The War-Torn Kingdom (Fabled Lands)

⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️Stars of Awesomeness! Perfect in Every Way! Thank You So Much!

As of this review I am coming up on the two year anniversary of my DnD game and I’m ecstatic about it! But sometimes the DM (Dungeon Master, Man behind the curtain, Storyteller, etc) wants to be on the other side of the screen. Well my fellow “Forever DMs” have I got a book for you!! You can choose your class, look for treasure, adventure for better armor, claim stronger weapons, and if you want to take it easy for a bit, by a home in one of the many cities, buy a boat and trade goods, and so much more. I printed out a character sheet because flipping back and forth threw the book is hard enough on it. I really do feel like I’m playing a game of DnD. Any fantasy fan should at least pick up this book. I will be buying them all

Hadn't seen this book in over 30 years. I've really enjoyed it all over again. This would be a good gift for anyone who likes books and games period.Good quality paperback that will provide hours of fun. I will buy the others eventually but note...you do not have to have the others in the series to enjoy this system. Infact I suggest enjoying this one for several games before adding in another in the series.Excellent

This gamebook allows greater freedom of choice than any other gamebook that I've read.For starters, you can choose one of six classes: Mage, Priest, Rogue, Troubadour, Warrior, and Wayfarer. The game rules are very simple, having about the same complexity as the Sorcery! gamebooks, but they feel more intuitive than those of Sorcery! and there are more character details without adding rules complexity. There are six stats: Charisma, Combat, Magic, Sanctity, Scouting, and Thievery, and these stats are determined by the class you play rather than random die rolls. The class you choose also has effects in game other than just the starting stats. Choices you make during the game can modify these stats.Unlike other gamebooks that I've read, this one has some replay value. There are a lot of quests throughout the book rather than a single quest, although there is a main quest that you can choose to do or not. Some quests are only available to a certain class, encouraging multiple playthroughs with different classes. There is a lot to do in this book. You can choose to travel the continent exploring the forests and mountains, make money as a fisherman, hunt monsters, purchase a ship and trade goods between ports, spend time in the cities located throughout the book - and there is plenty to do in each city. The main quest even has a branching storyline with a different outcome depending on which route you take, and neither route is the right or wrong way.The open world feel and freedom of choice in this book make it the best gamebook that I've ever read, and I'm looking forward to getting the others in the series.

This is the best solitaire role playing game in a pick your own adventure style I have ever played. Don't take that lightly as I have played many over the years, but this one is an obvious choice as "The Best". Combat is simple yet elegant enough to not have the feel of rolling dice to see if you kill a literary figment of your imagination, a giant open ended world, where you can truly travel, investigate and meddle with things, when and as you see fit to do so. The non linear approach of playing is complimented by the book evolving the world around your character based on the success or failures of aforementioned meddling. Each book represents a geographical location of the game's massive world, not linear time as most other games of this type utilize. It is astonishing this game died early and went out of print before it was entirely finished (the era PC rpgs really took off) but I am so happy that its back in print and quickly being finished (the screen slaves are coming back!). Absolutely recommend this series for kids, teens and adults!

I was very into D&D in highschool but my friends were not always up for a lengthy 3-4 hour session at the table.So when I first stumbled across my very first truly interactive gamebook,The Warlock of Firetop Mountain,it was a dream come true.There it was,,a complete D&D session at my very fingertips to enjoy anytime the need arose to scratch the proverbial roleplaying itch.Though FF and similiar gamebooks are quite linear,they are still a blast.As the years went by I collected any and all "Choose Your Own Adventure" style books that had statistics to keep track of;Lone Wolf,etc.Then one day,I heard about the ULTIMATE series,a series of 6 gamebooks which could be played individually,but when connected created a fleshed out world with little to no constraints.Did this "Fabled Lands" series exist?If so,where was this holy grail of all gamebooks?They sure weren't at any book store I milled through.The years dragged on,and the "Fabled Lands" I so sought for,appeared to be nothing more than a cruel myth.I gave up hope,and despair set in and I went about my life......Then it happened!The glorious pinnacle of gamebook perfection appeared...here,on Ebay!My heart stopped,and my mind trembled...could it really be?Miracles do happen folks...and I'm gonna sleep really good tonight!Trust me folks,if you are interested in gamebooks,and have only one series to collect,Fabled Lands must be that choice,,. .

Aunque estos libros tuvieron su auge en otro tiempo debo decir que no han perdido su encanto. Leerlo/jugarlo es una experiencia muy interesante, divertida y estimulante para la imaginación. El sistema que utilizan es absolutamente genial. Eso sí, está en inglés y al ser un libro es 100% dependiente del idioma. Tratándose de hobbies es de las mejores compras que he hecho y tenía cero experiencia en RPG. Muy recomendable.

The Fabled Lands gamebooks are organized as a open world to explore (there is not a railroaded story to follow). This first gamebook of the series revolves around a typical Middle-Ages kingdom, divided by civil war.This books is excellent and sets the bar for the rest of the series.

By the mid 90s the golden age of the adventure gamebook craze was drawing to a close. Sales were falling, popularity was waning. Many saw this as the inevitable consequence of the rise of home computer games - an explanation I never understood as I played both computer games and adventure gamebooks avidly from the mid 80s onwards. These final days saw the release of one of the most ambitious and surely one of the greatest series of all. Fabled Lands. By '95/96 I was in my late teens. I'm not sure if I grew out of gamebooks or if they simply stopped releasing them. Probably the latter, given that I'm writing this review and showing an interest in 2015. I spotted the first two books in the series in a newsagent and as soon as I recognised the names of veterans Dave Morris and Jamie Thomson I bought them. The structure and format was something I had never experienced at the time in a game book - a free roaming sand box adventure. You decided the goals, quests and approach. You could charge round as a mighty warrior, play as a mage, a noble priest or a cunning morally ambiguous rogue (which is incidentally how I almost always end up playing). You could buy houses, come and go as you please. You could trade, and make accumulation of wealth your primary goal. You could become involved in political machinations. You could purchase a ship and hire a crew and sail off to far distant adventures, focus on magical studies and artifacts. Gameplay included a rank and stats system, depending on your activities you could advance your character in more than just wealth. You can rely on more than just brute force to achieve your ends, charisma and thievery will get your far in the world of Harkuna. One the greatest features of the series is codewords. This ingenious system allows the game to track your actions in other areas of not only the book, but the entire series. This means that not only are you in a free roaming world, you are in one where your choices have consequences. Turning to a certain section of the book will have a different outcome depending on the codewords you may have accumulated on your travels. People and events will play out differently. The first book `The War Torn Kingdom' is one of the strongest in the series. The difficulty here is just right. There is a threat to your character early on (I personally feel the threat of death is vital to atmosphere in gamebooks), but progress through a few quests and you soon find yourself advancing and the money rolling in. Quests can generally be obtained in towns, guilds, listening in taverns for rumour, or through random adventuring. There is so much to do. And from there you can adventure on to the other books, all of which have their own merits and unique setting. I particularly enjoy The Plains of Howling Darkness (book 4) and The Court of Hidden Faces (book 5). The original releases were striking A4 size with card boards and fold out maps. These recent reprints may be print on demand and not quite the artifacts the originals were, but they are affordable and more than adequate plus I am happy to say contain the original illustrations of the legendary Russ Nicholson. If you are a gamebook fan, Fabled Lands is a unique experience and should be a mandatory purchase. My only real disappointment with the series is that it was originally planned for 12 books and only 6 were ever written before the series was dropped by the publishers. Just maybe, with the re-release of the originals enough interest may gather for the authors to consider finishing the series..

‘Fabled Lands’ is an interesting and original concept amongst adventure gamebooks, very different to the norm in that there is not a set quest or mission. Instead the adventurer/reader finds themselves dropped into a fully developed and detailed fantasy world with no prescribed objectives. A vast land is available to explore, full of side quest style missions, characters to interact with and wealth and assets to acquire. What quests you choose to take on is down to the discretion of the reader.‘The War-Torn Kingdom’ places the reader in a land recently ravaged by civil war where the military have deposed the king. Political tensions are high as the military to continue to exert control and those to loyal to the crown try to re-instate the monarchy. It is easy enough for the adventurer to get caught up in all this. The reader can be employed for missions by either side. This also serves as the storyline for this book. Either way, it is a volatile state in flux that gives the gamebook a strong atmosphere. There is a palatable tension among the people.The book progresses, as indeed does the series, through the personal passage of time of the adventurer. The overall mission element of adventure gamebooks is thus replaced with developing your character, much in the way you might do so in a multiplayer role playing game. You begin with more attributes than most gamebooks and these vary according to the type of character you chose to be. As play progresses and you explore more, these will generally slowly improve; although it is entirely possible to make them worse. In certain cases a higher attribute can unlock a previously inaccessible part of the book.As your character’s personal development continues so will the amount of equipment, items and wealth you possess. This process begins quite slowly to start with and can be a little frustrating. Once you start making progress, however, it suddenly snowballs and it requires some effort and note making to keep up with it all. Eventually your character can own houses, ships and a bank account.The ship side of things is a little disappointing in ‘The War-Torn kingdom’. There isn’t really that much to trade and what there is fairly uninspiring. Effectively you are confined to a small area of coastal waters with not much to explore. This is part of the book that really needs to be read in conjunction with one or more of the other books in the series.With far more passages/references than most adventure gamebooks, there is a lot to be explored in ‘The War-Torn Kingdom’. It has an enticing atmosphere that encourages the reader to explore as much as possible. The more you do in the book the more enjoyable it becomes. Even though it is meant to interact with the rest of the ‘Fabled Lands’ series (and, indeed, some bits you are unable to access without reading more of the series), it stands up well enough on its own. With hours of adventuring it’s a worthwhile purchase.

Fabled Lands zu spielen macht Riesenspaß, und man muss dabei keine Gewissensbisse haben, da man ja beim Spielen gleichzeitig noch ein gutes Buch liest. Ich empfehle jedoch, die Fabled-Lands-Reihe im englischen Original (z. B. dieser Artikel) zu spielen. Die deutschsprachige Neuauflage kann ich natürlich noch nicht beurteilen, aber bei früheren Auflagen (unter dem Titel "Sagaland") habe ich in Erinnerung, dass die Übersetzung ins Deutsche Schwächen aufwies, z. B. was Codewörter und Querverweise auf andere Stellen im Buch (sehr wichtig für das Spiel!) betrifft. Dergestalt, dass ich an manchen Stellen das Spiel abbrechen musste, weil einfach zu vieles nicht mehr gestimmt hat (würde es sich um Software handeln und nicht um Papier, würde man hier wohl von Bugs sprechen). Beim englischen Original ist mir so etwas noch nicht passiert.Was trotzdem auch in Fabled Lands (Englisch) ab und zu auftritt, ist, dass auf Bände querverwiesen wird, die nie erschienen sind (herausgegeben wurden meines Wissens nur die Bände 1-4, es gibt jedoch Verweise auf die Bände 5 und 6). In diesem Falle raten die Verfasser, einfach zurückzugehen und an einem anderen Punkt des Spiels fortzufahren.Neben dem Buch und zwei Würfeln benötigt man zum Spielen einen Bogen Papier mit Bleistift und Radiergummi, damit man dort seine sich verändernden Punktzahlen, Eigenschaften, Besitztümer usw. eintragen kann. Meine Variante hierzu ist, dass man vor Spielbeginn die ganzen Spielbögen in den Computer eingibt (Word, Open Office) und die sich verändernden Werte in den Computer einträgt. Macht man dies alles wirklich immer mit Bleistift und Radiergummi auf Papier, hat man schon nach wenigen Augenblicken eine perfekte Radierung vor sich liegen.Ein paar Fakten zum Spiel: Es gibt 10 verschiedene Ränge, sechs verschiedene Berufsgruppen (wie Troubadour und Warrior), sechs verschiedene Eigenschaften (z. B. Magic und Combat) u. ä. Das Spiel verläuft so, dass man durch die Fabled-Lands-Welt reist, Handel treibt, Eigenschaften hinzugewinnt, eine Schiffscrew anheuert und natürlich auch Kämpfe bestehen muss.Mit einem bestimmten Charakter beginnt man das Spiel, zumeist mit genau dem, der auf die ausgewählte Berufsgruppe zutrifft. Ich empfehle zum Spielen die Spielfigur "Bota-Jo": Charisma = 5, Combat = 2, Magic = 3, Sanctity = 6, Scouting = 4, Thievery = 1, Beruf Troubadour. Routinierten Spielern sei es natürlich auch vergönnt, sich Charaktere auszudenken, die den Namen von bekannten Politikern, Showstars oder Lehrern und Berufskollegen/Chefs tragen. Macht so bestimmt noch mehr Spaß!