Pick-Your-Path Game Books

Another variation of RPG, one that developed shortly after tabletop RPGs became more mainstream, is the pick-your-path game book.


These game books, such as the Choose Your Own Adventure and Fighting Fantasy books, are targeted toward a single player: the book’s reader. Many of the books even include a character sheet the player must use to keep up with the character she pretends to be while reading the book. As the player reads the book, the pages are not read in sequential order but in branching paths, meaning that as the player nears the end of each section, she is given a choice to make, and that choice can determine the progress of the story.


One of my favorite game book series was Joe Dever’s Lone Wolf, the first eight books of which were originally illustrated by Gary Chalk. In the Lone Wolf series, the story centers on the fantasy world Magnamund, where forces of good and evil war for control of the planet. The player takes on the role of the protagonist, Lone Wolf, who is the last living member of a caste of warrior monks known as the Kai Lords. As Lone Wolf, the reader makes choices at regular intervals that decide the course, and eventually the outcome, of the story. If the player makes the wrong choices, Lone Wolf can die. It is therefore up to the reader to keep Lone Wolf alive and victorious in his questing.


Although out-of-print today, the Lone Wolf series has been distributed online through permission given by Joe Dever by a fan-based organization called Project Aon. If you would like to take a peek at the Lone Wolf series, just to find out more about game books, then you can do so online at www.ProjectAon.org.

A typical excerpt from a pick-your-path game book is as follows.


You dive under the fallen log just in time, as with a hue and cry you hear the goblins bound from the jungle forest to your left. You attempt to wedge yourself in tighter under the log, as goblins riding on warthogs leap the fallen log and jog further down the forested path back the way you came.


After the last warthog-riding goblin trundles off into the distance, the dust cloud from the cloven hooves fading behind them, you pull yourself out from under the fallen log, bits of spongy bark clinging to your sweaty skin. You shake off the dirt and debris and then peer back down the path, wondering to yourself where the goblins were coming from. Could they have come from that smudge-dark tower you glimpsed over the forest canopy hours ago? Or do they have a cave they normally
reside in just ahead?


However, you also wonder where the goblins are heading in such a hurry. You passed a small farm not too far back, where you saw chimney smoke climbing over the canopy. Could the farmer and his family be in trouble? Is the farm the goblins’ target for disaster? Or is there more afoot here?


Do you want to run back toward the farm, after the goblins, to see what is going on there? If so, turn to page 183.


Do you want to strike off through the woods in search of the dark tower you saw earlier? If so, turn to the next page.


Or would you rather follow the path and wait and see if you come across the goblin’s home? If so, turn to page 212.