Lacking Natural Simplicity (Posts about titan)https://tkurtbond.github.io/categories/titan.atom2024-01-23T18:49:41ZT. Kurt BondNikolaWhy I like Advanced Fighting Fantasyhttps://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2021/06/21/why-i-like-advanced-fighting-fantasy/2021-06-21T12:48:21-04:002021-06-21T12:48:21-04:00T. Kurt Bond<p>I have a great fondness for the original <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Fighting_Fantasy">Advanced Fighting Fantasy</a>
series, even though I didn’t get them until 2011 or so. I think the
the Arion Games <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Advanced_Fighting_Fantasy#Advanced_Fighting_Fantasy_titles_published_by_Arion_Games_(2011-present)">2nd edition</a> of Advanced Fighting Fantasy is
probably a slightly better game, especially for campaigns (it made a
few adjustments, so character creation is not as random, and a few
other things), but I like it’s layout and typography less. Also,
there is something about the presentation of the game in <cite>Dungeoneer</cite>
as something for people new to RPGs that made it appealing.</p>
<blockquote>
<p>What is it about the Advanced Fighting Fantasy series that makes
it so cool?</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Well, the original <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy">Fighting Fantasy</a> gamebooks were neat. The
series was started by <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ian_Livingstone">Ian Livingstone</a> and <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_(British_game_designer)">Steve Jackson</a>.
(That's the British Steve Jackson, not the <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson_(American_game_designer)">American</a> one.) They
included a really simple RPG and a choose your own adventure style
adventure. That’s where the book is made up at numbered paragraphs,
and when you get to a decision point you can choose among two or more
choices, and those point you at different paragraphs depending on the
choice you make. For instance, you might have a choice to attack,
retreat to an earlier location, or try something off the wall. The
addition of the simple RPG added a lot, in my opinion, increasing
replayability. Anyway, that addition made the Fighting Fantasy books
some of the most popular gamebooks. Many of them are classics of the
genre. Most of them are fantasy, and set in the world of Titan, which
was popular enough that there was a world book devoted to it,
<a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Titan_(Fighting_Fantasy_book)">Titan</a>, and a book of monsters from that word, <a class="reference external" href="https://fightingfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Out_of_the_Pit">Out of the Pit</a>.
And the art used in illustrating the books was very evocative. (I
particularly liked Russ Nicholson's art (<a class="reference external" href="https://russnicholson.blogspot.com/">R1</a>, <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russ_Nicholson">R2</a>).</p>
<p>The mini RPG used in the Fighting Fantasy books was really simple: the
reader’s character has three stats, SKILL, which measures their
general level of skill, STAMINA, which measures the character’s energy
and fitness and how much damage they can take, and LUCK, which
measures how lucky the character is. SKILL is 1d6+6, STAMINA is
2d6+12, LUCK is 1d6+6. NPCs and creatures just have SKILL and
STAMINA. Generally, if the character is trying to do something
outside combat, they roll 2d6 <= their SKILL to succeed. Combat is
simple, the player rolls 2d6 and adds their skill, their opponent
rolls 2d6 and adds their skill, and the one with the higher total
subtracts 2 from the other’s STAMINA total. If they tie neither win.
LUCK is used to see how lucky the character is. For instance, if a
cave is collapsing a character will “Test their LUCK” and roll 2d6 <=
their LUCK to succeed at escaping the collapse. Every time a
character Tests their LUCK, they reduce their current luck by 1.
Luck can also be used in Combat to increase the wounds they deal or
decrease the wounds they take. If a character has wounded an
opponent, they can Test their LUCK, and if they are Unlucky the
opponent takes only 1 damage instead of 2, but if they are Lucky the
opponent takes 4 damage instead of 2. If the character has been
wounded, they can Test their Luck and if Lucky they take only 1
damage, but if they are unlucky they take 3 damage. So it is a
tradeoff.</p>
<p>Now, that system works well for a gamebook, but doesn’t have enough
detail for most RPG players. (Although it was published as an intro
RPG, in <a class="reference external" href="https://fightingfantasy.fandom.com/wiki/Fighting_Fantasy_-_The_Introductory_Role-playing_Game">Fighting Fantasy: The Introductory Role-playing Game</a>.)</p>
<p>Advanced Fighting Fantasy, written by Marc Gascoigne, takes that
framework and adds to it in a way that increases the interesting
detail of the system, without overcomplicating it too much.
Primarily, they add Special Skills, which allow characters to
specialize. For instance, if a character wanted to be good with a bow
and able to follow people through the forest they’d pick up the
Special Skills Bow and Awareness. Then, when shooting arrows at
opponents they’d add the rating for their Bow Special Skill to their
SKILL. When tracking someone through the forest, they’d add their
Awareness Special Skill to their SKILL. And so on. A sneaky person
might have the Special Skills Locks, Sleigh of Hand, Sneaking, and
Trap Knowledge. And so on. Someone from a noble background might
have Etiquette, Law, and Leadership. A merchant might have Bargan,
City Lore, and Evaluate.</p>
<p>I like that characters are competent in general, due to SKILL, but can
be more competent in their areas of interest, using Special Skills.</p>
<p>You can build important NPCs just like characters if you want the
detail, but for run-of-the-mill opponents you can just use SKILL and
STAMINA, so stating out NPCs and opponents is very easy.</p>
<p>And Advanced Fighting Fantasy added more detail to weapons and armor,
still keeping to the use of six sided dice only. So, instead of each
attack doing 2 STAMINA damage every time, you roll a die and depending
on the weapon, that tells you how much damage you do, by looking up
the weapon’s damage chart. For instance, a dagger might do 1 damage
on a 1 or 2, 2 damage on a 3 through 6, and 3 damage on a 7+ (because
there are a few things that add one to the damage roll, but not
directly to the resulting damage), while a great sword does 2 damage
on 1, 3 damage on a 2 or 3, 4 damage on a 4 or 5, 5 damage on a 6, and
6 damage on a 7+.</p>
<p>For instance, here's the damage for Dagger, Club, and Two-handed Sword:</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr><th class="head"><p>Weapon</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>1</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>2</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>3</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>4</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>5</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>6</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>7+</p></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td><p>Club</p></td>
<td><p>1</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>3</p></td>
</tr>
<tr><td><p>Dagger</p></td>
<td><p>1</p></td>
<td><p>1</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
</tr>
<tr><td><p>Two-handed Sword</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>3</p></td>
<td><p>3</p></td>
<td><p>3</p></td>
<td><p>4</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>That's an interesting way to get variable damage when you are limited
to using just six sided dice.</p>
<p>And of course there was a Magic Special Skill, and if you learned that
you could learn and cast spells, each spell costing an amount of
STAMINA to cast.</p>
<p>And Advanced Fighting Fantasy had a nice mass combat system, and lots
of setting detail from <cite>Titan</cite> and opponents from <cite>Out of the Pit</cite>
(both republished in trade paperback to go with the AFF trade
paperbacks), and so forth.</p>
<p>Anyway, Advanced Fighting Fantasy (AFF1e) was published in three trade
paperback sized books, <cite>Dungeoneer</cite> (1989), <cite>Blacksand</cite> (1990), and
<cite>Allansia</cite> (1994). <cite>Titan</cite> and <cite>Out of the Pit</cite>, were republished in
1989 in trade paperback sized books to match. <cite>Dungeoneer</cite> had the
basic rules, <cite>Blacksand</cite> added more options and described the city of
Blacksand (a fantasy hive of scum and villainy), and <cite>Allansia</cite> added
more options and described the continent of Allansia in more detail.
The books were less available in the US than in Great Britain where
they originated, and I never saw them in either bookstores (where they
were sold alongside the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks, hence the trade
paperback size) or in gaming stores. I got my copies in 2011, when
AFF 2nd Edition came out, for comparison.</p>
<p>In 2011 Graham Bottley of <a class="reference external" href="http://arion-games.com/">Arion Games</a> got the license to publish a
2nd edition of Advanced Fighting Fantasy (AFF2e). It was a more
familiar A4 sized book (the international paper size closest to the US
Letter paper size), and while I didn’t particularly care for its
layout choices, I did like the way it made the game better for running
campaigns (character creation was less random, and gave characters
more room for growth), its addition of a MAGIC stat and Magic Points
from which the costs for spells were deducted instead of STAMINA, and
its additions of multiple types of magic (one, Sorcery, was based on a
different gamebook series, the <a class="reference external" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Steve_Jackson%27s_Sorcery!">Sorcery!</a> series, from Steve
Jackson), and talents, which were special things a character could do.
I wasn’t so thrilled that priests now used a completely separate magic
system not based on casting spells costing Magic Points; in 1st
Edition priests had different spell lists they could learn from, but
otherwise used the same mechanics as Mages. AFF2e also added more
detailed armour, which works similarly to damage — roll a die, look up
how much damage is blocked on the armour chart.</p>
<p>Here's Leather Cuirass and Plate Armour:</p>
<table>
<thead>
<tr><th class="head"><p>Armour</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>1</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>2</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>3</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>4</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>5</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>6</p></th>
<th class="head"><p>7+</p></th>
</tr>
</thead>
<tbody>
<tr><td><p>Leather Cuirass</p></td>
<td><p>0</p></td>
<td><p>0</p></td>
<td><p>0</p></td>
<td><p>0</p></td>
<td><p>1</p></td>
<td><p>1</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
</tr>
<tr><td><p>Plate Armour</p></td>
<td><p>1</p></td>
<td><p>1</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>2</p></td>
<td><p>3</p></td>
<td><p>3</p></td>
<td><p>4</p></td>
</tr>
</tbody>
</table>
<p>AFF1e, by contrast, said that the Damage Table had been carefully
constructed to take into account armour (<cite>Dungeoneer</cite>, p. 163), and
assumed Heroes (the player characters) and their adversaries all wore
armor (<cite>Dungeoneer</cite>, p. 164), and if anyone took off their armour,
then any Damage Rolls (which was an index into a table, remember, not
the actual damage) had 2 added to them. I expect this explains why
the damage values on the Weapon chart all changed in AFF2e.</p>
<p>Anyway, I played some AFF 1st Edition games with <a class="reference external" href="https://tkurtbond.github.io/categories/cat_gaming/actual-play/the-kids/">the kids</a>, which
was a lot of fun. I also played some AFF 2nd Edition games with some
of them, which was also fun. I played AFF1E with some of the folks
from work, and it was fun, but they wanted something with more
detailed combat. I could see why, even AFF2e combat is fairly simple.
They rest of the game they liked.</p>
<p>And Arion Games has gone on to publish slightly more than a book a
year since 2011, covering the same ground as the original AFF’s three
books did, plus a lot more, including two more monster books (<cite>Beyond
the Pit</cite> and <cite>Return to the Pit</cite>), more options for heroes in the
<cite>Heroes Companion</cite>, a new area of Titan (<cite>Travels in Arion</cite>), a
herbal, and a smaller book on creatures from a particular area of
Titan (<cite>Creatures of Mishna</cite>). And just recently they published the
<cite>Combat Companion</cite>, which adds extra options for combat that the
gamers from my work mentioned earlier would have liked.</p>
<p>And Titan, the world of Fighting Fantasy and Advanced Fighting Fantasy
is a very nice little bit of everything fantasy setting, anchored by
locations and characters from 59 Fighting Fantasy gamebooks.</p>
<p>In summary, Advanced Fighting Fantasy is a role-playing game with
simple mechanics that still provide ample detail, set in an
interesting fantasy world.</p>
<p>Arion Games also publishes <a class="reference external" href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/product/214183/Stellar-Adventures">Stellar Adventures</a>, a science fiction
game that uses the same rules, customized for science fiction
adventures, which has several supplements as well. The <cite>Stellar
Adventures</cite> and <cite>Advanced Fighting Fantasy</cite>, 2nd Edition lines are all
available in PDF on <a class="reference external" href="https://www.drivethrurpg.com/browse/pub/667/Arion-Games/subcategory/1684_25223/Advanced-Fighting-Fantasy">DriveThruRPG.com</a>, with most available in
print-on-demand as well, very important in these days of online
gaming.</p>
<p><em>Last edited: 2021-08-09 12:10:07 EDT</em></p>
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End: -->Lessons from Titan and Advanced Fighting Fantasyhttps://tkurtbond.github.io/posts/2012/10/16/lessons-from-titan-and-advanced-fighting-fantasy/2012-10-16T10:07:04-05:002012-10-16T10:07:04-05:00T. Kurt Bond<p>Back at the beginning of October I started a thread on <a class="reference external" href="http://www.rpg.net/">rpg.net</a>:
<a class="reference external" href="http://forum.rpg.net/showthread.php?656478-Advanced-Fighting-Fantasy-Distinctive-elements-of-Titan-and-FF-for-an-adventure">Advanced Fighting Fantasy: Distinctive elements of Titan and FF for
an adventure?</a> to collect ideas for what should go in a <a class="reference external" href="http://www.arion-games.com/aff.html">AFF</a>
adventure I want to write for my gaming group.</p>
<p>Today I ran across a blog post, <a class="reference external" href="http://drbargle.blogspot.co.uk/2012/07/titanic-bullet-points.html">Known World, Old World: Titanic
Lesson Plan</a>, which also talks about distinctive elements of <a class="reference external" href="http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Titan_-_The_Fighting_Fantasy_World">Titan</a>.</p>