Basically, they were advanced choose-your-own-adventure books. My son, who is 9, is now reading the Choose-Your-Own-Adventure books from when I was a kid(the ones by RA Salvatore and company).
I thought it might be fun to get a full RPG solitaire adventure. If you are unfamiliar or have forgotten, you basically set up a character(or roll one) and then you go out and read the book, making choices. The difference is choices and options are influenced by your character stats.
I would prefer PG-rated adventures, nothing inappropriate if possible.
Are these still a thing? If not, what classic ones were the best for my son and me? I’d love some thoughts if anyone else remembers doing these.
Choose Your Own Adventure books are still a thing. Although, the license is currently held by a different company, and the classic books from the 80s are no longer in print. The modern books look quite different from what I remember of the classic version, but I’ve never taken a close look at the modern books.
More generally, this style of solitaire adventure book is still, somehow in the age of video games, definitely a thing. An Amazon search returns a (to me) surprising number of contemporary books in this genre. The ones I’m more familiar with are aimed at nostalgic gamers, so not appropriate for a 9-year old, but there seem to be current book lines aimed at that demographic. I’m not familiar with them, so I can’t give any recommendations, sorry.
From the classic period, the Lone Wolf series by Joe Dever is, for me, the pinnacle of the genre. I loved those books. You don’t just make choices in the book. You actually create a character, with stats and skills and abilities that you can advance as you go through the adventure. The world Joe Dever built is a bit of a Tolkien pastiche, with a bit of Star Wars thrown in, but a really well-done one. Or at least it seemed really well done to me when I was about 12.
There have apparently been some reprints, and some of them are available online as well.
Fighting Fantasy was miles ahead of other competitors in creating a gaming system, some good puzzles and intricate storylines, at least the early ones. The first few involve robbing a wizard, assassinating a sorceror, saving a Dwarvern village, a Star Trek style adventure and destroying a demon prince.
Later books, especially those by Luke Sharp or Jonathan Green, were not as good but the early ones by Steve Jackson or Ian Livingstone are all pretty good.
I remember one from when I was a kid that actually involved dice rolls (in a highly simplified system that used nothing but a d6). It was obviously inspired by D&D, since it had ability scores of Str-Dex-Con-Int-Wis-Cha.
I remember one from when I was a kid that actually involved dice rolls (in a highly simplified system that used nothing but a d6). It was obviously inspired by D&D, since it had ability scores of Str-Dex-Con-Int-Wis-Cha.
Yeah, I had a ton of those Fighting Fantasy books as an '80s kid (I think I even still have them in storage). Some of the titles have been reissued as both physical books and as apps in more recent years.
While the Choose Your Own Adventure books typically had multiple happy endings, the Fighting Fantasy books usually had just one path to “winning” that could only be uncovered through a lot of trial-and-error. They also had a combat system that requires rolling a six-sided die, so while dirt simple compared to something like D&D it still added quite a layer of complexity over Choose Your Own Adventure. They’re not all that satisfying as RPGs (not only is the path to victory pretty linear but you almost always play a fighter) but they’re still fun puzzles.
D&D did come out with one or two solitaire modules. I may still have them somewhere. I remember a minotaur guard asking you a riddle. You used the included lemon juice pen on the indicated space to reveal the answer to the riddle. If you were wrong, you had to fight the guard.
I also have a D&D solitaire novel about Baba Yaga (I have loved the Iron Hag since elementary school. I have numerous books, a Hellboy miniature, a Monster In My Pocket figurine, and a stuffed BY with stuffed hut on hen’s legs). You have judgement points, which IIRC only get used in one situation. It was easy to end up in a no way to win situation.
I wouldn’t recommend either one. Though, I feel the novel gets BY right. You know going in there’s no way to kill her or steal from her hut without being noticed. Your only hope is that she finds you amusing and grants you a boon.
One big weakness of the FF system is that in general the very first roll is “roll 1 die, add 6 and this is your SKILL.” SKILL is by far the most important attribute, not only does it get tested a lot, (generally against 2 dice with no modifiers), in battle a +3 differential is basically a walkover. A SKILL 9 monster is a walkover for a SKILL 12 hero and will probably easily beat a SKILL 7 hero, one die roll at the start has far too much effect.
The early books did include a “one true path” where even if you rolled 4 1s for your starting attributes you should still win. Puzzling out the one true path was most of the fun I had with these games. Later books forgot about this, and basically required a 11 or 12 SKILL hero to have any chance.
In addition to the Fighting Fantasy series (and it’s spin off Sorcery! four book story), my favourite was Joe Dever’s *Lone Wolf *series. All of which are available free online through Project Aon.
alfonzos, the name “Tunnels and Trolls” rings a bell, but the described system is far more complicated than I remember the book being. I think it was more at the level of “roll a die and add this attribute. If it’s more than X, you beat the monster. Turn to page Y. If it’s less, you lose. Turn to page Z.”
It’s possible authors today find it easier to pack such large adventures into computer games. For instance, looking at the list of Choice of Games titles, which would seem to translate straightforwardly into print, there are plenty with 300000, 400000, even 600000 words.
Highly recommended for kids to read with their parents. Much longer than the standard Choose Your Own Adventure books we all grew up with, but not insanely complex. They are about 400 pages and have full mysteries and puzzles throughout.
I am reading the second one with my son now, also good.
