Its all fun and games until someone loses an eye

One thing that gets my goat is that people say OpenQuest is an action orientated or cinematic game…

Its a common misconception that OpenQuest is focused on action.  I don’t understand why, just because OQ cuts out some of the crunch of its crunchier brothers doesn’t mean its Jet Li jumping about ignoring hits and doing back flips. Its still the regular “Don’t blunder into combat, plan your attack and pray you don’t get hit” of standard BRP. Remember HeroPoints are optional rule, and even if used you would have to give them out like flowing water and make Hit points based off Con+Siz rather than (Con+Siz/2) to acheive cinematic levels.

Patience, patience…..

My printer emailed me yesterday to say my final proofs of The Company and Crypts & Things have been sent to me 🙂  Today is first day that the they can turn up, so knowing the Gods of Gaming they will turn up mid next week 😉  Oh well one can hope……………..

12 Days of the UK OSR Day 4: Advanced Fighting Fantasy

Ok so I’ve slipped with keeping this daily. It no longer tallies with the 12 days of XMAS, oh dear. Whoops!

I will however patriotically soldier on with one review-let a day, with gaps for when I’m feeling pathologically lazy/worn out with the world/busy doing real d101 sorting out etc.

So onwards.

Silly old me forgot to mention Fighting Fantasy in my intro piece. “How could you!?!” you weep. Well I was focusing on RPGs and FF fine as it was and entry point and inspiration for us Brits into the wider field of D&D land was never a RPG. Well not my snobby 15 year old mind.  I kinda played with the nice Fighting Fantasy RPG, a simple but effective affair by Steve Jackson with a Tiger-Man-Thing jumping out of an exploding dice as a cover. I ran it once for my younger brother, which successfully introduced him to RPGs. Otherwise ignored it in favour for D&D. I was dimly aware of Advanced Fighting Fantasy by Marc Gascoigne when it came out, but I was bedazzled by the brilliance of RuneQuest at the time so it never registered. “Its not a proper role-playing game, its for Kids”, forgetting but five minutes ago I had been one of those kids.  Verily was I in my Kevin the Teenager phase.

So when Arion Games republished Advanced Fighting Fantasy as a 2nd Edition to much fanfare with a publishing deal with Cubicle 7 (which means it gets into your local gaming store), I felt honour bound to do my bit for Queen and Country and pick up a copy.

And I liked what I saw 🙂

Highlights for me personally.

  • Lots of Russ Nicholson art (YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!)
  • The basic Fighting Fantasy game book system, expanded in all sorts of fun common sense ways.  For example basic FF has all damage being 2 stamina and Armour is never a factor.  Adv FF allows you to roll D6 to determine damage by weapon and reduces it by Armour type which again you roll a D6 against a short easy table (which you copy to your character sheet). There’s also a very groovy random dungeon creation method as well.
  • Its a complete RPG which is very newcomer friendly without being patronising. You could buy this for somebody new to RPGs and they could easily run a game with it. There’s tons of examples, advice, lots of print off and play example characters, and a couple of adventures. All squeezed in with a very inclusive system – monsters, GMs guidance, setting info, full magic systems – all in all a nice one book game.

Why this is important to the UK OSR?

  • Its Fighting Fantasy maaaannnnnnn! 🙂
  • Its an ideal starter RPG for young and old alike.  When the young Newtlings come of age and show interest old Dad will crack out Adv FF.
  • It oozes the atmosphere and feel of UK OSR. Not just the obvious Russ Nicholson art, but also the text.

Arion Games have also republished Titan and Out of the Pit, which are the setting guide and monster manual respectively. Although Adv FF also has a selection of bits from these books, pick up these two and you’ve got the ultimate UK OSR RPG. My hat is off in salute to Graham Bottley who put this edition together so lovingly 🙂

Related reading

If you want a complete chapter by chapter run down, along with what has been changed from the first version check this out.