In Fair Allansia Where We Lay Our Scene...
My humble contribution to Nerdy Ninth (yesterday) is all about Fighting Fantasy.
Fighting Fantasy, you know those British game books from the eighties (and a lesser extent the nineties). I have played some fifteen of them, tops. By far the greater portion of them take place in the fantasy world of Titan. It's a wild world, largely without the kingdoms and focused forces of good found in a lot of fantasy game settings.
As you play through the books you get the feeling that although your goal may be to stop an evil wizard's army from invading the Valley of Willow, everyone's really out for themselves. That doesn't make the setting grimdark so much as it makes it slightly amoral in a childlike way. You were on your own with your wits and your sword, and the world would do its damndest to trip you up.
The names are a lot of the reason for why the Fighting Fantasy world stayed with me. Is there an evil wizard? His name is Balthus Dire! A wild steppe? Why, that's the Pagan Plains! A hive of scum and villainy? Port Blacksand, surely! The names are cheesy, certainly. They're the same kind of cheesy that pulp stories and pirate treasure maps are made from. The kind that will transport you there, if you let them.
The opposition was a combination of the familiar trolls, orcs and wizards, but often intermingled with creatures which would give Gygax a run for his money. There were the wheelies (disc-shaped creatures moving by doing somersaults on their four hands, throwing knives all the while), the elephant-like slime-eating mucolyte, and the jib-jub (basically a furry burglar alarm wiith feet).
A lot of that is nostalgia of course. It's something I loved doing as a kid, something I shared with my friends (and their idiot older brothers). It is also a fictitious space that has the qualities of being familiar and roomy. I don't feel like I'm being allowed to play in the spaces between the Real Heroes. It may be silly, but Middle Earth, Star Wars and Forgotten Realms make me feel a bit like that.
I've just bought the 2011 version of Titan (the rules-free Fighting Fantasy setting book), and it's a joy. Next step: convert it to FAE and sweetness follows.
Fighting Fantasy, you know those British game books from the eighties (and a lesser extent the nineties). I have played some fifteen of them, tops. By far the greater portion of them take place in the fantasy world of Titan. It's a wild world, largely without the kingdoms and focused forces of good found in a lot of fantasy game settings.
As you play through the books you get the feeling that although your goal may be to stop an evil wizard's army from invading the Valley of Willow, everyone's really out for themselves. That doesn't make the setting grimdark so much as it makes it slightly amoral in a childlike way. You were on your own with your wits and your sword, and the world would do its damndest to trip you up.
The names are a lot of the reason for why the Fighting Fantasy world stayed with me. Is there an evil wizard? His name is Balthus Dire! A wild steppe? Why, that's the Pagan Plains! A hive of scum and villainy? Port Blacksand, surely! The names are cheesy, certainly. They're the same kind of cheesy that pulp stories and pirate treasure maps are made from. The kind that will transport you there, if you let them.
The opposition was a combination of the familiar trolls, orcs and wizards, but often intermingled with creatures which would give Gygax a run for his money. There were the wheelies (disc-shaped creatures moving by doing somersaults on their four hands, throwing knives all the while), the elephant-like slime-eating mucolyte, and the jib-jub (basically a furry burglar alarm wiith feet).
A lot of that is nostalgia of course. It's something I loved doing as a kid, something I shared with my friends (and their idiot older brothers). It is also a fictitious space that has the qualities of being familiar and roomy. I don't feel like I'm being allowed to play in the spaces between the Real Heroes. It may be silly, but Middle Earth, Star Wars and Forgotten Realms make me feel a bit like that.
I've just bought the 2011 version of Titan (the rules-free Fighting Fantasy setting book), and it's a joy. Next step: convert it to FAE and sweetness follows.