The series was created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingston, two British businessmen who founded Games Workshop in the late 70’s. Games Workshop are now most known, of course, as the producers of Warhammer figures that I’m sure many of you know, but early in its life it was primarily importing tabletop games into the European market; the biggest being the initial Basic Set of Dungeons and Dragons. By the early 80s, Puffin Books, a local British publishing house, approached the duo after seeing their success with importing Dungeons and Dragons and asked them to write a book about TTRPGs. Instead, Jackson and Livingston decided to turn the book itself into a little RPG, and so Fighting Fantasy was born.
The first book in the series, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, came out in 1983 and became a smash hit success; this first run of books lasted for 12 years, and produced 60 odd gamebooks for nerds such as my younger self to playthrough, and imagine that ‘WE were the hero!’ in its story. They all sold incredibly well, and almost single handedly funded the other avenues of Games Workshop across its life as well as inspiring the explosion of the genre in its wake. Multiple authors would sign on to create the books, with many writing multiple throughout the years. A standout point of Fighting Fantasy is that it employed minor elements of a TTRPG in playing it. You rolled three stats for your character (Skill; your combat ability, Stamina; your hit points, and Luck; how lucky you are) each time you played through it, and engaging in combat with the numerous fantasy tropes you encountered was done by also rolling. It used entirely d6’s as it should have been easy for anyone to have a few somewhere in their house. Some books would add some extra little layers onto the formula, whether its inventive methods of trying to curb ‘cheating’ or in the form of extra stats or mechanics. The RPG elements were very light in design, but gave just enough for the game to feel new anytime you’d play through the book again and to help add to the adventure.
These articles are going to be more casual I think than any of my other stuff. I’m not going to really get into the history of the books, or talk about the author’s or anything like that. I don’t think that I’ll even spend much time talking about the mechanics of the book other than a brief explanation at the top. This initial article will likely be the only one to even have this kind of little explanatory intro, as others I'll probably just get right into. So just sit back and enjoy the ride as I attempt to beat a CYOA. Each time I'll open with a dramatic and absurd intro, based on whatever the book opens with so be prepared for some nonsense dramatic Octopus prose; you’ve been warned.
With no further delay, let’s get into the quick explanation of the simple rules and mechanics at play in a Fighting Fantasy gamebook.
The Mechanics
Here are the simple rules to follow when participating in some nonsense Fighting Fantasy books;- Three stats: Skill; your combat ability; Stamina; your health, Luck; your luckiness. You determine your stats each time you play the book by rolling a d6. Your Skill and Luck stats are rolled with 1d6, while your Endurance is rolled with 2d6. When rolling your stats, you usually add 6 to your roll for your total Skill, 12 to your roll for your total Stamina, and 6 again to the roll for your total Luck but this may change from book to book.
- You will need at least a single d6 die, but it would make things a little easier to have two.
- Sometimes you’ll be called upon to ‘test’ one of your stats. To do this, roll 2d6; if the total is equal to or lower than your stat, you’ve succeeded. After Testing specifically Luck, you lower it by 1 afterwards regardless of if you succeeded at it or not. Your luck can eventually run out, so be wary.
- In combat, you roll 2d6 and add your Skill to it and do the same for the enemy, adding it to their listed Skill. Whoever has the highest total number deals damage to the other, then you repeat and keep going until it’s settled. You always deal 2 damage to an opponent's Stamina when hitting them, but they may do more to you as listed in their description when you encounter them. If you want you can Test Your Luck when dealing damage to a creature to double your damage on a success, but if you fail you deal only 1. You can also Test Your Luck when being hit by a creature to reduce it to only 1 damage on a success, but if you fail you take double instead. It’s a risky move indeed.
- You can eat a Provision (some books call them Meals) at any time as long as you’re not currently fighting something and you have Provisions left, and it will restore 4 Stamina for each one you eat. You usually start with 10 Provisions/Meals, depending on the book; in Vault of the Vampire, you start with 10.
- Some games also have gold or some money system to track, as you can sometimes spend it at stores at certain points or use it to bribe your way out of things. Vault of the Vampire has gold coins, but you start with zero as you're a broke loser.
- Don’t die.
And that’s it. Nothing major or particularly in depth, but just enough to liven it up a little bit, you know? Some books introduce some other concepts or special stats to keep track of but they are hardly more advanced concepts than the usual norm here. Vault of the Vampire does in fact have such a special stat; Faith, being your characters ‘purity of heart and strength of your belief in the forces of good’ according to the book. You roll a d6 to determine it of course, and add 3 to find your total Faith.
With that out of the way, let’s get to it; the overly dramatic, pointless paraphrased intro of Vault of the Vampire as done by an ocean cephalopod. I’ve warned you.
The Intro
The inn around you is unlike any you’ve encountered yet. The air is as heavy as the fur cloak around your shoulders, and just as smothering. There is no chanting or clattering of mug against mugs. The few scattered tables, marked and half rotten, are as dismal as the room itself. The bare flicker of scattered candles smoulder bathes the few patrons in scant embers of light. Their listing, lidded eyes show that they are all well into their cups but yet they gaze only to the floorboards beneath them, absent of any tavern frivolity. Instead, they seem as grey and lifeless as the cold snow tipped mountains outside. As you sit at a table in the dark corner of the room, you catch some half glancing towards you, watching you with side turned gazes.These are the lands of Mauristatia? The rumours promised you wealth, but so far you’ve been greeted by only frigid, cutting winds and dense forests. Where are the relics, and the treasure? Even the coach ride here to town was as quiet as the grave, the coachman never uttering a word.
You approach the nearest table. Two men sit in the warped chairs; one is hanging his head on the wooden table, and the other is a tall, red-haired man. One of his sleeves is pinned to the chest of his scraggly tunic, and you notice that the sleeve is entirely empty of anything. The man hanging his head barely tilts his head towards you as you stop in front of them. You ask about the rumours of wealth and treasure for warriors such as yourself, and about the town itself; what has caused the great misfortunes to clearly be found here? He says nothing, but his head slowly raises up. An eye is scarred and closed over, and his face is tired looking. He looks at you with his one good eye, then spits at your feet. The red-haired man winces, and you see the faintest glimmer of confliction in his gaze before he sighs and looks away from you.
Then you notice her. The old looking woman, swathed in shawls and peasants clothes sitting at the other end of the room. She’s gulping down wine from her dirty goblet, and her eyes aren’t heavy, or cold looking. The blooming warmth of the wine shows on her reddened face, and it’s then that you notice the tears staining the weathered lines on her cheeks. As you look over at her, she catches your gaze. The goblet slams to the table, spilling the last of the dark red swill.
“Cowards, all of you!” Her slurring voice bellows into the emptiness of the room, its power and strength seemingly impossible from the slight body you see before you.
“No man here wants to do anything, do you? While the Count takes his pick of us, you just wallow and drink!”
The room became more silent than before, the heavy air becoming thicker somehow. The patrons say nothing, but turn their heads away from the old woman.
“Stranger, please. It’s the Count of this village, Heydrich! He lives in his great castle, and whenever he wishes he descends on us like a stalking wolf! He takes whoever he wishes back with him, and their screams carry on the damned winds! Why just yesterday, he too-he took-” Her face falls into her hands, and she begins to weep. When she returns, her voice quivers, just on the edge.
“He t-took my granddaughter, Nastassia. She hadn’t hurt anything in her seventeen years of life, stranger, and she was such a kind girl. And then she gets taken, just like that. The Count’s headless horseman came to our door, in his black coach, and then she was gone! And they all watched!”
Her words fill you with profound sadness down to the bone. It is fleeting however, replaced and honed into something else; determination. The warrior’s flame deep in your soul flares like the heat of the morning sun, and you know that this Count Heydrich will meet your sword. This you swear to the crying old woman.
“Please, rescue my Nastassia!”
The red-haired man stands up, his one empty sleeve bobbing uselessly at his side as he approaches you.
“In my youth, young man, I would have slain this foul creature. But,” he motions to the empty sleeve, “I can no longer. I am shamed by Svetlana’s words, nonetheless. I’ve saved some gold from my days as a mercenary like yourself. Please, take it and use it on your journey.”
You take the velvet bag of gold coins he gives you, and with one last nod to old Svetlana, turn towards the door.
“What’s your name, lad? Before you go. I want to know the name of one so brave.”
You turn to the red-haired man as you stand in the open doorway, the cold Mauristatian winds now billowing your fur cloak. You tighten the cloth wrappings that hold your wicked sword to your waist.
“My name is Senôr Garlic Blade. And Count Heydrich will die.”
The Character
Senôr Garlic Blade, the bane of all vampires and evil counts. He wields a blade you see, and is also a fan of garlic; perfect for destroying any undead sonuva bitch we encounter. He also deals with vampire adjacents, like some ghouls or wights or something; maybe like bad humans too, I don’t know, we’ll probably encounter some. He’s got a jacked Skill stat of 10 because he is a master swordsman apparently, only okay Stamina with 17 and pretty low Luck of 8 so he may have a rough time. He also has the maximum possible starting Faith, as Senôr Garlic Blade has some serious self-confidence apparently.I’m not sure if his high Skill will guarantee his victory. Some of the Fighting Fantasy books are very combat heavy, where it’s very hard to win without a good Skill stat. But, some aren’t and rely more on specific items you have to find or give you ways to avoid or skirt around encounters. There’s also the issue of his low Luck, which again depending on the specific book may be a death sentence if it’s a particularly bull**** one. Will these issues hamper his journey to defeat the vampiric Count Heydrich? I don't know; I haven't actually played the book yet for once before writing this intro.
The Run
I completed the book in one attempt, against all the usual Fighting Fantasy odds. It was a hard fought adventure, and Senôr Garlic Blade slew many an evil creature on his journey through the dank crypts of the Not-Transylvanian castle. He nearly went down on the first fight against the Brown Bear and Forest Ranger due to some terrible die luck, so I ended up quaffing down half my provisions right then and there. The most evil of them all? Probably the River Snake, it held only contempt and hate in its reptilian heart.
Is there anything cozier than a horribly scribbled, badly organized paper character sheet? I don’t think so. Also, good luck reading my chicken scratch.
Vault of the Vampire was a pretty typical Fighting Fantasy adventure. It had many of the classic elements that the series routinely has, being some absolute bull**** mixed in with some kinda cool adventure and encounters. It definitely was a very combat heavy experience, with many encounters being unavoidable so having a high Skill did turn out to be very important. It’s counterbalanced by many of them having options in them to make them easier, or even instantly defeat them if you possess the right item or what have you. This was the case of the second hardest individual enemy encounter (other than the Count, of course); the ‘Major Thassaloss’, who even gets a little piece of art that’s rad as hell.
A four-armed skeleton with a scythe that shoots green lasers out of its eye sockets? **** yeah, dude. Fighting Fantasy knows what’s up.
The start of my adventure was hilariously rough, as I somehow managed to make seemingly every wrong decision while trying to get to the evil castle. Literally right from the get go I lost a precious Faith point; right after the inn intro, a headless horseman busts through the door and points at you, leading you outside.
So I considered my options very carefully when deciding on my very first choice, weighing the pros and cons of eac- I attacked. I'm Senôr Garlic Blade, of course I attacked him. Literally didn't even look at the other options.
****ing bull**** goddamn headless little *****, ****in’ bony stupid horseman. I'm okay.
It didn't get much better from there. Luckily this first little section of you trying to make your way to the count’s castle through the Not-Transylvania countryside isn't terribly long, and I didn't encounter anything outrageously silly in the sense of unavoidable nonsense damage or anything like that.
I did get severely mauled by a magic wolf that was clearly the shapeshifted Count. Senôr Garlic Blade had it a little rough.
Almost every encounter in the castle also had some unique fight gimmick going on in it, such as the Horned Vampire Bat having backup in the form of the Vampire Weasel, which is apparently a thing Heydrich likes to keep around. Goddamn bloodsucking weasels, man; it can deal a staggering amount of damage to you if you get unlucky on the die rolls, like I did.
Does he have a thing for weasels? I’d be scared of a vampire weasel, honestly; those things are vicious.
On top of the fight gimmicks, there were frequently ‘false decisions’ in the castle like attacking the headless horseman earlier, that give you only punishment for trying. There's also a good helping of the FF classic, the dreaded random ‘Test your Luck, or take damage’ nonsense.
Why would Fighting Fantasy do this to you? **** you, that’s why.
Comes down entirely to random chance, and a couple of them inflicted some heavy damage; one pitfall trap in the underground crypts did 4 damage to the poor Senôr, double that of a normal combat attack. I was quickly out of Luck, considering I had very little to start with so I was walking into a lot of traps. Some encounters are also particularly ‘cheesy’ of course, such as the spooky Spectre that appears if you go to the Count’s bedroom (which you have to do). If you don't have a magic sword, you’ll just get ****ed up. There’s even a random die roll to determine if it just instantly kills you while trying to run away from it;
**** you, you ghostly little *****. I’m okay; luckily I rolled a 3 so I didn’t get arbitrarily instantly killed. Classic Fighting Fantasy.
Even if you do get away from it without instantly dying, it can still kill you through sheer damage output. I didn’t have a magic sword yet, and of course managed to roll a 5 when running away here so I only took a cute, casual 10 damage. It only nearly killed me, and lowered my Skill too. The books’ just telling you “better have a magic sword, loser.”
I cannot stress enough how important your Faith stat is in Vault of the Vampire. Liberally sprinkled throughout the book are Faith tests to resist various negative effects, and a few chances to get positive effects as well. The biggest reason Faith is so paramount to your success however is the bull**** tests with it that both Count Heydrich himself and the true last boss of the game, his sister Katarina, make you do. In both instances, you are forced to make a Faith test as soon as they appear, and if you fail you instantly lose. Count Heydrich’s instant death from failing this Faith test can be avoided if you found garlic somewhere along the way, but Katarina’s is just instant ‘bad end’;
It wouldn’t be a Fighting Fantasy book without some instant death checks on the final bosses.
Even compared to other Fighting Fantasy boss encounters (of the ones I've played at least), the sibling pair stands out as being particularly punishing. Katarina is luckily a bit of a wimp outside of that nonsense save or die Faith test, but the Count is a rightfully ridiculously strong opponent that you have to defeat no less than two times, as he turns into mist and flies away and comes back healed up once you get him to 4 Stamina initially. The battle with the undead fiend was truly harrowing, and it very nearly ended in defeat. In a tense decision, I decided to use the spell greatstrike I learned from a ghost lady when swinging at the Count to deal 6 damage in one blow, then on the next attack decided to test my Luck to deal more. I only had 4 Luck left at this point, so it was a risky move; but I managed to roll snake eyes, which in the world of testing your stats in Fighting Fantasy is the best possible roll, and dealt another 4 damage to the Count which swung the fight in my favour. That’s Fighting Fantasy, baby; some great adventure action if you really get into them.
Vault of the Vampire’s bull**** comes into play with the previously mentioned Faith tests and fight gimmicks, but also the fact that this game is impossible to beat if you do not get some choice items. You need to find a magic sword to even be able to damage the Count, otherwise you will just die. You also need what should be two obvious items; a crucifix and a wooden stake, for obvious purposes. If you do not have these, the Count will never be defeated even if you have a magic sword, so get ****ed basically.
Well, at least you tried.
Structurally, the book is fairly linear luckily so you have to go decently out of your way or make some terrible decisions to not find these items. When I first got to the castle, I got hit by something that filled me with profound anxiety; the dreaded ‘this is a maze’ FF trope where half the book is just a complicated looping maze you can get easily lost in.
Uh, I go through the north facing spur of the second story balcony and I- ****, I mean the southern reach of the second north-west door.
Luckily this isn't the case, unlike plenty of other books in the series; it seems to be designed into three distinct paths based on what direction you choose to go when you first get into the castle, with these three paths of course crisscrossing and intersecting based on your decisions in the usual CYOA fashion.
There's also evidently some curses and afflictions that you have to be wary of that I luckily managed to avoid ever getting, and I think one of them makes you instantly die if specific monsters damage you while you have it- ouch. You can also turn into a werewolf if you first get the minor lycanthropy affliction, which first only damages you then upgrades to giving you major lycanthropy, then if you encounter specific sections with major lycanthropy you turn into a werewolf. The result? Instant game over, of course.
Of course you instantly lose, what else would you expect?
Outside of the Count and Katarina, the game isn’t more difficult than others in the book series I’d say due to the amount of help you can get in the game. You can find quite a few healing potions and/or skeleton brandy, and plenty of the encounters can be entirely negated with particular items as I said earlier. There’s also a surprising amount of helpful characters you can encounter wandering around the castle. Heydrich keeps a very open door policy apparently, and you’ll find characters such as an actually helpful healer who can cure you of afflictions (for some gold, of course), the helpful ghost of a slain vampire hunter who gives you both hints and two of the essential items, another ghost who gives you some goddamn magic spells, and quite a few others. You can also of course find far less helpful characters, such as stumbling into Katarina before the finale, but luckily she doesn’t attempt to instantly kill you in that encounter.
Heydrich just lets anyone inside, apparently.
I think outside of the over reliance on your Faith stat, the book is fairly well designed. There's the ‘save or take damage and/or die' silliness sprinkled throughout, but it wouldn't be a FF book without some of that, afterall. The bosses are of course silly like we talked about earlier, but I cannot deny that the Count fight was ****in’ sick. What it does have though is a good variety of memorable fights with some pretty cool gimmicks, a consistent theme and vibe throughout, and I particularly like how ‘interactive’ a lot of the scenes and encounters are instead of just being rote ‘swing at them until they die or you die’ that lesser books in the series have. Every item you grab throughout the book seems to always have a noticeable pay off down the line, and it's nice to see them show up so frequently in encounters and scenes. It's also a rather long book I think for the series as it took me about a good hour and a half or so to finish, and after quickly perusing the book after I finished it there's plenty of stuff I missed along the way.
It's nothing overly unique or groundbreaking for the series, but it pulls off everything to a solid degree of success overall. I particularly like the vibe, and it really feels like a Gothic adventure in that regard. I am deducting points for the Faith nonsense, of course, but everything else has made up the difference I think. The monsters are all hideous undead monstrosities, and there's even a few minor scenes you can stumble onto that don't do much other than build atmosphere that are appreciated, as the series can often be very dry in desciptions and atmosphere. The best scene? Walking into a banquet hall of the castle to find some crackers and red wine on a table. Why wouldn't you drink the blood red wine you find in a vampires’ castle? What's the worst that can happen?
****in’ bull**** goddamn vampires leaving their ****in’ blood everywhere, making me lose precious Faith. ****. I'm okay.
Overall, I give Vault of the Vampire a solid 7/10. It's not bad, nothing special, has some issues here and there with some nonsense save or die’s, but it pulls off everything else to at least a competent level.
Just make sure you have a high Skill and Faith stat. Seriously, just set your Faith to at least 6 or 7, **** the book dude.
Until next time.
