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Post by a moderator on Jan 21, 2022 19:23:55 GMT
I have won this book relatively recently with relatively mediocre stats. This time Starting Stats: Skill=11, Stamina=19, Luck=11
That's your idea of 'relatively mediocre stats'? I guess they would be compared to someone who had 'rolled' 12/24/12.
The 'relatively mediocre stats' were on a previous, successful attempt. On this occasion he failed in spite of getting better rolls.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 21, 2022 16:02:19 GMT
I tried both of this week's adventures, resulting in two embarrassingly early instant deaths. Moonrunner went a little better. What a wasted opportunity. I have won this book relatively recently with relatively mediocre stats. This time I ate poisoned food at Craven Asylum.
Starting Stats: Skill=11, Stamina=19, Luck=11
"Enemies" defeated (3): Furneaux First Guard Second Guard
Items gathered: 25 gold pieces letter of introduction to Dr. Welsch
Information learned: Conrad Zaar is a spy for the cabal
Didn't use a guide. Can you remember what you rolled for gold during character creation?
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Post by a moderator on Jan 19, 2022 12:21:31 GMT
Given the reprinting of Rogue Mage in the 10th Anniversary Yearbook, a tenuous case could be made for doing a Graeme Davis poll.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 18, 2022 11:59:50 GMT
One slight modifier to the ruling about fighting Conrad in Moonrunner: the fight against him in Maniac Guard mode at the mill can only be counted once. Any subsequent encounters with him in different locations count like any other fight, but you may not inflate your kill count by looping through multiple iterations of 'win a fight against him - take an ineffective course of action when he reanimates - fight him again'.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 17, 2022 17:16:37 GMT
A redeeming factor is that you don't automatically die if you get to the tournament with all allies but no clue of the right order. You will get the toad right no matter what and then at least get the chance to defeat the rest with your sword. But if you lack the ally required to kill the toad, you are forced to waste your other allies against it, and then automatically die.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 16, 2022 14:33:35 GMT
Week 2 scoring 1st: kieran - 7 (stats bonus 2 + closest to victory bonus 5) 2nd= greenspine - 5 (highest kill-count bonus 5) 2nd= terrysalt - 5 (stats bonus 5) 4th: peasantscribbler - 4 (stats bonus 4) 5th= thealmightymudworm - 2 (stats bonus 2) 5th= nathanh - 2 (stats bonus 2) 5th= vastariner - 2 (stats bonus 2)
At least, presuming that thealmightymudworm didn't notice the rule about Stamina being 2d6+24 in Freeway Fighter. Otherwise he gets disqualified from this round for using non-standard dice that can roll minuses.
Running totals 1st: kieran - 11 2nd: nathanh - 9 3rd: peasantscribbler - 8 4th= greenspine - 7 4th= terrysalt - 7 6th: schlendrian - 6 7th= thealmightymudworm - 4 7th= vastariner - 4
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Post by a moderator on Jan 15, 2022 17:43:30 GMT
Different topic: I'm of course fine with every scoring system, but doesn't the fact, that everyone gets stat boni, while kills and progress only score if you have the most of them, favour having low stats over actual progress in the adventure? It just looks a bit like that from first weeks scoring board, as some participants are ahead of others simply for rolling lower in the beginning... Things have been skewed by the lack of wins in the first couple of weeks. Despite what the earlier books used to claim, there aren't many that can realistically be beaten with low stats, and every win gets points (more than the maximum possible stats bonus), so the low rollers are unlikely to fare so well whenever a tough but beatable title comes up.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 15, 2022 1:42:30 GMT
Schlendrian and the almightymudworm have a little over 22 hours to post their week 2 results, as do any latecomers who want to join in. At this stage it should still be possible to catch up with a bit of luck.
Firing up the randomiser again...
Week 3
This century - Six-Gun Friday (Fighting Fantazine 13) Last century - Moonrunner (Conrad is a bit of a special case, so you may include every time he comes back if you wind up with him on your tail)
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Post by a moderator on Jan 14, 2022 12:50:47 GMT
I had a go at Fortress Throngard. Sk 12 St 23 L 11.
Initially I did well, not using a guide, but remembering where I went wrong on previous attempts, and managing to find the bow and arrow that make the Dragon a lot less of a challenge. Then I got myself recaptured, got out again, and discovered that even though there are several ways of winding up back in your cell, the adventure isn't designed to handle that situation very well. Still, I racked up a decent kill-count: Guard 3 Chefs Vampire Bat Butler 2 Guards 2 Statues Dragon 2 Guards (not the same as the previous 2) 4 Guards (another new lot)
The confiscation of all my equipment when I was imprisoned the second time round, plus the near impossibility of acquiring anything on a second pass through the dungeons, meant that at the end I only owned a set of dungeon keys (and got killed by a horde of guards for trying to use them in the wrong lock).
Information learned: Words of Command, Dragon-slaying tips, Vampire-slaying tips, how to recognise a Warlock's associates. Just over 35 hours to the deadline for week 2.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 11, 2022 17:30:54 GMT
Thanks. In the digital version, the opporunity to search for secret doors is on p. 61, not p. 51. Could you doublt check? Thanks! In the book, you search for secret doors by subtracting 10 from the number of the section you're on. Thus, you go under the stairs at 61 and turn to 51 to seek the secret door. It's handled a bit oddly. There's a redirect which comes into play after 2 wounds have been inflicted, leading to a section that says, in effect, "You're half way to being paralysed. If the Ghoul hits you twice more, it's game over."
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Post by a moderator on Jan 11, 2022 1:05:58 GMT
51 is an opportunity to search for secret doors under the cellar stairs. 186 explains about the Ghoul's paralysis ability. 190 has you successfully attracting the attention of the men in the kitchen after eavesdropping on them before you've even entered the house.
Moving on to your questions, 1 might only be part of the digital version - there's no mention of canvas in sections 39 and 383 of any of my copies of the book (Puffin, Wizard 1, Wizard 2).
For 2, I suspect that the mention of a way out is just a red herring, to temporarily trick readers into thinking that the passage leading to the robing room might be a way out. I don't think there was ever any intention of providing an alternative 'good' ending: it's the wrong Steve Jackson for that sort of thing.
As regards 3, the nameless door is just the one at the back of the storeroom. I imagine it's locked from this side to prevent readers from endlessly looping round. Funnily enough, in the Warlock magazine teaser for House of Hell, it was necessary to enter the Balthus room and collect a key from it. In the full House, however, it's just another place to avoid.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 10, 2022 19:30:18 GMT
Results after week 1 1st: nathanh - 7 (stats bonus 2 + highest kill-count bonus 5) 2nd: schlendrian - 6 (stats bonus 1 + closest to victory bonus 5) 3rd= kieran - 4 (stats bonus 4) 3rd= peasantscribbler - 4 (stats bonus 4) 5th= greenspine - 2 (stats bonus 2) 5th= terrysalt - 2 (stats bonus 2) 5th= thealmightymudworm - 2 (stats bonus 2) 5th= vastariner - 2 (stats bonus 2)
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Post by a moderator on Jan 10, 2022 14:45:13 GMT
There's no blueprint for the interstellar future. But there could be. Lay down a timeline, create some star charts and notes on the natives of different inhabited worlds, and you can create a setting defined enough that the readers can recognise familiar elements and callbacks, but flexible enough to allow a variety of plots and themes. Depends how 'hard' you like your sci-fi. And some fans get ridiculously picky about the distinction between SF and fantasy, as shown by the response to issue 11 of Proteus. The adventure in it was an above-average example of the sort of adventure that the magazine published - a mix of exploration, combat, traps and puzzles, with a moderately narrow 'true path' and poor odds of survival for characters with low stats - but it was science-fantasy rather than 'regular' fantasy, and that prompted complaints. The people who wrote in to whinge were only bothered by the trappings: if the androids had been golems and the lasers sorcerous lightning bolts, they'd have had no problem with the adventure. But they couldn't or wouldn't engage with it because of the SF aspects.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 10, 2022 13:42:01 GMT
I haven't played Freeway Fighter in a while so wasn't sure I would remember the route... ...but I mostly did and guessed well at the times I was shaky so a success to report here - I also saved Sinclair if that counts for anything.
Stats: Sk9 St29 Lu10 Fi12 Ar34
Combats: Red Chevvy Motor Cycle Yellow Ford (survived the 4 rounds and won them all) Chariot Duellist (in that I survived the round even though I lost it) Jeep Station Wagon (survived the 3 rounds though lost two of them) Doom Dogs x2 (they came very near to killing me)
Items: Handcuffs Iron Bar Wire Cutters Plastic Tubing Bullet Proof Vest 2 Fuel Cannisters plus refilling one of them
Information: Don't stop at Joe's The bike gang is at Rockville Watch out for landslides
Didn't use a guide
Edit: I think I erroneously assumed the iron bar counted as a crowbar so I shouldn't have been able to get the bullet proof vest and may not have then survived against the Doom Dogs so I guess this may have been a failure after all. I'll happily concede to anyone who beats the book less controversially! The iron bar and the crowbar are distinct items, and lie on mutually exclusive paths. I know it's hard to judge after the event, but do you think that if you hadn't had the bullet proof vest you'd have killed one or none of the Doom Dogs in that final fight? While combats which aren't necessarily to the death are uncommon in FF, we do need a ruling on how they should be treated as regards the kill-count bonus. Winning less than half the rounds definitely doesn't constitute a win, so you get nothing (beyond the opportunity to play on) for surviving against the Duellist and Station Wagon, but winning every round against the Yellow Ford is more of an achievement, so I'd count that as a combat victory. That leaves the question of how to judge non-lethal fights in which the player fares better than the opponent, but still incurs some damage. I'm inclined to exclude them from the point-scoring, but if anyone wants to argue otherwise, make your case.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 9, 2022 16:53:24 GMT
to take the example of Scorpion Swamp, if identical Avatars took on Grimslade's quest, the winner would be the one who killed Grimslade instead of taking the money? If one Avatar killed the Dire Beast, would they be considered better for having killed an enemy (one which possesses treasure, too), or worse for not having taken the true path? You could claim the points for victory by either killing Grimslade (after completing his quest) or taking the money. Taking the detour to fight the Dire Beast would improve your odds of getting the kill-count bonus (though the consequent rematch against the Sword Trees wouldn't count towards that goal), but it wouldn't be taken into consideration when determining other scores.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 9, 2022 16:39:39 GMT
Repeatable combats only count once, so you can't rack up points by looping round and killing the same enemies over and over again. I suppose it's still possible to take the risk of exploring everywhere, but there is still the possibility of pushing your luck (or your Luck) too far and losing out on the points for a win by trying too hard for the body count bonus.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 9, 2022 16:36:22 GMT
There's a Triceratops-versus-Tyrannosaurus fight in Talisman, starting in section 4. It's on a path that avoids the Hogmen, though, so encountering it denies you the opportunity to create a shield from Dragon scales, and you'll wind up roasted and given the post-Greyguilds restart option.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 9, 2022 16:29:57 GMT
There's a separate bonus for highest kill count. Except in adventures where victory depends on killing the maximum possible number of enemies (are there any others besides Blood of the Zombies?), I don't think number of kills per se should determine who got closest to success.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 9, 2022 13:25:08 GMT
Nobody won an adventure in week 1, so there's a bonus for whoever got closest to success. It looks to me like a choice between schlendrian (reached the door, didn't know what to do) or nathanh (didn't get so far, but seems to have been better informed). If anyone who knows Escape better than I do wants to say who they think did better, please speak up.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 9, 2022 0:10:42 GMT
I'm trying to do both SL and EftS, but I probably won't get the latter finished in time. Which one are you counting for the contest?
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Post by a moderator on Jan 8, 2022 17:53:45 GMT
Why didn't sci fi do that well in FF? After Sky Lord there was nothing more. All these books are 'one off's'. There's no continuity. There's no sci-fi FF version of Allansia or Kakhabad. I've no idea if that has anything to do with it. There is a tiny detail of continuity linking Andrew Chapman's SF FF books: in Space Assassin you can encounter a Scallopian Fang, and one of the characters in Rings mentions the same species. But other than that neligible detail, there's nothing to suggest that any of the sci-fi FF gamebooks are part of the same reality. A more cohesive universe might have given the books a bit of a boost - I remember being more excited about Armies of Death than it merited because of the links to Trial of Champions - but there's no real way of knowing if the odd familiar face or location would have made a significant difference. If Kieran ever returns to the Prey of the Hunter universe, as he had once thought of doing, maybe then we'll get some idea of the draw of continuity.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 8, 2022 0:36:45 GMT
Any other players still have just under 23½ hours to post their results for week 1, so I won't tabulate scores just yet.
Nevertheless, it's time to fire up the randomiser again:
Week 2
This century - Freeway Fighter Last century - Fortress Throngard (Warlock 9)
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Post by a moderator on Jan 7, 2022 17:41:57 GMT
I tried Escape (without a guide), and had my most successful attempt yet. Which isn't saying much, to be honest. I rolled a pretty good character: Skill 11, Stamina 19, Luck 12.
The first couple of fights were pretty brutal (I had to use Luck in order to defeat the first Guard within the time limit), but in the end I managed six kills in battle: 1st Guard Lizard Man 1st Troll 2nd Troll Giant Scorpion Asura
A trio of Asura killed me in the end, by which time I had acquired only a Flashpowder parcel, a Giant Scorpion's claw, and knowledge of the Asura language.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 3, 2022 12:12:18 GMT
Looking at the scores I calculated for the Ranking Thread, Crypt currently ranks alongside Freeway, Trial and Armies, and ahead of Eye and Zombies. Port and Assassins are unranked, as I haven't played them properly yet.
If its playability rating went up to above-average (only a few FF books get the maximum score on playability, none of them by Ian), Crypt would overtake Forest, Temple and Return, and draw level with Caverns. Better, but still lagging behind Warlock, City, Deathtrap and Island.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 3, 2022 11:22:57 GMT
Not having the Noodnic encounter depend on whether or not you gave Rhygar the Spear would be preferable. ]I looked up some stuff on Project Aon and it looks like among other things, the fight at the monastery is significantly expanded with LW playing a significant role. I quite like the original version - it fits its title flight [ie fleeing] from the dark quite nicely - you have to run, not fight, and inform the King what is happening. Indeed. There's more about the additional material at the monastery in the playthrough on my blog. It makes the book fatter, but not better.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 3, 2022 0:07:20 GMT
If a furniture designer says he assumes that everyone likes having hard lumps sticking into their backs, it is still fair to complain that his chairs are uncomfortable.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 2, 2022 1:33:08 GMT
An elderly lady moves towards you, her sword already drawn. If you want to attack immediately, turn to 23. If you want to push her over and make a run for it, turn to 312. If you know her age, which was written in a book you found in a cellar 50 miles away, turn to 78. Surely you mean, if you know her age, convert it into numbers where the Alphabet is A = 1, B = 2 etc. Because just turning to the number of years itself would be too simple an option 😋. If it were Jonathan Green, you'd have a point, but Ian tended to just use the numbers as given. Think of the sets in Trial, all the Razaak trivia that needed collecting in Crypt, those blasted price tags in Armies, the teeth in Return...
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Post by a moderator on Jan 2, 2022 1:24:26 GMT
Are we to only report our first attempt or can we make multiple attempts? One attempt per adventure, but you're free to try both and report whichever goes better.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 1, 2022 19:36:11 GMT
the franchise which invented light sabres, tractor beams and so forth Tractor beams were invented by E.E. 'Doc' Smith over 40 years before the first Star Wars film came out.
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Post by a moderator on Jan 1, 2022 11:42:40 GMT
I'm confused by the point you're trying to make. Trial is book 21, Crypt is book 26. Even with your vote included, nothing after Crypt received any. For some reason I incorrectly thought Trial was a later Livingstone work (🐑). If anything my 'point' a bit counter-productively adds to your own one, with Crypt having a higher difficulty level, and later Livingstone works showing a heavy decline in quality except for Return To Firetop Mountain. Clean slate.. What point am I trying to make here? I think it's one of the better Livingstone works in spite of the fact it wasn't included in the Wizard Edition reprints, like other Livingstone 'early works', which went as far as Crypt (and most of which were before either Crypt or Trial). As far as Return To Firetop Mountain goes, I think it's an excellent dungeon adventure (in that regard, it obviously leaves his Eye standing), I would almost have voted for it, if it weren't for the very FF 50 50 competition. Trial was book 12 in both Wizard runs.
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