While I count Steve Jackson’s Sorcery series as probably the best adventure gamebook series I’ve played and Dave Morris’ Eye of the Dragon my favorite (those Russ Nicholson illustrations!), the series I spent the most time with as a kid was GrailQuest. This is the first one, The Castle of Darkness (1984 for the UK, 1986 for the US edition).

The setup is that upon opening the book, Merlin cast a spell that brings your consciousness into the body of Pip, a lad living during the Arthurian era. With his trusty talking sword, Excalibur Jr., you, Pip and Merlin’s narration go off to save the kingdom. In the first book, that means rescuing Queen Guinevere from the evil wizard Ansalom.

Couple key things. First, these books are chill. The rules get explained along the way and, uh, they kind of encourage cheating. Or at least they go easy on you. For instance, if you die, you start over and everything you already killed is still dead. Second, they’re intentionally funny. There are a number of running gags throughout the series. My favorite is probably the fairly helpful vampire who is a terrible poet. Third, they are less focused on fighting and more on cleverness—there are lots of hidden doors and the games encourage keyed mapping to allow for backtracking (useful, since like Lone Wolf, you can bring items into the next book).

Oh, and the art is great. Like early Warhammer, it is rather grim and gritty, which mixes nicely with the dry, quippy humor. John Higgins (Judge Dredd) does the interiors. Les Edwards is on the cover.