Vote your least favourite round 2 early FF

[CharlesX]

Thanks everyone who participated in round 1. A number of FF have been sent straight through after polling a high number of votes, other 'beloved' FF are safe after securing no votes at all. There will be two big votes of 18* from the first and second half FF which you may vote for the top 4 this time, with results blind until poll ends April 2nd 10 p.m.

  Edit: As Sylas has pointed out below The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain should not have been included here so please don't choose that!

[kieran]

So these are the books that got some votes in the previous round but not enough to go through to the next stage automatically?

[CharlesX]

Mar 25, 2023 14:29:05 GMT kieran said:

So these are the books that got some votes in the previous round but not enough to go through to the next stage automatically?

Correct, every round books getting most votes will be sent automatically/straight to the end, those books with no votes will be automatically safe, and from the middle pool the ones that do well (fewer votes) will stop there, while the ones doing poorly (more votes) will be voted on again in the next round.

   The end results would be complicated, difficult and subjective to work out in terms of point-scoring (least-favourite tends to be a lot more subjective than favourite) so I will work out the ranking alone.

[sylas]

Didn't Seas of Blood get the same number of votes as Warlock?

[CharlesX]

Mar 25, 2023 15:49:34 GMT sylas said:

Didn't Seas of Blood get the same number of votes as Warlock?

DAMN.

I don't want to remove the poll so why don't we just pretend that mistake didn't happen and anyone who would have voted Warlock, please very kindly choose something else?

I'd rather do it that way as that would leave the two polls with the same number (18), which was kind of my intent when I worked out the formula but (just) failed to stick with it.

[paperexplorer]

You are missing Demons of the Deep from the poll too

[a moderator]

Mar 25, 2023 21:14:11 GMT paperexplorer said:

You are missing Demons of the Deep from the poll too

Demons was exempted for getting 0 votes in the first poll.

[CharlesX]

Mar 25, 2023 23:01:45 GMT a moderator said:

Mar 25, 2023 21:14:11 GMT paperexplorer said:

You are missing Demons of the Deep from the poll too

Demons was exempted for getting 0 votes in the first poll.

That's correct, Demons would probably have been exempt if it scored 1 or maybe even 2 votes but instead it aced it.

[pip]

I like Demons of the Deep. Like it, don't love it. I guess it doesn't often trigger strong reactions, so it's the kind of book likely to perform poorly / averagely in a "favourite" poll, and do well in a "least favourite" one.

[CharlesX]

Mar 27, 2023 17:25:13 GMT pip said:

I like Demons of the Deep. Like it, don't love it. I guess it doesn't often trigger strong reactions, so it's the kind of book likely to perform poorly / averagely in a "favourite" poll, and do well in a "least favourite" one.

It isn't as epic as many other FFs, and very forgiving, which is easy to like but perhaps isn't the most ambitious. I enjoyed it a lot for that and its more non-linear structure (like flowing water, as johnbrawn1972 puts it) when a kid.

   By contrast I was surprised City Of Thieves didn't get a protest vote over Moon Dogs and Nicodemus's ingredients, while Citadel Of Chaos and Forest Of Doom, both well-written especially Citadel, picked up multiple votes - I guess we prefer our FF harder!

[sylas]

Mar 27, 2023 17:55:24 GMT CharlesX said:

Mar 27, 2023 17:25:13 GMT pip said:

I like Demons of the Deep. Like it, don't love it. I guess it doesn't often trigger strong reactions, so it's the kind of book likely to perform poorly / averagely in a "favourite" poll, and do well in a "least favourite" one.

It isn't as epic as many other FFs, and very forgiving, which is easy to like but perhaps isn't the most ambitious. I enjoyed it a lot for that and its more non-linear structure (like flowing water, as johnbrawn1972 puts it) when a kid.

   By contrast I was surprised City Of Thieves didn't get a protest vote over Moon Dogs and Nicodemus's ingredients, while Citadel Of Chaos and Forest Of Doom, both well-written especially Citadel, picked up multiple votes - I guess we prefer our FF harder!

The atmosphere and city building is fantastic in City of Thieves. The Moon Dogs problem are cause of an inconsistency with attack strength and skill bonuses but it's only a minor issue. The ingredients could have been done better I agree. The tower sequence at the end is also too short and simple as the finale of your quest.

Forest and Citadel I like a lot but they both lack an engaging narrative. Forest feels far too generic in presentation while Citadel puts too much effort into each encounter, especially with spell options, resulting in an overall adventure that feels far too short to enjoy properly.

Demons of the Deep has a wonderful, whimsical charm about it and while the adventure is nothing epic or challenging, it's very fair and very replayable, and that in itself earns it extra points. You won't be blown away by it, but it's hard not to like even if you don't love it.

[pikeyberbil]

a note that my choices are biased being limited to the US run of only numbers 1-21, those were read repeatedly and mapped over the course of 10 plus years. by the time i figured out the internet and online commerce and tracked down the original green spines 22 and onward I haven't had the time to read them enough to remember them. lol.
im selecting the non allansia titles (scorpion swamp, sword of the samurai, and talisman of death) though leaving house of hell (hades in usa). Reason is that i couldnt figure how the khul based books and Orb fit into the continent as i later found out was separate from the main setting for the first seven books. hence my ongoing confusion until i found the markjpopp site much later. whatever happened to him and the site?

[philsadler]

If this is him, and the comments mention his love of FF, then he's dead:

mhfh.com/tribute/details/5969/Mark-POPP/obituary.html

[kieran]

Apr 1, 2023 5:11:50 GMT philsadler said:

If this is him, and the comments mention his love of FF, then he's dead:

mhfh.com/tribute/details/5969/Mark-POPP/obituary.html

Oh how sad. His site played a huge part in making me an FF die hard fan.

[CharlesX]

So, I'm disregarding the 2 votes for Warlock..

   Unfortunately for it, quite a few people voted for Midnight Rogue, so we're waving goodbye to that. It's one of those gamebooks you can love and hate at the same time, with its high difficulty level and some linearity but an appealing world. Other than that, few surprises which gamebooks got the most votes and least.

[hallucination]

Interesting! A couple surprises: I’d have predicted that Trial would’ve done worse (linear and tough odds) and that Forest of Doom and Scorpion Swamp would’ve done better.