Ordered: The Fantasy Trip

I have always seen The Fantasy Trip as the Car Wars' answer to D&D. This is the game Steve Jackson lost control of and the one that made him create GURPS to replace it. Now he owns the rights again, and we are seeing a resurgence of popularity after this game's Kickstarter.

The game is 25 pounds in a huge box, with the "I Want it All" box at 35! You get a lot here for your money. I love these "big box, infinite play" games, and there is a magic to them I can't describe. It is like owning a treasure chest containing infinite fun.

As I hear, there are two archetypes, fighter and mage, and you customize them with talents in the advanced game. You can mix magic and fighting, but buying those abilities will cost you more XP. I don't mind a game with only two archetypes, as in recent years, the "specialism" of needing dozens of character classes to simulate every possible occupation has gotten tiresome.

I picked a "dockworker" as my character class! Oh yeah, I picked "cargo handler!" I want to be a "harbor master!" Me? A "salty dog" for sure! You get this strange mix of professions, positions of importance, slang terms, oranges that do not relate to apples, and nothing makes sense. Scurvy lad? Matey? Swabbie? Freebooter? Pirate? Corsair?

Game designers only embarrass themselves when given a thesaurus.

TFT focuses on two types of play, melee combat, and spellcasting, presenting tight tactical challenges. The tactical combat is better than D&D 4E, with every turn and move making a difference. Weapon and armor choice matter (and this is like subclassing when you mix talents in there). Party composition matters. Turn order matters.

This is also a game that solo plays well, as I am told. I have been looking for a light-roleplay, heavy skirmish, rules-light game. This game will fit my needs perfectly. It reminds me of the old Advanced Hero Quest games, with the WHFRP rules cut down for dungeon-skirmish play and a heavy focus on scenarios and building your figure's power through advancement.

When solo-figure gaming was popular in the 1990s as an AD&D alternative hobby, this was an excellent pastime. The DM laid out a dungeon with tiles, and the rules were clear and straightforward. There was no "theater of the mind" play, which also reminds me of what they tried with D&D 4E (but failed). You had a hero, a character card with simple abilities, and you went to the hobby shop to play a few 'dungeon skirmish' adventures and get rewards to use next time. The characters were simple, so validation and "loot tracking" could be done before play and kept as records. If my dwarf got a magic axe, that was added to my card, and the GM put that in their notes so I could use it next time.

4E tried to do this so hard by making every power, item, and magic item a card. The game tried merging with Magic: the Gathering - which was an exciting idea, but how they went about doing it was a dumpster fire. First of all, no cards. A 4E adventure should have come with cards for the treasures you find in there so you can hand them out to players. But, no! This is where your legacy holds you back, and another game steps in and does it better.

They tried to do that concept in Gamma World 4E, but by then, it was too late, and the 5E team was already trying to fix the mistakes of 4E by rushing back into the cave and banking on nostalgia hard. It was a smart move, but I already had 3.5E (and Pathfinder 1e) for that.

This is also a GURPS-like 3d6 system but without the GURPS. The complexity has been cleared out and eliminated. This is like a GURPS 5th Edition beta that removes all the fiddly parts and messy point builds and keeps the game's heart - the combat.

The relation to Dungeon Fantasy is strange, as this game is pure GURPS, and The Fantasy Trip is pre-GURPS. Dungeon Fantasy is what to play if you love GURPS and its infinite layers of detail and customization. The Fantasy Trip you play because you don't care for any of that and just want the tight tactical game. But even Dungeon Fantasy pares a lot of GURPS and focuses the engine on the fantasy gaming part.

I like DF, and my fantasy gaming is slowly moving back into this area because of the excellent solo play. The fewer heroes you have, the better the game gets. There is a point where a game is so easy and the characters so pigeonholed in a class role that you feel you have no options other than to grind XP and "level up how they want you to." With GURPS, 5-15 points in one place can change how a character plays and puts them in a new role.

SJG is succeeding in stripping down the excellent 3d6 and GURPS engines and focusing them on experiences. This is a winning formula.

You can get the Fantasy Trip: Melee in PDF for free right now - so the first melee-focused game is free to try yourself.

I am looking forward to this one.