Review - Tunnels & Trolls 7.5e - The Rulebook - Part 1

You gotta start somewhere, so it might as well be with the rules themselves.  The first thing you will notice about the book s that its a bit shorter, maybe an inch, then the other two spiral bound books included in the box.  Just figured I'd throw that out there.

The book itself runs 174 pages.  14 pages of which consists of the Armor and Weapons Glossary.  Back in 4e (T&T, not D&D) they basically tell you to look the stuff up that you don't understand on your own (this was prior to the internet).  Now, 14 pages to tell you exactly what it is your character is buying.  I like it myself.

T&T now gives you the following classes to choose from:  Citizen (your average schlep), Rogue (mix a bit of warrior and a bit of wizard - reminds be of the bard class from Dragon 56 / Best of Dragon), Warrior (your meat shield), Wizard (makes things go BOOM and such), Specialist (not really it's own class, but various specialties based on some of the other classes), and Paragon (Warrior / Wizard combo - not watered down like the Rogue - needs exceptional rolls at character generation to be one).

One omission in the rules in my view, is the lack of any real description of the Kindred, or intelligent races.  The main races are Human, Dwarf, Fairy, Hobb and Leprechaun.  There are also 32 rare Kindred races.  Five of them have footnotes on the Kindred Attribute Modifier Charts.  The rest?  Nothing is said about them.  We have the stat modifiers, but I dont even know what a Urook looks like, acts like, anything.  Let alone Urookin.  A sentence or two on each would suffice.

Don't get me wrong, I love choices, and T&T is a game with lots of choices.  I just like to have an idea about my choices aside from a purely muchkin POV.  If they used the same font as the Armor and Weapons Glossary, a Kindred Glossary would take 3 to 4 pages.  Something to think about for the next printing / edition.

I know I'm sounding negative at this point, but don't let it throw you.  I really like this boxed set, and thoroughly enjoy the T&T rules.  More tomorrow about the rules.