#buffalo castle

[oldschoolfrp]

Buffalo Castle by Rick Loomis, Solo Dungeon 1 for Tunnels & Trolls, often cited as the first solo adventure ever written or published for any system (Flying Buffalo, 1976, with Liz Danforth cover)  A free web-based version is available on the Flying Buffalo website.

[oldschoolfrp]

Flying Buffalo founder and Origins Hall of Famer Rick Loomis died last week.  Several fundraisers remain open to cover the costs of his recent cancer treatments:

A Bundle of Holding featuring all 7 of the Citybooks, 4 of the Grimtooth’s Traps, the Treasure Vault, and Mercenaries, Spies, & Private Eyes

A gofundme page organized by longtime Flying Buffalo contributor Steve Crompton

Above, a few of the games Rick Loomis wrote or codesigned and published:

Buffalo Castle for Tunnels & Trolls (1976) Grimtooth’s Traps, as Executive Producer and Contributor (1981) Fred Saberhagen’s Berserker (1982) Citybook II: Port o’ Call, as Executive Producer and Contributor (1984) TOM: The Origins Metagame (2002) Weapons of Mass Destruction, for Nuclear War (2004)

[infravisions]

As mentioned a couple weeks back, I finally opened my copy of Buffalo Castle for a playthrough now that I have the rules. Let's check in and see how that's going... Our first band to dare the Castle's magic doors, which admit only one brave and foolish soul at a time: Dash, human warrior – killed by an evil warrior Double Daggers, hobbit rogue – turned to stone by a mystery woman Ampersand, human rogue – fell into a pit, too clumsy to climb out, killed by an ogre Pilcrow, dwarf warrior – killed by a troll Dash had the best go of it, defeating her first foe, "an evil looking character in leather armor," winning some treasure, and escaping the dungeon to buy better armor. Alas, on her second foray, she dared to battle the evil looking guy's older brother, and was slain. Eventually. One of Tunnels & Trolls' noted quirks is that battles between evenly matched opponents have a tendency to drag on... and on... and on. D&D's d20 roll to hit has a linear probability, so combat can be swingy, especially since armor's defensive value is abstracted into the chances to hit. By contrast, T&T uses a throw of multiple six-sided dice for combat and potential damage. If you beat your opponent(s) roll you score the amount over in damage. Since rolls of multiple dice tend to clump at the top of the probability curve, and armor in T&T soaks up damage from successful hits, well...some T&T fights drag on like the battles of Arthurian legend: "AND then thus they fought till it was past noon, and never would stint, till at the last they lacked wind both; and then they stood wagging and scattering, panting, blowing and bleeding, that all that beheld them for the most part wept for pity....Thus they endured till evensong time, that there was none that beheld them might know whether was like to win the battle." Only with a lot more dice rolling. But, getting back to brave Dash, finally, after an exhausting battle (and the introduction of cobbled together unofficial rules for spite damage), she was whittled down to a fatal point. RIP, Dash. Buffalo Castle session report #1 Liz Danforth, lettering and illustration Rick Loomis, text Buffalo Castle Sir Thomas Malory, text Le Morte d'Arthur

[infravisions]

That lettering though. Shooey howdy shucks. Almost want to turn it into corridors for a dungeon map. Liz Danforth (presumably) Buffalo Castle

[infravisions]

I picked up a copy of Buffalo Castle on the cheap years ago, but decided not to read it till I also had the Tunnels & Trolls rules. Recently came by the T&T 5th edition, so I rolled up a roster of characters, pulled the adventure out of its sleeve, and here we go. Solo Dungeon 1 Liz Danforth, cover (lettering as well as illustration, I assume) Buffalo Castle

[mana-junkie]

MR 10 (2 dice + 5 adds). Weapon is covered in slime, which takes one turn to clean off. Roll d5 to see if another wandering monster appears while you are cleaning your weapon. Just happened to roll another floating jellyfish (I presumed it must of been the first one's mate) and dropped my freakin' weapon as well. So it had to be with fists and the stupid thing got it's attack.

Back to the freakin' drawing board.

The image is: Flying jellyfish by ~BMARLE

[mana-junkie]

Buffalo Castle - No Fudging Edition

I picked a random card from Player Character pack and got a human Wizard that I named Harrison Putter. The first door I chose I entered and triggered a rope trap missing my L1SR on Luck. As I dangled upside from the ceiling, trying to cut myself down.  A wandering monster entered the room and you know it happen to be a floating jellyfish.

Damn my luck. Didn't  even get out of the room.