Steve Jackson's Sorcery!
I picked up a copy of the first of these books, 'The Shamutanti Hills' a couple days ago, and with this week being spring break for the kids, I had time to sit down and play it.
I decided to go with the Sorcerer, instead of the normal warrior, taking 2 less skill points, and sticking in. Thankfully, I rolled well on my stats, so the difference was not really noticeable. I assumed that you'd pick up spells on the way, but I got to the end of the book, killed the Manticore, and made it to the ending that led on to the next book, without once picking up a spell to use. I saw plenty of options of using spells, but at no point did I come across the three letter codes to learn any.
I though I had just been unlucky, but a quick google (see Wikipedia link above) told me that the copy of the book I had didn't contain the rules for magic. It had been sold originally as a separate books. Another quick google found the original pdf of the spell book, and I found out that no, that's not how it works at all.
The Spell book clearly lays out the way to cast spells in the game, is to memorise 6 spells in the form of three letter codes. Then close the spell book (adventurers don't go adventuring with their spell book in hand, they are too precious) and head off on adventure. If you don't remember the 3 letter codes, you can't cast the spells, and don't you cheat by writing them down on your character sheet either, that's just not done!
For added fun and giggles, some of the spells require components, and from what I can see, you don't get any to start with, but you may get random components as you play through the book (I did get some of these on my travels).
It seems that later publications had the spell book, or at least spell lists at the back of the book, allowing you to actually be a Sorcerer! with just one book.
In the end, this was a fun trip back to the 80s, with a type of gamebook I didn't really play much back in the day. I did have the Fabled Lands books, but by then I was heading to Uni, and had other things to do than sit in my room playing with myself, so to speak. Seems life has gone full circle, and now that is what I aim for with my time!
As I picked this up in a used bookstore, I doubt I'll see the others, but it was fun to see how intricate the technology of these game books got back then, and I'm sure loading 6 spells in to my working memory at my age would actually be a beneficial way to play these games.
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