[Fighting Fantasy] Gamebooks -- anyone else?

[Capellan]

Unfortunately, I no longer have any of these books; I have no idea where they are anymore either. The Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks are available dirt cheap on Amazon used, but the TolkienQuest are a bit harder to find.

Anyone else have any fond memories of these books?

Yep. A couple of years ago I made a concerted effort to buy a full set: all 59 solo player FFs, plus Sorcery!, the various FF-as-an-RPG books, and the Clash of Princes 2 player game.

Trust me, not every entry in the series is available 'dirt cheap'. I'm really happy to have got them all, though

 

[Snoweel]

I've got Creature of Havoc

That was my favourite. You wake up as a savage beast with no memory, right?

I never could get through it, and iirc, it was cheat-proof.

I know you finished up on a flying ship but I could never get out of the dungeon.

Damn I'd like to give that another shot.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

That was my favourite. You wake up as a savage beast with no memory, right?

I never could get through it, and iirc, it was cheat-proof.

I know you finished up on a flying ship but I could never get out of the dungeon.

Damn I'd like to give that another shot.

That was a great one. I never managed to finish it either... Other one that I found like that was the 'House of Hell' - I want to see that released for D20 modern or, preferably, Call of Cthulu.

FF got me into gaming as well. Think it was the 'Crown of Sorcery' (?) 4 book series that really got me hooked.

I still refer to it as a 'gateway' system.

Edit: Anyone played the D20 crossover stuff? Is it any good?

 

[Eternalknight]

The four book series was simply called Sorcery. The 4th book was Crown of Kings

I have played the d20 Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and playtested three others. Being a FF fan, I love them. My players though aren't FF fans, but they still find them quite enjoyable, with one of the adventures being called 'that's the best adventure you have run in ages'. The other d20 releases so far are Caverns of the Snow Witch, Deathtrap Dungeon, and The Shamutanti Hills.

 

[Desdichado]

No one else did TolkienQuest, though? Those were my favorite of the whole genre.

 

[Henry]

I have VERY fond memories of all of the series.

I had all 4 of the SORCERY books, about 20 of the Fighting Fantasy, I naver heard of Tolkienquest until just now, and I rampantly devoured all of the Lone Wolf series from Joe Dever. Mongoose's Lone Wolf d20 may be my next gaming purchase, in fact, assuming it is released on time in April.

 

[Desdichado]

TolkienQuest was based on a slimmed up version of MERP (which in turn was a slimmed up version of Rolemaster.) As a gamebook, it certainly had a much more detailed "system" than Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks; more along the lines of Lone Wolf. And naturally, they were set in Middle-earth -- I had one in which I was sent by some rangers at Bree to Hobbiton right about the time Frodo was leaving Hobbiton, and I had one in which I was investigating Weathertop, and there was a third that I had in which I was wandering around in Mirkwood meeting Radagast, wood-elves, and the villages of woodmen. I can't remember the details of that one, but I think I was supposed to be rescueing someone who was lost?

Anyway, what made them unique was that they abandoned the "Choose Your Own Adventure" style of moving the plot forward as much as possible -- although there were choices and such to be made, which sent you to different sections of the book, you mostly progressed by moving along a hex-map and looking up the corresponding section for that hex.

 

[Inconsequenti-AL]

The four book series was simply called Sorcery. The 4th book was Crown of Kings

Oops. Got muddled a bit there. They were great books though...

I have played the d20 Warlock of Firetop Mountain, and playtested three others. Being a FF fan, I love them. My players though aren't FF fans, but they still find them quite enjoyable, with one of the adventures being called 'that's the best adventure you have run in ages'. The other d20 releases so far are Caverns of the Snow Witch, Deathtrap Dungeon, and The Shamutanti Hills.

Saw some at my FLGS recently. They were sealed up unfortunately, wanted to have a flick through before I picked any up... Which one got the 'that's the best adventure you have run in ages' accolade?



TolkienQuest sounds like a lot of fun... Hexmaps is a great idea.

 

[Snoweel]

I have VERY fond memories of all of the series.

I had all 4 of the SORCERY books, about 20 of the Fighting Fantasy, I naver

d00d!

It's spelled NEVAR !!!!1!!

 

[Eternalknight]

Which one got the 'that's the best adventure you have run in ages' accolade?

One of the playtest ones, though it hasn't been released yet Warlock got a very good reaction too, if mainly for the fact that it's a pretty striaght forward dungeon hack and we hadn't done one in a while

Did you know Myriador released a 9-page preview of Warlock a couple of months ago? They let me post it on my Emerald Review fanzine, issue 4, which can be found here: http://www.gigs-bytes.com/emeraldnight/