The Meeting of the Chieftains is the first in the Alea Jacta Est! Asterix themed gamebook series, published by Hodder & Stoughton in 1989. Alea Jacta Est is Latin for "the die is cast", a phrase attributed to Julius Caesar when in 49BC he led his army across the Rubicon River in defiance of the Roman Senate and beginning a long cvil war.
Having more of a traditional gamebook structure, these books are distinct from the other three H&S Asterix gamebooks, written by the prolific Steven Thraves, which included a plethora of cardboard and plastic items to use. Three Alea Jacta Est! books were translated from the original French into English, with a fourth version, Le Grand Jeu, never to be converted. Being printed like the Asterix comic books really adds to the allure of Chieftains, it being an A4 style, full colour tome, which is easy to spread out on the table and play.
The back cover claims this is, "The first in an exciting new series of Asterix gamebook. YOU are the hero." As it turns out we are not the generic YOU character of other gamebooks but instead we take on the character of Justforkix, nephew of the village chief and a rather divisive character who first appeared in Asterix and the Normans. Coming from trendy Lutetia (Paris), he comes across as a bit spoilt and annoying, with some fans considering him to be the Scrappy Doo of the Asterix universe. But following on from Normans, Justforkix has now toughened up and is ready to set out on adventures across Gaul.
Playingtrix
Unlike the other three Hodder & Stoughton Asterix books, which rely heavily on the chance roll of a die, the gameplay system here is solid. We start with three standard stats: skill, fighting fitness and charm. Each of these start at 10 points, with another 15 points available to divide between them as we wish. We'll also get to choose some helpful secondary aptitudes later in the book. We have capacity for 5 objects we might find during our French follies, alongside a gourd of magic potion and a purse for money.
The battle system is refreshingly simple and effective. All we do in a fight is roll the die and deduct the score from our enemy's fighting fitness. We then do the same for ourselves until one of us reaches zero points and loses. Fighting points are then reset to their initial level once the fight is over.
We also might have to face attribute tests. These involve rolling x number of dice depending on the difficulty of the situation and rolling under our attribute value to succeed. Then again, if we drink a dose of magic potion before a fight or fighting fitness test (not a skill or charm test), we automatically win. That's a nice touch, both tying in with the Asterix theme and providing some bonus power ups.
We keep all our stats on an "adventure slab", and there's even a roman numeral based "chance board" at the back of the book, a bit like the random number page in Lone Wolf, which acts as a replacement for a D6 if you don't have one.
Inthemix
Onto the adventure and the gamebook is divided into 5 specifically themed chapters, each representing a stage of your journey. The paragraphs are self contained within each chapter instead of being spread throughout the book. For example, Chapter I is covered by sections 1 to 29 and Chapter II by 30 to 107. This works well to keep the structure tight and limit how much you could accidentally see about what might happen next.
We begin by deciding to take a holiday in the famous Gaulish village. Straight away we're given the option to choose a secondary attribute from a choice of four - business skills, livestock-rearing, hunting or a good head for drink. We decide hunting might be useful as there's bound to be boars to catch. This is an Asterix adventure after all!
Chapter I is mainly an introductory section, spent exploring the village and interacting with a few of the familiar inhabitants. Arriving after finding our chariot has broken again (see Asterix and the Normans) we visit our aunt Impedimenta. She serves up a delicious boar before slipping us 5 sestertii (Roman currency) to add to the 35 we arrived with. This gift is said to be a trifling amount, perhaps the Gaulish equivalent of a 90s grandma taping 50p into a birthday card.
Avoiding one of the famous village punch ups, we soon find out what our mission is by visiting the old druid Getafix. We must go fetch our uncle, Chief Vitalstatistix, who's been out of the village for some time healing his bloated liver at a spa town. An important meeting with another local chief is coming up and if Vitalstatistix doesn't attend the other chief is likely to form an alliance with the Romans. Rather amusingly at this point, we're given the option to stay and holiday in the village rather than to set off in search of the chief. Refusing this call to adventure leads to an immediate "your adventure is over."
Accepting the mission, Getafix stocks us up with a gourd of his famous potion, along with some more cash, food and a few torches. Back to the village and we get a chance to visit some of the locals. Our friends Asterix and Obelix aren't home and our aunt's gone out too, so we decide to go see the old codger Geriatrix. This is a good move. As long as we answer his question correctly and sit through one of his old war stories, we get to borrow Geriatrix's old sword. That's got to come in handy for bashing any Romans that come in our way. Hasn't it?
A real boar
Off we go to find our uncle and head off to the town of Condatum (Rennes) where we've been told we need to buy a horse or chariot for the long journey ahead. Feeling hungry we get the first chance to use our hunting skill and successfully manage to catch a little piglet for dinner. Settling down for the night we decide to sleep up in the branches of an oak tree. But woken up by a nightmare we have to pass a skill test to stop ourselves falling out of the old acorn dropper.
Not much happens next. We have a whistle to ourselves, ignore a peasant who looks friendly enough but is wielding a dangerous looking garden fork, and then arrive at our destination of Condatum. With such an uneventful journey we wonder if perhaps we've missed something either important or fun, especially given that we flicked passed an interesting looking full page image of a Roman camp earlier on, which looks something like a game.
Throwasix
Arriving in Condatum, its evening again and we get the choice of staying the night at one of two inns, The Happy Boar or Armorican Pancake. Having eaten boar once per chapter so far we decide to have a change of scran and go to the pancake specialist. Its a similar story however, as served on top of the pancake is another boar, this time in cream sauce.
Elsewhere in the inn, a group of sailors are playing darts and we get the chance to have a go. We turn to 131, but think the editor missed a trick here by not having the reader turn to 180.
This is the first really fun part of the adventure, as we get to play one of the book's full page minigames. On the page is depicted a dartboard with six different coloured rings. While the rules are slightly unclear, we work out that we have to roll a die to determine which section of the board the four sailors each hit. We then have to try beat the best throw by dropping a pencil from 50cm above the printed dartboard and noting where the point lands.
This game is actually quite easy and after hitting a II on the first game and bullseye on the second we've made 40 sestertii from the old sea dogs. Not wishing to get them too angry, we leave our bit of bully and go to bed.
Next day we find ourselves at a used chariot dealer. Flush with 100 sestertii after the darts win last night we can easily afford the most expensive copper sports chariot, at just 50 sestertii. This is seemingly a good choice and we're told that any skill tests with the chariot will require the roll of just 3 dice.
A skill test soon comes up as we're forced to swerve to avoid a tree trunk lying across the road. It's all action now, as jumping out of the trees come some bandits demanding our cash. We have a chance to gulp down some of the magic potion for the first time and PIF! PAF! SPLOT! the Gaulish gangsters are soon lying in a heap on the forest floor.
Still having a heavy purse we decide to spend the night at an inn rather than sleep on the grass or in our chariot. Surprise, surprise, we bump into our friends Asterix and Obelix inside the inn, learning that the chief has gone off on a gastronomic tour of Gaul's best eateries and has probably forgotten about his upcoming meeting. Saying farewell, Asterix generously pays the bill and leaves us to find Vitalstatistix.
Out in the country again, our hunting skill comes in useful once more, and we tuck into our fourth boar of the adventure before scaring off some wolves with a torch. After another night in the open, we decide to sell our ride to a used chariot dealer before entering the spa town where our uncle was having his kidneys polished.
Chapter IV continues the fun, and interestingly brings in the consequences of some decisions you could have made back in Chapter II. There's some more Roman bashing, espionage, mingling with the local Gauls and yes, we do eat another boar. That's all before we catch up with Vitalstatistix and enter into an exciting finale in the town of Gergovia in Chapter V.
Nitpix
While this was generally a fun book to play, there are many small errors and weak gameplay elements which could easily have been improved upon with a bit more editing.
- In several sections there is the issue of illusion of choice, where no matter what decision you make, it ultimately ends up with an identical outcome. For example, at the village in Chapter I you're given the opportunity to leave your meal and join a fight. But if you choose to go for the scrap you're just sent back to the other option to finish your meal without even being punished or rewarded for it. Again in Chapter IV, if you either choose to drink with the Roman legionaries or not you get exactly the same choices in the next paragraph you turn to.
- In Chapter I if you choose to go see Geriatrix and correctly give him the right answer to his question, he lends you his old sword. But this turns out to be immaterial because, contrary to being hinted at in the game rules, there is no explicit fighting fitness bonus given to the sword. In contrast, when you find a shield in the Roman camp in Chapter II you're specifically told it has a +5 bonus.
- There's more sword errors in Chapter II at the point when you're captured by the Romans and have your possessions taken. At this point you may or may not have a sword. The only opportunity to get one at this stage is from Geriatrix, as above. As a prisoner in the Roman camp, the text first acknowledges that you might not have a sword but then a few paragraphs later says that you "must get the sword and the potion back." Exploring the camp, you can find the sword that Geriatrix may or may not have lent you in one of the Roman tents. All this is just bad editing. In this scene, it's also strange that the Romans have decided to take your weapon and magic potion but leave your purse and equipment lying next to you.
- There's a few parts in the book where passing an ability test has no discernible positive outcome, and in fact can result in a worse outcome. In Chapter III, passing the charm test with the innkeeper's daughter gives no tangible benefits whatsoever but stops you from having the chance to speak to other people in the inn who could give you a modest clue. Passing a test in a gamebook should never have a worse outcome than failing it - see Fighting Fantasy #42 Black Vein Prophecy for an extreme example of this.
- There is a truly bizarre "insta-death" served up if you agree to let Asterix & Obelix accompany you on your mission when offered the chance. Having been offered the company of two of the greatest warriors in the world, you're suddenly told that they're going to deal with the situation themselves and you might as well bugger off home.
- In Chapter III there is a two section infinite loop where your horse wakes you, you choose to go back to sleep, then the horse wakes you again, you choose to sleep etc etc...
- When your aunt Impedimenta gives you 5 sestertii in Chapter I you complain that its "hardly worth a thing." But in Chapter III a room for the night in Condatum costs 5 sestertii. Hotel rooms must have been cheap in 50BC! In contrast, a room at the 3 star Hôtel Campanile Rennes Centre Gare, as I write in early April 2025, would cost at least £65 a night this weekend.
- The second chapter is titled "An eventful start." But if you make the right choices and pass a skill test all that happens is you eat some food, sleep in a tree, sing to yourself and ignore a peasant. Hardly an adventure worthy of inspiring a bard!
- There are four people on table 191 of the full page image inn picture in Chapter IV. But when you sit down on the empty seat the text says there's only three of them.
- For those that appreciate historical accuracy, at the inn in Chapter IV you can eat a delicious boar with a sauce that contains tomatoes. If you were paying attention in history class you'll know that tomatoes didn't get to Europe until the early 16th century, about 1,570 years after Asterix is set. As Mark Corrigan in Peep Show would attest, Asterix the Gaul doesn't provide reliable evidence of historical facts.
This isn't the first confusion over vegetables in the Asterix universe. In Asterix in Britain, the titular hero is see outside his hut peeling potatoes, which also didn't arrive in Europe until the 1500s. This was eventually picked up on in the Asterix in Britain audio book read by Willy Rushton where Asterix is said to be peeling "new world tubers" apparently picked up on a trip across the ocean in another adventure.
Final banquet
The question with The Meeting of the Chieftains, is do you judge it as being an Asterix book or as a gamebook in its own right?
As an Asterix book, is has many of the elements that you would expect - bashing Romans, rushing from town to town through the Gaulish countryside, boars, magic potion and colourful illustrations. This format makes for a excellent setting for an adventure gamebook. What it unfortunately lacks is the abundance of clever puns which the Asterix books are known for, perhaps due to the format not really allowing them to shine in a text heavy/illustration light gamebook context. For that reason, comparing it to the comic books is unfair.
As a gamebook in its own right The Meeting of the Chieftains is fine, one of the better licenced gamebooks available, with a solid plot backed up by an equally solid rules system and entertaining mini games. There are some really nice touches, like the situation where eating a garlic smothered boar makes you less charming when chatting up the innkeeper's daughter, and the adding of extra distance to the darts game if you're drunk.
Unfortunately, the book is let down somewhat by execution due to the numerous minor and sloppy flaws mentioned above. These aren't game breaking in themselves but do lower the quality noticeably. If they were given a bit more attention this could have been a great book, rather than being just ok/quite good.
RATING
Story & plot - A meat and potatoes Asterix adventure. 7/10
Illustrations - Mainly cut and paste from other Asterix books but still classic. 8/10
Gameplay system - Simple and effective statistics system but many unclear and lazy elements throughout. 6/10
Writing - Mainly fine but lacking in puns and the magic charm Asterix is know for. 6/10
Atmosphere - The illustrations and text work well together to create an evocative adventure. 7/10
Nostalgia & subjective enjoyment - Bonus points due to being an Asterix fan. 8/10
OVERALL - 42/60
GIVEAWAY!
We are giving away a copy of The Meeting of the Chieftains as somehow we have ended up with two. This version is in good condition but with a few pages fixed back in with Sellotape its one ideal for playing not collecting.
For a chance to win simply come up with your best Asterix style pun name and put it in the comments section below - example, the village breakfast chef, Weetabix.
We will decide the winner on a date yet to be determined, by Toutatis!
