How would YOU replace Skill, Stamina and Luck?

[CharlesX]

There are lots of traditionalists, I'm one, who would be fine with continuing with the original statistics you start with, maybe with some others such as Honour, Magic or Time. Alternatively, some could be replaced, and whatever you might think of here has to be at least as good as Livingstone's Blood Of The Zombies system.

   In reverse order, as has been pointed out Luck is a weird one. I like the Way Of The Tiger system where 2-7 is success and 8-12 is failure (I think that's the right way round). Alternatively, just a rando roll such as in Gamebook Adventures. Possibly instead of using Luck in combat, Adventurers could collect a shield and\or helmet, or maybe armour (would you accept plate mail armour that depletes damage by 1 but subtracts 2 from test your skill rolls?).

   There seems to be a lot of variance in Stamina and Skill - perhaps certain weapons could increase attack strength for those with lower Skill? That would make as much sense as the Skill bonuses which do nothing when you're at max Skill, as you mostly are. There could also be a harder and easier route through gamebooks to give lower stats characters a chance.

   I would favour using magic in combat more often in the manner of D & D or Harry Potter. Maybe give Wizards a separate Magic stat, variable by 1-3 instaed of 1-6, to roll against when casting spells, which monsters escape if they can Test their Skill against 3d6. Monsters don't escape a fireball or lightning bolt by 'moving to the left' Star Wars style, right?

[misomiso]

I would keep it the same but add DEFENCE, which takes the place of the opponents Skill roll you are trying to beat.

This would speed up combat by removing tied roles, and also make it simpler as you take it in turns to roll Hero and monster dice rather than 4 dice together.

So your stats would be:-
Skill: 6+1d6
Defence: 16 (Always the same)
Stamina: 12+2d6
Luck: 8+1d3

I would also Buff luck for combat, and try and make it a real decision as to whether to use it. Maybe there is no penalty for a failed luck test, or maybe you do FIVE damage for a successful test to hit, and take no Damage for a successful test to avoid damage.

In general though what is needed in the FF books is more playtesting for the combats - ie mathmatically you want to *just be able to finish a book if you take the right combat path. Sometimes Combat is too easy, sometimes too hard. You could quite easily balance a book round a slightly above average character:
Skill: 10
Defence: 16
Stamina: 20
Luck 10
..a maybe have 'achievements' for beating it with a skill 7 one for example.

For Wizard gamebooks give the hero less skill but maybe a spell system like Citadel of Chaos.

[misomiso]

What was so good about Blood of the Zombies?

[terrysalt]

Nothing should be replaced. If all the books going forward had a totally new structure, I think it would be a mistake.
I think Jon Green had the right idea when he restricted the possible range of scores you could get for skill in Howl of the Werewolf. A book that is balanced for all skills 7-12 is basically impossible to create.
I'd also be fine if it was only voluntary luck tests, like in combat, that lowered your luck score (and the ways to restore it were appropriately reduced). The Way of the Tiger approach doesn't appeal to me because it feels like bad randomness instead of good randomness.
Having items that modify your combat ability is always fun so I welcome more of that. It was one of the things I liked most about Knights of Doom.
Casting spells in combat overcomplicates it IMO. I'd rather stick to the fast and easy system they have in place. I don't mind pre-fight spells (like casting weakness on the gark in Citadel of Chaos) but once the dice start rolling, I want to keep that as simple as possible.

[terrysalt]

Aug 10, 2022 21:35:48 GMT misomiso said:

What was so good about Blood of the Zombies?

Making other people play it to watch them suffer?

[CharlesX]

Aug 10, 2022 21:44:27 GMT terrysalt said:

Nothing should be replaced. If all the books going forward had a totally new structure, I think it would be a mistake.
I think Jon Green had the right idea when he restricted the possible range of scores you could get for skill in Howl of the Werewolf. A book that is balanced for all skills 7-12 is basically impossible to create.

Jon's Howl model has sometimes been suggested as a possible alternative to the arguably wanting structure at present, and while I get that it is easier to theorize than put into reality in gamebooks, it also seems wonderful in comparison to the existing one. One through six is just too great a range as even you say, although I also agree actually replacing the system as I boldly suggested is surely taking (it) too far.
   I like the Trial Of Champions scene where you effectively Test Your Skill and are judged not to be material if you fail. So often I will approach one of the harder FFs with an average or below-average character and just choose to abandon the quest before I start. It's similar to sticking tough monsters at the start, not at the end as Livingstone does because he's silly  .
   I agree FFs struggle to make themselves playable for a diverse range of possible characters, which is why some better FFs have extra mechanisms (Creature Of Havoc, Slaves Of The Abyss, Demons Of The Deep, and yes, Howl Of The Werewolf). It's always been a difficult system to work with; unfortunately like I say Ian Livingstone's attempt at an entirely new one was disappointing even as a try. 

[sylas]

Without altering the standard rules it's kind of difficult. I would possibly try to include an Experience point system where you can increase your stats. Fighting opponents and taking part in activities and events will earn XP regularly. If the total amount earned is higher than your initial stat score (or half you initial Stamina) you can spend the XP to increase it by 1. So if your initial Skill was 8, you would need 9+ XP spent to increase it. In effect, the lower your stats, the more often you can increase them. Just a thought.

[misomiso]

Aug 10, 2022 21:44:27 GMT terrysalt said:

Nothing should be replaced. If all the books going forward had a totally new structure, I think it would be a mistake.
I think Jon Green had the right idea when he restricted the possible range of scores you could get for skill in Howl of the Werewolf. A book that is balanced for all skills 7-12 is basically impossible to create.
I'd also be fine if it was only voluntary luck tests, like in combat, that lowered your luck score (and the ways to restore it were appropriately reduced). The Way of the Tiger approach doesn't appeal to me because it feels like bad randomness instead of good randomness.
Having items that modify your combat ability is always fun so I welcome more of that. It was one of the things I liked most about Knights of Doom.
Casting spells in combat overcomplicates it IMO. I'd rather stick to the fast and easy system they have in place. I don't mind pre-fight spells (like casting weakness on the gark in Citadel of Chaos) but once the dice start rolling, I want to keep that as simple as possible.

I think it's probably correct to not change the basic system, but keeping the skill range 7-12 is probably ok. 

The thing is - even though it is functionally impossible to balance a book for that range of skill, it's still good to give the player the option or opportunity to play that way.  It increases the variance of different characters within the system. 

I'd much rather allow a greater degree of skill but have a more banded Luck, and try and balance that stat a lot more within the game. 

Also different gamebooks can experiment with different things.  A book like Deathtrap Dungeon is very well loved even though it is INCREDIBLY hard.  You really need skill 12! 

[Wilf]

Aug 10, 2022 21:35:48 GMT misomiso said:

What was so good about Blood of the Zombies?

The artwork.

[slloyd14]

Aug 10, 2022 21:35:48 GMT misomiso said:

What was so good about Blood of the Zombies?

The system did save time and the terribleness of the combat system was more execution than idea. Although I don't like the idea of making a single stat for both hit points and damage as it makes weak creatures (or small groups of zombies in this case) really easy to defeat. It opened up some more options on how to use your weapons.

[slloyd14]

The main problem is skill.

My first fix would be to give it a range of 3 rather than 6. Which numbers depend on the book (Forest of Doom could easily be 7-9, Crypt of the Sorcerer would have to be 14-16 for example).

If people really want a 7-12 range, another simple fix would be to turn all SKILL bonuses rom armour and magical weapons and items into attack strength bonuses. There are plenty of skill bonuses in the books, but they get negated by the rule of "You cannot increase your SKILL past its initial SKILL". To stop people abusing this, have a slot system - 1 weapon, 1 shield, 1 helm, 1 suit of armour, 2 rings, 1 amulet for example.

About Luck - luck seems to be a catch all for anything that isn't skill or stamina. It is a combination of saving throw against bad magic, dodging, having random events happen or not, a way to increase damage in combat, a way to decrease damage in combat. I'm not sure what to do there.

As for the extra stats, lets see if there's a theme in them and what we can do about that. I'm going off my memory, so I may have forgotten some.

The extras are:

Citadel of Chaos - Magic (how many spells you can cast)
Starship Traveller - Weapons, shields and crew stats
House of Hell - Fear
Space Assassin - armour
Freeway Fighter - vehicle weapons and armour
Seas of Blood - Crew Strike, Crew Strength, Time
Appointment with F.E.A.R - Hero points (how well you have fought the bad guys)
Sword of the Samurai - Honour
Robot Commando - Robot speed, robot attack stat, robot defence stat (Can't remember off the top of my head)
Beneath Nightmare Castle - Willpower
Phantoms of Fear - Power
Slaves of the Abyss - Time
Sky Lord - Rating, Lasers, Shields
Daggers of Darkness - Poison
Armies of Death - number of soldiers
Vault of the Vampire - Faith
Fangs of Fury - number of walls the city has
Dead of Night - Evil
Crimson Tide - Age, Ferocity
Moonrunner - time in hours, Notura
Siege of Sardath - what day it is
Island of the Undead - Presence
Night Dragon - Honour, Time, Nemesis
Spellbreaker - Faith, Infection
Legend of Zagor - Magic
Knights of Doom - honour, time
Magehunter - companion stats
Revenge of the Vampire - Faith, Blood
Curse of the Mummy - Poison

Looking at these, there are some themes.

Vehicle stats
Stats for any groups you lead or companions
A stat to track time (time, age, number of city walls left)
A stat to track morality (honour, evil)
A stat to track your opponent's strength (notura, nemesis, blood)
A stat to track your resistance to evil (Faith)
A stat to track your mental strength (Fear Willpower. Faith could be a subset of this group against just evil stuff.)
A stat to track your magical power (Magic, power)
How close to dying and/or failure you are (Infection, Poison)

None of these are always relevant. I would say that the closest one that comes to be able to be used in every situation is a mental strength score - if could be used in place of stamina in some situations, such as losing it when you are hungry or get a fright. An easy way to use this would be to reduce stamina if you are told to reduce mental strength, but it is 0. It could also be used as a magic score. I am a bit biased because this is what I do in my game system, but I find it covers most things.

My game system, SCRAWL has a physical stat, a mental stat (this is affected by using powers or going hungry or being exposed to bad weather or being scared etc.) and a time track. There's no sense of morality that I care for and the other stats aren't relevant. When the mental stat reaches 0, any reductions are taken from the physical stat.

Some oddball stats

Ferocity - represents your desire for revenge and levels of anger.

Armour - this is odd considering armour comes up a lot, but it only gets a stat once in Space Assassin. It could fit in to FF Fantasy games pretty easily - get hit in combat, if you roll equal to or less than your armour, you negate the hit and reduce your armour by 1. This would also reduce the confusing rules for armour that each book seems to do differently - sometimes it increases skill, sometimes attack strength, sometimes reduces damage on a roll. Here, certain items of armour will just add to your armour score and reducing your armour represents your armour being damaged.

Rating - kind of like initiative for ship battles

Presence - the closest an FF book has come to having a social score. Might also be useful?

Ironically, despite only being used once, I think armour would fit in well in almost every FF book. Presence could also have a use.

It has never come up, but a Lore score might help as well?

So in conclusion, it might help to have skill, stamina, luck, willpower, armour, presence and lore? Stamina could be a bit lower because Willpower will take some of the damage from things that really shouldn't kill someone outright - no healthy adult should die after 12 days of no food, but it kills off the strongest adventurer.

So stamina as 1d6+9 and Willpower as 1d6+9 and all of the others 1d3+6? except armour which is 0 and depends on what items you have?

[misomiso]

I like your ideas - I like the idea of having a bit more uniformity in alternative stats as well, as always having FAITH for resistance to evil for example.

But I think 7 stats is just too much. It really overcomplicates the system a lot and starts to confuse the player / reader, plus in 400 entries do you really need 7 stats?!

Good ideas though.

[slloyd14]

Aug 14, 2022 6:49:23 GMT misomiso said:

I like your ideas - I like the idea of having a bit more uniformity in alternative stats as well, as always having FAITH for resistance to evil for example.

But I think 7 stats is just too much. It really overcomplicates the system a lot and starts to confuse the player / reader, plus in 400 entries do you really need 7 stats?!

Good ideas though.

Good point. Presence only comes up in one book and lore not at all. I just thought there was a hole that needed plugging. So that leaves skill, stamina, luck, armour and willpower (for mental strength and also magic power).

Being good in social situations or knowing stuff can be covered with skills.

When appropriate have time, vehicle stats and companion/group stats?

[nathanh]

Only changes I might consider would be some of:
- Sk and maybe Lu are 1d4 + 6
- You can add beyond INITIAL but only up to the max you could have originally rolled
- Separate combat skill and non-combat skill into separate stats, and Test Your Skill is usually done against the latter.

[CharlesX]

Aug 14, 2022 8:32:53 GMT slloyd14 said:

Aug 14, 2022 6:49:23 GMT misomiso said:

I like your ideas - I like the idea of having a bit more uniformity in alternative stats as well, as always having FAITH for resistance to evil for example.

But I think 7 stats is just too much. It really overcomplicates the system a lot and starts to confuse the player / reader, plus in 400 entries do you really need 7 stats?!

Good ideas though.

Good point. Presence only comes up in one book and lore not at all. I just thought there was a hole that needed plugging. So that leaves skill, stamina, luck, armour and willpower (for mental strength and also magic power).

Being good in social situations or knowing stuff can be covered with skills.

When appropriate have time, vehicle stats and companion/group stats?

Time is one of my favourite alternate stats. To me, it can turn an FF into a solo RPG. I personally think there should be a separate stat for magic (such as willpower), partly because magic-users are unique and also to compensate for their wanting abilities as warriors.

[misomiso]

For Magic, if you include it then the design of the gamebook is very different depending on what system you choose to go with.

I personally think that a modified version of the Citadel of Chaos system is the best: You would roll a 'mana' stat, then choose maybe 4-6 spells and each time you cast one you spent Mana.

You would then design the gamebook similar to Heart of Ice, where you needed certain spells to get past certain enemies or take certain routes.

[bloodbeasthandler]

We have to be careful that FF would not turn into Sagas of the Demonspawn, which had a stat and game system that ended up being a distraction, a detriment. 



As Stuart Lloyd says in a posting above, in FF many things might be covered with skills if need be (see Moonrunner and others) rather than a score to roll up. 

As for some of the incongruous things that happen in FF with stats, like falling a great distance and losing 8 stamina points which can then be regained by eating two dinners, maybe the writer could accompany a loss of stamina with a codeword like 'broken leg' which will have a big effect on subsequent actions. 

 

[philsadler]

Just reading those Demonspawn rules makes my head hurt.

[misomiso]

Completely agree.

Also the simplicity of the rules in City of Thieves and Deathtrap Dungeon were part of why those books were so great imo, as the you could better be carried away by the story and losing yourself in the world.

[slloyd14]

Aug 14, 2022 13:14:25 GMT philsadler said:

Just reading those Demonspawn rules makes my head hurt.

You can listen to this podcaster attempt to navigate the rules.

www.hauntedphonograph.com/fantastic-fights-and-where-to-find-them/2022/7/7/bonus-episode-sagas-of-the-demonspawn-book-one-firewolf

[slloyd14]

Actually, thinking about it, we could get rid of the armour score completely and have armour increase initial stamina (similar to how Lone Wolf does it). Also shields could have an attack strength bonus.

Buckler +1as, +1 stamina
Shield +1as, +2 stamina
Leather armour +2 stamina
Chain armour +4 stamina
Plate armour +6 stamina

[CharlesX]

Aug 16, 2022 15:14:48 GMT slloyd14 said:

Actually, thinking about it, we could get rid of the armour score completely and have armour increase initial stamina (similar to how Lone Wolf does it). Also shields could have an attack strength bonus.

Buckler +1as, +1 stamina
Shield +1as, +2 stamina
Leather armour +2 stamina
Chain armour +4 stamina
Plate armour +6 stamina

I like Legend Of The Shadow Warriors where Armour takes a number of hits before you have to lose Stamina, as well as affecting your Test Your Skill tries. Similarly I like the shield system in Warlock.
   A slight problem with what you suggest is a Stamina increase will be beneficial if you have to roll dice against your Stamina (although a special 'Test your Stamina' instruction could deal with that).

[nathanh]

Aug 14, 2022 12:19:05 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

We have to be careful that FF would not turn into Sagas of the Demonspawn, which had a stat and game system that ended up being a distraction, a detriment.  

That's incredible. I love "for every 72 LUCK points." Why? Why would you do that?!

[philsadler]

I wrote this little parody for a part of something I'm working on; in response to Demonspawn, Fire*Wolf, and the lack of choices (especially at the start):


He calls himself Wolf*Fire and he Wants to fight you but the rules he insists on following are so complex and nonsensical that he can’t even understand them himself. He goes on and on and won’t let you get a word in edgeways. You may ignore him and leave or kill him and leave anyway. If you decide to stay you must Test your Patience. If you fail then he has bored you to death.

[sleepyscholar]

Aug 13, 2022 20:34:09 GMT slloyd14 said:

The extras are:
...
Slaves of the Abyss - Time
...

Time was an essentially aesthetic element in Slaves. Similarly, Ferocity was included in Crimson Tide not because I thought it was necessary for the FF system, but in order to represent something specific to that story.

I'm trying to remember whether we including the killing blow in Slaves. If we did, I'd love to say that we were trying to refine the system, but the truth was, we weren't, we were just impatient about how long the combats took.

[sleepyscholar]

Aug 14, 2022 13:14:25 GMT philsadler said:

Just reading those Demonspawn rules makes my head hurt.

Listen, back in the day I was a fan of Chivalry & Sorcery, and had super-complex rules. My Outlaws Chinese RPG rules are still too complicated. But I 100% agree with you. The beauty of FF is that it doesn't weigh itself down with extra rules. This gives writers the freedom to add specific elements that suit the particular book they are writing.

[slloyd14]

Aug 17, 2022 16:25:58 GMT philsadler said:

I wrote this little parody for a part of something I'm working on; in response to Demonspawn, Fire*Wolf, and the lack of choices (especially at the start):


He calls himself Wolf*Fire and he Wants to fight you but the rules he insists on following are so complex and nonsensical that he can’t even understand them himself. He goes on and on and won’t let you get a word in edgeways. You may ignore him and leave or kill him and leave anyway. If you decide to stay you must Test your Patience. If you fail then he has bored you to death.

Sounds awesome. When I read Grailquest, I thought the crazy rules were just part of the comedy. But Fire*Wolf is supposed to be serious so I guess Herbie Brennan just worked out his systems by what looks like employing a monkey and a dart board.

[philsadler]

In one of the Grailquest books, Pip refers to 'some idiot called Fire*Wolf'.