I have mentioned before my fondness for fantasy solo adventures. Rick Loomis of Flying Buffalo wrote the very first one, Buffalo Castle (1976), for Ken St. Andre's Tunnels & Trolls (T&T) rule system. I saw these fine gentleman again at Origins over the weekend. They were gracious enough to both autograph a hardcover copy of the new Deluxe Tunnels & Trolls. The popularity of the solo adventure peaked before hand-held devices made video gaming more portable, but in their day they were very popular.
The T&T solos were first published by Flying Buffalo Inc. using a standard 8 1/2" x 11" softcover format. In 1982 Puffin Books of the UK published their first Fighting Fantasy adventure game book, The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, in standard mass market paperback format. The Fighting Fantasy series were sold alongside science fiction/ fantasy novels in bookstores and reached a wide audience, both in the UK and overseas. About this time, Corgi Books, another UK publisher, entered the market with a series of digest sized paperback editions of the T&T rules and solos. The City of Terrors (1986), pictured above, is one of the Corgi T&T solos. In addition to resizing, the Corgi editions have new artwork and include an abbreviated version of the T&T rules, so The City of Terrors is a complete product. Unlike the Fighting Fantasy books which were just about fighting, this T&T adventure book includes rules for magic and has a list of spells that can be cast while adventuring in the solo. There are also a number of weapons and armor types to choose from, all adding variety and improving replay-ability.
The City of Terrors is written by Michael Stackpole, who did a few T&T solo titles for Flying Buffalo before moving on to novels. Mr. Stackpole is one of the many unsung heroes of our hobby. In addition to his work as a designer of games and solos, Mr. Stackpole authored several defenses of the hobby when it was under fire from some radical haters who wanted to equate it with devil worship. His articles "Devil Games? Nonsense", "The Truth About Role-Playing Games" and especially "The Pulling Report" (1990) effectively discredited the hostile opposition and quieted the nonsense criticism.
The City of Terrors, in its Corgi edition, is 96 pages, including 17 pages of rules, broken into numbered paragraphs where the decisions the reader makes together with some combat and saving throw dice rolls determines which numbered paragraph the reader turns to next. A number of illustrations connected to the paragraphs are scattered about the book, many are "inspired" by the original illustrations for the American edition and I find it amusing to compare the two. Flipping through the pages, I am reminded of the gonzo nature of this particular solo. Mr. Stackpole would go on to write a number of Star Wars novels and his interest in space is evident here through the encounter with a spaceman, complete with a selection of high-tech devices.
No urban adventure setting would be complete without an encounter with the criminal element. The City of Terrors does not disappoint my expectations, in fact it's hard to avoid such an encounter, but it's entertaining and provided you survive , worth the trouble. There is a lot more to do in The City of Terrors and I shall not spoil any more of the discovery. As a final note to this post, next week I will be traveling for work and I always throw in a couple solos when packing. Maybe it's time for another visit to The City of Terrors...
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