Wednesday 18 May 2011

Alternate Dwarves for T&T



Along with the 7th edition rules came a short book on alternative rules for playing Tunnels and Trolls. This gave options for new rules to incorporate into your game for things such as combat, spells and character creation. I've only ever really skimmed through this, but I thought I'd have a more detailed look into the lesser-played rules of T&T, starting with Dwarves.


All male dwarves wear full
beards, usually tangled and covered in
dust. Dwarven society is truly egalitarian,
and the women work alongside the
males in their tunnels and fight alongside
them on the battlefield
We begin with some flavour about my favourite kindred. I find it interesting how Ken St. Andre gave the Dwarves an equal society, where women have the same roles as men, which isn't often addressed in other games and fantasy fiction in general.


Dwarves can see much better than other
kindred in low-light situations, needing
no illumination to make their way about
underground.

This is a pretty common trait with Dwarves, as it makes sense that they would be able to see in the dark do to their proficiency as miners. Interestingly, they can see better than other kindred, even Elves, which goes against a lot of popular RPG tropes.


Dwarves have strong, sturdy bodies
from centuries of toiling in a difficult
environment. After rolling and assigning
his 18 dice for abilities (see “Rolling
Ability Scores”), a dwarf may re-roll up
to 1 die from each of his ST and CN
attributes, keeping the better result of
the original roll or this re-roll

This new addition allows Dwarves to be even stronger and hardier than they already are, really setting themselves apart from other kindred. However, their INT and CHA are dropped due to re-rolls and taking the lowest number.


Dwarves gain a +1d bonus on all SRs
made to sense their current direction or
distance underground, or when climbing,
searching, examining, or crafting
stone or stonework.

I love these little specific rules that grant advantages. This gives Dwarves a real advantage over other Kindred when delving into most tunnels, as they will be likely made of stone. In fact, this rule makes it integral that you have a Dwarf Warrior in your party.


Weapon Familiarity: When using axes,
picks, or hammers as weapons, dwarves
may treat any combat die rolls of 1s as a
2s.

On the other hand, I don't like this rule. This means that Dwarves will never fumble, unless it's house-ruled that a natural 1 and 2 rolled are always fumbles regardless of the rules.

I don't currently integrate these rules into my games but I'm definitely going to in the future. They really flesh kindred out, giving them a better flavour and making them stand out from one another.

Next up: Elves.

4 comments:

  1. I'm digging the character depth given to the dwarves, but does the book do the same thing for other kindred, such as elves?

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  2. Yup, it includes all the common kindred. As I say at the end of the post, I'll be looking at Elves next.

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  3. Most excellent! Can't wait for more of your work man :)

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  4. Is this stuff from that small extra booklet in the tin box edition? Those rules are not written by Ken, they are the creation of Fiery Dragon. Personally I felt that it made the game way to much like d20 D&D.

    Since you obviously have found some use of it, maybe it is worth another look.

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