The books deviated from other mainstream gamebooks (such as the Fighting Fantasy or Lone Wolf series) in a number of ways. The most notable of these was the open-ended, free roaming gameplay. Other gamebooks gave the character a linear quest, with some leniency in how they went about accomplishing it; when they completed the quest, the gamebook ended. The Fabled Lands series gave the player an entire fantasy world to roam around in, doing whatever they wished with no limits or linearity; there was no set quest and there is no way to "finish" the series (unless the player dies). There are hundreds of quests in the six books that were published, of varying lengths. The player is free to pursue these at their leisure, or spend their time doing entirely different things - wandering, trading, exploring or building up their abilities.