The last entry for the RPG awards brings with it something new, a
coffee table book for game books that almost every person in roleplaying today
will recognise (if not own), and that every person who games that I know
remembers in one way or another.
As I
write this, to my right sits every one of the books that were published in the
time when I was still at school and a fair few from times just after that as
well.
This book is called You are the Hero, and it’s a celebration of all things
Fighting Fantasy...
But it isn’t an RPG in itself, and that brings the question to the
fore, does it have a place in the RPG Awards...?
Before we come to that, there’s the question of the book itself, the
production values on it are beyond anything else that we’ve seen since
Numenera, the masses of spectacular artwork, maps, concept work and details
previously unseen make it a fascinating book to read and certainly something
that would be of interest to anyone who’s ever picked up a fighting fantasy book.
It’s the detailed history of how fighting fantasy came to do as well as
it did, the directions it went when Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone first got
it going, how it progressed over the years, the offshoots that it created, and
the adventures of those who wrote and illustrated it as time went by. There’s not a stone unturned in the detail
and as we’ve noted before, the artwork and presentation on the book are
absolutely second to none, but that’s due in a large part to the fact that
there were more than a decades worth of images, including some of the most
iconic in the roleplaying world, to choose from.
It is an excellent book, but the question posed at the beginning of the
review was does it have a place in the RPG Awards...?
All four judging teams brought their opinion to the question...
It’s a fantastic walk down memory lane, there’s things in there I’d
never suspected and a host of interesting things to read about, but it can’t be
played, much though the originals could be, and so it doesn’t have a place in
the awards...
Brilliant book, most of us were too young (or not born) when the
original fighting fantasy came out, so we don’t have the same fond memories
that the old timers do, if it was a sourcebook of material to be used in games
and not a history of the people that made those games, it would have a place in
the awards, as it is, it doesn’t...
Looking at it from an old timers point of view and taking into account
that Fighting Fantasy (particularly in it’s advanced form) is still going
strong, the question would be “is there sufficient new material in here to
justify calling it a sourcebook for AFF”, and while there’s a lot of material
in here, a lot of it is things that have already been put forwards, and the new
things don’t constitute enough of a book to enter it as a sourcebook...
If there was an award for shiny, it’d win all day long and twice on
Sunday, but it’s not a game by itself and cannot be put forwards for the
awards...
With these comments in mind, the judging teams have made a request to
the directors of Expo that You are the Hero be given a special mention in the
awards for what is obviously a labour of love that many people have shared in
over the years, as of this article going to press, there has not been a
decision made on the matter, but as soon as we find out, we will let everyone
know...
