How do you feel about FF without risk of failure

[CharlesX]

Would you like to see more 'Starship Traveller' style FF where the true path means no risk of failure? It arguably has been unsuccessful so far, with Starship Traveller low on the FF gamebook rankings and Gates Of Death 'Balthus' dire. Note you can vote for up to 5 categories in this poll. It closes Friday 17th September 4:30 P.M.
   By the way I'm not really into the amateur FF scene but feel free to recommend any amateur FF which go for this way, particularly if they are good. I'm not a fan of Starship Traveller but there are worse gamebooks, FF or not (2 by Ian Livingstone)   .
   Not sure whether or not it's just me who likes polls (nothing wrong wi that), so I'm going to be a democrat and remove this poll if no\very few votes have been received by Monday morning.

[vastariner]

I don't think ST is low down because the perfect path makes the game impossible to lose. It's low down because it's short. There are one or two loose ends suggesting that an entire episode was lost. There's also the element (and that might be part of the editing out of whatever we've lost) that you can lose because you are not allowed to backtrack, despite being in interstellar space, so if you miss the opportunity to go to Key Planet the first time of asking, you never get a second time.

I've no objections to a risk-free path - indeed that can add to the challenge in finding it. Especially if you have an episode where your SkSt get reduced to barely-functioning levels (Magehunter refers) so you have to be careful.

[tyrion]

I think an almost risk free true path is a good idea, like in moonrunner and portal of evil, but they have to be difficult to find.

When I rejigged Village of the Damned for Dragon Warriors, I put in an almost risk free true path (bad dice rolls in combat can still spoil it), but there are three other ways to complete it depending on your stats.

[sylas]

The CriticalIF rereleased books have zero risk of failure, even if you choose to start with no Skills.
Very few FF books have zero risk.

[daredevil123]

I think it's possible to fail on the true path for The Gates of Death - just extraordinarily unlikely. IIRC, you have to lose a battle against two Skill 6 opponents while your Skill is reduced to 2 (and your Stamina potentially reduced to 1). You could win the fight, which would ultimately lead to failure, even if this would take a few million attempts.

[sylas]

I don't mind there being zero risk as long as that true path is incredibly difficult to find. In every gamebook there should be some sort of challenge. The zero risk factor takes away that challenge so you must include an alternate one. Keep of the Lich-Lord is a riskless adventure but at least the optional side quests are fun and actually challenging so it allows for different play styles. Moonrunner does a similar thing except the true path is very well hidden, contains many trap areas, and has different Skills to open up new areas. Starship Traveller made zero risk a mistake: no risk = no challenge = no satisfaction from a hollow experience. If you didn't work for your victory, it becomes a pointless adventure.

[The Count]

The whole point of FF books is to have an adventure - which means overcoming challenges and fighting - so there needs to be some risk of failure. Otherwise, you just have a standard book.

[kieran]

In theory I don't have an issue with it (and I don't care about the professional or otherwise status of the author who pens it). The risk becomes about finding the right path rather than dice rolls. However, there is a bit of a meta-problem with it. If you know beforehand (as I did with Starship Traveller) that the successful path has no dice rolls, you know you're on the wrong track (or at least not the right track) if you're being asked to roll dice.

[petch]

I don't think Starship Traveler was originally intended to be zero risk - the amount of die-rolling & character creation you need to do at the beginning kind of backs this up. I think it ended up that way due to a combination of poor design and lack of care on SJ's part.

[CharlesX]

Sept 10, 2021 9:43:17 GMT petch said:

I don't think Starship Traveler was originally intended to be zero risk - the amount of die-rolling & character creation you need to do at the beginning kind of backs this up. I think it ended up that way due to a combination of poor design and lack of care on SJ's part.

I entirely agree with this; I think a better written version with similar mechanics could have been really good. I personally think ST should for example have been longer than the average FF, instead of shorter.

[sylas]

All Starship Traveller needed was characters and events that we actually cared about. We didn't get any of that.

[CharlesX]

Sept 9, 2021 23:30:22 GMT sylas said:

I don't mind there being zero risk as long as that true path is incredibly difficult to find. In every gamebook there should be some sort of challenge. The zero risk factor takes away that challenge so you must include an alternate one. Keep of the Lich-Lord is a riskless adventure but at least the optional side quests are fun and actually challenging so it allows for different play styles. Moonrunner does a similar thing except the true path is very well hidden, contains many trap areas, and has different Skills to open up new areas. Starship Traveller made zero risk a mistake: no risk = no challenge = no satisfaction from a hollow experience. If you didn't work for your victory, it becomes a pointless adventure.

Spectral Stalkers has little risk and no combats and is 19 on the FF gamebook rankings. The different approach and gameplay seems to fit the surreal, unusual gamebook.

[sylas]

Spectral Stalkers is an easy adventure that I wish was a bit harder to complete especially if you win by unintentionally by going straight to the end instead of visiting the other worlds, therefore suffering a bit in the same way as Keep of the Lich-Lord. However, it does have a compelling story and colourful encounters and even a great ending. It remains a strong title due to it successfully drawing in the reader and despite a low challenge level, is engaging enough to yield satisfaction.

[a moderator]

If you go straight to the end without visiting other worlds, you need to roll under your Stamina on 6 dice to survive, which is tough, though not impossible.

[CharlesX]

Sept 10, 2021 23:02:19 GMT a moderator said:

If you go straight to the end without visiting other worlds, you need to roll under your Stamina on 6 dice to survive, which is tough, though not impossible.

On my first playthrough of Spectral Stalkers, I (unknowingly) took the shorter route, and after making the roll with the odds barely against me, beat the book in just 5 minutes.

[CharlesX]

Sept 10, 2021 17:56:01 GMT sylas said:

Spectral Stalkers is an easy adventure that I wish was a bit harder to complete especially if you win by unintentionally..

This is definitely a point in favour of Spectral Stalkers in my book - to me, FF works are like a group RPG, or fiction for younger readers, or a console game, where it should be about the experience as well as the challenge. I prefer FF without a true path, without ridiculous challenge.
   As we've said, ST has neither challenge nor wonderful writing, while COTS (apologies, Vagsancho) could have been a book in the top half of FF, with its strong atmosphere and tight plot, but has both a heavily linear adventure and a heavily unfair difficulty. I. Livingstone doesn't seem to have learned very much about gamebook writing, because if anything his earlier works are stronger than his more recent works.

[thealmightymudworm]

Not really.

Big distinction: I'm very much in favour of adventures where the risk on the 'true path' is low or very low. But even a comfort read of an old favourite is improved by the mild jeopardy of a 2 or 3% chance that despite knowing everything you could crash and burn.

It can also add to the variety of replaying if you make slightly different decisions depending on the dice. Say, based on a different set of stats or a combat going surprisingly well or badly you use an item at a different time or buy a weapon instead of a restorative potion or whatever. Careful choices making all the difference between an 85% and 95%, or 90% and 99%, chance of winning is great.

Nobody enjoys rolling a hundred rounds of combat in the course of a book, but maintaining at least a little risk and genuine decision-making is good for immersion.

[CharlesX]

Forgot about this poll 🐑. The consensus seems to be we prefer FF with little risk of failure more than no risk, and we would say yes to low-risk FF, if it were done well. No-risk (or millions to one risk) is more controversial, but a few people don't seem to mind. I imagine it doesn't exactly help ST has pedestrian writing, and GOD dire writing.

[jmisbest]

I've been thinking about this and the only way it would work is if you never fight a foe, otherwise no matter how high your Skill in every fight theirs a chance you'd take a wound or two and theirs also a chance that over the course of the book those wounds could build up and kill you

I know that a lot of you will likely say that The True Path through A Fighting Fantasy Book doesn't have to involve even 1 fight and that's your opinion

I'm going to be frank and say that you're allowed your opinions, likewise I am allowed my opinions and my opinion is that even the easiest path through A Fighting Fantasy Book must involve at least 1 fight

Another opinion of mine is that the 1 fight that every Fighting Fantasy Book should have should be with either The Books Main Villain or with a enemy that's guarding something that will let you kill The Books Main Villain without a fight

My favorite example of A Item that can kill A Book Main Villain without a fight that you can only get by killing another foe is The Eye of The Cyclops that you get from The Iron Cyclops in Warlock of Firetop Mountain

[sylas]

Sept 20, 2021 21:25:39 GMT jmisbest said:

I know that a lot of you will likely say that The True Path through A Fighting Fantasy Book doesn't have to involve even 1 fight and that's your opinion    

I think having zero combat would feel like a detriment to the series considering that 'Fighting' is part of the title. True Path normally suggests the safest route with 'minimal' combat and the least amount of harm likely inflicted on yourself on your way to success. I wouldn't mind one or two books having zero combat on the winning path, but I wouldn't want it to be a frequent occurrence unless it was designed as a diceless series like Critical IF.

There are also ways to include a fight that do not involve needing high stats or dice rolling such as the the Cyclops fight in Seas of Blood, where combat plays out depending on your choices of attack.

[nathanh]

Moonrunner is one of my favourite FF books and Heart of Ice is one of my favourite gamebooks, so clearly I am not against books with high or certain success rates on the optimal path. But in general I think an FF book needs at least one fight that isn't trivial for a minimum-stats character, and a minimum stats character should probably have at best something like a 20-50% win probability on the optimal path. A max stats character should have a near-certain success rate on the best path.

[dragonwarrior8]

I think that is what I would call the difference between a "gamebook" and a "puzzlebook". Once you know what to do, a puzzlebook can be beaten every time (ie. it can be "solved"). While with a gamebook, even knowing exactly what to do doesnt guarantee success. I can enjoy both, but I much prefer a gamebook for replay value reasons.

[johnbrawn1972]

The generalization here is really difficult. Starship Traveller is almost a one off.

I think I mentioned once before Warlock and Citadel remain paradigms, in a sense, because they become relatively easy once you know how to take advantage. So this could be considered very good gamebook design even if the efforts feel preliminary compared to later efforts. I would much rather play Warlock than Crypt.

More radically the one true path commitment in the early efforts is perhaps a serious mistake as this results in following a system, appealing to the autistic mind, with dice throwing adding an element of chance. This is manifestly apparent in Citadel where the one tough fight for 7/14/7/8 results in some risk in the very determinate system.

I am not an expert on the later books but I am sure one of the experts on here said one gamebook can be fairly easy if you roll 7/14/7 yet can be very challenging even if you roll 12/24/12. This could be considered very good gamebook design where the one true path is bifurcated depending on who you are.

My hobbyhorse project of Night of the Necromancer showed the gamebook was created in a way to be resistant to a one true path determinate system. This has interesting results as you cannot learn a one true path in the way you do with the polar opposite Starship Traveller. The idea is the former remains a gamebook after multiple attempts while, in contrast, Starship Traveller ceases to be a gamebook after a few attempts.

There is a further consequence namely you have to learn the gamebook as a gamebook which, in contrast, can be compared to committing a sequence of paragraphs to memory. The upshot is you have to remain adaptive from playthrough to playthrough and need to be able to interpret the set pieces as interconnected waterfalls rather than knocking down a set of dominos one by one.

The later gamebooks which remain gamebooks are not apparent to me. I will name Night of the Necromancer as one example. Maybe the experts can name others?

[CharlesX]

Sept 22, 2021 20:13:41 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

The later gamebooks which remain gamebooks are not apparent to me. I will name Night of the Necromancer as one example. Maybe the experts can name others?

This is a criticism but the newer, later gamebooks have often been disappointing in many respects.

Eye Of The Dragon * (out of 5)
Gates Of Death *
Port Of Peril ** (Generously)
Assassins Of Allansia **
Blood of The Zombies No Stars

While Bloodbones, Stormslayer, Night Of The Necromancer and Howl Of The Werewolves have been good, and Crystal Of Storms has been OK. So, half of them have been rubbish.

Edit: I get that sounds like a rant, not an answer. Stormslayer and Bloodbones have RPG components in their feelings and their shop element, Crystal Of Storms with its islands and codewords fee!s like a tribute to the better FF from the mid-years, as well as the Knightmare gamebooks and similar ones (A well-done one, and not GOD). HOTW has the layer where you can simply win or defeat all the bosses; the dice rolls for powers and extra length are clever devices which make it feel more like a gamebook.

[johnbrawn1972]

Sept 22, 2021 20:42:29 GMT CharlesX said:

Sept 22, 2021 20:13:41 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

The later gamebooks which remain gamebooks are not apparent to me. I will name Night of the Necromancer as one example. Maybe the experts can name others?

This is a criticism but the newer, later gamebooks have often been disappointing in many respects.

Eye Of The Dragon * (out of 5)
Gates Of Death *
Port Of Peril ** (Generously)
Assassins Of Allansia **
Blood of The Zombies No Stars

While Bloodbones, Stormslayer, Night Of The Necromancer and Howl Of The Werewolves have been good, and Crystal Of Storms has been OK. So, half of them have been rubbish.

Edit: I get that sounds like a rant, not an answer. Stormslayer and Bloodbones have RPG components in their feelings and their shop element, Crystal Of Storms with its islands and codewords fee!s like a tribute to the better FF from the mid-years, as well as the Knightmare gamebooks and similar ones (A well-done one, and not GOD). HOTW has the layer where you can simply win or defeat all the bosses; the dice rolls for powers and extra length are clever devices which make it feel more like a gamebook.

I am not sure what you are telling me. I think we are talking about two different things. I had hoped my post was clear and understandable.

I was generalizing about a one true path itself being a trap as it binds you to a determinate system which renders the gamebook a sequence of dominos to be toppled over with dice throwing at set intervals.

I had hoped I was fairly clear as my example demonstrates a gamebook which rejects a determinate system and instead creates a waterfall system where the water is directed in slightly different directions so the gamebook remains a gamebook and at the same keeps you interested as you need a strong command of the waterfalls to take advantage.

So now I hope my question is a bit easier to understand. A very good later gamebook remains a gamebook and I gave an example. I wondered if there were a few of the later gamebooks I am not familiar with, say after number 20, which created waterfalls whereby you had to have a strong knowledge of the different paths to exploit the gamebook with each individual playthrough.

A long time ago I think Nathan posted about Midnight Rogue being a gamebook you could exploit in slightly different ways depending on what was disclosed so is this an example? Though I am not sure if each path was itself determinate so maybe not a good example?

I know my solutions lacked the brute force of mathematics but, related to here, I tended to emphasize 7/14/7 or 12/14/7 to try to force the gamebook to deliver a gamebook experience by simply making the luck rolls close to a 50% probability to create an experience rather than a formality. My example here is Caverns of the Snow Witch where I know a low luck will create not waterfalls but minor ripples. My choice of 7/14/7 was to focus on how to exploit whereas other used brute mathematics and their system integrated into mine as you could then choose, modify or reject whatever the percentages revealed. It would be sclerotic autism to somehow say they had to obey your system without alteration or interpretation.

My question was about the idea a gamebook should remain a gamebook and are there other examples of gamebooks, say in the 30 or 40 range, which require gamebook knowledge where you have to make decisions on the fly every time rather than simply employing a good memory of paragraphs? Night of the Necromancer is the former while Starship Traveller is the latter.

[CharlesX]

I agree we seem to be talking about two different things. I was more referring to a very primitive concept in which a gamebook 'feels like' a gamebook, whereas you are - in particular - referring to a gamebook in which any true path might be (preferably more) affected by the avatar, is 'challenging but not too challenging', and has an atmospheric feel because you learn from where you go, instead of getting harsh instant deaths, is that right?
   You bring up Midnight Rogue, which I'm a fan of. A criticism of Midnight Rogue has been it's difficulty level is a touch high, even though it has a vivid world and interesting mechanics (in good ways), so I'd agree with people who'd defend it, but I can't agree it's near-perfect. The true path is pretty ring-fenced except for the choice of potion, rather than a sandbox experience like NOTN or DOTD.
  I'm often critical of the gameplay in COTSW which feels linear and old; to return to my own original interpretation, a higher stamina score is unfairly required from the player, and from your pov, the gameplay is cheaply affected by the roll of luck, instead of either affecting the entire course of the book or generating a game which feels more real and large.

[kieran]

Sept 22, 2021 22:45:47 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

My question was about the idea a gamebook should remain a gamebook and are there other examples of gamebooks, say in the 30 or 40 range, which require gamebook knowledge where you have to make decisions on the fly every time rather than simply employing a good memory of paragraphs? Night of the Necromancer is the former while Starship Traveller is the latter.

Do you mean books which have multiple viable paths and optional encounters, but have a lot of variables at play on each path so, even after multiple playthroughs, it's difficult to be sure of which paths are best and which encounters to seek out and avoid? If so, similar books would be Scorpion Swamp, Seas of Blood, Demons of the Deep, Robot Commando, Daggers of Darkness, Fangs of Fury, Dead of Night, Moonrunner, Night Dragon, Legend of Zagor, Howl of the Werewolf and Stormslayer  - although not all of these handle this aspect as well as Night of the Necromancer.

[johnbrawn1972]

Sept 23, 2021 6:50:09 GMT CharlesX said:

I agree we seem to be talking about two different things. I was more referring to a very primitive concept in which a gamebook 'feels like' a gamebook, whereas you are - in particular - referring to a gamebook in which any true path might be (preferably more) affected by the avatar, is 'challenging but not too challenging', and has an atmospheric feel because you learn from where you go, instead of getting harsh instant deaths, is that right?
   You bring up Midnight Rogue, which I'm a fan of. A criticism of Midnight Rogue has been it's difficulty level is a touch high, even though it has a vivid world and interesting mechanics (in good ways), so I'd agree with people who'd defend it, but I can't agree it's near-perfect. The true path is pretty ring-fenced except for the choice of potion, rather than a sandbox experience like NOTN or DOTD.
  I'm often critical of the gameplay in COTSW which feels linear and old; to return to my own original interpretation, a higher stamina score is unfairly required from the player, and from your pov, the gameplay is cheaply affected by the roll of luck, instead of either affecting the entire course of the book or generating a game which feels more real and large.

I think the most important point is the idea the avatar is an active participant than a passive exploiter of paragraphs. I think this was emphasized quite well in a post from dragonwarrior8 above somewhere.

Following your point above about Caverns I agree it is like being on a train track so I was creating a remedial strategy to create a few ripples of uncertainty. The contrast here is with Night where any rolls at the beginning create uncertainty so you have to know the gamebook mechanics to exploit whatever you have rolled. Jonathan Greene should have called it a no one true path experience. This shows how the later efforts from an expert designer have completely rejected the earlier promise from the early books.

I suppose I am circling the idea of freedom whereby the early books shackle you to a system and the later efforts free you from the system.

This could mean the dropping of the promise that a weak avatar could advance to the the end, which was abandoned around book 17, was a major advance.

[johnbrawn1972]

Sept 23, 2021 9:40:39 GMT kieran said:

Sept 22, 2021 22:45:47 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

My question was about the idea a gamebook should remain a gamebook and are there other examples of gamebooks, say in the 30 or 40 range, which require gamebook knowledge where you have to make decisions on the fly every time rather than simply employing a good memory of paragraphs? Night of the Necromancer is the former while Starship Traveller is the latter.

Do you mean books which have multiple viable paths and optional encounters, but have a lot of variables at play on each path so, even after multiple playthroughs, it's difficult to be sure of which paths are best and which encounters to seek out and avoid? If so, similar books would be Scorpion Swamp, Seas of Blood, Demons of the Deep, Robot Commando, Daggers of Darkness, Fangs of Fury, Dead of Night, Moonrunner, Night Dragon, Legend of Zagor, Howl of the Werewolf and Stormslayer  - although not all of these handle this aspect as well as Night of the Necromancer.

This is close to what I am asking. I think the experts on here who know the 40 books very well could exploit the books to the maximum even if an object could not be rescued from a well or something like that. I am not asking the experts to be deliberately ignorant. On the contrary if I do not know the books very well I could not exploit them if they require expert gamebook knowledge yet if I follow a solution thread on my very first playthrough I could win by being lead by the nose and this, at the same time, would require no gamebook knowledge on my part.

I do not how Jonathan Greene designed his masterpieces but I would guess they must be structured on a spreadsheet somehow. This would not have been available in 1982. The modern technology allows structures to be modelled similar to CAD?

[sleepyscholar]

Sept 23, 2021 22:47:24 GMT johnbrawn1972 said:

I do not how Jonathan Greene designed his masterpieces but I would guess they must be structured on a spreadsheet somehow. This would not have been available in 1982. The modern technology allows structures to be modelled similar to CAD?

I was studying spreadsheets at university in 1984, so they did exist back then (not that I actually used one for my gamebooks, though now you mention it, when there was a possibility of adapting a Robin of Sherwood gamebook to an audio drama, I first analysed it by sticking it in a spreadsheet).