Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I found this excellent interview with the man himself, co creator of GW, Ian Livingstone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00xrrv7

I figured it would be of interest to many people on dakka, and It also made me think, just how popular were the books?

I think I read my first one aged about 8, and I soon fell into the hobby after that, how many of you started on them, and can you remember what your first book was?

I think I started with Forest of Doom, and my favourite was a really complicated one where you could purchase mercenaries and make a small army, though the name escapes me.

I think almost everyone is familiar with these books. My favourites where Citadel of Chaos and House of Hell.


Coincidentally I found this blog today which details several books.

http://turnto400.blogspot.co.uk/

Thats a great find, I can still remember many of those drawings, I never did get into that Mad Max kinda thing though...

I didn't really get on with any of the spaceship adventures. The Freeway Fighter one is a bit dull from what I recall. I liked that House of Hell was contemporary, or near enough.

City of thieves was my favourite . House of hell was the worst for me, the futuristic stuff I didn't mind however thourghly loved anything fanatsy based!

The first was the underwater advenure one, the name escapes me just now back around 1987 when I was 9

I still have a dozen or so of the Fighting Fantasy books. Always loved Robot Commando.

Over here it seemed to be more "Choose Your Own Adventure" and "Endless Quest" IIRC. The Fighting Fantasy line didnt have near the impact as those did...granted, FF was much more gamelike with the options, while CYOA and EQ were more binary in nature.

I struggled with Appointment with F.E.A.R, if you don't get to fight one guy midbook you lose the last fight, but loved robot commando when you got to swap out into differing mecha.

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I think almost everyone is familiar with these books.

I don't think that statement holds true in the US. I never saw Fighting Fantasy books here. The closest we had were Lone Wolf and Way of the Tiger (which was awesome beyond reckoning).

If you have seen Fighting Fantasy books in the US, turn to 55.

If you have not, you must read Way of the Tiger. Turn to 411.


411
A ninja of the Way of the Scorpion poisons you with spiderfish venom. As the life fades from your body, you feel him search your clothes for the Scrolls of Kettsuin. You have failed.

[notprop reads 411 doesn't like whats he sees and cheats turning to 55 and living to fight another day]

There. I think I captured my experience with those books.

Did anyone else have the advanced fighting fantasy books

Dungeoneer? Blacksand? Think those were a couple of tgem

 Reaver83 wrote:
Did anyone else have the advanced fighting fantasy books

Dungeoneer? Blacksand? Think those were a couple of tgem

I had the set, Dungeoneer, Port Blacksand, and the source books Out of the Pit and Titan. I did many games from them, very basic roleplaying.

Warlock of Firetop Mountain. Happy days...

I played? read? Island of the Undead, and I think it was called Crypt of the Sorceror. Both years before wargaming though. It wasn't until after I'd delved into WHFB that I noticed Ian Livingstone's name crop up again.

Edit: Should note that like the Americans have already mentioned, Fighting Fantasy was never that big over here in NZ.

any excuse for a repost









http://mightygodking.com/2008/06/23/bad-habits/ language warning on some of them !

That was excellent red cheers for that.

I remember most of the covers, I remember looking at them as a kid and thinking "who the feth comes up with this stuff?!"

http://www.fightingfantasycollector.co.uk/book_covers.htm

I remember the first 30-40 odd .. after that ..?!

The series is still being published

http://jonathangreenauthor.blogspot.co.uk/p/fighting-fantasy.html

http://fightingfantasygamebooks.com/

http://www.joystiq.com/2013/04/24/steve-jacksons-sorcery-conjured-onto-ios-next-month/

According to the latest WD, FF made Ian and Steve into millionaires and directly led to them selling out of GW.

R.

 mattyrm wrote:
I found this excellent interview with the man himself, co creator of GW, Ian Livingstone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00xrrv7

I figured it would be of interest to many people on dakka, and It also made me think, just how popular were the books?

I think I read my first one aged about 8, and I soon fell into the hobby after that, how many of you started on them, and can you remember what your first book was?

I think I started with Forest of Doom, and my favourite was a really complicated one where you could purchase mercenaries and make a small army, though the name escapes me.

I'm old so yes I started with gaming books.. there were alot of them.. I had about 50 of them, they were really fun. Lone Wolf series was one of my favorit once published in the 80s... I'm guessing the steve Jacksson and Ian livingstone books came before that... so that was before my time...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I think almost everyone is familiar with these books.

I don't think that statement holds true in the US. I never saw Fighting Fantasy books here. The closest we had were Lone Wolf and Way of the Tiger (which was awesome beyond reckoning).

If you have seen Fighting Fantasy books in the US, turn to 55.

If you have not, you must read Way of the Tiger. Turn to 411.


411
A ninja of the Way of the Scorpion poisons you with spiderfish venom. As the life fades from your body, you feel him search your clothes for the Scrolls of Kettsuin. You have failed.

Way of the Tiger was really good yes

 Nucflash wrote:

 mattyrm wrote:
I found this excellent interview with the man himself, co creator of GW, Ian Livingstone.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p00xrrv7

I figured it would be of interest to many people on dakka, and It also made me think, just how popular were the books?

I think I read my first one aged about 8, and I soon fell into the hobby after that, how many of you started on them, and can you remember what your first book was?

I think I started with Forest of Doom, and my favourite was a really complicated one where you could purchase mercenaries and make a small army, though the name escapes me.

I'm old so yes I started with gaming books.. there were alot of them.. I had about 50 of them, they were really fun. Lone Wolf series was one of my favorit once published in the 80s... I'm guessing the steve Jacksson and Ian livingstone books came before that... so that was before my time...


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 BobtheInquisitor wrote:

 Howard A Treesong wrote:
I think almost everyone is familiar with these books.

I don't think that statement holds true in the US. I never saw Fighting Fantasy books here. The closest we had were Lone Wolf and Way of the Tiger (which was awesome beyond reckoning).

If you have seen Fighting Fantasy books in the US, turn to 55.

If you have not, you must read Way of the Tiger. Turn to 411.


411
A ninja of the Way of the Scorpion poisons you with spiderfish venom. As the life fades from your body, you feel him search your clothes for the Scrolls of Kettsuin. You have failed.

Way of the Tiger was really good yes

This thread just made me remember reading Way of the Tiger as a young kid, a mate of my older brothers brought it round and I remember looking at the pictures, I think I was only 6 or 7 then!

A quick google brought the cover up and I remember flicking through it.

My first one of those style of books wasn't a fantasy one.

It was one done in the David Drake Hammers Slammers universe.

I started with a SF tanker choose your own adventure.

There was one recently from Black Library for 40K - Hive of the Dead I think it was?

40k + Zombies = good IMHO. I think it was Print on demand for the hefty price of £14, so a bit more than the £3-4 the FF books cost.

They have a few out actually

http://www.blacklibrary.com/exclusive-products/bl-path

Note that for the 40k zombie one

http://www.blacklibrary.com/warhammer-40000/hive-of-the-dead.html

there's some downloads, character sheet, advanced rules and errata.

I've still got the original 20 or so, and the Sorcery! set, my daughter is reading them at the moment. Though I think she might have cheated to finish Starship Traveller first time (as did I ).

Yeah, here in the US, my experience was with the Endless Quest books and Lone Wolf.
By the way, for the Lone Wolf fans, be sure to check out www.projectaon.org

Great thread!

Used to love these books, tried really hard to control myself with cheating (including your stat rolls at the start) but found it impossible most of the time..

Was watching a Family Guy actually the other night where Peter was lying in bed with Louis, and ended up saying to Lois "I didn't turn the page Lois, you saw me I didn't turn the page!" Was pretty funny, I guess those books actually had a pretty far reaching influence.

 precinctomega wrote:
According to the latest WD, FF made Ian and Steve into millionaires and directly led to them selling out of GW.

R.

yes didn't Steve Jackson go on to make the company that came up with Lara Croft? I'm guessing he retired very early!

I'm going to stick this in the RPG board area too but..

http://www.icv2.com/articles/news/25597.html

Cubicle 7 Entertainment will publish Lone Wolf Roleplaying Games and detailed color maps of the Lone Wolf homeworld, Magnamund, Cubicle 7 and Lone Wolf developer Joe Dever announced Friday. Lone Wolf is a series of 28 gamebooks created by Dever and released beginning July 1984. Since that time the full run has sold over 9 million copies worldwide.

Recently Mongoose had been releasing the series, and completed publishing the first 17 volumes. German publisher Montikore-Verlag now has the rights. Mongoose also released a d20-style roleplaying game based on the series.

It loos like mongoose stopped publishing Lone Wolf last month.

Loved them, owned all of them up until a certain time.

I think Beneath Nightmare Castle was my favorite. But Citadel of Chaos, Deathtrap Dungeon, Seas of Blood, Battleblade Warrior and Creature of Havoc are strong contenders.

I also owned 'out of the pit' and 'titan - the guide to the ff world', both of which were amazing sourcebooks, and now thinking about that I may have to go order them off amazon or someplace.

They were certainly a gateway drug into GW stuff.