History Literature / FightingFantasy

The books were were written or presented by Ian Livingstone and Steve Jackson [[note]]a different Steve than the Steve who runs Steve Jackson Games, though the latter has written a few books, see below[[/note]]. The series has had several SpinOff series, most notable being ''Literature/{{Sorcery}}'', ''Literature/TheRiddlingReaver'' (a multi-player gamebook available for up to 4 participants -- a GameMaster and 3 or more adventurers), and a game on the UsefulNotes/NintendoDS. In 2017, Nomad Games made ''Fighting Fantasy Legends'' and a year later it came up with ''Fighting Fantasy Legends Portal'' for the PC and IOS. Meanwhile since 2011, Arion Games has been reprinting and expanding on ''Advanced Fighting Fantasy'' (which now has ''Stellar Adventures'' as a sci-fi spin-off).

* ArmorIsUseless: In that usually getting better armor or a shield will give you a small Skill increase and nothing else. In a few books having a piece of armor or a shield will protect you getting hurt at one or two specific points (e.g. the manticore shooting his tail spikes at you before the fight in ''Deathtrap Dungeon'', having a helmet will make you take less damage and stay conscious at one point in ''Knights of Doom''). Some books try to be a little more ambitious, like ''Legend of the Shadow Warriors'' which has armor decreasing damage, but with some of the heavier sets lowering your skill and being destroyed after a certain amount of damage. ''Space Assassin'' has an Armor score that works like the Luck score, where if you get shot you roll against the score and take no damage if you make the roll, but it will go down every time you make a roll to show your armor taking damage and getting less reliable.

* UnlikelyHero: The player character in ''House of Hell''. You're pretty much an average joe who was in the wrong place at the wrong time. (This is reflected by the fact that you start the adventure unarmed, resulting in a penalty to your Skill until you actually find a weapon.)

** The Inland Sea region is the Literature/ArabianNights Persian Gulf with bits of ancient Mesopotamian, classical/mythological Greek and Phoenician Mediterranean.

* HeroicNeutral: Nicodemus spent most of his life fighting the forces of evil. He eventually became so burned out from the struggle that he retired to Port Blacksand, where almost no-one would bother him. While he doesn't typically do much these days (and can become very irritated if he's bothered by adventurers who try to run to him to solve all their problems for them), he will help if the problem is sufficiently big enough.

* MedievalStasis: Averted for the Old World, they're evolving into a hybrid of Dark Ages, Renaissance and {{Steampunk}}. It's played straight for Khul and Allansia which are both so under constant threat from Chaos forces that they can barely get any technological innovation happening - though they do get a few knicknacks from the Old World.

** One of the big evil empires on Titan is the desert-dwelling (but expanding) Snake Man empire, who were created when one of the lesser gods of evil collected a variety of human and snake specimens and blended them together. Unusually for a god, there were "''a great many horrific mistakes, on which it is better not to dwell,''" before said god actually managed to create the species they wanted.

* OurImpsAreDifferent: Imps are a recurring, minor threat, with the most common being Fire Imps -- bat-like, fire-breathing, flying critters with a human's face and horns, who attack the heroes by spitting fireballs. They're FragileSpeedster-type enemies who, despite being fast, goes down in two hits, although in a few books (like ''Literature/TrialOfChampions'') the Fire Imps displays the ability to further transform into far more powerful Fire Demons upon being slain.

* {{Retcon}}: Zagor, the Warlock of Firetop Mountain has at least two very different backstories portraying him as either a brooding but not especially evil hermit, a more evil but still human would-be-EvilOverlord. Three negates any of this and fuses him with the antagonist demon from ''Casket of Souls'' from Puzzle Quest Books.

* ScrewYouElves: An unusual variant in that the Elves did this to ''themselves''. One group of Elves believed that, since you CantArgueWithElves, they should lead the other races to actively fight the forces of evil in Titan. The rest of the Elves balked at this, considering it tyranny. The dissident Elves and their prince tried to force the issue by trying to assassinate the Elf king and take power over the Elven nations themselves. The rest of the Elves fought back and nearly defeated the dissident Elves, until the dissidents fled underground. These dissident Elves eventually became the Dark Elves.

* ThievesGuild: Accepted as a fact of life in Port Blacksand. In one book you actually play a member of the guild out to make his bones.

* {{Uberwald}}: Parts of ''Legend of the Shadow Warriors'' and ''Moonrunner'' contains a simply ridiculous number of Expies and Shout-Outs to every well-known horror movie imaginable, of every era and sub-genre, including the Uberwald classics. Also ''Vault of the Vampire'' and its sequel.

* BigGood: Fortunately, the benevolent mages, {{High Priest}}s and rulers are as many as [[TheBigBadShuffle the countless evils plaguing Titan]], not to mention the god's servants and the gods themselves. In many stories, one lends you priceless assistance, when they don't recruit you directly. The three [[LivingLegend Star Pupils]] serve as this to the series as a whole, among which [[TheArchmage Gereth Yaztromo and Arakor Nicodemus]] being the most recurring and influential.

* ArmorIsUseless: In that usually getting better armor or a shield will give you a small skill increase and nothing else. In a few books having a piece of armor or a shield will protect you getting hurt at one or two specific points (e.g. the manticore shooting his tail spikes at you before the fight in ''Deathtrap Dungeon'', having a helmet will make you take less damage if you were to get hit on the head). Some books try to be a little more ambitious, like ''Legend of the Shadow Warriors'' which has armor decreasing damage, but with some of the heavier sets lowering your skill and being destroyed after a certain amount of damage. ''Space Assassin'' has an Armor score that works like the Luck score, where if you get shot you roll against the score and take no damage if you make the roll, but it will go down every time you make a roll to show your armor taking damage and getting less reliable.

# ''Literature/SecretsOfSalamonis'' (Steve Jackson and Jonathan Green)

* EverythingsBetterWithDinosaurs:
** In a couple of the books you fight lizardmen who use dinosaurs as mounts.
** In ''Robot Commando'' you play the pilot of a HumongousMecha whose job is to herd dinosaurs.
** Also the Pit Fiend, a tyrannosaur-like creature that appears in ''Deathtrap Dungeon''.

** The reprint cover of ''Sorcery!'' The Seven Serpents shows all Seven Serpents on the cover, implying there would be a ''BossRush'' at some point in the story, but nothing of the sort happened.

# ''Crystal of Storms'' (Rhianna Pratchett)

# ''Secrets of Salamonis'' (Steve Jackson and Jonathan Green)

# ''Shadow of the Giants'' (Ian Livingstone) -- forthcoming
# ''Secrets of Salamonis'' (Steve Jackson) -- forthcoming

* DropTheHammer: You can obtain and use a warhammer as an alternate weapon in a few different books. Some enemies like Stone Golems and Crystal Warriors can NoSell attacks from edged weapons, in which case blunt weapons are your only hope of surviving.
** In ''Legend Of Zagor'', the Stonehammer is Stubble's InfinityPlusOneSword, being a weapon that he can use more effectively than the other playable heroes.

* KarmaMeter: Honour in several of the books. In most of these books a sufficiently high Honour score nets bonuses towards the end, most prominently in enabling that book's InfinityPlusOneSword.

** In ''Sword of the Samurai'', if Honour drops to 0, the main character automatically commits seppuku. On the other hand if you've managed to get it really high, you can unlock the full potential of the magic sword you're trying to recover from the BigBad.

** In ''Knights of Doom'', the lower the PC's Honour, the easier it is to corrupt them, but getting it high is the only way to be worthy of the book's ultimate magic weapon, which of course is [[AchillesHeel the only one that can hurt the Big Bad]]. ''Tower of Destruction'' has a stat with similar utility.
** Honour also appears in ''Night Dragon'', though it has little to no adverse effects.

** BalefulPolymorph endings are also commonplace, with lycanthropy curses a particular apparent favorite of many of the authors. ''Howl of the Werewolf'' places its cards on the table right from the very title.

* ShopliftAndDie: Generally justified that the shopkeeper who forged the items he's selling is a powerful wizard, or the vendor just throws an item of merchandise at you and scoots away. Yaztromo is polite enough to warn you twice before unleashing BalefulPolymorph on you. You later run into a talking crow who was a thief who had this happen to him...

* AwesomeMcCoolName: Plenty. Among the more memorable is the chaos warrior Darkblade Skullbiter.

* TheComputerIsALyingBastard: The books tell you that they're beatable even with the worst possible scores. Fans have pointed out that this is only fully true for a few books (''Citadel of Chaos'' or ''Starship Traveller'') and somewhat true for others (''Warlock of the Firetop Mountain''), and very dubious in most others (being theoretically winnable with super-luck). In some cases, it's a complete lie, as rolling low on your initial scores makes it '''impossible''' to win without cheating (''House of Hell'' or ''Crypt of the Sorcerer'')

* AtlantisIsBoring: Subverted with ''Demons of the Deep'', which offers an interesting adventure set underwater.

* KarmaMeter: Honour in several of the books. In most of these books a sufficiently high Honour score nets bonuses towards the end, usually in enabling that book's InfinityPlusOneSword.

* ProngsOfPoseidon: Completely and totally inverted with the Trident of Skarlos. It breaks both of the rules mentioned on that trope's page in that it has nothing at all to do with the sea and is actually an EmpathicWeapon that takes pleasure in ''destroying'' demonic creatures.

* SomethingCompletelyDifferent: The books are predominantly straightforward fantasy, with some notable exceptions:
** There are a few SciFi stories appearing sporadically across the range, although they stopped altogether near the end in favor of the "traditional" adventures in Titan.
** ''Freeway Fighter'' takes place in a ''Mad Max''-type near-future society.
** Three of Steve Jackson's books offer totally unique settings: ''House of Hell'' is a horror movie-inspired story set in the present day, ''Appointment with F.E.A.R.'' is a superhero adventure and the player character in ''Creature of Havoc'' is the mindless monster you'd usually fight. All of these books punish the player for acting as if they're still in a fantasy/action story.
** ''Black Vein Prophecy'' has none of the usual introduction or rules at all, sending you straight into the first paragraph -- you don't roll up your statistics or find out ''anything'' about the adventure at all before starting.
** ''Blood of the Zombies'' does not have the Skill stat. In combat, how well you do depends on your weapons which do varying amounts of damage. Additionally all your enemies die in a single hit.

* FantasyGunControl: It used to be played straight, ''Literature/MageHunter'' was notable because your titular witch hunter carried a gun and was the first time a character in a Fighting Fantasy fantasy setting had one. But that character was from another dimension, as later books came out it showed the Old World in a state of technological improvement and so they started to have guns. In the Scholastic Fighting Fantasy books, Khul and Allansia have a few too as imports from the Old World or artifacts carried by dwarfs.