In the arena

Steve Jackson is bringing back the old microgames Melee and Wizard, along with the compatible roleplaying rules In The Labyrinth--the whole system is known as The Fantasy Trip, and it dates back to the late 1970s. He recently did a Kickstarter to get it back into print, and I joined in. Since backers got electronic copies of the rules while we wait for the hardcopies to get printed, I decided to try out the game, repurposing my old Heroscape figures and terrain for some figure-to-figure tactical combat.

I refereed a game of two-on-two to give the other folks in the gaming group an opportunity to learn the rules. After that battle--which ended up with the advantage swinging back and forth until one side finally prevailed--we played a five warrior free-for-all. While my guy ended up fleeing the arena, the others stayed around to battle it out. We called the game when one warrior had the other on the brink of death.

It was a fun time, and my group seems willing to play it again, perhaps getting some sort of campaign going. I'm looking forward to more melees in the arena ... and later in the labyrinth.