Dicing with Dragons

When Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone were first commissioned by Puffin Books in the early 1980s, it was with the intent that they would write an introductory guide to role-playing games. They got a short way into the writing process before deciding that they'd rather write their own solo fantasy adventure, which became The Warlock of Firetop Mountain. However, Livingstone did still end up writing the originally promised guide, albeit for a different publisher; this was Dicing with Dragons, published by Routledge & Kegan Paul in 1982, the same year as Warlock.

The book is most notable for its inclusion of a short, 134-section solo adventure by Livingstone, Eye of the Dragon. If that name sounds familiar to you, it's because 23 years later Livingstone rewrote it as a full-length Fighting Fantasy book with the same title, but didn't expand at all on the rather thin plot, making for a book which did not go down terribly well with fans. Interestingly, although Russ Nicholson illustrated the short version and Martin McKenna the full-length one, McKenna clearly used Nicholson's illustrations as a basis for his. To provide one example:

The book's chapter on "Games You Can Buy" is effectively just a condensation of the rules for Dungeons & Dragons and several other RPGs; one wonders if this has something to do with why Puffin ended up not publishing the book. It does include some interesting historical context on the popularity of RPGs in the UK at the time, though; "Recent surveys and awards in the UK have suggested that RuneQuest is, after Advanced Dungeons & Dragons and Traveller, the third most popular role-playing game system." There is also a brief round-up of other titles, including Livingstone's own Fighting Fantasy (despite the fact that there was only one book in that particular series at time of publication), and an amusing misspelling of Michael Moorcock's name. Livingstone lists over 35 different "Games You Can Buy" all told, many of which have long since faded into obscurity, giving a fascinating look at how the RPG scene was back in the day. The "Accessories" chapter is largely similar, chiefly being a list of assorted add-ons for the games in the previous chapter.

There's then a section on miniature figurines, notable chiefly for spending a really rather moving dozen or so pages on the importance of painting them correctly and the difficulty of doing so, and how to source the required materials. (The page on "brush care" in particular is quite something and almost makes tracking this book down worth it by itself.)

There are also sections on computer games and "live-action roleplay", which feels like it might stray a wee bit outside the book's remit but is a fascinating piece of history nonetheless. In fact, I think that sums the book up pretty well; I'm not terribly sure if I'd have learnt anything new from this book if I'd purchased it in 1982, as much of it is just a listing of available materials, but as a historical document it's absolutely fascinating. It also had a cousin written by Steve Jackson, which was published by Puffin and was entitled simply Fighting Fantasy, which primarily consisted of two example multi-player games for you to play with your friends, a 'simple' one and a more 'advanced' one... which does rather help as an introduction to 'proper' role-playing more than this book does. Still, there is more than enough in Dicing with Dragons to make it interesting, provided you want to know what the RPG scene looked like in the early eighties.