T&T: Trollworld

Trollworld is an interesting setting, and one I feel is highly underrated. This setting has been the home for all the Tunnels and Trolls solo adventures and has spanned the entire history of the game.

Now, as a preface, this is how I see the world. You may see it differently. You may have not considered the setting in depth, or you may have played there for years and done something entirely different. One of the beautiful things about pen-and-paper gaming is how we see the world, or a world, begins a great epic inside our minds and those of others into creating a unique setting and experience. We may all start in the same place, but where we end up is a beautiful journey.

Part of my change in thinking about this world involved the following concepts:

Dark Humor

This is very much a setting that hits pop-culture references from the 1900s to the 2000s is a dark humor sort of way. One could say this makes the world a more lightweight comedic affair, but I see this differently. The Warcraft universe does a lot of pop-culture references and no one bats an eye. You can see them too in the Warhammer universe, and people are like, fine.

In my view, pop-culture references have been in this world for tens of thousands of years because wizards have been visiting Earth (and many other worlds) for all of that time. Not just one Earth, but tens of thousands of alternate Earths and realities - over and over again. They may have destroyed hundreds of these Earths, enslaved some of them, and half-destroyed hundreds more and then forgot about them. Wizards visiting them may have left for them or gotten killed and nobody knew better.

Not just Earth, but potentially tens of thousands of different worlds, timelines, and realities - even on alien worlds. Expand your idea of 'pop culture' to include a million different realities and worlds, and get outside of the televised group of realities. Include fiction too, since this is magic and magic makes the impossible happen. A wizard could find Alice in Wonderland and zap a deadly version of it into reality. Then forget it ever existed for a thousand years as the place is overrun by monsters, twists into a frightening new form of nightmares, and comes back and consumes its creator.

Also, Trollworld is the home of monsters. And monsters are known on many worlds. Thus, the connection will never go away and it influenced the world as monsters have influenced Earth. Say a new monster is imagined on Earth, then that could be created here. The rulebook says:

Arrange a pirating raid against a settlement of Vartae, or have an evil wizard cast the characters into the future of the Wild West, or further yet into the space-faring world of Buck Rogers or Captain Kirk where technology works and magic doesn’t—or perhaps it does anyway!

Any scenario, any piece of fiction or nonfiction can be mined for inspiration, from Sherlock Holmes to Kipling’s Mowgli, from classical Greece to the African veldt. Anything can be adapted with a little work and imagination on your part. Don’t stop at the tunnels! There are countless worlds beyond the dungeon.

The door has been opened, but realize this...

Countless doors to countless worlds into countless futures and pasts have been opened for the last 60,000 years. This is not a setting that is damaged by cultural references to Earth (and likely many other worlds), that stuff has been floating around as a part of this world's history.

Some Earth figures from history might just be walking around here...

Not Human Centric

So many fantasy worlds are written to mirror Earth's history, you know, the one where humans were the only intelligent life on a world. Or the game's creators write the world's history as if the inhabitants on it were humans and act the same. On Trollworld, humans are not the dominant species. They may have came here 45,000 years ago and built great cities and civilizations in the past, they are not the dominant force in the world anymore. 

After all, the trolls were here first, and after that elves and dragons. Trollworld, these days, belongs to the monsters. Check your human bias and privilege at the door, lunch-meat.

Well, your empires are gone and human cities are few and far-between. There are many places where humans are hunted, and only a few where they walk among monsters freely (but watch your back). You are not going to be a softie, civilized cosmopolitan type in a royal carriage with a poofy hat and pantaloons looking down your nose and pooh-poohing those wretched creatures as you trade with them. You are going to be a barbarian king type saying take my trade deal or I will sign it myself with your blood. In fantasy gaming, it is too easy to fall into the Arthurian tropes of chivalry and proper social behavior. This world is much more savage and brutal than that.

Human kingdoms might take land nobody else wants, and fight tooth and nail to scratch out an existence between the borders of large monster kingdoms. Approaches to human cities may be channeled up narrow gorges and chasms with thousands of ambush points and fortifications before one reaches the massive city gates. The city itself may be cut out of the canyon walls, or the ancient ruins of an old serpent empire among the cliffs with old temples and halls repurposed for human inhabitation.

T&T cities aren't reflections of modern times; nor are they clean, ordered, and boring analogies of today's metropolis centers. They are a savage reflection of a world inhabited by monsters, broken, twisted, shattered, and rebuilt a thousand times by the next group of inhabitants. And they are definitely not entirely human, as humans are transplants to this world.

This is why the contents look like monsters. Some may say this is silly, but to the monsters, this is a brutal reflection of vanity and their disregard for those who live here. The world is supposed to feel alien to humankind.

Legends

Power means using it. There is a reason characters in this world have ability scores above 100.

They need to be able to walk up to a dragon and punch it in the nose - and have it stay down. This is why characters start as D&D first level nothings and end up with ability scores way above 100. Just like in the Epic of Gilgamesh you will be able to throw a bull for a mile, cut down many trees with one swipe of an axe, or reject the advances of the gods themselves because you are so damn good looking. This is one of the key advantages of the game, D&D ability scores, for the most part, never change (or change very slightly), all the way up to maximum level. T&T ability scores ARE your character level. Yes, you are supposed to be that strong and that smart. You are a legend.

Also, this is an 7th and 8th Edition rule where your highest prime attribute divided by 10 is your character level. Earlier editions got into XP charts and other methods, and I prefer this new way of determining level since it gives the player the freedom to decide when they level up, and gets rid of the level chart entirely.

A Savage World

I don't really want to say "this is Conan" because it is not. That is too easy, and it is also too limiting. The savage barbarian king trope completely applies here, the world feels like that and that model of character can be played with great ease here. Some of what the Conan style brings to the table applies, but the world is much more than that.

We don't want to limit ourselves to just humans and the human experience in fantasy. Think if a monster, say a troll, wrote the Conan novels from a troll perspective, and your mind will start to wander down the correct pathways. My son was born, so I started a war against all the other troll tribes we were at peace with so my son could see what victory looked like! My son rode on my shoulders as he watched me slay a thousand trolls! 

It makes no sense. This is not how a human world works. It feels alien to our experience.

Similarly, magic. Yes, a human may have been the most powerful wizard in the world, but there are equally powerful non-human wizards, such as elves, fairies, monsters, and many other races all practicing the greatest magics. This is why the spell names are so simplified, such as "take that you fiend!" The real spell names are probably unpronounceable grunts, growls, clicks, scratches, and other sounds from beyond the nether.

We tend to think of magic in the D&D sense. You have wizards colleges, magic shops, mage towers, men with long white beards and pointy hats, gaggles of magic students, democratized magic, and this notion of magic being a cosmopolitan force that betters humanity. There are acceptable uses for magic, and others that are frowned upon. Oh no! Do not upset my pseudo-Victorian moralities, nor violate my the limits of our game's precious balance!

I half-joke, but you get the point here. A lot of fiction and gaming tends to use magic as a metaphor for the Internet, technology, communication, or progress. It almost always leaves the world a better place. It is a force aligned with good, change, and exciting gameplay options. Magic is a part of our character builds, and explains all the fantastical powers and options at our disposal! Also, magic is balanced, part of every class feature, and doesn't break our game.

Magic is a convenience of the modern age.

T&T's magic comes from an earlier time. It will break those chains holding you back or seriously mess up your day. It will flood a valley full of innocent villages, summon a demon, crack the earth in half, set a town on fire, or blast a 20-foot tall troll in half with a blast of lightning. Magic is power. Just like our barbarian can cleave a boulder in two clean halves with his great-sword my mage and point a finger at it and vaporize the stone into dust.

Magic is savage, brutal, unbalanced, world-changing, game-breaking, and a force to be feared and reckoned with. You do not want it used against you, and you certainly want to use it against those you don't like. It is also non-human, alien, and something even those who mastered it don't fully understand.

The Rules Make the World

I am a big fan of letting the rules make the world. If a game reflects a certain reality, then I run with it. Yes, you can use T&T to simulated a King Arthur game or Robin Hood - and it works well. However, if I have a goal in mind to simulate the savage, unhinged, brutal and dangerous settings found in some of the solo adventures - and mesh that with what I read in the Trollworld atlas - I let the rules guide my creativity and let the game help forge the world.

Magic is alien, wild, powerful, and unpredictable. A 110-pound STR 5 weakling serf can become a muscle-bound barbarian king. Rogues can vanish into thin air and balance on the head of a pin. The world is not entirely human. This place has been lived in by multiple civilizations before ours, and the move-outs left a mess. We don't belong here. The non-human perspective is the dominant one. Monsters rule this world. Gates to other realties have been opened throughout our history. Not everyone here...comes from here.

You take those statements and start world-building.

You start thinking.

And what seemed like a simple setting in the back of the book becomes something much more compelling and interesting. This is not like any of the other "fantasy theme park" settings that are typically out there.

It is a place in our imaginations called Trollworld, and it is what we make of it.