Download the complete Twisted Tunnels playtest PDF to see what Phoenix fantasy is about.

Here’s what makes Tunnels & Trolls feel like Tunnels & Trolls to me—not the brand name, not the publisher, just the actual game:

Ablative abilities.

Your attributes go down through damage, spellcasting, and bad luck. You’re always playing your current numbers. Everything has stakes.

Three classes across a magic gradient.

Warrior (no magic), Rogue (magic by teamwork and/or trickery), Magic-User (full magic, burning Strength to cast). The categories are broad enough that roleplay fills in the rest. An alchemist, a martial artist, a con artist are all the same mechanics and completely different characters.

Faeries, leprechauns, trolls.

A setting with genuine strangeness and no apologies for it.

Side-versus-side combat.

A whole brawl can collapse into a single dice-off. Each side rolls, totals their best dice, and the entire losing side takes the difference as damage. Brutal by default—which is exactly why you try everything else first.

Tactical infinity.

No skill trees, no locked gates, no prerequisites between a clever player and the play they imagine. S. John Ross called this “anarchy.” Ken St. Andre built it in from day one. Your attributes ARE your skills; that’s why they increase when you level up.

Spellcasting burns Strength.

Not a slot, not a pool. The same physical fortitude keeping you on your feet in a fight is what you wager to reshape reality.

Monster Ratings.

Assign a single number from 1 to 99. Done. Fictional positioning does the rest.

Whimsy.

An irreducible tone—impish, dangerous, ridiculous, sincere. If the game isn’t laughing with you, it isn’t T&T.

That’s the recipe. What you do with it is your business.

---

Classic T&T is magnificent and it can also be improved. Here’s what I’d change:

TL;DR: Smaller numbers and simpler computations, mostly.

Scale weapons to 1, 2, or 3 dice—no weapon Adds.

This was the way in First Edition. Ability scores already generate Adds. The division is intuitive: more dice, more power. But the buckets of dice and weapon Adds in later editions inflate the numbers without improving the game.

Adds = ability ÷ 5, rounded down.

Consistent, clean, no subtraction.

Magic-Users can use any weapon

—at 1 die, no Adds. Meaningful choice, not arbitrary exclusion.

Monster dice = Monster Rating ÷ 5, rounded down.

This means a monster with MR 1-4 rolls zero fighting dice—defenseless. Which means they can be subdued, captured, tamed. That’s First Edition T&T and it’s beautiful.

No spell levels.

Intelligence and Strength requirements are enough.

Lean on the fiction-first loop.

Players say what they think, say, and do. Referee says what happens. Dice enter only when the outcome is genuinely uncertain and something real is at stake.

---

That’s the game I built. Twisted Tunnels: The Phoenix Apocryphon, Volume III—the public playtest PDF is out now.

The goal was to do everything that First Edition T&T does, with smaller numbers and simpler math, while doubling down on the madcap pulp fantasy frenzy of it all.

The weapons table runs Light (1d), Martial (2d), Buster (3d). Adds come from ability ÷ 5, period. Combat stays fast because the numbers stay small.

Magic-Users start with all Apprentice spells and burn Strength to cast. Rogues can learn any spell—but only from a Magic-User in the party, or by watching someone cast and making an Intelligence roll to snatch the secret. Warriors get none of it but get a signature weapon and double their armor protection instead.

Monsters get a rating from 1-99. It’s not a number that makes them terrifying, but their appetites for chaos or calculated terror. Dice equal that number divided by 5, rounded down. Below MR 5, they’re defenseless. Gotta catch ‘em all.

Spells are named Cooking With Evil Gas, Bearded Babyface, Luigi Board, The Perfectly Cromulent Word. The Monsters chapter opens: “Rival adventurers? Monsters. If you want non-player characters, go find a game for ninnies and literature professors.”

The box is open again.

You can get a copy of the Twisted Tunnels playtest PDF here. Download it. Play it. Make it yours.