The Role-Playing Game Books

The Role-Playing Game Books

The Role-Playing Game Books is a term used by Titannica to group together two books, Fighting Fantasy - The Introductory Role-playing Game and The Riddling Reaver, that have proved difficult for publishers and readers alike to categorize into a sub-series. Arguably, the books that are contained in the Advanced Fighting Fantasy system are also role-playing gamebooks, however, they fit within their own sub-series as defined in a number of publications.

The Books

Main article: Fighting Fantasy - The Introductory Role-playing Game (1984)

Main article: The Riddling Reaver (book) (1986)

Both of the above were attempts to help develop the Fighting Fantasy concept beyond gamebooks and into a more flexible role-playing system.

The Modules

• Beyond the Shadow of a Dream (1985 - White Dwarf)
• Deathtrap on Legs (1985 - Warlock)
• The Tower of Hades (1986 - Warlock)
• The Ring of Seven Terrors (1986 - Warlock)
• Battle of Grey Rock (1986 - Warlock)
• The Dreaming Sands (1986 - Warlock)

Grouping Together in Titannica

These two books were often written into the book listings in the initial pages of each Fighting Fantasy publications, but despite the listings having various sub-series headings, such as "Sorcery!" or "Novels" "The Advanced Fighting Fantasy System", these two books were never included as a sub-series under their own sub-title, but instead were listed separately from the other books, but always together.

This changed in the 25th Anniversary Edition of The Warlock of Firetop Mountain where the books were grouped with Out of the Pit and Titan - The Fighting Fantasy World as well as the pure Advanced Fighting Fantasy books, under the singular heading "Fighting Fantasy: The Role-Playing Game and Advanced Fighting Fantasy". This suggests that the compilers of the "Fighting Fantasy Collection" section wanted to group all the books together to show that they were each part of the development of the role-playing element of Fighting Fantasy. Given that Advanced Fighting Fantasy was previously defined as containing five of the seven books listed in that section, it would suggest that "The Role-Playing Game Books" referred to the remaining two, i.e. Fighting Fantasy - The Introductory Role-playing Game and The Riddling Reaver.