From issue #80 of Dragon (December 1983):
Fond though I am of
The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
, I'm having a hard time understanding the sense in which the
Fighting Fantasy gamebooks are "a step beyond
Dungeons & Dragons." I had a lot of fun with these books. They were a great diversion when I wasn't able to get together with my friends for one reason or another. However, much like the
Choose Your Own Adventure books that preceded them, there were inherent limitations to the range of choices available in
any gamebook, no matter how well written. For what it's worth, I feel the same way about computer roleplaying games, which are vastly more sophisticated than gamebooks. Even at their best, they cannot compare to the freedom available to players in traditional tabletop RPGs.
Published on April 25, 2022 07:00