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Post by a moderator on Nov 26, 2023 0:00:25 GMT
Around 24 hours to get in results for week 47.
Week 48 The Port of Peril (4 dice) The Land of Changes (Warlock magazine 11) (4 dice)
Please state if you use a guide, if you allocate dice at character creation rather than taking them as they fall, or if you make more than one attempt at a book. Only combats which you win should be included in the list of enemies defeated. Despite all the Stamina that can be gained before you have the opportunity to lose any at the start of The Port of Peril, you may not exceed Initial scores unless the text explicitly says you can.
Week 46 scoring 1st: terrysalt – 17 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10 + most fights won bonus 5) 2nd: evilwizard – 11 (stats bonus 0 + victory bonus 10 + most fights won bonus 5 – replay penalty 4) 3rd: hallucination - 5 (stats bonus 5) 4th: trialmaster – 4 (stats bonus 4) 5th: kieran – 2 (stats bonus 2)
Running totals 1st: evilwizard - 632 2nd: terrysalt - 622 3rd: hallucination - 558 4th: King Gillibran - 287 5th: kieran - 194 6th: peasantscribbler - 76 7th: kalieum - 74 8th: trialmaster - 55 9th: juniorhornet - 45 10th: nathanh – 33
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Post by a moderator on Nov 25, 2023 17:06:33 GMT
Return to Firetop Mountain Dice as they fell. Champskees’ guide. Two attempts.
1st attempt, I was 10/17/9 and was killed by failing the skill roll required to dodge the falling net, having bested only two opponents (tracker and Doppelganger)... I suppose, points-wise, I should put forward this attempt for my frenzy entry.
The more interesting 2nd attempt:
Skill 12, stamina 14, luck 7 You'd actually be better off submitting the second attempt. Your average roll for stats first time round was 3, and second time round it was only 2¼ (rounding down to 2), which would get you a slightly better score. Skill determines whether halves round down or up, but fractions lower than a half round down unless you allocated dice.
The replay penalty makes no difference for two reasons: 1) It only affects the victory/closest to victory bonus, which you didn't get because evilwizard won the book. 2) Choosing to replay automatically brings the penalty into play (if you get a victory-related bonus) even if you end up going with your first attempt.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 25, 2023 15:30:13 GMT
3. Name a gamebook in which you may incur a LUCK penalty for killing unnecessarily or for killing a good or innocent being (the penalty must be directly and soley for the act itself, not as a result of something like looting a harmful/cursed item from the person you killed, or the dying person laying a magical spell or curse on you before its death, or springing a trap while searching his room, etc). Please reference the section number where the killing and penalty occurs for this answer. [...] Other possible answers I can think of include Talisman of Death (killing the old man who witnessed your attempted theft of the Talisman with the Thieves Guild), I considered that one, but concluded that it wouldn't qualify - the LUCK penalty comes if you allow Lord Min to kill the old man. If you kill him yourself, you're not quiet enough, and an alarm is raised, as a consequence of which you must Test your Luck to avoid being stabbed in the arras, so you still end up 1 LUCK point down, but not from a penalty per se.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 23, 2023 12:20:35 GMT
However, there's a world where you've repeatedly searched for some Jacksonian path into the endgame, and despite securing and applying a variety of resources just haven't seen any promising signs of it, although you have caught several references to what should be an alternative approach assuming it's not just a crimson fish of unusual size, which however, once you narrow down what it involves, appears to be precisely overly punishing not to mention thematically awkward, and judging by the adventure's general quality it doesn't seem like the author would be unaware of either circumstance, but it's harder to tell whether it's actually entirely by design, and you make a last effort to look for a non-jerky path buried deep in some string of arbitrarily specific outcomes, but find nothing again and again, and Snow Stags dance on your grave. In this world or some like it, the adventure could look pretty lousy after all. I may have overcompensated in my attempts to address an issue I had with an aspect of FF books 39 & 56. There are readers for whom the non-Livingstonian route to victory did not prove excessively cryptic/elusive, but in hindsight I can see that finding the solution could require an inordinate amount of effort for anyone not already in the know.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 21, 2023 16:36:19 GMT
Replacing 'previously' with 'wilfully' or 'maliciously' or something along those lines would move your character concept a little way from 'vigilante psychopath' towards 'superhero'.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 21, 2023 15:39:36 GMT
You can kill whoever you like, as long as they've previously killed or endangered the life of someone else who counts as an innocent person. You're judge, jury and executioner. The part I've underlined is way too vague. Say a car manufacturer covers up a potentially lethal fault in their newest model. Does that mean that anybody who sells one of those cars, despite having no idea of the danger, is worthy of death? They have, after all, endangered the lives of their customers. According to some of the 'tolerant' people in an online gaming community of which I am no longer a member, just not belonging to certain 'marginalised' groups poses a direct threat to the lives of members of said groups. If your 'hero' were to share these posters' views, they would feel justified in killing you, me, most if not all of the other members of this forum, and a couple of billion other people just for the crime of existing.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 19, 2023 14:10:01 GMT
I'm assuming that in Creature of Havoc, you can use the pendant at the relevant section regardless of whether your copy actually contains the "You find yourself" phrase? Definitely. Requiring players to use the first Wizard Books reissue in order to have any chance of success would be ludicrous.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 19, 2023 0:01:08 GMT
Around 24 hours to get in results for week 46.
Week 47 Creature of Havoc (4 dice) Spectral Stalkers (4 dice)
Please state if you use a guide, if you allocate dice at character creation rather than taking them as they fall, or if you make more than one attempt at a book. Only combats which you win should be included in the list of enemies defeated.
Week 45 scoring 1st: evilwizard – 13 (stats bonus 0 + victory bonus 10 + most fights won bonus 5 – replay penalty 2) 2nd: hallucination - 11 (stats bonus 1 + victory bonus 10) 3rd: terrysalt – 5 (stats bonus 5) 4th= kalieum - 4 (stats bonus 4) 4th= trialmaster – 4 (stats bonus 4)
Running totals 1st: evilwizard - 621 2nd: terrysalt - 605 3rd: hallucination - 553 4th: King Gillibran - 287 5th: kieran - 192 6th: peasantscribbler - 76 7th: kalieum - 70 8th: trialmaster - 51 9th: juniorhornet - 45 10th: nathanh – 33
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Post by a moderator on Nov 18, 2023 15:27:02 GMT
Option 2 where the bonus comes from an item, option 1 for the effects of spells/potions/increased confidence etc.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 17, 2023 16:34:04 GMT
Loved this, i usually hire a ghostwriter to edit my manuscript and make it more engaging that's why my book is in the list of best seller. Are you ever planning on making a post that isn't advertising something?
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Post by a moderator on Nov 16, 2023 19:37:31 GMT
Some of the flaws in The Two Doctors were a consequence of behind-the-scenes issues. Robert Holmes was presented with a 'shopping list' of elements that he had to include in the script, some of which he didn't want in his story. Originally the sequences on Earth were intended to take place in New Orleans, but after some hoped-for co-funding from an American studio fell through, everything had to be relocated to Seville, necessitating a load of rewrites.
The author of Timelash did include a technobabble explanation for the Doctor's survival, but for reasons best known to himself, the script editor cut it in favour of the much-derided "I'll explain one day."
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Post by a moderator on Nov 15, 2023 13:26:20 GMT
Quick reminder from the forum rules: You are free to dislike Moorcock's actions, politics, and writing, and express such dislike here, but the word you used after 'anarchist' crosses the line into 'personal attack'. Please steer clear of such insults.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 15, 2023 13:15:57 GMT
Am I the only person who noticed that, in the illustration that accompanies Paragraph 149 in the Wizard Books edition, the mummy in the left of the background is a visual homage to the android mummies from the 1970s Doctor Who story "The Pyramids Of Mars"? It's been brought up in an earlier, no longer extant forum. If you have either the Puffin or the first Wizard edition of Curse, you can find another visual reference to Pyramids of Mars on the cover (the 'porthole' design of the second Wizard edition hides most of the sarcophagus in question).
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Post by a moderator on Nov 12, 2023 0:41:29 GMT
*I don't own the magazine so was playing the guide and it wasn't clear if the fight was meant to end after "Two rounds after first hit: Try to leap the barrier (2 Damage you both you and enemy)." activated so I finished the fight just to be safe and won it with 3 stamina remaining. Quoting from the relevant section: So you were right to fight on until he died.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 12, 2023 0:00:19 GMT
Around 24 hours to get in results for week 45.
Week 46 Return to Firetop Mountain (4 dice) The Dark Chronicle of Anakendis (Warlock magazine 6) (4 dice)
Please state if you use a guide, if you allocate dice at character creation rather than taking them as they fall, or if you make more than one attempt at a book. Only combats which you win should be included in the list of enemies defeated.
Week 44 scoring 1st: terrysalt – 17 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10 + most fights won bonus 5) 2nd: evilwizard – 14 (stats bonus 4 + victory bonus 10) 3rd= hallucination - 12 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10) 3rd= trialmaster – 12 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10) 5th: kieran – 4 (stats bonus 4)
Running totals 1st: evilwizard - 608 2nd: terrysalt - 600 3rd: hallucination - 542 4th: King Gillibran - 287 5th: kieran - 192 6th: peasantscribbler - 76 7th: kalieum - 66 8th: trialmaster - 47 9th: juniorhornet - 45 10th: nathanh – 33
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Post by a moderator on Nov 11, 2023 19:08:55 GMT
[Rant] It doesn't make much sense to me, why people would pay loads for very out-of-date things such as VHS tapes or vinyl records, but maybe people are just nuts [Rant over]. It makes some degree of sense if they have functional devices on which the media can still be played, and the 'out-of-date' material is unavailable in full on current technology (for instance, the VHS release of the Doctor Who story Silver Nemesis featured an American documentary on the making of the story, but rights issues meant that the documentary could not be included in the DVD release).
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Post by a moderator on Nov 6, 2023 22:49:25 GMT
There is a woeful lack of consistency regarding titles that start with the word 'The'. This may be an issue from Titannica, but regardless of where it originated, it’s a bit of a mess. The Beggar from Blacksand, The Black Lobster and The Bodies in the Docks are in the A-B poll, but The Beast of Skull Rock is in the T poll, and the same kind of arbitrary "File this 'The' under T, file that 'The' under the first letter of the next word" shenanigans persist throughout the polls. I like birds, so I've voted for Tales from the Bird Islands, even though I've never played or seen it before.
Hang on, this is all an elaborate prank, isn't it?
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Post by a moderator on Nov 6, 2023 18:02:05 GMT
Poll results get misinterpreted and misused all the time. If Unread Masterpiece gets 0 votes because nobody here has read it, and Borderline Unplayable Hackwork Riding on the Coattails of a 'Classic' FF Gamebook gets 3 votes thanks to nostalgia, some people will nevertheless take that as meaning (or use it to 'prove') that Hackwork is among the greatest amateur FFs ever written and Masterpiece is a waste of bytes.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 6, 2023 16:31:45 GMT
I * guess * I can take this as some recognition for my big, clumsy polls, if not praise? Personally, I'd call it damage limitation. There are 21 adventures listed in the 'A through B' poll. Right now it has 6 votes from 5 people. So do four of the five voters think the 20 adventures for which they didn't vote are no good, while the other only considers 19 of them to be rubbish? Or is the lack of votes for at least some of the 0-rated adventures more an indication of their being unread than absence of merit?
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Post by a moderator on Nov 6, 2023 15:52:54 GMT
Am I right in thinking the 6 judges are the only ones who get to vote? No blind choices at all will be a tough one! This year, the winning entries will be decided from a combination of judges' decisions and reader votes. The judges' votes and the readers' votes will have equal weighting when determining the winning entry. This year, the winners will be determined from a combination of judges and votes.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 6, 2023 15:36:26 GMT
Just to give a bit of context to whatever comes out of the recent deluge of polls for ranking amateur FF adventures.
I'd also be interested to know how thoroughly people have played the amateur adventures they've read - I know that my experience of different titles on the list that I have tried varies from 'had a couple of goes, didn't get very far' up to 'helped playtest it, so I've gone through just about every conceivable sequence of decisions'.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 5, 2023 0:00:41 GMT
Around 24 hours to get in results for week 44.
Week 45 Deathtrap Dungeon (4 dice) Temple of Testing (Warlock magazine 7) (4 dice)
Please state if you use a guide, if you allocate dice at character creation rather than taking them as they fall, or if you make more than one attempt at a book. Only combats which you win should be included in the list of enemies defeated.
Week 43 scoring 1st= evilwizard – 17 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10 + most fights won bonus 5) 1st= trialmaster – 17 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10 + most fights won bonus 5) 3rd: terrysalt – 12 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10) 4th: hallucination - 11 (stats bonus 1 + victory bonus 10) 5th: kieran – 4 (stats bonus 4) 6th: juniorhornet - 1 (stats bonus 2 – missed deadline penalty 1)
Running totals 1st: evilwizard - 594 2nd: terrysalt - 583 3rd: hallucination - 530 4th: King Gillibran - 287 5th: kieran - 188 6th: peasantscribbler - 76 7th: kalieum - 66 8th: juniorhornet - 45 9th: trialmaster - 35 10th: nathanh – 33
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Post by a moderator on Nov 4, 2023 0:17:37 GMT
Maybe it needed something like a quirky sidekick, or an antagonist who wasn't just a bog-standard villain. What was Jesper if not a quirky sidekick? And some might suggest that Naas, the Dark Elf whose sense of honour sometimes prompts him to assist you in spite of his being in opposition to you, could be more than just a bog-standard villain. It's almost as if I'd been implying that the book had certain distinctive features that vastariner might have missed.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 2, 2023 21:24:53 GMT
My wording was a bit ambiguous, and open to misinterpretation, so I've edited it. Just to be clear, the previous post was my top 3 per Doctor, not the poll results. Though there was some overlap - here's what the readers chose:
The Dalek Invasion of Earth The Time Meddler The Daleks' Master Plan
The War Games Tomb of the Cybermen Power of the Daleks
Inferno The Green Death Spearhead from Space
City of Death Genesis of the Daleks Pyramids of Mars
The Caves of Androzani Earthshock The Five Doctors
Revelation of the Daleks Vengeance on Varos The Two Doctors
Remembrance of the Daleks The Curse of Fenric Survival
These all appeared on the online voting form for the final phase of the poll, so I'm not giving away anything that DWM hadn't already made freely available to anyone who went looking.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 2, 2023 21:14:11 GMT
Granted, in the text they are just referred to as Daddu-Ley and Daddu-Yadu, but the combined labelling on the map makes it look obvious. Hard to argue with that! It's not what I remember from looking at the map in my Wizard books though: I don't have them to hand now, but I think Ley and Copperstone were labelled separately, and the Croaking Caves weren't named at all. Assuming I'm not crazy, why would they change the map from the original? (Also I checked Titan but didn't think to check Out of the Pit for maps.) I just checked a couple of my Wizard copies, and the labels are there, but barely legible because the map has been shrunk to fit the smaller page size.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 2, 2023 18:08:42 GMT
As regards recommendations, I ranked each Doctor's stories for my voting in the recent DWM poll. Didn't keep track of the numbers, but they're still sorted favourite-to-least favourite on the spreadsheet, so here are my top three per Doctor for the 1963-1989 run:
An Unearthly Child The Aztecs The Savages
The Power of the Daleks The War Games Enemy of the World
Spearhead From Space Inferno Carnival of Monsters
City of Death The Robots of Death The Ark in Space
Enlightenment The Caves of Androzani Castrovalva
Vengeance on Varos Revelation of the Daleks The Two Doctors
The Curse of Fenric Remembrance of the Daleks The Greatest Show in the Galaxy
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Post by a moderator on Nov 2, 2023 16:45:31 GMT
Fellow Whovians will be delighted BBCiplayer has released every Doctor Who episode along with all spin-offs and new docs to celebrate the 50th anniversary! Are there any favourite stories Whovians would recommend? I'm thinking not to necessarily see the acclaimed ones as a first choice, not only because I've seen them more than once before, but they have their flaws: An Unearthly Child is very unpolished (as many stories with the first Doctor can be), Genesis Of The Daleks is dour and moralizing, Earthshock is slick but full of plot-holes etc.
[pedant]60th anniversary, surely. Or were the wheels of BBC bureaucracy grinding particularly slowly while getting this approved? Also, unless things have been resolved very recently, An Unearthly Child (or whatever you prefer to call the opening 4-parter) will not be available because the son of the scriptwriter is blocking its release owing to a paranoid-sounding vendetta against the Beeb.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 2, 2023 16:37:01 GMT
Maybe it needed something like a quirky sidekick, or an antagonist who wasn't just a bog-standard villain.
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Post by a moderator on Nov 1, 2023 18:11:15 GMT
I'd be fine with another LW one (I remember you running one at the Yahoo gamebooks list back in the noughties). Still, there doesn't seem to be much overlap between the regulars in this thread and the 'have read a significant number' crowd here, so I may be in the minority.
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Post by a moderator on Oct 31, 2023 23:28:51 GMT
I did the first draft for National Novel Writing Month, and the completed mini-adventure fell a bit short of the NaNoWriMo word count target, so I spent the last few days writing supplemental material. I should see if the 'deleted scenes' still exist, and post them somewhere if they do. It's taken a while, but some of the previously unpublished material I wrote when creating Return is now available to read at my blog.
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