Rebellion Acquires Tunnels & Trolls

Rebellion Unplugged, the new tabletop division of UK video games developer Rebellion, has acquired Tunnels & Trolls, a fantasy RPG which was first published in 1978.

T&T publisher Flying Buffalo’s CEO passed away in 2019, and the company was purchased by management and holding company Webbed Sphere in 2021. Rebellion has acquired the whole of its game line, which also includes well-known properties like Grimtooth.

World-renowned independent creative studio Rebellion is delighted to announce the acquisition of Tunnels & Trolls, one of the trailblazing games of the fantasy genre, and the second roleplaying game ever published.  

First published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo as a more player-friendly alternative to Dungeons & Dragons, Tunnels & Trolls introduced roleplaying to new audiences through its streamlined mechanics and pioneering approach to solo roleplaying. Now, almost 50 years after its original publication, the Rebellion Unplugged team is bringing Tunnels & Trolls into a new era. 

“Tunnels & Trolls is an unrecognised trailblazer in the games industry”, said Duncan Molloy, head of Rebellion Unplugged. “The team at Flying Buffalo responded to an entirely new medium by focusing on how roleplaying could be more approachable, more accessible, and more fun. So much of the modern era of roleplaying from old school hacks, to streamlined systems, to solo play, can directly trace its roots directly back to this series. We’re very excited to channel that spirit in bringing Tunnels & Trolls into the modern era.”

“When I first discovered Tunnels & Trolls in the mid-1970s, I didn’t realize I was unlocking a life-long interest in fantasy roleplaying games, books, movies, and all things genre-based” recalled Rebellion CEO and Creative Director Jason Kingsley OBE, “The game has remained with me throughout my life, and I can’t wait to see what the team have in store for it!”

After the passing of Flying Buffalo founder Rick Loomis, the company had been taken over by Webbed Sphere Inc. “We are very excited to see Rebellion expand this rich property” added Jon Huston, president of Webbed Sphere. “As a long-time fan, I always felt that the Flying Buffalo roleplaying lines had such incredible potential.”

As part of the acquisition Rebellion have taken over Flying Buffalo’s entire line of roleplaying games, including the cult classic Citybook, Grimtooth, and Merchants Spies and Private Eyes series. The entire back-catalogue of Flying Buffalo PDFs will remain available to purchase online, with future releases coming directly from Rebellion Unplugged. 

 

[Von Ether]

That is true. I tend to overlook FF owing to having little exposure to it when I was young. It wasn't as accessible in my part of the US as Metagaming back in the day, and by the time it did start showing up in book stores Lone Wolf was pretty dominant in the game book niche. Me, I was more of a fan of the literature-derived series like Crossroads and Combat Command when it came to that style of solo play - having read most of the novels they were based on certainly did make them more appealing.

Dawns on me that solo gamebook fans (or people just curious about them) might find this site useful if they haven't stumbled on it already. If there's a more comprehensive listing of what's out there I don't know of it.

Same. By the time I found Iron Crown's CYOA books for Middle Earth, they were already out of print - twice evidently.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

I don't understand buying something and then changing all the things that made it unique from the other fantasy RPGs out there. It's not like Tunnels & Trolls has huge widespread name recognition.

I am guessing the price for the line was low enough that they're viewing this as a quick way to get an edge for a fantasy game they wanted to publish anyway. But yeah, I don't know that there's a horde of people out there hankering for something new and who will be motivated by it being called Tunnels & Trolls.

Meanwhile, the Citybooks do have that kind of name recognition and can be used with any fantasy RPG.

 

[Ralif Redhammer]

Hmm.

On the one hand, this sucks for the existing fans of Tunnels & Trolls.

On the other hand, how many of them are there out there? And don't they, at this point, have all of the existing T&T catalog? It makes sense that the new owners would want to sell to a larger audience than a handful of Baby Boomers and Gen Xers.

I'm not sure how much of a contemporary audience there is out there for T&T, in a world laden with fantasy RPGs, but they've already bought the company, so that ship has sailed.

This sounds like it's going to be a new game with T&T trade dress and some version of the lore and world.

For me, part of the appeal of Tunnels & Trolls is that it is relatively unchanged from its first edition - for the high edition count, it's still very much recognizable as the same game. That being said, I'd feel better about a "reimagining" of T&T if Ken St. Andre was involved in it. As it stands, the question then becomes, what will stand out about this new edition to justify it?

All that said, I think the way to make money with the Flying Buffalo properties isn't to focus on a new fantasy RPG, but to clean up and rerelease the Citybook series -- which can be used with any fantasy RPG -- and continue the line. I would bet that an open call for contemporary designers to contribute to a new Citybook volume would attract a heck of a lot of interest.

The Citybooks were pretty groundbreaking when they first came out. In 1982, the only other setting books with anywhere near that degree of granularity were those of Judges Guild.

 

[Some Dude]

I never played Tunnels & Trolls. Is it a roleplaying classic that you'd be remiss not to try at least once in your lifetime?

What is the best edition to pick up for the quintessential experience?

Full disclosure: I am a a T&T fanboi. If I had to pick one fantasy RPG to play for the rest of my life, heck, maybe even one RPG, period, it would be T&T.

That having been said, it's a game I love, warts and all. And there are some warts.

I read in a blog somewhere, some time ago, that "every RPG since D&D has tried to distinguish itself either by being ike D&D, or by not being ike D&D." Paraphrasing, and I wish I could remember who wrote that to give them proper credit. I think about that statement all the time.

T&T was the first example of the latter. It was written by Ken St. Andre, who encountered D&D and loved the idea, but found it to be too complicated, and too expensive. And who also didn't like the funny dice. St. Andre set out to write a game that "...my friends and I could play at reasonable cost, with reasonable equipment."

D&D was the second commercially published RPG. Its design was intended to be sleek and easy to understand, and to avoid redundancy. For example, why have Constitution and Hit Points? In T&T, you Constitution is your hit points.

T&T has no Saving Throws distinct from your attributes. You use attributes checks for that. Though, to be fair, that wasn't made explicit until edition 5.5. Before that, most Saving Rolls (as T&T attribute checks are called) were made on a character's Luck attribute.

Tunnels & Trolls is fast, fun, easy and whimsical. St Andre said he wanted T&T to be like "Lord of the Rings, as it might have been told by Marvel Comics in 1975." And that sounds like a hell of a lot of fun to me. And, as someone who has a lot of T&T play under their belt, I can say that it is fun.

William W. Connors, whose list of AD&D writing credits is as long as your arm, calls T&T his favorite game, and once said, "When I wrote AD&D for a living, I played T&T for fun." Perhaps less enthusiastically, game designer Greg Costikyan said in the mid- 80s, "If I were going to run a fantasy campaign these days, I'd probably use the Tunnels & Trolls rules. Yeah, they're dumb, but they're simple and adequate to my needs."

Tunnels & Trolls is often derided as a copy of D&D (it's not, it has explicitly different design goals), or a badly designed game (it's not, but it does require a proactive GM to balance encounters).

T&T innovated a lot. It's an older design, to be sure, but it still runs quite smoothly. I recently ran a game for my nephew and his friends (all avid 5e players), who said it was a lot of fun, and were disappointed to learn that it's currently out of print.

T&T is best known for its solo adventures, which is a shame. I like and pay the solos (I love The Fantasy Trip as well, but sometimes I don't want something so tactical), which is kind of a shame. GM-led games of T&T do have some nuance, especially in combat, that the solos can lack. So, in my opinion, the solos, while fun (and some are WAY better than others) aren't really the best way to play.

T&T uses a simultaneous combat resolution. All combatants roll dice, add the results, highest total wins. losing side takes the difference in damage. Missiles and Magic are handled separately. There can be vast differences in capability between monster(s) and party, so the liberal use of "stunts" is encouraged. These are feats of strength, daring, or skill that are defined by the payes, and adjudicated by the GM.

Spellcasting is powered by Strength, as in it's an expendable, and renewable, resource. We, in older editions. later editions added a separate stat for spells (which I personally don't like).

The T&T rules have remained largely compatible across its numerous editions, and the latest official edition (Deluxe, released in 2015) can run 1st edition adventures and vice-versa, with minimal conversion. I think this speaks to the quality of T&T's design.

And while the reddit community for T&T is small (and most fans are olds, so that makes sense), there is a dedicated forum, and over 1600 people contributed to the Deluxe T&T Kickstarter. Still small potatoes in the larger RPG world, but there is a dedicated community of fans.

So, to answer you questions:

1. It's a fun, simple, classic FRPG that is definitely worth a try, IMO.

2. 5th edition is the fan favorite (and mine), and pobaby the "purest" T&T experience you can have.

 

[Wofano Wotanto]

Meanwhile, the Citybooks do have that kind of name recognition and can be used with any fantasy RPG.

Grimtooth's Traps might have even more recognition, although I'm not sure the Rube Goldberg approach to many traps would actually go over well with modern audiences.

Heck, I wouldn't mind seeing the old Lejentia setting dusted off and expanded upon, although I'm not sure who actually owns the IP. It was a joint project with Flying Buffalo and Task Force Games, and I have no idea what happened to the original comic creators post-1989. Funky setting, I'll give it that.

 

[The Soloist]

Ken St Andre kept the Monsters! Monsters! game.

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/stevecrompton/monsters-monsters-rpg-andtoughest-dungeon-in-the-world-solo/description?comment=Q29tbWVudC0zMDA1MTUyMg%3D%3D&reply=Q29tbWVudC0zMDA4MTE1Ng%3D%3D

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Grimtooth's Traps might have even more recognition, although I'm not sure the Rube Goldberg approach to many traps would actually go over well with modern audiences.

Goodman Games has put out two Grimtooth's Traps books recently -- one of them should be fulfilling any moment now -- so I'm not sure how much untapped audience there is for these, especially given the style of the traps.

Heck, I wouldn't mind seeing the old Lejentia setting dusted off and expanded upon, although I'm not sure who actually owns the IP. It was a joint project with Flying Buffalo and Task Force Games, and I have no idea what happened to the original comic creators post-1989. Funky setting, I'll give it that.

True, but it has even less name recognition than T&T, Grimtooth's or Citybook. I only vaguely remember it, and I was an engaged player in DM during its heyday.

 

[mamba]

Grimtooth's Traps might have even more recognition, although I'm not sure the Rube Goldberg approach to many traps would actually go over well with modern audiences.

DCC kickstarted that one recently

 

[The Soloist]

Meanwhile, the Citybooks do have that kind of name recognition and can be used with any fantasy RPG.

These?

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Never heard of them in 44 years, and I've been around a lot of RPG old-school forums. Seems very niche.

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

These?

DriveThruRPG

www.drivethrurpg.com

Never heard of them in 44 years, and I've been around a lot of RPG old-school forums. Seems very niche.

Not sure how you missed them. They were best sellers in the 1980s and have been cited by a lot of designers over the years as being influential in the creation of popular city settings.