The Dark Usurper - Attempt 1

Today's Fighting Fantasy installment is somewhat unusual, in that it was not part of the main series of books, not a spin-off book, and not a part of Warlock magazine; "The Dark Usurper" was serialised over three issues of White Dwarf.  At the time White Dwarf was probably the premier gaming magazine in the UK, so I can see the logic here in trying to introduce FF to gamers who might not yet be on board with the series.

"The Dark Usurper" was written by Jon Sutherland and Gareth Hill.  I can't find anything that Hill worked on aside from this, but Sutherland wrote a bunch of gamebooks, and is a name I recognise from 80s gaming.  (Although now that I'm googling him, not as much stuff is coming up as I'd expected.  Now I'm wondering why his name is recognisable to me, because I haven't read any of the gamebooks he wrote, and there's not much else to be found.)

This adventure seems to be pretty divorced from the world of Titan, and is unusual in FF canon in that you play a specific character, Corwin Calbraith, son of the Duke of Skeln.  For years Corwin has been away fighting the heathens in a crusade, an ill-fated venture that ended with the king wounded and his coffers empty.  Corwin left his lands under the rule of his trusted friend Evald Senskell, but when he returned the lands were under the rule of a new duke, and the people were sullen and strangely silent.  Corwin rushed to his castle, only to be captured by grey-skinned creatures and imprisoned at the top of the highest tower.

That's where the adventure begins.  The rules aren't provided at all, the reader is simply told that they must have access to a Fighting Fantasy gamebook.  That's one way to drive sales, I guess.  As far as I can tell, this adventure just uses the most basic of FF rules.  You don't start with any gear, so all that's required is to roll for Skill, Stamina and Luck.  For my first attempt, I rolled a Skill of 11, a Stamina of 22, and a Luck of 8.  Are those stats good enough to make it through?  I have absolutely no idea.  This is the first time I've laid eyes on this adventure, so I'm completely in the dark.

ATTEMPT 1

I lay in my cell after three months of captivity, pondering my options of escape; three months was a lot of time for pondering, and I had come up with three ingenious plans.  I could either overpower the guard on his next visit, tie my bedding into a rope and climb out the window, or start prising up the floorboards.  Of those options, I decided that going out the window would be my best bet.

After knotting up the bedding, I figured that my makeshift rope would reach about 20 feet below my window; not enough to reach the ground, but perhaps enough to make it to a window below.  I decided to risk it, and soon I was dangling precariously at the end, with a window about six feet to my left.  I swing over, and scrambled in through the window onto a staircase.  (This required a Luck test, which I succeeded at; I got a Luck bonus straight afterwards, so my total remained at its maximum of 8).

Heading down the stairs, I came to an open door.  In the room beyond were three hideous humanoids, noisily playing cards.

Despite the illustration, I don't have a sword here

I decided to sneak past (requiring a Luck test that I passed, reducing my score to 7), and in their semi-drunken state they didn't notice me.  I escaped from the prison tower out into a courtyard.

I had three options: the main gate, the armoury, or the stables.  I figured that the armoury would probably be guarded, so instead I opted to go to the stables to find Aryl, my loyal steed.  I entered carefully, and managed not to startle the horses.  Aryl was there, and I led him back to the courtyard.  It was tempting to go to the armoury to find a weapon, but instead I mounted my horse and rode for the gate.

Two large trolls were guarding the gate, and they heard my approach (as I failed a Luck test, that reduced my score to 6).  My horse knocked one of the trolls aside (after I rolled an odd number on one die), but I spurred Aryl onwards, and soon I was across the drawbridge and at the top of a nearby hill.

At the top of the hill, I saw a light flickering to my left, and dismounted to investigate.  The light led me to a trapdoor, which I opened,  Easing myself into the chamber below, I saw a chest covered with on old rug.  Inside the chest was a bundle containing a sword: it was Stroma, the sword of my father, its balance still perfect.  I strapped it to my belt and climbed back to the top of the hill.

(At this point the continuity gets really screwy, as my character decides to summon his horse with a whistle, and Aryl thunders out of the castle.  Never mind that I just rode him out of the castle a couple of entries ago, here he is escaping all over again.  I've read loads of gamebooks, and I don't know that I've ever encountered a blunder as big as this one.)

I had the option of riding to the road and the nearest village, but I figured that it would be best to keep out of sight, and headed for the woods.  Deep in the woods, and safe for a time, I settled down to sleep

(This is where part one ends, and part two begins.  The introduction to part two says that my friend Evald Senskell was tricked and imprisoned by Barnak, the titular Dark Usurper, which is news to me.  None of that was mentioned in the previous introduction, and I didn't learn anything of the sort during the adventure.)

I awoke in the morning to find that my supposedly loyal steed had disappeared in the night.  (So that whole continuity break was completely pointless!)  I headed deeper into the forest, and soon enough I was pretty sure that I had become lost.  (At this point I had to make a Luck test, which I failed; my score was reduced to 5.)  I heard a scream to the north, and rushed off to investigate.

I soon came to a clearing, where three goblins were poking a bound man with their spears.  Without hesitation I drew my father's sword and charged at them, catching them unawares.  One of them wounded me, but even with three-to-one odds I made short work of the goblins.  (The goblins were Skill 5 Stamina 4, Skill 4 Stamina 5, and Skill 5 Stamina 3.  There was no guidance as to how they should be fought, so I had them all fight me simultaneously just to make things a bit more difficult.  At the end of the fight my Stamina was 20.)

I cut the old man free.  He applied some herbs to his wounds, and gave a high-pitched whistle.  Two pumas emerged from the forest, and bounded to his side.  He introduced himself as Asmund, and told me that he knew a great deal about the problems that I faced.  He offered to take me to his home, and I graciously accepted.

Soon we reached a small clearing with a wooden house, and went inside.  There we drank cider, and Asmund offered to teach me some of his skills in exchange for the green gem in the pommel of my father's sword.  Reluctantly I handed it over, and he attached it to the end of his staff.  Seeming somehow stronger and more bold, he told me to sleep, and said that we would begin on the morrow.

In the morning I awoke to find that the old man had provided me with new gear: a surcoat, a red cloak, a wolfskin stole, a hunting lance, and a shield emblazoned with the mask of death.  I dressed myself like a total badass, and went outside to take Asmund's test.

The air was full of shimmering lights, and Asmund told me to take them from the air.  Rather than snatch at them, I held out my hand and concentrated; the lights gathered in my palm.  I had earned the gift of Asmund's Floating Spheres, and was told that to use them I should cast them at a foe and stand well back.  I was given enough for two such attacks.  (No indication was given as to what these attacks do, so I assume that at some point they'll be given as options in the text.)

Asmund told me that I should head for the village to the north and seek out Jorkell, who would help me to defeat the usurper Barnak.  He gave me some fragments of his own gem, and also the companionship of his two pumas.  Then he recited a prophecy at me:

When the fair-headed man comes forth,

His garments red as blood,

His devices strange and wild cats for kin,

Smite shall he the beast, and we shall be free.

I bid farewell to Asmund and went on my way, with his pumas loping at my side.

I headed due north, and soon came to the village of Kari.  After camping for the night, I headed toward the village.  The gate was manned by four guards, so I decided to scout around the outside of the village walls.  A lone sentry stood by a watchtower overlooking the area.  I tried to sneak up behind him, but (due to a failed Luck test that left my score at 4) he turned and saw me.  The Sentry (Skill 5, Stamina 5) was no match for me though, and I killed him easily.

There were no other entrances into Kari, and the walls were too high to climb, so I resigned myself to going in through the main gate.  The gate guards stood dumbfounded as I walked past with my pumas and my rad skull shield.  The crowd burst into cheers at my appearance, and surged towards me.  I gave a rousing speech, then went to find Jorkell, the garrison commander of Kari, who was at the barracks.  I handed Jorkell the fragment of Asmund's gem, and he placed the stone in a circular metal device, where it started to glow. (I have no idea what this is about, but Jorkell states afterwards that Barnak's sorcery is gone, so I guess it has something to do with that.  This is the first I'm hearing of Barnak being a sorcerer though.)

Together we went inside the barracks, where some frightened goblins were ready to defend themselves.  I showed them no mercy, and the goblins were put to the sword.  Jorkell waved a severed head about, and seemed entirely too into the whole thing.  He was starting to grow on me.

Jorkell offered to show me the extent of Barnak's control, and asked if I wanted to ride west or approach the castle.  I decided to check the situation to the west, and rode out with a force of 50 men.  Scouts soon reported that there were 200 creatures on the road ahead, so I decided to turn aside and head for the castle.  Upon seeing the castle, it was apparent that I'd need far more men to take it.

Before heading back to Kari, I decided to check out the village of Skelah.  It was deserted, as Barnak had taken the people as slaves.  While I was in Skelah, I got news that the enemy had cut off our lines of retreat to Kari.  If we were going to return there, we would have to fight through an army of 200 goblins.

Outnumbered four-to-one, I decided that a quick frontal attack would be the best option.  We hurtled towards the goblins in two columns, crashing into them and sending them into disarray.

(At this point the battle is resolved with mass combat rules that I'm not sure I understand.  I'll quote them in full. "There are two hundred of them, for every five troopers throw two dice: for each 1 or 2 thrown you lose 1 man, then multiply the two dice scores by each other and that is how many goblins are killed; do the same thing for you and Jorkell, a 1 only means death."  So I throw two dice for every five troopers, but am I counting the goblins or my own troops?  If it's the goblins I'm rolling 80 dice, if it's my own troops I'm rolling 20.  Either way it doesn't matter, because the way it's set up there are always loads more goblins dying than humans.  I mean, for every two dice rolled 1 or 2 men can die, and 1 to 36 goblins; I'm not sure it's possible to fail.  I reduced the goblins down to 98, and only lost 2 men, which really doesn't seem right.  I'm really not sure if it's a bad system, or if I've just interpreted it incorrectly.)

The goblins surrendered, and we rounded them up and led them back to Kari for interrogation.  I decided to head back into the forest to seek advice from Asmund, but his place was deserted.  I searched around for him, but soon came to the conclusion that he'd been captured by Barnak.  Returning to Kari, I reported the situation to Jorkell, and together we made our plans to defeat the usurper Barnak.

(Part two ended here, and part three began.)

We prepared our defenses as men flocked to my banner; I had 600 able-bodied fighters at my disposal.  At mid-morning, I was told that the enemy approached.  I decided that we should remain in the village and prepare for the attack.  Watching from the tower, I estimated that Barnak was attacking with around 2,000 men.  I placed 400 men on the walls, and held back 200 in reserve.

The enemy surrounded the walls, but their heaviest attacks came on the east side.  I erred on the side of caution, and reinforced them with 50 men.  The enemy swept my forces from the walls, and I threw the rest of my reserves into the fray rather than retreat to the citadel.  Our losses were greater, and the enemy poured through the gaps in our defense.  (I had to roll 2d6x10 for my own losses, and 3d6x10 for theirs.  The dice were unkind.)

I called the retreat to the citadel, and there with 400 men we made our last stand.  (At this point I had to make a Luck test, but with a score of 4 I had little hope of success.)  I urged my men to fight, but despair set in, and they started throwing down their weapons.  I kept fighting (prompting another Luck test that I failed, because my score was now 3), but the enemy forces were too much, and we were overwhelmed and slaughtered.  My adventure was over!

THE POST-GAME

I'm not sure if I got done in by bad decisions at the end there, or a bad Luck score.  If it's the latter, then the adventure has some real design problems, unless there are ways to restore Luck that I've missed.  (I mean, it has some design problems anyway: that continuity error with the horse is pretty bad, and the mass combat rules don't make much sense.)  I'm tempted to give myself a potion of fortune and ten provisions at the beginning; it doesn't make sense in-story, but it's technically within the rules of vanilla Fighting Fantasy.  I'll hold off on that for now, and see if the adventure is legitimately winnable first.

Freeway Fighter - Final Thoughts

Both covers by Jim Burns

Freeway Fighter, written by Ian Livingstone and illustrated by Kevin Bulmer, is the thirteenth  book in the Fighting Fantasy series.  It's set in a lawless post-apocalypse, where society has completely collapsed except when it comes to cars: yep, we're in Mad Max territory here.  This is an area that gaming explored very thoroughly in the 1980s, but I feel like this is one of the earlier examples.

I've developed a theory about Ian Livingstone's later books.  It's more of a gut feeling than something I've tested, but I'll lay it out here anyway.  Basically, it goes like this: if you're on a path where you're not getting many fleshed out encounters, or adding things to your inventory, you've probably gone the wrong way.  If you're finding lots of stuff, and the encounters are interesting, you're on the right track.

The reason I'm bringing this up now is because I'm seeing the first signs of it in Freeway Fighter.  This is Ian's seventh book in the series, and his second-last as the primary writer of Fighting Fantasy.  After the next book, his entries become much sparser: two in the 20s, one in the 30s, and one in the 50s (we won't count Legend of Zagor).  I do wonder if perhaps he was starting to get a little bit of burnout at this point, after a pretty prolific writing stretch (with Games Workshop duties on top of all that).

If you map out Freeway Fighter, there are two main parallel paths, one heading east from the beginning and the other heading west.  Both of these paths are done well at the start - and either one can lead you to victory, at least initially - but after a while it becomes obvious that the western path is where all the good stuff is at.  And sure enough, that's the one you need to take to win the book.  I'm not sure that this is entirely an Ian Livingstone thing; it could be a problem with gamebooks in general.  I could maybe be talking out of my arse.  I'll try to keep an eye on it in the future to see if I have any idea what I'm talking about.

Back to more relevant topics, the main plot of Freeway Fighter sees you on a mission to get a tanker of petrol from the town of San Anglo and bring it back to your hometown of New Hope.  Along the way, you'll meet all manner of crazed individuals, most of whom will try to kill you or rip you off.  It all culminates at San Anglo, where you have to take on a gang known as the Doom Dogs, before a quick return journey to New Hope.

For the most part, Ian manages to keep things entertaining.  The encounters can get a little bit repetitive - there's only so much interest in being attacked by different types of cars - but when the encounters are good they're very good indeed.  The blitz race is the absolute high point, and might be one of my favourite encounters in all of Fighting Fantasy.

The adventure is certainly packed with incident, and that might be one of my biggest complaints about it: it feels like you can't drive a mile without being attacked, to the point where I started to feel like I was being specifically targeted.  The attacks are so frequent that it feels like there should be some sort of overarching plot, like maybe the Doom Dogs got wind of your journey and are trying to take you out.  It never eventuates though, and as such the setting feels a little too much like it's out to get you, and doesn't quite feel real because of that.

In terms of difficulty this is one of Ian's better efforts, with no super-difficult combats and little needed in the way of inventory.  There is a lengthy gauntlet of Skill checks at the end though, so you still need good stats.  Plus there's the constant need for petrol, which is going to spell the end for most players in their early attempts at the book.  It makes sense for the setting, but it's pretty anticlimactic to have your adventure end because of an empty gas tank.  I've always wondered why the mission was set up the way it was; why not have San Anglo send the petrol to New Hope, rather than have it fetched by a guy in a car that definitely doesn't have enough petrol to make the trip?

The illustrations by Kevin Bulmer are pretty good.  Aside from having the ability to draw cars (which can be a bloody nightmare), he has a lot of fun throwing in cameos by movie stars.  I could be misinterpreting some of these, but Chuck Norris, Mr. T, Bennett from Commando, and Clint Eastwood all make cameos.  The crossbow guy kinda looks like Armand Assante, and I've seen other people say that Michael J. Fox is in here as well.

On the whole, Freeway Fighter has a lot of great moments, and there's nothing particularly wrong with it, but there are a number of very minor things that stop it from becoming a classic.  Even so, it's definitely among the best of the sci-fi books in the Fighting Fantasy series.

COOL STUFF I MISSED

In my ten attempts, I covered most of the encounters to be had in Freeway Fighter.  Probably the major one that I missed was the Ratman in the motel at the end, which is an almost certain death sentence.  If you meet him you're almost bound to get bitten by a rat and contract the plague.  You can still finish your mission, but you have to go off into exile to die, while the people of New Hope build a statue in your honour.  To be honest, it's a better ending than you get from beating the book.

Other than that there are some wild dogs you can fight right at the beginning after meeting Johnson, an Outlaw who tries to kill you if you drive over his mines (I managed to avoid them every time), an encounter with a guy who tries to throw molotov cocktails at your car after disabling it with iron spikes, and a jeep full of Doom Dogs that you might meet if you're unlucky on the way to their camp.

MISTAKES AND RED HERRINGS

There are very few outright errors in this books that I could find.  The only one that jumps out is in the encounter with the barricade and the two bikers.  You can avoid getting your wheel blown off with a mine, but the end of the encounter assumes that you have to spend time changing your spare tire.

There were a bunch of items I never found a use for, though: a chain, a pair of handcuffs, a grenade, and a throwing-knife.

BEST DEATH

Freeway Fighter has 27 instant death entries.  From playing the book you'd assume that around half of these would involve running out of petrol, but that's actually just a single entry that gets used multiple times.  Most of the deaths are clustered towards the end of the book, from the Doom Dogs' camp onwards.  My favourite comes from a little bit before that point.

This is what happens if you try and fail to escape from Leonardi and his goons after losing the drag race.  It's makes me laugh, because it's such an overreaction.  Like, what are these guys even doing there?  What do they get out of forcing people to drag race them?  It's probably the most nonsensical encounter in the book.

S.T.A.M.I.N.A. Rating

Story & Setting: The plot is a decent one, but that's because it's pretty directly knocked off from Mad Max 2.  Likewise the setting (although I gather this book is set in the US rather than Australia).  That said, it's not like originality has ever been the major drawcard for Fighting Fantasy: pretty much all of the books are drawing heavily on pulp literature, TV and movies, so Freeway Fighter is in good company.  What really counts is how those settings are brought to life, and this book does a decent job.  The wasteland here feels perhaps a little too lawless, with what feels like one lunatic after another packed into a pretty small area; with a little more work tying things together it might have felt a bit more well-realised.  Even so, it holds together pretty well. Rating: 4 out of 7.

Toughness: On the Ian Livingstone scale this one rates pretty well, without a single unavoidable high-Skill encounter.  It's still difficult though, and you'll need high scores to get through: the final stage of the book is a gauntlet of Luck and Skill tests, and if you fail any of them it's game over.  The main path to victory isn't too difficult to discover, but it's a bit more linear than I'd like.  Rating: 4 out of 7.

Aesthetics: The writing is good here, and you can tell that Ian is having a good time writing something different.  He almost comes across as though he'd welcome the civilisation-ending plague, as long as it gave him the opportunity to drive really fast without fear of the police.  The cover's good, and I like Kevin Bulmer's illustrations; it's fun trying to figure out which movie stars he's based the various characters on.  Rating: 4 out of 7.

Mechanics: There's quite a bit going on in this book, with rules for melee combat, shooting combat, and vehicle combat, but it's all kept simple and fits pretty well into the FF system.  I can't think of anything in the rules that annoyed me here, so I have to give it pretty good marks.  Rating: 5 out of 7.

Innovation: It seems weird to be praising a book for ripping off Mad Max, but this is the first gamebook to do it, so it gets some kudos.  There's also a bunch of new stuff going on in the rules.  Rating: 5 out of 7.

NPCs & Monsters: Being set in post-apocalyptic America doesn't give Ian much scope for using monsters, but there are plenty of crazed humans along the way, most of whom want to kill you and/or steal your car.  There are certainly some memorable encounters - the guy in the gladiator helmet springs to mind - but a few too many of them boil down to being attacked by a different type of vehicle.  Now it's a motorbike! Now it's an armoured car! Now it's a Ford! Now it's a motorbike... with a sidecar!  The best encounters are very good, but there are a few too many of the same type.  Rating: 3 out of 7.

Amusement: I've never been one to love the books that aren't set on Titan (House of Hell excepted).  Freeway Fighter is among the better of them, but it's still not a favourite.  At it's best - the blitz race - it's extremely good, but nothing else in the book matches that level of excitement.  Rating: 3 out of 7.

The above scores total 28, which doubled give a score of 56.  I won't give it any bonus points, which gives it a S.T.A.M.I.N.A. Rating of 56.  That puts it 15th out of 21 adventures so far, sitting just below Scorpion Swamp and above Caverns of the Snow Witch.

NEXT: I'm taking a detour from the main series to tackle The Dark Usurper, a Fighting Fantasy adventure from White Dwarf magazine, from back in the days before it became a glossy advertisement for Warhammer.