Roll Of The Dice

I am not sure what inspired me to choose this weeks’ theme, on which to write a blog post. Being someone who never gambles for money, (out of conviction rather than choice), it’s not really a something you would hear me say during conversation, or even use as a ‘go to’ phrase when waxing lyrical and putting together a series of platitudes to sound clever.

To be honest, when I received the list of themes, for some unknown reason this one triggered my nostalgic sensor in the brain and took me back to the early 80s, and my formative years as a 9-year-old, impressionable child from the West Midlands.

So, before I plough into the main body of this story, I decided to try and find out about the origins of the phrase, with a preconceived expectation of reading something weird and wonderful, of how it came to be. Unfortunately, I was bitterly disappointed. From my linguistic research on the trusted internet, the most common understanding of the phrase ‘Roll of the dice’, originates simply from the advent of gambling using a six-sided die. It’s as simple as that. The chances or risks we take over our lives in the pursuit of gaining something worthwhile. That is all she wrote…

So rather than dwell on this rather anti-climax of what felt like a potentially lifechanging story behind this phrase, lets move on, and take a trip back in time to 1982 where the story starts. Flux capacitors at the ready, let’s go.

Ok… here we are, and hopefully you have all arrived safely, with any travel sickness quick to subside.

“What’s this to do with a roll of the dice?” I hear you say. Please bear with me, I will get to that bit! Being on the cusp of opening ones childhood pandora’s box to take a stroll down memory lane on a journey exploring one of my favourite hobbies which absorbed untold amounts of my free time growing up, is something to be savoured, and not rushed. The best things come to those who wait…

Right, I’m ready now.

Alongside playing with my Star Wars figures, and re-enacting my favourite scenes from A New Hope and The Empire Strikes Back, I also spent inordinate amounts of time reading Fighting Fantasy Gamebooks, which for anyone who is too young to remember, or who overlooked this in favour or playing house with Action Man and Cindy. I will now take you on a journey into what you have missed.

Fighting Fantasy was a series of single player roleplaying gamebooks created by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, first being published in paperback by Puffin books in 1982. These were a series of stories, of a very much low tech single person ole play game, especially when compared with today’s Massive Multiplayer Online Role Play Games such as World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy.

The books were part of an emerging scene, which distinguished itself from the traditional Choose Your Own Adventure-Style storytelling by added the element of chance into the proceedings, creating a dice-based role-playing element into the stories themselves.

Before embarking on your adventure, you were required to gather some basic equipment. Paper and a Pencil (with a rubber if possible), a couple of dice, somewhere quiet with the minimalist of distractions, and a vividly creative imagination.

At the time, my favourite place was downstairs in the living room, on the bright white faux fur rug in front of the electric fire which had fake glowing embers made of coloured glass stones and a flickering light beneath. This place was the ideal spot, although it only worked, so long as my parents and siblings were otherwise engaged, either out pottering in the garden, or busy doing their next DIY project elsewhere.

If the lounge was occupied, usually with the TV hosting a random set of weekend programmes such as for Saturdays World of Sport with Dickie Davis, (featuring the wrestling with Big Daddy, Giant Haystacks or Mick McManus), or if it was a Sunday, Highway to Heaven, Antiques Roadshow, or Bullseye. Then the next best place was on the top bunk of the bedroom I shared with my older brother.

Once I was ensconced in the quiet spot, with all essential equipment safely to hand, then the fun could begin.

Firstly, before starting the quest, each Fighting Fantasy gamebook requires the reader to create their character, using the element of chance, to randomly assign scores to three qualities (skill, stamina, and luck).

These were determined with the roll of the dice, where the higher number you got, the more skill, stamina, or luck you had at the stary of the game. Then as the story evolved, you would gain or loose points on these three qualities depending on how well the adventure was going.

The main text of each gamebook was set out in a delineated fashion. Each story was divided into a series of numbered passages (with an average around 400 in each book). Starting at no 1, you would be given a lead in to the story, offering some background information before being offered you the first of a series of choices of what you wanted to do next.

For example, if a story started with your character having taken a short stroll down a dark path, you may reach a bridge which spans a fast-flowing river. You would then be given an option of either choosing to cross the bridge (which would direct you to another passage buried somewhere in the pages of the book under the assigned a number). Alternatively, you may decide to try and cross the river by wading across using a series of stepping-stones, this would take you to another passage somewhere else. You then continued reading through the story following each set of options in turn.

Like most good quests, dangers were lurking around most corners, and sometimes you were faced with having to combat a whole array of adversaries. From witches, and demons, to trolls, space zombies and even evil ghost warriors being thrown in for good measure.

You would then be required to roll the dice further to help with battle these creatures. In the story you would be given the creatures skill and stamina scores. First you would need to roll the dice, and whatever the score was, you would add this to the creature’s skill score. Having done this you would then roll the dice again, and add this to your skill score. Whoever had the higher total won that round, and you had to delete two points from the stamina score of the loser. The contest then continued until the loser’s stamina score reached zero which meant they were dead.

So long as you survive each duel, the story would continue, until your character either perishes after one too many skirmishes’ and is killed in combat, or hopefully being successful and completing the quest.

Each of the Gamebooks had numerous twists and turns embedded into the story, where the main character may live or die based on the decisions made, or the roll of the dice. With each book offering numerous storylines, each adventure would be different, So, if at first go you didn’t succeed, you could always try and try again.

One element I enjoyed with the stories, was being able to imagine landscapes, scenes and characters in my mind 9therefore the vivid creative imagination being required). Not wanting to do things by half, I tended to develop a rich and varied tapestry of sights and sounds with which to explore.

Alongside your imagination, the Gamebook also had various illustrations including full-page drawings, or smaller, repeated images scattered throughout the book which helped to shape some of my creations. Anything that wasn’t covered in these illustrations I tended to fill in as I went along.

Most of the titles followed a fantasy theme, although science fiction, post-apocalyptic, superhero, and contemporary horror were also published. From all the books which were available, my top 5 spanned most of the genres:

1 The Warlock of Firetop Mountain
2 The Forest of Doom
3 Starship Traveller
4 Deathtrap Dungeon
5 Sword of the Samurai

My personal favourite was Sword of the Samurai, which as the title suggests, took place in japan in the endo period (1850s), and involve ghosts, warriors, shogun and evil emperors I must read this one hundreds of time to the point of being dog eared, and lose leafed.

Right Back to the Future now… Looking back as we do over our life experiences, these moments from my childhood provide fond memories for me to reminisce. To this day I still have a few of these books in my library, which although have been gathering dust for a little while since my kids have outgrown them, I am sure one day, I will revisit them once more taking another jaunt to strange lands or galaxies far, far away, and who knows, reliving a quest or two I have undertaken before, or if I am lucky, a completely new adventure for the first time. Only the pages of the book, and a role of the dice will know which it is to be.

So to the poem, you may be aware of my fondness for Haiku’s, and seems my favourite book was set in Japan, and with Star Wars having a tenuous link to the Seven Samurai, it would be remiss of me not to offer a new Haiku to finish.

Will I live or die?

My fate is decided by

A roll of the dice…

Thanks for reading, 

Steve McCarthy-Grunwald