# Did any of you play Fabled Lands, the gamebook, back in the day?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-of-you-play-fabled-lands-the-gamebook-back-in-the-day/535768>\
**Category:** The Game Room\
**Created:** [April 11, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-of-you-play-fabled-lands-the-gamebook-back-in-the-day/535768 "2010-04-11T21:20:16Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 3\
**Page:** 1

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**Author:** ![Frylock](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ce7236/32.png) [@Frylock](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frylock)\
**Post date:** [April 11, 2010, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-of-you-play-fabled-lands-the-gamebook-back-in-the-day/535768/1 "2010-04-11T21:20:16Z")

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It was like a single player RPG. If you’re not sure how that would work, think Choose Your Own Adventure with attributes, inventory, dice and random encounters.

Fabled Lands was projected to be a _12 volume_ work with each work being set in a different country, all within a single fantasy world. Volumes would refer to each other in various ways enabling you to “travel” from one to another. Only 6 volumes were completed, but that in itself makes for a pretty big and involving game.

Anyway, I never played this game. But if I’d known about it back when it was being published, I would have been all over it. And now it turns out I can be–because the entire series has been (legally btw) implemented as a Java app [here](http://sourceforge.net/projects/flapp/).

It’s fun!

If you’ve got an Iphone or Ipod touch, they’re going to publish it as an app for your platform as well. That will cost a few dollars, I’m assuming. The java app linked to above is free.

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**Author:** ![Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f08c70/32.png) [@Crowbar\_of\_Irony\_3](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Crowbar_of_Irony_3)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 7:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-of-you-play-fabled-lands-the-gamebook-back-in-the-day/535768/2 "2010-04-12T07:53:53Z")

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Yes.

I liked how you are able to store items in houses, events, links to other books.

Unfortunately, I wish the mechanics is more gritty. Mages don’t have spells to cast in combat, for example.

I was disappointed when the series was discontinued.

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**Author:** ![jayjay](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jayjay/32/6765_2.png) [@jayjay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jayjay)\
**Post date:** [April 12, 2010, 2:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-any-of-you-play-fabled-lands-the-gamebook-back-in-the-day/535768/3 "2010-04-12T14:01:20Z")

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TSR put out a similar set of gamebooks, [Catacombs](http://www.amazon.com/Faerie-mound-dragonkind-Catacombs-books/dp/0880384492), in the 90s.