Interviewing the Fans #1

[tbeard1999]

I posted this tale elsewhere in this forum, but it's my favorite TFT story.

We had an arrogant, overconfident and over the top player (James) who ran an arrogant, overconfident and over the top swashbuckler. Think George Hamilton in Zorro the Gay Blade. At the time of the tale, he probably had ST 10, DX 18, IQ 11, Fencing, Two Weapons, etc.

Anyhow, the party was clearing out a wizard's tower. The party split up, and James, alone, cornered the wizard. The wizard was wounded and down to ST 4 or so. As he closed in on the wizard, James engaged in much banter, boasting of his abilities, his invincibility, etc.

The wizard smiled thinly and cast an illusion of James.

James smugly noted that he wasn't afraid of a 32 point fighter, no matter how unbearably good looking he might be.

Sympathetically, I said "but James, an illusion of someone you know has all the abilities that you think that person has. So he's as good as you think you are..."

James actually gulped and said "oh sh*t."

The illusion won initiative (if course), did 3 backflips and went to work on James. James desperately tried to defend himself and screamed for help. James couldn't score a hit because, well, he thought he was invincible. His dice also failed him. Sometimes the Cosmos cooperates.

As the illusion prepared to administer the coup de grace, John, a huge barbarian entered the room, heavy crossbow readied.

Unfortunately, the range modifier was enough to make a hit unlikely. John argued that if the illusion was as good as John thought James was, then the crossbow should automatically hit for triple damage.

"That's right!" James exclaimed. "He thinks I suck!".

I told John to take the shot. The shot hit and killed the illusory James.

But you know, I'd have given him that kill no matter what he rolled.

Oh, and James ultimately put the killing blow on the wizard. He relished it as much as I’ve ever seen a player relish a kill. in fact, he was downright vindictive about it.

[ak_aramis]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

I want to do a few articles in which I interview you (yes, you!) about your TFT experiences or plans. Here are the ground rules: I post a question. You reply if you feel like it. By replying you are specifically giving me permission (nay, encouragement!) to use all or part of the reply in my article, credited to you.

Suggestions for other things I should ask will also be considered on-topic :)

So, question 1 - What’s your best memory from a TFT game? (If something about the system or background is what made this story possible, so much the better.)

First time I played, I was playing an elven fighter using a spear... and ran my opponent through due to a lucky roll of a 3, and killed my opponent right off.

Tied with that was finding the grail in grailquest using my lizard-riding reptilite knight.

[Chris Rice]

So many great moments, but we'd had those in D&D and other games. I suppose the ones I remember best as uniquely TFT were to do with "Powdered-Dragon Bone" or gunpowder as the rules had it.

In my TFT world only the dwarves knew the secret of making gunpowder, which they jealously guarded, but of course, others were constantly trying to steal the knowledge from them.

My players became embroiled in a plot to steal the secret, which led to many fascinating situations, including one character hiding in the barrel of a cannon which was later fired by another party member.

Perhaps the highlight was when I described the entrance to the dwarves stronghold as "an earthen rampart protected by wooden stakes and topped by a row of cannons"

I expected my players would come up with a cunning plan to infiltrate the Dwarven stronghold, but as usual my players confounded my expectations.

The leader, who was an Expert Horseman, turned to the others...

"This is our moment for glory lads, charge.....!"

Then ensued a charge of the light brigade style attack, with horses being blown from under riders until, with some lucky dice rolls and a not overly harsh DM, the players prevailed!

[zot]

G.E.V. was the first microgame I bought, in 1978. I showed my friends and we all became microgame fanatics. We loved Melee, Wizard, and Death Test, going so far as to make an Odysseus vs. the Cyclops scenario with a heavily decorated map for English class, freshman year in high school.

TFT came out during the summer between my 8th grade and 9th grade, right before my friends and I went to high school. We had tried Basic D&D (blue box) but that was very unsatisfying next to Melee and Wizard, especially considering that TFT was supposed to come out in 1978 (we had been waiting sooooo long for it by the time it came out in 1980)!

We played in earnest, at least 5 hours every Saturday and at hotels when we went on band trips (yes, most of us were in band, go figure). Sometimes playing the Lord of the Rings soundtrack in the background (not the one from that CGI movie, the original one from the cartoon).

We played a couple campaigns that lasted for more than a year. I did my first tag-team GMing in TFT, with my friend Chris, and we had such a blast!

We made a tradition of playing TFT every new year's eve, from around 6pm to 3am or 4am and we continued the tradition after we all went to different universities.

My friend Fritz would almost always GM. At some point around or after midnight, we would get punchy, with several hours still to go. Eventually, Fritz would decree that the confluence of Monty Python references and bad jokes had summoned an infernal Prootwaddle: a Lousy Joke Demon. One time a Prootwaddle demon appeared perched on the light saber of my friend Guy's character.

The best times we had as kids were centered around playing TFT -- it was like scenes in E.T. and Stranger Things, only we were playing such a better system :).

[Carnifex]

My best memory was in a Wizards arena fight, I cast an illusion of a wolf and my friend Ed said very loudly and with much confidence that he disbelieved my pitiful illusion and then promptly the blew roll. I mangled his wizard and won the duel, but in the end I showed him mercy, because we were both laughing so hard.

[Shostak]

Opening the Wizard microgame and just looking at the art for a while. Then, taking an X-acto to carefully cut the counters out so as to have no pullers. Then, reading the introductory snippet about the duel between Yzor and Krait, and having that fire my imagination. After that, I knew that I wanted to be a wizard!

[GlennDoren]

Classic moment...

I was 12, and had built up my character Lord Webur (named after my cat Wilbur... long story...) over many run throughs of MicroQuests. My older brother David walks by as I'm playing TFT at the family room table, and he convinces me to let him play the lowly wizard I encounter during another stint of Death Test 2.

First round: lowly wizard's turn to act after Lord Webur closes in on him.

My brother announces: "He throws all of his strength into one fireball spell." My brother rolls to hit, and manages to get a low enough roll to overcome the range penalty. He rolls a handful of damage dice and clearly wipes Lord Webur out in one fistful of fire.

I immediately protest: "That would never happen! He wouldn't risk his life on one spell attempt and collapse!" My brother, 7 years my senior, lets loose a laugh of victory only an older brother could muster, knowing he just squashed his little brother's treasured character.

I declare the battle null and void, due to "unrealistic play".

I still look back at that as a great memory :D I love my brother, but he sure could be a mean big brother a-hole back in the day :D

[Random Goblin]

TFT/Melee/Wizard was my introduction to roleplaying games. As a matter of fact, I don't even remember the first time I played, but I have vague memories of seeing my dad (David Deitrick) along with Jim Christensen and others, sitting around the kitchen table, playing Melee. I remember asking my dad to run games for me, and we mostly just played around with his 25mm fantasy miniatures on his hexmaps.

But the first time it really clicked was probably in 1987 or so, when I would have been in third grade and we were living in Alaska--my dad ran a scenario for me, and I don't remember the details but I do remember an inked dungeon room hexmap and stairs and an ogre (I still have the miniature), and we definitely used Melee. Shortly after that he let me play a Star Trek adventure with his super-elaborate 3D hexmap deckplans and custom movie-era Trek miniatures using Melee as a rules base (it was his go-to for everything), and after that I was completely hooked. I read Melee and Wizard and then used them (or variations of them) to stat up and play games with my growing collection of castoff lead 25mm minis for the entire rest of my nerdy childhood.

I transitioned to other games later on when I got a little older, but my childhood was definitely marked by obsession with Melee and Wizard, and they have a deep, special place in my heart. I'm looking forward to picking up the new releases and playing the with my own kids.

-Conrad Deitrick

[Some Guy From Mars]

Back in high school during the late 70's to early 80's I gamed with a group of four friends, which eventually became five. I believe it was the summer of 1979 (prior to the release of ITL) the four of us decided to run an 'all night' Melee/Wizard campaign.

Thankfully, my parents volunteered the family motor home- so starting around 6:00 that evening until the wee hours of the morning we gamed non-stop until we pretty much dropped from exhaustion. After a couple hours sleep, we stumbled all bleary eyed into the kitchen where my mother was waiting with a pancake breakfast. Later, we retreated to the motor home and continued gaming until early afternoon. Those were fun times!

Sadly, the last time we got together to play TFT was Memorial Day Weekend of 1992. We pretty much lost touch since then, but all in all we had a pretty good 15 year run playing the game. I am holding out hope that the re-releases will lead to our group having a one off gaming reunion.

Many of the better memories revolve around some of the unique characters that we played. I enjoyed historical characters and often would play insanely brave Greek Hoplite's that, as I am sure you can imagine, had a very high attrition rate. The one character that managed to survive to this day is a Mongol that always insisted on staying in the back and firing his horsebow but would never engage the enemy unless faced with overwhelming numbers.

One friend played a Gandalf/Merlin type wizard with an insanely high IQ. He also played a dwarf with a ST close to 30 (talk about attribute bloat!) but low DX around 12. Another friend had a Goblin merchant with ST and DX around 8 or 9 each but IQ in excess 20. You would think a character like that would not last long, but he kept him alive through smarts and guile.

[Some Guy From Mars]

A few other tidbits of information. As a young man, I was a big wrestling fan, with many of my favorites, for whatever reason, being masked wrestlers. So as I am sure you can imagine I played the occasional character to wear a 'lucha libre' style wrestling mask. Don't ask- I was only 19 or 20 at the time. LOL.

One such character that stood out the most was the equivalent of an underground crime lord named Dr. X. Dr. X managed to recruit what literally amounts a small army of followers in the form of assassins, thieves, mercenaries, etc and ran a thriving organized crime business until the local authorities caught wind of him, besieged his headquarters and burned him out. That was the end of that...