Steve Jackson's Sorcery! (Inactive)

Game Master Branding Opportunity

Greetings,

As I assume was true for others of my generation of European gamers, I was first introduced to RPGs not through D&D, but through the British "Fighting Fantasy" books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston (e.g. "The Warlock of Firetop Mountain", "Citadel of Chaos", "The Forest of Doom", etc). These books were IMO a step up from the "Choose Your Own Adventure" books, because they felt more "grown-up", and your "hero" had stats and a simple combat system with which to fight the bad guys. The artwork by Russ Nicholson and Malcolm Barter sucked me in as well and was dark and evocative (just do a search for "Citadel of Chaos Art" and you'll see what I mean). The encounters and stories were good as well, and really gave you the option of how to play your hero (callous, helpful, etc).

The five books of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! bumped it up even more, adding a full spellbook that your hero could cast from, and spreading a single adventure over four books while adding a magic system that AFAIK, has never been duplicated. The artwork in these books is also extremely evocative and the writing (if very "80's") was still top notch.

Though the years I've lost or given away all of my Fighting Fantasy books, but a few years ago I was gifted the Sorcery! books.

I'm wondering if anyone might be willing to join me in reliving this part of our youth (or just my youth if you never read these books) by play through them.

I haven't completely decided on how to do this, but here are my various suggestions. Please chime in with your opinion of what you think might work out best.

1) Play it through "straight" using the rules of the books with one person playing the hero and me typing all the text as it appears in the book. This is basically the equivalent of you reading the book.

2) Have more than 1 player in the group using the rules as written, and multiply the enemies by the number of players. Because of the power of magic in these books, only one person would be able to cast spells. This would allow players to add a bit more flavor by interacting with each other and not just the NPCs.

3) Convert the story into some other RPG (not Pathfinder). This would mean changing the structure of the books quite a bit and would take some prep time for me, as I'd have to do the conversion. To speed up this process I'd prefer to use a somewhat simpler RPG that is not Pathfinder that would fit the source material like Orginal D&D or a clone of it, or something simpler like Fate Core or Dungeon World, or something that would work with the dark setting like Shadow of the Demon Lord or Zweihander.

What do people think? Anyone interested in exploring the Shamutanti Hills, Khare, and beyond with me?

Z A P
I don’t have time to offer my opinion at the moment but I am super interested. For Analand!

Yay! The decision on which way to go obviously will have a lot to do with the interest this generates.

My personal vote would be for a Dungeon World chassis for this. Of course, we'd need people interested for it! But I love me some Dungeon World.

I used to love the Fighting Fantasy books and would love to play this.

I would be okay with either option 2 or 3, with a slight preference for the latter. I've only recently heard about Zweihander, it sounds as if it would suit.

Gread, Decimus!

We'll see how many more folks express interest, but I'm happy to run it with only two or three players.

Do you have any experience with Dungeon World? I think it would suit the setting quite well, and is a simpler system that would be easy to build on the fly.

If we follow the conversion to a standard RPG route, I'd most likely keep it fairly "rail-roady". That way we can follow the same choices as in the original books, and I wouldn't have to worry about you straying off the path too often. I'm okay with a bit of that, of course, but largely sticking with the options in the book would be much simpler, plus it would follow the setting of the original books.

I love this idea, but I can't commit the time to join the pbp.

I still have my Sorcery! books, although they are a little the worse for wear now.

Way back when, my brother ran the series for me as an AD&D solo campaign. I used my first AD&D character, a dark elf magic-user/thief. I think I was about level 6/7 when I started, and around 11/13 when I finished.

So, if my experience is anything to go by, an OD&D clone should work for this game.

Good luck bold adventurers, and I shall lurk and read your exploits!

I'm not familiar with Dungeon World but I have experience with AD&D and would be willing to try DW.

If we want to go with OD&D, I have everything from the white booklets through the boxed sets all the way to the Rules Compendium. The rules are easy enough that not everyone would need access to the books once we're done with character creation.

Sounds good!

Amd a thread: http://www.enworld.org/forum/showthread.php?195167-Any-Fighting-Fantasy-Con version-Notes

Thanks for posting the link, DO. Turns out I made the right choice not buying those old d20 conversions of the books.

You're welcome. Yeah, sounds like it!

Just seeing if there is any further interest in this idea.

Don't do 1, as there are dead end traps where a player gets trapped without a certain item or thing. I remember getting stuck at a lake due to not having some mcguffin.

Well, I was thinking that our game would have a "Reset to Post #XXX" mechanic that the players could invoke once each per book or something like that for that very reason.

Well, seems like we've reached a cap in terms of interest, although perhaps we'll pick up a few more stragglers.

Here are my preferences in terms of which system to use. If you're still interested in the game, please let me know what your preference is.

1) D&D
Not AD&D, but the original D&D. I have the Rules Compendium, which is the version I'd prefer to use. It's a pretty flexible system with lots of nostalgia built in if you're of a certain age, and since it's from the same time as when the Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston books were written, I think it would be a good fit thematically.

2) Dungeon World
This is a simple system that would be easy adapt to the Sorcery! books, and easy to modify on the fly. It's also easy to pick up if you haven't played it before. I haven't played it myself, but would be happy to explore it.

3) Fate Core
Another rules-simple game that's popular and could be adapted for the books.

I am still interested, but haven't played any of those systems. I did go for the Fate kickstarter so I have access to those pdfs.

Regardless, I'm willing to try any of those systems.

Wow, I loved the Sorcery! books (although oddly enough I've owned the 2nd book multiple times, it took me a couple of years to track down the entire series at once and then I took a four day weekend a few years ago and ran through the whole story.)

Consider me very interested, and as far as voting for systems goes, I'd vote for DND. It's a pretty simple system and it would be fun to dip back into the RPG of my youth.

We'd be happy to have you aboard, Vrog. I'm still waiting to hear what the system preferences are from the others who have expressed interest.

Hi Branding Opportunity - I'm definitely interested. Having just run my seven year old through the four books in the past few weeks I'm all up for the old skool. Rules Compendium DnD is fine, though I have a soft spot for the B/E books of BECMI...

Ok, so far we have the following parties interested and their stated game preference. Please check in to confirm that you are still interested in participating and that your system preference hasn't changed.

Dodekatheon: Dungeon World
Decimus Observet: FATE Core
Vrog Skyreaver: D&D
Oceanshieldwolf: D&D

That look about right?

That is indeed my vote.

I am still interested, have a slight preference for fate as I have the pdfs, but willing to play any of those systems so long as I don't need to get books.

Still interested, DnD.

Looks like we're going to be playing with the Basic D&D rules, specifically those from the D&D Rules Cyclopedia, which are currently available on sale at DriveThruRPG for $6.69 through the end of the day. If you have the old BECMI boxed sets, that would be fine too, the PDFs of which are available for even less than the Rules Cyclopedia. If you don't have any of the books or PDFs and don't wish to spend any further money, I'd suggest downloading the "No Art" version of Labyrinth Lord for free; it contains all the rules you'd need as a player.

Come on over to the OOC Discussion Thread so we can start talking about characters and stuff.

Just want to note, we're still accepting players for this game if anyone would care to join us.

I'm keeping the recruitment open until tomorrow (Friday 3/16) evening Pacific time in case anyone else is interested. If you've ever enjoyed books by Masters Ian Livingston, Steve Jackson, and the Fighting Fantasy books, please join us!

Hello all,

After a long hiatus we are restarting our D&D playthrough of Steve Jackson's Sorcery! books, but are in need of at least one more player to round out our group.

Our current group consists of a fighter and a thief, so there's still lots of room for growth here.

We are currently less than halfway through the first book ("The Shamutanti Hills"), so there's still a long way to go.

Here's a quick recap of our game:

This is a playthrough of the Steve Jackson's (of "Fighting Fantasy" fame, not the creator of GURPS and Munchkin) "Sorcery!" books: "The Shamutanti Hills", "Kharé, Cityport of Traps", "The Seven Serpents", and "The Crown of Kings". Instead of being a solo game, however, we are converting it to an OD&D game using the rules as presented in the "Rules Cyclopedia" and running it with multiple PCs. I'm using the original books as source material and supplementing it with a few items from the Sorcery! video game (based on the books) that came out a few years back.

The game is set on the world of Titan, the original setting for all the Sorcery! and Fighting Fantasy books.

Would anyone be willing to join us on this epic journey through one of the most beloved "Choose Your Own Adventure" books of the 80's?