What, Exactly, is The Fantasy Trip: Melee

Terquem · 05-10-2018, 11:30 AM

I’ve been thinking about this today, after reading most of the second book in the Designers & Dragons series and revisiting what it was like to think and feel about those games that were coming out in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

We were just learning what a “Fantasy Role-Playing” game was, and many people were introducing concepts and extensions of that realm that shaped and redefined the premise over and over again. Then along comes the video game, and we all needed to rethink what a “Role-Playing” game really was.

Now, I only tried The Fantasy Trip a few times, in the early eighties, as a full-fledged “Fantasy Adventure” game with elements of Role-Playing, but it always struck me that it was somehow different from other Role-Playing games I had tried, something unique, something I can’t really define.

So what, exactly, is The Fantasy Trip: Melee? Is it a man-to-man skirmish wargame? Is it a fantasy man-to-man skirmish wargame? Is it, a difficult thing to categorize, a supplemental addendum to a Role-Playing game that allows for resolution of man-to-man combat.

Is there a definitive description for TFT: Melee that succinctly identifies just what it is?

05-10-2018, 11:30 AM	#1
Terquem Join Date: Apr 2018 Location: Idaho Falls	What, Exactly, is The Fantasy Trip: Melee I’ve been thinking about this today, after reading most of the second book in the Designers & Dragons series and revisiting what it was like to think and feel about those games that were coming out in the late 1970s and early 1980s. We were just learning what a “Fantasy Role-Playing” game was, and many people were introducing concepts and extensions of that realm that shaped and redefined the premise over and over again. Then along comes the video game, and we all needed to rethink what a “Role-Playing” game really was. Now, I only tried The Fantasy Trip a few times, in the early eighties, as a full-fledged “Fantasy Adventure” game with elements of Role-Playing, but it always struck me that it was somehow different from other Role-Playing games I had tried, something unique, something I can’t really define. So what, exactly, is The Fantasy Trip: Melee? Is it a man-to-man skirmish wargame? Is it a fantasy man-to-man skirmish wargame? Is it, a difficult thing to categorize, a supplemental addendum to a Role-Playing game that allows for resolution of man-to-man combat. Is there a definitive description for TFT: Melee that succinctly identifies just what it is?