Flying Buffalo

My first exposure to Roleplaying was actually Tunnels & Trolls. My Dad came back from one of his working trips with a photocopy of the Weirdworld solo module and I voraciously lapped it up. This was back in the day when Flying Buffalo (the company formed in 1970 by Rick Loomis) released their T&T solo modules as spiral bound A4 booklets making game piracy a fairly simple task.  Perhaps that was the point, what's good enough for Microsoft is good enough for Flying Buffalo.

The pages were full of great images like the entrance to the dungeon itself and new and strange words words like myriad.  As you can imagine it made quite an impression on my tiny growning brain.

The entrance to Maximillian the Magnificen't Madhouse (Weirdworld)
The entrance to the Madhouse which was solo adventure #6 Weirdworld

I had no rules and I had no idea how to play it, I just treated it as choose your own adventure book before I even knew what one of those was.  Later on I would experience my first group session of the game at a games club in my home town of Bradford.  The DM using the a very early boxed set version of the rules with the little yellow booklet.

Our relocation down to London in the mid 80s coincided with the release of the Corgi edition paperbacks and I picked one up in a local Virgin Games store (remember them).

Core
Rulebook
The Amulet of the Salkti
Arena of Khazan
Catif D'Yvoire
Beyond the Silvered Pane
The City of Terrors
Gamesmen of Kasar
Misty Wood
Naked Doom
Deathtrap Equalizer
Sword for Hire
Blue Frog Tavern



The Corgi editions are really memorable.  They had amazing cover art by Josh Kirby and were published in a standard paperback formfactor at pocket money prices.  The main competition at the time were the Puffin Fighting Fantasy books written by the Ian Livingston and Steve Jackson of Games Workshop.  I preferred T&T because there was a bit more meat on the bones and I remembered the fun I had playing in that group game back in Bradford.

They are very collectible and hold their prices but they are very available when you search for Tunnels Trolls on eBay.

Flying Buffalo have of course continued to publish games and still exist today.  Their products were always on the fringe of the hobby never taking themselves too seriously but they were always popular.


My Collection Includes:

Corgi Edition
Core Rules
5th Edition
Core Rules
Grimtooths
Traps Too
The Hole Delver's
Catalogue
Maps
Cities Book 1
Sword for Hire
Blue Frog Tavern
The Amulet of the Salkti
Catalogue



Availability of Flying Buffalo is good and they tend to be on the cheaper side of RPG collectables. I aim to reacquire all the Corgi adventure books in the very near future. Search for Flying Buffalo Products on eBay.



The AtoZ of UK RPG in the 80s
  1. is for Adventurer Magazine
  2. is for Beast Enterprises
  3. is for Citadel
  4. is for Dungeon Floors
  5. is for Elric of Melnibone
  6. is for Fighting Fantasy
  7. is for Games Designers Workshop
  8. is for Heavy Metal
  9. is for Indiana Jones
  10. is for Judge Dredd
  11. is for Knightmare
  12. is for Large Box Games
  13. is for Mayfair Games
  14. is for Northern Militaire
  15. is for O
  16. is for Pondsmith (where's my flying car Mike?)
  17. is for Qadim
  18. is for Robots
  19. is for Steve Jackson
  20. is for Tunnels & Trolls
  21. is for UK Series of AD&D Modules
  22. is for V
  23. is for White Dwarf
  24. is for X
  25. is for Y
  26. is for Z