Fighting Fantasy Adventures Deep Dive
What the Community Thinks About Fighting Fantasy Adventures
The commentary on Fighting Fantasy Adventures reads as a return to the gamebooks that many players grew up with. Paul Groen of Gaming Rules! treats the card game as a tribute to the original line, describing Martin Wallace‘s design as a way of recreating the feel of those books. An earlier video log from the same channel, Gaming Rules!, covers a demo session at a convention and a return to the game a year after an earlier playthrough, with the full campaign still ahead. Kimberly, who previews it in a Tabletop Tolson upcoming-games video, approaches it from the other direction, looking forward to a co-operative fantasy adventure with a role-playing feel and no game master.
The praise comes with a clear warning that the game is meant to be unforgiving. Groen says it should be approached with the expectations of old-school play, where a bad run of rolls can end the adventure. That framing shapes how the game is positioned: a strong fit for players who enjoy that style, and a harder sell for anyone expecting a more forgiving experience.
Core Mechanics That Define Fighting Fantasy Adventures
Card-Driven Adventure Without a Game Master
Kimberly highlights the card-based system as the feature that delivers a role-playing feel without anyone needing to run the game, noting that the campaign spans five adventures drawn from four Fighting Fantasy stories, and that Martin Wallace is the designer behind it. Groen‘s account of play follows the same logic: the game recreates the classic gamebook decision of which door to take, and each path brings its own consequences as the adventure unfolds.
Dice-Driven Combat and Fate Rerolls
Combat is the other pillar, and it is resolved with a large amount of dice rolling. Groen explains that the standard rule lets a player spend Fate to reroll all of the dice in a fight. In Groen‘s group, spending Fate did little to change outcomes or sometimes made things worse, so the table adopted a house rule that lets a player spend one Fate to reroll either their own dice or the enemy dice. Groen says that without the change the group would have died about two thirds of the way through Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the first scenario.
The Fighting Fantasy Adventures Experience
Old-School Randomness
Groen describes the feel in plain terms: a style of play where you pick a path, take a hit, and sometimes start over, saying the original books were very random, and that the game keeps that quality through lots of dice rolling and sudden damage that follows a single decision. For players who remember the books, that unpredictability is part of the appeal. Groen‘s group still finished the first adventure in roughly two and a half to three hours.
Immersive Co-operative Storytelling
Kimberly‘s preview leans on immersion, describing the game as a co-operative fantasy fighting experience, with a reaction to the setup that it sounds very immersive. The play time cited runs from about an hour to three hours per session, with a full campaign of roughly 10 to 15 hours. That scale points to a game meant to be played as a continuing story rather than a single evening.
What Makes Fighting Fantasy Adventures Stand Out
Faithful Capture of the Gamebook Feel
Groen‘s strongest praise is for how closely the game matches its source material, saying Martin Wallace has captured most of the essence of the scenarios played so far, and pointing to the artwork as conveying the same atmosphere as the original books. For players who know the books, that fidelity to tone is the clearest reason the game feels familiar.
A Five-Adventure Campaign Built From Four Books
The campaign structure is the other standout. Kimberly points out that it spans five adventures based on four Fighting Fantasy stories, which gives players a longer arc than a standalone scenario. Groen has so far played only the first adventure and says the rest is something to look forward to, which suggests the campaign is what brings players back once the opening scenario is done.
Potential Drawbacks
Swingy Dice and Unforgiving Defeats
The most common concern is that combat can feel too swingy. Groen found the dice rolling volatile enough that the group adopted the Fate house rule in the first place, acknowledging that the design sends a group back to the start after a poor run of rolls. That is faithful to the gamebooks, but it can frustrate players who want to finish a scenario rather than repeat it. Groen‘s group needed the house rule to complete the first adventure in a single sitting.
A Significant Time Commitment
The second concern is time. Groen estimates that a single adventure took two and a half to three hours, noting there isn‘t time to replay a scenario repeatedly until the outcome turns favorable. Combined with the 10 to 15 hour campaign length that Kimberly describes, the game is a real commitment for groups who may only have an evening or two each week.
If You Enjoy Fighting Fantasy Adventures
The clearest comparison point is Warlock of Firetop Mountain, the original gamebook that Groen‘s group played as the first scenario. Groen says the card game captures the randomness, the door-choosing decisions, and the sudden swings of those 1980s books. Players who enjoy the original will recognise the same rhythm of choice and consequence, and those who valued the books‘ tension will likely appreciate how closely the design recreates it. If the gamebook is the reason you are drawn to the game, the card version is the closest modern match.
What Reviewers Are Saying
"What Martin has done with the design of this game, he has managed to capture the feeling of those books that we played in the 80s, which were very, very random. Lots and lots and lots of dice rolling, and very much, oh, do you choose to go through the left door or do you choose to go to the right door?"
— Gaming Rules!
"This is designed by Martin Wallace, which I‘m a big fan of Martin Wallace games, and so I‘m definitely interested in what he‘s doing here with this. It just sounds really immersive, and so I‘m in on this."
— Tabletop Tolson
"The game is designed to kind of mirror the same experience as you had from the old Fighting Fantasy books, which is you get into a fight, you roll loads of dice, you roll badly, you die. That‘s it. Game over. You start again."
— Gaming Rules!