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Pen & Paper Roleplaying Central => Pen and Paper Roleplaying Games (RPGs) Discussion => Topic started by: Samarkand on October 08, 2006, 09:57:45 AM

Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: Samarkand on October 08, 2006, 09:57:45 AM
http://www.gamebooks.org/fitefant.htm (http://www.gamebooks.org/fitefant.htm)

  The first one I ever completed was the "Texan" Steve Jackson's _Scorpion Swamp_.  I think I still have my copy of _Out of the Pit_ somewhere on my RPG shelf, although I lost the Fighting Fantasy system rulebook somewhere.
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: The Yann Waters on October 08, 2006, 10:10:32 AM
Yup, I still own a number of those: The Forest of Doom, City of Thieves, Fangs of Fury... And The Faerie Mound of Dragonkind from the "Catacombs" series published by TSR, and some of those entertaining GrailQuest books...

Home of the Underdogs has a selection of gamebooks available in PDF, by the way, although not Fighting Fantasy.
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: fonkaygarry on October 08, 2006, 03:19:35 PM
Weren't the Lone Wolf books a derivative of these?  I played the hell out of those as a preteen.
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: The Yann Waters on October 08, 2006, 04:12:13 PM
Quote from: fonkaygarryWeren't the Lone Wolf books a derivative of these?
In the same vein, yes: see Project Aon (http://www.projectaon.org/).
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: James McMurray on October 08, 2006, 05:02:33 PM
Bah! You youngins and you're newfangled RPG novels. When I was a kid we had Choose Your Own Adventure and that was it. No dice to save your butt. If you made the wrong choice you died. No way to kill that dragon through luck or foul play, he just ate you!

Whippersnappers.

;)

Ok, I also played the various D&D RPG books, Lone Wolf, etc. but they were preceded by the Choose Your Own Adventure books. Same basic idea but there were no rules for combat, experience, levelling, and whatnot. Just pick your path and hope to survive.
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: jrients on October 08, 2006, 06:02:42 PM
FYI, the Choose Your Own Adventure series was recently reprinted.  I've seen 20 volumes new in a big chain bookstore.  I think I still have the Star Trek Choose Your Own Adventure that I bought from Scholastic back in grade school.
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: James McMurray on October 08, 2006, 06:24:30 PM
Cool. I read all mine at the library (aka free babysitter). My son just turned 5 and is reading up a storm. I figure I'll get him a CYOA book either some time during the year if he seems interested, or for his 6th birthday.
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: Knightsky on October 08, 2006, 06:42:26 PM
Quote from: SamarkandThe first one I ever completed was the "Texan" Steve Jackson's _Scorpion Swamp_.
I'm pretty certain those were done by the 'British' Steve Jackson, who was a different person from the 'Texan' Steve Jackson who would later go on to form Steve Jackson Games.
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: Samarkand on October 08, 2006, 07:01:03 PM
Quote from: KnightskyI'm pretty certain those were done by the 'British' Steve Jackson, who was a different person from the 'Texan' Steve Jackson who would later go on to form Steve Jackson Games.


  No, Scorpion Swamp in particular was done by the Texican Steve.  I liked the non-linear gameplay and the fact locations "changed" after you'd been through them.  Not a bad piece of game design within the limited constraints of a gamebook.

   I remember CYOA books rather well.  I prefered the earlier ones in the series.  The later ones seemed to get thinner and thinner.

Andrew
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: James McMurray on October 08, 2006, 07:04:02 PM
Yeah, they started to run low on full-fledged story ideas and page counts suffered. Soon after that the game book idea took off though, so it was all good. :)
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: Lawbag on October 09, 2006, 04:33:57 AM
Steve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games

caused no end of confusion for us Brits with having our very own

Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone of Games Workshop fame.
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: Hastur T. Fannon on October 09, 2006, 07:48:44 AM
Quote from: LawbagSteve Jackson of Steve Jackson Games

caused no end of confusion for us Brits with having our very own

Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone of Games Workshop fame.

Has anyone actually seen them together? I'm just saying...
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: RPGPundit on October 09, 2006, 02:25:24 PM
According to the real history of RPGs, one of the Steves Jackson is a clone of the other.

RPGPundit
Title: This Takes Me Back
Post by: Spike on October 10, 2006, 06:55:59 PM
I seem to recall another Steve Jackson all together, though for the life of me I can't place him at all. Some rogue memory units seem to want to plug in a Palladium connection for some reason, and that just ain't right.  

I think. :confused:
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