Thursday, October 6, 2011

Fiery Dragon Makes a Fine Tunnels & Trolls Box

I’d been wanting to buy a copy of Tunnels and Trolls to replace my battered, second hand store one, so last month I visited Flying Buffalo’s website to see what I could find. Being a total T&T newb, I found the T&T product page a bit confusing. Apparently I have version 5, there never was an official version 6, there was a version 7, and there’s a version 7.5 which I think is just a re-box of 7.

I ended up getting the Fiery Dragon produced 7.5 box. I’ve heard that a few oddities in the 5th edition rules were cleaned up and that it’s fundamentally the same game (unlike say the changes between D&D 2e and 3.5). For what it's worth, about 80% of poll respondents here indicated that they preferred or played 5 vs. 7.5.

The boxes were on back order and I was lucky to get mine for $35+$3 for shipping. The price has since gone up to $50 but I’m amazed at the quality of what you get even at that new price.

The smallness of the box and books themselves is not for everyone - personally, I love it. The main books are all spiral bound and lay flat, with the rules being slightly smaller (4.75 x 7”) than the monster and spells books (5 x 7.75” each). With these are included three booklets - two adventures and a monster/magic expansion. There's also monster and PC cardboard tokens which are sturdy and use very professional art. The dice are small (I’ve already lost one) and four PC record sheets were included.

Flying Buffalo’s website is very Web 1.0 and DIY, looking pretty much like it did when it first went online about 15 years ago. It has a certain old school charm, but there’s a lot of stuff there and it could really use a make over to show off some of their products better. Below are some photos of the T&T 7.5 box I received in case anyone goes there and wants a better idea of what they might be ordering…

Box BackRules Book (next to MM for scale) • MapSpells BookMonster BookMonster & Magic ExpansionDice (next to a Gamescience d6 for scale) • TokensPC SheetsSolo Adventure • GM Adventure (forgot to take a pic!)

7 comments:

Dr Rotwang said...

That box you bought? I have one, and I think it is ACES.

Carter Soles said...

Thanks for blogging about this! I bought the T&T 5.5 Box Set several months ago and love it; yet I have been curious about 7.5 as well.

Tenkar said...

Well, I have the 5e black box, the 5.5e box, the 7e tin and the 7.5e box. I kinda like them all ;)

That being said, 7.5e fixes some things in 7e, like attribute advancement (it's horribly painful in 7e)

5 and 5e are not well organized when it comes to character generation information and classes... it's all over the place. 7e and later fixes that.

Enjoy ;)

ze bulette said...

@Carter Soles: Is the 5.5 stuff small like the 7.5 books or is it more like the old B/X boxes? I'm guessing the former considering the price...

@Tenkar: Bit envious of your paperback.

Tenkar said...

@ze, I might have more then one copy... i'll check when i start unpacking boxes in a month or so and let you know... it can be found for a reasonable price on ebay on occasions.

the Dual/Solos in the Corgi line come with a fairly complete abridged version of the Corgi T&T Core Rulebook. Flying Buffalo had a few of the Dual/Solos on sale at cover price a few months back.

The later 5e / 5.5e box is like a less deap B/X box

Tenkar said...

@ze - FBI has all 5 books (sans the core) Corgi solo books in stock for 5.95 each. A bargain and a half if you ask me

http://www.flyingbuffalo.com/solo.htm

ze bulette said...

@Tenkar: Thanks for the info - I'm glad I got the smaller box now.

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