Planet Rugby Forum

https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/ ... -interview

Had a few of these as a kid. I never actually finished Warlock of Firetop mountain properly. I tried mapping it and everything.

Forest of Doom was the first one I got.
I think my favourites were it, City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon.
Always thought House of Hell was one of the hardest ones.

I owned most of the first 20+ Fighting Fantasy books in the mid 1980s+.

I owe a lot to those books. I was never good at literacy as a young kid. I came across these books when I was aged about 11 or 12 and I found both the stories and the ability to influence the story's arc to be fascinating. As a result, I went from a below average student in English, to one of the best English students in my year in a very short space of time.

They made video games out of them, I think.

Tehui wrote:I owned most of the first 20+ Fighting Fantasy books in the mid 1980s+.

I owe a lot to those books. I was never good at literacy as a young kid. I came across these books when I was aged about 11 or 12 and I found both the stories and the ability to influence the story's arc to be fascinating. As a result, I went from a below average student in English, to one of the best English students in my year in a very short space of time.

Funny, I had fogotten about these books until the thread was started but I can still remember my favourites. I think I had practically all of the first 15, then lost interest in them.
I "graduated" to the Lone Wolf series after that.

Still have 20-30 of them to the delight of the kids. Handy before you're old enough to have a proper RPG group.

Leinsterman wrote:Forest of Doom was the first one I got.
I think my favourites were it, City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon.
Always thought House of Hell was one of the hardest ones.

I never got through House of Hell. It was the only FF book I couldn't get through. Deathtrap Dungeon was probably my favourite of the series. I recall there was some sort of sequel as well.

And while I remember, does anybody remember the 'Sorcery' series? The third book in that series was my favourite.

Sorcery is one of the best series, but Seven Serpents feels a bit too convoluted to do perfectly, I prefer the fourth one personally. It's massive too.

Oh yeah, I'd forgotten about the Sorcery! ones. They were really good as well. I can't remember what happened a load of those books. I think I gave them away although a few are still in the attic in my mother's house I think.

Toulon's Not Toulouse wrote:Sorcery is one of the best series, but Seven Serpents feels a bit too convoluted to do perfectly, I prefer the fourth one personally. It's massive too.

Sorcery was amazing !
I also had Bloodfeud of Altheus series, some other ones that used coins, the 'Way of the Tiger' Ninja ones set on Orb.
my brother had all the Lone Wolf books (didn't like them myself) and we also had a clash of princes 2-player gamebook.

was all into the Skill, Stamina & Luck stuff back in the day, but never got into the many sided dice figurines Warhammer ginger virgin stuff that Chuckles likes.

Globus would be Skill 13, Stamina 25, Luck 13 for sure.

my faves were:
the sorcery series
Scorpion swamp (by the other Steve Jackson)
Talisman of Death
Creature of Havoc
Appointment with Fear (the superhero one)

didn't like the Ian Livingstone books as no matter how you played it, you always had to get past a baddie that was at least Skill 10 stamina 18, so you always just cheated and assumed you won every fight.

Toulon's Not Toulouse wrote:Sorcery is one of the best series, but Seven Serpents feels a bit too convoluted to do perfectly, I prefer the fourth one personally. It's massive too.

Yep, the fourth and final book was good too. I remember there were a range of spells at the back of the Sorcery books that you were 'supposed' to memorise.

FF were good and I owned a few but I prefered these...

I still have the complete series somewhere.

backrow wrote:I also had Bloodfeud of Altheus series,

I had a couple of those as well. What was the extra characteristic that they had? Was it dishonour or something like that and you could literally "die of shame" in the books?

The problem with the Lone Wolf books was that they were a series so you could bring powers and weapons from previous books into the later ones and that made it very easy. Otherwise you were screwed because there were certain situations that were impossible unless you had some sort of talisman collected from 5 books in the past.

Tehui wrote:

Toulon's Not Toulouse wrote:Sorcery is one of the best series, but Seven Serpents feels a bit too convoluted to do perfectly, I prefer the fourth one personally. It's massive too.

Yep, the fourth and final book was good too. I remember there were a range of spells at the back of the Sorcery books that you were 'supposed' to memorise.

I can still recall some of these !

pop - was making exploding pebbles
wal - made a force field wall
fal - let you float down
fof - made you super strong
vik - was the non spell that let you meet Vik in Khare, and Gladragors axe
zip - sniffed yellow powder and made you fast
zap - zapped the enemy
jig - play a bamboo flute and made them dance

was also a giants tooth one that made a fighting companion, same with goblins too, a black facemask one making you scary and taking their skill level down

I only had a few of these that I can remember

- Sword of the samurai which was very good and not overly hard
- Robot commando! Robots vs Dinosaurs, what more could you ask for?
- Freeway fighter was the first one I got
- House of Hell - was impossible to finish!

May have had a couple of others but cant remember their names now

play online !

http://ffproject.com/

https://fightingfantasy.net/

backrow wrote:

Tehui wrote:

Toulon's Not Toulouse wrote:Sorcery is one of the best series, but Seven Serpents feels a bit too convoluted to do perfectly, I prefer the fourth one personally. It's massive too.

Yep, the fourth and final book was good too. I remember there were a range of spells at the back of the Sorcery books that you were 'supposed' to memorise.

I can still recall some of these !

pop - was making exploding pebbles
wal - made a force field wall
fal - let you float down
fof - made you super strong
vik - was the non spell that let you meet Vik in Khare, and Gladragors axe
zip - sniffed yellow powder and made you fast
zap - zapped the enemy
jig - play a bamboo flute and made them dance

was also a giants tooth one that made a fighting companion, same with goblins too, a black facemask one making you scary and taking their skill level down

Ah, the memories come back. I remember a spell where a coin could become a shield or something like that. I also remember a spell beginning with the letter 'Z' which cost the most magic points to use (or something like that).

backrow wrote:

Toulon's Not Toulouse wrote:Sorcery is one of the best series, but Seven Serpents feels a bit too convoluted to do perfectly, I prefer the fourth one personally. It's massive too.

Sorcery was amazing !
I also had Bloodfeud of Altheus series, some other ones that used coins, the 'Way of the Tiger' Ninja ones set on Orb.
my brother had all the Lone Wolf books (didn't like them myself) and we also had a clash of princes 2-player gamebook.

was all into the Skill, Stamina & Luck stuff back in the day, but never got into the many sided dice figurines Warhammer ginger virgin stuff that Chuckles likes.

The Cretan Chronicles trilogy was pretty good, moved on to Warhammer and lead figures after that.

ukjim wrote:<dons wizard hat and cape>
I liked the Steve Jackson Sorcery spin off set.
</dons wizard hat and cape>

You were more of a Clem Shirestock kind of man!

I bought a couple of reprints a few years ago in a bargain books, loved them back in the day. Also looked the Grailquest books.

The Sorcery! series is available as an App on iOS (and probably Android too). Well presented too.

I have first editions of the complete FF and Sorcery titles, as well as a most of the role-playing series. I wonder what they're worth now?

You'd get a good idea by having a look on eBay.

Leinsterman wrote:You'd get a good idea by having a look on eBay.

Meh, just curious. I'll pass these on to the kids and grandkids. I'm more interested in seeing if Jeff Bezos throws a heap of $$ at it, a la The Culture series!

These were re-launched around 2010. Subsequently they have a couple of the classics on the App Store as interactive map/books including the awesome Sorcery series. Loads of fun. Sorcery 2 Khare - Cityport of Traps is superb.

I had a peep myself. Someone is selling the complete first edition collection for about £450. I guess the problem with books is they can get dog-eared and unless they're masterpieces, the value isn't high.
Toys on the other hand...

backrow wrote:play online !

http://ffproject.com/

https://fightingfantasy.net/

Had all of these books as a kid, required reading in my class.

Tehui wrote:I never got through House of Hell. It was the only FF book I couldn't get through. Deathtrap Dungeon was probably my favourite of the series. I recall there was some sort of sequel as well.

Seem to recall that House of Hell involved a final boss fight of something like skill 18

Deathtrap Dungeon was the first one I played.
"Trial of Champions" was a subsequent "sequel", but was far more (unnecessarily) complicated.


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_F ... _gamebooks


Seas of Blood was an interesting variation, Creature of Havoc (if you survived the instinctive phase) was terrific.
1 to 8 were pretty much all classics.

You awake to start another boring day in your early retirement in Northamptonshire. It is raining outside, and your wife is snoring next to you.

Do you:

A. Try you give your wife (The Management) some sexytime - if so, then Test your Luck 3 times in a row, if you succeed each time, turn to paragraph 69

B. Bore people on the internet, if so turn to paragraph 312

C. Lop off the top of a Cadavers head - if so then you must FIGHT as it suddenly comes alive !
it Shreiks "Get off me you bollox, I don't exist !"

Cadaver SKILL 7 STAMINA 10

The best part about the digital versions of these books is that it minimises the opportunity to cheat.

Rhinosaur wrote:I have first editions of the complete FF and Sorcery titles, as well as a most of the role-playing series. I wonder what they're worth now?

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Warlock-Fireto ... p+mountain

2 Used from £1,152.93

Tschussie wrote:The best part about the digital versions of these books is that it minimises the opportunity to cheat.

Meh, cheating is half the fun. Doing it honestly, including dice rolls was fun, but exploring the options and deliberately making stupid choices to read the gruesome death paragraphs was great too.

The five fingered bookmark

Leinsterman wrote:Forest of Doom was the first one I got

First and favorite. I got that book when I was so young that my Mum read it to me and bed and asked me what I wanted to do. LOL. Had a soft-spot for it ever since. Loved the illustrations in it too. They had a real unique style.








(Looks a bit Osama-ish in retrospect).

Tehui wrote:Deathtrap Dungeon was probably my favourite of the series. I recall there was some sort of sequel as well.

... that was probably my second favorite book in the series ...

Wasn't Deathtrap Dungeon quite tricky because it was possible to navigate the maze but unless you collected a certain amount of artefacts, you could get to the end of the game and find out you had lost because you couldn't escape through the final door?

Leinsterman wrote:Wasn't Deathtrap Dungeon quite tricky because it was possible to navigate the maze but unless you collected a certain amount of artefacts, you could get to the end of the game and find out you had lost because you couldn't escape through the final door?

all ian livingstone books were like this - they all had a super baddie that had to be beaten that was skill 12 stamina 24, and most needed one exact artefact or choice or route path to complete. just too linear for my liking, other books could be completed in several different ways.

he went on to become head of games firm EIDOS or something that did tomb raider, which can also really be completed one way ( I dunno though, I just used to run around and watch Lara Crofts pixels bounce around)

Mog The Almighty wrote:

Leinsterman wrote:Forest of Doom was the first one I got

First and favorite. I got that book when I was so young that my Mum read it to me and bed and asked me what I wanted to do. LOL.

Ah so you're a 2010 reissue noob then?