The Obligatory “How Did You Get Started in TFT” Thread

[tbeard1999]

I’d love to hear the legendary tales of the Old Ones here and how y’all got started with TFT.

[ecz]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

I’d love to hear the legendary tales of the Old Ones here and how y’all got started with TFT.

well, here in Sicily in early 80' there was no chance to even hear about TFT.

A friend of mine, an Italian-American that was born in NY, returned home with his family here in Italy carring the orginal game and a few gamettes (death test and others). About in 1985 he started a TFT CG with a few friends in my town. Later I met that group and, as a virus, in a few years, about in 1987-1989 almost 30 persons - in different groups- played regularly TFT.
Note that at that time D&D still was mostly unknown and nobody in our town, AFIK, played it.

BTW this Italian-American guy carried also the first AH games ever seen in Sicily; this started an avalanche. We began our golden age of wargaming.

It's safe to say that the start of quality roleplaying and wargaming here in Sicily is due to a single person, a boy 15 or 16 yo, carrying his games from the US.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by ecz

well, here in Sicily in early 80' there was no chance to even hear about TFT.

A friend of mine, an Italian-American that was born in NY, returned home with his family here in Italy carring the orginal game and a few gamettes (death test and others). About in 1985 he started a TFT CG with a few friends in my town. Later I met that group and, as a virus, in a few years, about in 1987-1989 almost 30 persons - in different groups- played regularly TFT.
Note that at that time D&D still was mostly unknown and nobody in our town, AFIK, played it.

BTW this Italian-American guy carried also the first AH games ever seen in Sicily; this started an avalanche. We began our golden age of wargaming.

It's safe to say that the start of quality roleplaying and wargaming here in Sicily is due to a single person, a boy 15 or 16 yo, carrying his games from the US.

That’s a cool story. Similar to the story of the classic wargame The Russian Campaign. Avalon Hill games were very expensive to import into Australia, so an enterprising wargamer decided to write his own version of Stalingrad. His version was so good that Avalon Hill bought it and published it in the US.

[red2]

I used to love this game as a kid, but never got to play much because all my friends always wanted to play D&D, even though of course TFT is the much better game. So I was delighted to dig it out and start playing it a couple years ago when my kids discovered my old miniatures. It is great to see what is happening with it.

[Carnifex]

Between 1978 and 1982, my friends and I use to play a variety of games in our High School Library during lunch hour. There was an early complaint that we were gambling, because we were rolling dice, but our mothers came to the school as a group and straightened Principle and the Librarian out. I have no idea what they said, but no school official ever bothered us about it again as long as we did not get noisy.

Wizard and Melee were chief among those games because they were fast and easy to play. Although, we never played it specifically as an RPG, surviving gladiators often developed personalties, relationships and drama over time. A winning gladiator always had the option to let the looser live or die. Often times this was a good way to get rid of a particularly annoying rival, but not showing mercy was also good way to not get any yourself, so it was a fine line.

[JLV]

My brother and I were avid wargamers from about 1967 on. We played everything we could get our hands on. My brother accidentally picked up a copy of Empire of the Petal Throne in 1975, thinking it was a sort of fantasy wargame. Needless to say it wasn't, but once we sort of figured it out, we had a lot of fun with it. Shortly thereafter, we acquired a copy of the white box D&D, and played that for a while, but we were always annoyed by the combat system.

In 1977, I picked up a copy of Melee, by the same guy who had done Ogre (which we both enjoyed very much), and showed it to Jim. We had a group of high school friends that played wargames (Avalon Hill, SPI, a few indies), so we tried playing a few games. Everyone agreed this was "IT" as far as man-to-man combat went, and that was all she wrote -- we were off and running.

[Chris Goodwin]

One of my good friends, around 1986 or so IIRC. He was also the one who got me into Car Wars and Champions. We played arena fights a lot; even played it LARP-style a few times.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

I’d love to hear the legendary tales of the Old Ones here and how y’all got started with TFT.

Don't know if I meet the requisites described above...

I got started with TFT sophomore year in HS, 84-85... my buddy Dan had melee. We played the heck out of it, I bought melee and wizard, plus advanced melee and advanced wizard.

It would be over a year before I met a copy of In The Labyrinth...

... but I had Dragons of Underearth and the 1981 Fantasy Master's Codex. So, I was able to work around the lack of ITL.

Mostly, I used TFT to play solos.

My favorite run was a Reptilite Knight through Grail Quest, with his riding lizard.

[tbeard1999]

Originally Posted by ak_aramis

Don't know if I meet the requisites described above...

I got started with TFT sophomore year in HS, 84-85... my buddy Dan had melee. We played the heck out of it, I bought melee and wizard, plus advanced melee and advanced wizard.

It would be over a year before I met a copy of In The Labyrinth...

We're sorry but a minimum of 36 years' experience with TFT is necessary to qualify as an Old One...you newbie.

:D

[Tolenkar]

Originally Posted by tbeard1999

We're sorry but a minimum of 36 years' experience with TFT is necessary to qualify as an Old One...you newbie.
:D

YES! I finally qualify for something! Well, other than a complete nerd...

Tolenkar