A Review of Beginners Bundle for T&T-Flying Buffalo

[Karl]

This pdf bundle is the best introduction to Tunnels and Trolls I can think of. It comes with the generic mini-rules section that I have seen so many times before at the end of the bundle. However it goes into much more detail on what combat is and what saving rolls are and the different ways to use them along with examples. I printed this section out and gave it to my wife who has been trying to understand my love for T&T (she comes from that other game and so struggles with the differences) This time she seemed to grasp the rules in a way that skimming the dT&T book and talking to me did not. The other thing I printed out from the bundle was all of the many one page information sheets in the book. A truly great resource for new players and old Trolls alike! The great character sheets will see many of printing as well. I even printed out the world map and stuck it in my binder. it's nice to have a copy without needed to flip through the massive dT&T book.

Oh wait, that's not all! It also includes four pre-rolled characters and Two Adventures to use them in!

 Journey to Buffalo Island is the first adventure and it is a solo. It starts off with a shipwreck and gets worse from there! I tried it and had a blast until I foolishly pressed my luck to far and died to goblins!

 The Tomb of Kharis is a GM adventure. I skimmed over it and it looked more than a simple dungeon crawl. The Town of Skeins End is nicely mapped out and I can't wait till some of my players visit the local bar "The Blue Narwhale". 

With full fledged NPC write ups and Several short How to run a adventure and tips on creating you own adventure(or Expand this one) I think this is the best yet introduction to a rpg that I have seen. 

My only real complaint is that I wasn't given the option of getting it in paperback and have to make due with pdf. At just under $6 though I can't complain!

[cupboardgnome]

Ooooh, so tempted after your review.

[mahrundl]

Thanks for the review, Burdbelkus Portabello! I might have to grab some copies for my players, or at least point them at it.

[houndle]

A nice product on the whole. Definitely influenced my decision to buy into dT&T instead of sticking with older versions, so job done on that score.

The material at the end felt rather thrown together. Not sure why it was necessary to include two blank character sheets, and the reference sheets clearly belong to the full dT&T rules, without which someone totally new to the game might be confused.

Well worth the money  I thought (the solo is good), an attractive package and probably just enough to draw somebody into the game but a little bit of work on the supporting materials could have made it even better.

[mosker]

Thank you. I want to look at this now: I just pulled the DT&T book out with the goal of reading it as someone who knows a bit about RPG's but is encountering the game as a new player, rather than what the book really is--an absolute love fest between the fans and creators.

[houndle]

So what did you conclude mosker?

I remember that as a new player I was a lot more forgiving of rules issues than I subsequently became. I just sort of went with it until I suddenly realised that games publishers weren't omniscient and sometimes they simply got things wrong. 

Mind you things were different in those days. One publisher admitted to leaving holes in the rules more or less as a matter of policy on the basis that it "encouraged creativity and role playing". 

I'd like to think I've mellowed over the years. I still tinker with rules I don't like, but I don't grumble about them so much. 

[mosker]

Sept 3, 2022 13:04:51 GMT -5 houndle said:

So what did you conclude mosker?

I remember that as a new player I was a lot more forgiving of rules issues than I subsequently became.[...]I'd like to think I've mellowed over the years. I still tinker with rules I don't like, but I don't grumble about them so much. 

I will never be as invested in or knowledgeable of an RPG (unless I wrote my own) as I was in T&T 5th edition so it's really hard to put on "new reader" goggles. I understand that much of the new stuff came in 7.x, but DT&T feels so different (feels, not, is, so this is about me, not the game), far crunchier (WIZ, SPD, talents?) than my brain is used to when I think T&T and still far simpler than crunchy games. It may be the perfect balance, or perfectly flawed.

As I said, it feels like (non-pejorative) fan service especially for those old time players who just wanted a bit of spackling in their old rules holes/inconsistencies/weirdness (Wizards are no longer super strong--except when they are casting spells. Rogues can be closer to thieves rather than watered-down warrior/wizards.).

The game does feel much much much better suited to group play than it ever did, which is a huge benefit. (Solo players? We know not to get too attached to our characters, and keeping the rules extra simple helps maintain that emotional distance.)

[Insert Octavia Butler quote re: change]