Interviewing the Fans #1

[JLV]

Originally Posted by Some Guy From Mars

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.

You had a pretty good run there! The longest any group I was a part of lasted was about five years (say, from 1980 through 1984) and all of us live in different parts of the country now (except for my brother; he died about nine years ago -- I still miss him every single day), so alas, it can never be...though I'd love to have a weekend with the rest of the old gang again!

But if you guys can get back together, even just for a weekend of nostalgia and laughing about the good old days, I strongly encourage you to do it!

[schoon]

My best memory:

As a young boy, I would spend endless hours creating Melee (and eventually Wizard) characters on 3x5 index cards, with the aid of a trusty old typewriter and some colored pencils to do my character illustrations. I was overjoyed that I could create such a wide variety of gladiators in minutes and test them against each other to find what worked and what didn't.

Fun times.

[HerkNav]

I started playing Melee shortly after it was published. Like many of the people on this forum, I collected the expansions as they were released and I think I own all of the Metagaming releases.

My friends and I played a lot of Melee, and less of Wizard. But then I discovered The Space Gamer magazine and was able to subscribe as of issue 21. In issue 22, dated March-April 1979, came my personal “most memorable TFT moment.”

Up until TSG #22 my friends and I played TFT arena-style. Yes, our characters gained experience. Yes, we played Death Test. But we didn’t “role play.”

In #22 is an article titled, “Three Words.” The article covered the final gaming session of a campaign from the viewpoint of not only a player, but the main character as well. In other words both in-game and real-world.

Reading that article was the moment that role playing “clicked” in my 14-year old brain: becoming the character, acting the character. Duh…playing the role!

I continued to play TFT for years and still have all my original kit. I moved on and played other systems as well, enjoying the many facets of RPGs.

TFT and “Three Words” opened up for me the whole concept and led to nearly 40 years of RPG fun.

Cheers,
Ed

[Groknard]

Best TFT memory, I'll try to keep it short. It was July 1980 and the family went to a state park for a week of "camping". Date is really clear because the Republican Nat'l Convention was on TV all week, and ELO had two songs on the charts. But I was 15 and I hated this trip. I took Melee, Wizard and a Microquest (Treasure of the Silver Dragon?) with me to pass the time.

Hated politics, had to get out of the cabin, took my games to the entertainment center. Day 1, sat at a table and played some of the Microquest. A few kids came up and asked what I was doing, talked "D&D", learned some names.

Day 2, resumed my game, someone from the day before stopped by and wanted to play. Switched to arena combat and had a lot of fun. Agreed to pick it up the next day. Got invited to a party at the beach (lakes have a "beach"??) that night, lived through a few nerd jokes but actually had a good time and made more friends.

Day 3, new friend shows up with another friend and a sister to one of them. Gave them a brief rundown on the game, they all made up characters and I re-opened the Microquest. Despite 3 years of gaming at this point, I had never run a game. But I did it, and never would have done it with AD&D. And that's the TFT system, for me: the barrier to entry was so low that it was easy to share the game, get others into the game, and even run the game, with little to no experience. I never felt like I was asking them to do math. It was Duelists & Dinosaurs and we were having a great vacation on our own terms.

I don't remember many details, but it must have gone well, as we played the next day (or two?) as well. I was never afraid of running a game again. Actually, it was kind of hard to return to my local gaming group of friends as a player after that. I don't know if those kids stayed gamers (hey, if that was any of you in Ohio in 1980, raise your hand!) but I'd like to think at least one of them went home, went to the hobby store, picked up D&D, and bought Melee and Wizard instead ;)


Sorry, that was the opposite of short.

[Jim Kane]

Groknard - Great story!

JK

[JLV]

Amazing story Groknard! Thanks for sharing! ;-)

[pyratejohn]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

What’s your best memory from a TFT game?

My friend Steve was running three of us through Security Station. In the last room the party had a total meltdown about who was carrying what loot, if we needed to swap some around, etc. Things completely feel apart, as we started to argue back and forth, "No, I don't want that. If you want it, you carry it." "That's too heavy for me, why don't you," and so on. Eventually Steve decided we had lingered long enough that we set off the trap in the room and our characters all died a horrible death. Fun times!

[Rick_Smith]

Originally Posted by pyratejohn

My friend Steve was running three of us through Security Station. In the last room the party had a total meltdown about who was carrying what loot, ... Eventually Steve decided we had lingered long enough that we set off the trap in the room and our characters all died a horrible death. Fun times!

Hi all, PyrateJohn.
I quite liked Security Station, but the last room death trap rubbed me the wrong way. It pretty much soured me on the whole adventure. (Well that and the typos.)

Warm regards, Rick.

[Wayne]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

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

I had a wizard character that rolled for bravery 12 on 2d6 (as suggested in ITL) as a personality trait. From that point on, he was always in the front line with his quarterstaff as a fighter.

His whole personality was based on "I'm a master with the quarterstaff but I can also do some magic". The other players had to role-play convincing him to use spells!

[KevinJ]

Originally Posted by Steve Jackson

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.)

That would be when you wife played and my character said something inappropriate and, in response, her character attacked mine, scoring a critical and cutting off his head. She was immediately remorseful of her action and carried my character's dead body to the closest healer to have him resurrected. Therafter, my character had a scar all the way around his neck as a reminder not to say inappropriate things.