Saturday, December 6, 2008

Meeting Rick Loomis at U-Con (and the Tunnels & Trolls goodies I snagged)

Still reminiscing, another cool part of my U-Con visit: Tunnels & Trolls

I saw vendor selling some T&T modules, sets, fiction, dice, etc. Having a moderate pile of this stuff in my "collection of nerdliness," I decided to have a look and see if there was a mod or so that I don't have. There were several.

If you've never played T&T, it's a simpler version of D&D (well OD&D really), and actually originated back in '75. Anyway, it really works out nice for solitaire play, even though group play is supported and popular too. The Solitaire mods just kept pumping out from Flying Buffalo (the pub), kinda like the old "Lone Wolf" book series, and all the others like that (the "choose your own adventure" thing, but with rules and dice and characters).

So, I swagger up to the vendor booth and take a look thru some stacks of mods, etc..finding some goodies that I don't have in my set. I mumble something like:

"ah yes...the old Tunnels & Trolls" as I peruse the goods.

The dude behind the counter says, "you play a lot of T&T?"

I say "Some, mostly solitaire, as I don't really have a consistent group near me. Have you played it much?"

He says, "Well, yes....I'm the publisher."

So Rick Loomis is selling me T&T stuff, and I don't even know it....nice.

Anyway, we chatted for a while and he was a very, very cool guy. I asked him to sign one of the 3-mod books that I bought, as he had authored one of the mods in that set. He did and much rejoicing followed.

Well, it was just another cool thing (IMO) for my U-Con XP. If you ever want to roll some dice, and can't get the group together, then I'd recommend some T&T Solitaire Play....that sounds kinda diiiiirty, but it's fun too.

2 comments:

Scott said...

After reading this post and Sham's recent post, I may pick up a new copy of T&T.

yoyorobbo said...

Heya Scott. Yeah, you really should try it. The freebies here and there (rules and mods) make that pretty nice and easy to demo.

There will probably be things you like and things you don't like, comparing to other RPGs, but I like the solo ability, as that is tougher to find in such excess in other RPGs.

For instance, in D&D (classic) and AD&D (1st and 2nd ed), there are just a handful of "solitaire" mods. They did have more "solo" mods, but those TSR ones were meant for a solo player and a DM, not just the solitaire player, like the T&T ones.

T&T mods are called "solo" but they are "solitaire" in play. All you need is you.

Hope you try it, and hope you like it. Some will, some won't.