Started With Fighting Fantasy Books

[MadMaxim]

I just found some of my old Fighting Fantasy books in my basement (specifically Stealer of Souls, Vault of the Vampire and Battleblade Warrior) and it got me thinking that they were actually one of the main reasons for me getting into roleplaying games some 15 years ago. I was wondering if anybody else started the same place with those books? Roleplaying games were never big in the little town I grew up in, so I often went to the library to borrow the Fighting Fantasy books and going through them. I still think they're awesome. Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson got me started

 

[wedgeski]

They were my first foray into roleplaying back in the very early 80's, and I loved them to bits. I still have 1 though 35 I think, as well as the utterly brilliant Sorcery! series, and Clash of the Princes.

Hmm. I might just have to go and dig some of those out...

 

[Snoweel]

Steve Jackson's Sorcery! are definitely what got me started in gaming.

As a young lad I was entranced by the way you could continue the adventure through the series.

The Fighting Fantasy books were awesome as well. I read at least the first 30 of them.

And I always had 12 for skill and 24 for stamina.

 

[Ant]

I've just got back into the FF books. A couple of friends gave me some they'd collected and no longer wanted (my own disappeared long ago). I love 'em!

 

[Particle_Man]

I loved them but was already gaming by the time I saw them. City of Thieves had my favorite "gotcha!" scene ever, with a little kid running up to you with a note and running away and the note saying "You have 6 arrows trained on you. Leave your money and walk away." Great fun!

Although I think that some of the books had typos such that they couldn't actually be solved.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I started with FF too, via The Riddling Reaver. It was a bizarre FF book which contained four adventures and the basic FF rules to play them (alone or with others). This was when I was eight, long before I knew what an "RPG" was (or even a wargame). I remember reading it and being utterly hypnotized by it and this vague, bizarre concept that these stories were somehow scenarios for a game of some sort.

Then my mother saw the illustrations and said that it was far too violent (probably right) and took it and my copy of 2000AD away.

So I guess it was kind of a false start, as I didn't really get into RPGs until I played AD&D 2E two-three years later (I played Advanced Fighting Fantasy around the same time).

 

[FireLance]

Fighting Fantasy was certainly an early influence for me, and the first that involved the use of dice. Prior to that, I was reading books from the "Choose Your Own Adventure" series.

I started with the first book in the series, "The Warlock of Firetop Mountain". Ah, the memories.

 

[Askaval30]

Loved that series! It was partly responsible form my getting into D&D and roleplaying, along with LoTR and the Hobbit. I'm very lucky to have held on to my "collection" for all these years, and I'm still looking to complete it.

Given how hard to find they are on Ebay and so forth in the US I'm thinking I might have to branch out and see if I can find any in the UK, as I think that's where the series originally started, though I might be mistaken.

 

[S'mon]

Yeah, it was The Warlock of Firetop Mountain that got me hooked on fantasy and RPGs one summer in England, must have been 25 years ago now. I would have been 10 years old.

 

[MadMaxim]

The first one I got for myself was the Forest of Doom. It's funny because I believe it was the first to make you able to go through the adventure once more to complete it (assembling a dwarven hammer). I still think it's awesome, and of course you always have Skill 12 and Stamina 24