Game 141: Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan (1990)

      

Tunnels & Trolls: Crusaders of Khazan

United States

New World Computing (developer and publisher)

Released 1990 for DOS
Date Started: 22 March 2014

      

When I was a kid, I was a big fan of Cecil Adams's "The Straight Dope," a syndicated newspaper column occasionally aggregated into a book. Cecil provided a service that was invaluable in those pre-Internet days. People would write to him about anything, and he'd research it and figure out the answer. Such questions might include the best way to kill cockroaches, the difference between regular and "premium" gas, and the origins of phrases like "in like Flynn." I hadn't thought of the column in years and I was surprised to find that 30 years after I started reading it, it's still going. [Ed. It ended 4 years after this entry.] I wonder how often he replies, "Christ, just Google it" these days.

Anyway, I think the first time I heard about Dungeons & Dragons was in a "Straight Dope" column from 1980. I remembered a few keywords from the column and found it instantly. God, I love the Internet Age. Adams spends some time trying to explain the game to readers who grew up long before all this "role-playing" nonsense. He then says: "The concept seems simple enough. It's the application that throws me. There are two main problems: (1) there are one billion rules, and (2) the game requires nonstop mathematical finagling that would constipate Einstein."

This, apparently, was the same reaction experienced by Ken St. Andre when he first read a Dungeons & Dragons manual in 1975. According to his own history, he stopped into a Flying Buffalo game store in Phoenix, excited to check out this new game people were talking about, and found the rule book "baffling." Convinced that the idea was good but the execution was bad (something that many other RPG players have argued since), he went home and created Tunnels & Trolls in a week. After some playtesting with friends, he revised the rules, cranked out a bunch of copies at the university library, and pretty soon the world had its second role-playing game.

The second edition cover.

In both content and business, Tunnels & Trolls seems to have always been much less serious than Dungeons & Dragons. The creators never really developed a full campaign setting, simply saying that it occurs "in a world somewhat but not exactly similar to Tolkien's Middle Earth." Classes are just warriors, wizards, and rogues (I guess there are more in more recent editions). There are no alignments, and everything just uses six-sided dice. Spells include such titles as "Oh Go Away!," "Take That, You Fiend!," and "Slush Yuck." Even the business end is still quite informal. St. Andre sold the rights to Flying Buffalo, "makers of fun games since 1970," whose web site looks like it hasn't been updated since then. The company has funded the next edition of the game via Kickstarter.

At some point, St. Andre was joined by Elizabeth Danforth, and the two worked together on the fifth edition of T&T in 1979. CRPG addicts know the pair primarily for something else: Wasteland, which they developed at Interplay with Brian Fargo and Michael Stackpole (among others). As far as I can tell, Wasteland was St. Andre's only CRPG (aside for a module for Stuart Smith's Adventure Construction Set), but Danforth went on to work on a few others, including Crusaders of Khazan. This time, she worked for New World Computing under the direction of none other than Jon Van Caneghem, creator of the Might & Magic series.

Short of Gary Gygax collaborating directly with Richard Garriott, it's hard to imagine a game with a stronger pedigree. Given that, I've been a little underwhelmed by the game so far. It features ugly graphics (including simply horrible character portraits), bare-bones sound, and an interface that's clunky despite supporting simultaneous, redundant mouse and keyboard commands, which I usually like. It feels very little like a New World game. This seems to be because Van Caneghem contracted the actual programming of the game to Japanese developers, and its first versions were published for Japanese PCs.

Wandering around the marketplace in the City of Gull.

On the other hand, the story has promise, and if the opening city is any indication, the game will serve up some interesting encounters with role-playing options. In these areas, Khazan feels a bit more like Danforth's efforts in Wasteland.

The manual by Neal Halford, plus the dozens of screens of pre-game text, aspire to Ultima levels of detail. The game takes place on the Dragon Continent (so-named for its shape), half of which is under the control of an empire; the other half is a combination of independent city-states. In ancient times, a cabal of wizards used to rule the land, but they collectively went insane with power and started the Ancient Wizard's War, which left the land scarred and barren. Evil monsters invaded the world and humanity neared extinction before a great wizard named Khazan unified the intelligent races, swept the world of evil, and initiated a 600-year golden age.

Part of the game's introductory screens, told as a tavern tale.

But evil returned in the persona of a half-elf/half-orc named Lerotra'hh, who unified the monsters as Khazan had done with the humanoid races. She corrupted Khazan's deputy, Khara Kang, and used the knowledge of his secrets to wage a successful war. On the brink of defeat, Khazan agreed to go into exile and give the empire to Lerotra'hh as long as she agreed to give men and monsters equal rights within the boundaries of the empire. She consented, Khazan disappeared, and the "Dark Empress" has ruled for 400 years since the bargain, honoring the treaty "in fact if not always in spirit." But lately, enraged that the monsters have been settling into sedate civilization under the influence of their human allies, she has been loosing the bonds. Armies of monsters are on the move again, towns are burning, and the consensus seems to be that a party of adventurers is needed to set everything straight.

Character creation is a very random process, offering few opportunities to game the statistics. Age, attributes, gold, and a bonus category for "combat additions" are all randomized from d6es, so it's extremely hard to engage in "attribute eugenics." You almost always get at least a couple unfavorable stats no matter how much dice-scumming you attempt, especially since you have to establish race and sex before you see the attributes.

Races are selected from human, dwarf, elf, and--in a stunning departure from Tolkien--"hobb." Attributes are identical to Dungeons & Dragons except with "luck" replacing "wisdom." Attribute rolls for humans seem to be 3d6; those for other races get up to 6d6 in certain categories, but they're almost always balanced by lower rolls in others. Classes are limited to warriors, rogues, and wizards, with the latter class having spells that compensate for the lack of a priest or cleric class. Tunnels & Trolls doesn't buck any standard fantasy tropes: dwarves make the best warriors, hobbs the best thieves, and elves the best wizards, with humans serving in their usual "jack of all trades" role.

I went with two warriors, a wizard, and a rogue, spreading them among all four races, but the game offers a slew of NPCs to replace any or all of your party members, so I can make swaps if I feel like I'm underpowered somewhere.

During character creation, you also choose from between two portraits of the associated race, class, and sex, and all of them are just godawful. I can only assume they looked better on a PC-88 or PC-98 or something.

What is the woman on the left even wearing?

The game begins on the island of Phoron in the city of Gull, a multi-sectioned, isometric metropolis populated with shops, guilds, transportation stations, and both fixed and random encounters on the street. The island serves as a kind of gateway to the Dragon Continent.

The adventure begins.

The city offers weapons, armor, and other equipment for the starting party, and I found that I had just enough gold to afford rations (consumed every night at midnight whether sleeping or walking) and mid-level combat equipment. Available weapons and armor are restricted by strength and dexterity, but otherwise there are far fewer class restrictions than in D&D.

Buying weapons. I briefly enjoyed the idea of my character beating goblins with a saxophone, but it turns out that a "sax" is just a type of dagger. A "jambiya" is a curved dagger, a "poniard" a dagger with a crossguard. This game does to daggers what D&D does to polearms.

Wandering around the city, I began to enjoy the game's approach to encounters, which are mostly random. They include beggars pleading for funds, storytellers happy to reveal a bit of lore for a copper piece, and wandering mages who will identify items. A kid with a wheelbarrow offered to take me to an inn if I'd dump my "heavy goods" in his barrow; fearing theft, I said no.

A few examples of random encounters. The middle screen shows the game's automap.

In one memorable sequence, I encountered some sinister guards protecting some large crates, inside of which I could hear roaring. The guards warned me off, but I kept moving forward and they attacked. After I defeated them, I had the opportunity to open any of the three crates.

The first one had a dehydrated bear. Feeling sorry for the beast, I chose an option to give it some water, and using the strength from the drink, the beast polymorphed into a human, who disappeared after offering me a tip about language. The second crate also held a dehydrated bear and, in light of my first experience, I also gave him some water. He attacked and slaughtered me. In a reload, the third crate had a manticore. I like this kind of encounter and series of role-playing options, and I hope the game keeps serving them up.

There have only been a few combats in the game so far. In combat, the game switches to a special screen on which the two parties face each other, sometimes with natural obstacles to navigate around. Characters act in an order determined by speed. They can move a few times before attacking with either melee or ranged weapons, casting a spell, or "pushing" the enemy back a square or two. The game also offers an auto combat for easy fights. I'll have more on combat later.

The party prepares to face two hobgoblins and a mosquito.

There are a number of original elements to the game, some endemic to the Tunnels & Trolls system, others specific to the game engine. They include:

• The character portrait changes based on what the character is wearing and wielding. It's never any less ugly.

• Your facing direction matters. There is no key to interact with people or items, so these interactions happen automatically when you face the person or object from an adjacent square. If you don't face a shopkeeper, you don't talk to him. If you don't face a chest, you don't open it.

A bulletin board. I wouldn't have seen this if I hadn't faced east here.

• Much like Legend of Faerghail, the game promises to do something with languages. There are 19 of them, organized into "civilized," "ancient," and "beast" categories. Each character starts with one or two, and trainers can be found in cities to teach more.

• There are no derived attributes. Wounds do direct damage to constitution; spells deplete various attributes depending on the nature of the spell--primarily strength. Spellcasters can lose too much strength and fall unconscious.

• There are some refreshing nuances to the spells, and they suggest a depth of tactics that I'll be interested to explore as the game progresses. There are spells that double the damage done by bows or swords, that lock doors for a few rounds, that double speed with certain weapons, that "harden muddy ground," that shatter enemy weapons, and that temporarily enchant weapons, among many, many other effects. The spell list owes no obvious influence to any prior system.

The outdoor area of the island.

I suspect that Gull is going to occupy me for another couple of hours, after which I need to explore the rest of the island before finding my way to the Dragon Continent. So far, it seems like a slight game but with some interesting elements. I look forward to seeing what it offers.