What would you change in Eye Of The Dragon

[CharlesX]

Eye Of The Dragon has often got bad reviews, for one example on this site where it ranked in the bottom 4 FF books in Wilf's gamebook ranking. Yet the idea of a dungeon-crawl isn't the worst starting-point; and in my view the execution is as much to blame as the concept itself for the wanting quality. Indeed, there are points where EOTD shines, such as the Gargantis fight, and some of the descriptions of sudden deaths. So, short of writing an entirely new book (not a bad idea, I know, given the T. Pratchett level of cliches), how would you improve\revise EOTD?
   Scrap the pointless attack the friendly shopkeeper\mage, and some of the useless items. Give the monsters more personality (like not describing the evil wizard as an EVIL WIZARD - Ian does give his name but doesn't bother using it, like calling your mother by her first name). Maybe don't rip off the House Of Hell monster and the Kris Knife. Introduce a magic system. Add puzzles. Wandering monsters. Instead of having lots of +1 skill weapons which  disregard the skill cap, add some +1 attack strength weapons. Add a secret ending where if you miraculously defeat the Black Dragon, you become rich via its treasure (maybe it's worth slightly more than 335K gold lol).

[philsadler]

I would change the intro so that it wasn't quite so utterly stupid.

[nathanh]

I wouldn't want to mess with its endearing charm, so I don't want to change much about this book. If we make it too polished, it won't be as funny. Let's clean up the skill bonus items (which will make the difficulty reasonable) and perhaps add 37gp to the value of the objective, and leave it at that.

[tyrion]

Make it 400 sections.

[sylas]

The superb artwork is wasted on this turkey. You play the stupidest adventurer in all Titan, go into the randomest of random dungeons, to get a rather too specifically valued artifact that no one has ever gotten before. To top it all off, you're burdened by the company of the irksome Littlebig - the worst companion ever. And you aren't even given the option to let him die at the end! The book needs virtually a complete re-write to be more coherent. The number of sections certainly shows how much of a damn the author gave into producing it. I see no reason to give the book a second thought if the author himself did not.

[a moderator]

The sharpened stick should be usable against the Vampire.

There's no need for so many 'Want to taste the liquid? Ha ha, you just drank poison and died, sucker!' endings.

[bloodbeasthandler]

I'd change just two things:

1. Change the title to Blood of the Mandrake
2. Get it to be written by Stephen Hand

[The Count]

Aside from rewriting it completely:

Get rid of the ridiculous arbitrary value of the dragon
Remove the pointless poison sub plot - a basic partner who betrays you premise would work better
Let the irritating enforced companion die a horrible death
Move the location to elsewhere, maybe the Forest of Yore or Wolftown or anywhere that hasn't been in 15 other linear Livingstone leaftlets
Ditch the dungeon shop
Edit it down to 400 paragraphs
Have the identity of the EVIL WIZARD as an easter egg somewhere in the book
Make the final fight a challenge - since he has a crossbow, maybe he could wound you so you fight with -2 Sk and you lose 1 St every attack round where you draw

[kieran]

I've always argued here that the actual design of the dungeon itself is very good, one of Ian's best actually. But the book could definitely do with some fixes:

- Develop a bit of lore for the dungeon - Why does it exist? Why are there so many monsters in it? Who is the Evil Wizard? Why is there an artist there? How did the dragon get in - is there a giant hole in the ceiling? Just an odd sentence here or there would make the whole thing feel a lot less random.
- We don't need 97,000 useless items. One or two red herrings keeps things interesting, but so much of what you note on your adventure sheet serves no purpose.
- Related to the above point, get rid of the inexplicable dungeon shop. The items he sells you can instead replace some of the useless items scattered in the dungeon
- Get rid of the Hell Demon fight and that weird bit where a passing mercenary taps you on the shoulder while you are fighting some orcs
- Cut it down to an even 400 sections. Should be easy enough given the number of times you search a room only to find a useless item, the mercenary incident and the hell demon
- No need for you and Littlebig to constantly be slapping one another on the back
- Sharcle should actually poison you and rather than you taking the poison deliberately, he should sneak it into your food and say he will only give you the antidote if you get the statuette for him
- No need for a Yaztromo cameo
- Most items with Skill bonuses should have Attack Strength bonuses instead
- The dungeon becomes a bit more linear after Littlebig joins. Some of the encounters in these later stages could be put on mutually exclusive paths to prevent this.
- The Gigantis and Doppleganger should both be somewhat nerfed (although fixing the Skill vs Attack Strength issue should make these fights somewhat easier anyway). Littlebig having a Skill of 9 rather than 8 would also help.

[petch]

I'd pad it out with a few more pages if anything. I have a chair with one leg shorter than the others.