Fighting Fantasy: Difference between revisions
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Wizard Books revived it in 2002, republishing some of the original books with new covers (and later some new adventures). Following a brief tail-off, they relaunched their relaunch in 2009 with another range of new covers and more new adventures.
The game mechanics are like a simplified single-player version of ''[[Dungeons
The series has the standard [[Choose Your Own Adventure]] second-person narrative style. Outcomes are influenced by three randomly determined statistics: Skill, [[Hit Points|Stamina]], and Luck. A lot of the books introduced a fourth statistic, such as Faith or Honour, a selection of special skills, or statistics for your vehicle.
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As you will see on the Trope list below, the franchise has amassed quite a bit of [[Snark Bait]] over it's run, yet it remains fondly remembered and has an unusually devoted fanbase. This best example would be the webbased fan magazine Fighting Fantazine.
The books were were written or presented by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson <ref>a different Steve than the Steve who runs Steve Jackson Games though the latter has written a few books, see below</ref>. The series has had several [[Spin-Off]] series, most notable being ''[[Sorcery!]]'', and a game on the [[Nintendo DS]].
Books that have their own page:
* ''[[Appointment
* ''[[Sorcery!]]''
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{{tropelist}}
* [[Alliteration]]: Practically enough titular alliteration for every letter of the alphabet: ''Citadel of Chaos'', ''Daggers of Darkness'', ''Deathtrap Dungeon'', ''Demons of the Deeps'', ''Fangs of Fury'', ''Freeway Fighter'', ''House of Hell'', ''Masks of Mayhem'', ''Night of the Necromancer'', ''Scorpion Swamp'', ''Siege of Sardath'', ''Spectral Stalkers'', ''Star Strider'', ''Stealer of Souls'', ''Sword of the Samurai'', ''Temple of Terror'', ''Vault of the Vampire''. And, most relevant given that this trope specifically applies to trope names, ''Fighting Fantasy'' itself of course.
* [[After the End]]: ''Freeway Fighter''.
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* [[Battle Butler]]: Franklin in ''House of Hell'', though he is quite reluctant to fight. Possibly because {{spoiler|when he takes a single hit, he [[One-Winged Angel|turns into a giant demon]]}}.
* [[Burn the Witch]]: In ''Spellbreaker'', it's possible to get embroiled with some witchhunters.
* [[The Butler Did It]]: {{spoiler|"House of Hell" is a rare time this Trope is played straight and ''not'' played for laughs. The Butler - Frankins - is the true leader of the cult, or maybe possessed by a demon who is.}}
* [[Cain and Abel]]: Maior and Feior in ''Black Vein Prophecy''
* [[Cassandra Truth]]: Your character combines this with [[Genre Savvy]] in ''Siege of Sardath''. When the town of Grimmund is plagued by a series of increasingly bizarre incidents, your character, a member of the governing town council, suggests that some unknown enemy is deliberately plotting to conquer the land. In an almost chilling display of [[Genre Blindness]], the rest of the council laughs at your suggestion. Naturally enough, events soon prove that you're right.
* [[Cast
* [[Celibate Hero]]: You might run into a fair number of beautiful women but don't expect so much as a kiss in these books.
** Given the [[
* [[Chekhov's Gun]]:
** Used almost to the point of absurdity in many books, when those seemingly innocuous things you gather just happen to be incredibly useful later on.
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** In one book, after you kill the evil sorcerer, a Dark Elf who was ''also'' trying to kill him arrives just in time to fight you to the death.
** A particularly odd semi-example in ''Night Dragon''. After you kill the titular evil dragon, its ''skull'' grows spider's legs and tries to kill you. Okay, it's not actually ''the'' Dragon, but still. <ref>The head growing spider legs is a [[Shout-Out]] to [[John Carpenter]]'s ''[[The Thing (film)|The Thing]]'' - the accompanying illustration makes this very clear.</ref>
* [[Dragon-in-Chief]]: {{spoiler|The player might assume the evil Earl of Drumer is the [[Big Bad]] of ''House of Hell'', but while he is the leader of the Cult, he is ''not'' the Master whom many of the cultists speak of.}}
* [[Dug Too Deep]]: A gold rush sparks the plot of ''Portal of Evil'', as the [[Artifact of Doom]] that is the [[Big Bad]] of the book is unearthed by gold miners.
* [[Dungeon Crawling]]: Many of the books, particularly the earlier ones. Ian Livingstone seems reluctant to write anything else.
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** One exception is found in ''Vault of the Vampire'', where the bear is merely an animal companion to a local ranger. It doesn't attack you unless you attack her.
** Another exception is in ''Portal of Evil'', where the hero can briefly team up with a former miner transformed into a bear by the portal.
* [[Everything's Even Worse with Sharks]]: You have to fight one in ''[[Appointment
* [[Evil Is Visceral]]: In ''Dead of Night'', the [[Legions of Hell]] set up a living factory to corrupt the land around the village of Axmoor. Said factory has a huge heart at its core and [[Human Resources|humans]] are fed into its furnace as fuel.
* [[Executive Meddling]]: Supposedly, one of the reasons the original series published by Puffin came to an end was because the publishers wanted to reduce the books to 300 references to make them 'easier'.
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* [[The Film of the Book]]: ''House of Hell'' is being developed into a movie.
* [[Frankenstein's Monster]]: In ''Legend of the Shadow Warriors'' {{spoiler|it turns out that Dr. Kauderwelsch is a would-be Dr. Frankenstein, working on one of these}}. And then her son — yes, the Son of Kauderwelsch — performs the same trick in ''Moonrunner'' by chopping up the inmates of an [[Bedlam House|insane asylum]] and piecing them together in an effort to resurrect his mother.
* [[Flying Brick]]: Your superhero character, The Silver Crusader, has the option of being this in ''[[Appointment
* [[Galley Slave]]: You get to start ''Creatures of Chaos'' by going undercover as one. Played straight in ''Trial of Champions''.
* [[Give Me Your Inventory Item]]
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* [[Mr. Exposition]]: Gereth Yaztromo and, to a lesser extent, Astragal.
* [[Name's the Same]]: Series co-creator Steve Jackson has written several books in the series, but there are three further books, ''Scorpion Swamp'', ''Demons of the Deep'' and ''Robot Commando'', which as normal (for the peak-period UK editions at least), say "Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone present..." on the cover, and give "Steve Jackson" as the author on the title page – ''without mentioning anywhere that it's not the same person''. Confused yet? To clarify, the Fighting Fantasy series creator is the British writer/game designer Steve Jackson, founder of Games Workshop. The north-American writer/game designer Steve Jackson, founder of Steve Jackson Games, wrote those three books... for the other one's series.
* [[Names To Run Away From Really Fast]]: ''House of Hell'' has no ''characters'' that fit this Trope, but many rooms in the eponymous House are named, and all room-names are those of demons, like Asmodeus, Mammon, Abaddon, Mephistopheles, and so on.
* [[Necromantic]]: The son of [[Mad Scientist|Doktor Kauderwelsch]] in ''Moonrunner'' seeks to bring back his mother. His first attempt involves placing his mother's brain into a body assembled from the [[Human Resources|spare parts]] of the inmates of [[Bedlam House|Craven Asylum]]. He later tries to transplant the brain into the body of the main character.
* [[Nintendo Hard]]: Most of the books were designed to entertain and amuse adolescent and young adult readers. ''Creature of Havoc'', however, is designed to make you kill yourself in frustration.
* [[No Good Deed Goes Unpunished]]: Trying to help a fellow [[Galley Slave]] at the start of ''Masters of Chaos'' just gets ''you'' whipped instead.
* [[No Fair Cheating]]: ''House of Hell'' had two paragraphs which could not possibly be reached normally, which chided the player for cheating. ''Midnight Rogue'' had one of these as well and another where if you attempted to pull out a magic weapon to fight a gargoyle, the book would tell you that there is no way you could have acquired one yet and tell you to start over, "honestly this time". Since you played a thief in this book that was a bit rich... ''Tower of Destruction'' had a section that gave the reader a slap on the wrist for cheating at one point. More annoyingly, ''Black Vein Prophecy'' and ''The Crimson Tide'' each have a situation where the player must ''fail'' a dice roll in order to win.
* [[No, Mr. Bond, I Expect You to Dine]]: {{spoiler| ''House of Hell'' subverts this; while the [[Faux Affably Evil]] Earl prepares dinner, he's actually trying to drug you, although you can avoid this by avoiding the white wine and cheese. Then, of course, he has a servant bring you a nightcap, and that's also drugged, but ambushing (and ''not'' killing) the servant puts you on the right track.}}
* [[One Steve Limit]]: Averted quite literally; see [[Name's the Same]] above.
* [[One-Winged Angel]]: Quite a few, but especially Xakhaz from ''Beneath Nightmare Castle'' and the Archmage from the ''[[Sorcery!]]'' series.
* [[Our Zombies Are Different]]: The Slave Warriors from "Portal of Evil." They don't eat flesh and retain just enough of their minds to wield weapons, albeit clumsily. In all other respects, they're zombies.
* [[Out-Gambitted]]: Carnuss's attempt to humiliate his brother Sukumvit (see [[Win Your Freedom]], below) backfires when Sukumvit immediately offers you another prize, namely that of having any wish you want granted. As Sukumvit cleverly foresaw, you want nothing more than to kill Carnuss and avenge all the other slaves who died in his arena, and you demand to fight a duel with him. If you win, Sukumvit still has to pay the 20,000 gold pieces, but chances are he views that as a worthwhile price to pay to be rid of his hated brother.
* [[Print Long Runners]]: The series has been running since 1982, including a seven-year gap between 1995 and 2002. There are currently 64 different gamebooks across the Puffin and Wizard print runs, plus the four-volume ''[[Sorcery!]]'' spinoff, two books that adapt the rules for a [[Tabletop RPG]], two supplementary titles (''Out of the Pit'' lists various monsters, ''Titan'' is a guide to the world of Fighting Fantasy) four books in the ''Advanced Fighting Fantasy'' system, seven novels, a magazine that ran for three years, the two ''Clash of the Princes'' books which form a two-player adventure, the 10th Anniversary Yearbook, and the 25th Anniversary edition of ''Warlock of Firetop Mountain''.
* [[Product Placement]]: In ''Star Strider''.
* [[Prongs of Poseidon]]: Completely and totally inverted with the Trident of Skarlos. It breaks both of the rules mentioned on that trope's page in that it has nothing at all to do with the sea and is actually an [[Empathic Weapon]] that takes pleasure in ''destroying'' demonic creatures.
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** The Other Steve Jackson (see [[Name's the Same]] above) stands in direct contrast to Mason. His books feature non-linear stories that give the reader multiple paths to success and multiple good endings. Like Mason, he allows the reader to revisit locations.
** Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson collaborated on ''Keep of the Lich Lord''. The book features optional miniquests, a heavy sense of atmosphere, passwords, multiple (optional) weapon upgrades, and more-expressive-than-usual supporting characters. All five staples are prominently featured in their own series, ''[[The Fabled Lands]]''.
* [[Simple Yet Awesome]]: ''Deathtrap Dungeon'' is a dungeon crawl, something RPG fans have likely seen a ''lot''. At least one blogger has said, "It doesn't get much more basic than this." Still, that same blogger needed ''nine'' attempts to finish it with the good ending, so rest assured, it's a challenge.
* [[Smug Super]]: The dog-headed Prefectas from ''Sky Lord'' were an entire race of "perfect warriors." They are defeated by cloning another group of Prefectas who are even more unbelievably arrogant than the first, sparking an [[Enemy Civil War]].
* [[Snake Talk]]: The Demon Prince Myurr ssssssspeakssss like this in ''Dead of Night'' because he is a ssssssssnake demon: Myurr "Greetingss, Demon-Ssstalker. Welcome to the culimanation of my plansss."
* [[SNK Boss]]: A lot of bosses are super-strong and super-cheap. Special mention for Razak in ''Crypt Of The Sorcerer'': if you even manage to get to him, he has top stats and will kill you instantly if he hits you ''twice in a row''.
* [[Someday This Will Come in Handy]]: As a basic rule for these books, grab everything that's not nailed down. If one of the available items is a claw hammer, ignore the last four words of the previous sentence.
* [[Something Completely Different]]: The four ''[[Sorcery!]]'' books differ in several respects from most of the others, covering a multi-book adventure with a unique magic system. Even the setting and opponents are noticably different with a focus on non-standard monsters like [[Winged Humanoid|Birdmen]] and Kakhabad in general having less of a 'European' feel ([[Word of God]] has it Steve Jackson got the idea for the series after a trip to Nepal).
* [[Space Police]]: You play a Space DEA Agent in ''The Rings of Kether''.
* [[Spikes of Villainy]]: A Chaos Champion from ''Trial of Champions'' wears plate armor that is literally covered in spikes. And he wields a spiked mace.
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* [[Evil Sorcerer]] -- So distressingly common on the continent of Allansia that there are no actual centralized goverments beyond the city-state level; they gang up on anything bigger before it becomes powerful enough to be a threat to their machinations. Other places are slightly better off; operative word here being ''slightly''.
* [[Evilutionary Biologist]] -- More like Evilutionary Wizards, several of whom crossbreed various creatures to create monsters to serve as [[Mooks]]. Notable examples include Balthus Dire, Karam Gruul, Axion, and the guys who created the Manticores and the Fish Men.
* [[Fantasy Counterpart Culture]] -- Hachiman is [[Medieval Japan]], complete with [[Samurai]]. The Isles of the Dawn are, more or less, [[Dynasties From Shang to Qing|medieval China]]. Mauristatia in the Old World is a cross between [[Holy Roman Empire|mediaeval Germany]] and [[
* [[God of Evil]]: Death, Disease and Decay.
* [[Heroic Neutral]]: Nicodemus spent most of his life fighting the forces of evil. He eventually became so burned out from the struggle that he retired to Port Blacksand, where almost no one would bother him. While he doesn't typically do much these days (and can become very irritated if he's bothered by adventurers who try to run to him to solve all their problems for them), he will help if the problem is sufficiently big enough.
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* [[Our Dwarves Are All the Same]] -- Really, that's all there is to say about them.
* [[Our Elves Are Better]] -- All Elves know magic. And they're far better at it than humans will ever be, though this verges on being an [[Informed Ability]] considering that most Elves you meet and have the option to fight are fairly weak as enemies and the huge number of world threatingly powerful human spellcasters.
* [[Our Gnomes Are Weirder]]: Very much so. Some of them, like the one in ''Forest Of Doom'', are cranky magic-using eccentrics who just want to be left alone, but the gnome you can meet in the ''[[Sorcery!|Crown of Kings]]'' series will sell you out to the guards of Mampang if he recognizes you.
* [[Our Monsters Are Weird]] -- Alongside the usual Trolls, Orcs, Dragons and so on you have some more oddball monsters like the [http://blog.henriqueplacido.com/up/h/he/blog.henriqueplacido.com/img/.resized_Wheelies.jpg Wheelies]{{Dead link}} from ''Citadel of Chaos''.
* [[Our Werewolves Are Different]]: FF werewolves can be killed with normal weapons, but silver weapons are still your best bet {{spoiler|Which you unfortunately have the chance to discover for yourself in the one book that has silver bullets}}
* [[Plant People]]: Mandrakes, who can assume the form of any person. [[Kill It with Fire|Fire]] is their only weakness.
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* [[Rhino Rampage]] -- Rhino-Men are the [[Mooks]] of [[Big Bad]] Balthus Dire.
* [[Sand Worm]]: A tooth from one of them is necessary to complete one of the books.
* [[Shoplift and Die]]: Generally justified that the shopkeeper who forged the items he's selling is a powerful wizard, or the vendor just throws an item of merchandise at you and scoots away. Yaztromo is polite enough to warn you twice before unleashing [[Baleful Polymorph]] on you. You later run into to a talking crow who was a
* [[Super Not-Drowning Skills]]: When Hydana, god of the ocean, became lonely, he began kidnapping oceangoing humans to keep him company. After the first few groups of humans drowned, Hydana realized they couldn't breathe underwater and used his powers to turn their lungs into gills. This led them to become the Mermen, even as Hydana repeated the feat with the elves, trolls and giants he added to their ranks.
* [[Take Our Word for It]] -- The Shamutanti Hills are supposedly as wild and full of evil as the rest of Kakhabad. There ''are'' monsters and plenty of dangerous humans in the wilderness but the villages you pass through are harmless, or even friendly. Birritanti, the largest is downright pleasant seeming.
* [[
* [[The Undead]] -- Mostly [[Night of the Living Mooks|zombie and skeleton mooks]], with some [[Our Ghouls Are Creepier|ghouls]], vampires (ranging from fairly strong [[Elite Mooks]] to nigh-unbeatable [[Big Bad|Big Bads]] or noncombat encounters for which you'd better DAMN have the proper doodad if you don't want to read yet another example of [[The Many Deaths of You]]), a few liches ([[Death Is Cheap]] when you're an all-powerful [[Evil Sorcerer]]), and a few other more exotic types.
* [[The Unfavorite]]
** When their father died, Sukumvit became the fabulously wealthy ruler of the city-state of Fang, while his brother Carnuss became a nobleman with an essentially meaningless title. Sukumvit banished the jealous Carnuss when the latter tried to have him killed, and Carnuss attempted to get revenge on Sukumvit by recruiting a hapless adventurer to serve as his champion in humiliating Sukumvit by overcoming his famed Deathtrap Dungeon.
** In ''Black Vein Prophecy'', Feior was a cruel, ruthless prick, very much in the mould of Bezenvial. Maior, on the other hand, was pretty gentle and compassionate, and so naturally gets screwed.
* [[Unfortunate Implications]]: The earliest books sometimes portray aboriginal and/or primitive tribes with negative stereotypes. For instance, "Island of the Fire King" has headhunters (a violent and evil tribe), witch doctors (evil magicians who use curses), a Shaman (a wise NPC who can help you, but he [[You No Take Candle|No Take Candle]] for some reason) and pygmies (take note, most African natives ''do not like'' being called that). While this was [[Fair for Its Day]], it hasn't aged well.
* [[Thieves' Guild]] -- Accepted as a fact of life in Port Blacksand. In one book you actually play a member of the guild out to make his bones.
* [[What Measure Is a Non-Human?]]: The book ''Titan'' details the story of the Halfhand brothers and their followers, a tribe of humans who invaded and slaughtered a tribe of orcs who lived in a fertile territory and took over their land. The book [[
* [[With Great Power Comes Great Insanity]]: The Minimites, a race of pixie-like creatures who had tremendous magical abilities, joined with a number of human wizards in a powerful magical ritual to destroy the forces of evil threatening the Old World during the War of the Wizards. They succeeded, and the Old World was spared the destruction suffered by Allansia and Khul, but many of the Minimites were so overwhelmed by the power they wielded that they thought they could become the benevolent leaders of the world
:Other Minimites realized that this was simple tyranny, so they deliberately nerfed themselves so that most magic wouldn't even work in their presence and they could not stay in close contact with one another.
* [[Wretched Hive]] -- Port Blacksand. There are more than a few others (such as Khare, Cityport of Traps), but Blacksand is the world's ultimate example.
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[[Category:Fantasy Literature]]▼
[[Category:Children's Literature]]
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[[Category:Tabletop Games]]
[[Category:Tabletop Games of the 1980s]]
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