Fighting Fantasy
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40 free Fighting Fantasy trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
In 1982 a slim paperback told its readers that they, not some character on the page, were the hero. The Warlock of Firetop Mountain let you choose your own path, fight monsters with a pencil in hand, and fail horribly along the way. A generation of readers kept a finger wedged in the previous page, just in case. This quiz covers the Fighting Fantasy series that followed: the gamebooks and novels, the villains and wizards, the worlds they share, the rules that held it all together, and the authors and artists behind them, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone above all. There are questions on the spin-offs and on the surprising careers the series launched. It is written for anyone who ever cheated their way through Deathtrap Dungeon, and for newer readers finding the books through the modern reissues. Every answer comes with a short explanation.
30 of 40 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Iain McCaig, who illustrated Fighting Fantasy's City of Thieves, later designed which Star Wars villain?
Darth Maul
Darth Maul and Padmé Amidala were both his designs for The Phantom Menace, years after he painted covers for Ian Livingstone's gamebooks.
Q 02Before Fighting Fantasy, Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone won an exclusive deal to sell which game in Europe?
Dungeons & Dragons
Dungeons & Dragons reached them by chance: TSR's Brian Blume was sent their newsletter Owl and Weasel and posted back a copy of his firm's new game.
Q 03Fighting Fantasy's Ian Livingstone later chaired Eidos, where he helped secure which video game franchise?
Tomb Raider
Tomb Raider was one of the major franchises he secured, along with Hitman, and he later contributed to the 2007 remake of the original game.
Q 04During a moral panic over Fighting Fantasy, one mother reported that the books made her child do what?
Start to fly
Start to fly was the claim, and the Evangelical Alliance warned that the books would lead players to the devil. Steve Jackson said the authors were grateful, as it helped sales.
Q 05Fighting Fantasy's Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone co-founded which tabletop gaming firm in 1975?
Games Workshop
Games Workshop began as a mail-order business run from their flat, and their landlord evicted them in 1976 when customers kept turning up looking for a shop.
Q 06After Fighting Fantasy, Steve Jackson designed F.I.S.T., a solo role-playing game played on which device?
A telephone
A telephone was all a player needed: F.I.S.T. stood for Fantasy Interactive Scenarios by Telephone, and is described as the first interactive role-playing game of its kind.
Q 07Alongside Skill and Stamina, which third score does a reader roll for a Fighting Fantasy hero?
Luck
Luck completes the trio. The rules are so light that a 1996 Arcane magazine poll ranked Fighting Fantasy among the 50 most popular role-playing games of all time.
Q 08Which Penguin children's imprint published the first Fighting Fantasy gamebook back in 1982?
Puffin
Puffin put the book out after a cautious first printing of just 5,000 copies, which quickly sold out. It went on to sell more than two million.
Q 09In The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, monsters guard which items needed to claim the treasure?
Keys
Keys open a chest with two locks at the end of the adventure. When the series magazine reprinted the story in 1984, it changed the solution and so the route through the mountain.
Q 10Which warlock guards his treasure deep inside Firetop Mountain in the very first Fighting Fantasy gamebook?
Zagor
Zagor proved hard to kill: Ian Livingstone resurrected him for a 1992 sequel that sold so well it prolonged the series for another three years.
Q 11Which comedian and children's author wrote a Fighting Fantasy gamebook published in 2018?
Charlie Higson
Charlie Higson, of The Fast Show and the Young Bond novels, was a long-term fan who had already made a cameo in Ian Livingstone's zombie gamebook of 2012.
Q 12Warlock, the Fighting Fantasy magazine, closed in Britain in 1986 but carried on for years in which country?
Japan
Japan kept the title alive by expanding it into a general role-playing magazine, long after the British original ended at issue 13.
Q 13In The Forest of Doom by Ian Livingstone, the hero hunts for the missing pieces of which weapon?
A warhammer
A warhammer is the prize, wanted by a people battling the trolls. A 1983 review gave the book full marks while warning players not to loot the mage's home.
Q 21Fighting Fantasy's Steve Jackson set up which video game studio with Peter Molyneux in 1997?
Lionhead Studios
Lionhead Studios tempted him back to making games after a spell as a newspaper games journalist. He left in 2006, when Microsoft bought the company.
Q 22Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook was written by the American Steve Jackson, not the British co-creator?
Scorpion Swamp
Scorpion Swamp was the first book in the series from an outside author, letting readers roam freely and pick one of three missions: good, evil or neutral.
Q 23Which evil wizard rules the castle that the hero must infiltrate in Steve Jackson's The Citadel of Chaos?
Balthus Dire
Q 14In Temple of Terror, the five hidden letters that the hero must avoid collecting spell out which word?
DEATH
DEATH is the trap: finding all five letters kills the hero on the spot. The real goal is a set of five artefacts hidden in the lost desert city of Vatos.
Q 15Most Fighting Fantasy gamebooks end in victory at which numbered section, the last in the book?
400
400 became the standard length, though some broke it: Howl of the Werewolf, voted the best in the series in a 2011 fan poll, ran to 515.
Q 16Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook is set in a lawless America after a plague has killed most of the world's population?
Freeway Fighter
Freeway Fighter puts the reader in an armed Dodge Interceptor that must be kept fuelled, on a run to bring a tanker of petrol back to the town of New Hope.
Q 17Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook, apparently inspired by Star Trek, was the first in the series set in space?
Starship Traveller
Starship Traveller strands a captain and crew in another universe after a black hole swallows the ship, and it can be finished without a single fight.
Q 18Which Fighting Fantasy world is home to the continents of Allansia, Khul and the Old World?
Titan
Titan was mapped only after the fact: the early books were written separately, and their locations were later revealed to share the continent of Allansia.
Q 19In City of Thieves, the hero must enter which lawless harbour town to find the wizard Nicodemus?
Port Blacksand
Port Blacksand is the city of the title, where one reviewer found most encounters potentially lethal. It turns up again in Temple of Terror.
Q 20Baron Sukumvit's Trial of Champions, the contest at the heart of Deathtrap Dungeon, is held in which city?
Fang
Fang is where six contestants enter the labyrinth, and the book made a bestseller of Ian Livingstone, selling more than 350,000 copies in its first year alone.
Balthus Dire can be reached only by a hero who gathers the right artefacts to get past his guardians, and the book was the first in the series to let readers cast spells.
Q 24Which good wizard first appears in The Forest of Doom and later recruits the hero in Temple of Terror?
Yaztromo
Yaztromo, the wizard of Darkwood Forest, features in several of Ian Livingstone's gamebooks. In Temple of Terror he sends the hero to stop a sorcerer raised by dark elves from ruling Allansia.
Q 25In City of Thieves, the village of Silverton hires the hero to defeat which lord of the undead?
Zanbar Bone
Zanbar Bone, known as the Night Prince, has a single weakness, and the hero must first track down the one wizard who knows what it is.
Q 26Which publisher relaunched Fighting Fantasy in 2017 with new artwork and a new Ian Livingstone adventure?
Scholastic
Scholastic timed the relaunch for the series' 35th anniversary, 22 years after the original publisher had brought the first run to an end.
Q 27In Steve Jackson's Sorcery! gamebooks, the hero sets out from Analand to recover which stolen artefact?
The Crown of Kings
The Crown of Kings gives its wearer magical powers of leadership, and the Archmage of Mampang Fortress plans to use it to unite a lawless region and invade his neighbours.
Q 28In which Fighting Fantasy gamebook does the reader begin as a mindless beast, unable to make choices?
Creature of Havoc
Creature of Havoc leaves early moves to chance until the beast finds the Vapour of Reason. Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone put its popularity down to its difficulty.
Q 29Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook casts the reader as a superhero called the Silver Crusader?
Appointment with F.E.A.R.
Appointment with F.E.A.R. swaps gold and potions for Hero Points and clues, and lets the reader pick one of four sets of superpowers before fighting crime.
Q 30Which Fighting Fantasy gamebook, set on the continent of Khul, gives the hero Honour points?
Sword of the Samurai
Sword of the Samurai ends the adventure at once if Honour ever falls to zero, so helping those in need matters as much as winning fights.