Tunnels & Trolls (abbreviated T&T) is a fantasy role-playing game designed by Ken St. Andre and first published in 1975 by Flying Buffalo.

The second modern role-playing game published, it was written by Ken St. Andre to be a more accessible alternative to Dungeons & Dragons[1][2][3] and is suitable for solitaire, group, and play-by-mail gameplay.

[6] Tunnels & Trolls had similar game statistics, character classes, and adventures to Dungeons & Dragons but used a magic system based on points and used only six-sided dice.

This edition was also translated and published abroad in the United Kingdom, Germany,[8] France, Italy, Finland, Japan, and it entered these markets before Dungeons & Dragons did in most cases.

That same year, Fiery Dragon Productions produced a 30th Anniversary Edition under license in a tin box complete with CD, map, monster counters, and two new versions of the rules.

[10][11] As Rick Loomis, head of Flying Buffalo Inc., put it, "The French edition came out so beautiful that now that I have run out of 5.5, I am not satisfied to just reprint 5.5.

Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls, written by St. Andre with additional design input and editing from longtime players Liz Danforth and James "Bear" Peters, was published in August 2015.

[12] In July 2021, Webbed Sphere bought Flying Buffalo, along with its catalog, but not including its Play By Mail games.

[13][14] In 2023, Webbed Sphere terminated licenses previously granted by Rick Loomis and Flying Buffalo to third party publishers of Tunnels & Trolls products.

[15] During their ownership of the company and the Tunnels & Trolls intellectual property, Webbed Sphere did not release any new versions of the game.

In May 2023, Webbed Sphere sold Tunnels & Trolls, in addition to Flying Buffalo's entire range of role-playing games, including the Citybook and Grimtooth products, as well as Mercenaries, Spies and Private Eyes, to Rebellion Unplugged's table top role playing game division.

[16][17][18] The 5th edition Tunnels & Trolls core ruleset does not detail a specific setting, saying only that gameplay occurs in "a world somewhat but not exactly similar to Tolkien's Middle Earth."

In an interview in 1986, Ken St. Andre stated that "my conception of the T&T world was based on The Lord of The Rings as it would have been done by Marvel Comics in 1974 with Conan, Elric, the Gray Mouser and a host of badguys thrown in.

"[19] The current Deluxe Edition includes Ken St. Andre's house campaign setting, Trollworld, along with additional material by early players Jim "Bear" Peters and Liz Danforth.

The rules recommend that novice players create human characters but also offer the options of elves, dwarves, and hobbits.

New characters begin with a number of gold pieces determined by rolling three six-sided dice and multiplying the total by ten.

Checks are made using a character's attribute plus 2d6 (doubles add and roll over) against a difficulty level based on the task at hand.

In the third issue of The Space Gamer, Brant Bates called the first edition of Tunnels & Trolls "very playable, and a lot of fun", and recommended it for fantasy fans who are "not purists.

He also objected to the "tacky" names for spells such as Too-Bad Toxin, Dum-Dum and Upsidaisy, saying that they "lend the game an air of Ali Baba and the Three Stooges.

Swan criticized the imprecision of the rules, calling them "a hairsplitter's delight", as well as the simplicity of the monster ratings, which meant "there’s no meaningful distinction between fighting a giant slug and a drunken swordsman."

[26] In a 1996 reader poll undertaken by Arcane magazine to determine the 50 most popular roleplaying games of all time, Tunnels and Trolls was ranked 32nd.

Paul Pettengale, the magazine's editor, called T&T "pretty crude", noting its early release, and said "It's probably here for nostalgic reasons.

"[28] Tunnels & Trolls was also the first system to publish a series of fantasy-themed gamebooks - adventures which are designed to be played by one person, without the need for a referee.

While the basics are the same, it adds a skill system, changes the time scale of combat rounds, and includes rules for modern weapons.