A Strange Game

The author Paul Mason (not that one) authored five entries in the Fighting Fantasy series between 1988 and 1995, three of which were co-written with Steve Williams (not that one) -- four conventional gamebooks, plus The Riddling Reaver, a module for the Advanced Fighting Fantasy tabletop gaming system.

Mason's work, both solo and with Williams, is some of the most 'adult' writing for the range -- and quite possibly the entire genre of interactive fiction; Mason sought to avoid 'traditional' European fantasy cues, and his FF books take their inspiration from Arabian and Chinese legends. One curious recurring motif in his books, though, is an option to not go on the adventure at all.

In his and Williams' first book, #32 Slaves of the Abyss, you can decline two opportunities to leave your home city right at the start and stay behind instead, in spite of the book all but screaming at you that this is not a wise course of action. Choosing to do so directs you to the following section:

'How much for that one?' says the greasy-haired peasant, pointing at a rust-coated sword on a market stall. 'Wot, this?' replies the stallholder, pulling it from a jumbled pile. 'More 'n you can afford, matey. This 'un's not for sticking your pigs with. Fangthane steel, this. Pulled it from the ruins of Kallamehr meself, I did, a few years back. Last a Turn of Turns, it will, which is more 'n could be said for its last owner. Wot a mess they was!' Many years have passed since the fall of Kallamehr. You shared the fate which overwhelmed it. Your remains lie unmourned among the rubble and debris.

Their second book, #42 Black Vein Prophecy, infamously starts with the player character waking up in a sarcophagus, with no memory of who or where they are, and if the reader lingers in this room too long an option to return to the sarcophagus comes up:

You have chosen a suitable resting place. The pressure builds on your skull and mercifully you black out. You have returned, no wiser, to the slumber from whence you came. You will not wake again.

Mason's first solo effort, #47 The Crimson Tide (a sequel to BVP, but with a different character as the protagonist), is the only one of his gamebooks that does not have such an option -- at least, not in such close proximity to the beginning, perhaps because the player character is a child determined to avenge the attack on their village. Amongst the book's several non-fatal endings, though, it does have one where you can find yourself at a monastery and choose to stay there, giving up your quest for revenge.

His last FF book, #57 Magehunter, is arguably one of the most complex gamebooks ever written. The range had been trending towards more 'adult' writing for some time, but the fiftieth book, Return to Firetop Mountain, had been intended to be the last -- but it also celebrated the franchise's tenth anniversary, the special attention given to the range in its anniversary year caused sales to spike, and Penguin Books U-turned and commissioned more books. The nine titles in the series they published after Return, apart from frequently changing hands for hundreds and hundreds of pounds due to short print runs, continue the trend away from the series' original target market and are aimed more at the adult collector, and Magehunter may be the most mature book the range ever produced. Which makes its plot quite difficult to distil down here.

But if you choose not to try and follow Mencius, the mage you are trying to hunt down, and instead wait to see if he returns of his own volition, you can get quite a spectacular fail within three turns of starting:

You wait for a month, during which the situation grows steadily worse. You realise that none of the factions trusts you, since you refuse to commit yourself. The Chamberlain, with whom you have never gotten on particularly well, seems to be emerging as the new ruler of the domain. One morning you awaken to find soldiers searching your room. Finding Mencius's spell book, they drag you before the Chamberlain.

'As you suspected, sire,' announces the sergeant who arrested you, 'we found this work of the Evil One in his possession,' and he passes Mencius's Book of Craft to the Chamberlain.

He flips a couple of pages with distaste. 'Do you have anything to say before the sentence is passed?' he enquires, arching his eyebrows. You protest that you were hoping to pursue the mage who kidnapped Lord Reindhart, but you trail off as it seems obvious the Chamberlain is deaf to your words. 'It is well known that those exposed to the practice of sorcery are often drawn by its allure. Despite your past meritorious conduct, there can be no exceptions. You burn at dawn.'

Mason also seems to have an interest with endless voids and eternal torment which feels connected to this. The successful ending to Slaves of the Abyss was originally going to involve the player pulling a heroic sacrifice and staying behind in the titular abyss so the titular slaves could go free, but this was vetoed by the range's editors (although rest assured there are plenty of unsuccessful endings where you get stuck there). The ending to Black Vein Prophecy quoted above is a pretty clear example, and in fact if you fail to meet the book's conditions for winning in the endgame then you can be directed all the way back to the start. If you show no mercy to your father's killer in The Crimson Tide and choose to strike him down, your vision is consumed by the crimson tide until your dying day. The available information about his never-completed FF book, The Wailing World, indicates it would have followed in this tradition. One of the final rooms in The Riddling Reaver is the Void Room, which the Reaver uses to dispose of his enemies:

There is nothing beyond the door but Void. Anyone who steps in, without retaining some contact with the corridor (for example, by having a rope tied around them, held by friends outside the room or tied to the brass rings), will be lost for ever in a Nothingness that exists outside of existence. They may chance to bump into some of the other eternal prisoners of the Void, but this is unlikely, as the Void is infinitely large. Since it is outside existence, there is no way a character lost in the Void can be brought back -- even Gods are powerless to intervene.

And Magehunter contains, it must be said, some of the most poetic ways to lose a Fighting Fantasy book ever written that arise from this.

With a look of desperation in his eyes, Mencius takes to the air, flapping his arms frantically. He flies higher up the tower, and you charge after him, trying to get within range in order to strike a death blow. You follow him all the way up the tower, then through a trapdoor on to the roof. From there you can only watch helplessly as he heads out over the sea. You cannot follow him that way. Who knows where he will end up? One thing is sure: he has escaped you. You must start all over again, tracking him to the end of this accursed world. Do enough years of life remain to you to accomplish that? Only time will tell.