A lot of you RPG fans out there are playing The Fantasy Trip; according to Game Merchandising, it’s currently the second most popular role-playing game in the U.S. But one thing TFT lacks, compared to almost every other major fantasy system, is a "monster book." GMs are limited to the creatures in the original In the Labyrinth book, plus a few unintroduced in various supplements.

However, TSR’s Dungeons & Dragons does have a monster book – in fact, it has several. In addition to the official Monster Manual, there have been any number of privately published collections of beasties. The Manual itself has over 350 different creature descriptions . . . and while some of them are trite (giant frogs) or repetitions of standard fantasy material (men, dwarves, elves, orcs) there is also a lot of original material. Such creatures as the ankheg, bullette, gelatinous cube, and rust monster are purely D&D creations.

True, the descriptions in the Monster Manual are incompatible with TFT. But this is easily dealt with. This article will offer a system for "translating" beasts to the TFT system. The translation is not exact; creatures from the Manual may be more or less deadly when converted to TFT. But it’s fairly close, and it will certainly provide you with a horrid new batch of beasties.

Note that I’ve written this treatment in terms of Original D&D and variants; armor classes and hit dice may have to be modified for stats in Advanced D&D.

To take the characteristics in the order they’re listed in the Manual:

difficulty-to-hit caused by a creature’s small size or high dexterity. TFT handles this concept by using two different numbers: a subtraction from the attacker’s DX (for a target that is hard to hit) and a subtraction from damage done (if the target is tougher than unprotected human flesh). To translate a creature’s "armor class" into the two TFT stats, proceed as follows:

Compare the creature’s natural armor with the list below to get a "natural armor class." This is the armor class the creature would have if it had no magical defenses and did not move about. Read across from the natural armor class to the "hits stopped" column. This shows how many hits, in TFT terms, that sort of armor absorbs from each blow that strikes it.

(1)Take the difference between the creature’s natural armor class and its actual armor class as given in the Manual. If the difference is only 1, it will probably be due to either magic powers or great elusiveness on the part of the creature.

Move gives a distance in inches representing the creature’s speed. The listings in the Manual may be considered suspect; for instance, a human moves 12", a dwarf only 6", Are dwarves only half as fast as humans? Not likely . . .

For any humanoid type, use MA 8, 10, or 12, depending on whether the creature seems as though it should be generally slow, average, or fast when compared to a man; ignore the "Move" listing entirely.

For animals, use the MA for a comparable creature from TFT:ITL.

For peculiar and unique monsters (which is what you should be using the Manual for anyhow) allow 1 MA for each inch of movement. All MA should be even numbers. A ground MA of more than 16" is very unlikely except for a riding creature. Note that some creatures will have ground, water, and/or air speeds listed, all of which may be different.

However, the range of hits in the Monster Manual, figured this way, is greater than in TFT. The strongest beginning human character in a D&D game can take only 8 hits – but he will soon advance to levels where he can take 60 or more hits. Contrast this with TFT, where a beginning character is likely to start with a ST of at least 10 – possibly up to 18! – but is unlikely to get much past 24. The disparity in the abilities of creatures is equally wide. In TFT terms, creatures from the Manual are very puny – until they begin to get strong, when they are very strong indeed.

Therefore, to derive a reasonable TFT strength from the hit points of a creature from the Monster Manual:

• If a creature has 1 or 2 hit dice, multiply its average hit points by 3 to get an average TFT strength.
• If a creature has 3 or 4 hit dice, multiply its average hit points by 2.5.
• If a creature has 5 or 6 hit dice, multiply its average hit points by 2.
• If a creature has 7 or more hit dice, multiply its average hit points by 1.5. Again, we are talking about averages. The maximum hit points (i.e., TFT strength) of any creature will be nearly twice the average for that type!

Some monsters, especially those from "unofficial" sources, will do a truly astounding amount of damage. You have three choices with these: leave them out of your campaign, scale them down to a reasonable level, or save them for those players who have built up very strong and well-equipped characters. It’s a matter of the GM’s personal style.

Translation of special abilities requires the most care and creativity of any part of this process. Be sure to cover all the bases – duration and area of effect, defenses if any, range – or there’ll be an argument in the middle of the game.

This completes the roster of characteristics listed in the Manual. It also gives us all the characteristics needed to play TFT, with one important exception: dexterity. Although the D&D system has a "dexterity" characteristic, it is not used to determine the hit probability; the success of the attacks is determined by a complicated matrix, involving "levels" and monsters’ hit dice.

Therefore, the best way to assign a dexterity to any given creature involves an assessment of that creature’s overall formidability, rather than any one characteristic. Imprecise though it may be, the best solution is simply to assign a DX that seems right for that creature, by comparison with known creature types and the following guidelines:

Some typical animal comparisons: bear DX 10, ape DX 12, wolf DX 14. Some "imaginary" monsters are likely to be strong but very clumsy, balancing high damage with low hit probability. An important note: In TFT, dexterity is probably the single most important factor determining how dangerous a creature is. A beast that does, for instance, 3 dice damage is laughable at DX 7, and murderous at DX 12. A creature with DX 14 or more is formidable even if it does very little damage! If a monster has a DX higher than that of the fighters that face it, those fighters are in trouble.

The other important thing to keep in mind when "translating" monsters – and this holds true no matter what game systems are involved – is to work them out beforehand. If you’re working straight from a book, you can tell your players, "You see three Whatsits," look up Whatsits on page 34 of your Beastie Book, and go from there. You shouldn’t play that ignorantly, but you can. But with translated creatures, you have to do your homework. Adapting the statistics does take time; do it beforehand, and write everything down. (A 3 x 5 card for each creature type is good for this.) That way you won’t waste time during play – and you can be sure that your translation is a complete one, and that oddball factors like special attacks have been fully covered.

So . . . the next time your players are wandering through Cidri, and they spy an orange-brown, armadillo-like creature and rush it with swords swinging . . . surprise, surprise! Happy monstering.