My thanks to Scott Malthouse of Trollish Delver for his latest post on Fighting Fantasy. I had not been to the Fighting Fantasy website or even known of its existence until now. The amount of content on the website, including fan-produced material, is impressive. I bought and played a number of these books published by Dell in the 1980s; the first one I acquired was Deathtrap Dungeon and is still the one that stands out in my mind as the best. The cover of that edition by Richard Corben (shown to the right) was also one of my favorites in the series. The Baron is especially creepy and devious-looking in this portrayal. My collection of these books is long gone but not their influence.My favorite part of the website is the Amateur Adventures page. There are 46 (yes, 46) Fighting Fantasy adventures produced by fans and available as free pdf downloads. The amateur adventure page includes a template for starting your game book and a very good article on how to create a fighting fantasy adventure from the initial idea to playtesting. This article includes comments by Steve Jackson, Ian Livingstone, and Jon Green. The advice is equally useful for designing T&T solo adventures and is well worth reading. The article also includes many of the classic illustrations from the books that I remember well. I've looked through a few of the amateur adventures and most look quite good. It certainly would not take much work to run these as Tunnels and Trolls solos if one were so inclined.
No problem :) I absolutely love Fighting Fantasy and I agree that the Corben cover is creepy as hell.
ReplyDeleteAnyone living near Portland, Oregon should check out the section at Powell's (that's a bookstore). They have at least one copy of all of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks ever produced, including Sorcery. It's a little hard to find, so ask at the information desk and they'll point you in the right direction. Another thought: what if these amateur adventures were converted into zines and sold at distros and through snail mail? You could start up a whole new gaming culture just with that.
ReplyDelete