From google: " Each Fighting Fantasy gamebook requires the reader to create their character, randomly assigning scores to three statistics (skill, stamina, and luck). These, in conjunction with rolling six-sided dice, are used to resolve skill challenges and the combat sections ."
You needed a pencil, 2 six sided dice and a paper to keep track of toon, they were a more advanced version of the “choose your own adventure” books where you just made a choice sometimes and turned to a different page.
I was never able to read all of them, but sometimes I see one in a used bookstore and buy it. And its the honor system, if you roll the dice and die, you gotta start over.
They were all dungeons and dragons type of books, very fun to read.
“The series, which began in 1982 with The Warlock of Firetop Mountain (cowritten with Steve Jackson), is known for its fiendish difficulty.” <also from a page I found on google.
Ya they were hard, I never completed one of those books on the first try.
I remember them, but I never had a chance to try them out. I was just getting into ADnD at the time, so I already had my fix. I even went out and bought the monster manual just to read about all of the bad guys.
You had your stats, an inventory, puzzles and keys that were solved/used by calculating the right page to skip to. They were pretty short in practice, but made for a fun little adventure.
(Then again, video game stories aren’t terribly long either once you strip away the gameplay and travel)
I remember them, but I never got into the tabletop side of it. I’d just assume I won tbe roll and move on, and then I’d go back and pretend I lost it, to see the outcome.
Same thing I do with branching path games like Detroit Become Human.
I got players handbook and dungeon masters guide first, because it had a selection of mobs you could use, monster manual 1 and 2 and unearthed arcana came later… they were expensive so couldn’t afford all at once. Even the dice were not cheap, I had to go without the 100 sided even though I wanted one.
That’s the part I remember. It was a very long time ago, but the manual was at least hard cover with color pictures for most of the monsters. My DM at the time said I shouldn’t have bought the book as a player.
The Players Handbook perhaps, but a good DM is hard to come by, they are either too easy on players or too hard on them, so if you find a good one, better do what he says… or she… hmm… I’ve never had a female DM… I bet they are too nice to be one.
I feel like most people nowadays would only know Fighting Fantasy if they heard the urban legend about Final Fantasy’s namesake and did a little research instead of taking it at face value.
I sometimes find myself wondering what happened to Ben over the last 40 years. Those were good times for sure. When EverQuest first came out I had a great time playing DnD with people from all around the world.
My older sister was an amazing DM. Alas she was ahead of her time and none or her friends wanted to play. So she passed her dice down to me and created a monster.
