|
Steven K. Mariner |
Last Updated: 18-Sep-2008 |
The Fantasy Trip
Steve Jackson created two microgames called Melee and Wizard whilst working at MetaGaming Concepts (owned by Howard Thompson); he later created a roleplaying game out of these concepts caled In The Labyrinth. This RPG was released as three booklets called Advanced Melee, Advanced Wizard, and In The Labyrinth. These three works combined was entitled The Fantasy Trip, or TFT for short.
In the early 1980s, Steve Jackson and Howard Thompson had an unpleasant parting, and Howard got the rights to TFT. Publication of the game ceased.
I'd first seen this game at a gaming club in the suburbs of Chicago circa 1980. I didn't play the game, as I was really into Speed Circuit at the time, but later, in a gaming group in Colorado Springs, I recognized the MegaHex map and the style of the counters supplied with the game. That group, the infamous "Green House Gang", introduced me to the game as "Melee", but included Wizard in it. They didn't play it for the role-playing, they played it for the combat.
The prize feature in Melee for the Green House Gang was its simplicity. Reasonably detailed individual combat with not a lot of time spent on computing and calculating.
From time to time, people have approached Howard for rights to publish the game again, but he's apparently decided he wants something like $250,000 for the rights. This could be in part due to the perception (and proably the reality) that since the publication of the game ceased, a lot of players operated largely off of illegal photocopies of the original games, and Howard wants to make up for lost revenues. Hard to say. He has chosen to remain out of contact, although his son has occassionally been in contact with folks seriously investigating republication. As yet, nobody's offered enough cash to swing the deal.
People like me who hold original copies of the game are therefore very unlikely to part with them.
So, on my list of things to do should I ever design the killer game or write the killer novel that catapults me into retirement, I will buy the rights to the game and simply republish it as a gift to the hobby, and to honor the rights of the person whose company developed it.
Stay tuned.
| Mark Antony Hill's TFT Site: | http://www.geocities.com/kingmarco66/ | ||
| Mark Antony Hill's TFT Site: | http://www.geocities.com/kingmarco66/ |
© 1997-2008, Steven K. Mariner