Some old Tunnels & Trolls Character Sheets

Way back in the day, Ken St. Andre held a contest to make character sheets for Tunnels & Trolls over at his sadly now defunct Trollhalla site.  I came across my entries (which admittedly aren't very good, but they do have snakes and daggers), and thought that I'd share them.  I made two versions, one for T&T 5th edition (my personal favorite edition) and one for T&T 7.5.  Maybe one of these days, I'll make one for Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls.  These could definitely have benefitted from some kind of a border.  Perhaps skulls.

T&T 5th Edition

T&T 7.5

Free Map - My Old Tunnels & Trolls Campaign Map

Here we have the map for a Tunnels & Trolls game that I ran back in the 90s.  Petty cliched stuff and quickly drawn, but I recall the game still being a lot of fun.  Once the 8th edition arrives, I may have to dust this off. :-)

Free Map - Dungeon Level 3

Here is the incomplete map of the third level of the dungeon.  Someday I may go back and finish this one.  There was supposed to be a flooded level below this one as well, accessed via the small spiral staircase near the center of the map, but I never started on that.

Free Map - Dungeon Level 2

Here is the second level of the dungeon that I posted the yesterday.  It's a bit bigger than Level 1 and has more water.  This level of course has an evil shrine of some sort, because evil shrines are in this season.  I wonder what's in the pool?  Probably nothing with tentacles and teeth...

Free Map - Dungeon Level 1

I'm still going through my old RPG maps and slowly scanning them.  Here we have Level 1 of a dungeon that I based on a place where I used to work.  Of course there is a well.  There always has to be a well.  Stay tuned for Level 2!

Free Map 3 (Tunnels & Trolls)

I've lost the notes for most of the adventures that I've ever run.  I've saved a lot of maps, but the keys to those maps are generally long gone.  Here we have a map from a Tunnels & Trolls adventure that I ran about 15 years ago.  I this case I actually have the map key, so if you're interested keep watching here because when I get a few extra minutes I may scan the whole adventure and post it as a PDF (It's pretty short).

Of Box Art and Imagination

When I was a kid, RPGs were king.  There was nothing quite so much fun as getting together with a bunch of friends, eating pizza, slaying orcs, and getting killed by terrible traps.  My first character was killed by a medusa in the second room of the first dungeon he ever went into.  But RPGs involved coordinating people and rides, so the next best thing was video games.

Back in the late 70s and early 1980s, when video gaming was still in its relative infancy, there was a wonderful dichotomy between the way video game box art represented the games and how those games looked in real life.  The ability to do computer graphics was extremely limited, and nowhere were those limitations felt more than on home systems.  As a kid, I was forever going to places like Sears or Montgomery Ward and staring at the fascinating images that graced the boxes of those games.  

Now some are probably thinking Sears?  Isn't that where people go to buy tools and tires and things?  More still are probably wondering who, or what a Montgomery Ward is.  Well, those were the places we went in those days, long before the Gamestops of the world came into being, but I digress.  

The boxes of those games contained wondrous images that transported my young imagination to lands of seemingly infinite possibilities.  Of course the art for those games had to be good for in many cases it was all that could attract someone to buy one of these games.  Now make no mistake, I loved many of the games of this era, and I still do.  In the end, the gameplay was what really made me love them and kept me playing, but something had to get me to even buy the darned game in the first place, and that thing was the box art.  No matter how crummy the actual game images on the back of the box might look those pictures on the front still gave hope that the game would be awesome.  Here are a few of my favorites, showing what the front of the box tempted me with and what the I actually got.

Let's start with probably my all time favorite game ever, Atari's Adventure.  Behold the mighty dragon in his maze!  look with awe upon the great castle high on the hill!  I played this thing to death.  Again and again, I would play the random setup version of this game.  I would even make up my own versions of the game where I had to kill all of the dragons then get as many of the items into the gold castle as possible before returning the chalice to end the game.  I was obsessed. 

Adventure: The box cover

Adventure: The reality. :-)

Next we have The Quest for the Rings for the Odyssey 2.  Now this game was not only a video game, but a board game too!  Just look at that box with the warrior deflecting the dragon's flames with his sword and the wizard killing, well whatever that thing is.  This game just looks magical.  Admittedly, I didn't play this one all that much because I didn't have an Odyssey and had to go to one of my friend's houses to play, but not being able to play it all the time may have made it seem even better to me.

The Quest for the Rings:  The box cover

The Quest for the Rings: The Reality

And finally, my holy grail from that time period.  Advanced Dungeons & Dragons:  Cloudy Mountain for the Intellivision.  I was a bit of a D&D nut and would buy just about anything with the D&D logo on it.  I only got to play this a handful of times at the home of one of the kids I was in Boy Scouts with, but I wanted this game more than anything.  Of course I would have needed an Intellivision as well, and those things were really expensive.  I never really got to play this game until much, much later, when I got it as part of the Intellivision Lives compilation for my Game Boy Advance.  In the end it remembered better that it played. :-)

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: The box cover

Advanced Dungeons & Dragons: The reality

Now as I've said, I love each of these games in their own way.  And sometimes, even when I'm running around in the amazing landscapes of Skyrim, I still miss them.  I long for the days when my imagination was the Graphics Processing Unit and those box covers beckoned me with sights that the games themselves could never hope to deliver.

Does anyone have any favorite box covers that really inspired them?

Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls

The Kickstarter rewards for Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls continue to arrive.  Yesterday I received the commemorative coin set.  I have to seat that they are way cooler than I had even hoped for.

Tunnels & Trolls: First Edition

I recently received my signed and numbered reprint of the first edition Tunnels & Trolls rulebook.  It's a fun read, and I love the awesomely old school art, particularly the little wizard guys who show up quite a lot.  It's looking to be a fantastic year for T&T.  I can't wait to get ahold of my Deluxe edition!

Tunnels & Trolls Swag

So, here is the Flying Buffalo swag that I got as a supporter of the Tunnels & Trolls Deluxe Kickstarter.  I'm really looking forward to my deluxe hardcover copy showing up in August.  Admittedly, I wasn't the biggest fan of 7th/7.5 edition.  I'm more of a 5th edition guy, but I'm looking forward to the new version.  I already have my PDF of the updated Buffalo Castle, and it's awesome.  With Star Wars:  Edge of the Empire hitting in July, and Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls in August, it's shaping up to be a good summer for role laying games (at least from my perspective).

Free stuff Friday

Happy Friday everyone!  Here is a character sheet that I made for Tunnels & Trolls 5.5.  It's a bit rough, but it's got a snake and some daggers, :-)

Enjoy!

Free Map Friday

Here is a small map that I drew on a rainy day several months back for use in a Tunnels & Trolls game that I still haven't gotten around to running.  Fell free to take it, use it, or change it, however you see fit.
 Stock it with monsters, treasure, and nefarious traps, or stock it with unicorns, rainbows, and spun sugar.  Whatever you fee like.  So break out your favorite roleplaying game rules, whether it's Tunnels &Trolls, Dungeon Crawl Classics, Dungeons & Dragons or anything else you're in to.  If anyone does use it to create ann adventure, please feel free to link to your creation in the comments area, I'd love to see your work.