The Second Swordsman – Your Adventure Ends Here
By Malcolm Garcia
At the start of last year I decided to test an idea – could I complete any FIGHTING FANTASY adventure by always choosing the second option? Many of the books in the series are notoriously difficult, punishing even the slightest deviation from the ‘one true path’ with an instant death or worse, not finding an essential key or jewel. But would the path to success ever be something as elementary as always making the second choice? Only the authors of those books would know, but could I discover their secret?Having attempted 47 of the books in the series, the conclusion I’ve come to is (perhaps unsurprisingly) ‘no’. However, although every one of these adventures ended in my failure to find the treasure, protect myself, or kill the ‘Big Bad’ and save the world, I did find a lot of enjoyment and learned a few things along the way.
(To read Lessons 1-3, follow this link.)
Lesson Four. It’s not just about SKILL and STAMINA. For much of my adventures, by choosing every second option my goal was just to stay alive. This meant defeating every creature I came across, relying on my own SKILL and STAMINA to be better than theirs. But in many FIGHTING FANTASY books there was more to it than that. As early as Citadel of Chaos there were often extra attributes to take into account that could help or hinder your journey.
In Citadel of Chaos I chose to take every
second spell available, which meant I took several duplicates with me into
Balthus Dire’s fortress. Because I lasted a while in this book I actually
managed to use a number of these (including burning through all of my Levitation spells), although I’m unsure whether I took the right combination
with me from the very beginning. Phantoms of Fear also gave me the ability to use magic, in the guise of the POWER
score. Alas, I barely managed to use this, casting just one fire and one weaken
spell. On the other hand, the FAITH score in Vault of the Vampire enabled me to avoid fights against several
creatures and probably some unsavoury situations, and in Howl of the Werewolf the CHANGE score gave me some useful abilities
to turn me into an almost unstoppable killing machine towards the end of the
book. While on the subject, the ability to instantly kill an adversary in Creature of Havoc added to the enjoyment
of this adventure, and I wish I’d seen it used more often than just the five
times in the nine fights I had.
In two of the gamebooks written by Stephen Hand, Moonrunner and Dead of Night, YOU are given the
opportunity to personalise your character by choosing from several Special Skills,
and in Midnight Rogue, YOU can also
choose what specialities your thief has trained in. This provided a new dynamic
to the books as it was no longer a matter of just choosing the second option;
the second option had to be something YOU are able to do. As with Citadel of Chaos I was unsure in these
books whether choosing the wrong skills even before section one dooms a player
to failure. When I tried Appointment with F.E.A.R. my chosen skills not only turned out to be useless, but I ended up
being killed by my own energy blast.
In other
adventures an extra factor can work to make success that much harder. In most
of the books with these I didn’t live long enough to notice any effects. But in
Daggers of Darkness the poison that I
am inflicted with by the assassin in the prologue seemed to be spreading
rapidly through my body, mainly because I was constantly physically exerting
myself throughout the course of the adventure in combat. Of a maximum allowed POISON
score of 22, I had gained 15 points by the time I failed – and I was nowhere
near the end. The most memorable complicating factor I encountered was, of
course, House of Hell’s FEAR score. Set
by the initial whim of a dice roll, relentlessly accumulating, and likely to be
accrued at almost any time, the FEAR factor must surely narrow the path to
victory in a book where YOU already start with a SKILL penalty for being
unarmed. In my attempt at this book I was only one FEAR point away from being
scared to death when I failed, and I was nowhere near escaping.
All of this is
not, of course, to ignore the other third of the three main character
characteristics – LUCK. In general, the longer I lasted, the more I tested my LUCK.
I underwent six LUCK tests in each of Battleblade Warrior, Legend of Zagor and Seas of Blood (where failing the final
test had me crashing into an iceberg and dying). I also used LUCK during every
round in my fight against the Basilisk in Night Dragon – which also killed me when the dice went against me and I was
petrified. However throughout my
long-lived adventure in Howl of the Werewolf I only tested my LUCK twice. And I only used this factor three
times throughout Stormslayer and
twice in Stealer of Souls. Even in The Forest of Doom I was able to cross
Darkwood Forest from north to south and only tested my LUCK twice.
As mentioned
above, failing a LUCK test did bring about my demise in Seas of Blood and Night Dragon. I also failed the second LUCK test I had in Forest of Doom and was torn to shreds by a hail of arrows. The
other adventures where a failed LUCK test sealed my fate were Crypt of the Sorcerer (where I was
thrown from my horse and knocked unconscious), Tower of Destruction (where, during my exploration of the interior
of a mysterious flying ball, I was unable to avoid a fire trap which burned off
my remaining STAMINA), and Scorpion Swamp
(where in my rush to explore the swamp I fell into a muddy hole and
disappeared).
Lesson Five. Taking the second option doesn’t mean
having a second-rate adventure. In the FIGHTING FANTASY books where I survived beyond a few choices, the series’ authors were
able to create story worlds where I actually cared about the fate of my
character and felt as if they were part of a larger world, either through
the physical scope of the book, the importance of the quest, or the ability to
interact with the locals.
Gathering McGuffins on dungeon crawls can be notoriously tiresome, but in Creature of Havoc even though I often
had little control over my destiny, the sheer volume of fights I had and the
one-hit kill ability made this into an enjoyable adventure - who doesn’t like eating
hobbits for a snack? Although I ignored plenty of opportunities to explore some
of the trees, caves, taverns and shops in both The Forest of Doom and City of Thieves, Darkwood Forest and Port Blacksand seemed to be places where a
whole ecosystem of characters existed, independent of my presence.
While
above-ground, there were several notable adventures where the author created
the sense that I was moving across a much larger world, if I survived for long
enough. This was certainly the case in the aforementioned Battleblade Warrior where I crossed the entirety of the included
map in the one attempt. The ‘hub’ design of Stormslayer
allowed me to choose which part of Femphrey I would explore first, with
progress from one place to another taking several days, but without getting
bogged down in minute choices. Midnight Rogue had a similar mechanism and did not force me to decide which
individual street of Port Blacksand I should follow. Although, as with Stormslayer, I’m unsure whether, in
spite of this apparent freedom, each place needed to be visited in a specific
order to be successful.
In every FIGHTING FANTASY adventure the odds are stacked against success, particularly when
subject to the self-imposed constraint of always choosing the second option.
And in a good number of these books the writers have created a delightfully
depressing atmosphere where YOU feel that the whole world is against YOU. One
of my favourite examples of this was Moonrunner.
As soon as the adventure began, with the death of my boss, there wasn’t a
moment when I felt as though anyone in Blackhaven was going to actually help
me. In Dead of Night the demonic
blight that had settled over Gallantaria gave the book a medieval grimness, a
sense that I also found in Spellbreaker (although I didn’t exploit many of the opportunities to interact with the
locals). And once my character entered the diseased forest in Phantoms of Fear I knew I would be completely
on my own as I descended into the underworld of the Demon Prince Ishtra.
What also created
a great sense of atmosphere in several of the FIGHTING FANTASY adventures was
knowing that I was not the only person in the world. In some books the NPCs
were an important part of the story, not just an opportunity to test your
swordsmanship, and how YOU interacted with them would directly affect your
chances of success. In Legend of the Shadow Warriors an NPC brought about my failure because I’d failed to pay
my taxes – and I never had an opportunity to run him through! In Dead of Night and Howl of the Werewolf I moved from depressing village to depressing village,
and the locals would likely have helped me in my quest had I bothered to assist
them, even just a little bit. Both Midnight Rogue and Moonrunner were set in
cities and, partly to avoid attracting unwanted attention, I could not just
attack every living thing in sight. But my favourite adventure with NPCs would
have to be Vault of the Vampire. Within Castle Heydrich there were a few
people who were just as keen to see the end of the Count as I was, and so they
were willing to help, in varying degrees (although this did not stop the Second Swordsman process from having me
kill one of them in cold blood).
My adventure ends here.
As I only
attempted 70% of the FIGHTING FANTASY series by choosing the second option, I
remain hopeful that in one of the other books the Second Swordsman process could lead to ultimate success. And while
I did experience universal failure, in varying degrees, I was also entertained numerous
times over the past seventeen months. I chose the right weapon to tackle the
Bonecrusher Beast, rescued and used a genie, was saved from a pirate ship by
seagoing dwarves, had a nap in a dungeon, was turned invisible by a witch,
collected a tapestry, was guided underneath a volcano by a dwarven brewer, set
a pair of gigantic aquatic monsters against each other, and got out of an
abandoned city by catapulting myself into the ocean. My adventure might end
here, but there are still plenty of stories of orc, dragons, treasure and magic
to entertain readers everywhere.
A huge thank you to Malcolm for his hard work over the last 17 months. If you have enjoyed his Second Swordsman posts, you may be interested to know that Malcolm's debut novel is out now.
Remember, if you have an idea for a guest post, or even a series of posts, you can contact the Warlock at mail@fightingfantasy.com.
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