kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,453
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Aug 26, 2021 12:42:17 GMT
That's why British gamebooks, to a far greater extent than their US counterparts, relish the death paragraphs, and understand their importance as part of the experience. I think RL Stine's Hark gamebooks would definitely be an exception to that rule! His gamebooks in general seem quite death heavy, but that may be due to his children's horror background. Different target markets played a big part there I suspect. FF was written for 8-12 year olds and had simple rules. T&T had a much more complex game system (even if it was simpler than the likes of D&D) and plenty of "adult situations" as I found when playing one of them as an 11 year old and getting surprised when my character got raped by barbarians. Definitely not something that was ever going to get mass appeal. Interesting. Obviously there's a big philosophical aspect regarding free will and a quite literal manifestation of black and white morality but never picked up on anything overtly political. There's a lot of political allusions in the fourth Way of the Tiger book: the Demagogue is a pretty on-the-nose parody of student Trotskyists, but one could also argue that Golspiel is supposed to be a Thatcherite; The Lord High Steward a more old-school conservative; Foxglove is a fascist; Greystaff could represent the Christian Right etc.
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Post by jmisbest on Aug 27, 2021 9:53:14 GMT
That's why British gamebooks, to a far greater extent than their US counterparts, relish the death paragraphs, and understand their importance as part of the experience. I think RL Stine's Hark gamebooks would definitely be an exception to that rule! His gamebooks in general seem quite death heavy, but that may be due to his children's horror background. Different target markets played a big part there I suspect. FF was written for 8-12 year olds and had simple rules. T&T had a much more complex game system (even if it was simpler than the likes of D&D) and plenty of "adult situations" as I found when playing one of them as an 11 year old and getting surprised when my character got raped by barbarians. Definitely not something that was ever going to get mass appeal. Interesting. Obviously there's a big philosophical aspect regarding free will and a quite literal manifestation of black and white morality but never picked up on anything overtly political. There's a lot of political allusions in the fourth Way of the Tiger book: the Demagogue is a pretty on-the-nose parody of student Trotskyists, but one could also argue that Golspiel is supposed to be a Thatcherite; The Lord High Steward a more old-school conservative; Foxglove is a fascist; Greystaff could represent the Christian Right etc. What's The Christian Right?. I don't know if its common knowledge or not but I've never heard of it I disagree with you comparing Golspiel to Thatcher, after all even though they were both Scum as far as I'm aware theirs 1 massive difference and that is that as far as I'm aware, but I may be wrong, despite how bad a lot of the things she did were she seemed to truly believe that most of what she was did was in the best interests of The UK and while she was 100% wrong at least she truly believed that most of what she was did was in the best interests of The UK
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,453
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Aug 27, 2021 10:11:53 GMT
What's The Christian Right? More an American thing I think. Basically hard social conservatives who claim their political stance is supported by their Christian beliefs. Not sure if Smith and Thomson intended Golspiel to represent Thatcherites and if they did, perhaps it's not a fair characterisation. But it's fun to speculate - the fact that the Demogogue seems such a parody of one political group, just makes me wonder if the other council members might be too. Sticking with Thatcher, in the second Fabled Lands book, you can meet a mad thatcher who makes money by selling people shares in their neighbours' roofs so they can charge each other rent. Always wondered if that was a reference to Thatcher's Right to Buy scheme - otherwise it's a very odd encounter.
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 27, 2021 10:15:43 GMT
That's why British gamebooks, to a far greater extent than their US counterparts, relish the death paragraphs, and understand their importance as part of the experience. I think RL Stine's Hark gamebooks would definitely be an exception to that rule! His gamebooks in general seem quite death heavy, but that may be due to his children's horror background. Different target markets played a big part there I suspect. FF was written for 8-12 year olds and had simple rules. T&T had a much more complex game system (even if it was simpler than the likes of D&D) and plenty of "adult situations" as I found when playing one of them as an 11 year old and getting surprised when my character got raped by barbarians. Definitely not something that was ever going to get mass appeal. Interesting. Obviously there's a big philosophical aspect regarding free will and a quite literal manifestation of black and white morality but never picked up on anything overtly political. There's a lot of political allusions in the fourth Way of the Tiger book: the Demagogue is a pretty on-the-nose parody of student Trotskyists, but one could also argue that Golspiel is supposed to be a Thatcherite; The Lord High Steward a more old-school conservative; Foxglove is a fascist; Greystaff could represent the Christian Right etc. Foxglove strongly reminds me of the secret police common to any totalitarian system, nazi, communist or other such as monarchical. If you are blindly loyal to any faction in Overlord!, you will at best get bad results and as often as not die instantly, which is pretty realistic.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,453
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Aug 27, 2021 10:25:26 GMT
Foxglove strongly reminds me of the secret police common to any totalitarian system, nazi, communist or other such as monarchical. If you are blindly loyal to any faction in Overlord!, you will at best get bad results and as often as not die instantly, which is pretty realistic. As far as I recall you can give Force-Lady Gwyneth pretty much every position of power going and be fine
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 27, 2021 10:41:38 GMT
I recall.. At one point Force-Lady Gwyneth offers to take army soldiers past the city walls to deal with chaos enemies before they reach the city. If you accept they are defeated and your city is left defenceless (game over).
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,453
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Aug 27, 2021 10:42:49 GMT
Ah yes, forgot about that bit!
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Post by bloodbeasthandler on Sept 3, 2021 14:10:12 GMT
Not sure if Smith and Thomson intended Golspiel to represent Thatcherites and if they did, perhaps it's not a fair characterisation. But it's fun to speculate Good points Kieran. I've got Golspiel down more as a member of certain sorts of merchants who will thrive under almost ANY system, the pursuit of profit takes priority over almost everything else. The writers do such a good job here - he looks to betray you during Book 3 but is very effective at raising money in Book 4 which can put you in a dilemma. I don't see Thatcher at all in the characterisation to be honest. Lord High Steward is the old regime, the one that was ousted, like a Baathist in Iraq, and the decision is to retain or sack.
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