I've
actually been playing since 2001 or so, but I had a chance to be in on the ground floor, as it were. And I blew it.
Get a drink and make yourself comfortable - it's going to be a
bumpy ride long story, a torrid tale of missed opportunities and the regret only the passage of years can bring.
1977 or thereabouts: I was living in small-town Fairport, NY, and a shop opened downtown called "Point of Conflict". It was the very first wargame/RPG shop I had ever seen, and had my finances been greater I would have gone gonzo in there. I had never SEEN this kind of stuff before! TOO FREAKIN' COOL. And, in with the copies of
War of Wizards and
Greyhawk and something called
The Dragon, there was a game called Monsters! Monsters! which looked interesting. "Hey," I thought. "A game where you play
the monsters! Cool!" ...but I think it was something like $10, which was a lot for me at the time. So I passed on it.
But wait, it gets better.
1982 or so: Rochester, New York. A couple years older, a somewhat better budget. A game shop called "Campaign Headquarters".
Looking over the offerings there, I noticed a thin book called Tunnels & Trolls (dark brown version w/ Danforth cover). (Come to think of it, I MIGHT have seen a copy of T&T 4th around the same time...
EDIT: No, I'm
SURE I did. Piffle! ) Anyway, it looked not only a bit thin on detail (I preferred the stuff with LOTS of detail, like AD&D) but - well, see, I was into wargames also at the time (still am) and there was a book I had gotten out of the local library called "
The Complete Book of Wargames". Now, in addition to wargames, this book also covered a few RPGs like D&D/AD&D,
The Fantasy Trip... and Tunnels & Trolls.
They did not give a glowing review to T&T. In the opinion of the reviewer, the spell names were "unbelievably tacky" giving "an air of
Ali Baba and the Three Stooges", "good ideas for the development of weapons and armor are never developed", "combat is unsatisfyingly gross for a (man-to-man) level game and cannot treat many details . . . without being bent out of shape", the AP system of increasing stats "results in 'human' characters with an IQ of 450 or the strength of King Kong", and, summing up: "That's not fantasy; it's nonsense. There are better alternatives available."
WELL. Not knowing any better I put it back on the shelf. (I also stupidly passed up Runequest, En Garde! and the Midnight At the Well of Souls RPG, as well as
this gem.) Possibly if someone had pointed out the abundance of solos, I might have picked it up, as I thought very highly of The Fantasy Trip and its solos, but the review neglected to mention those!
2001: So we come to the present day, more or less. For some reason, I can't remember exactly what, I get it into my head to finally check out Tunnels & Trolls. Maybe it was the fact it's still - what? -$15 for the main rules while most RPG books are $30-$40 apiece, maybe it was a positive review on RPG.net, something motivated me to ignore the dismal review I read so long ago and give it a shot. So I not only bought a copy of 5th off of Amazon.com, but I bought the boxed set from Flying Buffalo.
And, as the man says, Now You Know... The Rest of the Story!
This has been Ubu Roi...
good
day! ;D