Fighting Fantasy, appreciation thread

So there's a fair few you're missing then!

Are you planning on grabbing a copy of the others if they come your way?

Most of my collection I bought second hand (and a LOT of it was all at the same time in one big box), so most of my copies are pretty old too!

Well I just ordered a couple of Jon Green ones from the new series.

But I doubt I will ever build the entire collection. Foe example most of the sci-fi or super-hero themed ones don't really interest me. My brother had Space Assasin and I probably I played it only once.

Freeway Warrior is probably the only non-fantasy one I actually enjoy, too, to be honest

Jon Green's works are some of my favorite - especially Knights of Doom (as hard as it might be to complete), and one of the art-pieces in that particular books has had me itching for years to make a Warhammer Conversion based on it!

The Beastman Champion wielding a scythed chariot wheel

There is an awesome beastman illustration in Return to Firetop Mountain. If you flick through the pictures you will see the one I mean. I always thought that would make a cool mini.

The one standing in front of the ornate door? Yeah, that guy's awesome too!

Come to think of it, there's a lot of FF artwork that would be great as a mini

Which reminds me, since I started reading FF before I got into Warhammer (FF was my 'gate-way drug'), the first illustration of a Manticore I ever saw was the one in, I think, Deathtrap Dungeon. Body of a lion, massive scorpion tail and the face of an old man. So even though I like a lot of the Manticore models I've seen, for me anyways, the FF version is the one I think of when I hear the word Manticore.

Anyways, which book are you planning on reading/reviewing next?

Ah yes the manticore. There was one in Shamutanti Hills as well. Actually the first manticore I saw was in He-Man, in one of the comic books. I must have been about 6 years old.

Dead of Night. I hope I don't get nightmares from it.

Well next review as promised...



In this one you play a Demon-Stalker, a type of warrior priest. As such you get a neat list of special skills to pick from including the likes of Banish Undead, Healing, Sense Demon etc. Your character's arch enemy is the Demon Lord Muyrr. In the book he has kidnapped your parents and you are trying to find them.

I am not a big fan of horror-fantasy, however I must admit this was very well written and the gameplay was very fairly balanced. I thought the writers made good use of the character's special skills as well. Like in many later FF books there is a nice colour map on the inside cover, which I feel adds to the gameplay experience.

Stats Needed: Almost any starting stats should be ok.

Rating: ***

I love this one One of my top 5 books.

In fact, Tony Hough did a version of the Blight Demons that I absolutely love the look of (Martin McKenna ended up doing the artwork for Dead of Night).

You can find it here on his DevianArt page (plus a bunch of other FF and other artwork he did too).

As I say I found it a good read, even though this type, pure horror, is not to my taste. But I can imagine anyone who likes horror genre will really like this one.

There is also a non-too-subtle LOTR reference in there. A big red eye sitting on the roof of an orc watchtower and scanning for intruders. Hmmmmm.

This post has been edited by Craze_b0i on Sep 8 2011, 10:54 PM

Having said I don't normally like horror books that much I just read yet another one. I picked this one up since alot of people seem to recommend it...



In this book you character has contracted the curse of the werewolf, after being bitten by another werewolf, and needs to lift the curse before its too late. The book is set in a remote province called Lupravia, home to all sorts of ghoulish beasties and Were-Creatures. It is very long and has 515 paragraphs.

On the whole I thought this was really well-written, in particular the gameplay element was excellently done, everything was very fair and well balanced. I really liked all the hidden encounters and sub-quests, and all the extra places you didn't need to visit but could if you wanted. At first I thought 500 paragraphs was going to be too long and repetitive (imagine if Ian Livingstone added an extra 100 paragraphs to his works) but in fact the opposite was true, the extra length allowed the author to throw in lots of extra variation and bonus events/encounters, in other words too fully flesh-out the setting. I really liked some of the characters I met along the way, the book had various NPCs you could join forces with really added to the experience. Refreshingly these are NPCs who stay around for enough time that you get to know them somewhat.

In general I still prefer generic sword & sorcery to horror-genre, however as far as horror adventures go this one is very good.

Stats Needed: Any

Rating: ****

This post has been edited by Craze_b0i on Sep 8 2011, 10:52 PM

I wasn't really aware that they had started printing new books!

I might have to buy one. Is the werewolf one the best?

Well I only just started on the new ones myself, in total I think there are only about 5 or 6 of them.

To my knowledge Howl is generally regarded as one of the better ones.

>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Just finished this one today. Must say I really enjoyed it. I liked the fact your character has some backstory and is already a seasoned adventurer (the Hero of Tannatown no less!), coupled with the fact you start with various items aquired on past adventures. The game-structure is really good as well, I was really impressed with the way the various locations were layed out which gave the player so much choice in terms of what order to visit them. One thing that makes this so good is the various possible 'road encounters' inbetween the 4 main locations, depending upon which order you visit them.

Speaking of the encounters... I loved the names given to the 5 bandits, that cracked me up. It reminded me of the various pirates on 'Monkey Island' who had such names like Ugly Pirate, Smelly Pirate etc. Also loved the fact you get to revisit Tannatown, being welcomed back there just filled me with pride.

Have to say I shuddered when I first heard the only way to beat the bad guy was to collect 4 elementals (water, earth, wind, fire), as this had already been done in Return to Firetop Mountain. But at least this time round the idea was well executed.

The only bit I didn't warm to so much was the whole science-technology element, even though the author used magic to justify it this seemed a bit out of keeping with the rest of the Titan setting. Also the final encounter with Balthazar was too much a number-crunching exercise, in the sense of the time spent repeatedly turning various codewords into lines of numbers and adding them up. Wish Jon Green could have made that a bit easier somehow.

But on the whole it was an enjoyable read. Though sadly the illustrations are quite poor. Also I wish there had been a map. I just think that a map for this book could have looked so amazing...

Stats Needed: Moderate stats are fine

Rating: ****

This post has been edited by Craze_b0i on Sep 13 2011, 11:22 PM

I recently got hold of this for the first time, was keen to read it if only because it was one of the earliest books and thus a key part of FF folklore.

I was actually fairly impressed. For one thing the setting successfully delivers on its title. Port Blacksand oozes atmosphere and grittyness. This is helped by the absolutely superb illustration work, I loved all the small details in the background of the illustrations that helped enrich the setting. The plot has its moments of sillyness (unicorn tattoo anyone?) but despite these the storyline does more or less hold together. Of all the Ian Livingstone books this one of the few good ones, up there with Deathtrap Dungeon.

Stats Needed: Skill 9 minimum.

Rating: ****

I love this particular book

Port Blacksand is such an awesome setting, and for an Ian Livingstone book, this one's not *so* difficult. It still has a 'dungeon crawl' kind of feel to it with the walking down avenues and entering random doorways, but it also feels a lot more 'open', if you get what I mean.

I think that as a groundbase for a lot of the later FF lore, City of Thieves does set a pretty great standard!