|
|
Post by CharlesX on May 6, 2022 19:10:00 GMT
I don't know whether this deserves its own thread, but in my view it's interesting enough to, and it means it won't be distracting from the main thread. It's about both successful endings and just interesting ones.
Many non-FF endings are more black-and-white 'ultimate ending\ok ending\bad ending' than FF, being aimed at a different audience such as young people or maybe students. The Cretan Chronicles sticks in my mind, with a Steve Jackson-esque torture ending, and an ending where you randomly become a thief (very much a bad ending, albeit one where you live).
The bigger series are some of my favourites as a young person, Choose Your Own Adventure and Endless Quest, which were very variable, but at their best could be nuanced and amazing. You could be stuck in the past for the rest of your days, but among good friends and country. You could fail in your mission, but discover wonderful beings, riches, even make it back home. And those interesting endings were so good, they could be as good as best endings.
Or on the flipside, there were Crypt-style CYOA which had maybe one halfway good ending, and were agony to play. And were awesome  .
CYOA often didn't even have best endings, or had lots of good or break-even endings, which played to their target audience of young people. I've always thought CYOA was really good, but I think I know the audiences for CYOA and FF are totally different, and so I've no idea how other people here feel playing CYOA and other such series.
|
|
sylas
Baron
"Don't just adventure for treasure; treasure the adventure!"
Posts: 1,678 
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy, Way of the Tiger
|
Post by sylas on May 6, 2022 20:26:54 GMT
Heart of Ice has several complete endings which are especially interesting since your avatar isn't the typical good guy. No ending really trumps another.
|
|
kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
|
Post by kieran on May 6, 2022 20:44:44 GMT
One of the Wizards, Warriors and You books had an ending where you go up a flight of stairs which are infinitely long so you climb them for all eternity. I thought that was quite freaky as a child.
|
|
|
|
Post by terrysalt on May 6, 2022 21:06:59 GMT
One of the Wizards, Warriors and You books had an ending where you go up a flight of stairs which are infinitely long so you climb them for all eternity. I thought that was quite freaky as a child. Was it set in Bowser's castle? Can you try again after getting 70 stars?  |
|
|
|
Post by Gabe Fandango on May 7, 2022 6:51:49 GMT
It's definitely an interesting enough topic that deserves its own thread, but I'm just wondering if it's an appropriate to have a specifically non-FF discussion on the Fighting Fantasy sub-board? I guess if the mods are letting this go ahead, then it's fine. Probably because there doesn't seem to be any other appropriate sub-board for this, since it's not on any particular brand on series.
So, this are just off the top of my head:
For 100% success endings
There's a lesser-known series called Double Game where each release comes in a pair of books with 2 different PCs (1 each book) having adventures in the same setting, and can be played as a 2-player game. I've only read the first set of adventures, but each book contains separate good endings for succeeding in a solo play and in 2-player games.
For the "Hero sacrificed/killed despite completing his mission" ending
I don't remember the exact book, but it's one of the earlier (maybe the first) book in the Lone Wolf Grand Master series, where it went something along the lines of "you save the world, but then a bridge falls on you".
For partial success endings:
In the Blood Sword series, players are rewarded with experience points to "level up" at the end of each successful ending. For the first 2 books, they actually provided less ideal endings where the players are still considered to have "completed" the books but they gain less experience points in the process. Strangely, they stopped doing that after the second book.
For the "player fails/gives up mission but lives a happy life" ending:
An Endless Quest series book named Forest of Darkness, where the PC finds himself an a female companion trapped in some sort of paradise world by a group of benevolent faerie creatures called the Shrinks, unable to find a way out to continue their mission, but on the whole lived out a peaceful and carefree life there by themselves.
|
|
|
|
Post by Gabe Fandango on May 7, 2022 7:18:28 GMT
I just want to mention a certain book that doesn't really fit the topic, but stands out enough to me that I wish to bring up.
The last book of the Cretan Chronicles has an official "final ending" which is so terrible that I'd hardly call it a successful ending at all. But if one does count it as such, then you can make the case that another ending where the PC stuffs himself on drugged pomegranates and lives out the rest of his (probably not long) life in a state of doped-out bliss and contentment might be a far better ending, and arguably the only "good" ending in the book.
|
|
|
|
Post by terrysalt on May 7, 2022 7:22:06 GMT
I'm sure it's been done but I think it would be funny if early on the book asks if you want to accept the quest and if you say no, it just accepts that answer and the story ends.
|
|
kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
|
Post by kieran on May 7, 2022 7:23:44 GMT
The last book of the Cretan Chronicles has an official "final ending" which is so terrible that I'd hardly call it a successful ending at all. True though appropriate for the setting given how utterly depressing the fate of pretty much every mythological Greek hero is. |
|
kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
|
Post by kieran on May 7, 2022 7:24:38 GMT
I'm sure it's been done but I think it would be funny if early on the book asks if you want to accept the quest and if you say no, it just accepts that answer and the story ends. A lot of Endless Quest books have stuff like that where they just ask you if you want to give up. |
|
|
|
Post by terrysalt on May 7, 2022 7:27:52 GMT
I'm sure it's been done but I think it would be funny if early on the book asks if you want to accept the quest and if you say no, it just accepts that answer and the story ends. A lot of Endless Quest books have stuff like that where they just ask you if you want to give up. The one time where that makes no sense! They should direct you to the name of the series and force you to keep going! |
|
|
|
Post by CharlesX on May 7, 2022 8:01:19 GMT
It's definitely an interesting enough topic that deserves its own thread, but I'm just wondering if it's an appropriate to have a specifically non-FF discussion on the Fighting Fantasy sub-board? I guess if the mods are letting this go ahead, then it's fine. Probably because there doesn't seem to be any other appropriate sub-board for this, since it's not on any particular brand on series. I thought similar things, if this weren't here, it could be under FF General section, maybe. |
|
|
|
Post by petch on May 7, 2022 8:11:15 GMT
I'm sure it's been done but I think it would be funny if early on the book asks if you want to accept the quest and if you say no, it just accepts that answer and the story ends. A lot of Endless Quest books have stuff like that where they just ask you if you want to give up. This reminded me of something I had as a kid - Trio chocolate bars once ran a promotion giving away CYOA-style comic strips of The Real Ghostbusters cartoon. To call them rudimentary would be an understatement but you can read one of them here. In the one I had it gave you an option to give up on your mission, go back to the fire station, take the phone off the hook and order in pizza. The accompanying illustration for that ending showed Peter Venkman with his feet up on his desk eating a slice of pizza. Although the text specifically told you that this meant you had lost that was still my favourite ending. I liked pizza. |
|
|
|
Post by CharlesX on May 7, 2022 9:16:35 GMT
I'm sure it's been done but I think it would be funny if early on the book asks if you want to accept the quest and if you say no, it just accepts that answer and the story ends. There's also a number of FFs where you can easily fail in the first few references, such as Demons of The Deep, Magehunter, Masks Of Mayhem, Scorpion Swamp, Slaves Of The Abyss. Aside from the just give up option particularly present in (sometimes badly-written) EQ but also not unknown in CYOA, you can sometimes 'call the cops' which 90% of time gets you a below-average ending where half your gamebook objective is failed and, as well, the cops can do nothing or turn out to be corrupt - which hasn't aged a bit. |
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on May 7, 2022 13:04:24 GMT
I just want to mention a certain book that doesn't really fit the topic, but stands out enough to me that I wish to bring up. The last book of the Cretan Chronicles has an official "final ending" which is so terrible that I'd hardly call it a successful ending at all. But if one does count it as such, then you can make the case that another ending where the PC stuffs himself on drugged pomegranates and lives out the rest of his (probably not long) life in a state of doped-out bliss and contentment might be a far better ending, and arguably the only "good" ending in the book. You've conflated two different endings here. Eat a pomegranate while in the Underworld, and you will not be permitted to leave. You need to eat a lotus fruit to get the 'doped-out bliss' ending. |
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on May 7, 2022 13:14:26 GMT
I'm sure it's been done but I think it would be funny if early on the book asks if you want to accept the quest and if you say no, it just accepts that answer and the story ends. The T&T mini-adventure Solo for the Intellectually Challenged does something similar right at the start. If you choose not to enter the mysterious and potentially dangerous cave, your character gets sent home for behaving too sensibly. The solo adventure in Maelstrom has a variant where, if you create a character who isn't an assassin, you get told, 'This adventure is for assassins only, so nothing happens to you.' |
|
|
|
Post by CharlesX on May 7, 2022 13:42:28 GMT
I'm sure it's been done but I think it would be funny if early on the book asks if you want to accept the quest and if you say no, it just accepts that answer and the story ends. The T&T mini-adventure Solo for the Intellectually Challenged does something similar right at the start. If you choose not to enter the mysterious and potentially dangerous cave, your character gets sent home for behaving too sensibly. The solo adventure in Maelstrom has a variant where, if you create a character who isn't an assassin, you get told, 'This adventure is for assassins only, so nothing happens to you.' One point about the Maelstrom solo adventure is, I'm pretty sure you're told just before the start the adventure is designed for assassins (instead of the many other character classes), so it's not exactly a shock (and vaguely humorous). |
|
|
|
Post by bloodbeasthandler on May 7, 2022 15:39:51 GMT
I just want to mention a certain book that doesn't really fit the topic, but stands out enough to me that I wish to bring up. The last book of the Cretan Chronicles has an official "final ending" which is so terrible that I'd hardly call it a successful ending at all. But if one does count it as such, then you can make the case that another ending where the PC stuffs himself on drugged pomegranates and lives out the rest of his (probably not long) life in a state of doped-out bliss and contentment might be a far better ending, and arguably the only "good" ending in the book. The ancient Greek equivalent of ending up sitting about injecting heroin all day long. That's registered as a 'failure ending' in my book, Gabe, but do keep the ideas coming!  |
|
|
|
Post by Gabe Fandango on May 8, 2022 2:07:21 GMT
The last book of the Cretan Chronicles has an official "final ending" which is so terrible that I'd hardly call it a successful ending at all. True though appropriate for the setting given how utterly depressing the fate of pretty much every mythological Greek hero is. I was briefly tempted to start a thread named "list of gamebooks with zero good endings", but then 1) I'm not sure there are enough of these books to warrant another topic, and 2) I don't feel it's right to flood the board with too many of these threads. And Altheus had it even worse than the average Greek hero. I mean, in the original legend, Theseus forgot to change his sail and actually caused his father's death, but the people accepted him as king anyway. Meanwhile, Altheus did the right thing and changed the sails, but his father still died anyway, and the people sent him away. |
|
|
|
Post by Gabe Fandango on May 8, 2022 2:10:18 GMT
A lot of Endless Quest books have stuff like that where they just ask you if you want to give up. The one time where that makes no sense! They should direct you to the name of the series and force you to keep going! Somehow that reminds me of Fighting Fantasy's Talisman of Death, where the gods who sent you on the quest literally forces you to keep going by sending you back in time every time you die to try again until you finally succeed. That's one way to ensure that a book never has more than 1 successful ending! |
|
|
|
Post by petch on May 8, 2022 8:09:10 GMT
True though appropriate for the setting given how utterly depressing the fate of pretty much every mythological Greek hero is. I was briefly tempted to start a thread named "list of gamebooks with zero good endings", but then 1) I'm not sure there are enough of these books to warrant another topic, and 2) I don't feel it's right to flood the board with too many of these threads. And Altheus had it even worse than the average Greek hero. I mean, in the original legend, Theseus forgot to change his sail and actually caused his father's death, but the people accepted him as king anyway. Meanwhile, Altheus did the right thing and changed the sails, but his father still died anyway, and the people sent him away. Poor Altheus. Despite having to endure, among other things, being enslaved by a Nubian tribe for years, multiple shipwrecks, and the deaths of pretty much everyone he cares about, he still can't get a happy ending no matter what you do. If he tries to elope with a handmaiden in the second book, she's transformed into a jackal by Apollo and he's sent back to complete his mission with his own tail between his legs. If he marries the princess Ariadne, he's driven mad and tortured to death by the Furies for marrying into a situation where he's previously murdered some of his own family members.
Perhaps Gabe is right, becoming a lotus-eater is about as good as it can get for Altheus. At least maybe then he could form an indie-pop band with some fellow lotus-eaters and start going out with a lotus addicted supermodel. |
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on May 8, 2022 15:28:03 GMT
The one time where that makes no sense! They should direct you to the name of the series and force you to keep going! Somehow that reminds me of Fighting Fantasy's Talisman of Death, where the gods who sent you on the quest literally forces you to keep going by sending you back in time every time you die to try again until you finally succeed. That's one way to ensure that a book never has more than 1 successful ending! Two points of pedantry: - There are at least 9 fail sections which do not lead to either of the 'turn back time' sections in Talisman of Death, so it's not 'every time'.
- You are not forced to keep going even when a death section does send you to a 'turn back time' point. Fate says, "If your spirit is willing we will reunite it with your body and turn back the wheels of time," and the text goes on to ask, 'Do you wish to go back in time to attempt the quest again?' and then goes on to describe what happens 'If you do'. The paragraph doesn't specify what happens if you choose otherwise, but there is nothing to prevent you from rejecting the offer and putting the book down, or going back to character creation and the first section.
|
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on May 8, 2022 15:35:44 GMT
I was briefly tempted to start a thread named "list of gamebooks with zero good endings", but then 1) I'm not sure there are enough of these books to warrant another topic, and 2) I don't feel it's right to flood the board with too many of these threads. One that would qualify for such a discussion would be the puzzle-based gamebook Earth Brain by Keith Faulkner. It has a victory section, but putting supreme power into the hands of an irresponsible schoolboy who soon uses that power to effectively murder one of his teachers is not a good ending, it marks the beginning of what looks set to be the worst dictatorship in human history. |
|
kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,458
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
|
Post by kieran on May 8, 2022 15:43:42 GMT
I imagine they do actually have a successful ending somewhere but RL Stine's Hark gamebooks are absolutely littered with random abrupt instant deaths - they're almost a spoof of the genre.
|
|
|
|
Post by CharlesX on May 8, 2022 18:37:28 GMT
One of the CYOA has a famous unreachable ending, it's a space CYOA and in the double-page spread you reach utopia (with a picture), I can't remember which CYOA.
|
|
|
|
Post by CharlesX on May 8, 2022 18:43:36 GMT
True though appropriate for the setting given how utterly depressing the fate of pretty much every mythological Greek hero is. I was briefly tempted to start a thread named "list of gamebooks with zero good endings", but then 1) I'm not sure there are enough of these books to warrant another topic, and 2) I don't feel it's right to flood the board with too many of these threads. And Altheus had it even worse than the average Greek hero. I mean, in the original legend, Theseus forgot to change his sail and actually caused his father's death, but the people accepted him as king anyway. Meanwhile, Altheus did the right thing and changed the sails, but his father still died anyway, and the people sent him away. There is a published parody of CYOA you might be interested in 'Lose Your Own Adventure - Who killed John F. Kennedy', which is as long as a CYOA, illustrated, and well-written and researched. All the endings except one are 100% fails. |
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on May 8, 2022 22:35:50 GMT
One of the CYOA has a famous unreachable ending, it's a space CYOA and in the double-page spread you reach utopia (with a picture), I can't remember which CYOA. . As SF CYOA goes, there are more interesting endings in Hyperspace, particularly in the plot strand where you meet the author of the book and discover that you are the hero of a CYOA. You may become so disheartened by this discovery that you stop reading, or you could be transported to a dimension that the author has never visited - at which point the book's description of your adventure ends because, not having been there, he has no idea what it's like, and thus cannot write about it. |
|
|
|
Post by vastariner on May 9, 2022 21:29:09 GMT
I'm sure it's been done but I think it would be funny if early on the book asks if you want to accept the quest and if you say no, it just accepts that answer and the story ends. Book 6 of the Way of the Tiger series (Inferno) is a bit like that; there's a very early ending in the book where you get the chance to refuse to go into the Rift to rescue two allies who have disobeyed orders to try to get rid of the baddies and, if you do refuse, you stay as leader of Irsmuncast, receiving a couple of mutilated corpses on horses instead. And that's a better ending than the one you get at the official end - plus is the sensible decision given your responsibilities. |
|
|
|
Post by terrysalt on May 9, 2022 22:12:00 GMT
I'm sure it's been done but I think it would be funny if early on the book asks if you want to accept the quest and if you say no, it just accepts that answer and the story ends. Book 6 of the Way of the Tiger series (Inferno) is a bit like that; there's a very early ending in the book where you get the chance to refuse to go into the Rift to rescue two allies who have disobeyed orders to try to get rid of the baddies and, if you do refuse, you stay as leader of Irsmuncast, receiving a couple of mutilated corpses on horses instead. And that's a better ending than the one you get at the official end - plus is the sensible decision given your responsibilities. That's pretty cool. I'll have to try and find time to read that series. |
|
|
|
Post by a moderator on May 9, 2022 22:26:35 GMT
Book 6 of the Way of the Tiger series (Inferno) is a bit like that; there's a very early ending in the book where you get the chance to refuse to go into the Rift to rescue two allies who have disobeyed orders to try to get rid of the baddies and, if you do refuse, you stay as leader of Irsmuncast, receiving a couple of mutilated corpses on horses instead. And that's a better ending than the one you get at the official end - plus is the sensible decision given your responsibilities. That's pretty cool. I'll have to try and find time to read that series. There's a 'refuse the call' ending in book 6 of Smith & Thomson's Falcon series, but IIRC the ending from Inferno described above isn't quite so straightforward to reach. As I recall, if you refuse, your god punishes you with an Inner Force penalty (basically bad karma) and forces you to undertake the quest anyway.
I think that to get the 'you carry on ruling, and the corpses are delivered to you' ending, you have to execute the enemy who brings news of their capture, thereby eliminating your source of information about how they might be rescued. |
|
|
|
Post by vastariner on Oct 26, 2022 20:22:55 GMT
Thinking about Maelstrom, not long after the "are you an assassin?" question, you can basically avoid a trip in a carriage (occasionally with extreme prejudice), and the adventure ends right there.
|
|
.
