Shipslam #1: Hobbit Hole #24

Shipslam? What is a "Shipslam"?

Cover art by Jeff Freels

Well as many of you in the Tunnels & Trolls fraternity will know, one of the biggest problems that your average troll faces isn't a maddened Dwarf with a bright orange mohawk, it's a mad hobbit. James Shipman (hence Shipslam) to put a name to the shame.

Not content with pirating the work of hard-working creatives, he also pillages the web for anything he can find of a Trollish nature to fill the pages of his now widely defunct magazine, The Hobbit Hole. No self respecting Troll would ever buy it but, respect has never really been a consideration of the party in question, so he pointlessly persists. Personally, we think it's just because he likes seeing his name in print.

So what is a Shipslam already!?

Shipslam is a new feature that is going to show you just where he has lifted "his" new material from. He wants you to pay for it, we want you to have it for free, just as the original author had intended. We also want all of his Internet traffic too, but one thing at a time. ;0). So without further ado, here it is, his original advert for The Hobbit Hole #24, with hyper-links directing you to all the original content, gratis. Enjoy!

T&T NEWS -- (NOW IN STOCK) The Hobbit Hole #24 (T&T Magazine). This huge 120+ page, 8-by-11 sized magazine is packed full of T&T goodies we know you will love. How could you not? This is the only full-sized T&T paper magazine being published today! REGULAR FEATURES: Of Hairy Feet and Taters... Editorial. T&T ARTICLES: The Creating Wizard – By Ken St. Andre, Writing T&T GM Adventures, Magic Items and Enchantments, A Monkey Throwing Stones at Monsters, Novels that remind you of T&T, New T&T Character Types:Barbarian / Marksman / Huntmaster / Starwatcher / Storyteller &Minstrel, New T&T Spells To Rule Them All – By Ken St. Andre, Dragon Parts, I Live In Geekdom, Solo Gaming Record Sheet, The Trollish Tribune – By Ken St. Andre, Shippy's Interview, Writing Solo Adventures – By Ken St. Andre, Miscellaneous House Rules. SOLO / GAMING: Shipy's Cheap Ass Old School ASCII Solo, The Great Forest [A T&T GM Adventure], Zombie Apocalypse [A T&T Solo], Rock Monster Mayhem and Roll [GM/Solo]. FICTION: Reborn From Ashes [A T&T Short Story]. COMICS / OTHER: Trollwood, Sprite Chaos, Misunderstanding, Lonely Walk, Limericks, C&C Ash the Rogue, New T&T Character Sheets. This new brand new magazine is now selling for-- PRICE: $13.00

Someone Already Did It!

Simpsons already did it!

I set my mind to "design mode" this morning, using Tunnels and Trolls as my framework and reached a somewhat startling realization that even with my fandom I had overlooked and, brought to mind some of the exploits of Professor Chaos.

It seemed that every idea that I came up with had already been done by someone, somewhere, some how.

Which ironically has still given me more than enough to write about! It's just not the post I was looking for. ;0).

So what have I found?

Pretty much that no matter what genre you want to set your game in, Tunnels and Trolls has you covered.

Now, that wasn't exactly news to me as I have always considered T&T to be a truly flexible gem but, keeping by and largely to high fantasy role playing I really hadn't given too much thought to just what else was out there on the market.

Each and everyone of these products is more than deserving of it's own post (which it will receive in the fullness of time) but, as a brief overview for those of you that want to jump ahead, here are some items that are well worth looking up.

Science Fiction: Peryton Publishing has really covered the genre well with their release of New Khazan, taking the familiar Tunnels and Trolls tropes to infinity and beyond!

Modern / Pulp: Mercenaries, Spies and, Private Eyes by Michael A. Stackpole, whilst not being true Tunnels and Trolls is so close to the original that adjusting to it's many nuances (all completely necessary I might add for the genre) should be light work for any budding gamer.

Horror: Currently being play tested but already looking amazing, Stay Alive by Jerry Teleha will no doubt become your one stop shop for Tunnels and Trolls Horror. Definitely one to keep a watchful eye on.

In the meantime however, it should be noted that there is an article within Mercenaries, Spies and, Private Eyes (called "Tunnels and Thompsons") for playing Call of Cthulhu style scenarios, which I believe was the original idea behind the re-write.

Supers: Ken St Andre has released a product in this field called Power Trip that has sadly fallen out of production as far as I can tell but, not to worry. The fine mind that is Dan Prentice has written up some great ideas for introducing supers into the existing Tunnels and Trolls rules here, at the Trollbridge.

There is probably, okay, almost certainly many more genres besides but in my opinion these are the biggies and, they're covered!

Someone already did it! ;0)