Steve Jackson's first version of what later became The Fantasy Trip were Micro Games numbers 3 and 6 published in 1977 and 1978 respectively. Both are boardgames based on hexes and are designed to be played independently or joined together. They were complemented by Micro Quests– programmed adventures much like those produced for Tunnels & Trolls. One other intention for these two games was possibly to be a replacement for existing combat and magic systems in your other frpg of choice. Bearing in mind that this was 1977 and there were only a handful roleplaying games out there at the time, this wasn't an entirely fanciful idea. There were quite a few such add-on or replacement products around at the time.
So...
...I'm not doing a review here, I'm asking a question: Would you consider Melee and Wizard together, a roleplaying game system or not?
I mean at the time they came out.
The 'Advanced' versions of both games, together with 'In The Labyrinth', were published in 1980 and are definitely an rpg, but can we count the micro games as such?
I would say yes. Mainly because my friends and I did so for a while. But of course we had the benefit of having played OD&D, Traveller, Metamorphosis Alpha etc first so we could (and did) add in missing rules to flesh out the bare bones of the combat and magic system as presented in the pair of games. We moved on to other games pretty quickly I have to say, but it was a whole lot of fun and gave rise to some very long gaming sessions indeed at the time (we played solidly for 48 hours once, fuelled by white rum and cold pizza... ah, those were the days!)
Anyway, I'm rambling. So I've asked and answered my own question. What do you guys think?
I think they were war games (board games) that could easily be turned into an RPG. But nothing in the games described or provided the actual framework and procedures for an RPG.
ReplyDeleteI've done post about the Dragons of Underearth which was going to be Howard Thompson's version of The Fantasy Trip after Steve Jackson left Metagaming. It never took off though
DeleteMy young and inexperienced mind thought of them as an RPG. I knew they were board games but the introductory fiction and the advancement system sparked my imagination. I thought of the characters as individuals who lived and grew. We played it like a simple RPG and it saddened me when one of my more experienced characters perished.
DeleteAs written they are boardgames with RPG elements. As anonymous says they can easily be turned into an RPG. My experiences are similar to yours. Shortly after getting Wizard in 1978 I started a campaign. I had played a bit of Holmes but didn't have my own copy so I created what I called "Melee D&D". We played that for a while but eventually moved on, coming back only when In the Labyrinth came out. Point being is that Melee & Wizard need only a bit of additional rules to be an RPG but they do need that.
ReplyDeleteYup. We did something like that too. Jackson suggests that Melee could be used instead of the combat system in your favourite RPG (which at the time was pretty much OD&D or Runequest. That idea was a bit too hopeful though considering the whole Fantasy Trip mechanic revolved around the Stats... What were we supposed to do, ditch some or all of the DbD Abilities? So we played the micro quests as dungeons with one of us being the DM. It was fun
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