What year did you first play T&T?

[ironfang]

As T&T rolls into its 31st year, I thought it would be interesting to see when everyone first got introduced to the game we all enjoy so much!

We've all gone through high and low periods of being able to game, so please VOTE for the year in which you got hooked on T&T.

In my case, I was aware of RPGs in high school (77/78), but didn't get actually play D&D and T&T until college (78/79), so I voted 1979.

[dandelion]

Origins, 2000. I was sitting at the table where Khenn was scheduled to run his game, and I must've babbled cutely at him or something, because he implored me to play in spite of my guest badge. I must admit I totally kicked butt in that game, all things considered. I played with him again on Sunday morning, but my brain was so fried by that time that I was more a slumped-over lump than an actual player.

The next time I played T&T was last Tuesday. Sad, huh?

[skathros]

2005 for me, with FDP's 7E tin...and loving every minute of it!!!

[skaat]

For me, it was 1985 in San Diego, CA.

I was still going through withdrawals following the demise of Metagaming and The Fantasy Trip. As wierd as it may sound, I play games to get away from people, or at least reality, so the solitaire adventures of TFT really appealed to me. Alas, Howard Thompson ran the company into the ground after Steve Jackson left, and I was left in the cold.

Then, I found a Space Gamer magazine article that discussed converting TFT and Tunnels and Trolls characters back and forth. I'd never heard of T&T, so I did a bit of research.

Holy cow! I think at the time there were 17 Solos on the market. I found a game store in San Diego (no easy feat at the time!), bought the game (which included Buffalo Castle), rolled up some characters, and have been enjoying myself ever since.

I have never, ever, played against a live person. Just me and the Solos.

Regards,

Skaat

[mahrundl]

1981, in the Australian Outback. OK, not really the Outback, but certainly well out in the country.

Introduced by a friend, played several times, then he moved to the Big Smoke. After that, it was all solos for me, until 2004, when I GMed T&T for the first time. That campaign, after a hiatus, will hopefully resume soon...

[Dhrrru]

I first played T&T in 1986 and was introduced to the game via the solos (like Skaat). The solos I came across were the Corgi versions of the FBI published solos, and my knowledge of the rules system came from the Corgi release of the 5th edition complete rules (which is pretty much identical to the later, errata-free FBI releases of the 5th edition, except that some of the spell names were changed by an editor at Corgi because they didn't sound "serious" enough - clearly, the Corgi editor had failed to get a handle on the "spirit" of T&T 5th edition). Corgi only released A5 sized paperback editions of "Naked Doom/Deathtrap Equalizer", "Captif d'Yvoire/Beyond the Silvered Pane", "Arena of Khazan/Amulet of the Salkti", "Mistywood/Gamesmen of Kasar", "Sword for Hire/Blue Frog Tavern" and "City of Terrors" (as I understand it, to try to cash in on the "Choose-Your-Own-Adventure" and "Fighting Fantasy" gamebooks craze of the mid 1980s). Once I played out the Corgi released solos (and believe me, played them out I did), it was group play or bust for me.

Played T&T on and off during the 1990s (mostly off), and am coming back to RPGaming in general, and T&T in particular, after a long hiatus (and rediscovering all the things I used to love about both as a teenager). And just in time to catch T&T 7E! What a stroke of luck!

[Deleted]

Year? Dang, it would have been sometime in the last seven years. I'd been interested in playing TnT since seeing it in a TSR catalog in the early 90s, but I didn't find someone to play with until my friend Mike Jackson pulled out his books. I didn't become friends with him until sometime after 1996, so who knows when I finally got to play. 1999-2001?

I distinctly remember my first game where I played a leprechaun @ LepreCon. I got pasted early in the delve by a giant living statue, so Mike let me tag along with the rest of the delvers as a ghost. Ken was a player in that game, maybe he remembers that year?

After that, Mike, some other friends, and I would get together and play solos until we each had a survivable character to throw into one of the multi-character modules. After Mike died, I didn't play another T&T game until I was in one of Ken's TnT7 demos at GenCon Indy last year. I really want to play some more TnT, but find myself surrounded by d20 worshipers. Maybe I can get some play through GhostOrb...

[Taran Dracon]

I voted 1996. c.f. rockdud.net/ben/tnt/ which is more history of T&T and me than you wanted to know!

[maasenstodt]

skathros said:

2005 for me, with FDP's 7E tin...and loving every minute of it!!!

Skathros speaks for both of us on this topic.

[naharaht]

I first played T&T in the Autumn of 1981 when I saw a magazine called 'The Gamer' in my local newsagents. On the cover it advertised a 'Free! Complete SoloFantasy Adventure'. Inside was a T&T solo by Michael Stackpole called 'Blood and Honour'. I enjoyed playing it so much that I followed up an advertisement for more T&T products from the British branch of Flying Buffalo, which later became Chris Harvey Games. I bought a starter set and started buying solos. I have played on and off since mainly via solos.

[Vin Ahrr Vin]

2005 was my first year of T&T, but in 5E not version 5.5!

[ironfang]

Well, well. Flying Buffalo and Fiery Dragon should PAY ATTENTION!!!!!

Granted, only 14 votes so far, but I do see a trend developing. A cluster of "Old-Guard" who came in during the Golden Era of RPGs. A second cluster with 5th edition hitting the shelves. A third cluster with the arrival of TT7.

When the game is under-supported by the publisher during the late '80s and early '90s, there's no new interest.

whodathunkit?

[Dhrrru]

And yet, somehow, despite the poor commercial support for T&T over the years, it refuses to give up the ghost like a good many of the 1st generation role-playing games that were released within the first five or so years after D&D OE (like "Boot Hill", "Gamma World", "Chivalry and Sorcery", "En Garde", "Top Secret", "Star Frontiers", etc). Why is this? Because there are few RPGs worthy of the name where you can generate characters and summarise the main rules, purpose and styles of play for a gaming group completely new to RPGs in general, and T&T in particular, in a game universe which is both realistic (without bogging everyone down, d20 fashion, in a seemingly never-ending morass of rules to cover every conceivable action, event and/or consequence) and fun/funny, in around 30-45 minutes. 30-45 minutes! I've introduced two novice gaming groups to RPGs by way of T&T 5E in that amount of time, after which we had reasonably free-flowing games, which on both occasions led on to regular gaming sessions. (I don't know if that can still be done with T&T 7E, but I'm prepared to wager that it can.) T&T, as a game system, is so nicely balanced between realism and playability that I've seen both thespian "wannabes" and table-top/military sim gamers get something out of it, and that's a very broad appeal indeed (the table-top/military sim gamers absolutely adored the MR system for monsters and group combat, which they were able to easily adapt to large-party melees and army battles once they'd solved the "buckets o'dice" problem, which they did using multipliers - not my favourite solution as it greatly amplifies small-sample variance, but one I could live with for the sake of having other people to play T&T with).

Easy to learn (and to teach to newbies), yet interesting and challenging to play (not least because each game unfolds as a collaborative application and interpretation of the basic rules to the situations or scenarios encountered), T&T is custom-built for imaginative, creative and jocular gamers (like us!)

[maasenstodt]

dhrrru said:

And yet, somehow, despite the poor commercial support for T&T over the years, it refuses to give up the ghost like a good many of the 1st generation role-playing games that were released within the first five or so years after D&D OE (like "Boot Hill", "Gamma World", "Chivalry and Sorcery", "En Garde", "Top Secret", "Star Frontiers", etc).

To be fair, and because they're two games I have much respect for, I know that Gamma World and Star Frontiers are both still widely played games that have also seen some measure of support in recent years.

[Dhrrru]

That's great to hear, Massenstodt; they were good games when I played them in the mid 1980s, but we could never find much support material for them in deepest, darkest Western Sydney in New South Wales, Australia - I just kind of assumed that both game systems had died out. Glad I'm wrong; that said, I won't be allocating what little free time I have to gaming with them (not now that T&T 7E is out!)