Gamebooks

[LCJr.]

Gamebooks may not be what everyone considers a RPG but if they're not then they're damn close. In their defense they do give more choices than a lot of console/crpg's that have called themselves RPG's. I used to play them when I was younger so I don't know if they would appeal to anyone who hasn't tried them before. But if anyone is interested heres a few links.

Some of you may or may not know but Home of the Underdogs has a large and growing collection in PDF format and links to more. In particular they just added the first two of ICE's Middle Earth gamebooks. Also they have the post-apoclyptic Freeway Warrior series by Joe Dever author of Lone Wolf. Only bad thing about these is that you have make or print the character sheet and keep scrolling up and down the doc looking for paragraphs.

http://www.the-underdogs.org/gamebook.php


Some of the best and easiest play though are the Lone Wolf series as re-released by Project Aon. They have a program, Statskeeper, that stores all your character data and handles combat so everything is kept on your computer. And even better in the HTML formatted version the paragraphs are linked so you don't have to search through the whole doc, just make your choice and click the link.

http://www.projectaon.org/

 

[Zetor]

Gamebooks eh... damn, I'm getting all nostalgic here
...
Whaaa-- they don't have Fighting Fantasy? Those were the bestestest!
(Steve Jackson [GURPS] was one of the FF authors, fyi. )

-- Z.
turning to page 42

 

[LCJr.]

Sorry but it looks like Fighting Fantasy isn't "abandoned" just yet. I found this on Demian's site so it looks like they're still in print.

Series: Fighting Fantasy
Note: As far as I know, only books 1 through 21 of this British series were
reprinted in America, though some of the later ones were imported.
Several of the books were reissued starting in 2002 in a different
order from the originals. When a title has two numbers before it
separated by a slash, the number after the slash is the reissue number.
Note that the Sorcery! series was integrated into this one as part of
the reissue effort.

 

[Elwro]

Whaaa-- they don't have Fighting Fantasy?

Well, AFAIR they had reeeaaaally long parapgraphs and you didn't have much choice. Dever's books were a lot better, especially the Freeway Warrior. There were different solutions to many problems. It's a must!

 

[Zetor]

Differing tastes, I suppose... I did read a Lone Wolf and a Road Warrior book [that's the post-apocalyptic one with Cal Phoenix right?], but I didn't find them nearly as good as FF (they didn't sell well in Hungary either -- only one book from RW and three from LW, then the publisher killed 'em). Then again, I was really intrigued by the cohesive world (remember the Titan atlas?) and the complex [and damn hard, especially with the crappy Hungarian translation] puzzles of FF, which I haven't found in any other gamebook to date. Does anyone here remember the Contest of Champions (not the NWN module ) and the trial with the nine rings? What about deducting who the traitor was in 'Masks of Destruction'? (it wasn't explicitly mentioned in the story, but it was apparent after a few hours of thinking) Some of the FF books were also rather dark and depressing instead of standard high-fantasy stuff, which is another reason why I liked them I guess. But hey, that's just my opinion, I could be wrong.
...and since I haven't actually read any of those things in the last ~6 years, I might well be wrong in thinking FF is the best. ever.

-- Z.