Do you let Skill bonuses exceed your Initial level?

[CharlesX]

I'm polling this in the wake of the House Of Hell rules question. Sometimes I think even the author didn't know (or care) what their intention was about Skill bonuses. For example I'd tend to agree the House Of Hell interpretation it seems overly strict to not apply the Skill bonus, where say in Dead Of Night the Potion Of Heroism bonus arguably shouldn't apply, even though it seems like that was the author's intent. But perhaps I'm being a hypocrite, because I still apply the full Skill bonus in Port Of Peril. My own conclusion is more the system itself is a bit broken and we shouldn't have to have entire debates - but we do, because FF authors (not readers) didn't clarify things enough. Perhaps someone would defend playing House Of Hell strictly, or pick up on other gamebooks and points?

   As I understand it the Apps are broken the other way where every single Skill bonus is an attack strength one, which wasn't the author's intention, either.

   I appreciate many people will use Revised\Decrypting but continue to use Skill bonuses relatively strictly. My point is Revised-style books are a developed departure from the original, so if they are more an option for you than something you would actually use, feel free to go with the 'partial house rules' box above.

[paperexplorer]

Can we have the option "only when reading Ian Livingstone books"?

[sleepyscholar]

Funny, isn't it, how such a simple set of rules got so mangled? One excuse might be that writers other than J&L didn't understand the rules too well, but as paperexplorer points out, that doesn't excuse L.

I think the problem is that simple rules are always going to generate ambiguities. What do you do when the rules seem to contradict common sense? With RPGs, I think that's what the referee is there for, but you still get people who are shocked at the idea of bending rules. With FF, the reader assumes some of the role of the ref. Arguably, the writers should be doing that and specifying when rules change in particular cases, but you can also say that if writers are putting too much rules stuff in the paragraphs, the reader is being pulled out of the story (making excuses for FF writers? Really?). Personally I think -- and this seems to be an attitude shared by a majority of FF readers, if the survey above is anything to go by) -- that it is OK to bend the rules to accord with common sense, if that seems to be what the author wanted. That's not cheating: it's a very different category from the 'Look ahead at the various paths and then choose the best one' form of cheating. I suspect that most writers did not think super carefully about the implications of the rules for every eventuality in their books (particularly skill bonuses, which were already pretty ambiguously described in the rules). So the reader is entitled to assume the role of ref in that case. It's still possible to 'play fair' while doing that.

[Wizard Slayer]

I've stuck in 'Other' because I use my House Rules where they're Attack Strength bonuses, not Skill bonuses, and I do it because it makes more sense rather than feeling that there's anything inherently unfair about any of it.

It's also swings and roundabouts, playing it that way. If I'm down to Skill 7 because I stumbled and twisted my ankle (-2 Skill), I acquire a magic sword (+2 Skill in the text), if I later make a Skill test to jump across a river I'll roll against 7, not 9.

Non-weapon/armour Skill bonuses I treat according to the context and what seems sensible, but most of the time that means I treat them as Skill bonuses, and I don't let them put me above my Initial Skill unless specified otherwise.

[kieran]

May 7, 2024 1:55:58 GMT sleepyscholar said:

 particularly skill bonuses, which were already pretty ambiguously described in the rules

I always thought it was pretty clear. Attack Strength = Skill + Dice Roll. Skill can't exceed your initial score unless this is specified in the text, there's no such limitation with Attack Strength. Yet it seems to be from Book 5 on, the authors, even the two who came up with these rules, seem to get very confused. Even the likes of Keith Martin who generally had a good head for rules comes up with unnecessarily complex stuff like 'This magic sword will allow you to increase your Skill by one, even if this exceeds your initial score, in combat situations only' rather than just saying 'It adds one to your Attack Strength'.

[Wizard Slayer]

It's interesting to see that the runaway winner at the moment is "Where the author's intentions are clear...", because I'd like to know some examples of where that's obviously the case? Otherwise it's more like people trying to convince themselves that they're still playing by the rules as written and just making up for an author 'error'.

House of Hell is definitely not a case where it's clear Steve Jackson meant for it to go above the initial score. Because you start with a -3 deficit already, he might simply have been meaning to account for any Skill points the player may have lost, not bothering to check if they really could have lost that many by that stage and erring on the side of caution.

People might claim that otherwise a low Skill player has virtually no chance, but a sub-9 Fear player also has zero chance. Was that the intent? If it was, maybe the same was meant for low Skill players. If it wasn't, do we ignore that score as well? But also if it wasn't, that again suggests that Steve wasn't too rigorous in checking how stats can change throughout the correct path, and might well have thought that an additional -3 loss could be incurred.

Finally, look at Champskee's probability scores. Sticking to the rule, an 11/18/10 player still has a 20% chance of completing it, and Skill 12 players can often be better than evens. It's difficult, but hardly insurmountable. Whereas ignoring the rule means only players with really low stats have a worse than even chance of winning. For many players it's practically a foregone conclusion to win, and even a 7/18/8 will win a third of the time. Did Steve mean for House of Hell to be easy, or did he mean for it to be hard? Citadel, Starship and F.E.A.R. were easy, but Creature of Havoc was far less so, meaning it's hard to claim that it's clear Steve intended for the Kris knife bonus to take the player above their Initial Skill.

I would say those who take the Kris knife bonus in the non-rules way would be fooling themselves some if they voted "when the author's intentions are clear"  

[CharlesX]

I thought thealmightymudworm makes a persuasive case in House for Hell rules question thread. Of course, neither it being persuasive nor that the majority may even agree would mean it were correct.

   I (myself) would suggest players should err towards second-guessing the author is generous rather than ungenerous (this seems in the spirit of gaming rather than record-keeping), so I'm surprised more people aren't suggesting the Dead Of Night Skill bonus is applicable, which barely seems less credible than the Kris Knife. Steve probably lost some for failing to apply Test Your Skill consistently, and weapons such as the letter-knife, which implies his heart wasn't in the rules.

[vastariner]

May 7, 2024 12:53:54 GMT Wizard Slayer said:

 
House of Hell is definitely not a case where it's clear Steve Jackson meant for it to go above the initial score. Because you start with a -3 deficit already, he might simply have been meaning to account for any Skill points the player may have lost, not bothering to check if they really could have lost that many by that stage and erring on the side of caution.

It could be implied that, if you cannot lose more than 3 Sk points in HoH, then a 6 Sk bonus would be meaningless unless you could go over Initial.

[Wizard Slayer]

A persuasive case for treating it as an Attack Strength bonus, not that Steve Jackson actually intended for it to be one and made a mistake when writing the book.

That's my point: I don't see how anybody can seriously claim that it's clearly a mistake and not at all what Steve intended.

Given certain parts of the book, red herrings and the like, I wouldn't like to claim he was in a generous frame of mind when he wrote it!

[Wizard Slayer]

May 7, 2024 15:22:46 GMT vastariner said:

It could be implied that, if you cannot lose more than 3 Sk points in HoH, then a 6 Sk bonus would be meaningless unless you could go over Initial.

There's also a part, if I remember rightly, where you pick up some red-hot keys and have to Test Your Luck, losing 2 Skill points if you're Unlucky. Which also turns out to be meaningless, because you get killed in the very next paragraph anyway. Steve could be very 'playful' in his books...

[Per]

The kris knife is one case that stands out to me as being clear enough, being significant in terms of design and difficulty, and making sense thematically. (I would play for instance City of Thieves as written, even if it also seems clear enough that somewhere in the early stages is where the distinction between Skill and Attack Strength slipped Ian's mind, since it's not significant enough to "fix".) Dead of Night 348 is perhaps a better example of a case where the author certainly seems to have intended to allow you to exceed Initial Skill, but the instruction as written doesn't work, and the arguments against House (author is trolling us, it's supposed to be hard, we're fooling ourselves) would apply there as well, if you find them convincing. How do you play Sorcery! when told to "double your Skill score"?

If you added clear+often and ambiguous+sometimes options to the poll, perhaps some of the clear+sometimes votes would bleed into them, but then people could legitimately complain the poll is asking for one answer to multiple questions.

[sleepyscholar]

May 7, 2024 11:17:52 GMT kieran said:

May 7, 2024 1:55:58 GMT sleepyscholar said:

 particularly skill bonuses, which were already pretty ambiguously described in the rules

I always thought it was pretty clear.

Obviously it wasn't 'pretty clear' to *cough* some of the authors.

On House of Hell I can't speak to Steve's intentions, but what I can say was that on those occasions I actually wrote rolegame scenarios, when I came to run them I often found that I had been overly harsh in designing them, and what had seemed a good idea in design was actually less interesting in practice. So as a referee I enjoyed having to think on my feet and find ways of helping characters out of fatal situations in exciting ways that didn't feel like deus ex machina (and ideally that the players felt was their ingenuity).

Now this doesn't quite map on to FF, because there you have an element of the experience which is explicitly puzzle-based, and which is undermined by anything that smacks of cheating (anyone tried using Chat GPT to solve crossword clues?). But my point is that from at least one author's point of view, the combats aren't really part of the puzzle element of the FF experience. They are part of the game element, which operates according to a slightly different aesthetic standard. The point of the combats is a fair challenge, and to me, at least, it's more up to the reader to decide what is and isn't fair. I know it's not on the winning route, but by way of an example, changing the SKILL level of the Mudworm in The Crimson Tide would not be cheating, not only because the author's intention has been loudly trumpeted, but because it's evidently absurd and unreasonable within the diegesis.

Let's be honest about this, the 'you can win with any level of SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK' line is bollocks. I don't know why it's there. Even if it were true, it would make a mockery of the challenge of the books, because if it's possible to win with any level scores, someone who happened to get high scores would be walking it. As I say, I think the combats are there to provide a game challenge, and sense of excitement, and this is really something that the reader can regulate. I think in some ways the books would be better if readers were able to choose their scores (and this practice is not unknown, eh?). It might have been better if the scores were for different characteristics (Fighting, Cunning, Agility, Charm: you know the sort of thing), and readers could divvy up a fixed stock of points. This way the replay value would come from finding different routes through the books for different characters. Instead both SKILL and STAMINA, and to a certain extent LUCK, are unequivocally positive combat-related stats. There's not much interesting difference in aesthetic terms between a high SKILL, medium STAMINA character and a medium SKILL, high STAMINA character. It will slightly affect the combats, but since the combats are so mechanical anyway, it's not going to have a significant effect on the experience. 

In other words, what I'm saying is that the problem this thread is about was baked into FF from the beginning because insufficient thought was given to how gamebooks would work... but then, there wasn't a lot to go on in those days, was there? T&T and Underworld Oracle was pretty much all I'd seen in 1982.

[Pete Byrdie]

May 7, 2024 11:17:52 GMT kieran said:

May 7, 2024 1:55:58 GMT sleepyscholar said:

 particularly skill bonuses, which were already pretty ambiguously described in the rules

I always thought it was pretty clear. Attack Strength = Skill + Dice Roll. Skill can't exceed your initial score unless this is specified in the text, there's no such limitation with Attack Strength. Yet it seems to be from Book 5 on, the authors, even the two who came up with these rules, seem to get very confused. Even the likes of Keith Martin who generally had a good head for rules comes up with unnecessarily complex stuff like 'This magic sword will allow you to increase your Skill by one, even if this exceeds your initial score, in combat situations only' rather than just saying 'It adds one to your Attack Strength'.

It seems pretty clear to me too. I think authors just forget Attack Strength exists as a separate thing, that it's not just SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK, and 'Attack Strength' isn't just there to make explaining the rules easier. I think FF might have been quite different if an Attack Strength Bonus box was included on the adventure sheet, just as a reminder that there's a very easy method of giving bonuses in combat that doesn't also improve a player's ability to do basically everything else, and overcomes the SKILL cap.

[CharlesX]

May 12, 2024 9:13:39 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

May 7, 2024 11:17:52 GMT kieran said:

I always thought it was pretty clear. Attack Strength = Skill + Dice Roll. Skill can't exceed your initial score unless this is specified in the text, there's no such limitation with Attack Strength. Yet it seems to be from Book 5 on, the authors, even the two who came up with these rules, seem to get very confused. Even the likes of Keith Martin who generally had a good head for rules comes up with unnecessarily complex stuff like 'This magic sword will allow you to increase your Skill by one, even if this exceeds your initial score, in combat situations only' rather than just saying 'It adds one to your Attack Strength'.

It seems pretty clear to me too. I think authors just forget Attack Strength exists as a separate thing, that it's not just SKILL, STAMINA and LUCK, and 'Attack Strength' isn't just there to make explaining the rules easier. I think FF might have been quite different if an Attack Strength Bonus box was included on the adventure sheet, just as a reminder that there's a very easy method of giving bonuses in combat that doesn't also improve a player's ability to do basically everything else, and overcomes the SKILL cap.

Perhaps interestingly, in some of Sir Ian's 'harder' FF such as City Of Thieves and Eye Of The Dragon, he hands out current Skill bonuses just like candy, even though you rarely lose current Skill points. Not knowing the author's intentions (I would say they were ambiguous) a number of these may have been intended to take your Attack Strength above their Initial level. There is a case to say, like including overpowered enemies, Sir Ian just thought "they would look cool", but we don't actually know.

   This sort of thing of course affects\ruins an entire experience when playing TinMan Apps which SFAIK do not do with Skill caps. My understanding is a lot of the time these current Skill bonuses are 'off the true path' when playing the paperback.

[kieran]

May 12, 2024 4:58:20 GMT sleepyscholar said:

Even if it were true, it would make a mockery of the challenge of the books, because if it's possible to win with any level scores, someone who happened to get high scores would be walking it.

Not necessarily. The promise is that it should be beatable for a minimal stats character provided they find the optimal route. That doesn't rule out sub-optimal routes where a minimal stats character doesn't stand a chance but a high stats character would still have a shot at victory.

Luke Sharp doesn't get a lot of love, but he was actually pretty good at designing his books in this way.

[sleepyscholar]

May 12, 2024 10:31:40 GMT kieran said:

May 12, 2024 4:58:20 GMT sleepyscholar said:

Even if it were true, it would make a mockery of the challenge of the books, because if it's possible to win with any level scores, someone who happened to get high scores would be walking it.

Not necessarily. The promise is that it should be beatable for a minimal stats character provided they find the optimal route. That doesn't rule out sub-optimal routes where a minimal stats character doesn't stand a chance but a high stats character would still have a shot at victory.

Luke Sharp doesn't get a lot of love, but he was actually pretty good at designing his books in this way.

This is a good point, but it applies in cases when there are multiple feasible routes through the network.

And again, if it is possible to find a route which minimizes combat, then what the hell is combat for?

[Pete Byrdie]

May 12, 2024 10:57:04 GMT sleepyscholar said:

May 12, 2024 10:31:40 GMT kieran said:

Not necessarily. The promise is that it should be beatable for a minimal stats character provided they find the optimal route. That doesn't rule out sub-optimal routes where a minimal stats character doesn't stand a chance but a high stats character would still have a shot at victory.

Luke Sharp doesn't get a lot of love, but he was actually pretty good at designing his books in this way.

This is a good point, but it applies in cases when there are multiple feasible routes through the network.

And again, if it is possible to find a route which minimizes combat, then what the hell is combat for?

Combat is for sapping health. Finding routes that minimise combats (without avoiding combat completely necessarily), or that make one more effective in combats, or giving oneself an advantage in a specific combat, well, surely that's much of the game. I've never been a fan of the unavoidable high skill encounter which no earlier discovery can mitigate, especially in a system like FF which offers little realistic in terms of strategy, so those kinds of combats exist only to eat up STAMINA.

[sleepyscholar]

May 12, 2024 11:31:16 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

May 12, 2024 10:57:04 GMT sleepyscholar said:

This is a good point, but it applies in cases when there are multiple feasible routes through the network.

And again, if it is possible to find a route which minimizes combat, then what the hell is combat for?

Combat is for sapping health. Finding routes that minimise combats (without avoiding combat completely necessarily), or that make one more effective in combats, or giving oneself an advantage in a specific combat, well, surely that's much of the game. I've never been a fan of the unavoidable high skill encounter which no earlier discovery can mitigate, especially in a system like FF which offers little realistic in terms of strategy, so those kinds of combats exist only to eat up STAMINA.

Yes, and I think my argument is that 'sapping health' isn't really a very interesting dynamic. I think there are far more potentially interesting possibilities that were abandoned when FF adopted D&D's silly fine-fine-fine-fine-dead approach to combat.

And I'm still trying to get at the interaction between the sort of dynamic you describe, and the (patently untrue) contention that 'you can win any book no matter how low your stats are'. If this is the case, why bother rolling for them? There's already plenty of chance built into the system because of the rolls for combat. I honestly think that the only reason you roll for stats in an FF is because you roll for stats in D&D.

[Pete Byrdie]

May 12, 2024 11:48:01 GMT sleepyscholar said:

May 12, 2024 11:31:16 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

Combat is for sapping health. Finding routes that minimise combats (without avoiding combat completely necessarily), or that make one more effective in combats, or giving oneself an advantage in a specific combat, well, surely that's much of the game. I've never been a fan of the unavoidable high skill encounter which no earlier discovery can mitigate, especially in a system like FF which offers little realistic in terms of strategy, so those kinds of combats exist only to eat up STAMINA.

Yes, and I think my argument is that 'sapping health' isn't really a very interesting dynamic. I think there are far more potentially interesting possibilities that were abandoned when FF adopted D&D's silly fine-fine-fine-fine-dead approach to combat.

And I'm still trying to get at the interaction between the sort of dynamic you describe, and the (patently untrue) contention that 'you can win any book no matter how low your stats are). If this is the case, why bother rolling for them? There's already plenty of chance built into the system because of the rolls for combat. I honestly think that the only reason you roll for stats in an FF is because you roll for stats in D&D.

I can't disagree with that. I call it the 'death by a thousand cuts' method of measuring health. It leads to situations in which, for example, a high SKILL player with 1 remaining STAMINA has enough energy to easily defeat two SKILL 5 goblins because he/she wouldn't lose an attack round, then could trip over the corpse of one, graze a knee for 1 STAMINA damage, and drop dead on the spot. An extreme example perhaps.

But, yes, I think the stat rolling comes from RPGs and it leads to a difficulty of balancing a book for different stat levels for at least two reasons; the assumption most people will only have D6s available (robbed from many a boardgame, no doubt) leads to a wide range of values on a kind of 'base 6' system, and the assumption gamebook player's are only going to deal with few stats (three in a standard FF) makes the value of any one stat extremely relevant.

If I remember correctly, to win TWoFM you have to fight the iron cyclops. That thing killed me time and again. I would spend the first part of every playthrough dreading the thing. That was the first book, and I don't think a SKILL 7 player would stand a chance. Unless I missed something.

[kieran]

May 12, 2024 12:22:15 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

If I remember correctly, to win TWoFM you have to fight the iron cyclops. That thing killed me time and again. I would spend the first part of every playthrough dreading the thing. That was the first book, and I don't think a SKILL 7 player would stand a chance. Unless I missed something.

It becomes more likely once you factor in you can drink the Potion of Strength twice in combat. The shield can also save you a few Stamina points with a bit of luck. A 7-14-7 character then has about a 20% chance of beating the book. Not great but better than the chances for a 12-24-12 character in some books!

[Pete Byrdie]

May 12, 2024 13:12:19 GMT kieran said:

May 12, 2024 12:22:15 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

If I remember correctly, to win TWoFM you have to fight the iron cyclops. That thing killed me time and again. I would spend the first part of every playthrough dreading the thing. That was the first book, and I don't think a SKILL 7 player would stand a chance. Unless I missed something.

It becomes more likely once you factor in you can drink the Potion of Strength twice in combat. The shield can also save you a few Stamina points with a bit of luck. A 7-14-7 character then has about a 20% chance of beating the book. Not great but better than the chances for a 12-24-12 character in some books!

I'd never have thought it was so high a chance, but I know you guys have a system for working all this out. I have to say I used to feel considerable disdain for that cyclops.

[CharlesX]

May 12, 2024 11:48:01 GMT sleepyscholar said:

May 12, 2024 11:31:16 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

Combat is for sapping health. Finding routes that minimise combats (without avoiding combat completely necessarily), or that make one more effective in combats, or giving oneself an advantage in a specific combat, well, surely that's much of the game. I've never been a fan of the unavoidable high skill encounter which no earlier discovery can mitigate, especially in a system like FF which offers little realistic in terms of strategy, so those kinds of combats exist only to eat up STAMINA.

Yes, and I think my argument is that 'sapping health' isn't really a very interesting dynamic. I think there are far more potentially interesting possibilities that were abandoned when FF adopted D&D's silly fine-fine-fine-fine-dead approach to combat.

And I'm still trying to get at the interaction between the sort of dynamic you describe, and the (patently untrue) contention that 'you can win any book no matter how low your stats are'. If this is the case, why bother rolling for them? There's already plenty of chance built into the system because of the rolls for combat. I honestly think that the only reason you roll for stats in an FF is because you roll for stats in D&D.

I feel the way in which combat is resolved in FF isn't most exciting. With minor tweaks - you roll for yourself and then roll for your opponent, possibly over many rounds, always damaging each other the same small amount, reminiscent of a 1700s musket battle between redcoats and bluecoats.

   Ultimately too much depends on the heavy variance of your starting stats (contrary to 'winning any book no matter how low your stats are with little difficulty'). Steve Jackson has already done an alternative system, so while Sir Ian and some celebrities may stick with the old one, I say it's time for a bold re-do of the original a la Howl Of The Werewolf or more newer ones.

   A pool system is just as difficult to implement properly as a dice-based one, some that have tried it have been boring (Real Life gamebooks) or overly easy (some of Jon Green's ACE gamebooks such as his takes on Oz and his on Alice In Wonderland). As I've implied, minor things like a Skills system help but yes, there's a case for an alternative system.

   In some senses gamebook writers can't win, people will always be saying gamebooks you can win w\o picking up dice \ fairly easy are too easy, and if they don't do that they are too hard, so there's always going to be people who "want to win regardless or almost certainly", "like some element of challenge" or "prefer their gamebooks hard". Stuff like Blood Of The Zombies and Spellbreaker would arguably deserve a special category  .  

[Pete Byrdie]

Just to add a little balance. I've been guilty of criticising the FF combat system. On this forum I've commented on the lack of choice saying you might as well just be told how many dice rolls to subtract from your STAMINA. But CharlesX is correct; there are so many different tastes gamebook players have there's no getting it right. The FF system is simple (an advantage I'd underestimated until I started a thread here about system complexity preferences), it generate tension first from hoping to roll a low Attack Strength for you opponent and then an adequate one for yourself, and it's served the franchise well enough in forty years that we're all here talking about it on a dedicated forum.

I think a lot of people just want a simple system. I'm not even sure many want choices in combat. As a roleplayer a more complicated system would suit me, but that applies only to a small part of the gamebook market, I suspect.

[sleepyscholar]

May 12, 2024 17:01:59 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

Just to add a little balance. I've been guilty of criticising the FF combat system. On this forum I've commented on the lack of choice saying you might as well just be told how many dice rolls to subtract from your STAMINA. But CharlesX is correct; there are so many different tastes gamebook players have there's no getting it right. The FF system is simple (an advantage I'd underestimated until I started a thread here about system complexity preferences), it generate tension first from hoping to roll a low Attack Strength for you opponent and then an adequate one for yourself, and it's served the franchise well enough in forty years that we're all here talking about it on a dedicated forum.

I think a lot of people just want a simple system. I'm not even sure many want choices in combat. As a roleplayer a more complicated system would suit me, but that applies only to a small part of the gamebook market, I suspect.

I agree that a simple system is an absolute must. The system in the Robin of Sherwood gamebooks, that Puffin reluctantly released with no promotion, was designed to become a full-fledged RPG system in a later book, but it was much too complex for a gamebook. Maybe Puffin knew what they were doing after all?

The problem is that the simpler the system, the more it interferes with the reader's suspension of disbelief. And you get stuff like the absurdity of drinking a potion in the midst of combat (thank you kieran!). How's that actually going to work, then?

It was pretty inevitable given when FF was produced, and that it was basically modelled on D&D with all its flaws, but I think the FF system is weak even for a simple system. I agree that choices in combat aren't what everyone wants, but I think it's possible to make an exciting system that doesn't just consist of repeated dice rolling, with incremental losses in points. And if you are going to have losses in points, I think it could be more useful to avoid this whole 'hit point = physical body' mentality and make them more abstract. If you have 'combat points' then they function as a sign of how well the combat is going (this was the original intention of D&D but some time during the late 70s it got forgotten). Wounds would be something that come in at the end of the combat, more as a consequence of its outcome than as points whittled away. And you could have combats ending with other outcomes, like unconsciousness and capture. This could all be done without making the system more complex. The outcomes don't have to be baked into the system, but could be written in the paragraphs where necessary. So when combat points reach zero, instead of it being 'you drop dead', it means 'you lose the combat', whatever the consequences of that particular combat might be. Given that this FF, many of these would be like 'The Cyclops glares at you sadistically with its beady eye, then dashes its club down on your unprotected skull', but at least you'd get a final line!

[Pete Byrdie]

May 13, 2024 1:33:29 GMT sleepyscholar said:

May 12, 2024 17:01:59 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

Just to add a little balance. I've been guilty of criticising the FF combat system. On this forum I've commented on the lack of choice saying you might as well just be told how many dice rolls to subtract from your STAMINA. But CharlesX is correct; there are so many different tastes gamebook players have there's no getting it right. The FF system is simple (an advantage I'd underestimated until I started a thread here about system complexity preferences), it generate tension first from hoping to roll a low Attack Strength for you opponent and then an adequate one for yourself, and it's served the franchise well enough in forty years that we're all here talking about it on a dedicated forum.

I think a lot of people just want a simple system. I'm not even sure many want choices in combat. As a roleplayer a more complicated system would suit me, but that applies only to a small part of the gamebook market, I suspect.

I agree that a simple system is an absolute must. The system in the Robin of Sherwood gamebooks, that Puffin reluctantly released with no promotion, was designed to become a full-fledged RPG system in a later book, but it was much too complex for a gamebook. Maybe Puffin knew what they were doing after all?

The problem is that the simpler the system, the more it interferes with the reader's suspension of disbelief. And you get stuff like the absurdity of drinking a potion in the midst of combat (thank you kieran!). How's that actually going to work, then?

It was pretty inevitable given when FF was produced, and that it was basically modelled on D&D with all its flaws, but I think the FF system is weak even for a simple system. I agree that choices in combat aren't what everyone wants, but I think it's possible to make an exciting system that doesn't just consist of repeated dice rolling, with incremental losses in points. And if you are going to have losses in points, I think it could be more useful to avoid this whole 'hit point = physical body' mentality and make them more abstract. If you have 'combat points' then they function as a sign of how well the combat is going (this was the original intention of D&D but some time during the late 70s it got forgotten). Wounds would be something that come in at the end of the combat, more as a consequence of its outcome than as points whittled away. And you could have combats ending with other outcomes, like unconsciousness and capture. This could all be done without making the system more complex. The outcomes don't have to be baked into the system, but could be written in the paragraphs where necessary. So when combat points reach zero, instead of it being 'you drop dead', it means 'you lose the combat', whatever the consequences of that particular combat might be. Given that this FF, many of these would be like 'The Cyclops glares at you sadistically with its beady eye, then dashes its club down on your unprotected skull', but at least you'd get a final line!

Interesting. I've tried a lot of different approaches recently. One, with many variations, that I abandoned for being too complicated: you have a starting ADVANTAGE, and a FATIGUE stat that begins at zero (at the start of the game, not necessarily at the start of the combat). ADVANTAGE basically serves as your SKILL score, and instead of rolling dice to add to it you add up to a certain amount of exertion (I never got around to fixing terminology), but you also add that amount to FATIGUE. (At a certain level of FATIGUE, you're EXHAUSTED, and can no longer add points to combats/stat tests, but you don't just drop dead, not important for this discussion).

But you're not simply fighting against an opponent's SKILL, as such, but DIFFICULTLY ratings for different types of attack against that particular creature; every opponent has a DIFFICULTLY rating for aggressive attacks, defensive attacks, and mortal strike, and each opponent or situation could have DIFFICULTLY ratings for attempting specific actions. Just roll a couple of dice, add the DIFFICULTLY rating for the type of attack you want to perform, compare it to your 'Attack Strength' (ADVANTAGE+however much FATIGUE you added). Each type of attack increases or decreases ADVANTAGE, so if you lose a round the next round is more difficult. In most versions, you lose by ADVANTAGE reaching zero, and win by succeeding on a mortal strike attack. (ADVANTAGE obviously has a maximum limit; again, details not important). In this 'system', if I can call it that as it was never solidified, taking a potion would have an ADVANTAGE cost of maybe a couple of points. Fine if you've got ADVANTAGE high enough for that to not matter but you're nearing exhaustion. (I probably had almost as many versions of FATIGUE being something you added to as you got more tired, as I did with something like VIGOUR that started high and zero was exhausted. I liked the idea that FATIGUE could just keep getting worse even when you were beyond the point of not being able to use it.)

I never really got this at a place I liked, but it was inspired by; wanting to give the player some choice, wanting to measure success in a round of combat by how it impacted following rounds rather than by some incremental health loss, and not wanting a measurement of health to be 'it hits zero so you're dead' regardless of how that health was taken. You could have all the available FATIGUE or VIGOUR depending on which version, but if ADVANTAGE reaches zero you've been overcome and in most cases killed. At the same time, FATIGUE could reach beyond the exhaustion level but you could stagger on, although you're probably going to want to rest and eat and perhaps find a restorative before doing a stat test or fighting anything (which is just a series of stat tests). So, I think I was thinking along the same lines, even if my solution was different.

[sleepyscholar]

May 13, 2024 6:34:19 GMT Pete Byrdie said:

May 13, 2024 1:33:29 GMT sleepyscholar said:

I agree that a simple system is an absolute must. The system in the Robin of Sherwood gamebooks, that Puffin reluctantly released with no promotion, was designed to become a full-fledged RPG system in a later book, but it was much too complex for a gamebook. Maybe Puffin knew what they were doing after all?

The problem is that the simpler the system, the more it interferes with the reader's suspension of disbelief. And you get stuff like the absurdity of drinking a potion in the midst of combat (thank you kieran !). How's that actually going to work, then?

It was pretty inevitable given when FF was produced, and that it was basically modelled on D&D with all its flaws, but I think the FF system is weak even for a simple system. I agree that choices in combat aren't what everyone wants, but I think it's possible to make an exciting system that doesn't just consist of repeated dice rolling, with incremental losses in points. And if you are going to have losses in points, I think it could be more useful to avoid this whole 'hit point = physical body' mentality and make them more abstract. If you have 'combat points' then they function as a sign of how well the combat is going (this was the original intention of D&D but some time during the late 70s it got forgotten). Wounds would be something that come in at the end of the combat, more as a consequence of its outcome than as points whittled away. And you could have combats ending with other outcomes, like unconsciousness and capture. This could all be done without making the system more complex. The outcomes don't have to be baked into the system, but could be written in the paragraphs where necessary. So when combat points reach zero, instead of it being 'you drop dead', it means 'you lose the combat', whatever the consequences of that particular combat might be. Given that this FF, many of these would be like 'The Cyclops glares at you sadistically with its beady eye, then dashes its club down on your unprotected skull', but at least you'd get a final line!

Interesting. I've tried a lot of different approaches recently. One, with many variations, that I abandoned for being too complicated: you have a starting ADVANTAGE, and a FATIGUE stat that begins at zero (at the start of the game, not necessarily at the start of the combat). ADVANTAGE basically serves as your SKILL score, and instead of rolling dice to add to it you add up to a certain amount of exertion (I never got around to fixing terminology), but you also add that amount to FATIGUE. (At a certain level of FATIGUE, you're EXHAUSTED, and can no longer add points to combats/stat tests, but you don't just drop dead, not important for this discussion).

But you're not simply fighting against an opponent's SKILL, as such, but DIFFICULTLY ratings for different types of attack against that particular creature; every opponent has a DIFFICULTLY rating for aggressive attacks, defensive attacks, and mortal strike, and each opponent or situation could have DIFFICULTLY ratings for attempting specific actions. Just roll a couple of dice, add the DIFFICULTLY rating for the type of attack you want to perform, compare it to your 'Attack Strength' (ADVANTAGE+however much FATIGUE you added). Each type of attack increases or decreases ADVANTAGE, so if you lose a round the next round is more difficult. In most versions, you lose by ADVANTAGE reaching zero, and win by succeeding on a mortal strike attack. (ADVANTAGE obviously has a maximum limit; again, details not important). In this 'system', if I can call it that as it was never solidified, taking a potion would have an ADVANTAGE cost of maybe a couple of points. Fine if you've got ADVANTAGE high enough for that to not matter but you're nearing exhaustion. (I probably had almost as many versions of FATIGUE being something you added to as you got more tired, as I did with something like VIGOUR that started high and zero was exhausted. I liked the idea that FATIGUE could just keep getting worse even when you were beyond the point of not being able to use it.)

I never really got this at a place I liked, but it was inspired by; wanting to give the player some choice, wanting to measure success in a round of combat by how it impacted following rounds rather than by some incremental health loss, and not wanting a measurement of health to be 'it hits zero so you're dead' regardless of how that health was taken. You could have all the available FATIGUE or VIGOUR depending on which version, but if ADVANTAGE reaches zero you've been overcome and in most cases killed. At the same time, FATIGUE could reach beyond the exhaustion level but you could stagger on, although you're probably going to want to rest and eat and perhaps find a restorative before doing a stat test or fighting anything (which is just a series of stat tests). So, I think I was thinking along the same lines, even if my solution was different.

My ideas above were just idle speculations. The actual combat systems I've designed have worked in a variety of different ways (just to show how I don't follow my own advice, my Water Margin system has 'body' and 'energy' stats). I've toyed with a system based on competing to obtain the advantage (great minds, etc), which could then be pressed in a variety of ways. But this is all a long time ago, when I still played RPGs. Moreover, I'm not sure than RPG-style systems are actually the best fit for gamebooks. I think it's better to go back to a blank slate and think about what you want to achieve. One option was the Virtual Reality system (it's now Critical IF, I think), which dispensed with the dice/game element. But for those of us who enjoy the thrill of dice, I think there are other possibilities. The problem, as your thoughts above demonstrate, is that it is really easy to start complexifying a relatively simple concept. But I think you were sound in going in to the design with a clear idea of what you wanted your system to be able to actually do in practice. What sort of outcomes should it produce? How much luck should it allow for? How long should combats take?

[Pete Byrdie]

The observation that an RPG approach isn't necessarily ideal for a gamebook was a big influence. In a gamebook, you'll never have two player characters against each other (not that you want that in an RPG, but it happens). Nor will you have two NPCs fighting each other often, and you can always ad hoc that anyway, no need for the player to work that out. So, you don't need directly comparable stat blocks. Just something that works from the player's perspective.

Anyway, I'm giving it a break for a bit now. I tried so many variations of so many systems, I'm struggling to see each one afresh, judge how complicated they would be to someone encountering them for the first time, or even keep in my head how one variation differs from previous ones. A bit like when you say a word too many times and it becomes sounds with no meaning (semantic satiation is the term for that, I recently learned).

With the approach I outlined above, I thought I was being terribly clever moving away from the standard 'roll, add to stats and compare', until I realised I was still using FF terminology like SKILL and Attack Strength in lieu of undecided terminology. It's still comparing two stats, one of which has a dice roll added. I might still need to have the courage to move away from the RPG approach more than I have.

[kieran]

May 13, 2024 1:33:29 GMT sleepyscholar said:

And you get stuff like the absurdity of drinking a potion in the midst of combat

Well, Warlock of Firetop Mountain is the only book that lets you away with that - it was possibly an oversight by the authors that they corrected for the later books, but it certainly makes that Iron Cyclops fight much more manageable.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Why are games designers (British ones especially including many wargames designers) so hell-bent on using numbered cubes as the sole form of random number generators?

I've had enough of that 2d6 bell curve.

Joe Dever tricked people into using a D10 with his Random Number Table and good on him for doing so.

Here is a question: What do people actually want from gamebook combat? 

And another one: What are the memorable combats from FF books?
For me it is usually the combats that aren't just rolling dice back and forth for 3 minutes. 
Think of the confrontation with Balthus Dire and the fight against the cyclops in FF16. Even tangling with the Bloodbeast in Deathtrap Dungeon has a bit more to it - avoiding the tongue, maybe needing to use a backup weapon like a dagger, taking precautions against the toxic fumes etc.
And now think what an anticlimax it would have been to fight the Riddling Reaver with him being given stats of SKILL 13 STAMINA 26 ATTACKS 3 or whatever. 

Inspiration from cinema - the Indiana Jones films have got some good over-the-top stuff in them - the Temple of Doom with Indy struggling with the assassin who is trying to garotte him in the bedchamber, or the fight against the big slave-driver who ends up getting fed into that grinder. Maybe the books should aim for THAT sort of encounter? I am aware that it would take up more paragraphs... but then not all the fights have to be like that. And we could probably do with fewer combats overall in the books - because some encounters just feel like the editor saying 'oi! chuck a monster in to fight.. this is meant to be FIGHTING fantasy you know!'. 

[Pete Byrdie]

May 13, 2024 18:29:36 GMT bloodbeasthandler said:

Why are games designers (British ones especially including many wargames designers) so hell-bent on using numbered cubes as the sole form of random number generators?

I've had enough of that 2d6 bell curve.

Joe Dever tricked people into using a D10 with his Random Number Table and good on him for doing so.

Here is a question: What do people actually want from gamebook combat? 

And another one: What are the memorable combats from FF books?
For me it is usually the combats that aren't just rolling dice back and forth for 3 minutes. 
Think of the confrontation with Balthus Dire and the fight against the cyclops in FF16. Even tangling with the Bloodbeast in Deathtrap Dungeon has a bit more to it - avoiding the tongue, maybe needing to use a backup weapon like a dagger, taking precautions against the toxic fumes etc.
And now think what an anticlimax it would have been to fight the Riddling Reaver with him being given stats of SKILL 13 STAMINA 26 ATTACKS 3 or whatever. 

Inspiration from cinema - the Indiana Jones films have got some good over-the-top stuff in them - the Temple of Doom with Indy struggling with the assassin who is trying to garotte him in the bedchamber, or the fight against the big slave-driver who ends up getting fed into that grinder. Maybe the books should aim for THAT sort of encounter? I am aware that it would take up more paragraphs... but then not all the fights have to be like that. And we could probably do with fewer combats overall in the books - because some encounters just feel like the editor saying 'oi! chuck a monster in to fight.. this is meant to be FIGHTING fantasy you know!'. 

I disagree with your views on the 2D6 Bell curve. Keeping it in mind is essential to balancing a combat. I have considered doing away with dice. Just have initial setup, assume the player character can achieve certain things, give a handful of choices. More purely interactive fiction than a gamebook. Some health mechanic can still be thrown in, or a points pool for spending on achieving tasks.

I agree totally with your other assessment.

In FF, for example, while I'm apparently supposed to be the 'hero', I feel I spend a lot of time nervously moping from location to location hoping I won't be called upon to do anything heroic because it'll undoubtedly require a LUCK or SKILL test that stands a good chance of ending in disaster.

If I can design a system I'm happy with, as well as each opponent having a DIFFICULTLY for some standard attacks, I want to include special circumstance DIFFICULTIES for that particular opponent, such as over balancing them, hitting a particular weak spot. But, also, for using the environment; jumping on the table and kicking them in the face, leaping out of a fight on a walkway to swing from a huge iron chandelier to a door on the other side of a room full of goblins, for example. Some of these things will just improve ADVANTAGE, some will completely change the nature of the encounter, some might have outcomes so unexpected they'll require turning to another reference.

As for your first question; what do we want from gamebook combat? Me, personally, for it to be quick and simple, or for it to be moderately quick and more interesting. Not, complicated, necessarily, but as you've described, more like an action packed movie.