Sleeping Gods, boo to Gary Gygax, and nostlagia for Fighting Fantasy gamebooks

The FF convention I mentioned above is this weekend, tickets on sale until Thursday. Iain McCaig is doing both a talk and signing art, so I’m gonna go.

https://www.fightingfantasy.com/fighting-fantasy-fest-5-event-page

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Well that was fun. Maximum nostalgia as usual. McCaig is an incredibly energetic joker. When asked if several hours signing books was tiring, he explained he draws ALL DAY standing up and then draws on the iPad in bed, so no he’s fine.

(Iain McCaig and Sir Ian Livingstone in the first pic).

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In a move designed to confuse the maximum amount of people, Steve Jackson Games (US) are going to be publishing the Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson (UK) Fighting Fantasy books in the US. 50 of them, apparently.

https://www.sjgames.com/fightingfantasy/

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Including the ones Steve Jackson (US) wrote? :grinning:

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Probably! I didn’t realise Scorpion Swamp was him, that’s a really early one.

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Number 8, if I recall. And a robot one I think. It’s been a while.

Scorpion Swamp, Demons of the Deep, Robot Commando.

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I have great memories of sitting in my grandma’s cottage doing the FF books, sometimes with fingers holding my place in case I died suddenly… :wink:

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Ian Livingstone wrote a new book this year (The Dungeon on Blood Island) and I found myself doing the finger-bookmarks entirely out of habit :smiley:

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I was not allowed to get the Lone Wolf books in 6th grade and I took that personally.

What I went long on when I had the chance was the TSR 1v1 books that were interesting head to head competition versions of those:





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I’ve not seen those!

The resolution was interesting as it was a table that matched numbers each player chose. Which seemed odd as it seemed clear to me each player should have a d20.

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Each usually had a “come back from a defeat” mechanism, usually with a side-effect so each player had a better chance of making it to a final showdown.

The Lankhmar one was probably the most clever as, of course, Fafhrd and Mouser would be brought back by Ningauble and Sheelba’s mysterious methods.

The guild just sent different assassins so that player’s base team changed:




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Oh gosh I would have loved these.

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