I have spent a lot of my time this pandemic being deeply obsessed with Dungeons & Dragons. I started watching a ton of D&D shows like Critical Role, Oxventure, and Dimension 20, and I’ve joined a D&D group to play the game myself. We meet every Tuesday, my terrible wizard has only 30 hit points, and it’s the highlight of my week. D&D lets you live out some of your most deeply desired fantasies; having a friend group to hang out with, earning an appropriate amount of money for any work you do, and actually getting to take a long rest once in a while. And, back in the ’80s, you could add romance to that wish list.
Dungeons & Dragons is enjoying a surge in popularity right now and it’s easy to forget how old the game actually is. Created in 1974 by Gary Gygax, the game has gone through many, many different iterations in pop culture. It’s been misunderstood, vilified as Satanic, scorned as the refuge of basement-dwelling dweebs, and caricatured to score cheap comedic points in sitcoms and movies. At various points in its history D&D has tried to shake off those stereotypes to show that tabletop RPGs can be for everyone. This translated into a focus on publishing fantasy fiction beginning in the 1980s, leading to the launch of the Dragonlance novels and the creation of other memorable settings and characters like Drow ranger Drizzt Do’Urden and wizard/adventurer Volothamp Geddarm.
Seeking a way to get more young women involved in the roleplaying game (despite the fact that girls have been playing since the beginning, but that’s another story entirely), Dungeons & Dragons also branched out and commissioned a series of Choose Your Own Adventure-style romance novels. Since you probably haven’t heard of them, you can rightly assume they didn’t set the publishing world on fire—but they are fascinating relics, especially for fans of D&D and/or ’80s romance novels. Personally, I had never heard of these books either, until I ran across an amazing Twitter thread from 2019 in which Rebecca B (@arkhamlibrarian) shared the details on the first four novels, completely blowing my mind…
The first thing that occurred to me is that in taking this approach to reaching a new audience, D&D clearly recognized a reality many others tend to dismiss—romance novels are widely read, widely shared, and often very lucrative for the publisher. For far too long, the romance genre was denigrated or dismissed as silly or valueless for reasons rooted firmly in sexism and misogyny—in spite of the fact that the genre is (and has long been) hugely popular and commercially successful. Perhaps it’s no surprise that the folks behind D&D, very used to being dismissed for similarly shortsighted reasons, were willing to give it a shot.
Called “HeartQuest Books,” the initial series of six novels were written by romance novelists under pseudonyms. Each book took a character class from D&D (druid, wizard, rogue, etc) and cast a young woman protagonist in that role, figuring out her magic and her worth in a dangerous fantasy world while also dealing with the trials and tribulations of falling in love. Each book was illustrated by Larry Elmore, well known for his fantasy artwork, including his illustrations and concept art for other D&D projects and materials. His paintings lent the books a more classic fantasy lineage and gave them a similar signature style to D&D game books of the era.
The stories in the books themselves sound slightly overwrought, like all the best classic romance novels of the ‘80s, and yet also really fun and exciting. The first novel in the set, Ring of the Ruby Dragon by Jeannie Black, is the story of Chandelle, a young woman who must save her kidnapped jeweler father from great harm with a bag of magical gems. The book is written in the second person, with the reader assuming the role of Chandelle as she faces various choices. At your side are the handsome knight Coren and roguish fighter Sir Torbeck, who vie for your affections while helping you pull off this most daring of rescues. Call me crazy, but I want to read this right now. Chandelle’s adventures sound action-packed and dramatic in just the very best way, suitable for an afternoon of lazy reading (or as a jumping-off point for a hilarious D&D session with some friends).
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The Starless Crown
The other books are apparently just as fantastical, casting you as a druid priestess falling for a charismatic and secretive bard, or as a lady knight torn between a noble thief or a cunning mage. Since they’re written in the Choose Your Own Adventure-style, the books offer readers the feeling of participating in a D&D campaign and determining your own fate (no dice needed!), with the added bonus of immediate re-readabilty as you try to find the best ending for these characters. Honestly, it’s such a great idea, I almost want D&D to try this again. The books somehow evoke the same female-focused fantasy vibes of Garth Nix’s Sabriel or Tamora Pierce’s Tortall books—and even now, we can always use more of that in the fantasy genre.
Alas, the initial HeartQuest books didn’t sell as well as the publisher had anticipated and the series was cancelled after six volumes. The paperbacks are hard to find now and considered expensive rarities if you do manage to snag one. It’s a shame—it feels like they were really onto something here. Branching out into the romance genre was a new strategy for D&D back in the ‘80s and it didn’t seem to fit quite as well as they would have hoped at the time—it’s not like today, where popular D&D romances like Critical Role’s Caleb Widogast and Essek Thelyss rack up thousands and thousands of hits on Twitter and Archive of Our Own. There are tons of guides online on how to introduce romance into your D&D campaigns and it’s become an interesting game mechanic to try. Romance isn’t just for bards seducing dragons anymore!
So maybe it’s time to give it another shot. What do you say, Wizards of the Coast? Time to give D&D romance novels a second chance and make it work this time… I’ll be first in line to pre-order a set! My terrible wizard with 30 hit points could really use the help.
Meghan Ball is a writer, editor, and goth disaster. She enjoys playing guitar, doing cross stitch, and spending way too much time on Twitter. You can find her there at @EldritchGirl. Her work has appeared in Uncanny Magazine, Tor Nightfire, and the 3,2,1… Action! series of roleplaying games. She currently lives in a weird part of New Jersey.
Huh. I worked in rpgs in various capacities on and off since 1982 and I have no memory of those at all. I claim my XKCD 10,000 status for today.
I have NEVER heard of these books! I started with the Dragonlance books and wandered down the rabbit hole of D&D tie in fiction through out the 80’s and 90’s . Now I really want to read them. I’ll be number two on the pre-order list. Maybe e-books?
I was in college near Lake Geneva, WI in the early 80s. I ran into current and former TSR staff at cons and such. As they told it, these were the brainchild of Gygax’s ex-wife. She got some portion of the company in the divorce and this was what she did with her share. They were, shall we say, not kind in their assessment of this idea.
I actually owned all of these, pretty sure I bought them at a liquidator store which is proof they didn’t sell well. I felt they were as good a story as any of the choose your own adventure books of the day.
I had two of these, Ruby Dragon and Isle of Illusion. They might still be in a box in my basement somewhere if they didn’t get caught in one of my big book purges.
As I recall, they weren’t radically different from EndlessQuest, TSR’s more mainline choose-your-own-adventure D&D series at the time. They just added one or two cute boys as potential love interests but otherwise the plots were textbook 1st edition D&D/pulp fantasy. I hope I do still have them, it might be nice to revisit. Thanks for the nostalgia kick!
Huh. I had no idea these existed, but I genuinely want to read them now that I know they do.
30 hit points is actually pretty good for a wizard. At least it was back in the 1980’s when I played. That’s like, minimum 10th level, right?
Anyone who has copies of these in a box in the basement… from what I’ve found they’re running at about $200-250 each for the first few on Amazon & Ebay. Can’t find all of them, so the others may be worth even more.
The first four aren’t that valuable. I have many copies of each, although the cover windows are usually found torn. I typically pay 20-30$. The last two were released later, in smaller print runs, and are worth hundreds. I don’t own either.
Also, they’re not written by Romance authors (and you can tell). Madeline Simon has other books, but they’re not romance. Jeannie Black is Jean Blashfield, then head of TSRs education department, which didn’t end up doing much, and she didn’t write anything else. Hers is the only pseudonymous credit. Linda Lowery isn’t a pseudonym, and although she has a large number of published books, they’re mostly children’s books. Kate Novak is the wife of fantasy author Jeff Grubb and also cowrote fantasy with him.
They’re a ton of fun and people always get a kick out of them. They’re fairly well known in the gamebook community as they’re a spinoff of the very successful endless quest series. Other spinoffs included fantasy forest and Crimson crystal.
What?!?! I had no idea these existed but I need them all.
Came to the comments re 30 HP wizard. My OSE magic-user has 3 HP. Welcome to the glass cannon life, friend.
Hi, Thanks for writing this article! I’m Jean Black’s son, and the character of Chandelle in Ring of the Ruby Dragon is named after my sister, the real Chandelle. Our mom always promised she would write a book with a character named after me, but it never happened. :-(
Jean Black actually was her real name, and not a pseudonym, and she wasn’t a romance writer, but instead wrote science, history, and about 10 other fantasy and sci-fi books for TSR/D&D. She wrote all of her many other books (nearly 200, mostly nonfiction) under her maiden name of Jean F. Blashfield. So the commenter above who said she didn’t write anything else is very wrong (but they were right about most of the authors not being pseudonymous).
@11 I’m getting the impression there’s been much hit point inflation since the 80’s. Why, back when I was a whippersnapper, 30 h.p. was respectable. It was enough to give you a better than average chance of making it out of that graph paper dungeon alive.
AWW YEAH
I bought Ring of the Ruby Dragon and Secret Sorceress at a book fair in like … fourth? grade. Definitely got some Looks from both the bookseller and my parents (“why is a BOY buying these ROMANCES?”), but I was already a Weird Kid so they just kind of rolled with it.
And yeah, they were pretty much Endless Quest books with a romance plot or two. Which was perfect for me!
I reread Ruby Dragon repeatedly. I loved the actually-distinct-storylines branching and the multiple romantic interests, even if I had minimal interest in the actual “romance” part. Secret Sorceress didn’t grab me nearly as much. De gustibus, et cetera.
@11 et al: perhaps the wizard is a terrible wizard because they put all their stat bonuses into CON.
Though I’d been playing D&D a lot, I came across these from the decision novel side, being an avid collector back in the day. I own #1-#4 of them, and IIRC found them roughly on par to the Endless Quest series. Thanks for reminding me of them! Now all we ‘need’ ;) is a take on the concept using some of the more advanced techniques from Sorcery!/Fighting Fantasy/AD&D/Lone Wolf/etc… in addition to your HP and your inventory and learned spells and the like, how about a stat for how emotionally close you’ve grown to <potential romantic interest>? A keyword for when you loot valuable gems and jewelry that influences <romantic interest>’s behavior toward you? Could be fun!
In my early RPGs days, I tended to play RQ/BRP-derived games and we’d have killed for 30 HP. Usually it was more like 11, and prospects of getting any better were slim. To make it worse, hit location meant comparatively minor wounds could kill if it happened that the HP lost were more than one had in one’s head (Obs, Thrud is the exception). Oh, sure, I also played Traveller, where 21 HP could be expected but to balance that, Plasma Guns Man Portable and Very Rapid Fire Gauss Guns could also be expected.
[Mind you, there was a Traveller player character who survived a direct hit on his small ship from a spinal mount: no crew hits but otherwise the ship he was on was vaporized, leaving him floating in space. It was a very good thing for him he was wearing a space suit at the time]
What a fun surprise to see these books! I bought them too in the 80s and lost them during a move. I found them again online a few years back and bought #1-4 for the sense of nostalgia. My younger self is feeling the lack of books 5 and 6.
Ooooo – I had Ring of the Ruby Dragon as a kid, but I didn’t really have any connection to D&D at the time, and didn’t know they weren’t just fantasy. Great memories with those images!
Interesting. I never heard of these.
But they’re probably lousy. Not because there’s anything wrong with romance, but because choose your own adventure books are lousy. It’s just not a form that worked well. The way to do that basic idea right is on computers–adventure games, interactive novels, like that. With the physical books, your space is extremely limited–it ends up pretty much “choose your own very very short story”, and you spend most of your time flipping back and forth between pages.
No love for Dave Arneson, the co-creator of D&D? Arneson developed the core concepts; Gygax refined them and brought them to market. There would be no D&D without either of them. Arneson deserves equal credit alongside Gygax.
Re 30 hp mage: Keep in mind that magic-users used a d4 hit die up through 2nd Edition. From 3e on they’ve used a d6, and get max HP at first level. By the old-school rules you’d need to be 12th level on average to have 30 hp (30/2.5). Under the new system, you’d only need to be about 8th level (1+(30-6)/3.5). (Assuming no CON bonus.)