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Post by thealmightymudworm on Sept 8, 2023 5:40:50 GMT
This just popped up on my Instagram timeline. Posted in case of interest:
Link to Instagram for anyone (is it everyone?) the Instagram embedding fails for. (It's an artist's depiction of the Balrog battle on the actual page edges of a hardback copy of LOTR.)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 24, 2023 17:40:03 GMT
What is this thread please? Are they puzzle ideas for gamebooks or just general puzzles for people to solve? ty General puzzles themed on FF books for forum members to solve. Many of them based on the premise of finding your way through the labyrinthine home of Sid the FF maniac, but we've had crossword puzzles and the suchlike too.
There's just one on the go at a time, and whoever solves it gets to set the next one unless they're happy to pass it over to someone else.
Edit: I imagine reading the whole thread through would be quite the brainburner at this point.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 23, 2023 2:24:20 GMT
I've thought of resurrecting this thread before, but was reminded to do so by bloodbeasthandler 's post wrt Superhero Comics: Alan Moore, that grumpy old wizard. I think he lives under a bridge in Northampton. View AttachmentView AttachmentView AttachmentFunnily enough I've been getting into graphic novels and comics more recently too, a lot of them written by him. Read the Watchmen earlier this year for the first time, V for Vendetta, some of Swamp Thing.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 23, 2023 2:20:39 GMT
Things which are not humanly possible...
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 20, 2023 18:11:08 GMT
I remember that there was some discussion of pronunciation before which astonished me and which I've blanked out. I'm too far gone to change the way I think of words I've had set in mind since the 80s or 90s. Words from FF I've encountered more recently (which is many of them), yes. Sauron was, in my mind, Soar-on rather than Sour-on before I read the appendices/foreword/wherever Tolkien specified the proper pronunciation. Yes. I was the same. I looked at saur and presumed it was pronounced the same as the saur in dinosaur. I used to think the Zag in Zagor was like the zag in zigzag. In fact it is ZAY-gor. For me it will always be Zagor, possible long-lost twin of Zigor.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 20, 2023 13:39:00 GMT
I'm considering putting in for this (taking the deadline as 11.59pm Monday, is that right?)
Question: Are you taking a strict line on 'Name [something]' means you really need a name, and uniquely identifying [something] isn't good enough? Or might there be some give on that for one or two of the questions?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 20, 2023 5:34:10 GMT
I've gone for 'Yes' rather than 'Kind of' even though – this is clearly not one of the top five qualities for an FF gamebook as there are several classics which don't come close to this. – I'm discounting 'fairly easily' as to me that implies something like a 75%+ chance for a 7/14/7 loser.
because in spite of that it seems to be pretty clearly a failure if the character you're encourage to identify with and roll up by the rules plainly has no chance. If you are doomed without it being due to your own choices, or as part of the thrill of a close battle, that adds nothing to the experience of a gamebook. There's a certain absurdity in attempting to play by the rules, rolling up a SKILL 8, say, character, and hoping they get killed early so that you don't have to plough through to their inevitable later death. What's the point in playing by the rules if the author(s) has failed to make it winnable by the rules for a character you roll up from the outset?
I stand by the principle that someone dying in a gamebook should feel that either they could have chosen better or that they've been a bit unlucky. At a minimum, someone with poor stats should have a double-digit percentage chance of winning if they make optimal choices, so that it's worth a go. So that you don't need to be clinically insane to hope you might win.
It is hard to balance the books to allow for a decent amount of difficulty at all stats, but authors have tried from time to time. Notably Steve Jackson (US) with a possible full stats re-roll in DotD, as well as a big bonus for losing to Cyrano than winning. Then there are the different missions/endings where some are easier to get than others.
Other alternatives might be different routes leaning on whichever your least weak stat is and/or super-powered bonuses which are tucked behind straight (stat unrelated) 2 out 6 life or death rolls. Not worth the risk if you have decent stats, but if not...
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 19, 2023 17:45:07 GMT
I can't honestly say I cared very much about what the boat was actually named but I did enjoy the episode a lot. Restored a little bit of my pride in being British.
It was a real rookie error. You can ask the public for suggestions; you can ask them to vote for an option from a list, but if you run the two together without a break to remove the 'Twerkmeister and the Bumcheeks'-style suggestions you have only yourself to blame. It gave us a week or so of countless newsreaders gravely intoning the phrase 'Boaty McBoatface' as though this was vital issue without being allowed to giggle. It reminded me of the sterling job that Moira Stuart did with the Chesterfield by-election:
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 16, 2023 21:13:02 GMT
I don't want to sound biased (but I'm gonna sound biased)...not sure the world of FF would appeal to many girls. I remember trying to get my younger sister to play some and she was just happy to play some boring CYOA about horse riding or baby sitting lol. Having said that, I would LOVE my daughter to play thru Shamutanti with me one day...I love that book so much. It may just be that the FF time has passed, and that's ok...each generation has their own thing. I think it's just cool that there's still a loyal community of enthusiasts that I can connect with. I joke about it with my wife ("Be right there, I just have to finish fighting this goblin"), but she just rolls her eyes at me. It's true that it can hardly be a fluke that, for example, of the 50-odd members of this forum who've posted 50+ times, I know of two who are female and nearly all the rest are explicitly male. Of those, Klea is really a Sorcery specialist and Tammy/Khaxan has always been something of a unique character! What seems plausible is that some attractions for boys about FF are unlikely to be so for the bulk of girls. Just the name for a start: young boys are usually interested in fighting (at least theoretically); less so girls. 'Fantasy' might be at least as interesting to girls as boys, but only if it's 'clean' – more about flying horses and dragons than the spilling of fetid orc entrails. Girls are stereotypically more interested in social skills and character from an earlier age. Again, they are less interested in fighting so will be less likely to tolerate endless rounds of combat which are objectively boring. They will probably also be less impressed by 'cool numbers' in fights and tests. "Wow! This does double damage" or "Wow, this makes my SKILL a really high number". I included Talisman in my list without really thinking about why. On reflection: – It has a strong cast of characters, notably several strong and/or interesting female characters: the Shieldmaiden, the horsewomen of Fell-Kyrinla, Lillantha, Cassandra and of course Hawkana. – Very little of the adventure is slimy or stinky: locations include a woodland glade with a druid and a pet(ish) wolf, an encounter with horsewomen on the open ground, dinner with a sage, a magic show, a temple, open plains, a waterfall and a dragon's lair. – Even though your character needs to be an excellent fighter, much of the book turns on making choices to avoid confrontation – whether with the horsewomen, the thieves, Tyutchev and Cassandra or the Hogmen.
Anyway, I think what I'm saying is that maybe FF is inevitably more a male thing than female but a slightly different series of books with slightly different presentation might have been more of a 60:40 or 70:30 split rather than 95:5 – and that maybe you shouldn't give up on catching your daughter's interest too easily.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 16, 2023 15:12:25 GMT
A friend of mine who shares my love of gamebooks, but is as poor as a church mouse, recently tried to save himself some money by downloading pirate copies of Shadow of the Giants and Secrets of Salamonis from a dodgy Russian website. (Yes, he felt guilty even before he began.) He was absolutely disgusted to discover that both downloads had been bundled with a copy of the latest demented ravings by the repulsive celebrity lunatic David Icke. This regurgitated his usual racist, anti-semitic bollocks about how the world is secretly ruled by devil-worshipping, paedophile, shape-shifting, vampire lizard people, who (in their assumed human forms) include all Jews and all African-American social justice campaigners. It also claimed that COVID is a hoax. And that Fighting Fantasy is intended to somehow brainwash us into despising normal humanity as weak and wanting to make ourselves strong by selling out and pledging our allegiance to the secret reptilian rulers of the world if we’re ever offered the chance. My friend erased this loathsome garbage as soon as he discovered it. At his request, I’m passing on his warning not to download anything FF-related from dodgy Russian websites, if you don’t want to be left feeling that your computer, your mind and your very soul have been defiled by exposure to something utterly unclean. Well this is just tremendous news. Here we are worrying about whether Fighting Fantasy has long to live, and yet it's getting taken seriously by purveyors of lunatic antisemitic conspiracy bullsh*t, which is the trendiest thing in the world right now.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 15, 2023 16:49:29 GMT
He wisely opts to give a much tighter starting Skill range in the initial character generation than is usual for FF, negating that problem that can render many of the other books either laughably easy or impossibly hard based on the very first time you pick up a die, and so it's a decent but fair challenge regardless of the path you take. Agreed. As you can see from the stats in the solutions subforum, some books can range from impossible to easy just based on that one initial die roll for your Skill stat. Having your initial rolls determine whether you will play easy or hard mode is much better than if they determine whether you have a chance or not. I'm looking forward to the top 4, without rereading your thread I'm positive there were no mentions of three of the usual suspects so far (which are also all among my personal favourites), but I'm not sure about the fourth one, though I'll probably go "Oh! Of course" when I find out which one it is. I think I know your number 1 and 2. But I also thought Deathtrap Dungeon would be number 3. Can't remember what it might be now. I think I know the other one we're waiting for – a late Puffin classic.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 10, 2023 5:09:43 GMT
I gave a second hand copy of Deathtrap Dungeon to a young family member, she also gave up mid adventure even though it's like the perfect introductory book. She had enjoyed shorter gamebooks aimed at younger audiences, but DD was unfortunately quickly abandoned. I think she found it too long and couldn't be bothered reading rules and rolling dice. I'm afraid today's kids are no longer the target audience for FF. I'm slightly surprised at the idea that your ?niece/cousin gave up because she "couldn't be bothered reading rules and rolling dice". No question for a full gamebook experience you need to do that (and any gamebook which doesn't work well by the rules is seriously flawed), but I'm not sure I always did as a 9 or 10 year old, and I'm sure many of my classmates didn't. stevendoig mentioned that he and his friends had a rule that 'Livingstone=easy; Jackson=hard' because they all just blasted past the fights and stat tests. Proper playing can wait. Also, I realise that I'm stereotyping here, but is Deathtrap Dungeon really the perfect introductory book even for a girl? I'm not as familiar with it as most forum members, but it seems to me more appealing to the average male than female. It emphasises the dank and gruesome aspects of adventuring rather than the eerie, the magical, the heroic responsibilty of a noble quest... if I had to get a young girl I didn't know into FF, I'd probably try with Citadel, Talisman or Shamutanti before almost any IL book. Also Demons of the Deep if we're including out-of-print Puffin books. Those have distinctly gruesome bits in them of course, but they're not themed on them. Scholastic obviously intended The Crystal of Storms to be aimed at girls too.
(Apologies if this is annoying, talking about someone who you know and I don't!)
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 4, 2023 19:26:09 GMT
By the way, if this is making it sound like I enjoyed this book because I'm some kind of petrolhead, I'm really not. I have about as much knowledge of cars as a medieval yeoman. A couple of years back, I went to hire a car for a family holiday, and the guy from the car hire place sat with me as I took it out on a test run. 'Nice runner isn't it mate?' he said, clearly very enthusiastic about his job. 'Yeah, a nice runner,' I replied, knowing full well I had no frame of reference for what would differentiate a 'nice' runner from a 'not nice' one. 'What litre do you reckon she is?' What? 'Ooh, I wouldn't like to say.' 'No go on, have a guess. It'll surprise you. What litre do you reckon?' Christ, he's not taking no for an answer. I'm desperately picturing a measuring jug in my head, trying to work out how many litres a car engine, any car engine, might be. 'I dunno, maybe, like...twenty?' He stopped talking to me after that. I suppose at least that was one advantage to him realising that I was a blithering idiot. This made me genuinely LOL. Glad there's someone out there who knows even less about cars than me! Does anyone know how much involvement Green actually had? I've also heard a few mentions of him also assisting with Gates of Death and Crystal of Storms, but not sure where this came from or what his level of involvement was. For Secrets I think Steve asked JG that question at FFF4, saying something like "How much of this do you reckon is down to you?". It sounded a bit like Steve came up with a big bunch of ideas and Jon wove an adventure out of them.
Edit: The brief comment I'm remembering is at 1:52:30 in the second livestream video I embedded in this post. You sense Jon is being modest. They talk a bit more about it as the video goes on of course.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 3, 2023 3:34:52 GMT
29 - The Crimson TideI think I struggled with the ranking of this one more than I did any other book, and that's because it's a title that I wanted to love a lot more than I actually did. I wanted to love it because of its fantastic writing. In many ways it's the gold standard for the heights the writing in the series could achieve. Just as a small example of this, take reference 72, from which the book takes its title and which I think is my favourite fail ending in all FF. If you have a copy of the book handy, grab it. Have a quick look at it now. It's bloody great. Edgar Allan Poe would have been proud of its brutal, chilling economy of language. I wanted to love it because of its ambition. Taking place over many years, your character develops and matures, not just physically with the gradual enhancing of your raw attributes that that brings, but as a person, moulded to an extent by the decisions that you the player make for them. Do you want them to be completely fixated on pursuing that crimson tide of revenge? You can do that. Or, you can abandon it and become a monk, or a gladiator, or just return to your simple life as a peasant. It's rare to see actual character development in FF, let alone give the player control of shaping it. I wanted to love it because of its heart. The Crimson Tide is not alone in starting with the killing of the protagonist's family or friends, but it is unique in making the player question whether single-mindedly hunting down and slaying those responsible will allow them to heal. In the black and white worlds of other titles, you kill the villain, you are avenged, game over. The Crimson Tide is mature enough to introduce shades of grey and moral ambiguity. I wanted to love it because of its setting. Taking place in the aftermath of the events of Black Vein Prophecy, Mason is once again confident enough in the sophistication of his readership to understand that that book's conclusion, where good ruler overthrows bad ruler, doesn't automatically make everything instantly a-ok, and the lands are rife with unrest, civil war, marauding bands and political vacuums. The reason I didn't love it as much as I wanted to was down to its complexity and difficulty. That's unusual, because these are normally positives in my book; a well concealed, intricate solution to a title shows that care and intelligence have been put into its planning. It's just that the difficulty of The Crimson Tide is so slippery that it caused me no small amount of frustration. The key to solving it is in the collection of code words. That's nothing new to FF, code words had been used before. Usually, however, they're treated as a substitute for a key item - as in, you reach a reference, it asks you whether you have such-and-such a word written down on your Adventure Sheet, if so, turn to x. Paul Mason, being the great defier of FF convention that he is, takes them and uses them in a completely different and original way. So, in my numerous failed attempts at the book, I had been travelling along different paths, collecting different code words, and getting nowhere, when suddenly I realised I had not seen any instruction as to what to do with these words. And that's when it struck me, in a moment of Joycian epiphany: 'Oh Christ yeah, it's spelling out a phrase isn't it?'. It was simultaneously exasperating and a moment of grudging admiration for the cleverness of the solution that had been eluding me. The problem is, even once I'd worked that out, I still couldn't fricking do it. Such is the labyrinthine complexity of the book's design, I was repeatedly finding myself wandering aimlessly, desperately trying to find the exact combination of code words from the multitude of ones available that the book demanded. I get the impression that the correct code words are supposed to have been placed strategically at key points of your character's road to maturity, but unless I'm missing something, that didn't seem to marry up with where they actually are. I mean, I get why learning inner calm at the monastery would be such a moment for example, but why is one hidden behind the encounter with the Death's Messenger? Further, at the point in the text when you actually put the phrase together and apply its instruction, what you've learned doesn't really correspond to what is happening at that time. When I did finally manage to solve it, it just left me with the impression that the book was so focussed on concealing such a fiendishly complicated puzzle, it forgot to implement it in a meaningful way. And the process of actually trying to solve it was so draining that at some point I forgot all of its very admirable qualities, and was enduring rather than enjoying it. Oh and it also has a messed up Mudworm fight too. I too have very mixed feelings about The Crimson Tide as I've mentioned elsewhere. On first encounter I just failed to complete it. I'm pretty sure this was partly due to the fact that I wasn't keeping a proper Adventure Sheet at the time. Why would that be necessary? After all, in other books like Moonrunner which was the previous book I'd played, I could easily remember whether or not the words rotkod, esproc, cainam... etc had been mentioned, so why would it be important to write these down?
There's a double problem: including a puzzle which requires a lot of persistence, excellent comprehension skills and some algebra in a series for which the fanship includes 9 year olds (some of whom are not that brilliant) which feels a bit like including a key plot based around Shakesperian sonnets in a Transformers movie. But also the puzzle is well shrouded so that you can miss that there's something to look for at all. Most of the words in the book are the subject of straightforward call-backs, (never, art, arena, silk, green, magic...) including some of the words which are also in the message (offers, sword and to, I think). Perhaps the most maddening part is the scholar's puzzle: it's a tricky little calculation which it's very tempting to just cheat your way past, but even if you attempt an answer, you discover he was just bluffing anyway. So on your next playthrough you know you can just say anything and needn't write it down. (In fairness: the Notes section at the end of the Introduction does say "You should make sure that you copy the words down correctly, and that you list them in the order in which you come across them." but making this a bit more prominent might have helped!)
On the other hand, if you do get it, it's a much subtler and rewarding read than most.
Personally I don't think the Death's Messenger bit is particularly difficult to understand. There is a battle within yourself, presumably whilst you are dreaming, as to whether your lust for revenge is all encompassing or you remain open-minded. It's not a physical fight as you find your STAMINA fully restored even if you lose.
Perhaps the best way to understand the whole sentence leading to the showdown with Pantu is that if you have achieved personal development to the point of controlling your own lust for revenge you are aware of the presence of a manipulative agent of havoc and death. You recognise him as a danger and an enemy, even more so than the mercenary leader himself.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 2, 2023 21:12:35 GMT
TBH I forgot what the true path was here (it's been too long), so if fighting the Mudworm prevents you from reaching the best ending anyway, then yes, I suppose it's still a drag but is not as bad. That's right, the stats of the *cough* almighty mudworm are as irrelevant as those of the House of Hell kitchen ghoul really. It's just a little embarrassing (as sleepyscholar noted) that these things are supposed to be regularly cropping up in the paddy fields without causing death en masse. Also YOU (a child with a sharpened twig) are supposed to have killed one already according to the Background. Fighting the Mudworm is not critical to reaching the best ending fortunately. Correct. You can go on the road and then distract some mercenaries. Unfortunately this means losing 2 stamina so if your initial roll is 2, you can't win. Yes the true path involves a necessary 2 STAMINA point loss, although if you agree with my interpretation of the rules that problem can be circumvented to give even a minimum stats character a fighting chance.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Aug 1, 2023 21:35:53 GMT
Hello, iam Ales. Very please, i searching answer lot of times, but... Please, is Deathtrap Dungeon (or full Fighting Fantasy) public domain? I creating fan videogame about Deathtrap Dungeon, i want to make this game free, but i don't know how is it with licensing and copyright with DD. I love Ian Livingstone books, Thanks. Hi Ales, welcome,
Deathtrap Dungeon and Fighting Fantasy in general are definitely not public domain. Control of the copyright remains with Ian Livingstone and Scholastic Books (and Steve Jackson – though presumably he wouldn't care much about Deathtrap Dungeon).
If you release a game for free online, those two or three would be within their rights to enforce copyright and stop you. In theory they could sue you, though this is probably unlikely if you are distributing it for free, you would just get a message telling you to take it down immediately. Ian Livingstone might take it as competition for licensed versions such as this one.
I think your options are: release it anyway and risk the consequences, or ask Ian Livingstone (he's easy enough to contact, e.g. on Twitter) for permission, though he is very likely to say 'no' – unless your game is good enough that he thinks it's worth making official and turning a profit from.
That's as much as I can attempt to help. Please note that none of this is professional legal advice.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 25, 2023 3:56:25 GMT
From the solution thread,suggests the life or death 50/50 rule is taken into account in the odds. Not sure I follow the maths, if you had 1 in 2 chance to die, wouldn't that immediately drop your odds to win to 50%? A character with infinite stamina would only have 75% chance of winning due to a roll you are required to make after acquiring the crowbar (50/50 followed by another 50/50, 1 in 4 chance of death). I think Charles X is right (though I'm only just looking at the solution rather than the table now, and of course I don't have the book).
The line is:
So the first roll isn't a life or death roll, it's just that if you 'fail' it you have to do a life or death roll. It's the difference between flipping a coin twice and needing to gets heads at least once rather than both times.
This means that for a character with infinite STAMINA BotZ is way less harsh that the OSCs in Chasms. Let us bask in Ian's bountiful generosity.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 24, 2023 19:03:18 GMT
Interesting... I started writing the following post for this (long-buried) thread due to petch's rankings before paperexplorer posted that blog. It does suggest that a couple of the problems mentioned weren't the author's fault.
This isn't a particular favourite of mine. It's a mixed bag and a middling book, but for me the faults drag it a bit further towards 'mediocre' than 'solid'. Possibly I didn't encounter it at the right age. Mostly the pros and cons have been touched on: It's a neat premise, the special skills are fun to apply and there are nice sequences here and there.
On the negative side, the detective work bit at the beginning doesn't make a lot of sense and the later dungeon feels a bit like something from another book. I felt Blacksand was a bit hazier than it had been in CoT. The twist at the end is sort of clever, but feels unnecessary. Instead of the giant gem, we get a moral, which is presumably: "Maybe the real treasure is the friends we made along the way, all of whom are obsessed with actual treasure and would gladly kill me for a jewel that size if it were genuine."
One thing which hasn't been mentioned much is the role or lack of it of the reader's intelligence. For me, part of what makes a gamebook good or bad is that at least some of the time using your noggin helps when making choices. Whether that's to do with solving explicit puzzles or comprehension of the text (like the Eyes of Telaak in Battleblade Warrior, or the location of the pirates in Demons of the Deep) or just common sense judgments. Just overall if a bunch of smart people and a bunch of morons play a book, the morons should be taking more goes to finish it on average.
There are a couple of sections which appear to apply a very low-grade intelligence test but go nowhere with it. You are told in the short Background that Brass's symbol is a coin. When you go to break into his house, you either enter the house with a big coin symbol outside or one with an oar. That's subtle. But if you break into the oar house you face no consequences. Nor could you be doing this for potentially logical reasons (e.g. raiding an easier target for provisions and perhaps equipment-money before tackling the main mission). No, the text has you being explicitly puzzled that the house contains a letter to someone who isn't Brass. Even if you insist on gormlessly continuing to search, the book just railroads you into thinking better of it and leaving without consequences. So it's just a waste of paragraphs.
Likewise when you're looking to enter the dungeon at Barrow Hill you can adjust the stone archer in response to the rhyme at its base to point it at the barrow, the house or (correctly) the standing stone. If you get it right, the thing opens. If you get it wrong... nothing happens and you have to try again. If you get it wrong twice... you still just have to pick again. It's already clear that the statue is next to water with piranhas, so having one nip your ankle for 2 STAMINA would be reasonable – or maybe a bonus LUCK point if you get it right the first time. Otherwise it's just more wasted paragraphs.
The following is sort of unfair, because it's in the nature of gamebooks that often the reader is given a range of choices which on reflection don't really make sense. Nevertheless
I was particularly aware of this in some of the writing in Midnight Rogue and found myself idly imagining an extension on this paragraph at Brass's house:
For guidance you cast your mind back to your thievery tutorials.
"Now class, we're nearly at the end of your top-of-the-range larceny course. Do any of you have any final questions?" "Sir, sir, Mr Rannik, sir!" "*Sigh* Yes what is it Dwayne?" "When I'm burgling a house, should I steal valuable stuff or worthless stuff like dust and ashes?" "Valuable stuff Dwayne – if you're not sure, just go for shiny stuff you can carry." "OK, and when I've finished getting everything, should I leave a note saying 'I have stolen all your stuff' with my name and address?" "No Dwayne, that would hugely increase the chances of you dying a painful death in the next dozen hours." "Oh OK, and finally if I search a room whilst burgling and find a safe, is that the sort of thing that I should investigate, or should I just immediately jump out of the window?" "Goddammit, Dwayne."
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 23, 2023 18:04:51 GMT
I think those odds take into account two rolls where you have a 50/50 chance of dying (eg. 1-3 die, 4-6 live), which is skewing the % chance to succeed ...and in the theme of this thread, there was clearly room for a luck stat in this book in place of rolling one dice with the outcome determing whether or not you live or die. Luck should have been included Possibly... but then if you can't avoid those wouldn't the maximum chance with infinity STAMINA be no more than 25%? The table has an adventurer with 220 STAMINA having nearly a 75% chance.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 22, 2023 3:31:58 GMT
51 - Midnight RogueNot for the first time, I feel my critical faculties are deficient in allowing me to provide an adequate justification for the ranking of this one. Similarly to Battleblade Warrior, there's nothing especially wrong with Midnight Rogue, but then there's nothing that pops out as being particularly outstanding either. It's solidly middle-of-the-road stuff. What's made me rank this several places above Battleblade is the originality of some of the ideas on offer here. Its premise is pretty irresistible - a return to Blacksand is always welcome, and the opportunity to play as a miscreant makes for a refreshing change of pace from your usual altruistically-minded hero. There's an attempt to include an encumbrance rule, which makes sense in the context of the book - as a thief you have to remain nimble and light on your feet so you can't be weighed down by a backpack full of goblin's knucklebones, mouldy cheese or whatever other crap you happen to have come across. There's a nicely considered Special Skills system, although it can be rendered a bit moot as Davis generously includes a number of items that you can find that in effect allow you to claim a missing skill, so depending on your initial selection of skills and the route you take through the book, I believe it's possible for your character to accumulate the complete set of Special Skills, making you some kind of omnithief. A polymath of roguery. An ubermensch of nicking stuff. The main problem comes in the second half of the book, which moves away from the urban environment and into a dungeon setting. The end twist concerning the true nature of the place is quite a neat one, but the dungeon itself in execution is unfortunately fairly bland. This has reminded me that after playing Midnight Rogue for last year's Fortieth Frenzy I was going to post about how annoying I found some of its idiosyncracies in spite of its plus-points. Perhaps I'll keep that for its own thread as intended, but since it's specifically mentioned I'd say that the encumbrance rule is (always) a mistake.
In a lot of gamebook adventures it's hard not to notice that your character is scrambling over walls or up trees, heroically leaping across chasms and sprinting zig-zags towards goblin archers despite being weighed down by enough food for 20 meals, a stone hammer and a life-size solid gold warthog. A limit on the number of items might seem to make things more realistic. But a simple rule is not realistic: as here, where 7 provisions weigh/take up space the same as 1, whilst having a key, whistle, letter and map in addition to a provision and a potion means that it's impossible to pick up a second key without dumping something. I have more items than that in my pockets right now – what's the point of being a thief if you can't carry more than that? A more complex rule requires more effort to apply and wouldn't get away from the basic fact that junking items purely because of an item limit adds nothing to the excitement or atmosphere.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 21, 2023 16:49:22 GMT
Okay, so I played with 100 stamina and completed it with 19 points remaining, and that's with some fortuitous rolling with the browning in particular. I might ask him to try 80+2D6 Or cheat, like I did when I slew Razaak back in the day Well I only have that table to go on which would suggest that 80 + 2d6 would give a chance of between about 0.9% and 4% (assuming an otherwise perfect playthrough) if you don't tweak anything else.
That still seems a bit harsh to me but I'm a bit of a softy. If there's a real zombie apocalypse maybe you don't want to have lulled him into a false sense of security.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 21, 2023 0:58:06 GMT
Since my son is playing this by the rules, what is a fair starting stamina score that would give him a fair chance of getting through? Is 100 (as noted above) reasonable? It's a far cry from 2d6 + 12 Champskees included an above-the-rules table for STAMINA numbers which would give percentage chances above zero. Going by that, if you change nothing else about the rules or the book text, 100 will give some chance but a pretty low one. Perhaps 100 + (2d6 x 10) would be less tedious...?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 20, 2023 6:39:42 GMT
57 - Assassins of AllansiaThis is another book where I've shifted my view a fair amount after considering the comments of my more learned peers on this forum. My initial impression was that this was great, at least a mid-tier entry to the series. I still feel that way to an extent; Livingstone evokes the old magic much more successfully than in The Port of Peril, and the titular assassins are lots of fun as opponents, each carrying their own distinct threat and keeping you on your toes as you know they can crop up at any time. There are a couple of flaws here that are too major to ignore, however. The first is that the book's main parameter for success is the elimination of all of these assassins. Now, Livingstone doesn't make this clear until the very end of the book, so up until then, the common sense choices would seem to be to try to avoid the hired mercenaries paid to kill you at all costs. But no, you have to wander blithely into every ambush and trap, like a cow meandering contentedly into its own slaughterhouse, so you can take each assassin out, and the sheer volume of counterintuitive or plan stupid decisions your character needs to make to ultimately triumph means that this frequently doesn't feel very rewarding to play. The other issue is the ending. In another attempt to appeal to us fanboys and girls, Livingstone tries to tie the ending into the events leading up to the beginning of one of his most fondly remembered works, Deathtrap Dungeon, the implication being that your character in this book is the same one who takes on The Walk in Deathtrap. A worthy idea, but if you're going to try to link books together, you need to be able to ensure that the events of the two don't contradict each other otherwise it just becomes a nonsense. And sadly, they do conflict, big style. I have enjoyed though, some of the theories that have been put forwards to try to reconcile them: that the 'you' from Assassins is not the 'you' from Deathtrap at all but is in fact one of the other contestants; that this is in fact another year of the Trial of Champions from the one presented in Deathtrap that also just happens to include another barbarian contestant also called Throm; and (this one is my own theory) that a barbarian called Throm did something to piss Baron Sukumvit off some time in the distant past (maybe he banged his wife or, I don't know, did a poo on the steps of his mansion or something) and so incensed was Sukumvit by this slight that he utilised magic cloning technology that he has secretly been researching to create a whole horde of Throms that he keeps imprisoned, and every year he sends one into Deathtrap Dungeon so he can enjoy over and over again their horrific death, like an especially nasty episode of The Itchy and Scratchy Show. But sadly, none of these theories holds up to any scrutiny and we are simply left with the unavoidable conclusion that Livingstone just messed it up. Assassins was the first book I thought of when the question of the targeting of these books was raised. I can easily imagine that a lot of 10-year-old boys would just love this to bits. It's a great title and a gripping premise. The cover is excellent – menacing and believable. It has collectable scorpion pendants. There's the sinister imposter woman. There's the guy you can get the jump on, firing arrows into the inn (even if that doesn't really work). The flaws, if noticed, would be mere details. If someone was asking whether Assassins would be a good first FF book to get their child into the series, I'd have no hesitation in saying yes.
The structure and ending do let it down though. The assassins are all trying to be the first to meet you with with lethal force. It shouldn't be easy to just amble past them unless you are actively trying to do so. Far less should it be necessary to wander into a random farm and grab an obvious bait. As for the final sections, it's pretty weird that IL decided to say "See, life-long fans, I'm just like you. I love the world of the classic early books – but I draw the line at [wrinkles nose in disgust] re-reading the Background to my own book."
...the Sukey and Thrommy Showwww!
That is a really good review of Battleblade Warrior. Aside from the minor gripe the "only eat when instructed" rule arguably doesn't give you enough opportunities to eat, that's Battleblade Warrior - average, not bad, but not as good as you might hope. Assassins of course has the glaring gameplay error where you can lose all your objects down one path, which would include your silver pendants, and the anti-poison earring, and as that's the only path by which you can obtain the anti-poison earring that makes the earring (and path) absolutely useless. The bajillion cursed items are also too Livingstonian, or at least for me. Dear God yes – some of it reads like Livingstone doing a parody of himself, especially early on. Oh you want to walk down the road? No, you fool! It's lava covered by an illusion spell. Lose one foot (-4 Sk -8 St) Oh you want to eat some cheese? No, you fool! This is the Cheese of Bastard which makes your teeth fly out of your head and bite your own ears off (-2 Sk -4 St)
Oh you want to put on a shirt? No, you fool! This is a shirt woven from dragons' bumhair which singes your nipples off and causes you to smell like partially-digested-princess flatulence (-1 Sk -3 L)
(Those may not be the exact ones in the book, but close enough.) I always think that a poisoned or cursed item is more effective if it is unexpected.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 19, 2023 20:06:11 GMT
64 - The Gates of DeathAh, the phenomenon of the celebrity author. Writing ability is not a necessity (indeed, in the case of a few Love Island contestants who have entered the fold, I don't doubt their writing ability so much as their ability to write), as long as the name being slapped on the cover is recognisable enough to shift a few units. Oh what a glorious age of literary enlightenment in which we do live. If anyone from Scholastic is reading this, a few ideas for future FF celeb collabs: - A tell-all memoir from Katie Price about what really happened that night she had a lock-in with a dozen dockhands at the Black Lobster - Richard Littlejohn's To Blacksand in a Handcart, in which he bemoans the influx of Caarth lizardmen and other subhuman effluent flooding mainland Allansia, taking the jobs, and eating the children of, good, decent, honest, hardworking Libra-worshippers - Russell Brand's My Fighting Fantasy Wantasy where he spends 399 of 400 references talking about himself A quick tip for anyone who may be tempted at some point in the future to do some research on terrible books for comedy or illustrative purposes: don't do it on your Amazon account unless you want your 'Amazon Recommends' section to fill up with utter crap. Oh man. It may be helpful to go to your browsing history and play Mr Deletey.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 15, 2023 2:49:14 GMT
Having never owned or read the Titan manual, I do have some questions here. Does titan detail what each region or continent and what it is like, or is it just a series of maps? I only ask because each author, particularly later in the series, has created areas that are quite unique and belonging only to that author. Eg, did Keith Martin come along and say "I'm going to write a vampire book and set it here (choosing a spot on the map) or does titan already set up an area equivalent to Transylvania for him to use? Also, where exactly is Scorpion Swamp? It always felt pretty anonymous location wiseYou've reminded me that our own sometime poster paltogue once posted about the geography of Scorpion Swamp. worldoffightingfantasy.blogspot.com/2014/07/the-geography-of-scorpion-swamp.html
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jul 2, 2023 20:25:01 GMT
Yes indeed. Here's the kickstarter embedded, followed by the link for those the embed doesn't work:
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jun 19, 2023 14:38:28 GMT
I can't see that this has been posted yet. (The search on this forum remains trash.)
Magic Realms: The Art of Fighting Fantasy, written by Ian and Jon Green, is planned for 2024.
The book focuses on the work of 26 artists, who have contributed art to the Fighting Fantasy series over the past four decades, across 25 chapters. Each chapter starts with a brief biography of the artist, followed by pages and pages of full colour and/or black & white artwork, along with some previously unseen sketches and other tidbits. There are also insights from the artists themselves into their work.
http://instagram.com/p/Ctq7JY2KWwp Edit: The Instagram embed, which has always failed for some people, no longer works for me either. Maybe it's not working for anyone...? There's not much on that version anyway.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jun 19, 2023 14:19:37 GMT
According to me back then, the book is too easy and should have half the citadel walls and half the black cubes. In my defence, I was a bit of a dirty cheat back then, so I was interested in how I'd fare going in blind after many years playing by the rules. After clearly taking many wrong turns, I died in combat at the hands of a Flame Warrior in the Fangs of Fury itself. 11 of the 14 walls had fallen (ouch, one theory trounced) Getting lost in the maze will burn through a lot of Citadel Walls. That's right. It's not true to say, as has sometimes been said, that it's impossible to lose by getting 'blackflagged' because you can easily perish by forlorning revisiting one of a couple of rooms over and over. There's no Scorpion Swamp style 'if you've been here before...' to save you and it makes sense that there isn't as nothing significant changes in the rooms, only the passage of time.
That may be the only way it can happen though...? I'm not sure if there are as many as 14 refs which mark off a flag, at least all on a possible route.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jun 18, 2023 16:46:33 GMT
"German archaeologists are thrilled to have dug up a Bronze Age sword more than 3,000 years old which is extraordinarily well preserved.
The bronze sword with an octagonal hilt was found in a grave in the southern town of Nördlingen. It is thought to be from the late 14th Century BC.
Its condition is so good 'it almost still shines', Bavaria's State Office for Monument Protection (BLfD) says.
The grave contains the bones of a man, woman and boy, and other bronze items.
The archaeologists are not sure whether the three were related, and the rarity of the find raises questions about the sword's origin."
Full story:
That's a writing prompt for someone...
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Post by thealmightymudworm on May 27, 2023 4:07:08 GMT
Presumably a lot of you will have seen this already, even though it's not even coming to Kickstarter for a month yet. "Created by Martin Wallace of Wallace Designs and based on the iconic series of books by Steve Jackson and Ian Livingstone, the game allows up to four players to experience the classic adventures in a completely new way. Despite being a card game, it has the feel of a roleplaying game but without the need for a Gamesmaster. The first campaign will comprise five adventures, based on four beloved books - The Warlock of Firetop Mountain, The Forest of Doom, Deathtrap Dungeon, and Island of the Lizard King - with the promise of more to come." officialfightingfantasy.blogspot.com/2023/05/fighting-fantasy-adventures-coming-to.html
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