Would you like to see more non-gamebook FF including poll

[CharlesX]

I'm a huge fan of Titan, I like Fighting Fantasy and Riddling Reaver, think Advanced FF is OK, slightly dislike Trolltooth Wars and other FF novels, and feel like we're done with FF histories. What do you think, though?
 This includes a poll with a deadline of 20th May 9 p.m. You can vote for up to 11 in this survey.

[CharlesX]

Hmm, out of the admittedly small number of people who have voted, there seems to be some demand for more You Are The Hero style books, I wonder whether Jon Green is 1 of the 4 who've voted.

[bloodbeasthandler]

I don't know what more can be said about the history of FF that hasn't been covered by You Are The Hero 1 and 2. 

Speaking generally, there is room for exhaustive detail on each book, such as the inspirations behind what's in them (The Fact of Fiction does a great job with this) and 'directors commentaries' by the authors themselves. Factoids here and there. But this is pretty niche and might best be suited to a forum such as this one and of course the Fighting Fantazine itself, rather than a printed book.  

There is a market for 'the story of phenomenon x'. A few years ago I read up on the background to Dungeons and Dragons in 'Empire of Imagination', and there are a few interviews out there on Youtube. The Dice Men (history of Games Workshop) will be coming out this year so people are interested in this sort of thing. So maybe there's a readership for a book on interactive fiction in general. I don't know. 

[CharlesX]

Slightly surprised someone voted "definitely not" (although 8 isn't much of a survey), I would say the FF non-gamebooks have been a mixed bag but at their best they can be wonderful, Titan is amazing. Maybe the mediocre Trolltooth Wars was a strike against FF non-gamebooks, or maybe they want to end on a high note - a lot about the fate of FF, how long it may continue, depends on how successful J & L can be, maybe with their September gamebooks.
   I know some people take the view FF is just about the gamebook series, but I personally like the other things.

[terrysalt]

That was me, and honestly I'm not entirely convinced they should make more FF gamebooks either. I'm probably just in my grumpy old man phase but I think the Scholastic reprints were a mistake and am not looking forward to the upcoming new books. Slightly more hopeful for the Jackson one since I've liked all his books bar Starship Traveller but I think FF should stay in the past. Exhuming the corpses of popular franchises from the past has almost never worked well and though Jon Green saved the Wizard line, I don't think there's any more rabbits left in the hat.

[bloodbeasthandler]

May 12, 2022 22:02:34 GMT terrysalt said:

That was me, and honestly I'm not entirely convinced they should make more FF gamebooks either. I'm probably just in my grumpy old man phase but I think the Scholastic reprints were a mistake and am not looking forward to the upcoming new books. Slightly more hopeful for the Jackson one since I've liked all his books bar Starship Traveller but I think FF should stay in the past. Exhuming the corpses of popular franchises from the past has almost never worked well and though Jon Green saved the Wizard line, I don't think there's any more rabbits left in the hat.

Keep the faith, brother!

What is it that you're not looking forward to with the new books? That you won't be as gripped by them as when you were younger? That in current times writers can't recapture whatever made the books so enjoyable back in the old days? 

I too have had enough of the reprints, though. The only thing that would get me to buy them was if some of the artwork and printing quality of the books improved AND if the gameplay errors were corrected. And no more Warlock of bloody Firetop Mountain reprints unless the keys get swapped round or something. 

[terrysalt]

It's just that any time they dredge up a long dead franchise, it feels like a cash grab. The fact almost no effort seems to go into writing that takes the rules into consideration certainly doesn't help. Rihanna Pratchett should not be better than a series creator at making sure skill bonuses can actually be claimed or not having you starving to death in the story while you have a backpack full of food.
Maybe my standards are just higher as an adult, and this time around I have neither youthful exuberance nor rose-tinted nostalgia covering up the problems.

As for the reprints, I never bothered with them unless my Puffin copy was in bad enough shape that I didn't want to risk further harm when I attempted to play it. So I only have 3 Wizard reprints and no Scholastic ones.

[CharlesX]

May 13, 2022 21:11:36 GMT terrysalt said:

It's just that any time they dredge up a long dead franchise, it feels like a cash grab. The fact almost no effort seems to go into writing that takes the rules into consideration certainly doesn't help. Rihanna Pratchett should not be better than a series creator at making sure skill bonuses can actually be claimed or not having you starving to death in the story while you have a backpack full of food.
Maybe my standards are just higher as an adult, and this time around I have neither youthful exuberance nor rose-tinted nostalgia covering up the problems.

As for the reprints, I never bothered with them unless my Puffin copy was in bad enough shape that I didn't want to risk further harm when I attempted to play it. So I only have 3 Wizard reprints and no Scholastic ones.

I get that you feel that way and I even agree where Livingstone is concerned, but I don't think that's fair, either. Jonathan Green's newer work has been some of the best in the series, and in a similar basis SJ may write something really good (IL, point taken, maybe not so much). If the series had quit they were ahead, we wouldn't have the video successes such as the Sorcery! App and the Tin Man Warlock Of Firetop Mountain.
   The series may never be as commercially successful or perhaps even as critically successful as it has been in its heyday but to me the fact it's now a different age could even reinvigorate the franchise like Star Wars or Doctor Who (cue extremely long tangent discussion with Kieran about Who).

[nathanh]

The big thing that was missing for me in the You Are The Heroes was more discussion of the "craft" of the gamebook writing: how did the writers plan and organise the gamebooks? How were they tested and edited? What materials and guidance, if any, were they provided (either for setting information or for design principles)? What was the dynamic between writers and editors? What philosophy of difficulty did authors subscribe to and why, and how did they determine whether they were successful in that philosophy? For the more open-ended gamebook designs, did the authors have an optimal path in mind or did they just create a bunch of options without worrying about which is easiest? Was Livingstone's choice of "warhammer is bad but you'd never know if you'd picked it up" a masterful sadistic trap or just inattention? Was an editor supposed to be checking for such inattention? Were any of these questions actually important to anyone involved in the process?

[terrysalt]

May 14, 2022 9:36:16 GMT CharlesX said:

May 13, 2022 21:11:36 GMT terrysalt said:

It's just that any time they dredge up a long dead franchise, it feels like a cash grab. The fact almost no effort seems to go into writing that takes the rules into consideration certainly doesn't help. Rihanna Pratchett should not be better than a series creator at making sure skill bonuses can actually be claimed or not having you starving to death in the story while you have a backpack full of food.
Maybe my standards are just higher as an adult, and this time around I have neither youthful exuberance nor rose-tinted nostalgia covering up the problems.

As for the reprints, I never bothered with them unless my Puffin copy was in bad enough shape that I didn't want to risk further harm when I attempted to play it. So I only have 3 Wizard reprints and no Scholastic ones.

I get that you feel that way and I even agree where Livingstone is concerned, but I don't think that's fair, either. Jonathan Green's newer work has been some of the best in the series, and in a similar basis SJ may write something really good (IL, point taken, maybe not so much). If the series had quit they were ahead, we wouldn't have the video successes such as the Sorcery! App and the Tin Man Warlock Of Firetop Mountain.
   The series may never be as commercially successful or perhaps even as critically successful as it has been in its heyday but to me the fact it's now a different age could even reinvigorate the franchise like Star Wars or Doctor Who (cue extremely long tangent discussion with Kieran about Who).

You're clearly more optimistic than I am!

[sylas]

What are basic ff adventures? Like Fighting Fantasy and the Riddling Reaver?

[CharlesX]

May 14, 2022 11:51:07 GMT sylas said:

What are basic ff adventures? Like Fighting Fantasy and the Riddling Reaver?

That's right, adventures based on that system (the simple, first one predating 'Advanced FF' which started with Dungeoneer). SFAIK there have been very few others, I think there was one in a reprint of one of the two basic FF books but I heard it was very poor (don't quote or check me up about that, because I might be getting it confused with the Dungeoneer phase FF, but either way it was rubbish).

[CharlesX]

May 14, 2022 10:55:43 GMT nathanh said:

The big thing that was missing for me in the You Are The Heroes was more discussion of the "craft" of the gamebook writing: how did the writers plan and organise the gamebooks? How were they tested and edited? What materials and guidance, if any, were they provided (either for setting information or for design principles)? What was the dynamic between writers and editors? What philosophy of difficulty did authors subscribe to and why, and how did they determine whether they were successful in that philosophy? For the more open-ended gamebook designs, did the authors have an optimal path in mind or did they just create a bunch of options without worrying about which is easiest? Was Livingstone's choice of "warhammer is bad but you'd never know if you'd picked it up" a masterful sadistic trap or just inattention? Was an editor supposed to be checking for such inattention? Were any of these questions actually important to anyone involved in the process?

Touch off-topic but I don't feel there was enough criticism in You Are The Hero. No mention made of the difficult Sky Lord, the out-there Chasms Of Malice rules or (in particular) the messy Revenge Of The Vampire, for example. I guess if they had done that it would have detracted from the feelgood fan spirit of the thing; instead there were some welcome shots at Puffin for their disdain about FF .

   I love FF like everyone here but I think the authors too often either churned out works for money (Livingstone) or maybe became formulaic and indifferent about prosaic concerns such as difficulty level (Martin). Sadly, these things have got worse not better and they have reached the point where I think they should be written down, were there to be a third history of FF.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Pages 19 and 20 (and elsewhere) of You are the Hero [1] do cover some of this. Have a read of them if you have the book. 
We see how Phillippa Dickinson conscientiously went through The Warlock of Firetop Mountain and made notes, mapped it out and came up with suggestions. 


 

That's page one. I'd be interested to see what else she said on the following pages.  
Having said that I'm pretty sure that the level of scrutiny she put into editing FF1 was not done for all subsequent books, otherwise we would not have had such things as the infinite loop and discontinuity in Forest of Doom only a year later. 

The people to answer nathanh's excellent questions are the writers and editors themselves.  

[CharlesX]

Just a day left before voting closes, so I'd urge anyone else interested to go ahead and vote!
   I get why a couple of people have voted definitely not - more often than not revivals of franchises don't end well, and Livingstone and Higson have written gamebooks which were cynical, pathetic or both. I think the previous non-gamebook FF has been pretty good, except that is for the underwhelming FF novels, but whether their quality can be matched or nearly matched today I don't know.

[dragonwarrior8]

Honestly, as it seems like they have limited resources these days I'd just like to see them put out as many actual FF gamebooks as possible. Oh for the days when they used to publish 6 new ones a year. We are supposedly in a gamebook renaissance right now so I wish they would give that a go again.

[sleepyscholar]

May 19, 2022 20:31:47 GMT dragonwarrior8 said:

Honestly, as it seems like they have limited resources these days I'd just like to see them put out as many actual FF gamebooks as possible. Oh for the days when they used to publish 6 new ones a year. We are supposedly in a gamebook renaissance right now so I wish they would give that a go again.

In theory more gamebooks could be published. But there are logistical obstacles. You've got to get people who are capable of doing it. I'm not sure I could write a gamebook nowadays: simply because I'm older and rely more on heuristics than original thinking, like most people as they get older. Go for younger people then... but then you have to get people who actually have a clue about how gamebooks work, which is, of course, non-trivial. It took me a number of gamebooks to realise that although it's obvious that divergence is crucial, convergence was also enormously important. I know I'm a bit slow, but even so I don't think this would be immediately, and functionally, apparent to a new writer until they'd tried a few sets of paragraphs and had them tested to death (I was lucky: my 'tests' were sold, and tested to death by you lot!).

But then even if you can find people who are capable, you have the obstacle of providing them with the opportunity. When they brought back FF following its cancellation by Puffin, L&J prioritised their own returns over attracting authors. I guess that was just their habit: they were very successful businessmen after all. But I suspect that one reason for so few new books was that they did little to appeal to either new or existing authors (with one or two honourable exceptions, mentioning no Jon Greens by name). Even those authors who were prepared to give up their copyright in order to have their books reprinted notably did not write new ones. Where's the incentive? Unlike the original FFs, you don't even get to keep the rights! I mentioned above that I probably couldn't write a new gamebook. But even if I could, why would I write an FF? The yen would have to plunge even more spectacularly than it is currently doing before it would be even vaguely financially justifiable. Writing FF is hard work. It can be fun, sure, but then so is narrating a video for Yamaha about their deathtrap on wheels, the MT4. Which pays about 5 times as much per hour.

I suspect L&J felt that with the original FF, they made a mistake in allowing other authors to write for the series on the 'generous' terms offered by Puffin. What we are now seeing is the result of them correcting this 'mistake'. With the original series, they had people like me: impoverished freelancers who jumped at the chance to supplement their TV consultancy work. Maybe they can connect with the modern equivalent... if it exists. The likes of me were there because of role-playing's boom in the 80s. Is there really a pool of young, exploitable, game-savvy writers? I'll be interested to find out. Maybe FFF4 will offer a clue.

[petch]

Not for the first time, I'm very grateful that you take the time to post your insights on here, sleepyscholar. Especially for someone like me who is entirely ignorant of how the industry works, it's fascinating.

It's a shame really. Despite it being an aging brand, I still think the FF name still has a certain amount of prestige - it wouldn't have been able to attract celeb writers like Higson and Pratchett otherwise, as divisive as their efforts were. If there was more of an incentive for promising, aspiring younger writers to write for the brand then its future could look a lot rosier.

[sleepyscholar]

May 20, 2022 13:00:00 GMT petch said:

Not for the first time, I'm very grateful that you take the time to post your insights on here, sleepyscholar. Especially for someone like me who is entirely ignorant of how the industry works, it's fascinating.

It's a shame really. Despite it being an aging brand, I still think the FF name still has a certain amount of prestige - it wouldn't have been able to attract celeb writers like Higson and Pratchett otherwise, as divisive as their efforts were. If there was more of an incentive for promising, aspiring younger writers to write for the brand then its future could look a lot rosier.

Thanks for the kind words. And I should add the caveat that I don't know 'how the industry works'. I can only tell about my personal experiences. I post here because I am still what I always was -- a fan -- and that's the way I approach things.

When I went to Manticon, whenever that was ('BC', as I guess we should now say), it was interesting to meet younger writers who were doing significant -- and quite lengthy -- work. More akin to Fabled Lands, I guess, so it was a good thing Dave and Jamie were there too. But they were writing in German, of course. Is there anything like that happening in the UK?

When I look back at FF I am frustrated by the fact that I feel I was just starting to really get the hang of how to write FF books when the series was cancelled. The Wailing World may well have sucked seawater, of course, but all the same, I have the sense that the FF bubble burst just as the ideas involved in it were starting to be explored at a deeper level of understanding and skill. I can entirely understand why Jon Green should have been prepared to accept the shitty deal offered by L&J and continue to write the books -- he had Howl of the Werewolf in him and wanted to write it! But I don't think we can deny that the shitty deal basically deprived you all of a number of potential gamebooks, and chances are that several of them would have been very good indeed.

[bloodbeasthandler]

May 20, 2022 13:00:00 GMT petch said:

It's a shame really. Despite it being an aging brand, I still think the FF name still has a certain amount of prestige - it wouldn't have been able to attract celeb writers like Higson and Pratchett otherwise, as divisive as their efforts were. If there was more of an incentive for promising, aspiring younger writers to write for the brand then its future could look a lot rosier.

I think Charlie Higson and Rhianna Pratchett came it it from having a personal friendship or connection to Ian Livingstone. 

From an interview with Charlie Higson: '...I met Ian Livingstone when we were both on a panel together, something to do with gaming and computers, and we got talking...Ian and I kept in touch and he put me in one of his books (Blood of the Zombies). And then one evening over a pint he asked me if I’d ever be interested in writing a Fighting Fantasy book of my own.' 
[full interview link - www.fightingfantasy.com/charlie-higson-interview] 

And Rhianna Pratchett, remember, is connected to computer games, like Ian L is. From an interview:

Rhianna was asked to write a Fighting Fantasy story by the series’ co-founder Ian Livingstone, who created it with his Games Workshop collaborator Steve Jackson. Livingstone and Rhianna knew each other through the video games industry, having both worked on the Tomb Raider franchise.

Computer gaming is the link, isn't it? Not RPG enthusiasts or Games Workshoppers and initial D and D 'boomers'.

[petch]

May 20, 2022 18:30:05 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

May 20, 2022 13:00:00 GMT petch said:

It's a shame really. Despite it being an aging brand, I still think the FF name still has a certain amount of prestige - it wouldn't have been able to attract celeb writers like Higson and Pratchett otherwise, as divisive as their efforts were. If there was more of an incentive for promising, aspiring younger writers to write for the brand then its future could look a lot rosier.

I think Charlie Higson and Rhianna Pratchett came it it from having a personal friendship or connection to Ian Livingstone. 

From an interview with Charlie Higson: '...I met Ian Livingstone when we were both on a panel together, something to do with gaming and computers, and we got talking...Ian and I kept in touch and he put me in one of his books (Blood of the Zombies). And then one evening over a pint he asked me if I’d ever be interested in writing a Fighting Fantasy book of my own.' 
[full interview link - www.fightingfantasy.com/charlie-higson-interview] 

And Rhianna Pratchett, remember, is connected to computer games, like Ian L is. From an interview:

Rhianna was asked to write a Fighting Fantasy story by the series’ co-founder Ian Livingstone, who created it with his Games Workshop collaborator Steve Jackson. Livingstone and Rhianna knew each other through the video games industry, having both worked on the Tomb Raider franchise.

Computer gaming is the link, isn't it? Not RPG enthusiasts or Games Workshoppers and initial D and D 'boomers'.

Thanks, that's interesting stuff. I had to have another flick through Blood of the Zombies after reading that (being one of its few fans on here that wasn't too much of a chore for me) to see if I could see which character was inspired by Higson. Couldn't work it out though. Presumably he was one of the zombies lurking somewhere in the background, gurgling 'Sorry, I've just come.'

[CharlesX]

May 19, 2022 20:31:47 GMT dragonwarrior8 said:

Honestly, as it seems like they have limited resources these days I'd just like to see them put out as many actual FF gamebooks as possible. Oh for the days when they used to publish 6 new ones a year. We are supposedly in a gamebook renaissance right now so I wish they would give that a go again.

Slightly sadly I have to say this sums up my feelings, I wish we were back in the heyday of FF or even the boom years of Green's masterpieces, but who knows the direction FF could go, and I for one would welcome any non-gamebook FFs.
   So, optimist or not a majority of this admittedly small survey have voted for some more non-gamebook FF, although that may be about the quality of previous non-gamebook FF more than any planned ones (yes, there aren't). Nobody put 'Other' - like my other thread I could see a Titan style work about SF, although that is probably ambitious and unrealistic. There seems to be a surprise vote for more Basic FF adventures - I thought Fighting Fantasy and Riddling Reaver were well-written, but I don't see them as profitable enough for more to happen, unfortunately.

[sleepyscholar]

May 20, 2022 21:14:50 GMT CharlesX said:

There seems to be a surprise vote for more Basic FF adventures - I thought Fighting Fantasy and Riddling Reaver were well-written, but I don't see them as profitable enough for more to happen, unfortunately.

You're not wrong there!

[bloodbeasthandler]

May 20, 2022 11:56:40 GMT sleepyscholar said:

I suspect L&J felt that with the original FF, they made a mistake in allowing other authors to write for the series on the 'generous' terms offered by Puffin.

If that is the case, thankfully they had no choice. Demand utterly outstripped supply. 

May 20, 2022 11:56:40 GMT sleepyscholar said:

What we are now seeing is the result of them correcting this 'mistake'.

If so, that might explain the focus on reprints of their own titles over the years. 
I hope that 2022 ushers in an age of 'only new titles from now on'.  
We don't need another Temple of Terror or Freeway Fighter reprint but this time with shitter illustrations, or worst of all an unaltered untested-and-nigh-on-mathematically-impossible Crypt of the Sorceror rerelease. 

May 20, 2022 18:04:44 GMT sleepyscholar said:

the FF bubble burst just as the ideas involved in it were starting to be explored at a deeper level of understanding and skill...... But I don't think we can deny that the shitty deal basically deprived you all of a number of potential gamebooks, and chances are that several of them would have been very good indeed.

This is the thing that grates - the lost opportunity.

If we look at the last few years of Puffin FF [starting arbitrarily at FF48] we see books written by Stephen Hand, Jonathan Green, Paul Mason, Carl Sargent and we got even at this late stage a brand new writer in the form of Keith P Phillips who did a great job with Siege of Sardath. I would have liked to have seen future gamebooks written by any of those authors.  
I'm glad we got Jon Green's later books, so I will try to count my blessings a bit more.

And yes, ok the big 1980's and 90's bubble did burst,... market forces and all that... but it irritates me that we ought to have got more new and interesting material over the last couple of decades done by authors who wanted to further develop what could be done in these sorts of books. Exploring different themes.

I've always been a big fan of FF but i must say that over the years I'm finding my enthusiasm wane in favour of other series like Steam Highwayman or Click Your Poison. 

[bloodbeasthandler]

May 20, 2022 21:07:26 GMT petch said:

Thanks, that's interesting stuff. I had to have another flick through Blood of the Zombies after reading that (being one of its few fans on here that wasn't too much of a chore for me) to see if I could see which character was inspired by Higson. Couldn't work it out though. Presumably he was one of the zombies lurking somewhere in the background, gurgling 'Sorry, I've just come.'

Para 217 and accompanying illustration.  
That's him pounding on your windscreen. 

[bloodbeasthandler]

Regarding any future 'Out of the Pit' style bestiary, this piece of information is years out of date but I notice that when writing 'Beyond the Pit' its author Andrew Wright says ... 

Half way through writing, Stephen Hand requested via Steve Jackson that his monsters not be used, so out went any creatures from Dead of Night, Legend of Shadow Warriors and Moonrunner. This was disappointing...


Anyone know why? 
Is this a copyright issue, and by allowing your work to be used like this you lose future rights over it?
What is going on here?  


EDIT: 

May 14, 2022 10:55:43 GMT nathanh said:

... How were they tested and edited? What materials and guidance, if any, were they provided (either for setting information or for design principles)? What was the dynamic between writers and editors? What philosophy of difficulty did authors subscribe to and why, and how did they determine whether they were successful in that philosophy? ....  Was an editor supposed to be checking for such inattention? Were any of these questions actually important to anyone involved in the process?

nathanh, have you read the full Stephen Hand interview from the old AFF site?

If you go onto the Titannicas Blood of the Mandrakes page
fightingfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Blood_of_the_Mandrake

now scroll down to References, and click on the second one
Interview with Stephen Hand at the Internet Archive record of Advancedfightingfantasy.com - Retrieved 2013-09-17

The interview covers many of your points, it looks to me like it was meant to be Robin Waterfield and then Marc Gascoigne focussing on the gameplay issues...

[nathanh]

Thanks, that interview was new to me.