Quote from: dogrodeo;459744For what you get vs other rpg products out there the cost is kinda high. $19.99 would have been perfect for this product.

That is what I paid for it.  It was (and still is, just checked) 19.79 on Amazon.

Yeah, thats what I paid too. I was just going by the $29.99 normal price and should have stated that earlier. I felt that the production values were a little lacking for a thirty dollar book but I'm happy with it for the twenty bucks I paid on Amazon.

I have some of the original books (all except Allansia - silly money on ebay), not sure I'd get this one (would have done if in PDF as I print and bind them in a hard cover myself).

The problem I have is in my head I think. When this came out way back when it was a few quid. Paying £16.61 off Amazon (and more in my friendly local full rrp thanks but no thanks shop) doesn't compute in the same way that paying £13 or so didn't for each of the Lone Wolf multiplayer books Mongoose knocked out a while back. By the time you finished shelling out for those you are looking at the other side of £60 for a rules light retro clone (in the case of Lone wolf) which, with a bit of house ruling, you could run from the game book rules in the original books. Those are poor value for money. I understand the economies of scale - they aren't going to sell millions so they charge enough to make a reasonable profit and hope to sell thousands - but the pricing is still 'salty' when people are watching the pennies.

Until I see a review that states why Fighting Fantasy is a 'must buy' I'll keep hold of my dosh, methinks. Nearer a tenner and I'd have taken a punt. It's not the money - I earn enough - it's my old fart mentality I think. As mentioned I'd have bought the PDF for a decent price, especially if there were a bundle PDF deal for a reasonable discount.

As a result of looking for AFF on Amazon (out of stock in the UK, which must be a good sign?) Fabled lands popped up, which I will drop £20 on for the four books. I have already bought the Destiny Quest gamebook (Amazon £7, 534 pages, not played yet but looks like a decent game) so I don't mind spending the money if I feel I'm getting value for money.

Best o luck to the Fighting Fantasy fellas though - competing against video games these days for kids money is a tough ask, and I suspect it's the old fart/nostalgia crowd who'll buy this rather than the young uns, sad to say

Someone should do an Appointment with FEAR supplement for, oh I dunno, M&M.

What are the chances? Test your luck!

I just got the core book, and I was very disappointed in the quality of the product. I feel a little churlish in complaining about Mr Bottley's work - it was no doubt a labour of love - but it's just not up to snuff, especially when compared to the original AFF books. This book has that amateur layout and feel, and the illustrations, which were a key selling point, didn't come out right. They seem to be printed in a shade of grey and look like they would on my printer in ink-saving mode. Next time, print out some test copies and tweak before committing to the print run.

But the worst thing is the writing. The author randomly capitalises Words in what might have been a charming Manner in in the eighteenth century, but follows no Known schema, and punctuation is just as haphazard.

Even more annoying, though, is the writer's habit of using filler words to pad out almost every sentence. There are redundant qualifiers like "obviously" or "lots of" all over the place, and useless adjectives abound. There's nary a paragraph where my red pen wouldn't see action. I just can't read it without being constantly jarred, so I'll never know if there's a great game in there.

You might think I'm a pedant or aesthete, but actually I can read 90% of games without experiencing this discomfort. At the minimum, Bottley needs to employ the services of a good editor, because he just doesn't have the facility with the written language. So I'll go back to Dragon Warriors with its good English, nice art and layout, on top of its perfectly adequate game.

Drop me a line if you want my copy for the price of postage.

Quote from: Windjammer;459016So there's a core rulebook, a bestiary (Out of the Pit), and a world book (Titan). Of these, the rulebook's author Graham bottley notes:





Interesting. I think the main draw of Dragon Warriors is the world and the modules for it. In that vein, would you use Titan's setting or Ellesland for your AFF game?

Sorry for the delay, I moved house and had trouble establsihing a new connection.

I'll be using FF with both settings - Titan for a knockabout game that hews to the tone of the gamebooks, Ellesland for something meatier. To reflect the grittier tone of DW I've cooked up a couple of simple house rules (stamina costs 2pts per point at chargen and combat's been tweaked to be significantly more dangerous). It's great how the system accommodates a range of styles and characters; I can create a non-magical Friar Tuck priest far more easily than with DW or early D&D, and much faster than any skill based game I've owned.

How far does it differ from the original rules? Is it basically those repackaged, is it a different game with the same name, something in between?

It's the original rules with a number of revisions; some substantial, others less so. Chargen is now point based with the random method as an option. Talents have been added - they're like feats, but you only get one and they're far too expensive to learn en masse. Magic has been expanded to include Sorcery! from the Crown of Kings series as well as a new divine system. Combat is much like it was before, with the loser of the contested roll determining armour absorption on a d6 in the same way as the victor does for damage. A few basic options like all-out attack and full defense have been added to make things a little more tactical.


Character sheet and preview here: http://www.arion-games.com/affmain.html

Thanks Drew, very helpful.

Quote from: Ghost Whistler;459894Someone should do an Appointment with FEAR supplement for, oh I dunno, M&M.

What are the chances? Test your luck!

That was a kickass book.  Sadly I don't think it would be as kickass on the second go.

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