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The TrollsZine is a truly magical creation. Fans of Tunnels & Trolls contribute their creativity simply to share their love of the game and to promote it in this free high quality magazine. It's a fun read with a great variety of articles, ideas, and artwork (I was fortunate enough to be asked to do the cover for this issue, and I'm proud to have been a part of this fantastic process and to be included in such talented company with the other contributors).
If you're already a fan of the game, or want to learn more this collection is something you need to pick up. The game's creator, Ken St. Andre, has links to the issues of TrollsZine on his Trollhalla website (membership to this great community is free: www.trollhalla.com) which is a great endorsement for this publication. You need this one!
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Once more the Trollszine has arrived. With its fantastic mix of articles, GM adventures and even a solo it more than lives up to the tremendous standards set by the previous half a dozen issues.
There is something for everyone here ranging from a learned discussion about gunpowder and early firearms by Justin Williams to a piece for the New Khazan setting detailing doomsday weapons from David Moskowitz. Jesse Lambert's mini solitaire adventure 'The Wizard's Hut' is great fun and the author has even done his own excellent illustrations; how I'd like to be able to do that! Perhaps my favourite piece is from Dan Prentice talking about special damage and how to expand its use in your campaign. I even learned that 'spite' damage was a concept introduced to T&T by the one and only Roy Cram in the pages of the brilliant Sorcerer's Apprentice.
I have only scratched the surface of what is on offer in this edition of Trollszine, but cannot praise all the contributors and, of course, Dan Hembry for all his hard work editing and pulling it all together, enough. There is so much brilliant material here it just comes as such a surprise that someone has given it a rating of just 1 out of 5. I cannot imagine anyone who plays T&T who would not want to have this great resource available. Well done again all involved and 5 out of 5 from this troll!
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I remember how the Dragon Magazine and TSR guys were so upset about Tunnels & Trolls back in the day. I always thought it was a blatant copy that was a parody based on their negative remarks, but the modern era positive reviews made me finally download this.
This particular file is a bare-bone free preview. All in all it feels like a stripped down version of Original DnD. It also turns out I was sorely disappointed by the "Choose Your Own Adventure" solitaire mode.This little rulebook failed to make me sold on T&T, although the publisher's site and players swear by this game. For a free product, I wanted a hard sell. It felt like a 1970s/1980s Steve Jackson fighting fantasy gamebook- without his superb writing style.
Not sure why T&T is a good alternative to DnD at this time. Perhaps the simplified rules?
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This is a neat little solo adventure, with the delightfully-mundane task of going to fetch some mead for a party. Now, as it happens, I actually was introduced to the drinking of mead during a gaming session, although I think it was D&D rather than Tunnels & Trolls that we were playing, sometime back in the early 1980s as the game was being played in my college dorm room!
Anyway, the adventure sounds straightforwards and it is possible to perform it in a straightforward manner, just doing your errand and even getting a drink of mead into the bargain. Don't believe it - well, I just did it! Of course, there are plenty of complications if you are unlucky with your die rolls or make the wrong choices along the way...
The text is clear, the options available are laid out for you well (might be improved by utilising the technology of PDFs to hyperlink them to reduce the amount of scrolling!) and there are plenty of chances to get into trouble and, well, make an adventure out of getting the mead in for tonight's party.
Just the thing for a quiet moment when you want to play but cannot find any gamers... enjoy!
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Some folks will probably discount this game entirely due to the formatting and layout, but what's hidden in here is a classic game that's very easy to pick up. T&T definitely has a sillier, more tongue-in-cheek feel than Dungeons & Dragons, but a loyal following online will tell you there's still plenty here to like.
There are two adventures included. The rules aren't what you'd get with Tunnels & Trolls 7th edition, but they'll work for solitaire products or just trying it out for beer n' pretzels gaming.
This is a good, quick intro of a product many gamers have likely heard of, but have never played.
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Plain great nostalgis fun! I bought My first copy of TnT back in '77 or '78. Now, I am introducing My kids to gaming. We are having a great time. "Goblin Lake" is fun but very deadly.
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A nice change from crawling through dungeons, killing things and taking their stuff, this adventure sets your character on the trail of an uruk who has been kidnapped and held for ransom. As his tribe don't have the cash to pay but do have a mutual defence treaty with YOUR people, you are sent to rescue him or at the very least, avenge him.
From the outset, the standard solo/paragraph format is used to good effect: after getting your briefing you may either go to visit his tribe, go to the last place that he was seen or go straight to the pirates who have been demanding a ransom for him. From then on in, the action is fast and furious with plenty to keep you occupied - talking to people, brawling, running away... even building a raft if you have a mind to.
A bit of a different slant to adventuring, interesting, good fun, a bit of a challenge... what more could you want when you have a spot of spare time and no gamers to play with?
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Never, never, NEVER expect the normal or average when Ken St Andre builds a world and its inhabitants.
Dwarfs, for instance, look and act and SEEM like the dwarfs you find in other fantasy rolegames. Don't be fooled! They are - without spoiling any surprises, I hope - an entirely different life form than what you expect. IF they are actually a life form at all.
Dwarf World takes your player characters INTO the world owned (?) and inhabited (sometimes?) by Gristlegrim, the dwarf god who is not a god, but is, who brought and/or created dwarfs for Trollworld in the first place.
But this is not Trollworld, and the characters are foredoomed to worse than death if they make such rash assumptions. The gamesmaster has a LOT of freedom with this "worldbook" though there is plenty of information available. This being Tunnels & Trolls and specifically a Tunnels and Trolls book by Ken, there is enough data to build on, but you are fully expected, as a gamesmaster and world creator, to make this very personal - to yourself and especially to your players. Run properly, they'll never forget this, and they'll talk about it for the rest of their lives.
If they get out.
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Until and unless the classic Arena of Khazan is brought back into either print or e-print, this is our current stopgap. It's a little less fatal, than Arena, and doesn't ratchet up the treasure as does its predecessor. Definitely, it doesn't "Monty Haul" the treasure as Arena did, leading to (if one survived) a nearly-impossible-to-kill Kryptonian type. (In which case, one wondered how they kept such a person IN the Arena.)
This is training, pure and simple, and is a great method to get your new character "up to snuff" (unfortunate choice of words?) for further adventures. It's even useful in other adventures in which one is referred to having been "trapped in the Arena of Khazan." Substitute this until the original returns (if ever) and you'll be no worse off.
A fun pleasantry, and you'll get a LOT more than $3 worth of play from it!
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Sure, you could have had this with your copy of Sorcerer's Apprentice #5, but you'd have had to buy that in 1979 - or pay dearly now.
Even then, you wouldn't have David Ullery's enjoyable art and seen his version of Atlas on the copyright page. Nor the cute uruk at paragraph 8. Nor would you have enjoyed some of the new incidents possible in this solo.
The adventure is, yes, short - though it has the potential to become much longer if you own some other FBI TnT solos. (Sadly, the classic Arena of Khazan is out of print and not available in ebook form. Alas!!) If you make decent Saving Rolls, you may even get from Point A (entering the city and looking around) to Point B (a dwarfish repairman of swords) without an incident at all! You may have to endure an unseemly pun from the repairman, but it's fairly harmless. It's also where the adventure (in this case) ends.
If you fumble some Saving Rolls along the way, you have opportunities to pursue a thief, to become an outlaw in the city, to fight as a gladiator in the area, to face the Invincible Fishwife (shudder!), or even experience the encounter shown on the cover of this module.
One thing is sure: you won't be bored.
Short and sweet, with violence in almost every paragraph, this is the sort of trouble a lone adventurer could get into in the Good Old Days. For less than three bucks, it's a steal of a deal!
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Grimtooth’s Traps Fore is another sourcebook of traps absurd and marvelous and a delightful look back at a different era of adventure gaming, when dungeon crawling was partly a competition of cleverness between players and GMs. Confront the dangers of dungeon designs past.
Grimtooth’s Traps provides traps amazing, dangerous and unusual, mostly designed for a classic dungeon-type setting. The book was originally published in 1986, for those who are among the grognards of the hobby, it can be a very nostalgic read.
The traps are organized by type: room, corridor, door, items and artefacts, and lastly, things. Each is given a deadliness rating (marked in skulls) showing how lethal it is as presented and most have a lovely illustration by Steven S Crompton or Michael Von Glahn.
Many of the traps are classic bait and switch setups to penalize the characters using trickery (and sometimes powerful magic and illusions) to hide the nature of the actual trap. It was written in an era when dungeons were often contests between players and GM, leading to an ‘arms race’ of traps and counter-trap techniques and magic. A very different era of gaming but one that lead to great inventiveness in such things as crazy trap design and defenses against them. Of course, many of the traps in this book involve extremely powerful magic (or advanced technology or both) and would be hard to explain in a low magic campaign world, but even then, they are usually quite fun to read.
Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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Grimtooth’s Traps is a sourcebook of traps absurd and marvelous and a delightful look back at a different era of adventure gaming, when dungeon crawling was nearly a competitive sport between players and GMs. Enjoy the deviousness of old school trap design in this wonderful update of a classic.
Grimtooth’s Traps provides traps wondrous, deadly and bizarre mostly designed for a classic dungeon-type setting. The book was originally published in 1981, so for some (like me) reading it is tinged with nostalgia for old school gaming and the wacky, early days of dungeon adventuring.
The traps are organized by type: room, corridor, door, items and artefacts, and lastly, things. Each is given a deadliness rating (marked in skulls) showing how lethal it is as presented and most have a lovely illustration by Steven S Crompton, who revised and expanded on his original artwork, and there are a hundred traps in all (the hundred and first trap is special).
Many of the traps are classic screw the characters setups using trickery (and sometimes powerful magic and illusions) to disguise the nature of the actual trap. It was built for an age when dungeons were a contest between players and GM cleverness, played out through the character against dungeon stage, and realism (and roleplaying) was a secondary consideration at best. A different era of RPGs but one that lead to great inventiveness in such things as trap design and counters to them. Of course, many of the traps in this book involve extremely powerful magic (or advanced technology) and would be hard to explain in a low magic campaign world, but even then, they are inspirational and fun to read.
Disclosure: As a featured reviewer for RPGNow/DriveThroughRPG, I received my copy of this product for free from the publisher for the purpose of this review.
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Solos don't get better than this! Period!
Not a Sudden Death solo. (You know: "To go left, go to 15b; To go right, go to 16c. You're dead.") Some real roleplaying opportunities here, and - if you get through this - experiences which will change your character forever.
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Arguably the best Tunnels & Trolls magazine ever published; certainly the best still being published. And the price! How could one ever argue about the price?! At least 91% of this issue, for instance, is far above average and approaches excellence. These include a GM-moderated adventure and a solo adventure, the latter of which can be a direct sequel to a famous old T&T solo, the former of which deals with the usual Slumbering Eeeeevil and includes a well-done letter of warning from the wizard who sees through a glass darkly, at best. I'm a sucker for good props, and this letter (designed as an open scroll) is a very nice prop.
There's a VERY revealing article (including correspondence between original creator and translator/adaptor) by Patrice Geille, who translated and adapted T&T 7.5 to French. It manages to make clear some rules within T&T 7.5 which might be misconstrued, while still emphasizing T&T's greatest rule of adapting as the game goes along. This article alone would be worth the price of the magazine, if it had a price.
I guess we could say that TrollsZine #5 is priceless. We wouldn't be far wrong.
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Really good fun, and as other reviewers have mentioned, interesting from a 'history of RPGs' point of view. I love the fact that the game doesn't take itself too seriously, with spells like "Take that, you fiend!" and "Poor baby". The solo adventure is equally irreverent and excellent fun (and/but) completely deadly!
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