Rules you always got wrong

[Wizard Slayer]

Inspired by comments in other threads (attack strength and the log/healing mechanic in Seas of Blood), are there gamebook rules that you implemented consistently wrong and only learned of your mistake much later?

For me, it was Testing your Luck in battle. When I was a kid I always played it that if I was Unlucky when trying to minimise damage to myself, I lost 4 Stamina points instead of 2, the same as applies when trying to increase your opponent's damage. It was only when I started playing through them all again now that I realised it's uneven and I only have to lose 3 points!

[a moderator]

Not something I personally got wrong, but on more than one occasion I've seen fans deriding the 'error' in Space Assassin's rules regarding Armour. 

Whenever you engage in a gunfire duel with an opponent and receive a hit, roll two dice. If the result is equal or less than your current ARMOUR score, then your opponent's shot has not penetrated your armour and thus does not wound you.

According to the complaining fans, this means that, should you get 12 Armour at character creation, either via a lucky roll or by spending points as outlined on page 12, you become invulnerable in all gunfire combat, since it's impossible to roll above 12 on two dice. Which would be a valid point if not for the next paragraph of the rules governing Armour:

Each time you roll two dice to determine if an opponent's shot has penetrated your armour, reduce your ARMOUR score by 1 point.

Not quite as invulnerable as the critics made out.

[CharlesX]

I often forgot to apply the rules in Creature Of Havoc about your scaly skin having 1 point less damage per hit on combat, or the special death rule for that matter, which wouldn't have been helped by the Wizard edition not making those things clear (I haven't actually played it, but from Titannica it either doesn't mention the special rules or mentions them alongside the regular rules). It's easy to forget other things that are unique to particular FF such as failing a Skill test if you roll the same number in Rings Of Kether, or to misapply rules such as Skill in House Of Hell and Port Of Peril. I sometimes think though, if the author couldn't be bothered to spend 10 minutes getting their rules straight, why should I? Then there's only eating provisions when you're told you can, which is fairly well-written in TWOFM but I disregard half the time in BW because Marc gives you several provisions halfway through you never get the chance to consume.

[sylas]

Not really to do with the rules but for the first couple of times, I turned to section Forty Nine instead of Forty (if you know what I mean).

[evilwizard]

I always forget the bonus damage / critical hit rules and what they are called in Creature of Havoc and Slaves of the Abyss

[petch]

I never noticed that different books had slightly different rules for fighting more than one opponent simultaneously and always dealt with these encounters the same way. Didn't realise my mistake until the subject was brought up on a thread on here quite recently.

[tyrion]

Feb 20, 2023 13:56:29 GMT sylas said:

Not really to do with the rules but for the first couple of times, I turned to section Forty Nine instead of Forty (if you know what I mean).

I've gone through my copy and carefully rubbed out part of the last letter of the name so it is an 'r' instead of an 'n'

[sleepyscholar]

Feb 20, 2023 14:26:13 GMT evilwizard said:

I always forget the bonus damage / critical hit rules and what they are called in Creature of Havoc and Slaves of the Abyss

Me too.

[misomiso]

I still get conufsed over the difference between a skill bonus and attack strength bonus, even after all these years! I personally also think Luck needs a 'buff' in combat as there is not much mechanical benefit for testing luck; better to preserve it for more important 'do or die' luck tests imo.

[CharlesX]

Feb 23, 2023 21:42:25 GMT misomiso said:

I still get conufsed over the difference between a skill bonus and attack strength bonus, even after all these years! I personally also think Luck needs a 'buff' in combat as there is not much mechanical benefit for testing luck; better to preserve it for more important 'do or die' luck tests imo.

I used to use luck against tough opponents, then die from a failed luck test later on making me lose 2 stamina from a hand wound (or something). Early FF can have luck being so unimportant I just forget I can use it for combats when playing Space Assassin.

   Not sure I fully agree with this though, luck can be very useful against Ghouls, when you have to win a fight in a number of rounds, bosses. About half the time I test my luck in battle its just to minimise a blow that would have otherwise killed me (I typically go on to win the fight).

[scouserob]

I often forget that I have special battle items.
Forgetting I had the Chakram and Chainmail battle modifiers in the Seven Serpents almost certainly led to death by Wild Bear on a recent playthrough.

[thealmightymudworm]

I don't think that there's anything major that I've consistently got wrong, (though quite capable of misreading special rules in a hurry as happened a couple of times on last year's playthrough challenge). But maybe this is a good excuse to repost this that I first posted in 2016 (and had to spend a while tracking down – the search on this forum sucks):

thealmightymudworm said:

Slightly off topic, but this reminded me of something that made me laugh over 20 years ago.

Many people think that the word 'dice' means the singular as well as the plural, but of course it's actually 'die'.
Someone I met at school, who didn't know this or have much grasp of how sentences work, admitted that he found FF particularly difficult for some time because whenever he read 'Roll one die...' he'd take one of his dice, roll it, and if the single-spot side came up he'd dutifully turn back to paragraph 1 and start over, thinking his character had died.

He did this religiously, even though it frequently made absolutely no sense. You can imagine...
Your aim is true and the javelin pierces its thick hide.
Roll one die. Deduct this number from your opponent's STAMINA
*Rolls 1* 'B***er! Must have overstrained myself!'

Now that's dedication to trying to play by the rules.

[nathanh]

I always roll my Attack Strength before rolling my opponent's (not that this matters).
I never realised when I was young that there were three different Multiple Opponents rules (only the Keith Martin approach makes a significant difference).
Some books restrict provisions to 1 provision at a time, others don't. I usually miss this.
A small number of books don't let you test luck in combat. I usually miss this.
A small number of books don't have Initial caps for some or all stats. I usually miss this.
I still don't understand what the intended stamina recovery rule is in Seas of Blood.

[CharlesX]

Feb 25, 2023 2:16:36 GMT thealmightymudworm said:

I don't think that there's anything major that I've consistently got wrong, (though quite capable of misreading special rules in a hurry as happened a couple of times on last year's playthrough challenge). But maybe this is a good excuse to repost this that I first posted in 2016 (and had to spend a while tracking down – the search on this forum sucks):

thealmightymudworm said:

Slightly off topic, but this reminded me of something that made me laugh over 20 years ago.

Many people think that the word 'dice' means the singular as well as the plural, but of course it's actually 'die'.
Someone I met at school, who didn't know this or have much grasp of how sentences work, admitted that he found FF particularly difficult for some time because whenever he read 'Roll one die...' he'd take one of his dice, roll it, and if the single-spot side came up he'd dutifully turn back to paragraph 1 and start over, thinking his character had died.

He did this religiously, even though it frequently made absolutely no sense. You can imagine...
Your aim is true and the javelin pierces its thick hide.
Roll one die. Deduct this number from your opponent's STAMINA
*Rolls 1* 'B***er! Must have overstrained myself!'

Now that's dedication to trying to play by the rules.

That kind of loyalism - if we're not just calling it stupidity - definitely leaves standing all the second-hand stuff I read, which maybe half has 12 25 12 in the adventure sheet (yes, including for easy adventures). And off topic again, I've no idea whether young people cheat to the same extent or more than they did in the eighties, when not only was the culture a world away but the difficulty level was higher (still don't think Livingstone exactly had it right though ).

[Pete Byrdie]

Feb 25, 2023 2:16:36 GMT thealmightymudworm said:

I don't think that there's anything major that I've consistently got wrong, (though quite capable of misreading special rules in a hurry as happened a couple of times on last year's playthrough challenge). But maybe this is a good excuse to repost this that I first posted in 2016 (and had to spend a while tracking down – the search on this forum sucks):

thealmightymudworm said:

Slightly off topic, but this reminded me of something that made me laugh over 20 years ago.

Many people think that the word 'dice' means the singular as well as the plural, but of course it's actually 'die'.
Someone I met at school, who didn't know this or have much grasp of how sentences work, admitted that he found FF particularly difficult for some time because whenever he read 'Roll one die...' he'd take one of his dice, roll it, and if the single-spot side came up he'd dutifully turn back to paragraph 1 and start over, thinking his character had died.

He did this religiously, even though it frequently made absolutely no sense. You can imagine...
Your aim is true and the javelin pierces its thick hide.
Roll one die. Deduct this number from your opponent's STAMINA
*Rolls 1* 'B***er! Must have overstrained myself!'

Now that's dedication to trying to play by the rules.

Many sources now say 'dice' as a singular is now pretty standard. I wonder how many budding gamebook designers here would use 'die', for correctness, and how many might be tempted to use 'dice', to avoid alienating potential players. Even though my grammar and word use ain't two great, I've always baulked at accepting these creeping changes to the language, but one can't stop the tides. I do wonder how long it will be before we're rolling two dices.

[Peter]

How about this one: in Appointment with FEAR, if you take Super Strength, you are told that you always fight with a Skill of 13. If you have Energy Blast, you are reminded that you will only stun any human opponent. Do you need to completely kill the animals that attack you? Do you roll for skill as normal, and test your skill against its current value, while still fighting with 13 skill?

Possibly I have got things wrong with this book.

[kieran]

Mar 13, 2023 4:00:06 GMT Peter said:

Do you roll for skill as normal, and test your skill against its current value, while still fighting with 13 skill?

That's how I play it.

[Wizard Slayer]

Mar 13, 2023 4:00:06 GMT Peter said:

If you have Energy Blast, you are reminded that you will only stun any human opponent. Do you need to completely kill the animals that attack you?

I think the overall idea with Energy Blast in that book is that you can control the amount of energy, so against a human you limit it to stun, and against an animal I guess you either knock it out or kill it - who can forget blowing the shark to bits at the beach?

Mar 13, 2023 4:00:06 GMT Peter said:

How about this one: in Appointment with FEAR, if you take Super Strength, you are told that you always fight with a Skill of 13...Do you roll for skill as normal, and test your skill against its current value, while still fighting with 13 skill?

It specifically says in the book that you don't roll for Skill if you have Super Strength, but instead automatically give yourself 13.