Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks

[CerebroDragon]

Greetings IW Gamebook buffs,

I was just wondering if there are any fans of this great series on IW? If it wasn't for Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, I very much doubt that I would have had the massive leaping push towards fantasy roleplaying that the first book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain inspired me with. A friend and I discovered two copies of it way back in 1989 when I was in grade 5 at primary school. We both took it home on the same night and come back the next day excitable and wide-eyed as if we'd just unlocked a portal to another dimension. It was the beginning of a fateful long road and journey through the lands of Titan which still funnily enough, geekily continue today - my collection is not yet complete!

The series has had somewhat of a spirited rejuvenation of late, with the re-release of many of its best titles, with new cover-art, all fresh to be discovered by a new generation. I've begun passing many of my 'extras' on to my brother, who has, albeit hesitantly, enjoyed a couple of them. I can only hope that the series will continue to grow again and that some new titles will get written!

Thus, I'm keen to hear your own tales of Fighting Fantasy addiction! (Or other gamebooks, if you read them...)

Some of my favourites:

Deathtrap Dungeon (THE classic dungeon crawl. Its 'sequels' were great too, Trial of Champions & Armies of Death)
Creature of Havoc (A difficult masterpiece!)
House of Hell (Terrifying if you read it at night in a large house...)
Sorcery! (Shamutanti Hills, Khare Cityport of Traps, The Seven Serpents and The Crown of Kings)
Crypt of the Sorcerer (So many items and memorable encounters...)
City of Thieves & Midnight Rogue (Works well after a session of Thief: TDP!)

The books I'm still yet to obtain in order to complete my collection:
30. Chasms of Malice
35. Daggers of Darkness (One of the first I read - just haven't found it yet!)
41. Master of Chaos
44. Legend of the Shadow Warriors
45. Spectral Stalkers
49. Siege of Sardath
54. Legend of Zagor (My specially made character sheet was a mess after completing this epic!)
59.Curse of the Mummy (The elusive, final book written in the series)

If anyone can help me in the quest for series completion, feel free to email/PM me!

Cheers,
Cerebrodragon

[Sir Degrader]

I haven't really gotten into them, but the lonewolf series was pretty good. Best of luck in trying to find those books, they'r pretty hard to come by nowadays.

[Jaradu]

We've got plenty of these at our library in school. I'll note down the ones they have and post them here to see if you can recommend any. I've probably played a few of the ones you mentioned, but the one I remember distinctly has to be Creature of Havoc... a very different experience. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Djinn Raffo]

The best, imo, were the 4 issue Sorcery series.

[Kestrel Daystar]

I have read through two books and completed them both. I found both of them very enjoyable IMHO. The two I played were:

The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
Nightdragon

Very good, I recommend them.


--Kestrel--

[Ilythiiri]

Yup I really enjoy reading those books. I have also collected each and every volume up till vol.44, after those, our country don't import them anymore. Its quite sad but I've gotten used to it.
I read these books ever since in the 80s, when I was a kid. Every now and then, I will "re-play/read" them.

[Luvian]

I rented and read a lot of them, it was very fun back then.

I say read, because I never actually did the fights, I just went to the chapter you go to when you win.

[ 11-07-2005, 10:12 PM: Message edited by: Luvian ]

[Kakero]

I used to read and play Lone Wolf. I like it very much. I borrow them from my school library though the series is incomplete. Soon I've found a local bookstore actually sell these series. I bought a few of them which wasn't in the library. Too bad few weeks later the books vanished from the bookstore. Donno what happen. Couldn't find the books anywhere else.

[Orbost]

My god! Fighting Fantasy gamebooks - now they take me back! I used to borrow them from the local library, photocopy the character sheet (for about 5p a sheet), then play them umpteen times until I had read every single paragraph.

Question - if you lost a fight, did anyone really start the book again? Or did you just pretend that you won and keep reading?

[CerebroDragon]

Orbost -

Yes, a friend and I both play them honestly and correctly by starting again each time we die. Trying not to use previous knowledge of former lives is the challenge! We even record each death on a seperate sheet for each other's amusement.

Sometimes a tough early fight is a nice way to quickly get rid of a 7 or 8 skilled character, just so that you CAN start again!

If there was anything I despised, it was buying the books second hand and finding "skill 12, stamina 24 and luck 12" written on the actual character sheets of the book. I'd always use a seperate exercise book (or photocopy it) to record my adventures.
Its not impossible to get those stats obviously, but it often made me think of what the point of reading them was if they weren't played properly according to the rules?

I like lonewolf aswell, though not as much since they seemed just that little bit more linear to me. The combat system is slightly flawed in that you use a pencil to select the 'dice roll' and so by habit you can eventually start to point in an area where the numbers you want are. So I use a D10 when playing them instead. [img]smile.gif[/img]
I first read the Jungle of Horrors in primary school and it terrified me!

I don't own that many of them, but have read 1-13 or so.

No more luck as yet with the Fighting Fantasies I don't have...