The Fantasy Trip Comes Home

In a very quiet announcement made via the Steve Jackson Games announcement page, The Daily Illuminator, Steve Jackson announced that he had regained the right to The Fantasy Trip. One of the early transitions between wargames and role-playing games, The Fantasy Trip was Jackson's equivalent to the early Dungeons & Dragons books and would be the foundation upon which he would later build the GURPS rules.

View attachment 92280​

No details are given in the announcement, as Jackson has yet to decide what is the next step. With Steve Jackson Games' growing push into the PDF market with a number of GURPS products available on the OneBookShelf sites, we can hope that these early games will be made available in PDF in order to help grow our understanding of the early days of the role-playing game industry, and our knowledge of the various streams of design throughout the history of tabletop RPGs.

 

[darjr]

This is one of the myths and holy grails of the hobby! So very cool! And I hope for a compact version of a GURPS like along with old school aesthetics.

 

[Ed Laprade]

Ah yes, my (gaming) life would have been very different if it had come out when it was supposed to originally. But it got pushed back and AD&D came out first. After spending so much on that, the group I was part of decided to stick to it, rather than change to TFT (which is what we'd intended to do when TFT was first announced) when it did arrive.

 

[mach1.9pants]

I hope this does come out on PDF- reading ODnD and B/X having started on BECMI then into AD&D was really interesting. It made me re-assess some DnD RPG things I though had to be included (damage dice for dif weapons for example)> I have no idea what TFT is like, but I'd love to find out!

 

[WayneLigon]

At long last. If Metagaming hadn't wanted an insane amount of cash for the rights, we might now be playing TFT 5.0.

 

[Mr. Greengoat]

Isn't Dungeon Fantasy a current transmogrified version of The Fantasy Trip?
You can trace a clear line from TFT to Man to Man to GURPS to Dungeon Fantasy.
I think all they would need to do is knock many bells and whistles off the Dungeon Fantasy box and release Melee and Wizard in little 17 dollar boxes like the classic Car Wars printing.

 

[Christopher Helton]

Isn't Dungeon Fantasy a current transmogrified version of The Fantasy Trip?

Not really, no. There's a number of differences between The Fantasy Trip and any version of GURPS.

 

[Mr. Greengoat]

Not really, no. There's a number of differences between The Fantasy Trip and any version of GURPS.

I don't know sir, I respectfully differ.
I think the differences between the iterations across the game is clear, but TFT melee looks a lot like the advanced combat rules from 3rd GURPS. Both systems are heavy on hexes and facing. Both have DX and ST attributes. Both games have you roll 3d6 lower than a target number (DX in TFT, Skills in GURPS) and then a number of damage dice for your weapon.

You can also argue that OD&D and D&D5E are different games but they are still Dungeons and Dragons y'know? I think is the same for Steve Jackson's long lost RPG. Happy he got it back. I love that company.

 

[Gilladian]

I remember helping to playtest a little game called T.H.E. Fighter, which became The Fantasy Trip, back in Copperas Cove, at the old Bunker Hobby Shop, inabout 1977. One of my fondest memories!

 

[Random Bystander]

I remember helping to playtest a little game called T.H.E. Fighter, which became The Fantasy Trip, back in Copperas Cove, at the old Bunker Hobby Shop, inabout 1977. One of my fondest memories!

A leviathan rises from the deeps!

Steve Jackson Games also has their own online store, Warehouse23, at:

http://www.warehouse23.com/