A Line Editor's Intro To Fighting Fantasy

It occurs to us that we have a lot of awesome stuff at Steve Jackson Games . . . so much so, that it may be difficult for folks who are new to our various product lines to learn why we think our games are awesome.

To help rectify that, we're asking around the (virtual) office, to find out who among our various Line Editors and Line Managers can take a few minutes to talk about what makes their product lines awesome.

Who are you?

I'm Steven Marsh, and I've served a lot of roles for Steve Jackson Games since last millennium (depending on how you count the millennium starting). Among other accomplishments, I edited Pyramid for a couple of decades, and I've kept projects flowing on the digital side for almost as long. I came across Fighting Fantasy as an impressionable not-quite-teenager as part of the first-wave craze in the 1980s, and I lept at the chance of getting to shepherd those fantasy game books to a new generation of fans here in the United States – and thus I became the U.S. Line Editor for Fighting Fantasy.

What is Fighting Fantasy?

Fighting Fantasy is a series of gamebooks. As the covers helpfully offer, "Part story, part game – you are the hero!" For each adventure, you create your adventurer with a few simple game stats, read the background info, and then get plunged into the tale. Do you try to sneak past the monster or fight them? Do you wear the skull ring or the rusty armor . . . or do you leave them all alone?

Who's the target audience?

Speaking personally, Fighting Fantasy was an amazing discovery in my youth, delivering epic adventure that felt like what I wanted roleplaying games to feature – impactful decisions, challenging puzzles and riddles, exciting combat – but able to be enjoyed as a purely solo experience. So if you love the feel of roleplaying games, enjoy reading prose that's exciting but approachable, and want to experience a self-contained world where all you need is a pencil, I humbly suggest giving Fighting Fantasy a try.

What makes Fighting Fantasy awesome?

The Fighting Fantasy line is just so intriguingly intuitive. Games Workshop founders Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone knocked it out of the park with the very first book – The Warlock of Firetop Mountain – establishing a formula that's sold millions of copies across the decades.

The very first section of the first book details how you make your way to Firetop Mountain, complete with a foreboding illustration, and then you're faced with your first choice: "Will you turn west (turn to 71) or east (turn to 278)?"

If I hand a new fan the book, they instinctively know what to do next, and they realize that their choices will unfold as they make their way through the adventure. Warlock is particularly interesting, because facing off against the fearsome wizard is fairly straightforward – but actually triumphing over Firetop Mountain may prove much more challenging . . .

What's a good way for someone new to Fighting Fantasy to start?

The obvious, safe answer is The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. That's the first book in the series, and millions of fans cut their adventuring teeth on it. And it's a fantastic book! However, I'll shake things up a bit by suggesting Scorpion Swamp. Written by the American Steve Jackson (who founded a little company you might have heard of), it's different because it offers three potential adventures, depending on which quest you end up pursuing. That gives it a lot of replay value, and also makes encounters you've experienced before feel fresh because there may be new context depending on your current quest.

Anything else you'd like folks to know about Fighting Fantasy?

I'm not sure it's stressed enough, but each Fighting Fantasy book is self-contained. Even the sequels (or prequels) to other books are designed so that each can be enjoyed entirely on its own. Every volume contains all you need to start reading and playing: the rules, the character sheets, and even the dice. So if a cover or a description jumps out at you as being particularly exciting, there's absolutely nothing stopping you from beginning your own adventure with it.

The base Fighting Fantasy system relies on having a couple of standard dice, but dice are also printed at the footer of each book, so you can just flip to a random page and see your dice roll. (If I'm using this method, I personally like to use a different volume from the one I'm reading for my rolls; it's convenient, and then I don't train my brain to learn where the "good" rolls are in a volume.)

We've started the prelaunch Kickstarter page for the forthcoming Set 3, featuring books 11 through 15. So if you want to see what volumes will be part of that set and to be notified when the campaign launches, visit the link and sign up! Your adventure awaits . . .

-- Steven Marsh