Advanced Fighting Fantasy

Advanced Fighting Fantasy

Cover of Dungeoneer
Years active	1989 (AFF 1st ed.), 2011 (AFF 2nd ed.)
Genres	fantasy tabletop roleplaying game
Chance	six-sided dice
Skills	storytelling, roleplay, imagination

Advanced Fighting Fantasy (AFF) is a British roleplaying game based on the Fighting Fantasy and Sorcery! gamebooks, first published in 1989. Just as the gamebooks, AFF is set in the world of Titan. A second edition of AFF was published in 2011.

AFF is chiefly meant to facilitate the games master to write his or her own adventures inspired by Fighting Fantasy. The few adventures published for the game are brand new adventures specifically written for the system as opposed to converting existing gamebook stories for multiplayer RPG usage.

AFF is unrelated to both the Myriador d20 conversions of several gamebooks by Jamie Wallis, and the electronic conversions of the Sorcery! series by inkle. Both of these feature unique rules not seen elsewhere in the Fighting Fantasy brand.

The game mechanics

The rules of AFF are adapted from the rules of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and was an expanded but separate follow-up to Fighting Fantasy – The Introductory Role-Playing Game. This system is based on skills, here called "Special Skills". The game features neither classes nor levels.

A player character, called Hero, is defined by:

• four characteristics: Skill, Stamina, Luck, Magic; they range from 7 to 12 except for Stamina which ranges 14-24;
• race: Human, Dwarf, Elf;
• a set of special skills: Combat, Movement, Stealth, Knowledge and Magical special skills; special skill values usually range from 0 to 4;
• a few Talents, which are special features such as Animalfriend, Natural Mage, Robust, Weaponmaster...
• a Social Class, from 0 (beggar, criminal) to 10 (king).

The creation of a Hero starts with the choice of a "concept", e.g. a Knight of Salamonis or a Student from the magical school of Yore — this has no influence on the attributes and is more a background guideline. Unlike the gamebooks, the characteristics and special skills are not rolled but are bought with creation points. The rules provide archetypes which allow a fast creation: Adventurer, Archer, Barbarian, Priest of Telak, Rogue, Warrior, Wizard...

There are three types of tests:

• unopposed test: a roll of two six-sided dice (2d6) must be less than the sum of a characteristic (usually Skill, sometimes Magic) and a special skill; this is an extension of the Skill tests of the gamebooks;
• opposed tests: each character roll 2d6 and adds Skill and a special skill, the highest wins; this is an extension of the combat procedure of the gamebooks;
• Luck test: same as the gamebooks rule.

The rules provide difficulty adjustments for given situations (e.g. -5 to the Climbing special skill when wearing a plate armour).

The combat rules are the same as the gamebooks', except that the points of damage (Stamina loss) are determined randomly: the attacker rolls 1d6 and reads the points of damage on a table (one for each weapon), the defender does the same to apply the damage reduction from his armour. There are a few combat options: Luck test to increase or reduce the damages, surprise, feint...

A spellcaster must have a least 1 in the Magic characteristic and one point in one special skill: Magic-Minor, Magic-Priestly, Magic-Sorcery or Magic-Wizardry. There are three types of magic:

• Minor magic: the Cantrips are easy-to-cast spells with limited effects;
• Religion: each god bestows his priests three general powers (the same three for all his priests) and one specific power;
• Sorcery: this type of magic was created in the Old World, and does not draw its energy from the surrounding environment but from the sorcerer's own Stamina, and from material components; this is the adaptation of the magic system of the Sorcery! gamebooks;
• Wizardry: the Wizard studied in a school to learn to use the invisible arcane power that permeates the world of Titan.

The Advanced Fighting Fantasy system (original publication)

Title	Authors	Cover Art	Interior Art	Published	ISBN
Dungeoneer	Marc Gascoigne & Pete Tamlyn	John Sibbick	John Sibbick	1989	0-14-032936-6
Blacksand!	Marc Gascoigne & Pete Tamlyn	John Sibbick	Russ Nicholson	1990	0-14-034396-2
Allansia	Marc Gascoigne & Pete Tamlyn	John Sibbick	Russ Nicholson	1994	0-14-036051-4

Advanced Fighting Fantasy titles published by Arion Games (2011-present)

The main change brought by this edition is the addition of the Sorcery! magic system. Arion Games also brought in several titles not previously directly related to AFF (as opposed to FF in general) under the Advanced Fighting Fantasy brand.

For Out of the Pit, Arion added the statistics needed to make that monster book compatible with AFF rules. The spells in the Sorcery! spell book were likewise given additional mechanics to make them AFF spells. Other publications, such as the Titan worldbook, was republished as-is (with no system specific info).

No.	Title	Authors	Cover Art	Interior Art	Published	ISBN
CB77001	Advanced Fighting Fantasy	Graham Bottley	John Sibbick	Various	2011	978-0-85744-067-9
CB77002	Out of the Pit	Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone (Edited by Marc Gascoigne)	Christos Achilleos	Various	2011	978-0-85744-068-6
CB77003	Titan	Steve Jackson & Ian Livingstone (Edited by Marc Gascoigne)	John Christos Achilleos	Various	2011	978-0-85744-069-3
CB77004	Crown of Kings	Graham Bottley & Steve Jackson	John Blanche	John Blanche	2012	978-0-85744-121-8
CB77005	Heroes Companion	Graham Bottley	John Sibbick	Russ Nicholson	2012	978-0-85744-157-7
CB77006	Blacksand	Graham Bottley	Martin McKenna	Iain McCaig and Steve Luxton	2012	978-0-85744-184-3
CB77007	The Sorcery Spell Book	Graham Bottley & Steve Jackson	Maggie Kneen	John Blanche	2013	None
CB77008	Beyond the Pit	Andrew Wright	Terry Oakes	Various	2013	978-0-85744-121-8
CB77009	The Warlock of Firetop Mountain	Brett Schofield	Martin McKenna	Russ Nicholson and Brett Schofield	2014	None
CB77010	Advanced Fighting Fantasy Deluxe	Graham Bottley, Marc Gascoigne, Peter Temlyn	John Sibbick	Various	2016	None
CB77011	Stellar Adventures	Graham Bottley & Jonathan Hicks	Alan Craddock	Gary Mayes & Mark Robinson	2017	None
CB77012	Stellar Adventures Starship Catalogue	Graham Bottley, Dan Quinlan, Simon Strafford	Graham Bottley	Graham Bottley	2017	None
CB77013	The Titan Herbal	Andrew Wright	Maggie Kneen	Various	2017	None
CB77014	The Kaladarian Response	Graham Bottley	Graham Bottley?	Gary Mayes & Mark Robinson	2018	None
CB77015	Demons of Doom	Graham Bottley	Tony Hough	Various	2019	None
CB77016	A Rough Guide to the Pit	Andrew Wright	Mike Tenebrae	Various	2019	None
CB77017	Weapons and Armour Catalogue	Graham Bottley, Dan Quinlan, Simon Strafford	Graham Bottley	Graham Bottley	2019	None
CB77018	Travels in Arion	Graham Bottley	Bob Greyvenstein	Russ Nicholson & Maciej Zagorski	2019	None
CB77019	Return to the Pit	Andrew Wright	Les Edwards	Various	2019	None
CB77020	Creatures of Mishna	Benjamin Quinton-Bottley		Various	2020	None
CB77021	Combat Companion	Graham Bottley		Various	2021	None
CB77022	Citadel of Chaos	Brett Schofield	Henrik Karppinen	Russ Nicholson	2022	None
CB77023	Encyclopedia Arcana Vol I - Treasures	Andrew Wright	John Blanche	Various	2022	None
CB77024	Heroes of Titan	Andrew Wright	John Kapsalis	John Kapsalis	2023	None
CB77025	The Atlantis Campaign	Graham Bottley	Various	Various	2023	None
CB77026	Adventure Creation System	Graham Bottley, Stuart Lloyd, Daniel Quinlan	Various	Various	2024	None
CB77027	The Forest of Doom	Brett Schofield	Various	Various	2024	None

Translations

The roleplaying game is translated and published in French by Scriptarium, as Défis fantastiques, le jeu de rôle (DF-JdR). They added original material: the core book has a 100 pages additional campaign, Le Tambour de Gondrim (The Drum of Gondrim), and original illustrations. They also created a gamemaster's screen with an original adventure, and paper figurines, floorplans and tiles.

• Bottley, Graham; Jackson, Steve; Livingstone, Ian (2013). Défis fantastiques, le jeu de rôle [Advanced Fighting Fantasy] (in French). Scriptarium. ISBN 978-2-9543631-0-3.
• Monseur, Olivier (2013). L'Écran du meneur de jeu. Illustrated by Jidus and Russ Nicholson. Scriptarium. ISBN 978-2-9543631-2-7. Gamemaster's screen and an adventure, Pirates à la dérive (Adrift Pirates), first part of the campaign Maudit Trésor... (Wicked Treasure...).
• Les accessoires du meneur de jeu. Illustrated by Éric Chaussin and Jidus. Scriptarium. 2013. ISBN 978-2-95436-310-3.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) Tiles and paper figurines.
• Carte d'Allansia. Cartography by Florent Haro, illustrated by Jidus. Scriptarium. 2013.{{cite book}}: CS1 maint: others (link) A2 vinyl colour map of Allansia, from the original material from Jonathan Green, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone.
• Pouillot, Fabrice "del Armgo" (2013). Tel est pris. Scriptarium. Free downloadable adventure, first part of the campaign Les Larmes de Hmurresh (The Tears of Hmurresh).
• Baldowski, Paul (2013). La Fosse aux ordures [The Pit of Filth] (in French). Scriptarium. Free downloadable adventure in a contemporary world (see the original version).

Scriptarium started a call for crowdfunding to publish the translation of Titan in March 2014. The success of the subscription allowed the execution of new original illustrations (by John Sibbick, Malcolm Barter, Bill Houston, and maps by Steve Luxton), illustrated cards for the magic spells (playing cards format), a miniature representing Yaztromo, and an A2-format colour map of Titan showing the location of the adventures (gamebooks and romans). It also contains an original 90 p. campaign, À la Recherche de la jeunesse perdue (In Search of Lost Youth).

External links

• Advanced Fighting Fantasy on the Arion Games website
• Advanced Fighting Fantasy: An Illustrated Bibliography at SFandFantasy.co.uk
• Review of Dungeoneer in Games International