Any Fighting Fantasy Conversion Notes?

[victorysaber]

You know, those old old game books by Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone (currently being reprinted I believe).

I know some company did some conversion of some books into adventure modules. Are they any good?

Any other conversions done for any of the major characters in the setting? Titan, I believe it was called.

 

[S'mon]

The published conversions were generally regarded as overpriced and not very good, as I recall.

As far as conversion goes, roughly speaking Attack Bonus equates to Skill, Stamina non-linearly to hit points, but the systems are so different you pretty much have to convert from scratch.

Roughly speaking:

Skill 0-3: sub-normal/non-combatant

Skill 4-6: mediocre/unskilled combatants, goblins, orcs, attack bonus roughly +0 to +2

Skill 7-9: Skilled/elite opponents - ogres, low level fighters.

Skill 10-12: Powerful monsters, mid to high level fighters

Skill 13+: Very powerful monsters, above the FF Player-Character level, in D&D high level Fighters

 

[Arnwyn]

Yep - the conversions were overpriced and not very good.

OTOH, the books are great fun to convert whole-cloth to 3e, if you have a bit of time. Quite a while ago I converted all the monsters from Fighting Fantasy's Out of the Pit as well as a bunch from most of the other game books (if they had a picture) to 3.x. Great stuff.

Once that's out of the way, the rest of the conversion is relatively easier (IMO). There's a website out there that actually has the walkthroughs for many of the books, so that adds to the ease of conversion. Further, there are maps in many of the game books, so it's also somewhat easy to expand a bit, to ensure that the converted 3e adventure isn't a strict railroad ("follow the book or else!").

It's certainly far more work than converting an older edition module (especially if you want to type out large swaths of the Fighting Fantasy book for ease of use during a game), but it's very rewarding (again, IMO).

 

[Desdichado]

I'm not sure that you could really convert systemwise, because IIRC everybody only had two stats--skill and stamina and all you did was undergo an endless battle of attrition with your enemies.

Oh, yeah--forgot about luck, which was a PC only stat. I think a better way to convert them to D&D would be to find good equivalents in the various monster books and just plug them in in place of what the FFGB's had. The other thing that might be a good idea is to really sit down the the books and seriously map them out--which shouldn't be too hard.

Any particular books you like, victorsaber? I think the only one I still have is City of Thieves which was always my favorite, but I know I had Forest of Doom, Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Scorpion Swamp and probably half a dozen others. There was more than one fantasy setting that they used, as well as their sci-fi, post apocalyptic and other settings.

 

[Infernal Teddy]

*Starting to consider getting "Titan" and "Out of the Pit" out of the shelf...

 

[Desdichado]

Damn you, victorysaber! Damn you to Hell!

Because of this thread, I've been scouring Amazon for used copies of the books I used to own but got rid of years ago. My wife will not be amused next time we go over the budget together.

Actually finding most of the Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks themselves isn't difficult, because so man of them are being reprinted. Finding my old Lone Wolf and TolkienQuest books is turning out to be considerably harder.

 

[victorysaber]

Yep - the conversions were overpriced and not very good.

OTOH, the books are great fun to convert whole-cloth to 3e, if you have a bit of time. Quite a while ago I converted all the monsters from Fighting Fantasy's Out of the Pit as well as a bunch from most of the other game books (if they had a picture) to 3.x. Great stuff.

Once that's out of the way, the rest of the conversion is relatively easier (IMO). There's a website out there that actually has the walkthroughs for many of the books, so that adds to the ease of conversion. Further, there are maps in many of the game books, so it's also somewhat easy to expand a bit, to ensure that the converted 3e adventure isn't a strict railroad ("follow the book or else!").

It's certainly far more work than converting an older edition module (especially if you want to type out large swaths of the Fighting Fantasy book for ease of use during a game), but it's very rewarding (again, IMO).

Got links?

 

[victorysaber]

Any particular books you like, victorsaber? I think the only one I still have is City of Thieves which was always my favorite, but I know I had Forest of Doom, Warlock of Firetop Mountain, Scorpion Swamp and probably half a dozen others. There was more than one fantasy setting that they used, as well as their sci-fi, post apocalyptic and other settings.

I'm thinking of Firetop Mountain, in particular. I know it's sort of a two-parter, though, as in there's a mandatory mid-point in the book.

 

[Desdichado]

It's funny--I know that seems to be everyone's favorite and all, but I never liked that one. I got it after already having a good half dozen other ones, and I always thought Firetop Mountain was really annoying. It had really bad artwork compared to some of the others I had, the maze was incredibly annoying and even then the whole problem of "nonsensical dungeon ecology" bothered me.

 

[S'mon]

Firetop Mountain has one bit of dungeon ecology that violates my SOD, namely the 4 dwarves in a room in the maze playing dice. Otherwise I can deal with it. I strongly disliked the maze though, an exercise in frustration. Nearly all the FF books have arbitrary frustration mechanics to ensure replay, mind you. I prefer the Lone Wolf approach where you actually have a decent chance to succeed in 1 play.

Re monster conversions, I've converted a fair few from Out of the Pit, and I sprung a Shapechanger, the cover star of Forest of Doom, on a PC in my Moldvay B/X pbem, much to his enjoyment as it nearly killed him.

Edit: I think overall Forest of Doom is my favourite, along with the Sorcery series. I love the wilderness-as-dungeon flowchart approach, something D&D designers could learn from IMO, it much beats just rolling on a random encounter table.