Short answers, pulled from the story.
Ken St. Andre created Tunnels & Trolls and self-published the first edition in April 1975. He designed the game as a more accessible and cheaper alternative to Dungeons & Dragons while working as a public librarian in Phoenix, Arizona.
Tunnels & Trolls relies exclusively on six-sided dice for all calculations including magic and combat. The game rejects complex polyhedral dice in favor of a system that requires only standard six-sided dice and reasonable equipment.
The fifth edition of Tunnels & Trolls was published in 1979 and translated into the United Kingdom, Germany, France, Italy, Finland, and Japan. In Germany the game was released as Schwerter & Dämonen in September 1983 making it the first roleplaying game available in the German language.
Webbed Sphere sold Tunnels & Trolls to Rebellion Unplugged in May 2023. This sale included Flying Buffalo's entire range of role-playing games and marked a significant shift in the game's history after Webbed Sphere terminated licenses to third-party publishers in 2023.
At least twenty solo adventures were published by Flying Buffalo including titles like Buffalo Castle and Deathtrap Equalizer Dungeon. These gamebooks were designed to be played by one person without the need for a referee and contributed to the success of the format.