|
Post by a moderator on Feb 21, 2022 23:41:53 GMT
The main term I've seen used for such games before now is Rare Entries.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 21, 2022 23:02:10 GMT
it is even written by one of the two founding fathers of FF, who was recently knighted. You dare criticize Ian Livingstone ! Not disputing that Blood was published as part of the FF range (however much we might wish it wasn't), but if being written by Ian is all it takes... www.amazon.co.uk/Sega-Pro-Master-v-S/dp/0671711954
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 21, 2022 22:47:04 GMT
Not my idea - I first came across such contests at another forum, and the person who introduced them there had previously encountered the concept elsewhere.
I foresee much arguing in connection with question 3. Good luck.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 21, 2022 21:50:44 GMT
Judging by the illustrations in the latest editions, Kwon's Flail is basically a kick in the nads, so not sure why that needs to be taught specifically. The Warlock magazine letters page exerts its baleful influence again. Someone wrote in, around issue 8 or 9, to say that they thought kicking an opponent 'in the konkers' would do more damage than 'Kwon's weedy flail'.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 21, 2022 9:51:54 GMT
For me, a big takeaway is that no one who responded hadn't played at least 1 CYOA. That doesn't necessarily mean anything - there could be a significant number here who never played any CYOA, and consequently didn't bother looking at this poll. The results might have been different if the poll's title had been more specific about its intentions: 'Did you ever play Choose Your Own Adventure books?' gives anyone who had no contact with the series something to say, while 'poll/survey' is just as likely to be a comparison between individual titles/authors/sub-ranges, which would discourage input from such people.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 20, 2022 21:59:18 GMT
Discussion following my first attempt at Avenger! for my blog indicated that there's next to no chance of surviving book 2 if you don't have either Poison Needles or Arrow Cutting. And the more useful of those two is apparently Poison Needles.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 20, 2022 14:55:46 GMT
Week 7 scoring 1st: peasantscribbler – 14 (stats bonus 4 + victory bonus 10) 2nd= terrysalt – 12 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10) 2nd= thealmightymudworm - 12 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10) 4th: nathanh - 6 (stats bonus 1 + most fights won bonus 5) 5th: The Count - 5 (stats bonus 5) 6th= greenspine - 4 (stats bonus 4) 6th= kieran – 4 (stats bonus 4) 6th= schlendrian – 4 (stats bonus 4) 6th= vastariner - 4 (stats bonus 4)
Running totals 1st: terrysalt - 64 2nd: greenspine - 50 3rd: nathanh – 47 4th: kieran - 37 5th= peasantscribbler - 32 5th= schlendrian - 32 5th= thealmightymudworm - 32 8th= The Count - 25 8th= vastariner – 25
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 19, 2022 0:00:42 GMT
I did poorly on both books this week, and got similarly mediocre stats when playing each. Portal of Evil Sk 7 St 20 L 9
Fights won Soldier
I got killed by a bandit named Kran.
In Spellbreaker I was kileld by the Piper. Still around 24 hours for kieran, thealmightymudworm, and (subject to whether or not he likes either of the books) The Count to submit results. Week 8The randomiser is in the mood for some seafaring shenanigans this week. This century - Crystal of StormsLast century - Seas of Blood
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 13, 2022 22:33:00 GMT
Couple of Eclipse questions for Spellbreaker (ref 246): i) It is clear that if I draw I can play again, but if I win or lose can I play again? ii) I can't see an instruction as to who goes first. Do I go first? i) I think that since the book specifies 'in the event of a draw', replaying after a win or a loss is not an option. ii) There is no instruction regarding who starts, which is a problem, but not the worst one with this book. It's up to you.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 13, 2022 20:41:59 GMT
Definitely not a series that could be accused of railroading. That depends on the book. The first two choices made in The Deadly Shadow will put you onto one of four paths. On one of those paths, every decision ultimately leads to failure and death. But that's not the railroady bit. That comes on one of the other paths, where you can arbitrarily and without warning receive instructions that force you to switch to the 'death only' path.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 13, 2022 17:01:19 GMT
Definitely over 40. Could be over 50 including CYOAs I only tried once, but almost 4 decades on, it's hard to remember whether or not I had a proper play at some of the titles I remember giving at least a little attention.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 13, 2022 15:14:21 GMT
How are you defining 'read' for the poll? My total will vary quite a bit depending on how many of the categories listed below count. - Gone through in depth, finding the path to every ending.
- Played through several times, but not exhaustively.
- Played through to one or two endings.
- Looked through it to see if there are any cool deaths, but never properly played.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 13, 2022 14:03:48 GMT
Week 6 scoring 1st: The Count - 16 (stats bonus 1 + most fights won bonus 5 + victory bonus 10) 2nd: terrysalt – 14 (stats bonus 4 + victory bonus 10) 3rd: nathanh - 11 (stats bonus 1 + victory bonus 10) 4th= peasantscribbler – 5 (stats bonus 5) 4th= thealmightymudworm - 5 (stats bonus 5) 4th= vastariner - 5 (stats bonus 5) 7th: kieran – 4 (stats bonus 4) 8th: greenspine - 3 (stats bonus 3)
So it's more profitable to be a Skill 7 loser who doesn't live through the first fight than a moderately competent hero who almost manages to kill the villain. But winning is better still.
Running totals 1st: terrysalt - 52 2nd: greenspine - 46 3rd: nathanh – 41 4th: kieran - 33 5th: schlendrian - 28 6th: vastariner – 21 7th= thealmightymudworm - 20 7th= The Count - 20 9th: peasantscribbler - 18
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 12, 2022 13:51:47 GMT
On the assumption that the Wizard edits to reduce difficulty were not trolling the readers, merely poorly implemented, at section 120 add the option ‘or simply give yourself up (turn to 25)’. Can you apply this fix to the Puffin version too? Yes. I meant that to apply to both versions: apologies for not making it clearer.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 12, 2022 0:03:53 GMT
Just under 24 hours left for nathanh, schlendrian and thealmightymudworm to get their results in.
Week 7 Today the randomiser has gone for two adventures in which you can fail by being transformed into an arachnid.
This century - Spellbreaker Last century - Portal of Evil
This hasn’t yet come up, but I think I should mention it now, as Spellbreaker is one of the books in which it could affect player strategy. In books with an extremely narrow ‘true path’, only progress along that true path will be taken into consideration when determining who came closest to winning. If, reasoning that there’s no real chance of winning anyway, you decide to skip a high-risk encounter that provides an essential item, you will be judged to have failed the adventure at the point where that decision takes effect. You may be able to get the ‘most fights won’ bonus by killing many more opponents before your now-inevitable defeat, but any other player who chose not to avoid that encounter will be considered to have got closer to victory, even if they died much more quickly.
A couple of other points regarding Spellbreaker: On the assumption that the Wizard edits to reduce difficulty were not trolling the readers, merely poorly implemented, at section 120 add the option ‘or simply give yourself up (turn to 25)’. If you have the Puffin edition, note that there is a mistake at the end of section 83. The correct section to turn to is 300, not 132.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 11, 2022 14:02:31 GMT
I did slightly better at Trial than peasantscribbler, but I'm going with my attempt at Stealer of Souls. Sk 10 St 14 L 12
Fights won: Giant Stormbird x 2 Hobgoblin x 2 Dark Priest Goblin x 2 Ogre Snake Skeletal Warrior Troll Razorbeak Bird Orc x 2 Dark Priest Guard Half-Ogre Torturer Dark Elf x 2 Eagle-Illusion Death Skull Spider-Illusion
If I'd not chosen to ascend the wrong staircase, I'd probably have won: as it was, Mordraneth was able to reduce my Stamina to 3 before the final fight started, and though I succeeded in bringing him down to just 3 Stamina over the course of the battle, he managed to hit me often enough that not even Luck could save me.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 9, 2022 12:55:06 GMT
5. When using a Magic Ring, Sallazar gains not just 1 Magic Point, but rather Magic Points equal to his Initial total (rounding up). The reference to rounding up suggests that that's supposed to be a fraction of his Initial total. Half?
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 8, 2022 1:19:41 GMT
Since Trial of Champions is another one of my favourites Foes:
Bonecrusher Easterner Fighting Slave Southerner Hellhound Strider 1st Vampire Bat 2nd Vampire Bat Coldclaw Bone Devil Liche Queen (not fought) Giant Spider 1st Rat 2nd Rat 3rd Rat 4th Rat 5th Rat Caveman Trialmaster Skeleton King Tusker Chaos Champion Xoroa Warrior 1st Xoroa Warrior 2nd Xoroa Warrior 3rd Xoroa Warrior 4th Xoroa Warrior Tongue Idol Hill Troll Eastern Warlord Fire Imp Fire Demon Lord Carnuss Impressive. What weapons did you use against the Bonecrusher? Suspect the Count has this week in the bag already! For highest number of fights won, very likely. But everyone who wins a book gets points for that, so it's still worth a try.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 6, 2022 13:43:52 GMT
Welcome aboard, The Count. And commiserations to peasantscribbler, who looked set to claim the 'most fights won' bonus until nathanh's 'full slaughter mode'entry towards the end of the week.
Week 5 scoring 1st: schlendrian – 14 (stats bonus 4 + victory bonus 10) 2nd= terrysalt – 12 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10) 2nd= kieran – 12 (stats bonus 2 + victory bonus 10) 4th: greenspine - 11 (stats bonus 1 + victory bonus 10) 5th: nathanh - 7 (stats bonus 2+ most fights won bonus 5) 6th= vastariner - 4 (stats bonus 4) 6th= The Count - 4 (stats bonus 4) 8th: thealmightymudworm - 2 (stats bonus 2) 9th: peasantscribbler – 1 (stats bonus 1)
Running totals 1st: greenspine - 43 2nd: terrysalt - 38 3rd: nathanh – 30 4th: kieran - 29 5th: schlendrian - 28 6th: vastariner – 16 7th: thealmightymudworm - 15 8th: peasantscribbler - 13 9th: The Count - 4
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 6, 2022 2:55:47 GMT
What were your sauna-rerolled stats?
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 6, 2022 2:52:08 GMT
I haven't yet attempted to play Gates, but it'll need to be spectacularly awful to rank below a couple of (non-FF) gamebooks I've encountered in the past.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 5, 2022 21:52:48 GMT
I am not sure it was possible to code for use of luck in battles so the figure might be fractionally higher. When the luck roll has a 58% chance of success it is pretty marginal but over 10 million or whatever instances in a system that is quite a significant exploitation of that opportunity. Good point. Judicious use of Luck following a couple of flukey rolls once enabled me to defeat a Skill 12 opponent with a Skill 7 character.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 5, 2022 20:01:42 GMT
Odds a 7 14 7 Avatar can win The Warlock Of Firetop Mountain is 19.6%. So, it seems they were either lying from move one, or they have always had an interesting definition of a 'fairly easy success' (under one in five, yeah). Their disregard for Skill 7 Avatars in TWOTM in this way kinda sets the tone for the tough difficulty. I have a copy of City Of Thieves with this message in the front. I don't know whether Caverns Of The Show Witch does as well. What were they thinking when they put the message in, knowing Skill 7 or Skill 8 Avatars will probably fail? Maybe someone who has included mandatory 50 50 do-or-die rolls on FOUR of his FF gamebooks cannot be trusted on probability theory. It is in Caverns. It's also in Deathtrap Dungeon, Island of the Lizard King and Talisman of Death, to name another three books with unavoidable enemies that have double-figure Skill scores. It's even in House of Hell, though that's the one book where winning with minimum stats is not just highly improable but demonstrably impossible. (This will be slightly adjusted when House comes up in the challenge).
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 5, 2022 19:11:16 GMT
Those who have been clicking on my spoilers will have sussed that I'm playing these hardcore - straight-up first lot of dice rolls for a character, no re-rolling to get one with a chance of success, and not using a guide. And no second goes either. Same here. I've had some luckier rolls than you at times, and I played a lot of the books obsessively enough back in the eighties that I can still remember a lot of significant details, but no fudging, no rerolling (except when permitted by the book - which went so well for me in Demons, didn't it?), no guides to help with playing the books (though I might occasionally refer to one to help with adjudication), and only one attempt at each adventure. The fact that I never even mentioned my tries at Sky Lord and Freeway Fighter should give some indication of how well I did at them. Whoever came up with that phrase missed their true vocation as a government spokesperson.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 5, 2022 18:48:28 GMT
How are the stats bonuses calculated? A formula worked out on a previous forum, and reproduced here. When calculating the average, halves round up if Initial Skill is above 9, and down if it's below 10.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 5, 2022 17:28:18 GMT
If you play at least one of the adventures and post the outcome before the deadline, you get the stats bonus, regardless of how poorly you fared.
Your lower stats for Stealer would get you a slightly higher bonus, so I'd advise going with that one.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 5, 2022 2:19:57 GMT
One problem is that all too often the writers don't pay sufficient attention to the written rules.
A lot of the issues with Skill bonuses would be reduced if the ones relating to weapons and armour were Attack Strength bonuses instead. Bringing in additional stats has its advantages and drawbacks, but when there's already a specific term relating to combat, and there's precedent for applying a bonus to it all the way back in the second book of the series, there's no good reason for saying 'Skill' when 'Attack Strength' would be a better fit.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 5, 2022 0:15:00 GMT
Schlendrian and thealmightymudworm have until midnight GMT to get results in for week 5.
Week 6 The randomiser picks adventures by the credited and real authors of Legend of Zagor.
This century - Trial of Champions Last century - Stealer of Souls
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 4, 2022 22:07:28 GMT
Thanks for that, terrysalt.
I'll wait to see if any of the other players want to weigh in on either side of the debate before making a decision.
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on Feb 4, 2022 18:13:06 GMT
Breaking the ties with the tougher opponents seems fine. If we go for that option, we also need to figure out how to weight stats to determine toughness when one opponent has a higher Skill but a lower Stamina than the other. For instance, which is the more dangerous enemy out of Captain Bloodaxe (Sk 11 St 12) and the Sea Dragon (Sk 10 St 24)?
|
|