So, back in the day when there was no online gaming and DMs were hard to find, some of us filled the gap with pick-a-path books.*
Of the many variants thereof, the ones by Iron Crown (a.k.a. i.C.E.) show how relaxed a lot of game companies' understanding of copyright --esp. other people's copyright-- cd be. And the trouble this cd cause when the Other People (e.g. lawyers) were paying attention.
So far as I can tell, I.C.E. released ten books in four series: Tolkien Quest (two books), Middle-earth Quest (four books), Narnia Solo Games (one book), and Sherlock Holmes Solo Mysteries (three books). It started as Tolkien Quest, then quickly changed to Middle-earth Quest --indeed one of the books advertised as part of the T.Q. series had been re-labeled to be MeQ books instead by the time it came out.
Here's a listing which may not be complete, given that more books were announced than ever appeared on shelves.
I. Tolkien Quest
—The Legend of Weathertop. by Heike Kubasch (1985)
—Night of the Nazgul. by John David Ruemmler (1985)
II. Middle Earth Quest
—Rescue in Mirkwood. by Gerald Lientz (1988).**
—Treason at Helm's Deep. by Kevin Barrett & Saul Peters (1988)
—Mines of Moria. by Susan Mathews & J. D. Ruemmler (1988)
—A Spy in Isengard. by Terry K. Amthor (1988)
[Search for the Palantir]. announced but never released]
[Race from RIvendell ]. never released
Next Up: Narnia Quest
--John R
*P.S.: In my case it was Dungeon Geomorphs and Cal-tech encounter tables, quickly followed by the Player's Handbook, which I actually read all the way through, from start to finish.
**best cover
2 comments:
I picked up three of these I found at my local used bookstore many years ago. I've never played any of them, though. Have you?
They put out a campaign module a few years later called Palantir Quest which involved searching for the lost Palantiri. Perhaps the 'Search for the Palantir' morphed into that. Just speculation on my part.
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