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Fighting Fantasy #48
Moonrunner
Bring Karam Gruul to justice!
The war between the kingdoms is over, but there is still much to be done. The evil generals who went to ground in the Badlands beyond Gallantaria have been tracked down by bounty hunters. The feared Inquisitor General, Karam Gruul, has eluded capture for so long, however, that many believe him dead.
You alone know different. Gruul is very much alive, and plotting to rekindle the flames of war once more. YOU must use your skills as a bounty hunter to track him down and bring him, finally, to justice.
Part story, part game, this is a book in which YOU are the hero! Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need. YOU decide which routes to take, which dangers to risk and which foes to fight. Dare YOU face terrors that await you in the Badlands?
The war between the kingdoms is over, but there is still much to be done. The evil generals who went to ground in the Badlands beyond Gallantaria have been tracked down by bounty hunters. The feared Inquisitor General, Karam Gruul, has eluded capture for so long, however, that many believe him dead.
You alone know different. Gruul is very much alive, and plotting to rekindle the flames of war once more. YOU must use your skills as a bounty hunter to track him down and bring him, finally, to justice.
Part story, part game, this is a book in which YOU are the hero! Two dice, a pencil and an eraser are all you need. YOU decide which routes to take, which dangers to risk and which foes to fight. Dare YOU face terrors that await you in the Badlands?
256 pages, Paperback
First published November 1, 1992
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Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews
December 27, 2014
A bounty hunter tracks down the final target
27 December 2014
Well, it has been quite a while since I have read one of these (that is in regards to my recent read through of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks) despite meaning to read them for quite a while. However I have now corrected that and on Christmas Day I decided I would give this gamebook a try. There are still quite a few of them to get through but at least I can now mark this one off of my list.
Moonrunner has you playing a bounty hunter who has been running around an area known as the Four Kingdoms bringing a number of generals from the losing side of a recent war to justice, however one of them, Karam Gruul, has managed to elude capture. Thus, when you arrive in the city of Blackhaven you are approached by one of the councillors and told that Gruul may be up to his tricks again and assigns you the task of tracking him down. As is the case with all of these adventures, they simply can't send in an army, or even the city watch, because they are not as effective as a single person (or a small group of people).
This was the first time that I ever read this particular book (or played this adventure, depending on how you approach these books), and once again it does not involve trudging downs streets, or making your way through passages in a dungeon, that the early books had you do. Instead you are in a fairly large (and as can be expected, quite dangerous) city where you are given a number of places to visit, and you visit them one by one. The adventure starts out with four places, with the suggestion of another two if you find out how to get there.
However, when you visit one of the places (a tavern) you are then approached by another person, who tells you that you are going about it all wrong, and that instead you need to collect a bunch of artifacts, and you only have nine hours in which to do so before you miss the crucial time when the secret society (or rather no so secret society because everybody seems to know about it) gets together to discuss their plans.
As a bounty hunter, this adventure begins with you selecting four skills from a list, all of them being the type of skills (such as disguise, sleight of hand, pick lock) that you would expect a thief to have. Unfortunately I'm not really able to give you any hints on which skills to take because they all seem to be needed. Okay one of the artifacts that you collect allows you to get a new skill, but I was hesitant to use that artifact because you can only use them once and I believe that you need them all in the final battle. What I can tell you though is that despite appearances, you do have time to search the room at the beginning of the adventure. Oh, and another thing, this adventure also has you write words down on your sheet, and if you have those words when you get to certain paragraphs, things can happened (such as an unstoppable killing machine storming through a wax museum).
27 December 2014
Well, it has been quite a while since I have read one of these (that is in regards to my recent read through of the Fighting Fantasy gamebooks) despite meaning to read them for quite a while. However I have now corrected that and on Christmas Day I decided I would give this gamebook a try. There are still quite a few of them to get through but at least I can now mark this one off of my list.
Moonrunner has you playing a bounty hunter who has been running around an area known as the Four Kingdoms bringing a number of generals from the losing side of a recent war to justice, however one of them, Karam Gruul, has managed to elude capture. Thus, when you arrive in the city of Blackhaven you are approached by one of the councillors and told that Gruul may be up to his tricks again and assigns you the task of tracking him down. As is the case with all of these adventures, they simply can't send in an army, or even the city watch, because they are not as effective as a single person (or a small group of people).
This was the first time that I ever read this particular book (or played this adventure, depending on how you approach these books), and once again it does not involve trudging downs streets, or making your way through passages in a dungeon, that the early books had you do. Instead you are in a fairly large (and as can be expected, quite dangerous) city where you are given a number of places to visit, and you visit them one by one. The adventure starts out with four places, with the suggestion of another two if you find out how to get there.
However, when you visit one of the places (a tavern) you are then approached by another person, who tells you that you are going about it all wrong, and that instead you need to collect a bunch of artifacts, and you only have nine hours in which to do so before you miss the crucial time when the secret society (or rather no so secret society because everybody seems to know about it) gets together to discuss their plans.
As a bounty hunter, this adventure begins with you selecting four skills from a list, all of them being the type of skills (such as disguise, sleight of hand, pick lock) that you would expect a thief to have. Unfortunately I'm not really able to give you any hints on which skills to take because they all seem to be needed. Okay one of the artifacts that you collect allows you to get a new skill, but I was hesitant to use that artifact because you can only use them once and I believe that you need them all in the final battle. What I can tell you though is that despite appearances, you do have time to search the room at the beginning of the adventure. Oh, and another thing, this adventure also has you write words down on your sheet, and if you have those words when you get to certain paragraphs, things can happened (such as an unstoppable killing machine storming through a wax museum).
February 5, 2019
My favourite book in the series.
Your hunt for the wicked diabolical mastermind Karam Gruul sets its bleak and intense tone right from the first paragraph, where one of your allies is murdered and you might well end up framed for it. The hunt is on, you're outmatched and outwitted at every turn, and you never get a break. You have many ways to proceed, each of them seemingly getting you just a little bit onward while still harrying you with all the more traps and tricks and ambushes. Your many bounty hunter skills all feel equally useful - or useless, in the best way possible, being usually just enough to get you out of a bind and moving onward a bit. You really come to hate this Gruul guy before the end of it all.
The story isn't remotely as long and well-established as in Creature of Havoc, but it gets the setting and the stakes through effectively enough. There's a lot of going on, both on personal and setting-wide level. And as said, you feel completely alone against the world: even the few allies you do meet don't feel like they help the matters all that much. Great art, too.
All in all, it may have the best story-to-gameplay ratio in the series, elevating it right above other favourites and into the top. It's great. Read it, play it, love it.
Your hunt for the wicked diabolical mastermind Karam Gruul sets its bleak and intense tone right from the first paragraph, where one of your allies is murdered and you might well end up framed for it. The hunt is on, you're outmatched and outwitted at every turn, and you never get a break. You have many ways to proceed, each of them seemingly getting you just a little bit onward while still harrying you with all the more traps and tricks and ambushes. Your many bounty hunter skills all feel equally useful - or useless, in the best way possible, being usually just enough to get you out of a bind and moving onward a bit. You really come to hate this Gruul guy before the end of it all.
The story isn't remotely as long and well-established as in Creature of Havoc, but it gets the setting and the stakes through effectively enough. There's a lot of going on, both on personal and setting-wide level. And as said, you feel completely alone against the world: even the few allies you do meet don't feel like they help the matters all that much. Great art, too.
All in all, it may have the best story-to-gameplay ratio in the series, elevating it right above other favourites and into the top. It's great. Read it, play it, love it.
September 21, 2017
~idem sama yang ini ☜(°ヮ°☜)
January 5, 2021
A very sophisticated gamebook by Stephen Hand, who here creates a truly open-feeling world that is as far from a dungeon-crawl as I can imagine; and with ample, clever use of codewords and hubs. The book also stands out in that your mission is not to destroy the bad guy but to bring him to justice.
Having also read Hand’s Legend of the Shadow Warriors, I’m really impressed by his beautiful prose style. It elevates the storytelling beyond the level you usually find in a gamebook. He really creates an atmosphere here, and also manages to make things genuinely scary at one point (when Conrad comes back - again - at the Chamber of Horrors. The Halloween-esque picture of Conrad, on paragraph 16, is truly chilling). As well as Moonrunner and Shadow Warriors, Hand wrote one other FF gamebook, Dead of Night, which I’m now eager to experience.
The writing in Moonrunner is complemented beautifully with fantastic artwork by one of the best artists in FF, Martin McKenna. The drawings are simpler than McKenna’s incredibly detailed, computer-assisted later work, but they really help in conjuring the palpable atmosphere that is created here. Everything just seems to come together in this late entry in the FF series.
Maybe the book is a little on the easy side, though, as I completed it first time, despite making a few obviously poor decisions.
Having also read Hand’s Legend of the Shadow Warriors, I’m really impressed by his beautiful prose style. It elevates the storytelling beyond the level you usually find in a gamebook. He really creates an atmosphere here, and also manages to make things genuinely scary at one point (when Conrad comes back - again - at the Chamber of Horrors. The Halloween-esque picture of Conrad, on paragraph 16, is truly chilling). As well as Moonrunner and Shadow Warriors, Hand wrote one other FF gamebook, Dead of Night, which I’m now eager to experience.
The writing in Moonrunner is complemented beautifully with fantastic artwork by one of the best artists in FF, Martin McKenna. The drawings are simpler than McKenna’s incredibly detailed, computer-assisted later work, but they really help in conjuring the palpable atmosphere that is created here. Everything just seems to come together in this late entry in the FF series.
Maybe the book is a little on the easy side, though, as I completed it first time, despite making a few obviously poor decisions.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 28, 2019
Lots of fun!
December 23, 2023
Fun effort crammed to the gills with Easter eggs for movie buffs. Full review: https://refereeingandreflection.wordp...
June 14, 2024
Great art, great story, exceptionally structured, and a clear sense of place and purpose. The skills are all interesting and most are used throughout the book. The writing is strong. The only nitpick I have is the Moonrunner "twist" at the end, which wasn't set up in any way, and the weak final encounter. Otherwise great. I love these classic Games Workshop-era titles for their tone and early 16th century feel.
April 8, 2025
The first, larger, part is the best, a fun romp through serial-numbers-filed-off horror movies, with an evolving quest and a convincing attempt at an open world investigation.
The second, much smaller, part sees YOU enter the villain's base and is a sharp genre shift into pulp supervillainy and what looks suspiciously like some unfortunate Orientalism.
Still, the first bit is 90% of the book and is very good indeed, so I can forgive and forget the latter.
The second, much smaller, part sees YOU enter the villain's base and is a sharp genre shift into pulp supervillainy and what looks suspiciously like some unfortunate Orientalism.
Still, the first bit is 90% of the book and is very good indeed, so I can forgive and forget the latter.
Displaying 1 - 8 of 8 reviews