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Review: Lone Wolf: Flight from the Dark by Joe Dever (Mongoose 2007)

At a glace: This revamped classic is a rewarding if simple solo game in the "choose your own adventure" mold. I strongly recommend it to anyone who loves RPGs but doesn't currently have a group as well as to those who have groups but enjoy thinking about RPGs and story-telling generally.

Full Review

From the mid-1980s until the mid-1990s, interactive novelettes called "gamebooks" were fairly popular and the Lone Wolf series was the most popular of these by far. Many adult gamers fondly remember the first book in that series, Flight from the Dark, published in 1984 -- as well as, to greater or lesser degrees of nostalgia, its twenty seven sequels published through 1994. Like the "choose your own adventure" books also popular throughout that decade, gamebooks allowed readers to take control of the plot line at crucial points and then flip to another part of the book to read the result: If you went left at the fork in the road, you turned to page 117; if right, then to page 237. Unlike them, gamebooks incorporated RPG elements: character attributes, item inventories, customizable abilities, and ability progression. The choices available to readers -- ahem, players -- became more complex, if not necessarily more numerous.

Dever's books eventually went out of print but, as often happens in this digital age, interest in the game did not die. I think Lone Wolf stands out for three reasons: First, the pacing of the adventure is exciting -- the importance of which cannot possibly be overstated, given the format. Flight from the Dark (hereadter FftD) is definitely a page turner. Second, the fictional world of Magnamund in which the Lone Wolf series takes place is rich with layered detail after the heart if not style of Tolkien. Although Magnamund was based upon the campaign setting of its author's D&D games, it's not entirely cookie-cutter fantasy (having been distinctly influenced by Star Wars, I suspect). Third, Dever made all twenty eight original Lone Wolf books available for free online in 1999. This bounty has been carefully managed by devoted fans ever since. Fun gameplay, quality content, imminent accessibility -- this sounds like a winning formula, right?

So why haven't you younger gamers heard of it?

A big part of the answer, I think, is that no one has tried to sell it to you. Thanks to Mongoose, that is no longer the case! The UK-based publisher that made its name in the heyday of OGL is republishing all twenty eight existing books as well as the long-awaited last four books. FftD is an attractive 450-page, trade paperback-sized hardcover with new b&w line drawings and a full-color map (conveniently, one of your character's inventory items) on the inside cover. Plus, the adventure itself has been updated into a sort of "director's cut." Whereas formerly your character begins the game left for dead after his monastery home is destroyed, now you fight through the destruction of the monastery. Although I have not played the original (which is available from the Aon Project, linked above), I would imagine this is a marked improvement because it draws you further into the character's "pivotal moment" regarding his motivation. The rest of the book is just as action-packed. It's no wonder that FftD has inspired several motion picture scripts and video games.

The gameplay mechanic is disarmingly simple but is applied in diverse ways. You have two attributes, Combat Skill and Endurance. You play by comparing your Combat Skill (variously modified) to a number from the "Random Number Table" -- which I replaced with a d10 -- and, as you might expect, when your Endurance reaches zero, you die. Sometimes the book calls for generating a random number (variously modified) to test something like whether you are fast enough to dodge an arrow or strong enough to batter down a door. Although this is facile compared to what one would be able to do (put it another way, have to do) in d20-based RPGs, you will find yourself praying just as hard for high rolls and rejoicing just as loudly for getting them. (The missus is used to it by now.) I was initially skeptical but Lone Wolf's "core mechanic " is certainly up to its task.

Aside from your two attributes, the mainstays of inventory management and character customization round out the RPG experience. You can carry a limited amount of items, such as weapons and potions, to help you along the way. Making good choices regarding which items you keep is important to surviving the game. Combat can be surprisingly dangerous and healing potions are a must. But will you sacrifice that potion for a coil of rope or a mysterious golden key? Keep in mind that these items may not actually come in handy but, if they do come up, they will be important. You also have various abilities, similar to feats in D&D 3.5, that can open up certain options throughout the story. Hunting, for example, means you don't have to use valuable backpack room for Meals -- which the text periodically requires you to eat on penalty of significant Endurance loss. You start FftD with five out of ten such abilities and can apparently gain more in the sequels. I like the array of abilities, although I think some are "musts" -- like Hunting. I plan to replay FftD without taking the abilities I think are "musts" to guage what I hypothesize will be steeper difficulty.

In my first play-through, I only died once and I think it was pretty cheap, too (of course, right?). I didn't die in combat against some overwhelmingly powerful creature -- there are a few of those -- or "fail a role," as it were. I simply choose the wrong option out of three seemingly equal options. Fortunately, I never came across another such "cheapshot" in FftD. The rest of the book felt very fair if challenging. It took me something like four hours over the course of a few evenings to complete the book and left me very excited to start the next one. I cannot decide whether I will purchase the second adventure from Mongoose or simply work through Project Aon's digital library but I do not regret purchasing FftD in the slightest. Like anything else of this nature, it has limited replay value. But unlike a D&D module or even a video game, I think FftD will prove to be a valuable tool for me as someone who is pretty serious about RPGs. Not only does it serve as a great "introduction" to RPGs for the uninitiated, but it also stimulates a lot of thought about the mechanics of storytelling that GMs everywhere could benefit from mulling over.

Let me know if you have any questions. As a plug, I bought my copy at a decent discount from CCG Armory. No, I don't get a thing for telling you that. But my experience with them has been good and that's worthing passing along. In any case, please do check if your FLGS has this book in-stock before ordering online!

Thank you for that review. You addressed my main concern with a book like this (mainly from having read a lot of choose your own adventure books) which is the "cheapshot" you reference. "Hah, didn't choose the white rock? DEAD." is not narratively satisfying, and I'm glad to see they've managed to avoid it (apparently). It certainly does sound interesting as an exercise in robust storytelling- the idea that it's not just choices but a random element that can effect your story must add a serious extra level of complexity to the story.

How immersive is the story? Do you feel like "yourself" in a fantasy world or are you drawn into a role?

@Da Boss: Neither. Lone Wolf the character is not heavily developed. He's fifteen, daydreams in boring classes, respects his teachers (who are kind and good), is sad to lose his home and friends . . . in other words, nothing you can really sink your teeth into. But the only character development that is really up to you is how brave/impulsive or cautious/cowardly you play Lone Wolf -- which greatly depends on what kind of stats you roll. There is an interesting choice along these lines later in the adventure but it is still fairly superficial. Lone Wolf has an ardent love of his country that you get to balance out against his need to survive.

Dever's main skills as a writer of gamebooks are his ability to write a consistently exciting pace and quickly characterize the NPCs and enemies with whom you interact. I don't personally think that the relative superficiality in other aspects of his writing is a weakness. The priority really should be on pacing, which game writers could stand to think harder about even today.

Yep. Nice review!

I played a few of these (and a large number of similar books) as a teenager, and picked up an old paperback of FttD in a Salvation Army for a dollar or something a year or so ago. Had an enjoyable couple of hours one evening tearing through it. I also remember a fun wargame battle report from the old British mag Game Master, where Dever GM'd a big tabletop scenario pitting the magazine's writers/editorial staff against one another in a battle in Magmamund.

Many of these kinds of books have the occasional spot where you die or get stuck because of a bad choice you didn't see coming, but the best of them give you useful clues. I remember when making my way across the countryside in FftD, there were multiple choices of direction where the choice itself did not give explicit clues, but I could make a good decision based on the map and on info gained earlier.

Speaking of adventures in Magnamund, I also picked up a couple of the new Mongoose Lone Wolf multiplayer RPG (a weird phrase for table top, eh?) books and will review them here in due course.

Lone Wolf is where I got my start in roleplaying andwargaming (the original Magnamund Companion had pictures of a large wargame style diorama depicting the fall of the Kai Monastery), so the books are very close to my heart. I still have my original copies of the US versions of Books 1-19 (never did find 20 before it went out of print ).

Though I haven't played Mongoose's revised FftD book, I've worn out two copies of the original version. From that I have to say that you've put together both a good review of the book's content and an accurate synopsis of the Gamebook experience in general. Thanks for pointing me towards CCG Armory, my FLGS doesn't like to stock things that I enjoy.

@SkaerKrow: I'm glad that you can confirm my review! Since you played through book 19, can you maybe flesh out some of Da Boss's question from above:

Da Boss wrote:How immersive is the story? Do you feel like "yourself" in a fantasy world or are you drawn into a role?

Lone Wolf is a point of view character. While he has a small bit of characterization, one of the taglines of the series is "YOU are Lone Wolf!" and it stays true to that tenant. Joe Dever never really grafted a personality on top of that point of view, letting you do as much with your own actions.

I'm a massive gamebook fan, read every series I could get my hands on as a kid.

Lone Wolf was the best, hands down.

Grailquest a close second, for sheer creativity.. the books came with maps for you write notes on, poetry writing minigames, origami puzzles that you had to cut out and assemble to get a page reference and all sorts of wacky stuff.

Fighting fantasy books had some utterly atrocious "you lose, haha" moments, along with a ton of "do you have the dragon ring with the number on it if so turn to that page, if not you die" endings. (dragon ring is obtainable by doing a ton of really dumb stuff that nearly gets you killed right at the start of the book). Sorcery books were brilliantly designed but still unfortunately filled with a ton of stupid random deaths. Seven Serpents is the best one... I came back to this one recently and figured out how to kill the time serpent... couldn't figure it out as a kid.

Anyway, Lone Wolf books very little of that nonsense. The progression is generally linear, with multiple choices along the way. It's not particularly challenging to complete the books, but the way you choose to complete them is what makes it interesting.

For instance, in the second book, you have to identify a traitor from a group of people you've been travelling with. Pick the wrong one, and not only will the traitor be a pain later on, but you'll have also just killed an innocent person in cold blood. The clue to figuring out the traitor is subtle and interesting.

The books also play differently depending on what skills you choose to pick at the beginning. There are 10 of them, but you can only pick 5, and you get to keep a new skill with each book you complete. Equipment carries over too, which isn't such a great choice, books 3-10 are not completable without without the +10 sommersword you get at the end of book 2.

Thanks for turning me onto this!

If you are interested can I suggest you look up and support Project Aon

A fine resource not only for Lone Wolf but the nifty Freeway Warrior series buy Joe Dever.

Project Aon is linked in the OP.