April A to Z - V is for Very nice of Graham Bottley to drop in.

In its original print run, there were a few Fighting Fantasy books released for Fighting Fantasy RPGs.  Three were released as Advanced Fighting Fantasy.  Although fun and simple, its system had several flaws.

However, we now have a 2nd edition which has cleaned up all the problems of the first edition.  The man behind the cleanup operation is known as Graham Bottley and he is here today to talk about AFF2.


Who you are and how you got into gamebooks

I am Graham Bottley, founder of Arion Games and responsible for the resurrection of the Advanced Fighting Fantasy RPG.  It is nice to come full circle as it was "The Forest of Doom" that got me into rpg's in the first place.  I spent many an hour as a youngster trying to thwart Balthus Dire, defeat the Warlock or vanquish Zanbar Bone.  I played quite a lot of the FF rpg (the one with the tiger man coming out of the dice) with my friends and moved on to AFF along with other games.  Even when I played RPG's, I still continued to play through the gamebooks and i still have all of my originals.

What you have done since April 2012?

Over the last year i have released "The Crown of Kings" campaign for AFF, turning the classic 4 book series into a full blown rpg campaign and complete with John Blanche art!  I have also released the "Heroes Companion" which is full of new and interesting rules options including new magic systems, a wilderness creation system, organisation and mass battle rules and more.  It is fantastic to be able to bring this game back, and bring new life to classic material.

During its original print run, there were some Fighting Fantasy RPG products produced.  There were quite a few flaws in the system and I


What you plan on doing now related to gamebooks?

It could be a very interesting year.  With any luck, it will see Blacksand, Beyond the Pit, a SciFi AFF book, a Salamonis book, a rerelease of the Sorcery spell book and an GM screen/accessory pack.  That is in addition to loads more paper miniatures and a whole heap of Maelstrom stuff, including Domesday!

What you think the future of gamebooks is like?

Very strong.  The FF franchise is going from strength to strength 30 years on.  Tin man games are doing a great job with iPad conversions, there are strong possibilities of a film or two and we have loads of stuff planned.  I sell quite a few of the FF gamebooks at conventions, and many are bought for or by youngsters.  They are seen as an easy way into rpgs, encourage reading, literacy and numeracy and are good fun.  I also know teachers who use them as part of their lessons, and they are often found in school libraries.  All of this says that there is a new generation getting into gamebooks and they will keep going for some time yet in the face of computer game competition.

For more information of Advanced Fighting Fantasy 2nd edition, or to order one of their source books, go to Arion Games.

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