Thursday 9 December 2010

Playing Fighting Fantasy books with a group


Now I realise that there are in fact two Fighting Fantasy roleplaying games as well as d20 and GURPS conversions, but I've been thinking today about how I would go about running a Fighting Fantasy gamebook for a gaming group. Since the material is all there for you in one book it would be easy to pick up and play with little to no prep.

I'd imagine the players would all be one character. You could duplicate creatures for each player at the table but I could see that becoming cumbersome and time consuming. But to stop the players from getting bored of being part of the same character, I would assign them each roles, such as these:

Master of Stats

The Master of Stats would take care of all the character's stats, deducting and adding to attributes as well as overseeing special rules such as fear and time. The Master of Stats has the final say in using potions to increase/decrease stats.

Master of Equipment

This player would note down all items that the character begins with and collects/loses on the way. The Master of Equipment has the final say in whether a magical object should be used.

Master of Maps

This player draws a map of the gamebook world as the character travels, noting page numbers as he goes. He is also in charge of plotting the three save points on the character's journey. The Master of Maps has the final say in which direction to go and where to plot a save point.


I can't really think of any more roles. If there were a Master of Dice he wouldn't have a whole lot to do, so I would suggest letting players go round the table clockwise for each round of combat to roll dice. I've also mentioned the Master of Maps can plot save points. There coould be three that can only be used once, so they must be used wisely. If the map is any good then the players shouldn't have any problem finding their way back to a point where they died anyway, even if it's a long way from the last save point.

What do you think? I envision plenty of arguments, but the final say much go to the relevant Master. I may try it out and report back.

6 comments:

  1. There was a Fighting Fantasy book called Out Of The Pit which compiled a lot of FF monsters together. Details of this can be found here.

    Don't know of any FF to T&T conversions offhand but this may be a good place to start?

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  2. @satyre Yeah, Out of the Pit is on my 'find and buy' list.

    It looks like that link is only showing solo play still (although some good info there). I'd be looking for more how to run FF with a group.

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  3. @satyre Right, found and bought :)

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  4. I love this idea, because we had so much fun when my group and I played through The Riddling Reaver (it's a proper RPG they made, 'Advanced Fighting Fantasy', not 'do this, turn to page X'). Naturally it had some massive rails, but they didn't mind too much. I made up lots of additional details on the spot and was are very loose with the rules ("You want to get on the shoulders of your Creature Copy'd Embodiment of Evil, whom you wanted to have your spell change to look like a Roman legionnaire, and totem-pole the original? ....Sure! Make a skill check.").

    I think they were the guys who did that other shot at an RPG, 'Dungeoneer' which has lots more rules. They published two sequels with extra rules, magic and stuff.

    Also, if you like Out of the Pit, look for Titan: The Fighting Fantasy World.

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  5. Just to let you know that we will be re-releasing the AFF system next spring (Dungeoneer etc) but completely re-written. We will also be re-releasing Out of the Pit and Titan (the world guide). You can see more information here:

    http://www.arion-games.com/AFF.html

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  6. ^ THIS PLEASES ME.

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