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Post by bloodbeasthandler on May 8, 2024 17:50:21 GMT
(c) Use them as live bait. And if asked by them if they are safe, lie and tell them that they are. Not sure how relevant, but here's an excerpt from my review of the second Forbidden Gateway book: To my recollection, no player agency involved in that, or any dwelling on the subject on the book's part. It's set in the 30s though, so it may have just been standard operating procedure. Yes, I think it is relevant. I think it circles back to the issue of the NPCs being simply pawns or like expendable extras in a film. In this case the native guides are rather like the African porters in those old black and white Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan films - they exist only to carry burdens, to be eaten by the wildlife, or fall from precipices with a sharp scream. Although there isn't always the time to sketch out each character and their motivations and loves and hates fully, just a quick line or two summing them up would be enough. I had read that book a few times and must admit I missed the aspect you spoke about entirely! He wasn't given much of a chance, that Arab, was he? Basically used like one of those trip wires connected to some tin-cans to let you know if someone (in this case the main villain) has passed by.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jun 7, 2024 3:53:07 GMT
More easily, an adventure in which you start as an amoral person but become a better one (although isn't that sort of what The Crimson Tide is about?)
I don't think The Crimson Tide is about morals as such, more about letting go of revenge for your own sake. I probably shouldn't have used the word 'amoral' as morality is usually about which actions are forbidden and which you have a duty to do... TCT isn't about that, but the character development is presumably meant to be more than just letting go of something like quitting a job that's depressing you. To put it in virtue ethics terms, when you flourish as a person and find a balance between courage, wisdom, compassion, etc, the desire for revenge loses its power as a consequence.
I'm not very well versed in Eastern philosophies, but I imagine e.g. a Buddhist would say that all cravings will keep you from Nirvana, but a craving for revenge especially. Or we could just put this in Star Wars terms and say that the protagonist of TCT starts off as a Sith and ends as a Jedi. Anyway it's not like the author of TCT is going to be reading this thread or anything so this is all just speculation.
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Post by thealmightymudworm on Jun 7, 2024 4:13:45 GMT
Likewise, if you kill the giant you may later return to find his wife weeping and experience regret (to the tune of 2 LUCK points). I wonder if a gamebook where you played an evil character would be so brave as to flip the mechanic? e.g. Playing a Dark Elf (they always struck me as the most 'nuanced' of the evil types in Titan): I'd quite like that actually because it would make the evil border on cartoonish. For example there's more of a problem with the message 'slavery is presumably fine because it's one of the things I'm using as a means to an end' than the message 'dude, slavery is AWESOME!'. That's more like people getting their teeth knocked out in Asterix (they always seem to grow back).
A full-on stabby, evil romp sounds like fun.
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Post by paperexplorer on Aug 20, 2024 7:58:43 GMT
I was just reflecting today on Shadow of the Giants and how despite being responsible for the iron Giants, you character is quite happy to claim hero status, riches and and a bronze statue for stopping them at the end. None of this admitting fault, giving money to stonebridge dwarves due to fault or anything, just take the money and run.
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Post by zoove on Aug 28, 2024 6:14:06 GMT
Sort of on this topic...I've always disliked when books reward you for incompetence (see Temple of Terror where you have to allow yourself to be mugged in order to fight the robbers and get the brass telescope. I failed a bunch of times because I felt my character should be smart enough to avoid this situation) or when there's an option to just randomly attack someone who may be a perfectly innocent creature. I guess you could argue that attacking someone risks your own life and therefore you're potentially going to pay the price, but when it's like, you win and then discover something valuable on them, it's a bit like...what kind of adventurer am I to just attack people without provocation?
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Post by Pete Byrdie on Aug 28, 2024 8:23:12 GMT
Sort of on this topic...I've always disliked when books reward you for incompetence (see Temple of Terror where you have to allow yourself to be mugged in order to fight the robbers and get the brass telescope. I failed a bunch of times because I felt my character should be smart enough to avoid this situation) or when there's an option to just randomly attack someone who may be a perfectly innocent creature. I guess you could argue that attacking someone risks your own life and therefore you're potentially going to pay the price, but when it's like, you win and then discover something valuable on them, it's a bit like...what kind of adventurer am I to just attack people without provocation? A lot of people on here have expressed a similar sentiment. I look at it this way. If the 'golden path' only includes moral and sensible choices, it would restrict the writer's in making a correct path less obvious. Nor is it very representative of real life. I personally think it's a moral choice on behalf of the author to not reward the player for immoral choices. I wouldn't do it. Your character is supposed to be a noble warrior fighting for the good (in most cases), after all. But it is just a book. But it's also a game, and in some ways your character isn't just a warrior in a fantasy world, they're also a 'playing piece' traveling round a board. Meta-knowledge is a part of gamebooks, and I see making a foolish choice to gain something useful no different from choosing which path to take or which door to ignore based on previous play-throughs. If I were GMing an RPG, I wouldn't reward blatantly foolish behaviour, unless perhaps it was in character (if someone's clearly a hot-head or naive). But gamebooks aren't RPGs, even though they have RPG elements. You're expected to explore different choices. With regard to ToT's robbers; who says your character isn't going to take a chance on a cheap place to stay, even knowing there's a good possibility it's a trap? Giving the old man the benefit of the doubt while trusting they're a good enough warrior to deal with a trap might be the right approach to life in the eyes of the character. It might even seem the right thing to do to give the old man the chance to prove himself and his cohorts to be vermin before exterminating them, depending on how your character (or you) see your role as a fighter for good. Perhaps it's just obvious to you it's a trap, but that doesn't mean your character shouldn't have the choice to risk it.
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 28, 2024 19:58:40 GMT
Sort of on this topic...I've always disliked when books reward you for incompetence (see Temple of Terror where you have to allow yourself to be mugged in order to fight the robbers and get the brass telescope. I failed a bunch of times because I felt my character should be smart enough to avoid this situation) or when there's an option to just randomly attack someone who may be a perfectly innocent creature. I guess you could argue that attacking someone risks your own life and therefore you're potentially going to pay the price, but when it's like, you win and then discover something valuable on them, it's a bit like...what kind of adventurer am I to just attack people without provocation? I totally agree but at least for me being rewarded for incompetence isn't too dissimilar to many gamebooks where you either have to make a no clues left-right choice (you know, what colour potion do you drink) or the game-world is an inconsistent one. From that pov it's semi-hypocritical in say these CYOA adventures which often have inconsistent, incoherent worlds as well as moralizing plotlines (together with some writing and illustrations that are probably too bloody for their kid audience, and not in an intellectual way); at least Endless Quest tends to be more consistent. Attacking people without provocation is '80s old-school and is going to be understandable and even popular for many. A warlock who hasn't actually done provable damage to anyone might have masses of money, murder him (for the so-called threat, not the money, right). In an RPG your thief steals from merchants who probably don't ever break the law and have a family to feed. Did your warrior, when he ran through the Orc guard, think for even a moment about the Orc's life and his family? No, because the life of a chaotic being isn't worth a thing (see Michael Moorcock about Tolkien's snobbery). There's a difference though which is what you mean where you're either supposed to be incompetent or amoral which is somehow miles worse than the borderline cases I've cited or being a chaotic adventurer. Ultimately there has to be a place for several, and I don't think either playing as Chaotic is 'just fun for a while' or 'an extra option'. Take the Dune video game where playing as House Harkonnen is both different from the other Houses and the hardest, harder than House Atriedes or the middle one (I forget its name). The problem is Livingstone doesn't execute them that well. He's deeply tendentious which shows in other ways (inserting Lord Azzur, disregarding gameplay difficulty, failed continuity references, failing to understand and make clear gameplay rules, overuse of his own tropes, almost certainly more).
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Post by zoove on Aug 29, 2024 2:11:45 GMT
This is an interesting take. A bit like a superhero who knows he's about to be attacked if he goes down this blind alley, but does it anyway to lure out the criminals. I just finished Khare, which is book I've always loved, but it always stood out to me that when you visit the hut with the squid face guy (Flayer?) cooking you can just kill him to get the goodies under the table. I always (when I go that route), use the trickery option because I feel that a warrior/ wizard on a quest for the Crown of Kings isn't going to walk into a hut and slaughter a cook without any reason.
It's quite funny because my wife will never understand my fascination with these books (I get constant eye rolls and "that's nice, dear" to my excited explanations about how I managed a puzzle or a trap), and one time I asked her to give me her thoughts on the options and she said, "Attack him with your sword? Why is that an option? He didn't do anything to you! Our kids aren't playing these books, it's a bad influence!"
Yeah right. I'm counting the days until my son is old enough to help me play through one of the lesser violent books. Note to self: keep House of Hell until he's in his teens. I got that as a kid and I don't think I've ever really recovered from the fright it gave me. Only in the 80s would a book like that be marketed to kids!
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Post by Pete Byrdie on Aug 29, 2024 8:33:09 GMT
Exactly, it's a choice to give potential criminals a chance to show they're criminals. Walking in to somebody's kitchen and killing them is just criminal behaviour itself. I would consider rewarding the first, but I would consider it immoral to reward second.
Of course, we don't know these characters' lives. It could be that the old man and his grandsons have been rendered poor by the corrupt policies of Lord Azzur and his cronies, or because some other criminals cheated them out of everything. They may not have eaten more than a scabby rat in the last week. We don't give much thought to that because these characters have no lives beyond what's described to you in the book. They're committing suicide by attacking the player character anyway. If they lose, they die. If they win, they cease to exist until the player encounters them in another playthrough.
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kieran
Baron
Posts: 2,547
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy
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Post by kieran on Aug 29, 2024 10:38:04 GMT
They're committing suicide by attacking the player character anyway. If they lose, they die. If they win, they cease to exist until the player encounters them in another playthrough. Makes me think of the TV series 'Reboot' which was set in a video game system. The people who live in the system are called nulls and every time a game is inserted, they transform into characters appropriate for that game (so in a racing game, they might turn into formula one drivers). If the player loses the game, they go back to being nulls. If however, the player wins, the whole null city gets wiped into oblivion and a new one emerges in its place. Interesting show. Dave Morris wrote a few Reboot gamebooks too.
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Post by Per on Aug 29, 2024 11:29:03 GMT
If they win, they cease to exist until the player encounters them in another playthrough. Ah, but then the only thing anyone in the gamebook world can ever hope for is to interact with the protagonist somehow, someway in order to become momentarily slightly less abstract, and we shouldn't fault them for it. "As you make your way down to the docks you are disturbed by the scores of townspeople throwing themselves in your way, stuttering offers of edible goods or fantastically useful items, waving their arms as if trying to gain the attention of someone just behind you, or making mock jabs and lunges at you before stopping at the absurdity of it, and all the while as your bewildered gaze skips briefly from one face to the next, their features passing constantly through intermingled states of desperation, gratitude and despair."
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Post by Gabe Fandango on Aug 29, 2024 13:05:45 GMT
There needs to be more gamebook endings where, rather than ending with the scene of the PC's death or victory, the scene is then moved forward several years later on the fate of how various NPCs fare after the incident.
Kind of like the early ending in Slaves of the Abyss where Kallamehr has fallen and the PC's sword was being peddled several years after, but with longer, deeper elaborations and bigger end cast.
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 29, 2024 13:34:45 GMT
There needs to be more gamebook endings where, rather than ending with the scene of the PC's death or victory, the scene is then moved forward several years later on the fate of how various NPCs fare after the incident. Kind of like the early ending in Slaves of the Abyss where Kallamehr has fallen and the PC's sword was being peddled several years after, but with longer, deeper elaborations and bigger end cast. A little like Beneath Nightmare Castle where its possible to achieve your mission objective but not defeat the enemy.
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Post by CharlesX on Aug 29, 2024 16:26:25 GMT
They're committing suicide by attacking the player character anyway. If they lose, they die. If they win, they cease to exist until the player encounters them in another playthrough. Might be interesting to know the proportion of attacks coming from aggressive enemies versus the proportion of attacks from YOU being a bad guy\trying to gain helpful objects\trying to gain essential objects. As I've said it's something Michael Moorcock Jane Goodall's; I would have said there were better targets such as L. Ron Hubbard, or writers such as Stefanie Meyer or Enid Blighton who I think the world of but are definitely not cerebral, but Moorcock's Epic Pooh is well-written if not necessarily correct.
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IoannesKantakouzenos
Traveller
Being slowly eaten alive by a Ghoul
Posts: 153
Favourite Gamebook Series: Fighting Fantasy (Aventuras Fantásticas)
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Post by IoannesKantakouzenos on Aug 29, 2024 21:32:21 GMT
Did your warrior, when he ran through the Orc guard, think for even a moment about the Orc's life and his family? No, because the life of a chaotic being isn't worth a thing (see Michael Moorcock about Tolkien's snobbery). There's a difference though which is what you mean where you're either supposed to be incompetent or amoral which is somehow miles worse than the borderline cases I've cited or being a chaotic adventurer. Ultimately there has to be a place for several, and I don't think either playing as Chaotic is 'just fun for a while' or 'an extra option'. In Masks of Mayhem, you have to kill the father of a Doragar family - because he attacks you first, alright, but because he wants to defend his family. You, the leader of an important city like Arion, slay the head of a Doragar family and afterwards search his belonging because "the Doragar are known for their jewellery", and you cannot linger there for long because the Doragar wife could return and "see what you did to their husband". Guess Robin Waterfield thought it was too much to kill the mother too. Also, in "Deathmoor", you have to kill a wolf that attacks you at night when you are camping because "in her lair, the hungry cubs wait anxiously for her return", so, when we kill it, we are basically condemning those little wolves to die of starvation - also, not very hero-ish of us (again Robin Waterfield…). (Translations of cited passages were done by me and may not reflect what the original books say, because I have read them in my native Portuguese)
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