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Post by schlendrian on Nov 23, 2023 11:59:25 GMT
Isn't that because mace/morningstar weren't really that clearly differentiated in history and the clear dichotomy rather invented for roleplaying purposes in the last century (just like no medieval person would know or care about the differences between dragons and wyverns)?
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CharlesX
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Post by CharlesX on Nov 23, 2023 12:11:47 GMT
Isn't that because mace/morningstar weren't really that clearly differentiated in history and the clear dichotomy rather invented for roleplaying purposes in the last century (just like no medieval person would know or care about the differences between dragons and wyverns)? If I take the latter point first, a medieval person might not care about the minutae because even in their superstitious, primitive universe they would not suspect they would meet one (whatever lying propaganda scribes might say). There is a real difference though between a mace (probably meaning a weighted club, or spiked club) and a morning star (a rod with a chain with a ball with spikes). One might even say it is like the difference between a psychologist and a psychiatrist, and further that Matt Groening deliberately gets it wrong as an inference about Homer's IQ; I suspect he didn't care.
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Post by schlendrian on Nov 23, 2023 12:21:36 GMT
a rod with a chain with a ball with spikes That's a (ball and chain) flail
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roidhun
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Post by roidhun on Nov 23, 2023 13:32:01 GMT
I should probably own up to the fact that I was confusing a morningstar with a flail too. I think that's because I once saw a picture of an ancient Chinese flail-type weapon which had the chain dividing into three about halfway along, with each of the three ending in its own smaller spiked metal rod. I was misremembering all flails as being constructed the same way.
Matt Groening, an American entertainment(-for-morons) industry insider, not caring about historical accuracy? How shockingly unexpected!
Edit: When will the residents of Springfield finally figure out that 99% of their problems would be solved overnight if they hired Fat Tony to put bullets through the heads of Homer Simpson and Montgomery Burns?
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CharlesX
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Post by CharlesX on Nov 23, 2023 14:00:10 GMT
I should probably own up to the fact that I was confusing a morningstar with a flail too. I think that's because I once saw a picture of an ancient Chinese flail-type weapon which had the chain dividing into three about halfway along, with each of the three ending in its own smaller spiked metal rod. I was misremembering all flails as being constructed the same way. Matt Groening, an American entertainment(-for-morons) industry insider, not caring about historical accuracy? How shockingly unexpected! Edit: When will the residents of Springfield finally figure out that 99% of their problems would be solved overnight if they hired Fat Tony to put bullets through the heads of Homer Simpson and Montgomery Burns? Are you saying the creator of The Simpsons and Futurama (not to mention Disenchantment) is a moron? A duel, sir! Actually I think it would be more fair to say he's a populist who writes for American kids. Re your edit: Like the Family Guy citizens most of Springfield's residents are nuts. I suspect Mayor Quimby and Fat Tony are the problem not the solution. Robert F. Kennedy Jr. ("Mayor Quimby") is at present running for US presidency.
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Nov 23, 2023 14:31:15 GMT
Matt Groening, an American entertainment(-for-morons) industry insider, not caring about historical accuracy? How shockingly unexpected! In fairness to Matt, I think the only Simpsons episode he wrote was that one where Homer tried to kill himself. For some reason that wasn't the vibe producers were looking for.
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CharlesX
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Post by CharlesX on Nov 23, 2023 15:14:29 GMT
Matt Groening, an American entertainment(-for-morons) industry insider, not caring about historical accuracy? How shockingly unexpected! In fairness to Matt, I think the only Simpsons episode he wrote was that one where Homer tried to kill himself. For some reason that wasn't the vibe producers were looking for. I don't know Kieran's source(s) but Simpsons wiki (FWIW) lists a paltry seven Simpsons written by Matt Groening, several of them shorts and one of them being a co-credit for Simpsons Movie. Neither the episode Kieran mentions nor episode one seem to be listed.
Still, his Simpsons episodes do have a relatively dark vibe, including the episode with the Babysitter Bandit and Telltale Head where Bart cuts off the statue of the town's hero's head (remember being taught that in Sunday School and watching the episode together - not certain such a pro anarchist thing is particularly good morals).
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kieran
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Post by kieran on Nov 23, 2023 15:47:35 GMT
I don't know Kieran's source(s) Just my own (and, as it turns out, wholly unreliable!) memory.
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Post by schlendrian on Nov 23, 2023 16:49:33 GMT
I should probably own up to the fact that I was confusing a morningstar with a flail too. Quite understandable, given that (as I said) in olden times weapons really weren't as cleanly defined as modern RPGs make us believe. There do exist sources that call ball-and-chain flails with long chains morningstars. There are sources that simply call them maces.
(Personally, I ascribe to those historians that doubt the actual existence of one handed flails with long chains in medieval times at all, on the grounds that all our examples of this weapon come from later times and are most likely manufactured to make a seemingly barbaric weapon for collectors who want something from "the dark ages" to show in their mansions)
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Post by dragonwarrior8 on Nov 23, 2023 16:53:20 GMT
I've always found the whole idea of randomly rolling for your own stats daft when every other character has fixed stats. Pre-generated characters with fixed stats (or at least the option to choose them rather than randomly rolling if that's what you prefer) in all new or reprinted books would be a big plus, IMHO. Totally agree with this. I thought the randomly rolling for stats was a bad idea back in 1982, and it boggles my mind they are still using it 40 years on. Does anyone actually like this aspect? Do they not want to improve the system? If they want to bring in a new generation of FF readers, I find it hard to believe kids today would enjoy this. (Not being used to the "Nintendo hard" games we had growing up.) I would have been far more accepting of it if the original line about "any character regardless of starting stats should be able to make it through etc" had been true. If they really wanted to have a random element, and I believe others on these boards have proposed this, even having a system whereby if you roll a 1 or 2 then you start with Skill=10, roll 3 or 4 then Skill=11, roll 5 or 6 then Skill=12 would have been far better, as it also would have allowed better tailoring of difficulty throughout the book. Pre-generated characters is another good idea, perhaps even a choice of characters with different stats and different weapons. Of course, none of this would help with those books that require a totally random roll to win irrespective of Skill, but that is another issue. If you pull your favorite book off the shelf, say.....Deathtrap Dungeon, a book you have played before but always enjoy revisiting, and proceed to roll up a Skill=7 character, do you even bother? Do you reroll? And if you are going to reroll then why bother rolling at all in the first place? But who knows, maybe we are in the minority here and there is a large group that doesn't want to see it change.
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Post by CharlesX on Nov 23, 2023 17:34:54 GMT
If you pull your favorite book off the shelf, say.....Deathtrap Dungeon, a book you have played before but always enjoy revisiting, and proceed to roll up a Skill=7 character, do you even bother? Do you reroll? And if you are going to reroll then why bother rolling at all in the first place? But who knows, maybe we are in the minority here and there is a large group that doesn't want to see it change. It might be interesting to know the ratio of gamebook players who cheat or who would cheat. I cheated sometimes but after reading unfairly hard FF (Livingstone of course is definitely not the only culprit), rather than because I ever enjoyed it. I imagine the true ratio is somewhere between what some FF writers might think and never. For me personally as I've mentioned I'd rather an FF were either balanced or even tilted to the player's likelihood, but I've no idea how popular a view that is.
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Nov 23, 2023 18:58:57 GMT
but their swords were so heavy I would have struggled to lift them let alone fight I used to think those double-handed swords were massively heavy and cumbersome, but looking online I find: Most two-handed swords used in battle would have weighed between 3 to 8 pounds
and... Nothing answers the question of genuine weight better than sample evidence of actual historical specimens. Sword collector and author Dr. Lee Jones possesses a very fine specimen of a 16th century German two-handed great sword, that this author had the privilege of exercising outdoors with, had length in excess of five feet and a weight of 7.9 pounds (3490g), but handled easily with superb balance.Our ancestors are not to be underestimated. But being a fortune-seeker adventurer you are expected to carry 101 other things such as lantern mirror potion rope treasure and more than two other things so I'd agree they should not be kitted out like a knight. At a moment's notice you've got to be agile enough to rummage through your backpack and find that special item, too, so restrictive armour and helmets with narrow visors, and big unfeeling gauntlets won't do you much good either!
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Nov 23, 2023 19:14:42 GMT
I've always found the whole idea of randomly rolling for your own stats daft when every other character has fixed stats. Pre-generated characters with fixed stats (or at least the option to choose them rather than randomly rolling if that's what you prefer) in all new or reprinted books would be a big plus, IMHO. Totally agree with this. I thought the randomly rolling for stats was a bad idea back in 1982, and it boggles my mind they are still using it 40 years on. Does anyone actually like this aspect? Do they not want to improve the system? Surely it is a hangover from the days of D & D where you simply rolled 3 dice for each stat (do I remember that right?), resulting in some wild variations. And hit points were a single roll of a d4 or d6 or d8 depending on character class. I'm a firm believer in the maxim 'If it ain't broke don't fix it'. but in this case the system was broken from the start. They should alter it, going forward.
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Post by schlendrian on Nov 23, 2023 20:12:01 GMT
Dr. Lee Jones possesses a very fine specimen of a 16th century German two-handed great sword, that this author had the privilege of exercising outdoors with, had length in excess of five feet and a weight of 7.9 pounds (3490g), but handled easily with superb balance.I used to train with the Anderthalbhänder (a sword to be used with both hands but light enough to switch to one) in university, and those things seem huge but can be wielded viciously fast. I have really crap reflexes and was frequently overwhelmed by the quick strikes my classmates could do, so, yes, we really don't have much of an idea just how efficient a trained fighter could act with these weapons.
I like the old dnd system of just rolling stats and going with the character that comes out of that, but only when making characters just for fun. Obviously if you want to actually play those characters the newer system where you scrap the worst rolls and distribute the others as you see fit is vastly better, and that in a system where all stats are mostly equally useful. It's even worse with FFs system where one stat is so much more useful than the others.
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Post by Pete Byrdie on Nov 24, 2023 8:34:36 GMT
Totally agree with this. I thought the randomly rolling for stats was a bad idea back in 1982, and it boggles my mind they are still using it 40 years on. Does anyone actually like this aspect? Do they not want to improve the system? Surely it is a hangover from the days of D & D where you simply rolled 3 dice for each stat (do I remember that right?), resulting in some wild variations. And hit points were a single roll of a d4 or d6 or d8 depending on character class. I'm a firm believer in the maxim 'If it ain't broke don't fix it'. but in this case the system was broken from the start. They should alter it, going forward. The earliest DnD I remember is ADnD 2e, which from memory had about three options for character generation. Yes, the random rolls method FF uses was broken from day one, and that's fine but there's no reason it couldn't have been changed in 40 years. Plenty of other additional rules have been added in various books, but the character generation process has been treated as sacrosanct. Perhaps, as more writers came on board, they didn't feel they had the authority to make those changes that would help them balance a book better. Perhaps they didn't know how best to do it.
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Post by paperexplorer on Nov 24, 2023 9:15:59 GMT
The best way around it is pre-generated characters with different abilities requiring their own unique path (similar to appointment with fear) or way of getting around obstacles (eg fighter is forced to fight a troll, where a wizard can cast a sleep spell or a rogue can creep past)
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Post by Pete Byrdie on Nov 24, 2023 9:56:22 GMT
The best way around it is pre-generated characters with different abilities requiring their own unique path (similar to appointment with fear) or way of getting around obstacles (eg fighter is forced to fight a troll, where a wizard can cast a sleep spell or a rogue can creep past) That's a good approach. With the FF stats of SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK, there's not enough to play with to have base stats and free points to distribute. Perhaps if you add a MAGIC stat. This element of the 'balancing' discussion reminds me of something else which I've never known how to approach when playing a gamebook. If a writer gives you options of different abilities at the beginning of a gamebook, whether a choice of spells or special skills or whatever, should these be treated as the first choices in the book? Like, does your selection determine from the off whether you're on the true path, if the writer has created one? Appointment with FEAR famously did an excellent four-in-one. But other books, I'm never sure whether my choices doom me before reading the BACKGROUND (or in Temple of Terror, shortly after), or whether they just slightly alter my choices later. Which approach would readers prefer? As a kid, I was always excited by being given these options to fill out my character. As an adult, it just feels like a cheap and easy way to make the adventure more difficult by giving essential choices at the beginning with no clues to inform the choices. Which approach is taken may be the difference between using these first choices to balance an adventure, or actually just making it harder. I know some clever folks among you have worked out ideal solutions which I've rarely looked at, so it's perhaps more obvious to them how the writers approach this kind of thing.
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Post by terrysalt on Nov 24, 2023 11:04:06 GMT
The best way around it is pre-generated characters with different abilities requiring their own unique path (similar to appointment with fear) or way of getting around obstacles (eg fighter is forced to fight a troll, where a wizard can cast a sleep spell or a rogue can creep past) That's a good approach. With the FF stats of SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK, there's not enough to play with to have base stats and free points to distribute. Perhaps if you add a MAGIC stat. This element of the 'balancing' discussion reminds me of something else which I've never known how to approach when playing a gamebook. If a writer gives you options of different abilities at the beginning of a gamebook, whether a choice of spells or special skills or whatever, should these be treated as the first choices in the book? Like, does your selection determine from the off whether you're on the true path, if the writer has created one? Appointment with FEAR famously did an excellent four-in-one. But other books, I'm never sure whether my choices doom me before reading the BACKGROUND (or in Temple of Terror, shortly after), or whether they just slightly alter my choices later. Which approach would readers prefer? As a kid, I was always excited by being given these options to fill out my character. As an adult, it just feels like a cheap and easy way to make the adventure more difficult by giving essential choices at the beginning with no clues to inform the choices. Which approach is taken may be the difference between using these first choices to balance an adventure, or actually just making it harder. I know some clever folks among you have worked out ideal solutions which I've rarely looked at, so it's perhaps more obvious to them how the writers approach this kind of thing. I think the game should be winnable with any combination of spells/skills/whatever. Some combinations will almost always be stronger than others but there shouldn't be a way to lose the game before you even start it.
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Post by Pete Byrdie on Nov 24, 2023 11:29:12 GMT
That's how I used to approach these kinds of choices.
Doing a bit of mental arithmetic (thanks Combination Calculator on statskingdom.com), if you're given a choice of three skills from a pool of seven, there are 35 combinations. If certain choices are baked into the golden path, that's like starting in a big round room with 35 identical doorways to choose from, each leading to different versions of the story, only one of which is winnable.
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CharlesX
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Post by CharlesX on Nov 24, 2023 12:35:13 GMT
The best way around it is pre-generated characters with different abilities requiring their own unique path (similar to appointment with fear) or way of getting around obstacles (eg fighter is forced to fight a troll, where a wizard can cast a sleep spell or a rogue can creep past) That's a good approach. With the FF stats of SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK, there's not enough to play with to have base stats and free points to distribute. Perhaps if you add a MAGIC stat. This element of the 'balancing' discussion reminds me of something else which I've never known how to approach when playing a gamebook. If a writer gives you options of different abilities at the beginning of a gamebook, whether a choice of spells or special skills or whatever, should these be treated as the first choices in the book? Like, does your selection determine from the off whether you're on the true path, if the writer has created one? Appointment with FEAR famously did an excellent four-in-one. But other books, I'm never sure whether my choices doom me before reading the BACKGROUND (or in Temple of Terror, shortly after), or whether they just slightly alter my choices later. Which approach would readers prefer? As a kid, I was always excited by being given these options to fill out my character. As an adult, it just feels like a cheap and easy way to make the adventure more difficult by giving essential choices at the beginning with no clues to inform the choices. Which approach is taken may be the difference between using these first choices to balance an adventure, or actually just making it harder. I know some clever folks among you have worked out ideal solutions which I've rarely looked at, so it's perhaps more obvious to them how the writers approach this kind of thing. But Appointment with FEAR is a fairly linear gamebook (and though I don't hate it like The Count, I don't think it's excellent). I like Jon Green's approach in Night Of The Necromancer and Howl Of The Werewolf where you have at several different times the chance of obtaining different skills. To me one problem is exemplified by say the Spitting Fly in Slaves Of The Abyss, where stronger Avatars have a higher chance of gaining something seriously helpful. I could accept a system where a very, very good Avatar has a 99%+ chance of going through and a relatively poor one (perhaps through Howl Of The Werewolf's range) has something like 50%. I see it as analagous to video games where power-ups are awarded to players throughout, sometimes dependent on random rolls, affecting enemies, giving you a bonus as well if you don't have the best starting stats etc. The system was never the most brilliant one and instead of having clever people such as Jon Green and Steve Jackson tinkering it beyond some recognition it might be best to have more gamebooks without the traditional system than with it.
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roidhun
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Post by roidhun on Nov 24, 2023 12:40:39 GMT
The best way around it is pre-generated characters with different abilities requiring their own unique path (similar to appointment with fear) or way of getting around obstacles (eg fighter is forced to fight a troll, where a wizard can cast a sleep spell or a rogue can creep past) That's a good approach. With the FF stats of SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK, there's not enough to play with to have base stats and free points to distribute. Perhaps if you add a MAGIC stat. This element of the 'balancing' discussion reminds me of something else which I've never known how to approach when playing a gamebook. If a writer gives you options of different abilities at the beginning of a gamebook, whether a choice of spells or special skills or whatever, should these be treated as the first choices in the book? Like, does your selection determine from the off whether you're on the true path, if the writer has created one? Appointment with FEAR famously did an excellent four-in-one. But other books, I'm never sure whether my choices doom me before reading the BACKGROUND (or in Temple of Terror, shortly after), or whether they just slightly alter my choices later. Which approach would readers prefer? As a kid, I was always excited by being given these options to fill out my character. As an adult, it just feels like a cheap and easy way to make the adventure more difficult by giving essential choices at the beginning with no clues to inform the choices. Which approach is taken may be the difference between using these first choices to balance an adventure, or actually just making it harder. I know some clever folks among you have worked out ideal solutions which I've rarely looked at, so it's perhaps more obvious to them how the writers approach this kind of thing. I have the impression he's not following these forums anymore, but Champskees had some very good insights into the probabilities (or improbabilities) of success with various paths to various outcomes. Trouble is (as he himself was at pains to point out), his walkthroughs were focused on the easiest and shortest paths. Taking those means missing out on interesting fights and side quests. (With Revenge Of The Vampire, I always go to Mortus Mansion first and Crab Peak second: I want to acquire some Oil Of Disenchanment at the former so that at the latter I can blow up the cursed standing stone and set the trapped souls free. But that does make succeeding in the main quest more difficult in some ways.) Not to mention victories that are difficult to achieve but very emotionally satisfying if you do manage them. Not to mention how you can be left feeling like a callous bastard/bitch if you don't (for example) pause to save gangs of chained prisoners from being marched off to be sacrificed/fed to something unspeakable because you've opted to hoard your Stamina for the climactic battle with the final boss. Or if (in Crypt Of The Sorcerer) you take the easy option, by choosing to slaughter the poor crazed Bone Keeper for daring to attack you out of paranoia that you intended him harm, so that you can then rob his corpse of the Skull Ring, so that its curse will later animate some Skeletons to avenge him, so that their clawing their way out of their graves to get at you will disturb nearby graves enough to let you find the second half of the Rod Of Paralysis. (And yet, without it, you have precious little chance of killing the Gargantis in a normal battle.) So, to answer Charles X's original question: No! There's certainly no magic bullet solution that can be applied to every flawed book to fix every problem with total success. More's the pity.
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Post by King Gillibran on Nov 24, 2023 12:42:58 GMT
I've always found the whole idea of randomly rolling for your own stats daft when every other character has fixed stats. Pre-generated characters with fixed stats (or at least the option to choose them rather than randomly rolling if that's what you prefer) in all new or reprinted books would be a big plus, IMHO. Totally agree with this. I thought the randomly rolling for stats was a bad idea back in 1982, and it boggles my mind they are still using it 40 years on. Does anyone actually like this aspect? Do they not want to improve the system? If they want to bring in a new generation of FF readers, I find it hard to believe kids today would enjoy this. (Not being used to the "Nintendo hard" games we had growing up.) I would have been far more accepting of it if the original line about "any character regardless of starting stats should be able to make it through etc" had been true. If they really wanted to have a random element, and I believe others on these boards have proposed this, even having a system whereby if you roll a 1 or 2 then you start with Skill=10, roll 3 or 4 then Skill=11, roll 5 or 6 then Skill=12 would have been far better, as it also would have allowed better tailoring of difficulty throughout the book. Pre-generated characters is another good idea, perhaps even a choice of characters with different stats and different weapons. Of course, none of this would help with those books that require a totally random roll to win irrespective of Skill, but that is another issue. If you pull your favorite book off the shelf, say.....Deathtrap Dungeon, a book you have played before but always enjoy revisiting, and proceed to roll up a Skill=7 character, do you even bother? Do you reroll? And if you are going to reroll then why bother rolling at all in the first place? But who knows, maybe we are in the minority here and there is a large group that doesn't want to see it change. I do and I love the randomness. Maybe I am in the minority, but I like it. I also do prefer balanced books.
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