How's your chances? The perfect FF book.

[thealmightymudworm]

I thought I'd take a break from recreating the TUFFF threads for each book and do one that I actually posted in:

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I wondered whether it was possible to analyse part of what makes a good FF book (or at least ideal for particular readers) in terms of your chances and what affects them.
 
Obviously much of what makes an FF book good isn't quantifiable (well-written story; striking illustrations) but the chances of winning through are, and to some extent what affects those is too.
 

Factors affecting your chances of winning might be broken down as:

1. Dice luck - assuming you roll a fresh character each time, all the fights, tests, etc you have to get through.
2. Choice luck - based on actual decisions you make, but without anything to go on (right vs left).
3. Perception - you make better decisions if you read carefully, eg if you read BW's background properly you'll know what sort of gemstones the Eyes of Telaak are likely to be.
4. Brainteasers - eg you get lumbered with an object covered with weird symbols or a string of gibberish. Solving it is a big help/essential.
5. Judgement/common sense - this is quite general, really anything from remembering to use heavy blunt weapons against skeletons and avoiding 'red wine' in a vampire's abode to using the side door/window rather than the front door when you know your presence isn't wanted.
6. Attitude - authors tend to reward some behaviour over others. A lot of choices weigh being kind or honourable against being prudent, or trusting first impressions against giving the benefit of the doubt. It's surprising how often going miles out of your way to help a child turns out to be to your advantage.
 

So perhaps someone might say that a good book is one that, say, 5-10% of readers will complete on their first go and 50-80% can complete with a walkthrough (where the only pitfall is the minimum amount of dice luck) but also that a switched-on reader will have much better chances for than someone who is taking decisions more or less at random (that is, you don't want too much choice luck compared to 3-6).
 
Some books are actually impossible to complete with lucky dice and random choices alone (eg TCT). Is that a good thing or not? Are books where you're judged heavily on your attitude/honour good or not?
 
Not sure how much of that makes sense.

[thealmightymudworm]

fallingmast:

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Thank you for posting this, this is an excellent topic and one I've been thinking of posting myself ever since joining this forum.

It seems to me that there are two main types of gamebook structure: 1. linear (following a set course of events with few actual deviations from plot or story, and where taking a wrong turn will make it difficult or impossible to complete the book, eg. Knights Of Doom, Crimson Tide, and almost all Ian Livingstone books), or 2. Hub (where different areas can be revisited in different order, or more than once, eg. Scorpion Swamp, Night of the Necromancer, Night Dragon).

Personally, i favour 'hub' gamebooks as they give more choice and seem more realistic in terms of actual gameplay. the key difference between the two is, i feel, best described by Joe Dever when he was asked what the difference is between his Lone Wolf books and FF (i'm sure it was quoted somewhere on this forum before but i can't remember where): with FF, the goal is to 'beat the book', but with LW, you just go along with the story.

For example, it took me absolutely bloody ages to complete Knights of Doom (10+ attempts, even with a map), and when I found the one-true-path (and how outrageously convoluted it is) all i felt when i finally completed it was relief rather than a sense of completion. it certainly wasn't fun and i will never play it again, as it was more of an ordeal than an adventure just to 'beat the book'. Whereas most of the LW books are also 'linear', they are more forgiving and certainly less punitive in terms of instadeaths; so it encourages the player to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

I would also like to give special reference to The Crimson Tide; although it suffers from One-true-path-ism (the most extreme form of linear gamebook structures) which I normally hate, the pay-off is huge. Once you finally 'get it' and what the book is all about, it really does become more than just an ordinary gamebook. Although its not my personal favourite gamebook, i can certainly understand why it gets so much praise on this forum, and deservedly so.

I know Ian Livingstone gets a bit of a drubbing sometimes, but i feel that the main criticism I can level against him is that he needs to realise that if someone should keep playing his gamebooks, it should be because they enjoy it, not because they have to keep finding a random or often non-sensical path to completing the book. that's just attrition: It's frustrating and doesn't give any sense of satisfaction when you do finally persevere and complete the book.

In summary, these are my personal tips for what constitutes a great gamebook structure:

1. Always try to give an option of 'fight or flight'. if you're up against a tough opponent, at least try to include the option of getting an item that will aid or avoid combat (ie. circuit jammer, eye of the cyclops, various magic swords).

2. Don't be punitive with Instadeaths, especially in the first half of the book. this includes having opponents early on with skills around 8 or 9, as this could easily kill off a low-skilled character. i would at least like to feel i've got about 50-75% into a book before being killed off (appointment with F.E.A.R. got this just right, i feel).

3. Avoid one-true-pathism: if you don't have the right macguffin,  just have a stamina/luck penalty instead of death, unless it is pivotal to the plot (ie. the password in Khare)

4. Have more than one ending. like some video games, you could have a good, medium or bad ending, and you would be more likely to play it again to 'unlock' them. I love the bit in Dead Of Night where, although you defeat Myurr in an explosion, you die in the blast. It's very well written and gives you a tragic yet heroic send-off. one of my favorite endings in a gamebook, come to think of it

5. Be crystal clear on the difference between skill/attack strength bonuses (is that too much to ask for???)

6. If you are going to have lots of luck tests, at least attempt to give a few places where you can actually get some luck back!!! the same applies for stamina and skill, of course. i feel most gamebooks forget this rule most of all.

7. Use a hub structure to give you a feeling of freedom, and increased replayability (Night Dragon got this just about right)

8. Sure, whack a few puzzles in, but at least try to hide the answers. bit of a tricky one, this: for example, if you were playing Creature of Havoc again after already completing it, do you just 'pretend' you can't understand language even though you've already probably broken the code years ago? I don't readily know how, but it would be lovely to have a gamebook that would have a different solution every time you played it.
that's all i can think of for now, what are your opinions?

[thealmightymudworm]

greenspine:

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fallingmast said:

Whereas most of the LW books are also 'linear', they are more forgiving and certainly less punitive in terms of instadeaths; so it encourages the player to just sit back and enjoy the ride.

That's not how I see it. Several LW books include unavoidable sections which provide a 10% chance of Instant Death, regardless of stats. Book 13 is even more 'fun' in that the chance of dying is 40% unless you have the correct Discipline (plus it's a rubbish death). 

fallingmast said:

I don't readily know how, but it would be lovely to have a gamebook that would have a different solution every time you played it.

Stephen Thraves' gamebook Murder in the Dark! is a mystery with six different solutions. The 'correct' one is semi-randomly determined at the start each time you play, and it's structured to ensure that you can only find the clues which will lead to whichever solution is the correct one. Gets a bit repetitive after two or three attempts, but if you allow plenty of time between readings, that can help restore some of the mystery.

[thealmightymudworm]

fallingmast:

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...yes, everyone hates that clunker at the end of book 13. There's another one in book 4 where you can get picked off by a ruanese sniper, and there's one in book two which is the reason why I picked my forum name, fact fans!

Put it in perspective though, that's three separate instances of 'instadeath' in 28 books, so that's not too bad, I reckon. I mean, compare that to something like Chasms of Malice. Jesus, that book is brutal. Might as well have just called it The Coin-Toss of Randomness.

Thanks for mentioning that mystery gamebook though, sounds intriguing, I'm off to hunt it down now.

[thealmightymudworm]

johnbrawn:

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I always found LW 1-5 totally dull compared compared to FF but I admit I have not looked at them for literally decades. They seemed more like stories with a few choices thrown in as an afterthought. At least FF genuinely made you the hero where the choices you made resulted in a material difference.


I also have one Greystar book and one Demonspawn book which again I have not looked at for literally decades.

[thealmightymudworm]

greenspine:

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johnbrawn said:

I always found LW 1-5 totally dull compared compared to FF but I admit I have not looked at them for literally decades. They seemed more like stories with a few choices thrown in as an afterthought. At least FF genuinely made you the hero where the choices you made resulted in a material difference.

Some of the bonus adventures in the Mongoose Publishing LW reissues are even worse on that front.

[thealmightymudworm]

kieran:

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fallingmast said:

Put it in perspective though, that's three separate instances of 'instadeath' in 28 books, so that's not too bad, I reckon.

There's more than that though. There's another one in Book 2 where you can be thrown off your horse and I kept losing in Book 14 with the one right at the end (the Freeway Warrior Series is much worse for it though - every 5 sections seems to be a "roll high or die" check). Lone Wolf also has some obligatory fights that are so tough they'd make Ian Livingstone wince (Zakhan Kimah, The Chaos Master, Lord Ixitaaga etc.) and were generally horribly unbalanced depending on whether you were using a character from previous books or a fresh one. Although I agree with Dever that decisions matter less in beating Lone Wolf books than FF books, I'd rather fail from going left instead of right rather than from rolling a 1 at a certain part in a largely linear story.

[thealmightymudworm]

fearthealmightymudworm:

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I'm now totally lost having never read any Lone Wolf books.

fallingmast said:


Thank you for posting this, this is an excellent topic and one i've been thinking of posting myself ever since joining this forum.

It seems to me that there are two main types of gamebook structure: 1. linear (following a set course of events with few actual deviations from plot or story, and where taking a wrong turn will make it difficult or impossible to complete the book, eg. Knights Of Doom, Crimson Tide, and almost all Ian Livingstone books), or 2. Hub (where different areas can be revisited in different order, or more than once, eg. Scorpion Swamp, Night of the Necromancer, Night Dragon).

Knights of Doom is one of a number of FF books I've never read, but I agree that the worst thing is to have a convoluted linear structure where the reader keeps grimly returning to it like the victim of a crime seeking closure. I suppose it's the relatively easy way for an author to ensure that someone devotes a lot of time to a book in the hope that many hours spent on it feels like value for money, but making you engage your brain is a better way.

fallingmast said:

I would also like to give special reference to The Crimson Tide; although it suffers from One-true-path-ism (the most extreme form of linear gamebook structures) which I normally hate, the pay-off is huge. Once you finally 'get it' and what the book is all about, it really does become more than just an ordinary gamebook. Although it's not my personal favourite gamebook, i can certainly understand why it gets so much praise on this forum, and deservedly so.

TCT is a very marmite book which gets very varied reviews. I think it gets a good reception on here because people are pretty hardcore and value a clever concept highly enough to bang their heads against it indefinitely. I'm perhaps more of an FF lightweight and didn't enjoy it, although that's partly because I never worked out how to win it (aged 12 or 13). That's actually how I found this place, as when I turned the book up again after nearly 20 years I thought 'Oh Hell no.' and googled my way to sunil060902's walkthrough on here.

fallingmast said:

1. Always try to give an option of 'fight or flight'. If you're up against a tough opponent, at least try to include the option of getting an item that will aid or avoid combat (ie. circuit jammer, eye of the cyclops, various magic swords).

2. Don't be punitive with Instadeaths, especially in the first half of the book. This includes having opponents early on with skills around 8 or 9, as this could easily kill off a low-skilled character. i would at least like to feel I've got about 50-75% into a book before being killed off (Appointment with F.E.A.R. got this just right, I feel).

[...]

6. If you are going to have lots of luck tests, at least attempt to give a few places where you can actually get some luck back!!! The same applies for stamina and skill, of course. i feel most gamebooks forget this rule most of all.

Some of the problems in the books are built in by the basic rules: Any path including modestly challenging fights for Skill 12 fighters will kill Skill 7ers stone dead. I suspect most authors don't even imagine that readers are going to try the books with Skill 7. Take the Giant in Scorpion Swamp (you have to be playing badly to fight him but still...). "Luckily for you the Giant is not very nimble. His club rarely hits you but it does double damage." Rarely hits you? Skill 9! Fixing Skill levels at between 8 and 11 would probably make more sense for setting up fights, as well as eliminating auto-wins for Tests of Skill if you have 12.

As for Luck the obligatory loss of a point each time is something that would be better only applying to deliberate use in combat. There are occasions when Testing your Luck seems appropriate when the implied punishment of losing a luck point does not. Since it is the way it is, some compensation would definitely help.

fallingmast said:

5. be crystal clear on the difference between skill/attack strength bonuses (is that too much to ask for???)

Indeed.

"Aha! A hefty magic sword! Strapping this to my belt will clearly improve my ability to run, climb and jump..."

__

In general, a good FF book should have people re-starting from Para 1 for reasons other than because 1. they want to win and 2. they haven't yet because it's virtually impossible. Not least because a lot of readers won't bother trying more than a few times if they just keep dying in horrible ways for reasons which don't make sense. Partial success endings, clear successes in sub-quests and a variety of paths you can take (so that even if you win you know that you might have done it more easily or in an interestingly different way) are all good for that.

Of course if you keep being dumped back at Para 1 because of doing things which were just the only reasonable option, and your only hope of avoiding them is to remember not to, you're unlikely to stick to the task anyway.

[thealmightymudworm]

kieran:

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thealmightymudworm said:

"Aha! A hefty magic sword! Strapping this to my belt will clearly improve my ability to run, climb and jump..."

It's amusing/annoying when some authors came up with contrived ways round this problem ("the sword will add 1 to your Initial Skill in combat situations only"). There's just no need for that - there's a perfectly good stat for allowing players to get combat bonuses without affecting their Skill and that's Attack Strength. I don't know how nearly every FF author missed its existence while the two who came up with it promptly forgot about if after the first 5 books.

[thealmightymudworm]

greenspine:

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Let's see how my mini-adventure (in Fighting Fantazine 9) matches up to fallingmast's list.

1. Always try to give an option of 'fight or flight'. if you're up against a tough opponent, at least try to include the option of getting an item that will aid or avoid combat (ie. circuit jammer, eye of the cyclops, various magic swords).

There are some nasty fights in there, but most of the toughest ones are not (or need not be) to the death.

2. Don't be punitive with Instadeaths, especially in the first half of the book. this includes having opponents early on with skills around 8 or 9, as this could easily kill off a low-skilled character. i would at least like to feel i've got about 50-75% into a book before being killed off (appointment with F.E.A.R. got this just right, i feel).

Early instadeaths tend to be consequences of unwise choices. It's a bit tough fight-wise - while I've beaten it in playtesting with 9 Skill, I'll admit that a character with a lower Initial Skill doesn't have much chance. Unlucky rolls can also make it unpleasant for slightly better fighters.

3. Avoid one-true-pathism: if you don't have the right macguffin,  just have a stamina/luck penalty instead of death, unless it is pivotal to the plot (ie. the password in Khare)

There's more than one valid path, but in the endgame it is vital to have acquired some specific information or items (or, if you're unlucky (and Unlucky), both).

4. Have more than one ending. like some video games, you could have a good, medium or bad ending, and you would be more likely to play it again to 'unlock' them. 

Yep. There's the Livingstone ending and the Mason ending, plus a few 'succeed but die' ones.

5. Be crystal clear on the difference between skill/attack strength bonuses (is that too much to ask for???)

With you all the way on this one.

6. If you are going to have lots of luck tests, at least attempt to give a few places where you can actually get some luck back!!! the same applies for stamina and skill, of course. i feel most gamebooks forget this rule most of all.

There are some attribute bonuses to be had.

7. Use a hub structure to give you a feeling of freedom, and increased replayability (Night Dragon got this just about right)

No hubs in this one, but a work-in-progress is much hubbier.

8. Sure, whack a few puzzles in, but at least try to hide the answers. 

There are puzzles, and the solutions are not spelt out in the text anywhere. As regards playing again after solving any of them, it comes down to ability and willingness to keep separate player and character knowledge. When I played it for the 'books in order' thread, I did go to the effort of working them out rather than just relying on memory, but I can't speak for what others would do. If someone's made it to the Mason ending in the past, and on a subsequent attempt takes the route that bypasses certain clues vital for reaching that ending, but still utilises them from memory at the end, they're cheating. But there's nothing I can do to stop them from doing so.

[thealmightymudworm]

fallingmast:

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I totally understand fearthealmightymudworm's comment on TCT -  playing it for the first time at age 35, i can appreciate its nuances and subtext; if I'd played it when i was ten, i would have frisbeed that sucker out the window!!! And the number of Macguffins needed to complete KoD are ridiculous.

And greenspine, i'd love to have a bash at your gamebook soon, it sounds great. I do wish to point out that my first post about a perfect gamebook are only my personal opinions, and I'd love to know if you guys think any different. They are also COMPLETELY subject to change too - I'm tempted to retract my preference for 'hub' gamebook structures, primarily because I am currently in the process of mapping and posting a solution for Island of the Undead. so far, it has been so difficult to map I feel like I'm trying to explain the concept of the large hadron collider. To a goldfish. In Portuguese.

[thealmightymudworm]

greenspine:

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fallingmast said:

And greenspine, I'd love to have a bash at your gamebook soon, it sounds great.

It's available here. I'd welcome some feedback on it.

[thealmightymudworm]

hynreck:

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fallingmast said:

...so difficult to map i feel like I'm trying to explain the concept of the large hadron collider. To a goldfish. In Portuguese.

I'm soooo tempted to pick on this! Seriously. But that would be out of context so I'll move on.

Nothing against you fallingmast (oh by the way, enjoying your user name now that I know what it means! That mast's got a lot of etches to it; the killing mast indeed!)


Speak in extremes, it will save you time.

[thealmightymudworm]

torallion:

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That falling mast killed me on 3 consecutive attempts - I kid you not!


Gamebook Geek - FF review blog torallion.blogspot.com/

[thealmightymudworm]

hynreck:

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I believe you, don't worry.


Speak in extremes, it will save you time.

[a moderator]

Oct 3, 2013 16:51:07 GMT kieran said:

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fallingmast said:

Put it in perspective though, that's three separate instances of 'instadeath' in 28 books, so that's not too bad, I reckon.

There's more than that though. There's another one in Book 2 where you can be thrown off your horse and I kept losing in Book 14 with the one right at the end

There's yet another one when your Itikar dies in book 5. And I may well find other not so infamous ones as I continue through the series for my blog.

[drmanhattan]

What’s the style defined by:

lots of branches, hard to find the correct path, not too much combat, all super tough fights have an item or trick to make them manageable, 50% chance to survive all combats with a 9-18-9 character.

[philsadler]

I don't know but it sounds close to how I design my own books. But the 50% sounds too low to me. Much too low.

[drmanhattan]

Well if its well over 50% that basically means no creatures higher than your stats right, but maybe thats a too simplistic calculation. I mean if you chain them alltogether in a theoretical back to back, of course in a real world game you get provisions and items and the like

but lets say you have 9-18, and you fought a common creature with less stats that you beat 95% of the time, if you chain 12 of those in a row you get to about 50%. The moment you include 1 or 2 creatures of equal or higher skill, even with less stamina thats going to go down in a hurry

maybe theres a more reasonable way to work this out, I do not understand how a 9-18 has a 99.9% chance to win WoFM when there are fights with monsters over that arent there? You can't be 99.9% to beat a creature with a higher skill than you have unless their stamina is very low, surely?

[tyrion]

In wofm, you only need to defeat the iron cyclops which has a skill 10. You can do this by drinking a potion of stamina halfway through the battle, effectively doubling your stamina.

[drmanhattan]

Ok yes my 50% was a bit more simplistic, so if you count provisions and potions as effectively increasing your stamina it probably works out more like the figure you would have in mind.

[kieran]

Jun 14, 2021 15:59:35 GMT tyrion said:

In wofm, you only need to defeat the iron cyclops which has a skill 10. You can do this by drinking a potion of stamina halfway through the battle, effectively doubling your stamina.

And you can do so twice.

[bloodbeasthandler]

Is there a calculator for working out the likelihood of winning a combat? And one that shows how much damage might be taken. For example average result of SK 9 STA 18 vs SK 10 STA 10 opponent? [Either including or ignoring LUCK rolls]

Can someone point me in the right direction for this or tell me how it is worked out?

[drmanhattan]

there was this but Ive not seen it yet
fightingfantazine.proboards.com/thread/265/probability-calculator

I will write something like this in python but its tricky if luck should be included because how do you decide when luck should or shouldnt be used, its kind of hard to do that automatically without rules like (keep using luck until its less than X% success chance, or use luck only to get last hit to kill, or to avoid last hit to die etc)

I think it will be useful to know what a 9-18 vs 10-10 should end up as, like odds to lose and then odds to win with each stamina result.

I am pretty sure there already IS a thread about this somewhere but I cant find it now.

[drmanhattan]

the quickest way to do it is just loop the combat a large number of times and calculate the statistics, but probably you can work it out explicitly for example 9-18 vs 10-10 can only have 13 rounds maximum, at which point one person is dead. The odds of winning 1 round is easy just tabulate 2d6 plus 9 vs 2d6 plus 10, but then you need to do the permutations/combinations of up to 13 rounds worth of attack rounds)

I think in practice its easiest just to roll the attack rounds until one is dead, then loop hundreds or thousands of times in a program and tabulate the outcomes as percentages

[drmanhattan]

[drmanhattan]

An ugly brute force calculation for Skill 9 vs Skill 10 per attack round. You win 33.6% of the time, they win 55.6% of the time with 10.8% drawn.

so all you need do is

Loop X simulations
Loop Y attack rounds (= max number of hits to guarantee one of you is dead, for 18 and 10 stamina thats 13)
roll 2d6 for both players and add to skill, the outcome as above. loser loses 2 stamina.
check if anyone dead. If so, record that result (you win or they win), record the final stamina of you and them

at the end you have a table of X results which can be broken down into wins for you (and a table of how often you end up on all stamina results from your start down to 2) and how many wins for them (and a table of how often they end up on all stamina from their start down to 2)

it would not be difficult to add Luck branches with hard rules like only on last hit, or based on what your Test Your Luck odds are, but it would become another order of magnitude slower to wrap another loop around this including all possible variations on when you use your Luck tries (but possible)

[drmanhattan]

An easy way to do luck would probably just to realize that in this kind of statistical sim with large numbers of runs, using your luck when it is less than 7 is pointless, in the long run you're doing worse. So you could just work out Luck minus 6 is the number of "luck tries" you have, and just use them from the start, since statistically you're just modifying your damage done or taken, so just count those tries from the start and change damage done to 3 or taken to 1 if lucky etc.

[aggsol]

Jun 14, 2021 18:51:04 GMT drmanhattan said:

Do you mind sharing your Python code how you created those tables? I would love to use that.

[drmanhattan]

Oh that was just in excel, I’ve not had time to throw together a python script but I will post it here when I do, no worries