Still, despite this (and the sometimes steep difficulty) I really like the series. A city you cannot explore, whose only description is 'A beautiful city on the sea' (or whatever) isn't really acceptable in a fantasy environment.
![fabled lands game fabled lands game](https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/a/box/8/2/8/9828_thumb.jpg)
The only way you can really tell what a city is actually 'like' in some books is because (thank God) they got someone to do an illustration for it.
FABLED LANDS GAME SERIES
It really looks like the former were half-arsed somewhat, which goes a big way towards destroying the carefully-crafted atmosphere the series tries to create. Compare the entry for Ringhorn in book 2 or Smogmaw (book 3) with Yellowport (book 1) or Aku (book 5). You don't get a chance to test an ability score to avoid this- if you get that encounter, that's it, your character is automatically weakened. The only way to avoid this kind of thing is to know ahead of time what each random encounter does and to try and avoid the bad ones through using Luck blessings (of which you can only have one at a time) to re-roll your dice. Otherwise you just have to totally avoid some parts of the map, which is easier. Pretty dodgy.ĭescriptions in these books are also a little dodgy. While travelling across Golnir it's quite common to encounter a random event which immediately lowers one of your stats. Book 2 (Cities of Gold and Glory) is particularly guilty of this. The other books are still fun (particularly book 3, Over the Blood-Dark Sea) but suffer a lot from being overly reliant on random encounters- which means an errant die-roll can totally destroy your character. The random events and various skill-rolls also seem much fairer. If Dave didn't actually write these books, I'm still sure they were all written by the same author- there are similarities in writing style, etc. Cities in these books are lovingly described, there are countless ways of exploring them, and they contain the most memorable NPCs and plenty of diverting side-quests. Rather one took one book, the other took the next, etc.įrom what I can tell the 'best' books (IMO) are by Dave Thompson, and are books 1, 4 and 5. I'm not sure if this is true, but I read online that the two authors didn't co-write the books. My only problem with the series is that some books are MUCH weaker than others. I am a big fan of the Fabled Lands series, generally think the concept is amazing and is the closest you can come to a continent-spanning free-choice video-game-style RPG in a gamebook. I haven't read a lot of gamebooks apart from FF, Lone Wolf, and FL though.
![fabled lands game fabled lands game](https://mocagh.org/thumb/fabled6-inside.jpg)
As you can see, I'll have a lot on my plate for the next few months (at least), alternating between DQ, FL and FF! I got my book yesterday and already started playing. I've also read somewhere that the other 6 books that were never published will get green light if the first 6 can sell about 10,000 copies each.Īlso, couldn't not notice in your blog that you're currently playing DestinyQuest. After a few failed initial attempts, when I was still getting used to the mechanics and testing different professions, I decided to play as a rogue, but I intend to play with all different professions in the future.Ībout the reprints: books 5 and 6 are supposed to be re-released on May. It's very different from FF, more game-oriented as you pointed out, but I'm liking it a lot too. I've explored most of the first book and can't wait to resume playing.
![fabled lands game fabled lands game](https://cdn.statically.io/img/worldofpcgames.co/wp-content/uploads/2022/05/Fabled-Lands-Free-Download-By-Worldofpcgames.jpg)
I got the first book, The War-Torn Kingdom, about a week ago and in the meantime I already ordered the other three, I should get them tomorrow.