History Literature / FightingFantasy

* AlwaysChaoticEvil: Any member of the Forces of Chaos -- whether you're a lowly goblin, frikkin' ugly mutant or one of the legendary "Snake Demons", you're always going to be evil. The only question is how bad you are -- whether you're merely a conniving shopkeeper out to rip off the hero or you're something so nasty that the entire species deserves a GuiltFreeExterminationWar.

* {{Catchphrase}}: The Scholastic imprint has been using "May Your Stamina Never Fail You!"

** 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 happens.

** In the beginning of ''Demons of the Deep'' the hero is made to walk the plank, tied up, into the sea by pirates -- and ''just happens'' to plunge down onto magic marks deep in the ocean which grant you with gills! And said pirates even gave him ''Provisions'' as a (stupidly wasteful) sick joke. Which also happen to be preserved by the magic.
** In ''Crypt of the Sorcerer'' a vital clue is just chiselled onto a boulder, standing in the middle of frigging nowhere out in the wilderness.

** [[http://fightingfantasy.wikia.com/wiki/Grimslade%27s_Demon The Demon summoned by Grimslade]] in "Scorpion Swamp" is stronger than any enemy in the series; including [[DemonLordsAndArchDevils Demon Lords.]]

* EvilVsEvil: The novel The Trolltooth Wars portrays a war between Balthus Dire and Zharradan Marr, each of them a BigBad from earlier gamebooks. (And the hero gets assistance in defeating them from Zagor, the BigBad of the first gamebook and most frequently recurring villain in the series. The three of them were once friends, but had a falling out and now hate each other's guts.)

* ExperiencedProtagonist: In most of the books, your character is a famous adventurer or veteran warrior, which is why you're sought by ThePowersThatBe to do their suicide mission. The most successful has to be the 'Hero of Tannatown' from ''Stormslayer'', who starts off with a legendary magic sword they quested for in the past and two extra-special items plus an unusually high amount of starting Gold Pieces. On the other end of the spectrum is the guy from ''The Port of Peril'' who's experiencing one of the economic downturn moments of being an adventurer. He starts off doing a DumpsterDive for food and only has some "useless" trinkets as a reminder of previous adventures. The protagonists who are newbies are the poor trapped civilians in ''House of Hell'' and ''Blood of the Zombies'' and the dinosaur rancher of ''Robot Commando''. As well as the ones who start the book as actual teenagers with terrible minimal stats, ''The Crimson Tide'' and ''Secrets of Salamonis'', but fortunately those books have something of an experience system.

* FantasyGunControl: In most books, the most advanced missile weapon is a crossbow. But there are books, especially those set in the Old World, where your character can encounter or have a blackpowder gun.

* HumanDemonHybrid: Olodoran Zagor, the titular villain of ''Literature/TheWarlockOfFiretopMountain'', is stated to be born from the union of a human and a demon, his father being Gerlekus Zagor, a Necromancer and practitioner of dark arts, and his mother being a female Hell Demon summoned by Gerlekus.

* JokerImmunity: In a setting where demon princes and epic-level sorcerers keep getting killed, Lord Azzur and Baron Sukumvit have never faced any lethal payback despite showing up in the Titan background book as some of the most worst individuals on the planet. While it's justified with Sukumvit, who's sins are strictly limited to his lethal Trial of Champions and he's otherwise a fair ruler, Lord Azzur is not only the brutal kingpin of Port Blacksand, he's also had a hand in world-threatening activities like bringing back Zanbar Bone and trying to execute the good wizard Nicodemus in ''The Port of Peril''.

* NighInvulnerable: Many demonic and undead enemies are immune to normal weapons and if you don't have a magic sword and an escape option, then the monster would kill you automatically. Zanbar Bone takes the cake: to kill him your character first has to shoot him through the heart with a silver arrow. This only paralyses him for a short time; then you must rub a mixture of [[spoiler: witches' hair and black lotus]] into his eye sockets. He is immune to everything else. See LuckBasedMission above for more on why this is particularly frustrating.

* OneSteveLimit: Averted quite literally; see Name's the Same in the Trivia section.

* SeparateButIdentical: The Nomad Games versions allow you to pick between an Elf and Paladin (these two are the lone female icons), a Dwarf, a Barbarian, a Rogue and a Chaos Warrior. The only difference between them is the artwork, otherwise they have the exact same stats and talent choice.

* ShowWithinAShow: In ''Magehunter'', to defeat Mencius, you listen to a story by Al-Haddar, which starts out as a metaphor for your own adventure -- Jaddar pursued the evil Abdul Al-Azrad with his magic bow. Abdul escapes, but Jaddar pursues, and en route encounters a man who tells him the story of a prince who befriended an evil wizard.\\
In this substory, the wizard was captured but the prince freed him, and the wizard turned him into a lion. The lion prince wandered the land in desolation and eventually came across a genie, who had to kill him. First, however, the genie told the lion prince the story of his brother to explain why he had to kill him.\\
The genie's brother was a great genie, but he was killed by his jealous brother. The brother was thrown out of the tower, and when he tried to get in, he found his way blocked by a snake, a lion, and a raven, and he was instructed to kill the most dangerous.\\
At this point, the story transitions to second-person choose your own adventure style, but still has Al-Haddar's quotation marks. When the most dangerous animal is dead, the hero is approached by an exile prince who asks for aid -- and at this point Al-Haddar stops narrating.

-->'''Myurr''': "Greetingss, Demon-Ssstalker. Welcome to the culmination of my plansss."

* TurnUndead: Most books with many undead enemies provide you with a spell that can banish them without a fight. Notably in ''Dead of Night'' and ''Knights of Doom''. ''The Keep of the Lich-Lord'' features the Charm of Unbinding, an exceptionally powerful variation that obliterates every undead around at once, and can prove vital against the BigBad. ''Night of the Necromancer'' uses it as a twist: Since you are a ghost, many characters mistaking you for an evil spirit will use it against you.

* VillainProtagonist: The chance to play an out and out bad guy comes up surprisingly frequently in the series. You get to play a pirate in ''Seas of Blood'', a thief in ''Midnight Rogue'' and a few books offer options to go an evil route (such as ''Scorpion Swamp'').

* WeaponOfXSlaying:
** In most books in which you set out to defeat a specific evil (Chaos Warriors, Undead, Demons, and the like), there is one to be found and make battles much easier. It is very often the only way to stand a chance against the FinalBoss. Overlaps with InfinityPlusOneSword, as they always give you a hefty power boost.

* CrystallineCreature: Crystal Sentinels are golems made of quartz and rubies to serve as the PraetorianGuard for higher-ranking forces of evil, such as Sharella the Great Witch in ''Literature/CavernsOfTheSnowWitch'' and Bythos the Lord of the Abyss in ''Literature/SlavesOfTheAbyss''. They are extremely durable, have SKILL stats in double digits, and cannot be harmed by edged weapons like swords or axes -- adventurers will need to collect a [[DropTheHammer warhammer]] in order to smash these enemies apart in combat, or else die in an unwinnable battle.

* 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.

A series of {{Gamebooks}} targeted at children and teenagers, responsible for popularising the concept in the United Kingdom. The majority of the 50+ books were set in a generic fantasy land called Titan, which later got its own tabletop RPG spin-off. Originally published by Puffin throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the series went out of print in 1995, having amassed 59 gamebooks, several spin-off series (including a range of non-interactive novels) and many other related books, boardgames and video games.

According to the book ''Dice Men'', while ''Literature/TheWarlockOfFiretopMountain'' was first published in 1982, the idea behind Fighting Fantasy got its start in 1979 when a Penguin Books editor, Geraldine Cooke, approached Ian Livingstone, the co-owner of Creator/GamesWorkshop. Her best friend told her about the ''TabletopGame/DungeonsAndDragons'' craze happening in the UK at the time. Geraldine was fascinated by the concept and asked if he could write a book about rpgs. Ian replied that it would probably be better to make a book that gave readers the rpg experience and Geraldine agreed. Initially Penguin Books thought the idea was failure, so Geraldine took the proposal to its kids book wing Puffin who took the gamble. After initial slow sales, the book eventually became a best-seller for Puffin leading to demand for follow-up books and eventually an entire line.

# ''Literature/DeathtrapDungeon'' (Ian Livingstone) -- Received a [[VideoGame/DeathtrapDungeon videogame adaptation]] in 1998.

The books 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). Most of Jackson and Livingstone's books are available electronically on Steam in the ''Fighting Fantasy Classics'' content pack.

# ''Literature/TheWarlockOfFiretopMountain'' (Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone) -- So far receiving '''two''' iOS Adaptations. One by Big Blue Bubble and the other by Tin Man games, which as of October 2018 has received a UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch adaptation.

Not to be confused with the Japanese name of Creator/DataEast's fantasy arcade game ''VideoGame/{{Hippodrome}}''.

* PrintLongRunners: The series has been running since 1982, including a seven-year gap between 1995 and 2002. There are currently 67 "main series" gamebooks across the different publishers, plus the four-volume ''Literature/{{Sorcery}}'' spinoff, the two-volume ''Clash of the Princes'' boxed set which forms a two-player adventure, two supplementary titles (''Out of the Pit'' lists various monsters, ''Titan'' is a guide to the world of ''Fighting Fantasy''), two books that adapt the rules for a TabletopRPG, four books in the ''Advanced Fighting Fantasy'' RPG system, seven novels, a magazine that ran for three years, the [=10th=] Anniversary Yearbook, and the [=25th=] Anniversary edition of ''Warlock of Firetop Mountain''. And that's not even counting the ever-growing list of titles in the ''Advanced Fighting Fantasy'' 2nd edition catalog published by Arion Games (which includes the sci-fi spin-off ''Stellar Adventures'').

** Keith Martin's books usually feature long and thoroughly detailed quests, having you exploring various wide landscapes with many different settings, leaving you free to go pretty much wherever you want and little penalty for skipping sections, for enormous ReplayValue potential. He also adds detailed scenery, enthralling atmosphere, fleshed out Non-Player Characters, and battles with a charismatic and considerably powerful FinalBoss (thankfully made much easier with an InfinityPlusOneSword and some trinketscollected in a GottaCatchThemAll quest), and often a much easier TrueFinalBoss fought in the GoldenEnding.

** ''Howl of the Werewolf'' is generally quite lenient about this (if you don't collect all the PlotCoupons it's still possible to win the game, just a bit trickier), with one exception: if you attempt the vampire hunting sidequest and fail to kill its BonusBoss properly, then you lose the game at the point where you would otherwise have won.

# ''Literature/BattlebladeWarrior'' (Marc Gascoigne) -- SpiritualSuccessor to ''Literature/IslandOfTheLizardKing''

# ''Literature/BloodOfTheZombies'' (Ian Livingstone) -- A SpiritualSuccessor and companion-piece to ''Literature/HouseOfHell'' written by Ian Livingstone to celebrate Fighting Fantasy's 30th birthday, and the final new adventure to be published by Wizard. The first ''Literature/FightingFantasy'' gamebook iOS adaptation by Tin Man Games.

* ExperiencedProtagonist: In most of the books, your character is a famous adventurer or veteran warrior, which is why you're sought by ThePowersThatBe to do their suicide mission. The most successful has to be the 'Hero of Tannatown' from ''Stormslayer'', who starts off with a legendary magic sword they quested for in the past and two extra-special items plus an unusually high amount of starting Gold Pieces. On the other end of the spectrum is the guy from ''The Port of Peril'' who's experiencing one of the economic downturn moments of being an adventurer. He starts off doing a DumpsterDive for food and only has some "useless" trinkets as a reminder of previous adventures. The protagonists who are newbies are the poor trapped civilians in ''House of Hell'' and ''Blood of the Zombies'' and the dinosaur rancher of ''Robot Commando''. As well as the ones who start the book as actual teenagers with terrible minimal stats, ''The Crimson Tide'' and ''Secrets of Salamonis''.

* ExperiencedProtagonist: In most of the books, your character is a famous adventurer or veteran warrior, which is why you're sought by ThePowersThatBe to do their suicide mission. The most successful has to be the 'Hero of Tannatown' from ''Stormslayer'', who starts off with a legendary magic sword they quested for in the past and two extra-special items plus an unusually high amount of starting Gold Pieces. On the other end of the spectrum is the guy from ''The Port of Peril'' who's experiencing one of the economic downturn moments of being an adventurer. He starts off doing a DumpsterDive for food and only has some "useless" trinkets as a reminder of previous adventures. The protagonists who are newbies are the poor trapped civilians in ''House of Hell'' and ''Blood of the Zombies'' and the dinosaur rancher of ''Robot Commando''.

* ExperiencedProtagonist: In most of the books, your character is a famous adventurer or veteran warrior which is why you're sought by ThePowersThatBe to do their suicide mission. The most successful has to be the 'Hero of Tannatown' from ''Stormslayer'', who starts off with a legendary magic sword they quested for in the past and two extra special items plus an unusually high amount of starting Gold Pieces. On the other end of the spectrum is the guy from ''The Port of Peril'' who's experiencing one of the economic downturn moments of being an adventurer. He starts off doing a DumpsterDive for food and only has some "useless" trinkets as a reminder of previous adventures. The protagonists who are newbies are the poor trapped civilians in ''House of Hell'' and ''Blood of the Zombies'' and the dinosaur rancher of ''Robot Commando''.

* GaiasLament: A particularly poignant dream in ''Literature/PhantomsOfFear'' has your Elf appearing in a technologically advanced city in a far-future Titan, complete with automobiles, high rise buildings of glass-concrete-and-steel, and emotionally dead nine-to-five workers dragging themselves to soul-crushing smog-spewing factories; to an Elf, a Child of Nature, this industrial monstrosity is as heartbreaking as it is nightmarish to behold.

* MetalMuncher: Iron-Eaters are [[BlobMonster amoeba-like monsters]] which, as hinted by the name, can dissolve iron and alloys for food, including those found on adventurers in the form of weapons and armors, usually by dropping on them by surprise from the ceiling.

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). Most of Jackson and Livingstone's books are available electronically on Steam in the ''Fighting Fantasy Classics'' content pack.

# ''Literature/TheWarlockOfFiretopMountain'' (Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone) -- So far receiving '''Two''' iOS Adaptations. One by Big Blue Bubble and the other by Tin Man games, which as of October 2018 has received a UsefulNotes/NintendoSwitch adaptation.

# ''Literature/DeadOfNight''(Jim Bambra and Stephen Hand)