Interviewing the Fans #2 - Page 3

ecz · 06-11-2018, 01:52 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

How did you use TFT, back in the day? Stand-alone combat games, combat module for other RPGs, or a full RPG system of its own?

It was our first RPG system. Never considered any other use. We were thirsty for role-playing games

tomc · 06-11-2018, 05:54 AM

We always played it as an RPG.

tbeard1999 · 06-11-2018, 07:38 AM

I started my wargaming career in 1978-79* with Ogre/GEV. Since I was in junior high at the time, Microgames were all I could afford. So I consumed a steady diet of Microgames. In short order, I bought Olympica, Warp War, and Ice War.

Then in 1979-80, a buddy bought Melee and showed it to me. For some reason, I found the individual weapons counters evocative. I soon bought a copy...except I accidentally bought Death Test instead. Eventually I bought Melee and later Wizard. We played them as arena games. Then I heard about this game called Dungeons and Dragons. I recall thinking after my first D&D game that D&D was like a complicated version of Death Test.

I tried a number of ways to use Melee with AD&D, but teenaged AD&D players in my school were utterly hidebound. Then ITL came out. I bought Advanced Melee. Then Advanced Wizard. I think that ITL might have been released last.

It took my local game store awhile to receive ITL, so I prepared to start an AD&D campaign using Advanced Melee as a combat system. A sorta proto-D&D 3.0, I suppose.

But then I got ITL and scrapped the AD&D variant before launch. I started the first of MANY TFT campaigns.

*My early gaming memories are indexed by the school year, not the calendar year. I got Ogre/GEV when in 8th grade, so it was 1978-79.

Buzzardo · 06-11-2018, 09:31 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by JLV

Please, please, please, Steve -- give us a 14-hex dragon!!!!! Pretty please?

Quote:

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Let's see...

4 hex is 1:2:1
7 hex is 1:2:1:2:1
9 hex should be 1:2:3:2:1...
14 would be 1:2:3:2:3:2:1

Yeah, those would work.

Quote:

Originally Posted by larsdangly

there must be a 14 hex dragon!

Now we're talkin'! :D

Random Goblin · 06-12-2018, 09:09 AM

My dad (David Deitrick, who did some illustration for Megagaming back in the day) used Melee as a base generic system for every game he ran when I was a kid in the 80's. (Seriously, everything--fantasy, Star Trek, DC super heroes--if he were to run a game today, it is still what he would use. He is an old dog and sees no need to learn new tricks at this point.)

I caught the bug and started using Melee when I was pretty little, maybe 8 years old, and as is typical for little kids I think, I did a lot more playing with RPGs than actual playing RPGs. I came up with Melee stats for probably every 25mm miniature I owned (I had a pretty good collection since my dad was way into minis and I got all of his cast-offs) for whatever weird scenario my kid-brain had cooked up that day. Most of the time I don't even think I realized I was using Melee per se--to me, "roleplaying games" just meant you had a miniature, it has an ST, a DX and an IQ, damage was done to ST and task resolution was 3d6 roll-under.

Like I said, I don't actually remember playing a lot, but I did spend a lot of time thinking about playing and imagining the scenarios I wanted to run and making up stats for them.

In 5th grade, my friend and I started trying to stat up the entire ancient world--Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, everyone, using Melee (he, of course, had no idea what Melee was; it was just the system I had in my head and we used it, usually with insane attribute bloat). We came up with pages and pages of stats for historical figures and their armies before the project fizzled out and we were doing something else.

Later on, when I started writing my own RPGs, they were really all re-skins of Melee (2-3 stats, all 3d6 roll-under). The one I remember the most was about different bugs and insects fighting in arena combat. I came up with all of these teams for different kinds of bugs, and gave them all team names and colors and logos and everything. As usual, I'm not sure I ever even actually played this thing, but I definitely spent weeks working on it.

Eventually I moved on to other, in-print RPGs my friends were playing (the usual 90's garbage), but like I said in the other interview question, childhood gaming for me was all about Melee.

-Conrad Deitrick

Groknard · 06-12-2018, 08:08 PM

We started off in late '77 with Holmes D&D and quickly moved to AD&D as the books and adventures were released. But we were kids winging it, never really grasping the rules and avoiding the complexity. By summer of '78, we discovered Metagaming and got Ogre, subscribed to The Space Gamer and bought Melee. I think Easter break was spent playing every combination of arena combat with Melee we could squeeze in, converting a bunch of monsters from the TSR Monster Manual.

By the time Wizard came out, we went all in and swapped in all the TFT combat and most of the character and conflict rules into our "D&D" games. Ended up doing much the same with Traveller on a character/combat level. It was probably my fault. After that, I could almost never be bothered to learn new systems, I was happy with TFT. I got those wonderful Heritage "Crypt of the Sorcerer" and "Caverns of Doom" sets, painted those up, and felt that the TFT rules were much better for minis than whatever TSR or anyone else was offering. We didn't hesitate to pilfer from other games coming out (I had a soft spot for lots of SPI's DragonQuest).

By the time ITL, AM and AW came out, we were pretty much all in. If a TFT rule or concept covered it and covered it better, that was our go-to. I suspect it would have been different if we had come to the complete game in 1980, but starting when we did made mixing it up part of the fun.

Chris Rice · 06-13-2018, 04:04 AM

We started with Holmes Basic D&D in the late 70's and quickly moved onto Advanced. However, the rules systems used in D&D were clumsy, often illogical and the emphasis on experience points and magic weapons led to too much power gaming for my tastes.

I tried the other RPGs available at the time but they all had their problems and were unsatisfying in some way. At the same time, one of our group brought Melee back from London and we'd run it as a pure skirmish board game which we all enjoyed. It was simple, but solved most of the problems that contemporary RPG combat systems suffered from.

As soon as the Advanced Wizard/Melee and ITL books came out I snapped them up and never looked back. I'm not a "technical" GM and don't want to spend my time looking up rules and discussing them with players - I watched too many turgid RPG sessions which were more like an accountants board meeting - all discussion about rules and stats and no action or story.

As a GM, TFT allowed me to get on with the action. It was intuitive (once you grasped the basics) and the rules didn't get in the way of play. If you didn't want to play it with hexes and figures you didn't have to and we often played it as pure theatre of the mind.

Another poster mentioned how his father readily adapted the system for other genres and I did this too; from Sci-Fi to Wild West and Cthulhu. I even adapted it for a Runequest Game and have to say it worked superbly.

The simple mechanics are so ingrained in me you could probably ask me to run an on-the-fly game in any genre of your choice and I could do it with a few minutes preparation, a notepad and pen and a handful of dice!

JLV · 06-13-2018, 12:05 PM

/\ THIS /\

This is precisely what I experienced with the other RPGs out there -- "...too many turgid RPG sessions which were more like an accountants board meeting..." describes them EXACTLY.

~~Jim Kane~~ · 06-13-2018, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Chris Rice

...I watched too many turgid RPG sessions which were more like an accountants board meeting - all discussion about rules and stats and no action or story.

JLV, I am with you on this. When I read that, it summed up - in one sentence - what I had witnessed so many times at the tables at our local game store back in the day. I would stand off to the side and observe, with horrified curiosity, people doing just what our friend Chris described - and, exactly as he described it.

Chris, you express some pretty brilliant observations on here, but *this* one is your most brilliant to date.

JK

schoon · 06-13-2018, 02:33 PM

When I first started, it was gladitorial combat - I was thrilled that you could create a fighter in seconds and still have differentiation between fighting styles.

However, the longer I continued to play, the more hungry I became for a bigger story, and as the line expanded, I got the tools to do so with Quests and Advanced rule books.

...and before I knew it, it was an RPG that I was thrilled to have!

06-11-2018, 05:54 AM	#22
tomc Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Carrboro, NC	Re: Interviewing the Fans #2 We always played it as an RPG. __________________ OgreMap2 Freedom of Speech is not Freedom of Podium

06-11-2018, 07:38 AM	#23
tbeard1999 Join Date: May 2013 Location: Tyler, Texas	Re: Interviewing the Fans #2 I started my wargaming career in 1978-79* with Ogre/GEV. Since I was in junior high at the time, Microgames were all I could afford. So I consumed a steady diet of Microgames. In short order, I bought Olympica, Warp War, and Ice War. Then in 1979-80, a buddy bought Melee and showed it to me. For some reason, I found the individual weapons counters evocative. I soon bought a copy...except I accidentally bought Death Test instead. Eventually I bought Melee and later Wizard. We played them as arena games. Then I heard about this game called Dungeons and Dragons. I recall thinking after my first D&D game that D&D was like a complicated version of Death Test. I tried a number of ways to use Melee with AD&D, but teenaged AD&D players in my school were utterly hidebound. Then ITL came out. I bought Advanced Melee. Then Advanced Wizard. I think that ITL might have been released last. It took my local game store awhile to receive ITL, so I prepared to start an AD&D campaign using Advanced Melee as a combat system. A sorta proto-D&D 3.0, I suppose. But then I got ITL and scrapped the AD&D variant before launch. I started the first of MANY TFT campaigns. *My early gaming memories are indexed by the school year, not the calendar year. I got Ogre/GEV when in 8th grade, so it was 1978-79.

06-12-2018, 09:09 AM	#25
Random Goblin Join Date: Aug 2004 Location: Baltimore, MD	Re: Interviewing the Fans #2 My dad (David Deitrick, who did some illustration for Megagaming back in the day) used Melee as a base generic system for every game he ran when I was a kid in the 80's. (Seriously, everything--fantasy, Star Trek, DC super heroes--if he were to run a game today, it is still what he would use. He is an old dog and sees no need to learn new tricks at this point.) I caught the bug and started using Melee when I was pretty little, maybe 8 years old, and as is typical for little kids I think, I did a lot more playing with RPGs than actual playing RPGs. I came up with Melee stats for probably every 25mm miniature I owned (I had a pretty good collection since my dad was way into minis and I got all of his cast-offs) for whatever weird scenario my kid-brain had cooked up that day. Most of the time I don't even think I realized I was using Melee per se--to me, "roleplaying games" just meant you had a miniature, it has an ST, a DX and an IQ, damage was done to ST and task resolution was 3d6 roll-under. Like I said, I don't actually remember playing a lot, but I did spend a lot of time thinking about playing and imagining the scenarios I wanted to run and making up stats for them. In 5th grade, my friend and I started trying to stat up the entire ancient world--Romans, Greeks, Egyptians, everyone, using Melee (he, of course, had no idea what Melee was; it was just the system I had in my head and we used it, usually with insane attribute bloat). We came up with pages and pages of stats for historical figures and their armies before the project fizzled out and we were doing something else. Later on, when I started writing my own RPGs, they were really all re-skins of Melee (2-3 stats, all 3d6 roll-under). The one I remember the most was about different bugs and insects fighting in arena combat. I came up with all of these teams for different kinds of bugs, and gave them all team names and colors and logos and everything. As usual, I'm not sure I ever even actually played this thing, but I definitely spent weeks working on it. Eventually I moved on to other, in-print RPGs my friends were playing (the usual 90's garbage), but like I said in the other interview question, childhood gaming for me was all about Melee. -Conrad Deitrick __________________ Asura Star: my gameblog for old-school D&D, Fading Suns, Savage Worlds, swords and sorcery, dungeon delving, homebrew monsters, and all kinds of random ideas that will never see the light of play Last edited by Random Goblin; 06-12-2018 at 09:12 AM.

06-12-2018, 08:08 PM	#26
Groknard Join Date: Mar 2009 Location: Cleveland, OH USA	Re: Interviewing the Fans #2 We started off in late '77 with Holmes D&D and quickly moved to AD&D as the books and adventures were released. But we were kids winging it, never really grasping the rules and avoiding the complexity. By summer of '78, we discovered Metagaming and got Ogre, subscribed to The Space Gamer and bought Melee. I think Easter break was spent playing every combination of arena combat with Melee we could squeeze in, converting a bunch of monsters from the TSR Monster Manual. By the time Wizard came out, we went all in and swapped in all the TFT combat and most of the character and conflict rules into our "D&D" games. Ended up doing much the same with Traveller on a character/combat level. It was probably my fault. After that, I could almost never be bothered to learn new systems, I was happy with TFT. I got those wonderful Heritage "Crypt of the Sorcerer" and "Caverns of Doom" sets, painted those up, and felt that the TFT rules were much better for minis than whatever TSR or anyone else was offering. We didn't hesitate to pilfer from other games coming out (I had a soft spot for lots of SPI's DragonQuest). By the time ITL, AM and AW came out, we were pretty much all in. If a TFT rule or concept covered it and covered it better, that was our go-to. I suspect it would have been different if we had come to the complete game in 1980, but starting when we did made mixing it up part of the fun. __________________ ___________________ Robert -- Cleveland, OH

06-13-2018, 04:04 AM	#27
Chris Rice Join Date: Dec 2017 Location: London Uk, but originally from Scotland	Re: Interviewing the Fans #2 We started with Holmes Basic D&D in the late 70's and quickly moved onto Advanced. However, the rules systems used in D&D were clumsy, often illogical and the emphasis on experience points and magic weapons led to too much power gaming for my tastes. I tried the other RPGs available at the time but they all had their problems and were unsatisfying in some way. At the same time, one of our group brought Melee back from London and we'd run it as a pure skirmish board game which we all enjoyed. It was simple, but solved most of the problems that contemporary RPG combat systems suffered from. As soon as the Advanced Wizard/Melee and ITL books came out I snapped them up and never looked back. I'm not a "technical" GM and don't want to spend my time looking up rules and discussing them with players - I watched too many turgid RPG sessions which were more like an accountants board meeting - all discussion about rules and stats and no action or story. As a GM, TFT allowed me to get on with the action. It was intuitive (once you grasped the basics) and the rules didn't get in the way of play. If you didn't want to play it with hexes and figures you didn't have to and we often played it as pure theatre of the mind. Another poster mentioned how his father readily adapted the system for other genres and I did this too; from Sci-Fi to Wild West and Cthulhu. I even adapted it for a Runequest Game and have to say it worked superbly. The simple mechanics are so ingrained in me you could probably ask me to run an on-the-fly game in any genre of your choice and I could do it with a few minutes preparation, a notepad and pen and a handful of dice!

06-13-2018, 12:05 PM	#28
JLV Join Date: Nov 2010 Location: Arizona	Re: Interviewing the Fans #2 /\ THIS /\ This is precisely what I experienced with the other RPGs out there -- "...too many turgid RPG sessions which were more like an accountants board meeting..." describes them EXACTLY. Last edited by JLV; 06-13-2018 at 02:20 PM.

06-13-2018, 02:33 PM	#30
schoon Join Date: Sep 2004 Location: Oakland, CA, USA	Re: Interviewing the Fans #2 When I first started, it was gladitorial combat - I was thrilled that you could create a fighter in seconds and still have differentiation between fighting styles. However, the longer I continued to play, the more hungry I became for a bigger story, and as the line expanded, I got the tools to do so with Quests and Advanced rule books. ...and before I knew it, it was an RPG that I was thrilled to have!