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Post by michaelsotired on Jun 12, 2024 22:33:47 GMT -5
Here's an early review of T&T, from the 1977 issue of Space Gamer. I'm wondering what Mr. Clark would think of it now lol. Thought I'd share!
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kwll
4th Level Troll
Posts: 257
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Post by kwll on Jun 13, 2024 2:41:37 GMT -5
The article actually raises a good question. Who has ever played original T&T without playing any RPG before (including solos)?
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Post by houndle on Jun 13, 2024 4:59:03 GMT -5
I started with T&T.
T&T reached the UK shortly before D&D as I recall (or at least roughly the same time as GW released D&D under licence).
I bought T&T a few months before D&D, changed over when the latter came out, switched to Metamorphosis Alpha because I didn't like the way D&D handled some aspects and ended up back where I started.
The review is an interesting read, not wholly unfair in the context of how the early editions were presented, but there seem to be a fair few assumptions made which I wouldn't necessarily agree with. Water under the bridge now.
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Post by mahrundl on Jun 13, 2024 6:59:41 GMT -5
I also started with T & T. A friend bought it from the UK and introduced me to it. There were no game shops where I could find other games nearer than several hundred kilometres away, and when I did finally get to one, I bought Sewers of Oblivion. (I had been introduced to TOG by the same friend by that point, but was happy to stick with T & T.)
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makbai
Lurker under the Bridge
Posts: 7
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Post by makbai on Jun 13, 2024 9:13:35 GMT -5
Mr. Robert C. Kirk (not Clark) reviewed the original T&T (1st - 3rd edition) and assumed that one needs to know D&D to understand the game. Thats funny as the original D&D (White box edition) wasn't know to be comprehensible to the uninitiated.
Also it would have been nice if the reader could learn anything about the game itself. You know rules and such. But no luck here. Instead he goes into details, like piton hammers. Piton hammers, really? One could get the impression an avid D&D player was here at work. Well more rabbid than avid.
By the way: One can't acquire or use a horse because there are neither prices nor other rules for it? Well further up he wrote "this requires more imagination than the normal human has". Lack of imagination is indeed a problem playing roleplaying games, as he has proven with the "review".
We do learn more about the reviewer than the game the article is about.
If you have never read a review about T&T before--read something else.
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Post by houndle on Jun 13, 2024 10:06:50 GMT -5
T&T didn't get much respect in the early days. One of the two games retailers I used to buy from back then wouldn't touch it because it "wasn't good value for money". (The article containing that comment is still on the internet somewhere, though the company itself went bust around 1981.)
The other company used to issue these catalogues which consisted of many pages of tiny print closely crammed together and never a picture or whitespace to break up the wall of text. I loved them, you could spend a week just figuring out what was on offer. They also operated a weird discount scheme which I could never fathom. I used to get my order form back covered in corrections, all in red ink as if I'd failed a maths test.
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dungeondevil
3rd Level Troll
Give me grain and I'll give you guns!
Posts: 214
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Post by dungeondevil on Jun 13, 2024 21:43:57 GMT -5
It would seem that the esteemed Reviewer lacked the requisite imagination -- and also likely a lack of readership in Fantasy and/or Sword-and-Sorcery -- to undertake any such taxing endeavour as a roleplaying game. May I very belatedly suggest draughts or nine-men's-morris? In all fairness, the 1st edition is (to put it charitably) rough around the edges, and was certainly polished and nicely refined in subsequent editions. We should institute a rule that barding doesn't require a horse in it to be ridden! One is reminded of the video game Dragon's Lair.
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mosker
5th Level Troll
Posts: 597
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Post by mosker on Jun 13, 2024 22:10:03 GMT -5
Today in really big numbers: (The amount of money I pumped into that machine when it came out)/(The number of those scenes I actually encountered)
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mi98c10
Lurker under the Bridge
Posts: 1
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Post by mi98c10 on Jun 13, 2024 23:20:04 GMT -5
It would seem that the esteemed Reviewer lacked the requisite imagination -- and also likely a lack of readership in Fantasy and/or Sword-and-Sorcery -- to undertake any such taxing endeavour as a roleplaying game. May I very belatedly suggest draughts or nine-men's-morris? In all fairness, the 1st edition is (to put it charitably) rough around the edges, and was certainly polished and nicely refined in subsequent editions. We should institute a rule that barding doesn't require a horse in it to be ridden! One is reminded of the video game Dragon's Lair. When WOTC released the deluxe box set of the Origanal D&D (I bought it because I had Empire of the Petal Throne and could not believe it was based on Original D&D). It took a couple of months the figure out how to play it. I found the d&d group on this site that explained it. As some one who has seen and ran 2 of the first three rpgs (I started on T&T 5th). HOW THE HELL IS THE REVIEWER SAYING T&T is hard to understand. OD&D and EotPT are clear as mud. This is after playing AD&D 1st and 2nd every week for 4 years and having the rules for 2nd, 3rd, and 4th and knowing how to play. I could not figure out how to play reading the original edition. Also this was after I had read and understood how to play SFB and ASL! The advise on making a dungeon sounds like how d&d told you. Also I love how the reviewer says the characters show up to the store naked. The same could be said for d&d and EotPT has no rules for starting equipment. i wonder if the reviewer has read d&d or just a fanboy who attacks any non d&d rpg?
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Post by Aramis of Erak on Jun 19, 2024 3:57:34 GMT -5
The article actually raises a good question. Who has ever played original T&T without playing any RPG before (including solos)? my eldest's first RPG was T&T 5th. She played a Faerie Warrior. D&D Cyclopedia was second... She's run D&D and FFG-L5R. She's playtested FFG Star Wars, FFG L5R, Mongoose Traveller 1e, the Dune economic rules... and I've been on those playtests and more. My youngest started with FFG Star Wars, playing a droid, R2-QT2, a purple and palladium R2. Both are adults; the youngest ran a 3 month D&D game over the net early this year.
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