1) Avenger!

[The Editor (Alex B)]

This is the place to chat about the first book in The Way of the Tiger series.

[sylas]

everyone jump on the Way of the Tiger kickstarter page now!

a few weeks to get to the tally and possibly Books 0, a fixed book 6, and a new 7!

[paltogue]

Although I own the originals, I bought them off Ebay in the early 2000s, not having known about them when they came out and probably as a result not getting really into them (although they are nice to have). So I wish the Kickstarter all the best but I'm only a casual fan so I don't think I'll be pledging any funds.

[hynreck]

Let's hope the kickstarter is a success. I don't have any of the books, so now seems like the right time to pledge, even though I find this to be on the expensive side of things. Still, if the quality is there I'll be happy.

[torallion]

Way of the Tiger will always have a place in my heart but this product is too expensive for me sadly - I'd love to see paperbacks further down the line though.

[hynreck]

Do not worry, there will be paperbacks, as confirmed by Dave Morris on the Fabled Lands blog. They will be further down the road, of course, and it is unsure if books 0 and 7 will be made available, but the rest will be there eventually. But, as written on the kickstarter page, the money pledged now will also serve the purpose of making sure the futur editions will be properly edited and corrected. So even a little pledge goes toward a greater good, so it is not a waste.
...at least if you intend on playing the books proper.

[hynreck]

Well, I've now done my part and pledged. I would encourage everyone here with a minimal interest in the subject to do so. Even 5$ would help. Let's keep the gamebook world (and dream) alive.

[hynreck]

As of this writing, there's only 8 hours left to the Kickstarter. Those on the fence should decide now! With a little luck, we can reach the 45K stretch goal and some sweet free music. I know this isn't the busiest forum, but straddlers reading this have had at least a last warning.

[paltogue]

Are there many play-throughs of the WotT books out there? Can't see much (and Ed hasn't done any of them surprisingly). Anyway, here's a link to Stuart's review of Avenger!, just so we have it handy, which is certainly worth a look:

www.lloydofgamebooks.com/2014/05/avenger-review.html

[a moderator]

When I get back into the swing of things at the blog, I will be covering Way of the Tiger in a bit. I just chose to focus on Eternal Champions and Falcon first, Thomson-wise.

In the mean time, you could look through the old [Let's Play] The Way of the Tiger thread at rpg.net.

[paltogue]

Cool! Looking forward to your playthroughs.

[hynreck]

Got 2 books out of 8 so far, can't wait to get my hands on the whole lot. Actually, I can wait, I've got no choice!

I'll write a review eventually...

[hynreck]

This is where it belongs, so here it goes.

This (and the following posts, which I shall copy/paste eventually) is a post done originally by Richard S. Hetley of Megara on their Kickstarter page for The Way of the Tiger.

Just so that the credits are clear.

The changelog for book 1, Avenger!

Good day. We are making progress on all fronts, and, like I said last time, we plan to share changelogs as we go through each book. Well, except for books 0 and 7, because there aren't exactly any "gameplay improvements" to make when the books were never published before.

I have handed off edits for book 1 to Mikaël. As mentioned when talking about who does what on this team, "I" am the editor, Richard; but everyone from the original authors through to the RPG team has weighed in on what the book needs. Now Mikaël is doing the massive task of getting it into a print-ready layout with illustrations, and we hope not to harrass him too often with "Ooh! Ooh! We missed something, so go back and change it!"

That said, do you personally know something that needed correcting back in the 1980's version of book 1? Then compare to the below and let us know in the comments if we missed something obvious.

General gameplay

In the game rules, the authors instructed us to change throw mechanics. Throws used to give a bonus to damage only; now they ALSO give a bonus to your Punch Modifier or Kick Modifier. (This allows for more complex strategy. Some players mistakenly thought this was true in the original anyway, because the rules said "it will be much easier to strike a thrown opponent.")

Clarified how kicks, throws, and Inner Force interact. (Order of operations.)

Put the enemy's counter attack into its own subsection in the rules for ease of use.

Clarified shuriken rules. (The original presented rules but then almost always ignored them. Now the book acknowledges that results vary.)

In the main paragraphs, the authors raised the amount of Endurance restored from brief rest. Instead of 1-3, you might get 2-5. (This does not affect anything larger, like 10 Endurance rest, but gives more of a reason to bother recording the tinier bits.)

All combat sections including throws give full enemy statistics.

Whenever you can injure an enemy early, e.g., with a shuriken, the text now tells you the enemy's Endurance early so you can do proper record-keeping.

Clarified combat with special rules, e.g., a throw that has an extra chance of success the first time it is used, and made the presentation uniform.

Flowchart errors and crashes

118. Corrected to send you to 390 instead of 301.

126. Changed to allow you to proceed even if you have neither the required skill nor any Inner Force.

244. Corrected to send you to 236 instead of 326.

326. Corrected to send you to 356 instead of 311.

356. Now exists. At all.

Text problems from taking an unexpected route

9. Eliminated casual reference to shuriken, as you might have none left.

47. Runeweaver is no longer said to have his sight restored (except by implication), as it was possible for him not to have been blinded in the first place.

118, 245, 278, 319, 367. Eliminated references to left arm, as it could have been broken.

282. You no longer use two shuriken, as the instructions only say you will use one if you choose to go here and you might have only one left.

372. The magician no longer talks about killing the Snow Giant (except by implication), as you might have killed it first.

Conflicts and logic errors

321. Established 26 Endurance on the Elder God. (The original section 321 conflicted with 333 and said only 22 Endurance, which would have made it weaker than the Two-headed Giant.)

343. Eliminated the option to go to the City of Far Snows. (You already decided not to do so and can't exactly go back.)

Style

Standardized capitalization of skills, martial arts moves, combat mechanics, and collectable items.

Standardized uncapitalization of ninja tools, excepting only the Blood of Nil.

Standardized spelling of "Island of Plenty," "Deirdra," "All-Mother," "Halvorc," and others.

Standardized phrasing as "Forked Lightning kick" with no "Strike" in the name. (This eliminates confusion with the Cobra Strike punch in places where the text leaves out "kick" or "punch.")

Rephrased all references to a skill to say its proper name. (This prevents confusion that could be caused by casual use in a sentence.)

Changed many sentences for flow and clarity, e.g., by comma use or reordering terms. Many, many sentences.

Other

Glossed over money. The player might collect "some gold pieces," but no longer is told how many. (The original was ambiguous over whether you should record numbers on your Character Sheet. You cannot run out of gold pieces anywhere in the series, so it is worthwhile to prevent player confusion. Note that talents of gold in book 4 are a different matter.)

11, 218. Made explicit that you do not retrieve your shuriken.

164, 233, 282. Made explicit that you get your shuriken back. (Usually you are only told when you do NOT retrieve one, but it seemed helpful in these sections. Other sections still leave you to assume you get your shuriken back as the default.)

396. The authors eliminated the Kick Modifier penalty. (It was a nasty surprise when just starting out, it was ambiguous whether it would be restored at the end of the book, and any such restoration would be really difficult to communicate to a reader given all the other intervening changes to the Character Sheet.)

. . . That's all the "text" news for now. Book 1 will get the very fastest turn-around time because we did tons of work for the demo version already. Next update I plan to talk about art development in general and book 1 in specific. I'm also editing book 0 now, which already got several rounds of back-and-forth revision between David and other team members, and hopefully is almost ready. I'm as eager to see the finished product as you are!

[hynreck]

And here's the follow-up done by Richard. I've only kept the relevant parts, though.

Updates to the changelog for book 1

We'd mentioned that in response to our changelog for book 1, a backer directed us to look again at Quench-heart Keep. Section 74 had a bit of oddness depending on the route you took there. So we added this to the pile of corrections, but then we came upon another matter of routes which we'd forgotten since first looking at the area: a flowchart problem where you could time travel one day into the future just by choice of route. It looks like the authors meant for these sections to loop together differently anyway, so we changed some section numbers and believe the problem is resolved. Here are new changelog entries:

Text problems from taking an unexpected route

74. You no longer "realise" where you are, as you might have scouted this area before.

Flowchart errors and crashes

166. Edited to send you to 398 instead of 402. (Section 398 has an "if you have not tried to enter the keep already" check which you would always fail in the original version. With this change it is now possible to pass the check.)

398. Added the option to go to 156. (Section 398 is the go-to place for players who scouted beforehand, so adding the scouted option is needed.)

418. Eliminated the option to go to 402, reducing to a single option for assaulting the keep. (You cannot transport yourself through time anymore.)

So that's better. Mikaël has put together a file ready to print, though we still are open to small changes if absolutely needed. (Not too many, we hope . . . )

[kieran]

Thanks Hynreck

[hynreck]

No problem, for posterity, and all that!
I intend to post the changelogs for all the other books (well, except Redeemer!, or course) as well, but unless people are in a hurry, I will do so only after I've read them, to avoid accidental spoilers.

[peasantscribbler]

Sept 18, 2015 16:00:40 GMT hynreck said:

The changelog for book 1, Avenger!

Clarified how kicks, throws, and Inner Force interact. (Order of operations.)

Now that I've seen the rules of the new(ish) editions, I think I know what this means. In the original rules of TWOFTT, you are instructed to double the score you roll when determining damage if you are using Inner Force. So, if you have used Inner Force for a successful kick and roll a 3 for damage, you would double that to 6 and add 2 for using a kick for a total of 8 points of damage. In the new rules, you just double the damage. So, in my example, you would roll 3, add 2, and double for a total of 10 points of damage. I've made it through the original series with the original rules, so I'm not sure that the change is completely necessary. However, it would make tough combats significantly easier.

[sylas]

Aug 8, 2021 18:48:31 GMT peasantscribbler said:

Sept 18, 2015 16:00:40 GMT hynreck said:

The changelog for book 1, Avenger!

Clarified how kicks, throws, and Inner Force interact. (Order of operations.)

Now that I've seen the rules of the new(ish) editions, I think I know what this means. In the original rules of TWOFTT, you are instructed to double the score you roll when determining damage if you are using Inner Force. So, if you have used Inner Force for a successful kick and roll a 3 for damage, you would double that to 6 and add 2 for using a kick for a total of 8 points of damage. In the new rules, you just double the damage. So, in my example, you would roll 3, add 2, and double for a total of 10 points of damage. I've made it through the original series with the original rules, so I'm not sure that the change is completely necessary. However, it would make tough combats significantly easier.

TBH I've always interpreted the rules to be what they are now. Doubling the rolled number then adding 2 for kicks makes less sense since the +2 is still part of the damage the kick does.

[kieran]

Aug 8, 2021 21:14:42 GMT sylas said:

Aug 8, 2021 18:48:31 GMT peasantscribbler said:

Now that I've seen the rules of the new(ish) editions, I think I know what this means. In the original rules of TWOFTT, you are instructed to double the score you roll when determining damage if you are using Inner Force. So, if you have used Inner Force for a successful kick and roll a 3 for damage, you would double that to 6 and add 2 for using a kick for a total of 8 points of damage. In the new rules, you just double the damage. So, in my example, you would roll 3, add 2, and double for a total of 10 points of damage. I've made it through the original series with the original rules, so I'm not sure that the change is completely necessary. However, it would make tough combats significantly easier.

TBH I've always interpreted the rules to be what they are now. Doubling the rolled number then adding 2 for kicks makes less sense since the +2 is still part of the damage the kick does.

I've always interpreted this rule the same way that Peasantscribbler did. The new/confirmed way of doing things makes kicks a lot more powerful.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Aug 8, 2021 21:14:42 GMT sylas said:

TBH I've always interpreted the rules to be what they are now. Doubling the rolled number then adding 2 for kicks makes less sense since the +2 is still part of the damage the kick does.

Same here. 
A kick does d6+2 damage. 
So if Inner Force doubles the damage, it must be 2(d6+2). 
 

[peasantscribbler]

Aug 9, 2021 14:00:12 GMT kieran said:

Aug 8, 2021 21:14:42 GMT sylas said:

TBH I've always interpreted the rules to be what they are now. Doubling the rolled number then adding 2 for kicks makes less sense since the +2 is still part of the damage the kick does.

I've always interpreted this rule the same way that Peasantscribbler did. The new/confirmed way of doing things makes kicks a lot more powerful.

Especially if you land an Inner Force powered kick after a successful throw. That combo under the clarified rules does 4 more points of damage than it would under the interpretation we used. The new rules also make the combo easier to pull off by adding a plus 2 modifier for a kick to hit after a successful throw. However, this still might not help that much given the high degree of difficulty for successful throws against most opponents.

[sylas]

Being able to one-shot some opponents with a well-timed strike is definitely risky but the big pay off makes it that much more enticing, even if it's not always the best option.

[dragonwarrior8]

Spamming moves does seem to be a bit of a problem with the system. I found myself pouring any modifiers that gave me the choice into Kick because how often is a Kick ever NOT one of the options you have? Perhaps they could have used some rule whereby you cant use a Punch or Kick more than a couple of times in a row before you had to use something else. If Ive attempted a Kick 10 times in a row, youd think my opponent would know what is coming next by that point and would act accordingly.

[sylas]

Aug 10, 2021 16:35:32 GMT dragonwarrior8 said:

Spamming moves does seem to be a bit of a problem with the system. I found myself pouring any modifiers that gave me the choice into Kick because how often is a Kick ever NOT one of the options you have? Perhaps they could have used some rule whereby you cant use a Punch or Kick more than a couple of times in a row before you had to use something else. If Ive attempted a Kick 10 times in a row, youd think my opponent would know what is coming next by that point and would act accordingly.

I think Kicks can't be combined with Yubi-Jutsu which is sometimes more useful than Shin-Ren but it depends on the set of Skills you have. I seem to remember some foes punishing you for using the same move twice in succession and there's an opponent that counters repeated moves in book 7. Also, even if you're expecting a Kick (or whatever attack) doesn't mean you can avoid or counter it.

[vastariner]

Aug 10, 2021 16:35:32 GMT dragonwarrior8 said:

Spamming moves does seem to be a bit of a problem with the system. I found myself pouring any modifiers that gave me the choice into Kick because how often is a Kick ever NOT one of the options you have? Perhaps they could have used some rule whereby you cant use a Punch or Kick more than a couple of times in a row before you had to use something else. If Ive attempted a Kick 10 times in a row, youd think my opponent would know what is coming next by that point and would act accordingly.

[dragonwarrior8]

Haha! Thank you for that! Blackadder is one of my favourite shows of all time, and series 4 is my favourite of all the series (with series 2 a close second). Rik Mayall's performance in the episode "Private Plane" is particularly fantastic. And what a final shot in the last episode, especially for a comedy series. Haunting!

[electricwater]

Just playing these for the first time and enjoying them a great deal. Quick question: the famous poisoning scene mentions the use of waxed thread. Is this something you have to find in the adventure, or are you assumed to have it? I’ve looked pretty hard for it but without success.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Jan 31, 2022 21:09:19 GMT electricwater said:

Just playing these for the first time and enjoying them a great deal. Quick question: the famous poisoning scene mentions the use of waxed thread. Is this something you have to find in the adventure, or are you assumed to have it? I’ve looked pretty hard for it but without success.

You are assumed to have it. It's part of the murder kit you carry around.   

[pip]

Can someone who owns the revised edition tell me if, in reference 239, your defence against Olvar's bolt is still 5? It feels like a mistake (as in almost every other reference where Olvar uses that attack, your defence is 6, and there's no obvious reason why your defence would be lower there), but I didn't see it in the changelog above.

[Pete Byrdie]

Dec 5, 2022 15:14:14 GMT pip said:

Can someone who owns the revised edition tell me if, in reference 239, your defence against Olvar's bolt is still 5? It feels like a mistake (as in almost every other reference where Olvar uses that attack, your defence is 6, and there's no obvious reason why your defence would be lower there), but I didn't see it in the changelog above.

In the Megara Entertainment hardcover version from 2014, it's 5. I don't know whether that's what you mean by the revised edition.