...our earliest Fighting Fantasy titles were marred by attempts at turning elves into santas helpers. I kid you not. The Danish version of Phantoms of Fear, you're not a wood elf. You're santas helper. Which, by the way, makes that book even more epic.
An interview with a translator of Fighting Fantasy who has now written his own gamebooks. Latest in series of solo gaming interviews.
Chat with Morten
Morten Gottschalck is a Danish translator of Fighting Fantasy gamebooks and Dragonbane, and author of gamebooks (so far available in Danish). I met him at Fighting Fantasy Fest 5 and wanted to find out about another side of gamebooks.
We have the story of Fighting Fantasy translations, challenges of translating gamebooks and Dragonbane, details of Morten's gamebooks, advice for creating gamebooks, and a website listing all Danish gamebooks.
What was your gaming story before working with gamebooks?
I actually started with gamebooks back in around 1990. After that one of my classmates introduced me to a kind of homemade Warhammer 40K that he had drawn and I was sucked in. This led to Dungeons & Dragons. I quit roleplaying around 2010 but hosted a board game group for 10 years after that where we played Twilight Imperium almost exclusively.
I was also director or project leader of a home made board game festival in Odense, Denmark for two years, 2017-2018. It was a Friday to Sunday outdoors thing in May and I think we had a couple of thousand visitors.
What's the story behind the Fighting Fantasy translations?
For me it began in around 2018 when I tried to buy the licensing rights to publish the Crown of Kings from Scholastic. Fighting Fantasy (FF) wasn't published at the time but Scholastic offered me a very big deal with some 15 titles when I only wanted one. So I turned them down and the rights went to a Danish publisher called Faraos.
After Faraos had published about 7 books in the series I got very upset. I didn't like the way the Scholastic books turned out in Denmark. They contained errors and the illustrations were childish (most of the early ones by Faraos had original Danish illustrations).
I was afraid the publisher would mess up The Crown of Kings with illustrations by someone else than Blanche. Crown wasn't published in Danish back in the 90s. We got the first three Sorcery! books (Shamutanti Hills in 1988 up to Seven Serpents in 1991) but the original Danish publisher Borgens ended the series due to low sales just before Crown was due. A lot of Danish fans refer to this as The Trauma. I'm dead serious.
Anyway, I called the publisher to let him have a piece of my mind, and to my surprise he and I hit it off and he offered me a chance to translate a Fighting Fantasy book, which was to be Return to Firetop Mountain - a bit ironic, that I was brought in on the book that was supposed to end the series in the UK and this became a turning point in the Danish FF run for reasons explained below.
Return to Firetop Mountain became my first translation of 18 titles, I think, to this date. The Danish Return to Firetop Mountain was the 9th FF book published in Denmark and I've done every one since then. I think we'll hit 24 titles in 2025. When I started out, I immediately began correcting errors in the books. In Return there's an error about one of the teeth you pick up - first it's made of one metal like silver, but then when the book asks for it, it's made of something else like brass. It's clearly a mistake and I made a point of cleaning up all the books while translating. I used Titannica and asked the Danish game testers, who were really on point. Sharp guys.
I also got to translate Crown of Kings a bit after Return and actually cried when I finished translating the last sentence. My Trauma was over and I was helping others get over theirs.
But then I realized that I didn't like the ending, I thought it was too easy and some things were missing. Long story short, I got to ask Steve Jackson if I could change the ending a bit and he said yes (I didn't ask Steve personally. I asked the Danish publisher, who sent my request to Ian Livingstone, who talked to Steve and sent back his reply.)
As for the change, let's just say our version is both harder and more epic. You have to fight the Demon three times and Libra might get involved. If you win, you save Jann the minimite from the tower (Steve let him rot, but I always liked Jann.) I also added a farewell from Libra in the clouds.
And then I cried again. Back when I was about 14, when Crown wasn't published in Danish and there was no internet to explain why, I vowed that if I ever got the chance to get Crown of Kings published, I would go for it no matter what, so it was a bit of dream coming true.
Shortly after Crown, I was notified that Ian was due to visit the biggest Danish book fair, Bogforum in Copenhagen, and the publisher asked if I could come up with a Livingstone title to publish in order to gain sales at the visit.
I chose Trial of Champions AND Armies of Death and rewrote parts of them, especially Armies. I turned them into an official miniseries in Danish which I think is unique worldwide. They are Slave ChronicIes part 1 and 2. I put in a new scene in Armies (a mutiny), had a character from the second book appear in the first, changed nearly every skirmish of Armies, made the ending about tactical choices, and made the overall plot about freeing slaves.
All in all 15-20% of Armies was rewritten and Ian okayed it all. He then came to Copenhagen and we went on stage together and had a blast. After this he asked if I would playtest the new book he was writing, which turned out to be The Dungeon on Blood Island.
In May of 2024 he asked me to give my honest opinion and I had a couple of suggestions, which he put in there (the line about six hundred shackled souls was my suggestion, for instance, and some pacing, some dialogue and some plot related stuff). I also rewrote a chunk of Temple of Terror (added a secret ending) and fixed bits of Creature of Havoc, both of which will be published in Danish in 2025.
What are the challenges specific to translating gamebooks and RPGs such as Dragonbane?
Gamebooks aren't hard to translate.
What's hard is getting everything in order, walking backwards in the authors steps and make sure everything is accounted for. Some of the old FF book contain a multitude of errors, some related to items, others related to plot like things just not making sense. I started small with cleaning up items, then cleaned up entire scenes and then plot.
For instance, SPOILER AHEAD, I do love Creature of Havoc but try and zoom in on Zarradan Marrs reason for capturing the Galleykeep. He captured it because he was hoping to find the elf city of Erin Durdinath from the air. Right? But, Zarradan had in fact already found the city. Earlier he persuaded/enchanted an elf to go there and get the vapours for him. The elf did it. Why not simply do that again and this time follow the elf, Zarradan? The Galleykeep is great fun but Zarradan didn't need it, he had already figured out how to find the city. Or it was amnesia. If you don't believe me, pick up the book and read the introduction again.
In any event, we changed the plot of Creature of Havoc for it to make sense. Stuff like that is what I do.
The Swedish Dragonbane is a roleplaying game with lots of rules and if-A-then-B's. It's a very different task from gamebooks because you gotta make sure stuff have the same names throughout. You can't call a spell Flame and then later call that same spell Fire. Gotta be real careful. I'm currently translating the "Book of Monsters" for Dragonbane and a lot of monsters are Scandinavian folklore that you guys don't have. It's great to brush up on sort of local folklore from some Swedes.
We don't have leprechauns and brownies in Scandinavia, we have nisser and ellefolk and our earliest FF titles were marred by attempts at turning elves into santas helpers. I kid you not. The Danish version of Phantoms of Fear, you're not a wood elf. You're santas helper. Which, by the way, makes that book even more epic.
How did doing the FF translations help with writing/publishing your own gamebooks?
I think I got the publishing deal because I came along with FF titles under my belt and had been on stage with Ian, and I was giving popular talks and appearing online.
They thought I could sell gamebooks. But my main inspirations for my own series isn't FF; it's Lone Wolf and Prince of Shadows.
In my series you level up like in Lone Wolf and carry your character and codes from one book to the next. Prince of Shadows also has some great stuff the ability of gutterspeak or what it's called in English.
What makes your own gamebook's different to other ones
They have 500 sections and are a series of interconnected books.
There's lots of anti-cheat codes where the books says "In order to call upon you ally, this gang of thieves, you must deduct 80 if you are surrounded by some other gang, to blow the whistle. So write down this code because the book won't give you the option to blow the whistle." Like Steve does (in the Sorcery! Gamebooks).
Also codes carry from book to book, "if you meet Viola the prostitute in the next book, add 35 to the section to recognize her."
The books contain uses of alcohol, drugs, prostitution, torture, betrayal and other dark stuff. The plot unfolds and lazy players can finish the books but won't get the "good" endings. I wanted books for a slightly more mature audience with true replay value.
What advice would you give people writing gamebooks?
Joe Dever made a document with some tips. That helped me more than anything.
Apart from that, keep writing and keep tabs on all sections and stuff. Get someone else to read it. Edit the story a couple of times. Put some illustrations in there and make it entertaining. I always think, "let's put a bit of Indiana Jones in there, those movies are great fun."
Finally, when the book comes out, don't forget to promote it. You need to really promote it and sell some copies and show up and shake hands, if you want to keep publishers wanting more. I don't have any advice for self-publishers because I haven't tried it.
What games are you looking forward to playing next?
I know this might sound weird, but I don't play a lot of games.
I used to but that was years ago. I'm more into "people games" where I learn leadership and sociology and psychology.
I like watching people play games on each other and figure out their games. Suddenly you realize a lot of people are trying to play games with you, they want you to play their game and sometimes by their rules. I like playing games back, so to speak.
What is your next big project (gaming or otherwise) that you can talk about?
As mentioned I'm currently translating the Dragonbane Monsterbook (coming out in 2025) and will most likely also translate FF: Out of the Pit plus Freeway Fighter (both 2025).
I'm giving talks on gamebooks in October 2024, January 2025 and April 2025 (more added later) and I'm working on a series of YouTube videos about my translations of FF. They will be published in Danish every Sunday until I run out.
Apart from that, my second and third gamebook in my series "Legends of the Lowlands" will be published in 2025. I'm reviewing the art sent by the illustrator, it's great.
I finished the second gamebook last week, it's currently being worked over by my publisher, and I have begun writing the third one with a deadline of Feb. 1st 2025. I also want to publish novels so I'm in touch with other publishers and going that way as well.
Where can people find you on social media?
I'm Morten Gottschalck. Find me on Facebook and Instagram and YouTube under that name. I respond to messages and everything. If you see me, I hand out hugs left and right.
Is there anything else you would like to talk about?
We're currently experiencing a bit of gamebook renaissance here in Denmark and I'm trying to help it along.
As part of this I've created a website, spilbog.dk (translation: gamebook.dk) where the team and I try and track down every Danish gamebook ever made and describe them and take pictures.
Some are rare and VERY expensive. The website spilbog.dk contains interviews and free online gamebooks and some other resources. Check it out if you're into foreign gamebooks and write me if there's anything you'd like to know.
Finishing Up
So if you speak Danish pick up one of Morten's gamebooks. Otherwise we'll try to update when they come out in English!
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