kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,462
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Jan 17, 2024 22:24:10 GMT
but if it's Claw of the Fleshless King (closest thing to sounding like it has a genuine SKELETON in the title), who knows how to even check whether it's a 534-section monstrosity? I remember Claw of the Fleshless King, it was very short - 50 sections I think as it was an entry for one of the competitions on the official website. Fun little sequel to Talisman of Death. Not that any of that helps us find a copy of course!
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Per
Traveller
AHAHAHA!
Posts: 152
Favourite Gamebook Series: Morris VR, some FF, Chalk LW
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Post by Per on Jan 17, 2024 23:27:28 GMT
Hey, did it cross your mind lately that in just a few months it will be the 20th anniversary of your Mansion of Maleficence review where you said it was "probably the best amateur gamebook I have actually tried to play"? Back in 2004 the number of amateur gamebooks you had actually tried to play might have been like two, though.
Edit: Wait, that wasn't you, it was a different guy. I wonder if it crossed his mind? Probably not huh
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jan 18, 2024 0:07:49 GMT
I believe a 15th January has been and gone and Per has appeared to be first to post here with a best outcome, if he wishes he can set next challenge or we can do some elaborate RNG between him and victory posts in the Hovel Of The Vampire thread. The rules are still unclear and even arbitrary but my thinking is if we've had several victory posts after a few days after the deadline we can think about the next one? There are an awful lot of Amateur FFs (even if many are long and hard or short and wanting).
So it's not running to the 21st? I don't have any special title in mind, so if anyone wants to choose one they can go ahead, or else I can pick some adventure based on the title (and maybe verify it's not a 534-section monstrosity). Then again if I was the only contestant this time and I'm not supposed to post for my own pick, do we even have a challenge? Just to do a little bit of housekeeping here: 1. I've suggested that it's up to each person setting the challenge what the conditions are for a win and when they've been met (hopefully there shouldn't be much dispute if the conditions have been set clearly) so long as those conditions are broadly in the spirit of the thread. So in this case it's up to CharlesX who has won anyway.
2. Assuming that CharlesX was running this according to the conditions used previously: the two dates of Jan 15th and Jan 21st were for successful playthroughs to first be considered (15th) and only if none had been posted by the second date (21st) would the least bad failed playthrough be considered by the setter. Per has had a successful playthrough. The only issue is that it hasn't been posted in this thread after the 15th. Let me rectify that by quoting him: I finished it on my second attempt; I wasn't at all sure I'd get past the armour or have everything needed to kill the vampire, but it worked out. I got the sludge but didn't use it, and I did get really lucky in the first vampire fight, as I won the second round despite being effectively 4 Skill lower. The first time with the armour, I figured I'd scratch out the N in the inscription leaving "ONE SHALL PASS", so the number would be 1. Apart from that, and assuming the number wasn't a password found somewhere else, 0 straight from the "none" with no real justification was the only other thing I could think of. Possible corrections or observations: In 4 when it says you can take an action, I assumed it meant switching back to fighting with your sword, but maybe you meant you can drink the sludge (and still not have to keep the AS penalty?).
Also in 4, even though the regeneration has been "nebulised" and not explicitly neutralized, I still assumed it wasn't meant to be applied. In 17 I would also interpret the extra damage to replace the non-listed regeneration ability, but I'm not sure that's intended.
Should 12 read "4 or 8"?
The cake image seems to be broken. Taken together with the unsuccessful playthrough posted earlier, that gives a pretty comprehensive runthrough. Although I'd be interested to know whether Per's successful playthrough ended Horace by stake or sunlight.
Just to suggest a tweak to the rules to address the main objection – or at least say how I'd probably run a challenge if I ever get to set one again:
Keep the format of two dates with the 'first post of a successful playthrough after (e.g.) Feb 15th 1 pm G.M.T.' wins unless someone else also posts a successful playthrough within 24 hours in which case the two or more claimants can roll for it.
Hopefully that would maintain the benefit of giving a minimum time for people who don't know an adventure to have a decent go at it, whilst minimising the 'but that's 4am for me you bastard' element and keeping the influence of luck to a minimum.
(Note that we can even include a public die roll in our posts on this forum, so people don't even have to trust each other.)
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Post by a moderator on Jan 18, 2024 15:07:24 GMT
but if it's Claw of the Fleshless King (closest thing to sounding like it has a genuine SKELETON in the title), who knows how to even check whether it's a 534-section monstrosity? I remember Claw of the Fleshless King, it was very short - 50 sections I think as it was an entry for one of the competitions on the official website. Fun little sequel to Talisman of Death. Not that any of that helps us find a copy of course! Encounters include a Horned Demon on one path and a Life-Stealer on another (throwing in a Skill 12 enemy early to weed out the low-to-average-statted no-hopers), but I don't remember anything particularly skeletal. BTW, Per, are you familiar with Murray's FF blog?
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Per
Traveller
AHAHAHA!
Posts: 152
Favourite Gamebook Series: Morris VR, some FF, Chalk LW
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Post by Per on Jan 18, 2024 20:41:23 GMT
Per has had a successful playthrough. The only issue is that it hasn't been posted in this thread after the 15th. I had assumed everyone got just one submission (but obviously you could play multiple times and submit the playthrough of your choice). I'm fine with being the winner by default, though, I'll try to find some likely title. Although I'd be interested to know whether Per's successful playthrough ended Horace by stake or sunlight. Stake, or graphite poisoning. If the solution had in fact required you to break the board, it's possible I could have been stumped still. (Note that we can even include a public die roll in our posts on this forum, so people don't even have to trust each other.) "I've never trusted a gamebook fan... and I never will." –Captain Kirk, probably Indeed I am, and I read the last of his entries I hadn't read before just the other day. Let it be known I was a skeleton fan before it was cool, though. (There's some other guy who completed the Proteus line recently, but has yet to record an attempt at Lone Wolf 12.)
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Post by a moderator on Jan 18, 2024 23:46:02 GMT
(There's some other guy who completed the Proteus line recently, but has yet to record an attempt at Lone Wolf 12.) Hmmm. Well, Gamebook Odyssey just finished Proteus, but it's covered all the Magnakai books, so you can't mean him. I can think of one other viable candidate, but he liked Return to the Icefinger Mountains, so his judgement is clearly suspect.
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Per
Traveller
AHAHAHA!
Posts: 152
Favourite Gamebook Series: Morris VR, some FF, Chalk LW
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Post by Per on Jan 20, 2024 23:37:43 GMT
OK, I have selected an adventure from the ones available in PDF form at Fighting Fantasy Project (I'm unsure how people view DOCs these days and the online play hides the rules and unavailable options, which frankly is a bit weird as it transforms the simplest adventure into a Jacksonian puzzle). It's Escape from Firetop Mountain by some Gabe Fandango maniac! 50 sections! Maybe skeletons!? Fire Escape from MountaintopThe winner is the person to first post a successful playthrough after Jan 22nd 1 p.m. CET/12 p.m. GMT, unless someone else also posts a successful playthrough within 24 hours, in which case the two or more claimants will have to settle things in a duel of some sort. If nobody posts such a playthrough before that deadline, we will wait one additional week or until someone gets fed up with waiting, at which point the most successful playthrough wins, determined by acclamation and the casting of bones. I will participate out of competition and will wait to post until someone else has. Also, if anyone beyond the usual suspects wants to participate but reckons they won't play and submit right away, feel free to let us know and we'll keep the contest open for the full week, just so we won't close the contest because it seems like nothing is happening and then when you finally submit we're like three adventures ahead already.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jan 27, 2024 22:20:34 GMT
Playthrough
I managed to roll decent stats of SKILL 10 STAMINA 19 LUCK 11. This proves useful immediately as the adventure starts with two LUCK tests. This means that the hero of TWoFM not only didn't stab me but also handed over some bread – bonus!
The choice is then offered to stick around in my cell to eat the food, replenishing my current STAMINA of 10, but I figure that if I do that someone will just turn up to lock the door and I'll have squandered my first chance in several years to escape.
However this turns out to mean that I lose 1 STAMINA point every paragraph until it says I can stop to eat. This means that having lost a maximum of 9 points over the past two days of not eating, I lose 4 in about, say, five minutes walking to the armoury. There I pick up an awesome battleaxe and restore my LUCK, but despite reading the paragraph three times, I can't find any hint that I can sit down in this room and eat my hunk of bread. Why is it more dangerous here than in my cell? The Battleblade Warrior problem of death by anorexia looms large.
Going South, I encounter two orcs, swat one and overcome the other without taking a hit. Just as well given my rumbling tummy and related STAMINA of 5. Finally I get into the dining room which is the first place I'm told I can eat.
(I'm reminded of the rules my brother had to stick to in conducting university tutorials which indicated that a variety of rooms might be used, including ones where the professor (or whatever) lived but, to deter staff-student liaisons, never one with a bed in it. This led to many wry comments about the wisdom of the authorities in noticing that sex is impossible without a bed.)
Anyway, restored to a STAMINA of less than I started with by my first meal in days, I get a chance of continuing West or South. I go South, encountering various orc corpses, references to the Giver of Sleep and Di Maggio's 'burn a dragon's nose' book, but nothing useful to take.
Passing a cell with a figure with a concealed face apparently sobbing over something, I'm not blind to the obvious red flags. Nevertheless I figure I could afford a fight and there might be something interesting available, and so say hello. The mutant orc is upset that someone has killed his snake (literal, not innuendo) and is content to blame me. I kindly re-unite him with his pet, taking one hit and spending one LUCK point in the process. Nothing interesting is available.
Finally I near the entrance and have to pass a die roll test which would be affected negatively by various items, none of which I have and most of which I've never heard of. I pass. The orc sleeps on and no others turn up. Win!
There's an epilogue explaining how the name Eric Rune-Axe came to be, which is a nice tie-in with the battleaxe. Generally though the journey out of Zagor's domain felt a bit uneventful. Maybe that's why it was missed out of the original.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Jan 28, 2024 4:51:08 GMT
OK, I have selected an adventure from the ones available in PDF form at Fighting Fantasy Project (I'm unsure how people view DOCs these days and the online play hides the rules and unavailable options, which frankly is a bit weird as it transforms the simplest adventure into a Jacksonian puzzle). It's Escape from Firetop Mountain by some Gabe Fandango maniac! 50 sections! Maybe skeletons!? Fire Escape from MountaintopThe winner is the person to first post a successful playthrough after Jan 22nd 1 p.m. CET/12 p.m. GMT, unless someone else also posts a successful playthrough within 24 hours, in which case the two or more claimants will have to settle things in a duel of some sort. If nobody posts such a playthrough before that deadline, we will wait one additional week or until someone gets fed up with waiting, at which point the most successful playthrough wins, determined by acclamation and the casting of bones. I will participate out of competition and will wait to post until someone else has. Also, if anyone beyond the usual suspects wants to participate but reckons they won't play and submit right away, feel free to let us know and we'll keep the contest open for the full week, just so we won't close the contest because it seems like nothing is happening and then when you finally submit we're like three adventures ahead already. Thank you very much for this. I was starting to give up on the hope that anyone would ever read it.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Jan 28, 2024 5:19:28 GMT
Playthrough
I managed to roll decent stats of SKILL 10 STAMINA 19 LUCK 11. This proves useful immediately as the adventure starts with two LUCK tests. This means that the hero of TWoFM not only didn't stab me but also handed over some bread – bonus!
The choice is then offered to stick around in my cell to eat the food, replenishing my current STAMINA of 10, but I figure that if I do that someone will just turn up to lock the door and I'll have squandered my first chance in several years to escape.
However this turns out to mean that I lose 1 STAMINA point every paragraph until it says I can stop to eat. This means that having lost a maximum of 9 points over the past two days of not eating, I lose 4 in about, say, five minutes walking to the armoury. There I pick up an awesome battleaxe and restore my LUCK, but despite reading the paragraph three times, I can't find any hint that I can sit down in this room and eat my hunk of bread. Why is it more dangerous here than in my cell? The Battleblade Warrior problem of death by anorexia looms large.
Going South, I encounter two orcs, swat one and overcome the other without taking a hit. Just as well given my rumbling tummy and related STAMINA of 5. Finally I get into the dining room which is the first place I'm told I can eat.
(I'm reminded of the rules my brother had to stick to in conducting university tutorials which indicated that a variety of rooms might be used, including ones where the professor (or whatever) lived but, to deter staff-student liaisons, never one with a bed in it. This led to many wry comments about the wisdom of the authorities in noticing that sex is impossible without a bed.)
Anyway, restored to a STAMINA of less than I started with by my first meal in days, I get a chance of continuing West or South. I go South, encountering various orc corpses, references to the Giver of Sleep and Di Maggio's 'burn a dragon's nose' book, but nothing useful to take.
Passing a cell with a figure with a concealed face apparently sobbing over something, I'm not blind to the obvious red flags. Nevertheless I figure I could afford a fight and there might be something interesting available, and so say hello. The mutant orc is upset that someone has killed his snake (literal, not innuendo) and is content to blame me. I kindly re-unite him with his pet, taking one hit and spending one LUCK point in the process. Nothing interesting is available.
Finally I near the entrance and have to pass a die roll test which would be affected negatively by various items, none of which I have and most of which I've never heard of. I pass. The orc sleeps on and no others turn up. Win!
There's an epilogue explaining how the name Eric Rune-Axe came to be, which is a nice tie-in with the battleaxe. Generally though the journey out of Zagor's domain felt a bit uneventful. Maybe that's why it was missed out of the original.
Yeah, I am aware now that it can be a pretty boring adventure if one finds the most straightforward way out of the mountain. When I was first writing this as part of a mini tie-in series during my student days, I spent most of the efforts on making connections with the corresponding books in the main FF series, so most of the content is in finding encounters that links back to what the hero of TWoFM went through or might have gone through in this part of the dungeon (which wasn't much in the first place).
There are extra content which can help flesh out the story (and of course, to insert more reference to TWoFM, which was the important thing to young me at the time), but nothing essential, and probably nothing too rewarding comes out of them, although I did attempt make sure that the players who go through the trouble of getting them can also get a bit of extra help if they fail that final roll near the entrance (which they would be more likely to since they would be picking up some of those checked items with negative bonuses in the process.
I think the reason I left out the armoury as one of the 'safe' places where you are allowed to eat is because one of the possible circumstances where you can enter the room include having to break the door open (or it's already broken open by your saviour who came before you), which leaves it in open view to anyone passing by. I considered setting up more complicated conditions to check on that, but in the end decided it wasn't worth the effort (and I was also running out of sections - I was childishly stubborn about keeping to that).
I did try to add more interesting elements and design in some of the later books in the mini-series (although I believe 1 of them ended up broken as a result since I didn't have enough sections to resolve all the stuff I added), but this one now feels like a lesser RtFM nostalgia trip, little more. Thanks for taking the time to play this! I appreciate the comments.
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Per
Traveller
AHAHAHA!
Posts: 152
Favourite Gamebook Series: Morris VR, some FF, Chalk LW
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Post by Per on Jan 28, 2024 23:37:54 GMT
Thank you very much for this. I was starting to give up on the hope that anyone would ever read it. Thanks for writing it! I think spotlighting overlooked fan adventures is a big part of the point of this thread. Of course, participation could be higher... Here's my own playthrough, brief in places where it follows that of the mudworm: Stats 10 (7) / 18 (9) / 11
It says I start with no equipment, but in FF1 the prisoner had a chair-leg. Rules for fighting multiple opponents are not those of FF1. I want to correct a number of verb tenses in the introduction.
Lucky x2, get a meal, +1 Luck.
I stay in the cell to eat the meal, which is (or can be) near-instantaneous in most books.
Roll 1. I face two Goblins as I exit the cell, one runs off to raise the alarm, I have to kill the other in five rounds, and do it in three. Get an iron dagger (AS penalty down to 1 from 3) and a meal.
Forced to go north to the armoury, Lucky, get a battleaxe (+1 AS, although the adventure frames all these as Skill modifications in combat only), +2 Luck, drop the dagger.
Orc guards alerted by the second Goblin arrive. I don't have a skeleton key, so I fight six Orcs and lose only two rounds. Get a bronze medal and head south past my cell.
Turn west. Turn south.
Try to sneaky sneak past the sobbing figure, fail Skill roll (12). Defeat the Mutant Orc in 6 rounds without taking damage. Eat my meal.
Roll 5 at the guard room. Roll 3 at the final guard, deducting 2 for items taken. I don't have a glove.
Game ends in defeat, and I will never know (in this game at least) why the Orcs would drum up a far larger force to stop me from escaping than they ever did to stop the intruding adventurer, especially given they didn't care to take me alive. I hereby declare thealmightymudworm to be the winner of this round with the only entry and a win to boot. Feel free to announce the next adventure at any convenient moment.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Jan 29, 2024 14:55:50 GMT
I want to correct a number of verb tenses in the introduction. Mind pointing out which are those (and yes, this didn't go through any proofreader besides myself)? I will never know (in this game at least) why the Orcs would drum up a far larger force to stop me from escaping than they ever did to stop the intruding adventurer, especially given they didn't care to take me alive. I didn't actually write an answer to that in the adventure, or really considered any specific reason back when I was writing this, but I was always under the assumption that the adventurer never met a concentrated force simply because he either sneaked past or killed any enemies that he encountered during that part of the dungeon. There was no general "alarm" raised and most of the Orcs he never encountered never realized he was there until after he'd already proceeded deeper into the dungeon (and the Orcs don't wander past that lever gate). As for the PC for this adventure: all the items that add to the negative bonuses for the roll are from encounters where at least 1 opponent escaped from the encounter with you, so the more items you had, the more people there are who were running around raising the general alarm about your escape.
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Per
Traveller
AHAHAHA!
Posts: 152
Favourite Gamebook Series: Morris VR, some FF, Chalk LW
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Post by Per on Jan 29, 2024 17:12:39 GMT
I want to correct a number of verb tenses in the introduction. Mind pointing out which are those (and yes, this didn't go through any proofreader besides myself)? Something like this (including a few non-verb changes, all are not strictly needed but may improve flow a little): You have no idea how long you have been in this prison cell. 3 years? 5 years? Perhaps even a decade? You have lost almost all track of time while you’d you've been held captive in this dank and dark cell. Perhaps the only reference to time you’ve had during this period is the single meal that’s been delivered to you each day, intended to keep you just barely alive but too weak to resist as your captors stop by occasionally to make sport of you or, when they’re in the mood, drag you off for a “fun” trip to the nearest torture chamber.
Even the single meal a day doesn’t always come arrive. You have come to suspect that the wretched Orc slave whose job it is to deliver it to your cell each day had has been stealing it for himself every once in a while. Not that you’re likely to accomplish anything even if you complain about this to your captors. They’d probably just consider it a good joke. While the Orc slave appears to be almost as much a subject of ridicule and abuse as you are to your other captors, you are under no illusion that his mistreatment of you is likely to result in any punishment for him.
Very rRecently, however, the passage of time is starting has started to make a stronger impression on you, because your growing hunger is making you aware that your meal hasn’t been arriving for more than a day now. Maybe even more than two. Perhaps your captors have finally grown tired of you, and have left you to starve. Perhaps they’d they've even forgotten about you. All you know is that if this continues for any longer you will soon starve to death.
As you lie slumped against the cell wall, waiting for starvation to end your misery once and for all, you dimly recall the scene of your capture by the wretched denizens of Firetop Mountain. Drawn to this accursed place by the rumours of the Warlock’s fabulous treasures, just like many other foolhardy adventurers like yourself had have been, you had lost your way in the Maze of Zagor, forced to wander fruitlessly for days as your provisions run ran out. It almost feels ironic that you had been in a very similar state then as you currently are now, on the brink of starvation and dehydration, before when you were found by a small party of Orcs. By then, you were almost glad to be found (and in any case had been too weak to resist capture) and taken prisoner as long as they would give you a drink of water. Till this day, you’re not quite sure whether you should count yourself lucky that they decided not to kill you, but instead to hold you captive as some sort of pet. Perhaps a quick death, back then, might have been preferable…
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jan 31, 2024 1:31:32 GMT
Gently starting to transition away from only ever presenting challenges which are my own work by setting The Aleff, that being the open-to-expansion collaboration which was begun a number of years ago. (Please note that it is still open to contributions – DM me if interested in writing a section.) You can play the adventure on the forum, though there is a pdf with the numbers more scrambled which some may prefer. HOUSE RULE: Because I hope one day that there is more than one win in the adventure, the only win available is statistically difficult to reach and players may get bored revisiting paragraphs. So for this challenge: When you first reach a paragraph featuring the line 'If one taper should fizzle out...', play by the rules as stated, but if you reach it a second time in the same playthrough, just assume that the die rolls match. The winner of this challenge is the first person to post a successful playthrough after 12 noon GMT on Shrove Tuesday (February 13th), unless someone else also posts a successful playthrough within 24 hours of that playthrough. In that case the winner will be determined by die roll. If no successful playthroughs have been posted by 12 noon GMT Leap Day (February 29th), then unsuccessful playthroughs will be considered. Unsuccessful playthroughs may be posted at any time. This challenge is open to contributors kieran and stevendoig if they are interested.
Unrelated: how do people feel about adventures being reused for challenges, especially if no one managed a successful playthrough the first time? Don't worry, I'm not going to repost Festivities, not in 2024 anyway, but perhaps The Blight might be due another chance at the limelight? I think it perhaps fell by the wayside with people keen to enjoy the easing of Covid restrictions.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Feb 12, 2024 3:55:02 GMT
Playthrough
I managed to roll decent stats of SKILL 10 STAMINA 19 LUCK 11. This proves useful immediately as the adventure starts with two LUCK tests. This means that the hero of TWoFM not only didn't stab me but also handed over some bread – bonus!
The choice is then offered to stick around in my cell to eat the food, replenishing my current STAMINA of 10, but I figure that if I do that someone will just turn up to lock the door and I'll have squandered my first chance in several years to escape.
However this turns out to mean that I lose 1 STAMINA point every paragraph until it says I can stop to eat. This means that having lost a maximum of 9 points over the past two days of not eating, I lose 4 in about, say, five minutes walking to the armoury. There I pick up an awesome battleaxe and restore my LUCK, but despite reading the paragraph three times, I can't find any hint that I can sit down in this room and eat my hunk of bread. Why is it more dangerous here than in my cell? The Battleblade Warrior problem of death by anorexia looms large.
Going South, I encounter two orcs, swat one and overcome the other without taking a hit. Just as well given my rumbling tummy and related STAMINA of 5. Finally I get into the dining room which is the first place I'm told I can eat.
(I'm reminded of the rules my brother had to stick to in conducting university tutorials which indicated that a variety of rooms might be used, including ones where the professor (or whatever) lived but, to deter staff-student liaisons, never one with a bed in it. This led to many wry comments about the wisdom of the authorities in noticing that sex is impossible without a bed.)
Anyway, restored to a STAMINA of less than I started with by my first meal in days, I get a chance of continuing West or South. I go South, encountering various orc corpses, references to the Giver of Sleep and Di Maggio's 'burn a dragon's nose' book, but nothing useful to take.
Passing a cell with a figure with a concealed face apparently sobbing over something, I'm not blind to the obvious red flags. Nevertheless I figure I could afford a fight and there might be something interesting available, and so say hello. The mutant orc is upset that someone has killed his snake (literal, not innuendo) and is content to blame me. I kindly re-unite him with his pet, taking one hit and spending one LUCK point in the process. Nothing interesting is available.
Finally I near the entrance and have to pass a die roll test which would be affected negatively by various items, none of which I have and most of which I've never heard of. I pass. The orc sleeps on and no others turn up. Win!
There's an epilogue explaining how the name Eric Rune-Axe came to be, which is a nice tie-in with the battleaxe. Generally though the journey out of Zagor's domain felt a bit uneventful. Maybe that's why it was missed out of the original.
Yeah, I am aware now that it can be a pretty boring adventure if one finds the most straightforward way out of the mountain. When I was first writing this as part of a mini tie-in series during my student days, I spent most of the efforts on making connections with the corresponding books in the main FF series, so most of the content is in finding encounters that links back to what the hero of TWoFM went through or might have gone through in this part of the dungeon (which wasn't much in the first place).
There are extra content which can help flesh out the story (and of course, to insert more reference to TWoFM, which was the important thing to young me at the time), but nothing essential, and probably nothing too rewarding comes out of them, although I did attempt make sure that the players who go through the trouble of getting them can also get a bit of extra help if they fail that final roll near the entrance (which they would be more likely to since they would be picking up some of those checked items with negative bonuses in the process.
I think the reason I left out the armoury as one of the 'safe' places where you are allowed to eat is because one of the possible circumstances where you can enter the room include having to break the door open (or it's already broken open by your saviour who came before you), which leaves it in open view to anyone passing by. I considered setting up more complicated conditions to check on that, but in the end decided it wasn't worth the effort (and I was also running out of sections - I was childishly stubborn about keeping to that).
I did try to add more interesting elements and design in some of the later books in the mini-series (although I believe 1 of them ended up broken as a result since I didn't have enough sections to resolve all the stuff I added), but this one now feels like a lesser RtFM nostalgia trip, little more. Thanks for taking the time to play this! I appreciate the comments. Forgot to say that I went back and headed down the other passage to take a look. That section definitely adds something to the adventure compared to just hurrying out. Thanks for writing it and your reply to my slightly grumpy playthrough.
Thought I'd better get that in before what I assume will be a flood of winning entries shortly being posted for the current challenge.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Feb 17, 2024 7:20:22 GMT
Yeah, I am aware now that it can be a pretty boring adventure if one finds the most straightforward way out of the mountain. When I was first writing this as part of a mini tie-in series during my student days, I spent most of the efforts on making connections with the corresponding books in the main FF series, so most of the content is in finding encounters that links back to what the hero of TWoFM went through or might have gone through in this part of the dungeon (which wasn't much in the first place).
There are extra content which can help flesh out the story (and of course, to insert more reference to TWoFM, which was the important thing to young me at the time), but nothing essential, and probably nothing too rewarding comes out of them, although I did attempt make sure that the players who go through the trouble of getting them can also get a bit of extra help if they fail that final roll near the entrance (which they would be more likely to since they would be picking up some of those checked items with negative bonuses in the process.
I think the reason I left out the armoury as one of the 'safe' places where you are allowed to eat is because one of the possible circumstances where you can enter the room include having to break the door open (or it's already broken open by your saviour who came before you), which leaves it in open view to anyone passing by. I considered setting up more complicated conditions to check on that, but in the end decided it wasn't worth the effort (and I was also running out of sections - I was childishly stubborn about keeping to that).
I did try to add more interesting elements and design in some of the later books in the mini-series (although I believe 1 of them ended up broken as a result since I didn't have enough sections to resolve all the stuff I added), but this one now feels like a lesser RtFM nostalgia trip, little more. Thanks for taking the time to play this! I appreciate the comments. Forgot to say that I went back and headed down the other passage to take a look. That section definitely adds something to the adventure compared to just hurrying out. Thanks for writing it and your reply to my slightly grumpy playthrough.
Thought I'd better get that in before what I assume will be a flood of winning entries shortly being posted for the current challenge. I'm guessing you're referring to the torture chamber sequence? I think there 2 main areas with extra story content are that and the room of the Orc chieftain and slave. Anyway, I was also hoping to see a couple of submissions from the new entry. Shame that there hasn't been any so far. It's a great idea, but I really haven't had the time to properly "play" gamebooks for several years now. Used to spend long hours and even days playing each book on ffproject until I complete all (that was in its early days, don't think I can manage that now). I used to comment there under the name "Gamebook Fanatic" - in fact my current username is kind of like a mutation of that (someone on the guestbooks there once addressed me by the initials GbF, so I kind of made up another name with that). In recent years though, the only time I pick up a gamebook is usually just to read through it instead of playing properly rules.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Apr 25, 2024 5:04:30 GMT
Yikes, I came back to see if I can take part in whatever challenge that's going on here (sadly the only reason I have some time to do so now is because I'm unemployed at the moment), but it looks like no one tried the last one since I last posted. Anymore interest in this? With the Lindenbaum contest up recently, maybe a new round can start with some of the all-new entries there?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Apr 25, 2024 9:06:03 GMT
Yikes, I came back to see if I can take part in whatever challenge that's going on here (sadly the only reason I have some time to do so now is because I'm unemployed at the moment), but it looks like no one tried the last one since I last posted. Anymore interest in this? With the Lindenbaum contest up recently, maybe a new round can start with some of the all-new entries there? I was intending to post here to ask if there was a different adventure that people actively wanted to play as it's been nearly 3 months.
However, while there might be some valid reasons why the Aleff might be objected to – e.g excluding myself, 2 of the other 13 people who've contributed to this thread wrote bits of it and might be reluctant to play it even though it would still be a challenge – I doubt that's it. It's just that a thread like this needs 5 or 6 people actively engaged or it loses momentum.
If you were thinking about taking part, please do!! Give the Aleff a whirl (note the House Rule), post your results, and either that will spark a competitive playthrough from someone else or you can set a new challenge and that might get things moving again.
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Per
Traveller
AHAHAHA!
Posts: 152
Favourite Gamebook Series: Morris VR, some FF, Chalk LW
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Post by Per on Apr 25, 2024 17:36:48 GMT
If you'd started it right away, I would probably have played it right away. Once it began, I was writing for Lindenbaum, and once that was done and nobody else had posted, I figured I might as well wait because if nobody else was posting then clearly there's not enough interest to keep this going.
I would be fine with continuing with Lindenbaum entries once the voting window closes, given that one of them is mine, although in most cases I probably wouldn't be posting myself, since I played and analyzed them already for voting purposes.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Apr 26, 2024 2:41:31 GMT
Yikes, I came back to see if I can take part in whatever challenge that's going on here (sadly the only reason I have some time to do so now is because I'm unemployed at the moment), but it looks like no one tried the last one since I last posted. Anymore interest in this? With the Lindenbaum contest up recently, maybe a new round can start with some of the all-new entries there? I was intending to post here to ask if there was a different adventure that people actively wanted to play as it's been nearly 3 months.
However, while there might be some valid reasons why the Aleff might be objected to – e.g excluding myself, 2 of the other 13 people who've contributed to this thread wrote bits of it and might be reluctant to play it even though it would still be a challenge – I doubt that's it. It's just that a thread like this needs 5 or 6 people actively engaged or it loses momentum.
If you were thinking about taking part, please do!! Give the Aleff a whirl (note the House Rule), post your results, and either that will spark a competitive playthrough from someone else or you can set a new challenge and that might get things moving again.
I'd give it a try, although I don't know how long it'll take before I get a winning attempt since I've never played that one, so it'd be good if there's more than one player interested to do so.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Apr 26, 2024 15:47:16 GMT
I was intending to post here to ask if there was a different adventure that people actively wanted to play as it's been nearly 3 months.
However, while there might be some valid reasons why the Aleff might be objected to – e.g excluding myself, 2 of the other 13 people who've contributed to this thread wrote bits of it and might be reluctant to play it even though it would still be a challenge – I doubt that's it. It's just that a thread like this needs 5 or 6 people actively engaged or it loses momentum.
If you were thinking about taking part, please do!! Give the Aleff a whirl (note the House Rule), post your results, and either that will spark a competitive playthrough from someone else or you can set a new challenge and that might get things moving again.
I'd give it a try, although I don't know how long it'll take before I get a winning attempt since I've never played that one, so it'd be good if there's more than one player interested to do so. Well at this point a failing playthrough would be acceptable, so you could play once, fail, tell us what went wrong and be entitled to set the next challenge. (Perhaps if you die in the first 5 sections you could give it a second go!)
I think everyone would be happy with that. I'd hugely prefer it to switching the challenge without anyone making an attempt on this one.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Apr 27, 2024 5:54:02 GMT
Haven't beaten the game yet. There seems to be a sort of bottleneck for what I presume is the final quest's conclusion, but I feel I might be close enough to get through with more time. Either way, will post my playthrough tomorrow.
(Btw, is anyone else having connectivity issues to this site? Only happened today.)
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Post by CharlesX on Apr 27, 2024 8:50:46 GMT
Haven't beaten the game yet. There seems to be a sort of bottleneck for what I presume is the final quest's conclusion, but I feel I might be close enough to get through with more time. Either way, will post my playthrough tomorrow. (Btw, is anyone else having connectivity issues to this site? Only happened today.) Yes, I had big connectivity issues a few hours ago for entire hours, 'no healthy upstream' when clicking, took long before loading, couldn't check profile, recent messages or reply. Even though the normal sites I'd go on weren't problematic at all. Seems to have been fixed now though. I get the 'angry bear' messages every so often but it seems to fix itself within 2-3 hours.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Apr 27, 2024 18:26:03 GMT
Yeah this is the second or maybe third time I've seen this: (It wasn't this tiny. Click to see it lifesized.)
The first time was a matter of days ago. I prefer the blue bear.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Apr 28, 2024 5:14:16 GMT
Playthrough: Rolled up stats of 10/23/9. Good start. Transported by the Aleff first into what's apparently the world of FF5, I was first accosted by the tattooed protagonist of that adventure. My first attempt on the game ended quickly after giving him the wrong answer which provoked a fight with a SKILL-11 foe, so this time, I know which is the right one to give. He offered me the unused items from his last adventure in exchange for my sandwiches. It's actually not entirely clear whether a single sandwich can be traded for a whole bag of black pearls or just a single pearl, but the wording "each of these items" make me more inclined to believe the latter, so I traded my sandwiches for just a single black pearl and the ring that dispels illusion. I then used the Aleff to transport to the world of FF19, show it to Greylock, and accepted his mission. The bitey mermaid hauls me off to where the former protangonist of this book had been left marooned after some miscommunication with a dolphin, and gave him my black pearl to help him upgrade his skeleton to a fully functional one so it can help him row his boat and escape from the island, and received 10 silver pearls in exchange. I called the mermaid again to transport me back to Greylock to deliver the silver pearls to him. Unfortunately, I don't have enough pearls to get the really interesting options (creating monster using black and silver pearls), so I just traded half my silver pearls for 2 sandwiches to make up for the 2 I traded away earlier. The next transportation via the Aleff took me to the world of FF23 where I'm dropped in the middle of a welcoming feast in Hever's castle to the protagonist of that adventure. I made up a story about my arrival to entertain my unexpected host and gained his hospitality. I chatted with the Helmeted Ruler protagonist, and was given the option to trade sandwiches for a magic sword or a crystal mirror. The mirror was bad news in the original adventure. The sword would be tempting in most adventures, but from my experience, this one seems light on combats, so I passed on both. Hever brought up the matter of a Sabre-toothed Tiger causing a bit of bother in his land. I was given the option to seize the quest from the protagonist, with the helmet being the reward. There's a good chance I'm not coming back here, so Hever isn't going to get his horn back if I take it, so I decided to let the Helmeted One take it. Thankfully, I had to option to assist him in the quest, so it may yet yield some reward. Having a companion on the hunt means that the tiger was taken down easily due to reduced stats (and thankfully I did not have to navigate the same map game in the FF23 to locate it at all), and I received a Potion of Fortune for my troubles. Using the Aleff to depart, I get into a brief conversation with a giant puffin, got transported into another conversation with the 2 gods who were apparently responsible for causing the whole chain of weird events, and who charged me with the mission to find a place to hide the Aleff for a year and a day before transporting me away again. I was checked for my TRAIL score for the first time in the adventure, and have none that I recalled picking up. This time, I was dropped in the world of FF37, and somehow inside the robes of an otherwise naked woman (how the hell did I even fit in?). I surrendered to the summoned guard of the understandably outraged woman, and was locked away for a bit. It turns out that the former protagonist for this adventure didn't quite finish his job, and he convinced he queen to keep me alive just so I can be sent to complete it in his place. He offered his miner's helmet or Amulet of Zombie warding as trade items, and I took the former in exchange for my remaining silver pearls. I was given a tame triceratops for a mount, 2 torches, some animal skin with text on it, and a sleeping shrew and sent on my way. I rode into the cave on my dinosaur, easily passed the STAMINA test (due it being at almost max) that I had to go through for lacking the amulet, and survived the mutation magic attack from the portal, which are drawn to the 2 animals accompanying me. My extra light source enabled me to survive the journey through the gateway. Emerging from the tunnel into a forest, I left my triceratops-turned-giraffe mount behind and entered a stone building. I offered my help to the mad scientist in the building to complete his experiment, which turned out to involve sealing the both of us in the building to protect him and his gold from thieves. Well, suicidal as it sounds, it sounds like one viable place to hide the Aleff, provided I can still get myself out. As we make the preparations, I broke one of the tapers without him noticing. As he prepares to light the fuse, I knock him out, then try to stamp out the flames. This requires me to roll matching numbers on 2 die rolls. I failed, passed the LUCK test for a second roll, failed again. This means I'm sealed in the room, but I still have the Aleff, which will transport me to the start of the adventure. That's the most combat-and-test-free path I've found to this point (one combat with the tiger, one STAMINA test without the amulet). Skipping the tiger quest doesn't cost anything except getting the Potion of Fortune, which turns out to be unnecessary, and I can get the amulet by not trading any pearls for extra sandwiches, which means if I take the exact same path with these alterations above it will be completely free of random factors that may cause failure in reaching this point again...so I guess I can win via the house rules by reaching this spot a second time. I'm not inclined to go through mostly the same sections a second time, thought, so I'd end this here. Treat this as a success of failure as you wish.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Apr 28, 2024 14:45:17 GMT
Great stuff Playthrough: Rolled up stats of 10/23/9. Good start.
Transported by the Aleff first into what's apparently the world of FF5, I was first accosted by the tattooed protagonist of that adventure. My first attempt on the game ended quickly after giving him the wrong answer which provoked a fight with a SKILL-11 foe, so this time, I know which is the right one to give. He offered me the unused items from his last adventure in exchange for my sandwiches. It's actually not entirely clear whether a single sandwich can be traded for a whole bag of black pearls or just a single pearl, but the wording "each of these items" make me more inclined to believe the latter, so I traded my sandwiches for just a single black pearl and the ring that dispels illusion. This is the second time this thread has shown up a less generous way to interpret something in one of my adventures than I intended: No! The bag is an item, you get the whole bag! Given that you've made a lot of effort to play this and thoroughly write it up when only a failure was needed to set the next challenge, I really want you to get to the win. (Especially as I'm thinking of logging wins on this thread from now on.) However! There's a small wrinkle here: When the Aleff returns you to paragraph 1, your TRAIL score is automatically increased by 1, so even if it was on 0 before, it's now possible for the test at para 101 to go differently. If you check that and it goes as before, then perhaps your path from para 1 to para 172 can be taken as statistically clear (I can't remember and will take your word for it) and you may turn straight there, apply the house rule and turn to the relevant paragraph, providing that you promise to imagine your repeat journey in montage form, inspired by 8-Bit Theatre and/or South Park. Even if the roll goes differently I doubt it will add more than a few minutes to your journey, though you might die which would be a shame.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Apr 29, 2024 7:10:52 GMT
Well, if the bag of black pearls is intended to be a single item, them I certainly have more than enough resources to trade for the Zombie-Warding amulet to skip the STAMINA test!
I did indeed forget about the Trail test. If I'm allowed to make the check without actually having to flip through all the earlier sections again, then the result I just got via my roll of virtual dice is a 6, which is more than enough for me to pass it.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Apr 29, 2024 17:19:00 GMT
Well, if the bag of black pearls is intended to be a single item, them I certainly have more than enough resources to trade for the Zombie-Warding amulet to skip the STAMINA test!
I did indeed forget about the Trail test. If I'm allowed to make the check without actually having to flip through all the earlier sections again, then the result I just got via my roll of virtual dice is a 6, which is more than enough for me to pass it. Absolutely (on both counts), I was wondering what to suggest if you'd failed the TRAIL roll, as in that case you might gain some limited benefit from being able to summon a skeleton or thassaloss and we'd have to decide whether you would have spent pearls to learn how to do that! As it is, I think you can be the first person that I'm aware of to turn to 167.
Of course you can now set a new challenge whenever you like.
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Apr 30, 2024 1:53:59 GMT
I did suggest using the new Lindenbaum entries for the new challenge, but now I'm starting to wonder if it should be a book I'm more familiar with, since it makes it possible to set challenge conditions more appropriate to the book in question, and I haven't read any of the entries myself yet. Should I pick an older book? Or if you don't mind more waiting, spend a few days reading through at least 1 of the entries a few times before setting it?
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Post by thealmightymudworm on May 1, 2024 0:06:32 GMT
I did suggest using the new Lindenbaum entries for the new challenge, but now I'm starting to wonder if it should be a book I'm more familiar with, since it makes it possible to set challenge conditions more appropriate to the book in question, and I haven't read any of the entries myself yet. Should I pick an older book? Or if you don't mind more waiting, spend a few days reading through at least 1 of the entries a few times before setting it? Probably the guideline here is just to do whatever you can do with enthusiasm. E.g. do you want to commit to reading one or more new adventures in the next few days? Most of the challenges on the thread so far have just been to try to win, and they haven't all been adventures the setter was familiar with.
-If you set an adventure blind and it turns out to be a slog, that's not your fault. -If you want to make sure you set something good with a specific challenge, people will wait. -If you have a good challenge ready with a familiar book and want to leave it to someone else to set a Lindenbaum entry, that's fine too.
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