You Are Lone Wolf
05.13.06 By Collin DavidI grew up playing Dungeons and Dragons. Somewhere in my collection of nerdaphenalia, I have copies of first edition, second edition and signed Monster Manuals. I own an original painting by Tony DiTerlizzi from Factol’s Manifesto. My 20-sided dice are worn at the corners into almost spherical shapes. Role playing, at one point in my development, surpassed even Nintendo and riding my bike. My uncle, as Dungeon Master, provided endless original adventures and drawings to accompany them. Each was a piece of classic, interactive fiction to sculpt me into the person I am today. The good parts… not the lumpy parts that hang over my belt. Those were sculpted by large amounts of bacon and fired in the kiln of despair.
Unfortunately, these interactive fiction games usually require two interested parties to play. One person creates an adventure, another person (or multiple people) make decisions about how to approach the situations presented to them, and the creator reacts to these situations by rolling dice and assigning probabilities to things. It’s all math, except you’re making it do useful things like slaying rust monsters instead of calculating the square roots of numbers that don’t even exist. I don’t try to date imaginary women, I don’t eat imaginary sandwiches, and I’m not much inclined to use numbers that I can’t count on my fingers.
The lonely roleplayer is an unfortunate creature, often unable to make decisions without rolling dice and consulting charts. Scientists came up to a solution to this problem, and genetically engineered a man named Joe Dever to write fantasy adventures, in book form, that would be a stunning simulacrum for actually interacting with a real person. Much more than your typical ‘choose your own adventure’ book, the Lone Wolf series of paperbacks allowed you to equip yourself before your adventure, earn certain abilities and experiences and interact with the story itself. Not only were these books complex fantasy stories to wander through as individual novelettes, but your adventures in previous books in the series cumulatively determined the fate and events of all future adventures, which spanned a formidable 28 books.
The Lone Wolf books were originally printed in the UK in 1984 by Red Fox Publishing, and found their way to the US in 1985 by way of Berkley Publishing. Of the 28 books, only 20 were republished in the states, and of those, only the first 13 were full editions, leaving the remaining 7 abridged. Of course, when you abridge things that have non-sequential pages, you should probably hope for an epic disaster and tragically incomplete reading. Nonetheless, a very loyal and rabid following formed after these books, and the mythos of the series eventually evolved into a full-fledged role playing game, thereby negating the whole ‘play by yourself’ thing. Project Aon has republished a large variety of these Lone Wolf adventures on the internet, complete with clickable links instead of ‘turn to page’ indicators, corrected and unabridged, and with many thanks to the generosity of the original author.
Does this make the books less collectible? I recently happened upon a nearly complete collection of the US editions of these books, missing only volume number four, and I quickly snapped them up, because there’s nothing like a ratty old fantasy novel. A guy with a torn shirt and a sword, clearly thrust into an adventure that he did not expect, fighting off some unusual, mythical horde of beasts, the strange planet’s three moons glowing behind him. It’s classic. Bonus ‘classic’ points if there’s a metal bikini involved somewhere. There’s a lot of benefit to preserving these curious works digitally, but thumbing through a book that you can stick in your pocket is just far more charming. Many of these out-of-print books can be bought for no more than a dollar at places like ABEBooks or eBay, with the odd copy fetching higher prices and the expensive UK editions (especially volumes 21 to 28) being far more desirable due to their complete text. I wouldn’t expect to find perfect editions, and I can’t vouch for the quality of the writing, but they’re fun. The ones that I found had writing in the front pages, but I can’t say I mind.
One wolf was made a lot less lonely with those books. One spectacle-wearing wolf with a penchant for Cheetohs.
---
Article Tags: , D&D, Dungeons and Dragons, Lone Wolf, Project Aon, Red Fox Publishing, rpg, Tony DiTerlizzi================
Gotta Collect? Then You Gotta Connect - Join our Collectors’ Community!
