fighting fantasy books steve jackson ian livingston

Ian poses with John Peake and Steve Jackson. Fighting Fantasy belonged to us, and still does I’m very pleased to say. Magic Quest became Fighting Fantasy and our first book we called The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain, released just a year later in 1982. Eventually we got word back from Penguin saying, “Yes, let’s go ahead with your book”, so we started writing it. If we had gone with Allen & Unwin, we would not have owned the intellectual property of gamebooks based on Tolkien’s works. That letter was actually a blessing in disguise. Steve suggested to them that the books could be Gandalf adventures, but we got a very polite rejection letter. Yes, we continued to kick the project around for the best part of a year, but in the meantime Steve sent a copy of Magic Quest over to George Allen & Unwin, who were the publishers of Lord Of The Rings. Over time this concept became your first book, The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain. Geraldine was bowled over by the enthusiasm of people playing D&D and other fantasy role-playing games at Games Day, so she asked, “Could you write a book about the role-playing hobby?” Steve and I thought about it, and we decided that well, if we’re writing a book about the hobby, why couldn’t we write a book that effectively is the hobby?

With Games Workshop, we used to organise these Games Day events, and at the 1980 Games Day, Geraldine Cooke, who was Penguin’s commissioning puzzle book editor, had a stand at the event to promote a book they’d recently published called Playing Politics. How did you secure Penguin as the publisher for Magic Quest?

So we tinkered around with mechanics we thought would work in book format, and that evolved over time from this concept which was labelled ‘Magic Quest’, to the series now known as Fighting Fantasy. The big ‘Eureka!’ moment came when we thought we should apply a simple role-playing system to a book. We thought about ways that we could widen the appeal of role-playing without dumbing it down. But we were also aware that D&D required a huge commitment in time and effort in order to enjoy it to the full – you needed a dungeon master, a group of four or five players to make it fun, and a time commitment each session of at least four or five hours if any progress was to be made. Our imaginations ran wild and we became obsessive players. We were captivated with D&D, which was the first fantasy role-playing game. Steve Jackson and I got into role-playing games in the mid-Seventies when we started Games Workshop, and got hold of our first copy of Dungeons & Dragons. Your videogame career effectively began with a concept for a book called Magic Quest.

Here he tells us about the success of the Fighting Fantasy line and his eventual move to videogames. The pair then found success with the choose youur own adventure books Fighting Fantasy, before Ian moved into the games industry.

Ian Livinginstone is best known for creating Games Workshop in the mid-Seventies with partner Steve Jackson.

Fighting fantasy books steve jackson ian livingston