I Was A Cretan (Cretin?)
As heard on last weeks FTLoP, amongst the fantasy gamebook boom of the mid eighties, was an unusual threesome known as the Cretan Chronicles. Not the first linked set of gamebooks, it nevertheless followed quite swiftly on the heels of Steve Jackson’s very popular Sorcery series, and in a similar way tried to add more depth to the 400 paragraphed Fighting Fantasy books. It did this by a complex patronage/religion system, a novel setting and occasionally seeming to have a bit of sex in it.
I had the first two, and never finished it as an actual adventure (even with the indestructible character cheating), and much like Sorcery it seemed that if you hadn’t picked up certain items in a previous book you would be unable to proceed*. It used slightly different stats to Fighting Fantasy and combat was harder (if you didn’t cheat - which everyone did). But the real complexity came down to the patronage system, where you were favoured by one of the gods. The problem this threw in was which ever god you picked, ALL THE OTHERS HATED YOU, so you were constantly being sucked into traps by Hera or having sex with Zeus disguised as a swan. I had heard, though I find this unlikely, that if you picked Poseidon as you patron the entire third book would be over in about ten minutes.
This makes sense because all of the books were loose appropriations of some actual Greek myths. So the first one has a bit of Troy, a bit of Marathon and then a Jason and the Argonauts subtext. The second riffs on Theseus heavily, and then you get stuck in that bloody maze forever (mazes in gamebooks = very cheap way of padding out the adventure). The final one rips off the Odyssey mercilessly, with you being bounced from island to island and having sex with Circe (like I say, apparently because I never played this one). I had given up on the third one after being stuck in the damn maze in the second. (Someone else’s frustrations here). I can’t say they were great, but they were diverting in the way most of the Fighting Fantasy books were, and they piqued a small amount of interest in Greek mythology in them. To the extent that later Hercules and Xena seemed a touch derivative of the BLOODFEUD OF ALTHEUS (top marks for that title anyway). But if I saw one in a second hand shop now, maybe, just maybe I’d have to make the choice between : if you steer towards the Scylla Go To 452, If you prefer to aim for the Charybdis go to 23.
*It was easy to tell what these items were, because if you bought At The Court Of The Crimson King Minos it had a section that told you what your equipment would be if you had bought it as a stand-alone adventure. Notably unusual in that equipment was a ball of wool which when you think about it makes perfect sense!
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Tom on January 16th, 2008
I am not actually sure it was even possible to “win” these though there might have been a ‘least worst’ option.
Butterfield, Honigmann and Parker were three Eton schoolboys who also wrote the book “WHAT IS DUNGEONS AND DRAGONS?” which featured a ridiculously optimistic ‘transcript’ of a D&D session.
FT's CarsmileSteve on January 16th, 2008
that was no “book” it was a SERIOUS GATEWAY DRUQ! before i saw WID&D? in the library i was happily tootling away with fighting fantasy, maybe the odd choose your own adventure even. then i read WID&D? and suddenly there was this whole world of REALLY EXCITING SOUNDING other stuff going on, which led to my purchase of red box basic d&d for my tenth birthday, after which it was All Down Hill…
FT's CarsmileSteve on January 16th, 2008
and, of course, available on amazong for £0.01! must. resist…
chap on January 17th, 2008
Anyone else have a bash at the Lone Wolf series? There were like ten of them. I think I got about three books in before running out of patience/money. They were set in a comparitively well-realised world, as I recall.
FT's Pete Baran on January 17th, 2008
They ring a bell, and I think they were quite good (by Jamie and wassisface who did lot of the 2nd gen Fighting Fantasy ones). I remember them being rollicking stories - which were often the problem with FF’s Then This Happens mode of storytelling.
Tom on January 17th, 2008
The illustrator for Lone Wolf used to be in mod band Secret Affair!
Their ‘thing’ was that the story continued from book to book (& you could pick up a new superpower-style skill each time) - they were very much the gamers’ gamebook. I think I got up to book 6 or something BUT there were a LOT more than 10! (28!!!)
Con Coleman on January 17th, 2008
Carsmile’s experience is worryingly close to my own. I picked up WID&D in a bookshop while on holiday with my Mum and Dad (aged 12ish) and suddenly the FF books seemed like kids stuff - this was the real thing! About the same time the famous red box version of Basic D&D came out and it was goodbye adolescence!
Some pals of mine tried the Cretin Chronicles but abandoned them for being too dull. The worst gamebooks were the ones where you always had this niggling fear that you’d missed something, a fear realised when it turned out that you should have picked up the dead rat back in 143.
For anyone who hasn’t seen it already, take a look at http://www.the-underdogs.info/gamebook.php
You used to be able to get the Lone Wolf books as a sort of online adventure with an online character sheet.
tom west on January 17th, 2008
you know, i’d wondered for ages what happened to the people who wrote what is dungeons &c..
http://www.projectaon.org/en/Main/Home for the lone wolf books. (of which only like 5 were the first core story, and then there was a half-spinoff, and later there was a total spinoff, and dear god the first one has just been reissued in HARDCOVER .. )