Rebellion Unplugged vows to make Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age more approachable than ever

The second tabletop RPG that has ever been published (or third, if you consider the obscure Rules to the Game of Dungeon) is making a return — as the long-promised reimagining of the original Tunnel & Trolls. Designed by Rebellion Unplugged, whose parent company and video game developer, Rebellion, acquired it in 2023, Tunnels & Trolls: A New Age is more than just flourishing the classic game with a new, glossy veneer. The reboot will also feature an updated ruleset that, according to a press release by Rebellion Unplugged, is designed to be easy enough for new players to pick up, while also evolving elements of the original RPG that will appeal to veteran fans.

First published in 1975, the original Tunnels & Trolls was crafted in response to Dungeons & Dragons’ rule books, colloquially known as the White Box edition. Back then, creator Ken St. Andre thought that TSR’s system was too confusing, and decided to design Tunnels & Trolls around ease of play, approachability, and immediacy. Rebellion Unplugged sought to keep this principle in mind as they crafted the game’s newest iteration. “We kept coming back to this core idea: when the game was first conceptualized by Ken St. Andre in 1975, it was explicitly in response to the entire roleplaying games scene at the time. It’s just that that scene was exactly one game,” said RPG editor Filip Hartelius to Rascal via email. 

Unlike the numerous polyhedral dice that D&D required of its players, Tunnels & Trolls deployed a streamlined system that only required standard d6 dice to play, which were much easier to find than other dice variants. “Now, half a century later, we’ve tried to replicate that approach, but for a roleplaying games scene that is far, far larger than just one game,” said Hartelius. While drawing on Tunnels & Trolls’ roots in fantasy literature like Lord of the Rings and Conan the Barbarian, he mentioned that A New Age’s inspirations reach beyond just tabletop games, including mediums like video games and television series; Breath of the Wild, Tales from the Loop, and Fable have been cited as some of the game’s touchstones. “The world has changed in the last fifty years, and so must Tunnels & Trolls,” said Hartelius. 

At Rebellion Unplugged, Hartelius is helming A New Age alongside authors Scott Malthouse and Chris Bissette to execute on that lens of modern RPGs. It’s a cadre of experienced designers they’ve garnered. Before Rebellion Unplugged, Hartelius also served as senior games developer at Osprey Games, having worked on titles like Merv, The King is Dead: Second Edition, Romance of the Perilous Land, Imperium, and Undaunted. Bissette is also best known for The Wretched and the ENNIE-nominated blog Loot the Room, while Malthouse has crafted Quill, In Darkest Warrens, and Unbelievably Simple Roleplaying system. A New Age is also Rebellion Unplugged’s first major RPG release — one that can potentially steer the studio’s reputation away from being a vehicle for merely adapting Rebellion’s existing licenses to board games.