The four new Dungeons & Dragons: Endless Quest gamebooks – Escape the Underdark, To Catch a Thief, Big Trouble and Into the Jungle – have recently been released by Penguin Random House and Candlewick Entertainment. Play as a fighter, rogue, wizard and cleric in Matt Forbeck’s CYOA-style gamebooks, exploring the Forgotten Realms – the enduring D&D campaign setting.
In the Forgotten Realms® Endless Quest® books, you don’t just read a fantastic tale set in the most popular Dungeons & Dragons® world of all time. You become the hero! Answer the call to adventure, and choose your own fate!
Dungeons & Dragons: Endless Quest are available in both paperback and hardcover formats from online retailers including the Penguin Random House website.
GBN was keen to know more about the author behind this returning series, so we spoke with Matt Forbeck to discover some information about his background and writing process, his personal interest in D&D, and his technique for creating engaging interactive fiction.
Why is Endless Quest returning after many years – and why now?
After the success of Dungeonology – a D&D entry I wrote for the bestselling -Ology series, which came out last year – my editors at Studio Press decided that the time was ripe to create more D&D books. They spoke with the folks at Wizards of the Coast about the possibilities, and they loved the idea of bringing the classic Endless Quest series back to life. They then approached me about it, and I hemmed and hawed for all of about three seconds before signing on.
What’s your personal history with gamebooks and interactive fiction?
I’ve been writing D&D books professionally since the 1990’s, starting with AD&D Second Edition. This includes not only gaming books but a trilogy of Eberron novels and creating the first D&D younger-readers series, The Knights of the Silver Dragon.
I’ve also been writing for video games and designing interactive toy interfaces for more than a decade, which gives me a lot of insight into how to handle branching narratives and make them exciting for readers.
Had you previously played any of the original adventures before writing these new books?
I have read some of the Endless Quest books, although not nearly all of them. I also enjoyed some of the Fighting Fantasy books and plenty of the Choose Your Own Adventure series too.
What’s your process for writing interactive fiction, and what was important for the creation of these adventures?
The first trick is to come up with an interesting storyline and character. Since we’re working with D&D, we get to choose from a wide variety of bestselling and beloved adventures and locations. We’ve stuck to the Forgotten Realms so far, as that’s the classic setting, although we might branch out into other settings down the line.
Next I come up with a flowchart that defines the decisions that the reader is going to make throughout the story. From there, it’s a matter of figuring out the scope of the story and then writing each section of the book, keeping in mind that even the worst possibilities have to be fun to read.
Does your extensive history within gaming aid with the development of interactive storylines and relatable characters?
I think so. Part of being a game designer as opposed to a traditional writer is that you have to be open to the wide panoply of possible paths a character might want to take when they’re playing a game. A writer normally only gets to explore a single path, but when writing Endless Quest books, I get to explore dozens of pathways, which can be loads of fun.
Are the four adventures linked or simply separate quests?
They are separate quests, but they take place at roughly the same time in the Forgotten Realms. Sharp-eyed readers might spot some references to the other stories within each book.
Do you have a favourite from the four books? If so, why does that particular storyline appeal?
I love them all, of course, but Big Trouble was the last of the ones that I wrote, so it’s freshest in my mind. By the time I wrote it, I already had three others under my belt, so it’s probably the most polished of them too. No matter what, though, I hope readers will enjoy them all.
It’s kinda a shame that a bunch of the art, including the covers, is just copy/pasted right out of D&D players guides. Seems awfully lazy.
Cost minimisation, no doubt.